“Transfer deposit,” Chu said.

“Exactly.”

Bosch found the Polaroid that showed the victim’s neck and the smear of blood. The photo was washed out by time and he could barely see the blood. A ruler had been placed on the young woman’s neck so that the blood smear could be measured in the photo. It was less than an inch long.

“So this blood was collected and stored,” he said, a statement meant to draw further explanation.

“Yes,” Shuler said. “Because it was a smear it was swabbed. Back then, they typed it. O positive. The swab was stored in a tube and we found it still in Property when we pulled the case. The blood had turned to powder.”

He tapped the top of the archive box with a pen.

Bosch’s phone started to vibrate in his pocket. Normally, he would let the call go to message, but his daughter was home sick from school and alone. He needed to make sure she wasn’t calling. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. It wasn’t his daughter. It was a former partner, Kizmin Rider, now a lieutenant assigned to the OCP — Office of the Chief of Police. He decided he would return her call after the meeting. They had lunch together about once a month and he assumed she was free today, or calling because she’d heard about him getting approved for another four years on the DROP. He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

“Did you open the tube?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Shuler said.

“Okay, so four months ago you sent the tube containing the swab and what was left of the blood out to the regional lab, right?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Shuler said.

Bosch flipped through the murder book to the autopsy report. He was acting like he was more interested in what he was seeing than what he was saying.

“And at that time, did you submit anything else to the lab?”

“From the Price case?” Dolan asked. “No, that was the only biological evidence they came up with back at the time.”