The Wrong Side of Goodbye(74)

Bosch wondered if Sisto and Trevino had heard any of the confrontation and what action they might be taking. He looked down the side of the house in the direction of the backyard and saw no one. If they were coming, they were doing so on the other side of the house. It was a good move, giving them two angles on the man with the gun.

He turned back around and edged closer to the corner. Valdez was now almost twenty feet out from the house and halfway to the street. He still had his hands held up, and in the flashlight beam Bosch was reminded by the smooth fit of his black polo shirt that the chief was not wearing a ballistic vest underneath. It was a detail that would factor into the decisions Harry was about to make. He knew he might have to engage first to prevent Dockweiler from taking a shot at Valdez.

“Why are you here, Chief?” Dockweiler demanded.

“I told you,” Valdez said calmly. “Looking for Bella.”

“Who sent you here? Was it that guy Bosch?”

“What makes you bring him up?”

Before Dockweiler could respond, there was a chorus of shouts from the front yard and Bosch recognized the voices of Trevino and Sisto.

“Put the gun down!”

“Dockweiler, put the gun down!”

Bosch moved forward and out from the side of the house. Dockweiler had swung the flashlight and the aim of his gun to the other side, where Trevino and Sisto were side by side in combat firing stances.

Bosch realized he had the drop on Dockweiler, who was so preoccupied by the other three men in the yard that he was not expecting a fourth. Bosch covered the ground to the back of the pickup truck in less than three seconds.

Valdez saw Bosch and knew he needed to move the aim of Dockweiler’s weapon off the other two men before the impact from Bosch.

“Kurt, right here!” he yelled.

Dockweiler started to swing the light back toward the police chief, the muzzle of his handgun moving with it. Bosch hit him with his body, smashing his chest into Dockweiler’s left arm and upper torso. Dockweiler made an oof sound as the air blasted out of his lungs and he fell heavily to the ground. Bosch bounced off the bigger man and went the opposite way to the ground.

No shot was fired. Sisto moved in and jumped on Dockweiler before he could recover from the impact. He grabbed his gun hand with two hands and wrested it free, then threw it onto the lawn a safe distance away. Valdez soon followed on the pile and Dockweiler, a larger man than any of the other four, was controlled. Bosch crawled over and put his weight on the back of the man’s legs while Trevino moved in and pulled his arms behind his back for cuffing.

“What the fuck is this?” Dockweiler yelled.

“Where is she?” Valdez yelled right back. “Where is Bella?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dockweiler managed to say, despite Sisto pushing his face into the grass of his front lawn. “I haven’t seen or talked to that bitch in two years.”

Valdez backed off the pile and stood up.

“Get him up,” he ordered. “We’ll get him inside. See if he’s got the keys on him.”

The flashlight had fallen to the grass and was pointing away from the men. Bosch reached over and grabbed it and started sweeping it over the grass, looking for the gun. When he spotted it he got up and went to claim it.

Dockweiler took the opportunity to attempt one last effort at standing up. Trevino drove a knee into the side of his torso and the impact ended the move. Dockweiler stopped resisting.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I give up. You assholes, what is it? Four against one? Fuck you.”

Trevino and Sisto started checking his pockets for keys.

“No, fuck you, Dockweiler,” Sisto said. “Tell us where Bella is. We know you grabbed her.”

“You are out of your fucking minds,” Dockweiler responded.

Bosch put the light on the truck’s open tailgate. He moved so that he could angle the light into the camper shell, fearful of what he might see.

But there was only an assortment of tools in the back of the truck and it was not readily apparent to him what Dockweiler had been doing at the tailgate when they watched him from the corner of the house.

Bosch noticed a key ring sitting on the tailgate and grabbed it.

“I have the keys,” he reported to the others.

While Sisto and Trevino stood Dockweiler up, Valdez came over to get a look at the back of the pickup.

“This didn’t exactly go down textbook,” Bosch said. “How do you want to handle it from here? No warrant and he’s not going to be inviting us in.”

“No PC but plenty of EC, if you ask me,” Valdez said. “We need to get into the house. Let’s open it.”

Bosch agreed but it was always better when the police chief himself made the call. Probable cause and a judge’s signature were needed for a search warrant, but exigent circumstances trumped all. There was no definitive legal definition that perfectly outlined the bounds of which emergencies allowed for the relaxing of constitutional protections. But Bosch felt that a missing police officer and a gun-wielding former colleague would qualify in any court in the land.

He checked the open garage as he walked to the front door. It was stacked full with boxes and pallets. There was no room to park the truck in there, so he wondered why Dockweiler had opened the door.

When he got to the front door he put the light on the key ring. There were several keys, including one Bosch recognized as the universal key that started all police and city vehicles, as well as a small bronze key that would open a smaller lock. He reached into his pocket and brought out his own keys. He compared the small bronze key to the filing cabinet in his cubicle at the detective bureau to the one on Dockweiler’s ring. The teeth lined up exactly.