Bosch grabbed a marker off the board’s sill and put down that he had arrived at 6:15 that morning. He hadn’t exactly checked the time but he knew he had been at the Starbucks at 6:00.
Trevino went into his office and shut the door. Bosch returned to the knife on his desk. This time he put the time travel aside and leaned down so he could read the numbers stamped on the black blade. On one side of the TitaniumEdge logo was the date of manufacture—09/08—and on the other side was a number Bosch assumed was the weapon’s unique serial number. He wrote both of these down and then went online to see if TitaniumEdge had a website.
As he did so he heard Lourdes start one of the callbacks in Spanish. Bosch understood enough to know she was calling someone who had fingered a person she knew as the rapist. Bosch knew it would be a quick call. The investigators were 95 percent sure they were looking for a white man. Any caller accusing a Latino would be wrong and most likely engaged in trying to make a personal enemy’s life difficult.
Bosch found the TitaniumEdge site and quickly learned that owners of their knives could register them at purchase or thereafter. It was not required and Bosch guessed that in most cases purchasers had not bothered. The knife manufacturer was located in Pennsylvania—close to the steel mills that produced the raw materials of their weapons. The website showed that the company made several different folding knives. Not knowing if the business would be open on a Saturday, Bosch took a shot and called the number listed on the website. His call was answered by an operator and he asked for the supervisor on duty.
“We have Johnny and George here today. They’re the guys in charge.”
“Is one of them available?” he asked. “Doesn’t matter which.”
She put Bosch on hold and two minutes later a gruff male voice came on the line. If there was a voice to match a black blade knife maker, it was this one.
“This is Johnny.”
“Johnny, this is Detective Bosch with the SFPD out in California. I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time to help with an investigation we have going out here.”
There was a pause. Bosch had taken to using the abbreviation SFPD when making calls outside the city because the chances were good that the receiver of the call would jump to the conclusion that Bosch was calling from the San Francisco Police Department and be more willing to help than if they knew he was calling from tiny San Fernando.
“SFPD?” Johnny finally said. “I’ve never even been to California.”
“Well, it’s not about you, sir,” Bosch said. “It’s about a knife that we recovered from a crime scene.”
“Was someone hurt with it?”
“Not that we’re aware of. A burglar dropped it when he was chased from a house where he had broken in.”
“Sounds like he was going to use it to hurt somebody.”
“We’ll never know. He dropped it and I’m trying to trace it. I see from your website that purchasers can register them. I was wondering if I could find out if this one is registered.”
“Which one is it?”
“It’s a Socom Black. Four-inch black powdered blade. On the blade it says it was made in September ’08.”
“Yeah, we don’t make that one anymore.”
“But it is still highly regarded and a collector’s item, from what I’ve been told.”
“Well, let me look it up here on the computer and see what we got.”
Bosch was buoyed by the cooperation. Johnny asked for the serial number and Bosch read it to him off the blade. Harry could hear him tap it into a computer.
“Well, it’s registered,” Johnny said. “But unfortunately, that’s a stolen knife.”
“Really?” Bosch said.
But this was not surprising to him. He thought it unlikely that a serial rapist would use a weapon that could be traced directly to him, even if he narcissistically assumed that he would never lose the knife or be identified as a suspect.
“Yeah, stolen a couple years after the original purchaser bought it,” Johnny said. “At least that’s when he notified us.”
“Well, it’s been recovered,” Bosch said. “And that owner will be getting it back after we’re finished with the case. Can you give me that information?”
Here was where Bosch hoped that Johnny wouldn’t ask for a warrant. That would slow pursuit of this lead down to a crawl. Rousing a judge on a weekend to sign a warrant for a small part of an investigation was not something he relished doing.
“We are always happy to help out the military and law enforcement,” Johnny said patriotically.
Bosch then wrote down the name and address as of 2010 of the original buyer of the knife. He was Jonathan Danbury and his address, at least back then, was in Santa Clarita, no more than a thirty-minute drive up the 5 freeway from San Fernando.
Bosch thanked Johnny the knife maker for his cooperation and ended the phone call. He immediately went to the DMV database to see if he could locate Jonathan Danbury. He quickly learned that Danbury still lived in the same house as when he reported the knife stolen in 2010. Bosch also learned that Danbury was now thirty-six years old and had no criminal record.
Bosch waited while he heard Lourdes finish a call in Spanish. The moment she hung up he got her attention.
“Bella.”
“What?”
“Ready to take a ride? I’ve got a line on the knife. A guy up in Santa Clarita who reported it stolen six years ago.”
She popped her head up over the privacy wall.
“I’m ready to shoot myself is what I am,” she said. “These people, they’re just ratting out their old boyfriends, anybody they want to have the cops hassle. And a lot of date rapes, sad to say. Women who think the guy who forced himself on them is our guy.”
“We’re going to keep getting those calls until we find the real guy,” Bosch said.
“I know. I was just hoping to spend tomorrow with my son. But I’ll be stuck here if these calls keep coming.”
“I’ll take tomorrow. You take off. I’ll leave all the Spanish-only calls for Monday.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thank you. Do we know how the knife was stolen back then?”
“Not yet. You ready to go?”
“Could this be our guy? Report the knife stolen as a cover?”
Bosch shrugged and pointed at his computer.
“His record’s clean,” he said. “The profiler said look for priors. Little stuff that builds up to the big stuff.”
“Profilers don’t always get it right,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
That last sentence was a joke between them. As a reserve officer Bosch was given no city vehicle. Lourdes had to drive if they were conducting official police business.
On the way out of the bureau Lourdes stopped to note the time and their destination—SCV—on the board by the squad room door.
Bosch didn’t.
21
The Santa Clarita Valley was a sprawling bedroom community built into the cleft of the San Gabriel and Santa Susana Mountains. It was north of the city of Los Angeles and buffered from it and its ills by those same mountain chains. It was a place that from its beginning drew families north from the city, families looking for cheaper homes, newer schools, greener parks, and less crime. Those same features were also the draw for hundreds of law officers who wanted to get away from the places they protected and served. It was said that over time Santa Clarita became the safest place in the county to live because there was a cop residing on almost every block.