Page 4 of Resurrection Walk

“Uh, good,” Bosch said. “No complaints.”

“I was over at Hollywood Division about a week ago and ran into your daughter.”

“Yeah, Maddie told me, said you had a guy in a holding cell.”

“A case from ’89. A rape-murder. We got the DNA hit but couldn’t find him. Put out a warrant and he got picked up over there on a traffic violation. He didn’t know we were even looking for him. Anyway, Maddie said you got into some kind of test program at UCLA?”

“Yeah, a clinical trial. Supposedly running a seventy percent extension rate for what I’ve got.”

“‘Extension’?”

“Extension of life. Remission if you’re lucky.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great. Is it getting results with you?”

“Too early to tell. And they don’t tell you if you’re getting the real shot or the placebo. So who knows.”

“That kinda sucks.”

“Yeah. But… I’ve had a few side effects, so I think I’m getting the real stuff.”

“Like what?”

“My throat is pretty rough and I’m getting tinnitus and hearing loss, which is kind of driving me crazy.”

“Well, are they doing something about it?”

“Trying to. But that’s what being in the test group is about. They monitor this stuff, try to deal with side effects.”

“Right. When Maddie told me, I was kind of surprised. Last time we talked, you said you were just going to let nature take its course.”

“I sort of changed my mind.”

“Maddie?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Anyway…”

Bosch leaned forward and picked up his cup. The coffee was still too hot to drink, especially with his ravaged throat, but he wanted to stop talking about his medical situation. Ballard was one of the few people he had told about it, so he felt she deserved an update, but his practice had been not to dwell on the situation and the various possibilities for his future.

“So tell me about Haller,” Ballard said. “How’s that going?”

“Uh, it’s going,” Bosch said. “Staying pretty busy with the stuff coming in.”

“And now you’re driving him?”

“Not always, but it gives us time to talk through the requests. They keep coming, you know?”

The year before, when Bosch worked as a volunteer with Ballard in the Open-Unsolved Unit, they broke open a case that identified a serial killer who had operated unknown in the city for several years. During the investigation, they’d also determined that the killer was responsible for a murder for which an innocent man named Jorge Ochoa had been imprisoned. When politics in the district attorney’s office prevented immediate action to free Ochoa, Ballard tipped Haller to the case. Haller went to work and in a highly publicized habeas hearing was granted a court order freeing Ochoa and declaring him innocent. The media attention garnered by the case resulted in a flood of letters and collect phone calls to Haller from inmates in prisons across California, Arizona, and Nevada. All of them professed their innocence and pleaded for his help. Haller set up what amounted to an in-house innocence project and installed Bosch to do the initial review of the claims. Haller wanted a gatekeeper with an experienced detective’s eye.

“These two names you wanted me to run — you think they’re innocent?” Ballard asked.

“It’s too early for that,” Bosch said. “All I have are their letters from prison. But since I started this, I’ve rejected everything except these two. Something about them tells me I should at least take a further look.”

“So based on a hunch, you’re going to run with them.”

“More than a hunch, I think. Their letters seem… desperate in a certain way. Hard to explain. I don’t mean like desperate to get out of prison but desperate… to be believed, if that makes sense. I just need to take a look at the cases. Maybe then I find their bullshit.”

Ballard pulled her phone out of her back pocket.

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