The Wrong Side of Goodbye

22

Sunday was no different. He was greeted upon his arrival with a fresh batch of call-in tips. These he went through quickly in his cubicle, first separating out the Spanish-only calls and putting them on Lourdes’s desk for her to handle the following day. He then responded to the remaining tips with calls when necessary and the trash can when warranted. By noon he had completed the task and had only one potentially viable lead to show for the effort.

The lead came from an anonymous female caller who reported seeing a man wearing a mask running down Seventh Street toward Maclay shortly after 12 p.m. Friday. She refused to give her name and had called in on a cell phone with a blocked number. She told the operator that she had been driving west on Seventh when she saw the man in the mask. He was running east on the opposite side of the street and stopped at one point to try the door handles on three cars parked along Seventh. When he was unable to open these cars he continued running toward Maclay. The caller said she lost sight of the man after she passed by him.

Bosch was intrigued by the tip because the timing of the sighting coincided with the attempted assault on Beatriz Sahagun just a few blocks away. What pushed the tip even further toward legitimacywas that the caller described the mask worn by the runner as black with a green-and-red design. This matched Sahagun’s description of the mask worn by her would-be rapist, and these descriptors had not been released publicly through the media.

What troubled Bosch about the tip was why the suspect would have kept the mask on while fleeing from Sahagun’s house. A man running while wearing a mask would draw far more attention than just a man running. Harry thought that maybe the man was still disoriented after being struck by Sahagun with the broomstick. Another reason could be that he was known to people in that neighborhood and wanted to shield his identity.

The caller said nothing about whether the man was wearing gloves but Bosch assumed that if he kept the mask on, he had also kept his gloves on.

Bosch got up from his desk chair and started pacing in the tiny detective bureau as he considered the tip and what it could mean. The scenario as reported by the anonymous caller suggested that the Screen Cutter was trying to find an unlocked car that he could steal in order to make his getaway. This suggested that he did not have a getaway vehicle or the one he did have had for some unknown reason become unavailable to him. This idea intrigued Bosch the most. The previous assaults credited to the Screen Cutter appeared to be carefully planned and choreographed. Escape is always a critical part of any plan. What happened to the getaway car? Was there an accomplice who panicked and took off? Or was there another reason for the escape on foot?

The second issue was the mask. The caller said the suspect was running toward Maclay, a commercial street lined with small shops and mom-and-pop-style restaurants. At noon on Friday motorists and pedestrians would be on Maclay and the appearance of a man wearing a Mexican wrestling mask would be noticed by many. Andyet this was the only tip so far that mentioned the running man. This told Bosch that the Screen Cutter pulled the mask off just as he got to the corner and either turned onto Maclay or crossed it.

Bosch knew the answers to his questions wouldn’t be found while pacing in the detective bureau. He went back to his desk and grabbed his keys and sunglasses off the desk.

As he exited the bureau, he almost ran into Captain Trevino, who was in the hallway.

“Hey, Cap.”

“Harry, where are you going?”

“Going to grab lunch.”

Bosch kept going. It might have been his intention to get lunch while he was out but he wasn’t interested in sharing his real destination with Trevino. If it went from anonymous tip to legitimate lead he would inform the boss. He picked up speed so he would be to the side door of the station before Trevino checked the attendance board in the bureau and saw that Bosch had once again failed to sign in or out.

It took him three minutes to drive to the corner of Maclay and Seventh. Bosch parked his rented Cherokee and got out. He stood on the corner and looked around. It was an intersection of commercial and residential zones. Maclay was lined with small businesses, shops, and restaurants. Seventh was lined with small, gated properties that were supposed to be single-family homes. But Bosch knew that many of those homes were shared by multiple families, and even more people lived in illegally converted garages.

He spotted a trash can near the corner and got an idea. If the Screen Cutter pulled off his mask and gloves when he got to Maclay, would he keep them? Would he carry them in his hands or stuff them into his pockets? Or would he dump them? It was known that he had access to and had used other masks in hiscrimes. Dumping the wrestling mask and gloves would have been the smart move once he was on the busy commercial street.

Bosch went to the trash can and lifted the top off. It had been little more than forty-eight hours since the attempted assault on Beatriz Sahagun. Bosch doubted the city had emptied the can in that time and he was right. It had been a busy weekend on Maclay and the trash can was nearly full. Bosch took a pair of latex gloves out of his jacket pocket and then removed the jacket and hung it over the back of a nearby bus bench. He then put on the gloves, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work.

It was a disgusting process with the can largely filled with rotting food and the occasional disposable baby diaper. It also appeared that at some point during the weekend someone had vomited directly into the receptacle. It took him a solid ten minutes to thoroughly dig through it to the bottom. He found no mask and no gloves.

Undaunted, Bosch went to the next trash can twenty yards further down Maclay and started the same process. Without his jacket on, his badge was visible on his belt, and that probably stopped shop owners and passersby from asking what he was doing. At the second can he drew the attention of a family eating at the front window of a taqueria ten feet away. Bosch tried to conduct his search while positioning his body as a visual blind to them. It was more of the same detritus in the second can but he hit pay dirt halfway through the excavation. There in the debris was a black leather wrestling mask with a green-and-red design.

Bosch straightened up out of the can and stripped off his gloves, dropping them to the ground next to the trash can. He then pulled his cell phone and took several photos of the mask in place in the can. After documenting the find he called the SFPD com room and told the officer in charge he needed to call in an evidence team from the Sheriff’s Department to collect the mask from the trash receptacle.

“You can’t bag it and tag it yourself?” the officer asked.

“No, I can’t bag it and tag it,” Bosch said. “There is going to be genetic evidence inside and possibly outside the mask. I want to go four by four on it so some lawyer down the line doesn’t get to tell a jury I did it all wrong and tainted the case. Okay?”

“Okay, okay, I was just asking. I need to get Captain Trevino to sign off on this and then I’ll call the Sheriff’s. It might be a while.”

“I’ll be here waiting.”

A while turned out to be three hours. Bosch waited patiently, spending part of the time talking to Lourdes when she called him after he had texted her a photo of the mask. It was a good find and would help bring a new dimension to their understanding of the Screen Cutter. They also agreed there would undoubtedly be genetic material inside the mask that could be linked to the rapist. In that regard it would be like the semen collected in three of the other assaults: a definitive link, but only if the suspect was identified. Bosch said he was holding out hope that they would do better and that the treated leather of the mask would hold a fingerprint left when the mask was pulled on and adjusted. A fingerprint would be a whole new angle. The Screen Cutter may never have been DNA-typed, but he could have been fingerprinted. A driver’s license in California required a thumbprint. If there was a thumbprint on the mask, they might be in business. Bosch had worked cases with the LAPD where prints were pulled off of leather coats and boots. It wasn’t a reach to hope the mask could be the case breaker.

“You done good, Harry,” Lourdes said. “Now I wish I was working today.”

“It’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’re both on the case now. My get is your get and vice versa.”

“Well, that attitude will make Captain Trevino happy.”

“Which is what we are all striving for.”

She was laughing as they disconnected.

Bosch went back to waiting. Repeatedly through the afternoon he had to shoo away pedestrians aiming to use the trash can for its public purpose. The one instance where someone got by him was when he remembered he had left his sports coat on the bus bench up at the corner and walked back to retrieve it. When he turned back around he saw a woman who was pushing a baby carriage throw something into the receptacle containing the mask. She had come out of nowhere and Bosch was too late to stop her. He expected to find another disposable diaper when he returned but instead found a half-eaten ice-cream cone splatted directly on the mask.

Cursing to himself, Bosch put on latex again, reached in, and flipped the melting chocolate mess off the mask. When he did so he saw a single glove much like the one he was wearing underneath the mask. It reduced his frustration level but not by much.

The two-man forensic team from the Sheriff’s Department didn’t arrive until almost 4 p.m. and they didn’t seem too pleased about the Sunday afternoon callout or the fact that they would be working in a trash can. Bosch was unapologetic and asked them to photograph, chart, and collect the evidence. That process, which included emptying the entire contents of the can onto plastic sheets and then examining each piece before transferring it to a second sheet took nearly two hours.

In the end, the mask and two gloves were recovered and taken to the Sheriff’s lab for analysis along all lines of evidence. Bosch asked for a rush but the lead forensic tech just nodded and smiled as though he was dealing with a naive child who thought he was first in line in life.

Bosch got back to the detective bureau at seven and saw no sign of Captain Trevino. The door to his office was closed and the transom window dark. Bosch sat down in his cubicle and typed up anevidence report on the recovery of the mask and gloves and the anonymous tip that led to them. He then printed two copies, one for his file and one for the captain.

He went back to the computer and filled out a supplemental lab request form that would be sent to the Sheriff’s lab at Cal State L.A. and serve as a means of doubling-down on the request for a rush. The timing was good. A courier from the lab made a weekly stop at the SFPD on Mondays to drop off and pick up evidence. Bosch’s request for a rush would get to the lab by the next afternoon, even if the forensic tech who collected the evidence didn’t pass along his verbal request. In the request Bosch asked for a complete examination of the mask inside and out for fingerprints, hair, and all other genetic material. Additionally, he asked the lab to check the inside of the latex gloves for similar evidence. He cited the fact that the investigation was a serial offender case as the reason for fast-tracking the analysis. He wrote: “This offender will not stop his terror and violence against women until we stop him. Please speed this along.”

This time he printed out three copies of his work-one for his own case file, one for Trevino, and the third for the lab courier. After dropping off the third copy at the evidence control room, Bosch was clear to head home. He had put in a solid day and had broken out a good lead with the mask and gloves. But instead he headed back to his cubicle to shift cases and spend some time on the Vance investigation. Thanks to the attendance board, he knew that Trevino had long ago signed out for the day and that he need not worry about being discovered.

Bosch was intrigued by the story Halley Lewis had told him about Dominick Santanello being drawn into the Chicano Pride movement while in training down in San Diego. His description of the park beneath a freeway overpass was particularly worth checking into. Bosch came at it from several angles on Google and soonenough was looking at photos and a map of a place called Chicano Park, which was located beneath the 5 freeway and the exit to the bridge crossing San Diego Bay to Coronado Island.

The photos of the park showed dozens of murals painted on every concrete pillar and stanchion supporting the overhead freeway and bridge. The murals depicted religious allegories, cultural heritage, and individuals of note in the Chicano Pride movement. One pillar was painted with a mural that marked the founding of the park in April 1970. Bosch realized that Santanello was in Vietnam by then, which meant that his association with the woman Lewis identified as Gabriela began before the park was formally approved by the city and dedicated.

The mural he was looking at listed the park’s founding artists at the bottom. The list was long and the paint faded. The names disappeared behind a bed of zinnias that circled the bottom of the pillar like a wreath. Bosch did not see the name Gabriela but realized that there were names on the pillar he could not make out.

He closed the photo and spent the next twenty minutes searching the Internet for a better angle on the pillar or an early shot taken before the flower wreath grew to obscure the names. He found nothing and was frustrated. There was no guarantee that Gabriela would even be listed on the mural, but he knew he would need to stop at the park and check when he went down to San Diego to look for 1970 birth records of a girl with a father named Dominick Santanello.

After a stop for a combined lunch and dinner at Art’s Deli in Studio City, Bosch got to Woodrow Wilson Drive late in the evening. He parked as usual around the bend and then walked back to his house. He pulled a week’s worth of deliveries out of the mailbox, including a small box that had been stuffed in as well.

He went into the house and dumped the envelopes onto the diningroom table to be dealt with later. But he opened the box and found the GPS detector/jammer he had ordered.

He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and stripped off his jacket before taking the device over to the reclining chair in front of the living room TV. Normally, he would have put on a disc but he wanted to check the news and see if they were still pumping the Screen Cutter story.

He turned on channel 5 because it was a local independent channel that paid attention to news stories outside of Hollywood. Bosch had seen a news van with a 5 on the side at the police station on Friday when the press conference took place.

The news was already under way when he turned the television on. He started reading through the instruction manual that came with the GPS device and kept one ear on the TV.

He was halfway through learning how to identify a GPS tracker and jam its signal when the drone of the news anchor caught his attention.

“…Vance was instrumental in the development of stealth technologies.”

He looked up and saw a photo of a much younger Whitney Vance on the screen and then it was gone and the anchor was on to the next story.

Bosch leaned forward in his chair, fully alert. He grabbed the remote and switched over to channel 9 but there was nothing on Vance. Bosch got up and went to the laptop on the dining room table. He went to the home page of the Los Angeles Times. The top headline read:

Report: Billionaire Whitney Vance Dies Steel

Tycoon Also Left Mark on Aviation

The story was short because information was short. It simply saidthat Aviation Week was reporting on its website that Whitney Vance had died after a brief illness. The report cited unnamed sources and gave no details other than to say Vance had died peacefully at his home in Pasadena.

Bosch slammed the laptop closed.

“Goddamn it,” he said.

The report in the Times didn’t even confirm the report in Aviation Week. Bosch got up and paced the living room, not sure what he could do but feeling guilty in some way and not trusting the report that Vance died peacefully in his home.

As he came back toward the dining room table he saw the business card Vance had given him. He pulled his phone and called the number. This time it was answered.

“Hello?”

Bosch knew the voice did not belong to Whitney Vance. He didn’t say anything.

“Is this Mr. Bosch?”

Bosch hesitated but then answered.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Sloan.”

“Is he really dead?”

“Yes, Mr. Vance has passed on. And that means your services are no longer needed. Good-bye, Mr. Bosch.”

“Did you kill him, you bastards?”

Sloan hung up halfway through the question. Bosch almost hit the redial button but knew that Sloan would not take the call. The number would soon be dead and so too would Bosch’s connection to the Vance empire.

“Goddamn it,” he said again.

His words echoed through the empty house.