The Wrong Side of Goodbye(51)

“Nobody was stabbed,” Bosch said.

“Seems like it would be something serious for you to come all the way up here.”

“It was serious but we’re not at liberty to discuss it.”

Bosch reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and acted like he didn’t find what he was looking for. He then patted his other pockets.

“You don’t have a smoke I could borrow, do you, Mr. Danbury?” he asked.

“No, don’t smoke,” Danbury said. “Sorry.”

He pointed to the knife.

“Well, will I get it back?” he asked. “It’s probably worth more than what I paid for it. People collect those.”

“So I’ve heard,” Bosch said. “Detective Lourdes will give you her card. You can check with her in a few weeks about getting it back. Can I ask you something? Why’d you have the knife?”

“Well, to be honest, I’ve got a brother-in-law who’s ex-military and he collects this sort of stuff. I thought maybe it would be good to have some protection but I think I mostly got it to impress him. I ordered it and at first I kept it in my night table. But then I realized that was stupid. It might end up hurting one of the kids. So I put it in the glove box. I actually forgot about it until I got in the car one day and saw the box was open. I checked and the knife was gone.”

“Anything else taken?” Lourdes asked.

“No, just the knife,” Danbury said. “That was the only thing of value in the whole car.”

Bosch nodded, then turned and glanced back to the house across the street.

“Where did the deputy move?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Danbury said. “We weren’t really friends. I think it might’ve been Simi Valley.”

Bosch nodded. They had gleaned what they could about the knife from Danbury and he had seemingly passed the smoke test. He decided to ask a door slammer—a question that could result in the angry end of a voluntary conversation.

“Do you mind telling us where you were yesterday around lunchtime?” he asked.

Danbury looked at them uncomfortably for a moment and then broke into an awkward smile.

“Hey, come on, what is this?” he asked. “Am I a suspect in something?”

“It’s a routine question,” Bosch said. “The knife was recovered in a burglary yesterday about noon. It would just save us some time if you could tell us where you were. That way our boss doesn’t see it’s not in the report and send us back to bother you.”

Danbury reached back and put his hand on the doorknob. He was close to ending things and slamming the door on them.

“I was here all day long,” he said curtly. “Except when I took two of my kids home sick from school to the doctor around eleven. All that can be easily checked. Anything else?”

“No, sir,” Bosch said. “Thanks for your time.”

Lourdes handed Danbury a business card and followed Bosch off the front stoop. They heard the door close sharply behind them.

They drove back toward the freeway and stopped at the drive-thru at a fast-food franchise so Bosch could eat something while they headed south. Lourdes said she had eaten earlier and passed. They did not speak about the interview at first. Bosch wanted to think about the conversation with Danbury before discussing it. Once they were on the 5 and Lourdes had opened the windows to blow out the smell of fast food, he brought it up.

“So what do you think about Danbury?” he asked.

Lourdes closed the windows.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was hoping he’d know who took the knife. We need to pull the Sheriff’s report, just to see if they did look at anybody.”

“So you’re not thinking he reported it stolen as a cover?”

“Reported it stolen and then two years later started raping people in San Fernando? I don’t think it hunts,” Lourdes said.

“The reported rapes started two years later. As we know from last night’s callers, there are probably other rapes. They could have started earlier.”

“True. But I don’t see Danbury. His record’s clean. He doesn’t fit the profile. Doesn’t smoke. Is married, has kids.”

“You said profilers aren’t always right,” Bosch reminded her. “He has his lunchtimes free working from home and with the kids in school.”

“But not yesterday. He gave us an alibi we could easily check with the doctor and the school. It’s not him, Harry.”

Bosch nodded. He agreed but felt it was good to play devil’s advocate to avoid tunnel thinking.

“It’s still weird when you think about it,” Lourdes said.

“Think about what?” Bosch asked.

“How a knife stolen up here in blue-eyed Santa Clarita ends up with a white guy wearing masks and going after Latinas in San Fernando.”

“Yeah. We’ve talked about the racial side of this. Maybe we have to hit that harder now.”

“Yeah, how?”

“Go back to the LAPD. They probably keep files at Foothill and Mission on racist threats, arrests, that sort of thing. Maybe we come up with some names.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“Monday. Take tomorrow off.”

“Planning on it.”