Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (8)

“Well, it was worth the shot,” she said. “I’ll set up a call with the councilman and let him know that we—”

“I’m looking at the photo of the palm print,” Bosch said. “The partial.”

“What do you mean you’re looking at it? I thought you were home.”

“I am home.”

“So you made copies when I told you not to. That’s a great first day, Harry. Already you—”

“Do you want to hear what I’m thinking, or do you want to fire me for breaking the rules?”

She was silent for a moment before letting his infraction go.

“Fine. What are you thinking?”

“This is just a photo. Is the actual print card still around, or was it digitized and destroyed?”

“They don’t destroy print cards, because all digital matches are followed up with a visual confirmation using the actual print before it can go to court. It’s current protocol. Why do you want the original card?”

“Because when they picked up the print with the tape, I don’t know, maybe they got—”

“Some DNA.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit, Harry, that might actually work. I wonder if that’s been done before.”

“One way to find out.”

“I’ll talk to the lab first thing tomorrow.”

“You should pull the print—make sure it’s still there after twenty-eight years—protocol or not.”

“I will and then I’ll take it to the lab. This is good, Harry. I should have thought of it, but that’s why I have you. It gives me hope, and that will give Councilman Pearlman hope.”

“I don’t think I would tell him about this until you find out if it’s got a shot, you know.”

“You’re right. Let’s see where it goes first. It’s not really Pearlman I talk to over there, anyway. His chief of staff is constantly up my ass about results.”

Bosch realized that Laffont had been wrong about who she spent time with on the phone. It was Hastings, not Pearlman.

“Yeah, Hastings,” he said. “I saw his name in the murder book. Maybe this will shut him up.”

“Harry, thank you,” Ballard said. “This is why I brought you on the team. And you already came through.”

“Not yet. Let’s see what the lab says.”

“Well, I think you can move on to the Gallagher case if you want now.”

“Okay. I’ll start on it.”

“Let me guess, you already copied the files you didn’t already have?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow at Ahmanson?”

“See you tomorrow.”

Ballard hung up, then punched in the combo on the gate and entered her building.

After feeding the dog and changing into sweats, Ballard called in a pickup order of cacio e pepe pasta to Little Dom’s down the street. She had a half hour before pickup, so she opened her laptop on the kitchen table and went to work, trying to find a case where DNA had been extracted from fingerprints.

A basic search turned up nothing and she grew frustrated. She grabbed her phone off the counter and called the cell phone of Darcy Troy, the DNA tech assigned to handle cases from the Open-Unsolved Unit.

“Hey, girl.”

“Darcy, how’s it going?”

“Can’t complain unless you’re going to hit me up with something.”

“I just have a question for the moment.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever heard of DNA being pulled off a fingerprint or a palm print?”

“I’ve heard it talked about at the forensic conferences, but are you talking about case law sanctioning it?”

“No, more like whether you can get DNA from prints.”

“Fingerprints are made from the oils on your fingers. It’s still bodily fluid.”

“Palm prints, too?”

“Sure. And if you get people with sweaty palms, then you probably stand a better chance.”

“Sweaty like from being about to commit a crime like rape and murder?”

“There you go.”

“How would you like to be the first at the LAPD to try it?”

“I could use the change of pace. Whaddaya got?”

“I’m not sure I’ve got anything yet. But one of my guys is looking at a case from ’94—home invasion, rape, and murder—and they pulled half a palm print off the windowsill on the suspected entry point.”

“How was it collected?”

“Dusted with gray powder and taped to a white card.”

“Shit, that doesn’t make it easy. The powder would have absorbed the oil, and the tape they used won’t help. But I could take a look.”

“First thing tomorrow I’m going to latents to pull it.”

“If it’s still there, you mean.”

“Should be. It’s an open case. No RDO.”

The department issued records disposal orders to the evidence units only when a case was solved and considered completed.

“Well, if you find it, bring it to me. I won’t even count it as your jump-the-line pass for this month. Just because this is something new.”