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THE CLEOPATRA CASINO and Resort on the Las Vegas Strip was a place of withered beauty. Built in the 1980s, it was now dwarfed by the opulent glass towers that surrounded it. Like everything and almost everyone in Vegas, it was slated for a ground-up rebuild. Once owned and operated by mobsters out of Chicago, the casino had long since passed to a corporate conglomerate that invested in hotels and amusement parks. Because its end was near, the casino's interiors were not as polished as they once were. It felt second tier to Ballard. The glass skylight that stretched over the gaming floor had once been a point of pride, but the glass was now dirty with the debris of settling smog and auto exhaust, and several panels that had been cracked by falling liquor bottles from the tower rooms, presumably, had been replaced with plywood. Its signature pulpit, a faux-gold-leaf structure with the face of Cleopatra extending up toward the glass and over the gaming tables, was propped against collapse by two industrial stanchions. The Cleo had clearly seen better times, and this was reflected in the clientele that gathered at its five-dollar blackjack tables and one-dollar-minimum roulette wheels.

It had been a four-hour drive from Los Angeles after a 6:00 a.m. departure from the Ahmanson Center. In the course of those miles, Ballard and Maddie Bosch had covered the basic topics of casual conversation between two female law enforcement officers, one with most of her service years behind her, the other at the start of her career.

Maddie had expressed a dissatisfaction with patrol work and was hoping that her time with the Open-Unsolved Unit would fast-track her ascent to the detective ranks.

"I mean, I'd work auto theft," she had said. "Anything to get out of the uniform."

"I was the same," Ballard responded. "Couldn't wait to move my badge to my belt."

The conversation was interrupted when Ballard took a call from Captain Gandle, who said he had received her request for the Las Vegas trip and was approving it. Little did he know that they were already going by Zzyzx and were approaching the state line and Nevada. After Ballard disconnected, Maddie started laughing.

"We didn't have permission before we left?"

"Well, I figured we'd get it. I laid it all out for him in the request. I just didn't want to wait around. You'll learn this: Part of being a good detective is knowing your boss and how he thinks."

"Or how she thinks."

"Right. Your dad can tell you a lot about all of this."

"Uh, I don't think my dad did too well in supervisor psychology."

"True."

"I mean, he threw a lieutenant through a glass window in the watch office once. They still talk about that at Hollywood Division."

"Yeah, I'm sure they do."

After they parked in the garage at the Cleopatra, Ballard reminded Maddie to follow her lead during the play with Rodney Van Ness. The strategy they had discussed while in the car was simple: Set him up with questions that would reveal his level of candor. If he lied, that would give them leverage.

There was a line of people snaking through a velvet-roped warren in the lobby of the hotel. They were all waiting to check into their discounted rooms. Ballard scanned the space until she saw a man in a blue blazer with the telltale radio wire coiling up out of his collar and looping into his ear. She tapped Maddie on the arm and nodded in the man's direction.

As they approached, Ballard pulled her badge off her belt, palmed it, and flashed it discreetly to the security man.

"We're over from LAPD on a case," she said. "Can you ask Rodney Van Ness to meet us in the lobby?"

"I don't know who that is," the man said.

"Last we checked, he was a security supervisor here."

"Don't know any Rodney Van Ness."

Ballard nodded. There was no law about lying on LinkedIn. She started to wonder if the trip had been for nothing and blamed herself for not confirming Van Ness's employment before leaving Los Angeles. It wasn't hard to imagine what Captain Gandle's response would be.

"Then could you call a supervisor down to talk with us?" she asked.

"That I can do."

He raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke into a radio transmitter. He asked someone named Marty to come talk to two detectives from the LAPD.

"Marty will be down in five," he said. "Wants you to wait over by the concierge." He pointed across the lobby to a counter that had its own line of people waiting for attention.

"Thank you," Ballard said.

"Hey, are they hiring at the LAPD?" the security man asked.

"These days, they're always hiring," Ballard said.

He looked at Maddie for a moment. "You seem kind of young for a detective," he said.

"She just solved the biggest case in L.A. history," Ballard said.

"Yeah?" he said. "Was it the O.J. case? You found out who really killed Nicole?"

"Funny," Ballard said. "But not quite."

They left him there and walked across the lobby to the concierge desk. They took a position to the side so people wouldn't think they were trying to jump the line.

"It's not officially solved yet, you know," Maddie said.

"What do you mean?" Ballard asked.

"Black Dahlia. The DA has to sign off on it."

"Maybe so, but I consider it solved and a closed case."

"How long will it take them to decide?"

Before Ballard could answer, they were approached by a woman who also wore a blue blazer and had a wire loop over her ear, though hers was better camouflaged by her long hair.

"Are you the detectives from L.A.?" she asked.

"We are," Ballard said. "I'm Renée Ballard, this is Maddie Bosch."

"Marty Branch. Ballard, Bosch, and Branch—has a nice ring to it."

They shook hands. Branch was in her forties. She was short and wide in the hips, and she eyed Maddie the way the first security man had.

"Honey, you look like a baby," she said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six," Maddie said. "And I'm a vol—"

"I'm sorry," Ballard interrupted. "We're working on a breaking case. We're looking for a possible witness named Rodney Van Ness. His LinkedIn page says he works here as a security supervisor. Do you know him?"

"Rodney? Yes, I know Rodney," Branch said. "But he hasn't worked here in a good long time."

"How long is a good long time?"

"Oh, two, three years at least."

"Do you know why he left?"

"I know he was asked to leave and I got his job."

"Why was he asked to leave?"

"That you'd have to get from HR—confidential."

"Do you know where he went from here?"

"I heard he went to the Nugget but I don't think that lasted too long. After that, I don't know. I haven't heard anything."

"Do you have any records that would give us a home address?"

"Don't you people have access to the DMV database? I'm sure the folks at Vegas Metro would help you out with that."

"We checked the DMV. This is the address on his license. Do you have an office where we could maybe sit down and talk? We're working a case involving multiple rapes and at least one murder, and Mr. Van Ness may have information that will help us identify a suspect."

Branch nodded as she considered what to do.

"We wouldn't have driven all the way over here just because of a LinkedIn profile if it weren't important," Ballard added.

Branch nodded again.

"Let's go to the security office," she finally said. "You two can wait at my desk while I talk to HR about this. But don't you go flipping through my little black book, now. This way."

She led them through a door at the side of the concierge counter to an employees-only elevator, which they took to the third floor.

"Did you all come over this morning or last night?" she asked.

"This morning," Ballard said. "We left at six."

"That's early. How you fixed for coffee?"

"We could probably use some."

"I can get that going."

"Thank you."