“I have to see where Jespersen takes me for the next few days. And then there’s the Professional Standards thing—I could be on suspension.”

Chu nodded but Bosch could tell his partner had hoped for more enthusiasm for picking up Stilwell. And something more definitive about when they would do it. Nobody in the squad liked waiting around once they had a suspect IDed and located.

“Look, O’Toole probably isn’t going to approve any travel for me for a while. You might want to see if somebody else can go. Ask Trish the Dish. That way you’ll get your own room.”

Department travel regulations required that detectives book only double-occupancy rooms so that the partners could share one room and save the department money. This was the downside of the travel because nobody wanted to share a bathroom, and invariably one partner or the other snored. Tim Marcia once had to tape-record his partner’s window-shaking snoring in order to persuade command staff to let him get his own room. But the easy exception was when partners were of the opposite sex. Trish Allmand was a highly sought-after partner in Open-Unsolved. Not only was she attractive—hence the nickname—and a skilled investigator, but work travel with her meant her partner got a room to himself.

“But it’s our case, Harry,” Chu complained.

“All right, then you’re going to have to wait. There’s nothing I can do.”

Bosch went through the door and moved into their cubicle. He grabbed his phone and his notebook, which he had left on the desk. He thought about the call he was going to make and decided not to use either his cell or his desk phone.

He looked around the vast Robbery-Homicide Division floor. Open-Unsolved was at the southern end of a room the length of a football field. Because of a departmental freeze on promotions and hiring, there were several uninhabited cubicles in each of the individual squad areas. Bosch walked over to an empty desk in Homicide Special and sat down to use the landline. He got the number he needed out of his cell and punched it in. It was answered right away.

“Tactical.”

He thought he recognized the voice but he wasn’t sure after so long.

“Rachel?”

There was a pause.

“Hello, Harry. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine. How are you?”

“I can’t complain. Is this a new number for you?”

“No, I’m just borrowing a desk. How’s Jack?”

He quickly tried to move past the fact that he had used a phone other than his own because he thought she might not answer if his name came up on her caller ID. He and FBI agent Rachel Walling had a long history, not all of it good.

“Jack is Jack. He’s good. But I doubt you called on a phone other than your own to ask me about Jack.”