The Reversal

He smiled at his ex-wife but she didn’t return the sentiment.

“What about the sister?” Bosch asked.

McPherson swung her gaze toward him.

“The witness? That’s our second problem. If she’s alive, then she’s thirty-seven now. Finding her is the problem. No help from the parents. Her real father died when she was seven. Her mother committed suicide on her sister’s grave three years after the murder. And the stepfather drank himself into liver failure and died while waiting for a transplant six years ago. I had one of the investigators here do a quick rundown on her on the computer and Sarah Landy’s trail drops off in San Francisco about the same time her stepfather died. That same year she also cleared a probation tail for a controlled substance conviction. Records show she’s been married and divorced twice, arrested multiple times for drugs and petty crimes. And then, like I said, she dropped off the grid. She either died or cleaned up her act. Even if she changed names, her prints would have left a trail if she’d been popped again in the past six years. But there’s nothing.”

“I don’t think we have much of a case if we don’t have her,” Haller said. “We’re going to need a real live person to point the finger across twenty-four years and say he did it.”

“I agree,” McPherson said. “She’s key. The jury will need to hear the woman tell them that as a girl she did not make a mistake. That she was sure then and she is sure now. If we can’t find her and get her to do that, then we have the victim’s hair to go with and that’s about it. They’ll have the DNA and that will trump everything.”

“And we will go down in flames,” Haller said.

McPherson didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to.

“Don’t worry,” Bosch said. “I’ll find her.”

The two lawyers looked at him. It wasn’t a time for empty rah-rah speeches. He meant it.

“If she’s alive,” he said, “I’ll find her.”

“Good,” Haller said. “That’ll be your first priority.”

Bosch took out his key chain and opened the small penknife attached to it. He used it to cut the red seal on the evidence box. He had no idea what would be in the box. The evidence that had been introduced at trial twenty-four years earlier was still in the possession of the DA’s Office. This box would contain other evidence that was gathered but not presented at trial.

Bosch put on a set of latex gloves from his pocket and then opened the box. On top was a paper bag that contained the victim’s dress. It was a surprise. He had assumed that the dress had been introduced at trial, if only for the sympathetic response it would get from the jurors.

Opening the bag brought a musty smell to the room. He lifted the dress out, holding it up by the shoulders. All three of them were silent. Bosch was holding up a dress that a little girl had been wearing when she was murdered. It was blue with a darker blue bow in the front. A six-inch square had been cut out of the front hem, the location of the semen stain.

“Why is this here?” Bosch asked. “Wouldn’t they have presented this at trial?”

Haller said nothing. McPherson leaned forward and looked closely at the dress as she considered a response.

“I think… they didn’t show it because of the cutout. Showing the dress would let the defense ask about the cutout. That would lead to the blood-typing. The prosecution chose not to get into it during the presentation of the evidence. They probably relied on crime scene photos that showed the girl in the dress. They left it to the defense to introduce it and they never did.”

Bosch folded the dress and put it down on the table. Also in the box was a pair of black patent leather shoes. They seemed very small and sad to him. There was a second paper bag, which contained the victim’s underwear and socks. An accompanying lab report stated that the items had been checked for bodily fluids as well as hair and fiber evidence but no such evidence had been found.

At the bottom of the box was a plastic bag containing a silver necklace with a charm on it. He looked at it through the plastic and identified the figure on the charm as Winnie the Pooh. There was also a bag containing a bracelet of aqua-blue beads on an elastic string.

“That’s it,” he said.

“We should have forensics take a fresh look at it all,” McPherson said. “You never know. Technology has advanced quite a bit in twenty-four years.”

“I’ll get it done,” Bosch said.

“By the way,” McPherson asked, “where were the shoes found? They’re not on the victim’s feet in the crime scene photos.”

Bosch looked at the property report that was taped to the inside of the box’s top.

“According to this they were found underneath the body. They must’ve come off in the truck, maybe when she was strangled. The killer threw them into the Dumpster first, then dropped in her body.”

The images conjured by the items in the box had brought a decidedly somber mood to the prosecution team. Bosch started to carefully return everything to the box. He put the envelope containing the necklace in last.