The Wrong Side of Goodbye(70)

“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 Home soon 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.”





29

They took two cars and headed code 3 up the 5 freeway. Valdez and Bosch were in the lead car with Valdez behind the wheel. The police chief had wisely separated Bosch from Sisto, who drove the second car with Trevino riding shotgun and probably miffed that the tensions between Bosch and Sisto had resulted in his being separated from the chief.