Valdez pointed north through the windshield.
Bosch tried to think of another source for Dockweiler’s address. If he was still employing law enforcement protection measures they would be hard-pressed to find him. He thought about calling Wayside and seeing if any of the jail deputies remembered him and might know his address. It seemed like a long shot since Dockweiler had left the Sheriff’s Department so long ago.
“When did he first come to work for San Fernando?” Bosch asked.
“It was ’05 or ’06, I think,” Valdez said. “He was already here when I got here. Yeah, it would have been ’06. Because I remember he was just past five years and vested when I had to chop him.”
“Sisto told me about him saying he was part of a group of deputies at Wayside that manipulated custodies and staged fights.”
“I remember they weeded out a bunch of jail deputies back around then. The Wayside Whities, remember?”
It was coming back to Bosch. It was hard to remember specific groups or incidents because it seemed to him that the Sheriff’s Department had suffered one jail scandal after another in the last decade. The previous sheriff had resigned in disgrace during an FBI investigation of jail issues. He faced a corruption trial and several of his deputies had already gone to prison. These were some of the reasons Bella Lourdes had told Bosch she’d needed to get out, even if it meant moving to a much smaller department like San Fernando’s.
“So why did you chop him instead of Bella?” Bosch asked. “He had seniority, right?”
“He did but I had to do what was best for the department,” Valdez said.
“Nice political answer.”
“It’s the truth. You know Bella. She’s a go-getter. Loves the job, wants to give back. Dockweiler…he was a bit of a bully. So when Marvin told me I could offer one of my people the job in code enforcement, I kept Lourdes and transferred Dockweiler. I thought it suited him. You know, telling people to cut their lawns and trim their hedges.”
Marvin was Marvin Hodge, the city manager. Bosch shook his head as the chief’s answer reminded him of his failings on the Screen Cutter case.
“What?” Valdez asked. “I think I made the right choice.”
“No, it’s not that,” Bosch said. “You did make the right choice. But you probably didn’t with me. I missed a lot on this one. I guess the time off made me rusty.”
“What did you miss?”
“Well, last Friday I took a drive past the first four crime scenes— the ones we knew about. You know, all in one trip and in the order of occurrence. I’d never done that before and I was trying to see if anything would spark, if I would finally figure out what the link was. And I didn’t see it. It was right there and I didn’t see it. All of the houses had garages.”
“Yeah, but that’s so common. Practically every house built since World War Two has a garage. In this town, that’s just about everybody.”
“Doesn’t matter. I should have put it together. I’ll bet you my next paycheck that we’re going to find that Dockweiler inspected those houses and those garages for unpermitted conversion and habitation—he has the damn tip sheet pinned to the wall of his cubicle. That’s how he picked his victims. That’s why he wore the masks. Because the victims might remember him from the inspection.”
“You don’t get a paycheck, Harry.”
“And after this I don’t deserve one.”
“Look, as far as Dockweiler goes, this is all just theory right now. We don’t have a shred of evidence he’s the Screen Cutter. The theory looks good but theories don’t get convictions.”
“It’s him.”
“Just because you keep saying it doesn’t make it so.”
“Well, you better hope it is. Otherwise we’re looking for Bella in the wrong place.”
That was a thought that brought silence to the car for the next few miles. But after a while Bosch started asking questions so he didn’t have to dwell on thoughts about Bella.
“How did Dockweiler take getting shit-canned?” he asked.
“Well, when you put it like that it sounds pretty bad,” Valdez said. “But every time we had to make a cutback we did our best to place people or come up with a plan for them. So, like I said, Marvin gave me the slot at Public Works to use and I came to Dockweiler with that. He took it but he wasn’t too happy about it. He wanted us to move the position from Public Works to the Police Department, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“Did he resent that Lourdes and Sisto weren’t cut first?”
“Well, I don’t know if you know this but Sisto is the son of a longtime city council member. So he wasn’t going anywhere and Dockweiler knew that. So, yes, he mostly focused his upset on Bella, said she was staying and he was going because she was a twofer. Then he asked me if her being a lesbian made her a three-fer.”
The chief’s phone rang and he immediately took it.
“Go,” he said.
He listened and then repeated an address on Stonington Drive, Saugus, for Bosch to memorize. Bosch recognized the address and immediately felt a charge as one more confirmation on Dockweiler clicked.
“Interesting,” Valdez said into the phone. “Shoot me a map link on a text for that second place. And you better start the callouts on SRT. Depending on what we get up here, I’ll make the call on that. Send me another text when you’ve got everybody ready to roll.”
Bosch knew that the Special Response Team was the SFPD’s version of SWAT. The officers on the team came from all over the Department and all had critical incident and high-level weapons training.
Valdez disconnected.
“Did you plot that address on GPS?” he asked.
“No,” Bosch said. “I already know how to get there. It’s up in Haskell Canyon, and Bella and I were up in that neighborhood Saturday tracing the Screen Cutter’s knife.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. Dockweiler’s gotta be the guy. The original owner of the knife reported it stolen out of his car in his driveway. He told us a Sheriff’s deputy was living across the street from him at the time. Dockweiler probably knew that deputy, had been in that part of the neighborhood. Maybe he saw the original owner with the knife. I don’t know how exactly but I do know it’s too close to be a coincidence. There are no coincidences. Dockweiler stole the knife.”
Valdez nodded. He was becoming a believer.
“It’s coming together, Harry,” he said.
“Let’s just hope it’s not too late for Bella,” Bosch said.
30
Bosch directed Valdez into Saugus and into a neighborhood on the other side of the Haskell Canyon Wash from where the Screen Cutter’s knife had been stolen from its original owner.
Along the way the police chief filled Bosch in on the second part of the phone call he had received from the com center. He explained that the city had a policy that required all employees to seek approval if they worked second jobs. This allowed the city to guard against employees getting involved in conflicts of interest or second jobs that might be embarrassing. The policy was enacted a decade earlier when the Los Angeles Times reported that an assistant city manager was also producing and performing in porno videos under the name Torrid Tori.
“So two years ago Dockweiler applied for and got clearance to work a part-time night security job at the Harris Movie Ranch over in Canyon Country,” Valdez said. “Gives us a secondary location. You ever been up there?”
“Never have,” Bosch said.
“Pretty cool place. I went up there a couple times with my brother-in-law who’s a screenwriter. It’s huge, like a couple hundred acres where they film all kinds of things. Westerns, detective shit, even sci-fi. There’s all kinds of structures in the woods that they use for shoot-outs and that kind of stuff. If Dockweiler has access, then I hate to say it but we could be searching up there for Bella till dawn. So I put SRT on standby. We’ll know if we need them after we get to Dockweiler’s house and see what’s there.”
Bosch nodded. It was a good plan.