BOSCH DROVE INTO the north parking lot of the Hawthorne mall and easily spotted Ballard’s city ride. It was the only vehicle in the vast sea of asphalt that surrounded the abandoned mall. He drove directly to her and parked so that their driver’s-side windows faced each other and they could talk without getting out of their vehicles. In LAPD slang, it was called a “69 meeting” because of the positioning of the cars.

Bosch’s window was already down because the old Cherokee’s air-conditioning did little to effect climate change in the car. Ballard’s window glided down upon his arrival.

“Harry, how was the flight?”

“Fine. I listened to some good music. So what’s with the code sixty-nine?”

“I didn’t want to talk at Ahmanson. Rawls was in today and he’s a pipeline to Hastings and Pearlman. In fact, he’s been coming in a lot this week and I think that’s because Hastings wants to know what moves we’re making.”

“Really? Can’t Hastings just call you anytime he wants?”

“He could, yeah. But he wants to hide how closely he’s paying attention, because Hastings is our guy.”

“What do you mean? The killer?”

“I’d bet my badge on it, Harry. We get his DNA, and it’s going to match.”

“Tell me how you got there.”

Ballard recapped the interview she conducted that morning with Sandy Kramer and how one of her very last questions to the tuxedo salesman revealed that Hastings had lied to her when he said that the Laura Wilson murder occurred before his time working for Jake Pearlman.

“He’s been with Pearlman all along,” she said. “And that’s not a little lie. That is a lie meant to throw me off. That makes it a big lie.”

“Okay, I get it,” Bosch said. “That’s suspicious, but it doesn’t get you to handcuffs. You have anything else?”

“I do. After talking to Kramer, I started going back over my interactions with Hastings on this case. He’s always been the point man. He’s the one who calls and wants updates, supposedly for Pearlman. But now I think he was trying to see how close we were getting to him.”

“Still no handcuffs.”

“Look at this.”

She handed a piece of notebook paper to him. Bosch looked at it and realized it was her case list.

“Your list,” he said. “I already saw this.”

“I know,” Ballard said. “But I never sent Hastings a photo of Laura Wilson and didn’t scratch it off the list.”

“And what does that mean?”