She called the number, and it was still good after seventeen years. An old woman’s voice answered. If Laura Wilson were still alive, she would be over forty, putting her parents at least in their sixties and probably older.

“Mrs. Wilson?”

“Yes, is this LAPD?”

Ballard realized that her desk phone probably carried a generic LAPD ID.

“Yes, ma’am, my name is Renée Ballard. I’m a detective with the LAPD. I’m in charge of the Open-Unsolved Unit.”

“Did you catch him? The man who killed my baby?”

“No, ma’am, not yet. I’m calling to tell you we have reopened the investigation and are pursuing new leads. I just wanted you to know.”

“What new leads?”

“I can’t really get into that right now, Mrs. Wilson. But if something happens and we make an arrest, I will be calling you and your husband to let you know first. For right now, I just wanted to introduce my—”

“My husband is dead. He got Covid and died two years ago. Right when it all started.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“He’s with Laura now. At the end he couldn’t breathe. He died like her, not being able to breathe.”

Ballard wasn’t sure how to exit the call. She thought she would be giving the parents of Laura Wilson hope, but she realized that she was just a reminder of the family’s ongoing trauma.

“I can tell you one thing, Mrs. Wilson, and this is just between you and me for right now. We have connected Laura’s case to another case and we are hoping that investigating them together will help lead us to the man who did this.”

“What other case? You mean a murder?”

“Yes, a case that happened before. The DNA matches.”

“You mean, before Laura was killed by this man, he killed someone else? Another girl? Did you put out a warning?”

“The connection was only made through DNA, and aspects of the crime were different enough that no connection was made back when these crimes happened. Do you have something to write my name down with? I will give you my direct cell number in case you have questions or anything else comes up.”

It was a clumsy transition, but Ballard hoped it would bring the call to an end. Juanita Wilson wrote down her name and cell number. Ballard ended the call with an invitation to Wilson to call anytime if she had questions or thought of something that might be helpful to the renewed investigation.

After Ballard finally put the phone back into its cradle, Colleen Hatteras poked her head up over the privacy wall.

“The mother?” she asked.

“Yes,” Ballard said.

She was annoyed that Hatteras had heard the conversation.

“The father is dead?” Hatteras asked.

“Yes,” Ballard said. “He never saw justice for his daughter.”

“Covid?”

“Yeah.”