Page 2 of Resurrection Walk

“Fraud. Guy’s looking at eight to twelve. You want to come in and watch?”

“No, I’m thinking that while we’re over there, I might drop by and see Ballard — if she’s around. It’s not far from the courthouse. Text when you’re finished in court and I’ll swing back.”

“If you even hear the text.”

“Then call me. I’ll hear that.”

Ten minutes later he pulled to a stop in front of the courthouse on La Cienega.

“Later, gator,” Haller said as he got out. “Turn your phone up.”

After he shut the door, Bosch adjusted his phone as instructed. He had not been completely open with Haller about his hearing loss. The cancer treatments at UCLA had affected his hearing. So far, he had no issue with voices and conversation, but some electronic noises were at the limits of his range. He had been experimenting with various ringtones and text alerts but was still searching for the right setting. In the meantime, rather than listening for incoming messages or calls, he relied more on the accompanying vibration. But he had put his phone in the car’s cup holder earlier and therefore missed both the sound and vibration that came when Haller wanted to be picked up outside the downtown courthouse.

As he pulled away, Bosch called Renée Ballard’s cell. She picked up quickly.

“Harry?”

“Hey.”

“You all right?”

“Of course. You at Ahmanson?”

“I am. What’s up?”

“I’m in the neighborhood. Okay if I swing by in a few minutes?”

“I’ll be here.”

“On my way.”

2

THE AHMANSON CENTERwas on Manchester ten minutes away. It was the Los Angeles Police Department’s main recruitment and training facility. But it also housed the department’s cold-case archive — six thousand unsolved murders going back to 1960. The Open-Unsolved Unit was located in an eight-person pod at the end of all the rows of shelving holding the murder books. Bosch had been there before and considered it sacred ground. Every row, every binder, was haunted by justice on hold.

At the reception desk Bosch was given a visitor’s tag to clip to his pocket and sent back to see Ballard. He declined an escort and said he knew the way. Once he went through the archive door, he walked along the row of shelves, noting the case years on index cards taped on the endcaps.

Ballard was at her desk at the back of the pod in the open area beyond the shelves. Only one of the other cubicles was occupied. In it sat Colleen Hatteras, the unit’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy expert and closet psychic. Colleen looked happy to see Bosch when she noticed his approach. The feeling wasn’t mutual. Bosch had served a short stint on the all-volunteer cold-case team the year before, and he had clashed with Hatteras over her supposed hyper-empathic abilities.

“Harry Bosch!” she exclaimed. “What a nice surprise.”

“Colleen,” Bosch said. “I didn’t think you could be surprised.”

Hatteras kept her smile as she registered Bosch’s crack.

“Still the same old Harry,” she said.

Ballard turned in her swivel chair and broke into the conversation before it could go from cordial to contentious.

“Harry,” she said. “What brings you by?”

Bosch approached Ballard and turned slightly to lean on the cubicle’s separation wall. This put his back to Hatteras. He lowered his voice so he could speak as privately to Ballard as possible.

“I just dropped Haller off at the airport courthouse,” he said. “Thought I might just come by to see how things are going over here.”

“Things are going well,” Ballard said. “We’ve closed nine cases so far this year. A lot of them through IGG and Colleen’s good work.”

“Great. Did you put some people in jail or were they cleared others?”

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