Trevino moved quickly to the row of clipboards hung on the wall behind Sisto’s desk. This was where the property crime reports were kept on different clipboards depending on the crime. Trevino grabbed the clipboard marked AUTOS and looked at the top sheet. He then flipped back through several of the reports.
“We’ve got one Friday in Area Three,” he said. “Another on Saturday.”
Valdez turned to Rosenberg.
“Irwin, take those reports,” he said. “Send a car to each location, have them find out if Lourdes was out there doing follow-up.”
“Roger that,” Rosenberg said. “I’ll take one myself.”
He took the whole clipboard from Trevino and quickly headed out of the bureau.
“Is there anybody still over in Public Works?” Bosch asked.
“This time of night, they’re closed,” Valdez said. “Why?”
“Can we get in? This morning Bella said she was going over there to borrow a metal detector for the search up at the Sahagun house.”
“I know we can at least get into the yard,” Trevino said. “We gas up the cars in there.”
“Let’s go,” Valdez said.
The four men left the station through the front door and quickly crossed the street to the Public Works complex. They walked down the left side of the structure to the vehicle and storage yard’s entrance gate, which Valdez opened with a key card pulled from his wallet.
As they entered the yard the men split up and started looking for Lourdes in and among the various work trucks and vans. Bosch headed toward the back wall, where there were a covered workshop and assorted tool benches. Behind him he heard the vehicle doors being opened and closed and the chief’s strained voice calling out Bella’s name.
But there was no response.
Bosch used the light from his phone to find a switch that turned on the fluorescent lights in the workshop. There were three separate benches positioned perpendicular to the back wall. These benches had racks of tools and materials as well as anchored machines and devices like pipe cutters, grinders, and woodworking drills and saws. It looked like projects were left in midcourse on each of the benches.
Above the third bench, there was an overhead rack holding several eight-foot lengths of stainless-steel pipe. Bosch remembered Lourdes saying they used a metal detector to find underground pipes. He assumed the third bench was for plumbing and drainage-related projects and that if there was a metal detector, it would be there.
Lourdes had described the metal detector as something with wheels like a lawnmower and not the kind of handheld detector he had seen used by treasure hunters on the beach.
Bosch didn’t see anything and turned in a circle with his eyes scanning all of the equipment on and surrounding the workbenches. He finally spotted a crossbar handle extending out from under one of the benches. He walked over and pulled out a bright orange device on wheels that was about half the size of a push mower.
He had to study it to know what it was. There was a control panel attached to the crossbar. He pushed the on/off button, and an LED screen lit with a triangular radar display and other controls for scope and depth.
“It’s here,” he said.
His words drew the other three men over from their own fruitless searches.
“Well, if she used it, she brought it back,” Valdez said.
The chief kicked one of his boots against the concrete floor, showing his frustration with another lead that didn’t pan out.
Bosch put both hands on the metal detector’s handle and lifted. He got the two back wheels off the ground but even that was a struggle.
“This thing is heavy,” he said. “If she used it, then she had help getting it out there to the Sahagun house. It wouldn’t have fit in a plain wrap.”
“Should we check inside for her?” Sisto asked.
The chief turned and looked at the door that led to the Public Works offices. Three of them walked over and Bosch followed after parking the metal detector back in its place. Valdez tried the door but it was locked with a dead bolt. Valdez turned to Sisto, the youngest among them.
“Kick it,” he said.
“It’s a metal door, Chief,” Sisto said.
“Try,” Valdez said. “You’re a young stud.”
Sisto took three shots at the door with his heel. Each one was stronger than the one before it but the door didn’t give. His brown face turned a deep maroon with the effort. He took a deep breath and was about to try a fourth, when the police chief raised an arm and stopped him.
“Okay, hold on, hold on,” Valdez said. “It’s not going to give. We’ll have to see if we can get somebody out here with a key.”
Trevino looked at Bosch.
“You got your picks on you, Big Time?” he asked.
It was the first time Trevino had ever called him that to his face, an obvious reference to Bosch’s LAPD pedigree.
“Nope,” Bosch said.
Harry stepped away from them and over to the nearest work truck. He reached over the hood, pulled the windshield wiper back on its hinge and twisted it right and then left. He pulled it sharply and ripped it off the truck.
“Harry, what are you doing?” Valdez said.
“Just give me a minute,” Bosch said.
He took the wiper over to one of the benches and used a pair of pliers to pull the rubber blade off the flat thin metal strip that backed it. He then took a pair of metal snips to cut off two three-inch lengths of the strip. He picked up the pliers again and fashioned the two metal strips into a pick and a flat hook. He had what he needed in less than two minutes.
Bosch went back to the door, squatted in front of the dead bolt, and went to work.
“You’ve done that before,” Valdez said.
“A few times,” Bosch said. “Somebody put a phone light on this.”
All three of the other men turned on cell lights and put the beams over Bosch’s shoulder and onto the dead bolt. It took Bosch three more minutes to turn the lock and open the door.
“Bella?” Valdez called out as they entered.
No answer. Sisto hit the light switches and they went down a hallway as the fluorescents blasted the darkness, peeling off one at a time into the offices they passed. Valdez kept calling out his missing detective’s name but the offices were as quiet as a church on a Monday night. Bosch was the last to peel off, entering the code enforcement bullpen whose three cubicles were just as cramped as the detective bureau across the street. He made his way around the room looking down into each cubicle but seeing no sign of Lourdes.
Soon Sisto came in.
“Anything?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
Bosch saw the nameplate on one of the desks. It reminded him of something else from his morning conversation with Lourdes.
“Sisto, did Bella have a problem with Dockweiler?”
“What do you mean?”
“This morning when she said she was going to come over here to borrow the metal detector, she said she could ask Dockweiler for help. Then she said something about hoping he was in a good mood. Was there a problem between them?”
“Maybe because she kept her job and he got transferred to Public Works?”
“Sounded like something else.”
Sisto had to consider the question further before coming up with another answer.
“Uh, I don’t think it was that big of a deal but back when he was in the bureau with us I remember there was sometimes friction between them. I don’t think at first Dock picked up on the fact that she played for the other team. He made a comment about a lesbian—I forget who she was, but he called her a carpet muncher or something like that. But Bella jumped all over his shit and things were kind of tense for a while there.”
Bosch studied Sisto, expecting more.
“That was it?” he prompted.
“I guess so,” Sisto said. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“What about you? You have a problem with him?”
“Me? No, we were fine.”
“You talk to him? Shoot the shit?”
“Yeah, some. Not a lot.”
“Does he not like lesbians, or is it women he doesn’t like?”
“No, he isn’t gay, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean. Come on, Sisto, what kind of guy is he?”