Lourdes called Sisto to give him the heads-up that they were coming and then they drove in Lourdes’s city car over to the victim’s house.
Sisto was waiting in front of the house. He was born and raised local and the SFPD was the only department he had ever worked for. Lourdes had outside experience with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department before coming over to San Fernando. Sisto was dressed similarly to Lourdes in jeans and black golf shirt. It seemed to be the casual detective uniform employed most often by the pair. Since coming to work at SFPD Bosch had been impressed with Lourdes’s skill and dedication and less so with Sisto’s. He appeared to Bosch to be marking time. He was always on his phone texting and was more likely to discuss the morning surf report when making small talk than to bring up cases or police matters. Some detectives put photos and other reminders of cases on their desks and bulletin boards, some put reminders of their interests outside the job. Sisto was one of the latter. His desk was festooned with surfing and Dodgers paraphernalia. Looking at it the first time, Bosch could not even tell it was a detective’s desk.
Lourdes stuck close to Beatriz as she went into the house and gathered clothes and toiletries into a suitcase and duffel bag. After she was packed Lourdes asked if she could tell her story once more and walk the investigators through it. Beatriz obliged and once again Bosch marveled at her choice to go through the house looking for the intruder rather than to run as fast as she could from the premises.
Lourdes volunteered to drive Beatriz to her mother’s home, also in San Fernando, and Bosch stayed behind with Sisto and the forensic team. He first inspected the rear window where the screen had been cut out and the initial entry made into the house. It was very similar to the other cases.
Bosch next asked Sisto to show him the knife that was recovered from the tangle of the fallen curtain. Sisto pulled a plastic evidence bag from a brown paper bag holding several collected items.
“Forensics already checked it,” Sisto said. “It’s clean. No prints. Guy wore gloves and a mask.”
Bosch nodded as he studied the knife through the plastic. It was a black folding knife and the blade was open. He could see the manufacturer’s logo stamped on the blade along with some code numbers too small and difficult to read through the plastic. He would make sure he looked at it back in the controlled environment of the detective bureau.
“Nice knife, though,” Sisto added. “I looked it up on my phone. It’s made by a company called TitaniumEdge. It’s called Socom Black. The powdered black blade is so it doesn’t reflect light—you know, when you’re out at night and have to shank somebody.”
He said it with sarcasm that didn’t amuse Bosch.
“Yeah, I know,” Bosch said.
“I looked at a couple knife blogs while I was waiting here—yes, they have knife blogs. A lot of them say the Socom Black is one of the best out there.”
“Best for what?” Bosch asked.
“Scary shit, I guess. Wet work. Socom probably stands for some kind of special forces black ops stuff.”
“Special Operations Command. Delta Force.”
Sisto looked surprised.
“Whoa. I guess you know your military shit.”
“I know a few things.”
Bosch carefully handed him back the knife.
Bosch wasn’t sure what Sisto thought of him. They’d had little interaction even though their desks in the bureau were only a privacy wall apart. Sisto handled property crimes and Bosch wasn’t spending his time on unsolved property crimes, so there had been little reason for conversation beyond the routine salutations each day. Bosch assumed that Sisto, who was half Harry’s age, viewed the older detective as some kind of relic from the past. The fact that Bosch most often wore a jacket and tie when he came in to work for free was probably confounding to him as well.
“So the blade was not folded when you found it?” Bosch asked. “The guy was behind the curtain with the blade out?”
“Yes, out and ready,” Sisto said. “Think we ought to fold it closed so nobody gets cut?”
“No. Book it the way you found it. And just be careful with it. Warn people it’s open. Maybe see about getting a box when you take it back to Evidence Control.”
Sisto nodded as he carefully placed the knife back in the larger evidence bag. Bosch stepped over to the window and looked down at the broken glass in the backyard. The Screen Cutter had hurled himself into the window and broken through the framing as well as the glass. Bosch’s first thought was that he had to have been hurt. The whack with the broomstick must have been so stunning that he chose to flee instead of fight—the opposite reaction of his intended victim. But going through the window and taking out the frame as well as the glass took a lot of force.
“Any blood or anything in the glass?” he asked.
“Not that we found so far,” Sisto said.
“You got the word on the knife, right? We don’t talk about it with anybody—especially the brand and model.”
“Roger that. You think people are really going to come in and confess to this?”
“I’ve seen stranger things. You never know.”
Bosch pulled his phone and started moving away from Sisto so he could make a call in private. He stepped into the hallway and then into the kitchen, where he called his daughter’s number. As usual, she didn’t answer. Her primary use of the cell phone was for texting and checking her social media. But Bosch also knew that while she might not answer his calls or even know about them—her phone’s ringer was perpetually silenced—she did listen to the messages he left.
As expected, the call rang through to message.
“Hey, it’s your dad. Just wanted to check on you. Hope everything is good and you’re safe. I might be traveling through the OC sometime this week on my way to San Diego on a case. Let me know if you want to grab coffee or something to eat. Maybe dinner. Okay, that’s it. Love you and hope to see you soon—oh, and put water in that dog bowl.”
After disconnecting he stepped out the front door of the house, where there was a patrol officer on post. His name was Hernandez.
“Who’s boss tonight?” Bosch asked.
“Sergeant Rosenberg,” Hernandez said.
“Can you hit him up and see if he’ll swing by and grab me? I need to get back to the station.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bosch walked out to the curb to wait for the patrol car with Irwin Rosenberg to come along. He needed a ride but he also needed to tell Rosenberg, who was watch commander for the night, to have patrol keep an eye on Beatriz Sahagun’s house.
He checked his phone and saw that he had just gotten a text back from Maddie saying she was up for dinner if he was passing through and that there was a restaurant she had been wanting to try. Bosch replied that they would set it up as soon as his schedule became clear. He knew that his daughter, the San Diego trip, and the Vance case were all going to be put on hold for at least a couple days. He would have to stay with the Screen Cutter case, if only to be ready to respond to what the media spotlight would invariably bring in.
20
Bosch was the first one into the detective bureau Saturday morning, and the only thing that would have made him prouder was if he had stayed all night working the case. But his status as volunteer allowed him to choose his hours and he chose a solid night’s sleep over chasing a case till dawn. He was too old for that. That he would reserve for homicides.