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“No, but Harry does. I saw him using it the other day.”
Ballard went around the pod to Bosch’s station. There was a small magnifying glass on top of a stack of printouts. She grabbed it and returned to Hatteras’s desk.
“Let me look at it,” she said.
Hatteras got up and Ballard sat down. She used the glass to magnify the image in the open locket.
“That’s got to be G-O,” Hatteras said. “Don’t you think?”
Ballard was silent. The young man in the photo she was looking at was clearly Latino, with brown skin, dark eyes, and a full head of swept-back black hair. She now identified the familiarity. She realized she had seen a version of that face just minutes before.
“I think I know this guy,” she said.
She got up and went back to her station, handing Hatteras the magnifying glass as she passed.
“You know him?” Hatteras asked.
“I think I just saw him,” Ballard said.
She sat down and quickly rebooted the department’s crime data bank on her screen. She pulled up the last search and quickly scanned through the case extracts she had just finished reviewing. With each one, she went immediately to the mug shot of the defendant convicted in the murder. The seventh extract contained the mug shot of a man convicted of killing his girlfriend in 2009.
“Let me see the locket and the magnifier,” she said.
“Can I touch it?” Hatteras asked.
“You already have. Bring it to me.”
Hatteras brought both items to her. Ballard used the magnifier again to look closely at the face in the locket photo and then turned back to the computer to make the comparison.
She was sure she was looking at different photos of the same young man. In one shot he was smiling, in the other, looking grim. She stood up and signaled Hatteras to switch into her seat. She held out the magnifying glass.
“Colleen, look at the mug shot on the screen and compare itto the photo in the locket,” Ballard said. “Tell me it’s not the same guy.”
Hatteras went back and forth from computer screen to locket three times before rendering a verdict.
“They’re the same,” she said. “Definitely.”
“Okay, let me get to the computer,” Ballard said.
Hatteras jumped up and Ballard quickly took her seat back. She clicked off the photo on the screen and pulled up the details of the convicted killer. His name was Jorge Ochoa, he was thirty-six years old, and he was serving a life sentence for murdering his girlfriend, Olga Reyes.
“Jorge Ochoa,” Ballard said. “He could have Americanized it. Used the name George.”
“G-O,” Hatteras said. “I think you’re right.”
Ballard scribbled down the case number and the names of the victim and suspect. The extract also contained the location of the crime on Riverside Drive in Valley Village. It was a North Hollywood Division case.
The extract had no crime scene photos, and details were limited. The victim’s cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma but that was a wide catchall classification. Ballard needed the murder book from the case to confirm that it was connected to the items found in the discarded box.
“Colleen, I’m going up to the Valley to pull this case,” Ballard said. “I won’t be coming back today.”
“Can I go with you?” Hatteras said. “I feel like I had something to do with this—whatever it is.”
“You did have something to do with it. You did good work. But this is field work and your job is the IGG work. I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re coming in. I’ll update you then.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Okay, good. And great work, Colleen. Thank you.”
