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She nodded and used her hands to dry the tears on her cheeks.
“He looked at my pamphlets up on the wall there and said, ‘There’s only one place in the world where you can see the sunset at dawn.’”
Bosch looked up at the wall but couldn’t make the connection.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“There’s a ship called theDawn,” she said. “Part of the Norwegian line. It moors in Tampa, Florida, and every week it sails down to Key West, stops for a day, and then navigates out to the Bahamas before turning around and coming back. It’s a popular itinerary. I’ve sold many trips on that boat and made a lot of commissions. I knew exactly what he meant when he said it, because I’d heard that line before. It’s part of the sales pitch. They get great sunsets in Key West. Especially from the deck of theDawn.”
Bosch looked up at the pamphlets taped to the wall and saw theNorwegian Dawn.
Sheila reached over to one of the stacks of folded pamphlets she had at the side of the table, chose one, and handed it to Bosch.
“Here,” she said. “Take it.”
“Thank you,” Bosch said.
Bosch looked at the pamphlet and opened it. It showed happy people in bathing suits frolicking in the ship’s pool or in colorful boat clothes strolling on the deck. There was even a photo of people lined up at the deck rail and watching a sunset. Key West, Bosch thought. He knew now where he was going to look for Finbar McShane.
45
BALLARD CRANKED THE shelves just wide enough apart for her to slip in and move down to the 2002 cases. She ran her finger along the case numbers on the spines of the murder books and then pulled the binder she was looking for.
When she got back to her workstation, Colleen Hatteras was standing there waiting for her.
“What’s up, Colleen?”
“Not much. I was wondering if you need any help with what you’re doing.”
She gestured toward the box on Ballard’s desk. It was the one recovered from the dumpster in the alley behind Ted Rawls’s business in Santa Monica.
“I think I’ve got it,” Ballard said. “There’s not really an IGG angle on this yet.”
“I could make calls if you want me to,” Hatteras said.
“There’s no call to make yet. This is the seventh of seven possible cases. The first six didn’t match up—in my opinion.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“A case that matches a missing white nightgown, bunny slippers, and a bracelet. There is also probably going to be blunt force trauma as a cause of death.”
Ballard sat down and opened the murder book she had just retrieved. She then flipped over the table of contents to the initial incident report.
“You want me to back-read?” Hatteras said. “I’m not really doing much. The IGG stuff on Rawls has dried up. I’m just waiting on responses. I could go back to what I was working on before, but I feel bad dropping off Rawls when there are so many unanswered questions.”
“What about the souvenirs? Aren’t you working on those?”
“I was, but I hit a wall. I found no connects to open cases.”
Ballard knew that if she didn’t give Hatteras something to do, she would probably hover over her all day.
“Tell you what,” she said. “While I go through this last case, why don’t you take this and see what you can find out.”
As she spoke, Ballard reached into the cardboard box and retrieved the bracelet that had been found in the sleeve of the nightgown. She had since encased it in a plastic evidence bag. She handed it to Hatteras.
“All right,” Hatteras said. “What are you looking for?”
“Anything and everything,” Ballard said. “Who made the bracelet? Where was it sold? There are initials on the charm. At least, I think they’re initials. I would love to know who did the engraving and whose initials they are. I already ran it through digitized property reports and got no hits. So what’s left is, we try to find out where it came from. I know it’s a long shot, but give it a try, okay?”
