The Wrong Side of Goodbye(66)

Looking for headlines that didn’t involve scandal, Kapoor had evidently decided to proceed with an autopsy on Whitney Vance’s body so that he could hold a press conference that was about something other than his handling of his duties and department.

“You watch, though,” Haller said. “Some smart reporter will turn this against him by pointing out that the billionaire didn’t have to wait in line for an autopsy while every other body does. Even in death the rich get treated special—that’ll be the headline.”

Bosch knew the observation was dead-on accurate and was surprised that Kapoor’s advisers, if he had any, had not warned him.

Haller asked what Bosch had found in San Diego and Harry reported that there might be two blood descendants in play. He recounted his conversation with Gabriela and told Haller that it might soon be time for DNA analysis. He outlined what he had: A sealed sample from Vance, though he did not witness the old man being swabbed. Several items that belonged to Dominick Santanello, including a razor that might have his blood on it. A swab sample he had taken from Gabriela Lida in case it was needed. And he planned to swab Vibiana when he met her the following day. For the moment he planned to leave Vibiana’s son—Vance’s presumed great-grandson—out of it.

“The only thing that’s going to matter is Vibiana’s DNA,” Haller said. “We will need to show the hereditary chain, which I think you have in hand. But it’s going to come down to her DNA and whether they match it to Vance’s as direct descendant.”

“We need to do it as a blind, right?” Bosch said. “Not tell them the swab is from Vance. Just give them the swab from Vibiana. Then see what they say.”

“Agreed. Last thing we want is for them to know whose DNA they have. I will work on that and set something up in one of the labs I gave you. Whichever one will do it the fastest. Then when you get the blood from Vibiana, we go in.”

“I’m hoping that will be tomorrow.”

“That’ll be good. What did you do with the swab from Vance?”

“My refrigerator.”

“Not sure that’s the safest place. And I don’t think refrigeration is required.”

“It’s not. I just hid it in there.”

“I like the idea of keeping it separate from the will and the pen. Don’t want everything in the same place. I’m just concerned with it being in your house. It’s probably the first place they’ll look.”

“There you go with that ‘they’ thing again.”

“I know. But it is what it is. Maybe you should think of another place.”

Bosch told Haller about his run-in with Creighton and Harry’s suspicion that there might be camera surveillance on his house.

“I’ll check it out tomorrow morning first thing,” he said. “It will be dark by the time I get there tonight. The point is, there was nobody out there this morning when I left. I checked my car for a GPS tag and yet somehow Creighton’s following me up Laurel Canyon Boulevard.”

“Maybe it was a fucking drone,” Haller said. “They’re being used all over the place now.”

“I’ll have to remember to start looking up. You too. Creighton said they knew you were on the case, too.”

“Not a surprise.”

Bosch could see the lights of downtown now through the wind-shield. He was finally getting close to home and he could feel the exhaustion from the day on the road settling on his body. He was bone tired and wanted to rest. He decided that he would skip dinner in favor of extra sleep time.

His mind wandered from the conversation when the thought of food reminded him that he needed to call or text his daughter to tell her he had driven home and wouldn’t be passing by campus the next day. Their getting together would have to wait.

Maybe that was a good thing, Bosch thought. After their last phone call it might be better to have some time and distance between them.

“Harry, you still there?” Haller said.

Bosch came out of the unrelated thoughts.

“Here,” he said. “You just cut out for second. I’m going through a bad cell area. Go ahead.”

Haller said he wanted to discuss a strategy involving where and when they should make a move in court. It was a subtle form of judge shopping but he explained that deciding in what courthouse to file the will could give them an advantage. He said he assumed that probate on Vance would be opened in Pasadena, near where he lived and died, but that did not require a claimant to file there as well. If Vibiana Veracruz was determined to establish herself as Vance’s heir, then she could file her claim at a courthouse convenient to her.

To Bosch these were decisions that were above his pay grade and he told Haller so. His job here, and his responsibility and promise to Vance, was simply to find the heir, if one existed, and gather the evidence to prove the bloodline. Legal strategies involving the subsequent claim to the Vance fortune were for Haller to decide.

Bosch added something that he had been thinking about since his conversation with Gabriela.

“What if they don’t want it?” he asked.

“What if who doesn’t want what?” Haller replied.

“The money,” Bosch said. “What if Vibiana doesn’t want it? These people are artists. What if they don’t want to be involved in running a corporation, sitting on a board of directors, being in that world? When I told Gabriela that her daughter and grandson might be in line for a lot of money, she just shrugged it off. She said she hadn’t had any money for seventy years and didn’t want any now.”