Fifteen minutes later, the plane was in the air and Bosch was looking down through the window at the cold, dark Pacific as the plane banked after takeoff and started to turn east.

21

AFTER GETTING THE alert from the front desk, Ballard went out to the entrance of the homicide archive to receive Councilman Jake Pearlman and his entourage. They came down the main hallway four wide—two men, two women—plus a pool videographer and two reporters. Ballard had not yet met Pearlman in person, as most of her interactions had been phone calls or Zooms or with Nelson Hastings.

“Detective Ballard?” Pearlman said as he approached.

He reached out his hand and they shook. Pearlman was clean-shaven with curly dark hair. His grip was firm. He was taller and trimmer than she had expected. Her impression from the Zoom videos was that he would be short and squat. This was probably because he used a fixed video camera that caught him from a downward angle. Pearlman wore his standard campaign look—blue jeans, black sneakers, and a white button-down shirt, sleeves haphazardly rolled up to the elbows.

“Welcome to the Ahmanson Center and the homicide archive,” Ballard said. “Thank you for coming.”

“Well, I had to see it,” Pearlman said. “And I had to finally meet you in person.”

The councilman introduced his entourage. Ballard already knew Hastings. He was slightly shorter than Pearlman, with close-cropped brown hair. He carried himself with a precise military bearing. The women were Rita Ford, the councilman’s political adviser, and Susan Aguilar, his policy adviser. Both women were mid-thirties and attractive, dressed in conservative, professional suits. Ballard considered that politics and policy might be the same thing or at least overlap in terms of advisement but didn’t ask the question.

“Well, if you’d like to come back, I’ll show you what we’re doing,” she said.

“Of course,” Pearlman said. “And I want to hear the latest on Sarah’s case. You don’t know what it means to me just to know that progress is being made.”

“I’ll be happy to sit down with you after the walk-through.”

“Then please lead the way.”

They entered the archive and Ballard slowly led the group by the rows of shelved murder books and told them the somber statistics and facts that they already knew, since it had been their pressure on the police department that resulted in the Open-Unsolved Unit being reborn.

Eventually, they came to the pod and Ballard introduced each of the investigators on the team and explained what his or her specialty was. She also pointed to Bosch’s empty spot and noted that their most experienced investigator was in the field, not mentioning that he had extended the field to Chicago.