“A case. I got a call from an analyst named Pran in the Death Squad. He linked an open case from ’oh-six with a case from ’ninety-nine. I want you to handle it. It sounded good. Here’s his direct.”

O’Toole proffered a yellow Post-it with a phone number jotted on it. The Death Squad was the unofficial acronym of the new Data Evaluation and Theory Unit. It was part of a new form of cold case investigating called data synthesizing.

For the prior three years, the Death Squad had been digitizing archived murder books, creating a massive database of easily accessible and comparable information about unsolved killings. Suspects, witnesses, weapons, locations, word constructions—any and all of the myriad details of crime scenes and investigations—were constantly churning through the squad’s telephone booth–size IBM computer. It had provided a whole new line of investigation of cold cases.

Bosch didn’t reach out for the Post-it but his curiosity got the better of him.

“What’s the connection between the cases?”

“A witness. Same witness happened to see the shooter running away. Two contract hits, one in the Valley, one downtown, no seeming connection but the same witness both times. Sounds to me like this witness needs to be looked at from a whole new angle. Take the number.”

Bosch didn’t.

“What going on, Lieutenant? I’ve got momentum going on the Jespersen case. Why are you giving me this?”

“You told me yesterday that Jespersen was stalled.”

“I didn’t say it was stalled. I said it wasn’t a CBO case.”

Bosch suddenly realized what was going on. Something Jordy Gant had said connected with what O’Toole was trying to do. Plus he knew that the afternoon before, O’Toole had attended the weekly command staff meeting on the tenth floor. He turned and headed out of the office.

“Harry, don’t walk out, where are you going?”

Bosch spoke without turning back to look.

“Give it to Jackson. He needs a case.”

“I’m giving it to you. Hey!”

Bosch strode down the center aisle and out the door to the elevator lobby. O’Toole didn’t follow him, and that was a good thing. The two things Bosch had the least patience for were politics and bureaucracy. And he believed O’Toole was engaged in both—but not necessarily by his own choice.