The Wrong Side of Goodbye(86)

She looked up at him again.

“He made me tell him about you. He…hurt me and I tried but I couldn’t take it. He wanted to know how we knew about the keys. And about you. He wanted to know if you had a wife or kids. I tried to hold out, Harry.”

Bosch squeezed her hand.

“Don’t say any more, Bella,” he said. “You did great. We got the guy and it’s over now. That’s all that matters.”

She closed her eyes again.

“I’m going to go back to sleep now,” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be back soon, Bella. You hang in there.”

Bosch headed down the hall, thinking about Dockweiler torturing Bella to get information about him. He wondered where that would have led if things hadn’t ended that night.

In the waiting room Bosch found Valdez but no Taryn. The chief explained that she went home to get clothes for Bella for when she was released, whenever that would be. They spoke about the Screen Cutter case and what needed to be completed on their end for both the Sheriff’s shooting investigation and the prosecution of Dockweiler. They had forty-eight hours to present their case against the suspected rapist to the D.A.’s Office and ask for charges. Because Lourdes was out of commission in the hospital, Bosch was going to have to be point.

“I want this case to be airtight, Harry,” Valdez said. “And I want to hit him with everything we can. Every charge possible. I don’t want him ever breathing free air again.”

“Got it,” Bosch said. “That’s not going to be a problem. I’m going to go home, sleep till about noon, and then I’ll get back on it.”

Valdez clapped him on the upper arm in encouragement.

“Let me know what you need,” he said.

“You’re staying here?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, for a while. Sisto texted and said he wanted to come by. I think I’ll wait for him. When this thing levels out, we need to all get together for some beers, make sure everybody’s okay.”

“That’ll be good.”

Bosch left the hospital then and ran into Sisto in the parking garage. He was in fresh clothes and looked like he might even have gotten some sleep.

“How’s Bella?” he asked.

“I don’t really know,” Bosch said. “She’s been through a kind of hell that’s hard to imagine.”

“Did you see her?”

“For a few minutes. The chief’s up there in the waiting room. He’ll get you in if he can.”

“Cool. See you back at the bureau.”

“I’m going to go home and sleep first.”

Sisto nodded and walked off. Bosch thought of something and then called after him.

“Hey, Sisto.”

The young detective walked back.

“Yeah, listen, I’m sorry for losing my cool and pushing you,” Bosch said. “And throwing your phone. It was just a tense situation, you know?”

“No, man, it was cool,” Sisto said. “You were right. I don’t want to be a fuckup, Harry. I want to be a good detective like you.”

Bosch nodded his thanks for the compliment.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get there. And you did good work last night.”

“Thanks.”

“You want to do something after you see Bella?”

“What do you mean?”

“Go over to Public Works and tape off Dockweiler’s desk. We’ll need to go through it. Then get the supervisor over there to pull records on all code inspections he did over the last four years. You’re looking for unpermitted dwellings.”

“You think that’s how he picked the victims?”

“I guarantee it. Pull all of those and put ’em on my desk. I’ll go through them when I get in and put him on the streets where our victims lived.”

“Cool. We need a warrant?”

“I don’t think so. Public records.”

“Okay, Harry, I’m on it. They’ll be on your desk.”

Bosch gave him a fist bump, then headed off to his car.





35

Bosch went home, took a long shower, and then crawled into his bed for what he intended to be a four-hour nap. He even tied a bandanna around his head and over his eyes to keep out the light of the day. But less than two hours into a deep trench of sleep he was awakened by a blaring guitar riff. He yanked the bandanna off and tried to do the same with the vestiges of sleep. Then clarity came and he realized it was the ringtone his daughter had programmed into his phone so he would know when she was calling: “Black Sun” by Death Cab for Cutie. She had programmed it into her own phone for his calls to her as well.

He grabbed at the phone, knocking it off the bed table to the floor, before finally picking it up and answering.

“Maddie? What’s wrong?”

“Uh, nothing. What’s wrong with you? You sound weird.”

“I was sleeping. What’s going on?”

“Well I thought we were maybe going to have lunch today. Are you still at your hotel?”

“Shoot, I’m sorry, Maddie. I forgot to call you. I’m back home. I got called back last night on an emergency. An officer got abducted and we worked all night on it.”