The Wrong Side of Goodbye(83)

There were now two Sheriff’s patrol cars and one plain wrap parked out front, but everybody was apparently inside. Bosch went straight to the back of Dockweiler’s pickup and started pulling out the two-wheeled hand truck. Sisto caught up with him at the back of the truck and helped him lower the heavy cart to the ground.

“What are we doing, Harry?” he asked.

“We have to move those boxes in the garage,” Bosch said.

“Why? What’s in them?”

“Not what’s in them. What’s under them.”

He pushed the cart toward the garage.

“Dockweiler was about to take this out of his truck and start moving these boxes,” he said.

“How come?” Sisto asked.

“Because he had hot food in the truck and wanted to deliver it.”

“Harry, I’m not following.”

“That’s okay, Sisto. Just start moving boxes.”

Bosch attacked the first row of boxes with the hand truck, sliding its blade under the bottom box and then tilting the cart and the column of boxes back. He quickly backed out of the garage and to the front of the pickup. He placed the column down, yanked the hand truck back, and quickly went back for more. Sisto worked with only his own muscles. He moved two and three boxes at a clip, stacking them out on the driveway near the pickup.

In five minutes they had made a large inroad into the stacks, and Bosch came upon a rubber mat that covered the floor and was designed to be used to catch oil from the vehicle parked in the garage. He used the hand truck to move a few more stacks of boxes and then reached down and rolled back the mat.

There was a round metal manhole cover flush with the concrete floor. It had the seal of the city of San Fernando embossed on it. Bosch crouched down and put two fingers into what looked like air holes and tried to pull up the heavy metal plate. He couldn’t do it. He looked around for Sisto.

“Help me with this,” he said.

“Hold on, Harry,” Sisto said.

He disappeared from Bosch’s view and was gone for a few seconds. When he came back he had a long iron bar bent into a handle on one end and a hook on the other.

“How the hell did you find that?” Bosch asked as he got out of the way.

“I saw it on the workbench and wondered what it was for,” Sisto said. “Then I figured it out. I’d seen the guys from Public Works using them in the street.”

He fit the hook into one of the holes in the iron plate and started pulling it up.

“That’s where he probably stole it from,” Bosch said. “You need help?”

“I got it,” Sisto said.

He hoisted the manhole out and it clattered onto the concrete floor. Bosch leaned over the hole and looked down. The overhead light in the garage revealed a ladder leading into darkness. Bosch went over to the stack of boxes where he had seen the light sticks earlier. He yanked open the box and took out several. Behind him he heard Sisto yell into the hole he had opened.

“Bella?”

There was no response.

Bosch returned and started opening the sticks, snapping them on and dropping them down the hole. He then started down the ladder. The descent was no more than ten feet but there was no last rung on the ladder and he almost fell as he placed his foot where the rung should have been. He lowered himself the rest of the way and then reached into his back pocket for the flashlight. He turned it on and played it against the concrete walls of a chamber that was still clearly under construction. There were iron supports and plywood molds for concrete. Plastic sheeting hung from makeshift scaffolding. There was air but not enough of it. Bosch found himself on the verge of hyperventilating as he gulped for oxygen. He guessed that an air-cleaning and -filtration system was not in place or not operating. The only fresh air entering the chamber was from the opening above.

He realized that this was Dockweiler’s dream. He had been building an underground bunker where he would be able to retreat and hide when the big quake hit or the bomb was dropped or the terrorists came.

“Anything?” Sisto called down.

“Still looking,” Bosch said.

“I’m coming down.”

“Just watch the last rung. It isn’t there.”

Bosch started making his way around the construction debris and down the length of the chamber. When he pushed through a plastic curtain he had to step up to a section that was nearly complete, its walls smooth and floor level and carpeted in black rubber matting. He swept his flashlight across all surfaces and saw nothing. Bella was not here.

Bosch turned in a complete circle. He had been wrong.

Sisto pushed through the plastic curtain.

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

“We’ve got to look in the house.”

“Maybe he was telling the truth about the movie ranch.”

Bosch pushed back through the plastic and made the step down into the first chamber. When he got to the ladder, he realized that there wasn’t a missing rung. The ladder simply extended down to the level the floor would be at when the chamber was completed.

He turned around and almost banged into Sisto. He pushed past him and then again through the plastic curtain to the finished room. He trained his light over the floor, looking for a seam.

“I thought we were going back up,” Sisto said.