The Wrong Side of Goodbye(47)

“No. Book it the way you found it. And just be careful with it. Warn people it’s open. Maybe see about getting a box when you take it back to Evidence Control.”

Sisto nodded as he carefully placed the knife back in the larger evidence bag. Bosch stepped over to the window and looked down at the broken glass in the backyard. The Screen Cutter had hurled himself into the window and broken through the framing as well as the glass. Bosch’s first thought was that he had to have been hurt. The whack with the broomstick must have been so stunning that he chose to flee instead of fight—the opposite reaction of his intended victim. But going through the window and taking out the frame as well as the glass took a lot of force.

“Any blood or anything in the glass?” he asked.

“Not that we found so far,” Sisto said.

“You got the word on the knife, right? We don’t talk about it with anybody—especially the brand and model.”

“Roger that. You think people are really going to come in and confess to this?”

“I’ve seen stranger things. You never know.”

Bosch pulled his phone and started moving away from Sisto so he could make a call in private. He stepped into the hallway and then into the kitchen, where he called his daughter’s number. As usual, she didn’t answer. Her primary use of the cell phone was for texting and checking her social media. But Bosch also knew that while she might not answer his calls or even know about them—her phone’s ringer was perpetually silenced—she did listen to the messages he left.

As expected, the call rang through to message.

“Hey, it’s your dad. Just wanted to check on you. Hope everything is good and you’re safe. I might be traveling through the OC sometime this week on my way to San Diego on a case. Let me know if you want to grab coffee or something to eat. Maybe dinner. Okay, that’s it. Love you and hope to see you soon—oh, and put water in that dog bowl.”

After disconnecting he stepped out the front door of the house, where there was a patrol officer on post. His name was Hernandez.

“Who’s boss tonight?” Bosch asked.

“Sergeant Rosenberg,” Hernandez said.

“Can you hit him up and see if he’ll swing by and grab me? I need to get back to the station.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bosch walked out to the curb to wait for the patrol car with Irwin Rosenberg to come along. He needed a ride but he also needed to tell Rosenberg, who was watch commander for the night, to have patrol keep an eye on Beatriz Sahagun’s house.

He checked his phone and saw that he had just gotten a text back from Maddie saying she was up for dinner if he was passing through and that there was a restaurant she had been wanting to try. Bosch replied that they would set it up as soon as his schedule became clear. He knew that his daughter, the San Diego trip, and the Vance case were all going to be put on hold for at least a couple days. He would have to stay with the Screen Cutter case, if only to be ready to respond to what the media spotlight would invariably bring in.





20

Bosch was the first one into the detective bureau Saturday morning, and the only thing that would have made him prouder was if he had stayed all night working the case. But his status as volunteer allowed him to choose his hours and he chose a solid night’s sleep over chasing a case till dawn. He was too old for that. That he would reserve for homicides.

On his way through the police station he had stopped by the communications room and picked up the stack of messages that had come in since the news about the serial rapist hit the media the evening before. He also dropped by the evidence control unit and checked out the knife recovered at the crime scene.

Now at his desk he sipped the iced latte he had picked up at Starbucks and started wading through the messages. As he did an initial run-through he created a second pile for messages in which it was noted that the caller spoke Spanish only. These he would give to Lourdes to review and follow up on. She was expected to work the Screen Cutter case through the weekend. Sisto was on call for all other cases needing a detective, and Captain Trevino was due in because it was his rotation weekend to be in charge of the department.

Among the Spanish-only messages was an anonymous call from a woman who reported that she had also been attacked by a rapist who wore a mask like those worn by Mexican wrestlers. She refused to reveal her name because she admitted she was illegally in the country and the police operator could not convince her that no action would be taken against her on her immigration status if she fully reported the crime.

Bosch had always expected that there were other cases he didn’t know about but it was still a heartbreaking message to read because the woman told the operator that the attack had occurred almost three years earlier. Bosch realized that the victim had lived with the psychological and perhaps even physical consequences of the horrible assault for all that time without even being able to hold on to the hope that justice would someday prevail and her attacker would be held to answer for his crime. She had given all of that up when she chose not to report the crime for fear it would lead to her deportation.

There were people who would have no sympathy for her, Bosch knew. People who would argue that her remaining silent about the attack allowed the rapist to move on to the next victim without concern about police attention. Bosch could find some validity in that but he was more sympathetic to the plight of the silent victim. Without even knowing the details of how she had gotten to this country, Bosch knew her path here had not been easy and her desire to stay no matter what the consequences—even to be silent about a rape—was what touched him. Politicians could talk about building walls and changing laws to keep people out, but in the end they were just symbols. Neither would stop the tide any more than the rock jetties at the mouth of the port did. Nothing could stop the tide of hope and desire.