The Wrong Side of Goodbye(13)

He sat up straight to look over the partitions and saw that both of the other detective cubicles were empty. Bella Lourdes, the CAPs investigator, and Danny Sisto, who handled property crimes, were probably out in the field following up on crime reports. They often went out to handle much of their fieldwork together.

Once he was logged into the department’s computer system, Bosch opened up the law enforcement databases. He got out his notebook and began the search for Vibiana Duarte, knowing he was breaking the one rule the police chief had given him: using his SFPD access to supplement a private investigation. Not only was it a firing offense at SFPD but it was a crime in California to access a law enforcement database for information not pertaining to a police investigation. If Trevino ever decided to audit Bosch’s use of the computer, there would be a problem. But Bosch figured that would not happen. Trevino would know that if he made a move against Bosch, he was making a move against the police chief, and that was most likely career suicide.

The search for Vibiana Duarte was short. There was no listing of her ever having a driver’s license in California, no record of her ever committing a crime or even getting a parking ticket. Of course, the digital databases were less complete the farther back the search went but Bosch knew from experience that it was rare not to find any reference to an entered name. It supported the possibility that Duarte had been an illegal and possibly returned to Mexico in 1950 after becoming pregnant. Abortion in California was against the law back then. She might have crossed the border to have her baby or to have the pregnancy terminated in one of the backroom clinics in Tijuana.

Bosch knew the law on abortion back then because he had been born in 1950 to an unmarried woman and, soon after becoming a cop, he had looked up the laws so that he would better understand the choices his mother had faced and made.

What he was not familiar with was the California penal code in 1950. He accessed it next and checked the laws about sexual assault. He pretty quickly learned that in 1950 under penal code section 261, sexual intercourse with a female under age eighteen was considered a chargeable offense of rape. Consensual relations were not listed as an exclusion to prosecution. The only exclusion offered was if the woman was the wife of the offender.

Bosch thought about Vance’s father believing the pregnancy was a trap set by Duarte to force a marriage that would bring her citizenship and money. If that was the case, the penal code gave her a solid piece of leverage. But the lack of any record of Duarte in California seemed to belie that angle. Rather than use her leverage, Duarte had disappeared, possibly back to Mexico.

Bosch switched the screen, went back to the DMV interface, and typed in “James Franklin Aldridge,” the cover name Vance had given him.

Before the results came up, he saw Captain Trevino enter the squad room, carrying a cup of coffee from Starbucks. Bosch knew there was a store located a few blocks away on Truman. He often took a break from computer work in the bureau and walked over himself. This was not only to give his eyes a rest but to indulge in a recent addiction to iced lattes that had developed since he began routinely meeting with his daughter at various coffee shops near her school campus.

“Harry, what brings you in today?” Trevino said.

The captain always greeted him cordially and by his first name.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Bosch said. “Thought I’d check e-mail and send out a few more alerts on the Screen Cutter.”

As he spoke, he killed the DMV screen and pulled up the e-mail account he had been given by the department. He didn’t turn around as Trevino went to the door of his office and unlocked it.

Bosch heard the door open but then felt Trevino’s presence behind him in the cubicle.

“In the neighborhood?” Trevino said. “All the way up here? And all dressed up in a suit!”

“Well, actually, I was in Pasadena seeing somebody and then I just took the Foothill across,” Bosch said. “Thought I’d just send out a few e-mails, then get out of here.”

“Your name’s not on the board, Harry. You have to sign in to get credit for your hours.”

“Sorry, I was only going to be here a few minutes. And I don’t have to worry about making my hours. I put in twenty-four last week alone.”

There was an attendance board by the entrance to the detective bureau on which Bosch had been instructed to sign in and out so Trevino could chart his hours and make sure he hit the reserve officer minimum.

“I still want you signing in and out,” Trevino said.

“You got it, Cap,” Bosch said.

“Good.”

“By the way…”

Bosch reached down and rapped his knuckles on the file drawer.

“I forgot my key,” he said. “You have a key I can open this with? I need my files.”

“No, no key. Garcia turned in the only one. He said that was all he got from Dockweiler.”

Bosch knew that Garcia was the last detective to occupy the desk and that he had inherited it from Dockweiler. Both were casualties of the budget crunch. He’d heard in the office scuttlebutt that both men left law enforcement after being laid off. Garcia became a schoolteacher and Dockweiler saved his city paycheck and pension by transferring to the Public Works Department, where they had an opening in code enforcement.

“Anybody else have a key around here?” Bosch asked.

“Not that I know of,” Trevino said. “Why don’t you just open it with your lock picks, Harry? I heard you’re good with those.”