The Wrong Side of Goodbye

28

Bosch broke away from the crushing evening traffic after passing by downtown. With speed and illegal use of the carpool lane, he covered the remaining distance to San Fernando in twenty minutes. He felt lucky to be in the rental, because he knew his old Cherokee wouldn’t have reached the speeds he maintained on his way.

In the station he moved quickly through the back hallway to the chief’s office but found it empty, the hanging toy helicopter moving in a circular pattern, propelled by a breeze from the overhead air-conditioning vent.

He then moved on to the detective bureau and found Valdez standing at Lourdes’s cubicle along with Trevino, Sisto, and Sergeant Rosenberg, the evening watch commander. He could tell by the concerned looks on their faces that they still hadn’t located the missing detective.

“You checked the Sahagun house?” he asked.

“We sent a car over,” Valdez said. “She’s not there, doesn’t look like she ever was.”

“Damn,” Bosch said. “Where else are you looking?”

“Never mind that,” Trevino said. “Where were you today?”

He said it in an accusatory tone, as if Bosch had some knowledge of the missing detective’s whereabouts.

“I had to go to San Diego,” Bosch said. “One of my private cases. Went there and back.”

“Then who the hell is Ida Townes Forsythe?”

Bosch looked at Trevino.

“What?”

“You heard me. Who is Ida Townes Forsythe?”

He held up a printout of Forsythe’s DMV information and Bosch suddenly realized he had left it in the printer tray that morning when he was distracted by the call to the lobby to see Creighton.

“Right, I forgot, I was here this morning for about twenty minutes,” he said. “I printed that out, but what’s that got to do with Bella?”

“We don’t know,” Trevino said. “We’re trying to figure out what the fuck is going on here. I find this in the printer and then check our DMV account to see if it was Bella who pulled it up and instead I see that you ran this. Who is she?”

“Look, Ida Forsythe has nothing to do with this, okay? She’s part of the private case I’m working.”

Bosch knew it was an admission he should not have made but he wasn’t in the mood for sparring with Trevino and he wanted to get the focus quickly back on Bella.

For a moment Trevino’s face betrayed him. Bosch could see his barely masked delight in knowing he had just outed Bosch in front of the man who had brought him into the department.

“No, not okay,” Trevino said. “That’s a firing offense. And it could mean charges as well.”

Trevino looked at Valdez as he said it, as if to say, I told you this guy was just using us for access.

“Tell you what, Cap,” Bosch said. “You can fire me and charge me as soon as we find Bella.”

Bosch turned and directed the next question to Valdez.

“What else are we doing?” he asked.

“We’ve brought everybody in and they’re out looking,” the chief said. “We’ve put it out to the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department as well. Why did you tell us to check the Sahagun house?”

“Because she told me this morning that she would go search it again,” Bosch said.

“Why?”

Bosch quickly explained the conversation he’d had with Lourdes that morning, including his theory that the Screen Cutter might have lost the key to his getaway car, which would explain his running from the scene of the crime and trying to find an unlocked car to boost.

“There was no key,” Sisto said. “I would’ve found it.”

“Never hurts to double-check with fresh eyes,” Bosch said. “When she called to see if you could go into the field, did she ask about GTAs in Area Two on Friday?”

Sisto realized that was a detail he had not mentioned to the chief and the captain earlier.

“Yeah, that’s right, she did,” he said. “I told her I hadn’t had time to look at auto thefts from Friday yet.”

Trevino moved quickly to the row of clipboards hung on the wall behind Sisto’s desk. This was where the property crime reports were kept on different clipboards depending on the crime. Trevino grabbed the clipboard marked AUTOS and looked at the top sheet. He then flipped back through several of the reports.

“We’ve got one Friday in Area Three,” he said. “Another on Saturday.”

Valdez turned to Rosenberg.

“Irwin, take those reports,” he said. “Send a car to each location, have them find out if Lourdes was out there doing follow-up.”

“Roger that,” Rosenberg said. “I’ll take one myself.”

He took the whole clipboard from Trevino and quickly headed out of the bureau.

“Is there anybody still over in Public Works?” Bosch asked.

“This time of night, they’re closed,” Valdez said. “Why?”

“Can we get in? This morning Bella said she was going over there to borrow a metal detector for the search up at the Sahagun house.”

“I know we can at least get into the yard,” Trevino said. “We gas up the cars in there.”

“Let’s go,” Valdez said.

The four men left the station through the front door and quickly crossed the street to the Public Works complex. They walked down the left side of the structure to the vehicle and storage yard’s entrance gate, which Valdez opened with a key card pulled from his wallet.

As they entered the yard the men split up and started looking for Lourdes in and among the various work trucks and vans. Bosch headed toward the back wall, where there were a covered workshop and assorted tool benches. Behind him he heard the vehicle doors being opened and closed and the chief’s strained voice calling out Bella’s name.

But there was no response.

Bosch used the light from his phone to find a switch that turned on the fluorescent lights in the workshop. There were three separate benches positioned perpendicular to the back wall. These benches had racks of tools and materials as well as anchored machines and devices like pipe cutters, grinders, and woodworking drills and saws. It looked like projects were left in midcourse on each of the benches.

Above the third bench, there was an overhead rack holding several eight-foot lengths of stainless-steel pipe. Bosch rememberedLourdes saying they used a metal detector to find underground pipes. He assumed the third bench was for plumbing and drainage-related projects and that if there was a metal detector, it would be there.

Lourdes had described the metal detector as something with wheels like a lawnmower and not the kind of handheld detector he had seen used by treasure hunters on the beach.

Bosch didn’t see anything and turned in a circle with his eyes scanning all of the equipment on and surrounding the workbenches. He finally spotted a crossbar handle extending out from under one of the benches. He walked over and pulled out a bright orange device on wheels that was about half the size of a push mower.

He had to study it to know what it was. There was a control panel attached to the crossbar. He pushed the on/off button, and an LED screen lit with a triangular radar display and other controls for scope and depth.

“It’s here,” he said.

His words drew the other three men over from their own fruitless searches.

“Well, if she used it, she brought it back,” Valdez said.

The chief kicked one of his boots against the concrete floor, showing his frustration with another lead that didn’t pan out.

Bosch put both hands on the metal detector’s handle and lifted. He got the two back wheels off the ground but even that was a struggle.

“This thing is heavy,” he said. “If she used it, then she had help getting it out there to the Sahagun house. It wouldn’t have fit in a plain wrap.”

“Should we check inside for her?” Sisto asked.

The chief turned and looked at the door that led to the PublicWorks offices. Three of them walked over and Bosch followed after parking the metal detector back in its place. Valdez tried the door but it was locked with a dead bolt. Valdez turned to Sisto, the youngest among them.

“Kick it,” he said.

“It’s a metal door, Chief,” Sisto said.

“Try,” Valdez said. “You’re a young stud.”

Sisto took three shots at the door with his heel. Each one was stronger than the one before it but the door didn’t give. His brown face turned a deep maroon with the effort. He took a deep breath and was about to try a fourth, when the police chief raised an arm and stopped him.

“Okay, hold on, hold on,” Valdez said. “It’s not going to give. We’ll have to see if we can get somebody out here with a key.”

Trevino looked at Bosch.

“You got your picks on you, Big Time?” he asked.

It was the first time Trevino had ever called him that to his face, an obvious reference to Bosch’s LAPD pedigree.

“Nope,” Bosch said.

Harry stepped away from them and over to the nearest work truck. He reached over the hood, pulled the windshield wiper back on its hinge and twisted it right and then left. He pulled it sharply and ripped it off the truck.

“Harry, what are you doing?” Valdez said.

“Just give me a minute,” Bosch said.

He took the wiper over to one of the benches and used a pair of pliers to pull the rubber blade off the flat thin metal strip that backed it. He then took a pair of metal snips to cut off two three-inch lengths of the strip. He picked up the pliers again and fashioned the two metal strips into a pick and a flat hook. He had what he needed in less than two minutes.

Bosch went back to the door, squatted in front of the dead bolt, and went to work.

“You’ve done that before,” Valdez said.

“A few times,” Bosch said. “Somebody put a phone light on this.”

All three of the other men turned on cell lights and put the beams over Bosch’s shoulder and onto the dead bolt. It took Bosch three more minutes to turn the lock and open the door.

“Bella?” Valdez called out as they entered.

No answer. Sisto hit the light switches and they went down a hallway as the fluorescents blasted the darkness, peeling off one at a time into the offices they passed. Valdez kept calling out his missing detective’s name but the offices were as quiet as a church on a Monday night. Bosch was the last to peel off, entering the code enforcement bullpen whose three cubicles were just as cramped as the detective bureau across the street. He made his way around the room looking down into each cubicle but seeing no sign of Lourdes.

Soon Sisto came in.

“Anything?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

Bosch saw the nameplate on one of the desks. It reminded him of something else from his morning conversation with Lourdes.

“Sisto, did Bella have a problem with Dockweiler?”

“What do you mean?”

“This morning when she said she was going to come over here to borrow the metal detector, she said she could ask Dockweiler for help. Then she said something about hoping he was in a good mood. Was there a problem between them?”

“Maybe because she kept her job and he got transferred to Public Works?”

“Sounded like something else.”

Sisto had to consider the question further before coming up with another answer.

“Uh, I don’t think it was that big of a deal but back when he was in the bureau with us I remember there was sometimes friction between them. I don’t think at first Dock picked up on the fact that she played for the other team. He made a comment about a lesbian-I forget who she was, but he called her a carpet muncher or something like that. But Bella jumped all over his shit and things were kind of tense for a while there.”

Bosch studied Sisto, expecting more.

“That was it?” he prompted.

“I guess so,” Sisto said. “I mean, I don’t know.”

“What about you? You have a problem with him?”

“Me? No, we were fine.”

“You talk to him? Shoot the shit?”

“Yeah, some. Not a lot.”

“Does he not like lesbians, or is it women he doesn’t like?”

“No, he isn’t gay, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean. Come on, Sisto, what kind of guy is he?”

“Look, man, I don’t know. He told me once that when he worked for the Sheriff’s up at Wayside, they did things to the gays.”

That struck a chord with Bosch. Wayside Honor Rancho was a county jail located in the Santa Clarita Valley. All new deputies were assigned to jail duty right out of the academy. Bosch remembered Lourdes telling him that when it appeared that it would be several years before she got a chance to transfer out of the jail division, she started applying to other departments and ended up at San Fernando.

“What things did they do?”

“He said they’d put them in situations, you know. Put them in modules where they knew they would get fucked with, beat up.They took bets and stuff on how long they’d last before they got jumped.”

“Did he know Bella when she was there?”

“I don’t know. I never asked.”

“Who came to San Fernando first?”

“Pretty sure it was Dock.”

Bosch nodded. Dockweiler had seniority on Bella, yet she was retained instead of him when the budget crisis hit. That had to have built animosity.

“What happened when he got moved out of the department?” he asked. “Was he angry?”

“Well, yeah, wouldn’t you be?” Sisto answered. “But he was cool about it. They found him the spot over here. So it was kind of lateral-he didn’t even lose salary.”

“Except no badge and no gun.”

“I think code enforcement has a badge.”

“Not the same, Sisto. You ever heard the phrase ‘If you’re not cop, you’re little people’?”

“Uh, no.”

Bosch grew quiet as he studied the top of Dockweiler’s desk. Nothing he saw seemed suspicious. He heard the dinging of a text on Sisto’s phone.

Pinned to the privacy wall between Dockweiler’s and another desk was a map of the city, partitioned into four code enforcement zones that mirrored the police department’s patrol areas. There was also a list of tips for spotting illegal garage conversions with photo examples of each giveaway:

Extension cords, cables, and hoses running from house to garage

Tape over the seams of the garage door

Air-conditioning units on garage walls

Barbecue grills closer to the garage than the house

Boats, bikes, and other garaged property stored outside

Studying the list, Bosch pictured the houses where the Screen Cutter rapes had occurred. Just three days ago, he had driven the circuit that included all four places. He saw now what he didn’t see then. Each had a garage, each was in a neighborhood where illegal garage conversions were a problem and would draw the attention of code inspectors. Beatriz Sahagun’s house had a garage too.

“It was him,” Bosch said quietly.

Sisto didn’t hear him. Bosch kept grinding it down, putting things together. Dockweiler could roam the city as a code inspector. He could have knocked on doors to perform inspections and selected his victims when he saw them in the course of his work. It was the reason to wear the mask each time.

He realized also that it was Dockweiler who had the extra key to Bosch’s desk. He’d kept it when he left the department but snuck back to read the file on the investigation once Bosch had connected the cases. He knew what Bosch knew and what he was doing at every step of the investigation. And the horror of it all, Bosch knew, was that he had sent Lourdes right to him. The fear and guilt of that realization boiled up in him. He turned away from the desk and saw Sisto typing a text on his phone.

“Is that Dockweiler?” he demanded. “Are you texting Dockweiler?”

“No, man, it’s my girlfriend,” Sisto said. “She wants to know where I am. Why would I text-”

Bosch snatched the phone out of Sisto’s hand and looked at the screen.

“Hey, what the fuck!” Sisto exclaimed.

Bosch read the text and confirmed it was an innocuous Homesoon missive. He then flipped the phone back at the young detective but the toss was too hard for such a close distance. It went right through Sisto’s hands, hit him square in the chest, and then clattered to the floor.

“You asshole!” Sisto yelled as he quickly dropped down to grab the phone off the floor. “It better not be-”

As he straightened up Bosch moved in, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and drove him back into the room’s door, banging his back and head hard against it. He then moved right up into his face.

“You lazy fuck, you should’ve gone with her today. Now she’s out there somewhere and we have to find her. Do you understand?”

Bosch racked him hard against the door again.

“Where does Dockweiler live?”

“I don’t know! Get the fuck off me!”

Sisto shoved Bosch off with such force that he was nearly driven into the opposite wall. He hit a counter with his hip and an empty glass coffeepot fell off its hot plate and shattered on the floor.

Drawn by the harsh voices and crashing glass, Valdez and Trevino came charging through the door. It swung right into Sisto, hitting him from behind and knocking him out of the way.

“What the hell’s going on?” Valdez demanded.

One hand holding the back of his head, Sisto pointed a finger at Bosch with the other.

“He’s crazy! Keep him the fuck away from me.”

Bosch pointed right back at him.

“You should’ve gone with her. But you gave her a bullshit line and she went up there on her own.”

“What about you, old man? It wasn’t my case. It was yours. You shoulda been there, not me.”

Bosch turned away from him and looked at Valdez.

“Dockweiler,” he said. “Where does he live?”

“Up in Santa Clarita, I think,” Valdez said. “At least he did when he worked for me. Why? What’s going on here?”

He put a hand on Bosch’s shoulder to keep Bosch from moving toward Sisto. Bosch shrugged it off and pointed at Dockweiler’s desk like it was incontrovertible evidence of something only he could see.

“It’s him,” Bosch said. “Dockweiler’s the Screen Cutter. And he’s got Bella.”