“Kurt, right here!” he yelled.
Dockweiler started to swing the light back toward the police chief, the muzzle of his handgun moving with it. Bosch hit him with his body, smashing his chest into Dockweiler’s left arm and upper torso. Dockweiler made an oof sound as the air blasted out of his lungs and he fell heavily to the ground. Bosch bounced off the bigger man and went the opposite way to the ground.
No shot was fired. Sisto moved in and jumped on Dockweiler before he could recover from the impact. He grabbed his gun hand with two hands and wrested it free, then threw it onto the lawn a safe distance away. Valdez soon followed on the pile and Dockweiler, a larger man than any of the other four, was controlled. Bosch crawled over and put his weight on the back of the man’s legs while Trevino moved in and pulled his arms behind his back for cuffing.
“What the fuck is this?” Dockweiler yelled.
“Where is she?” Valdez yelled right back. “Where is Bella?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dockweiler managed to say, despite Sisto pushing his face into the grass of his front lawn. “I haven’t seen or talked to that bitch in two years.”
Valdez backed off the pile and stood up.
“Get him up,” he ordered. “We’ll get him inside. See if he’s got the keys on him.”
The flashlight had fallen to the grass and was pointing away from the men. Bosch reached over and grabbed it and started sweeping it over the grass, looking for the gun. When he spotted it he got up and went to claim it.
Dockweiler took the opportunity to attempt one last effort at standing up. Trevino drove a knee into the side of his torso and the impact ended the move. Dockweiler stopped resisting.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I give up. You assholes, what is it? Four against one? Fuck you.”
Trevino and Sisto started checking his pockets for keys.
“No, fuck you, Dockweiler,” Sisto said. “Tell us where Bella is. We know you grabbed her.”
“You are out of your fucking minds,” Dockweiler responded.
Bosch put the light on the truck’s open tailgate. He moved so that he could angle the light into the camper shell, fearful of what he might see.
But there was only an assortment of tools in the back of the truck and it was not readily apparent to him what Dockweiler had been doing at the tailgate when they watched him from the corner of the house.
Bosch noticed a key ring sitting on the tailgate and grabbed it.
“I have the keys,” he reported to the others.
While Sisto and Trevino stood Dockweiler up, Valdez came over to get a look at the back of the pickup.
“This didn’t exactly go down textbook,” Bosch said. “How do you want to handle it from here? No warrant and he’s not going to be inviting us in.”
“No PC but plenty of EC, if you ask me,” Valdez said. “We need to get into the house. Let’s open it.”
Bosch agreed but it was always better when the police chief himself made the call. Probable cause and a judge’s signature were needed for a search warrant, but exigent circumstances trumped all. There was no definitive legal definition that perfectly outlined the bounds of which emergencies allowed for the relaxing of constitutional protections. But Bosch felt that a missing police officer and a gun-wielding former colleague would qualify in any court in the land.
He checked the open garage as he walked to the front door. It was stacked full with boxes and pallets. There was no room to park the truck in there, so he wondered why Dockweiler had opened the door.
When he got to the front door he put the light on the key ring. There were several keys, including one Bosch recognized as the universal key that started all police and city vehicles, as well as a small bronze key that would open a smaller lock. He reached into his pocket and brought out his own keys. He compared the small bronze key to the filing cabinet in his cubicle at the detective bureau to the one on Dockweiler’s ring. The teeth lined up exactly.
Bosch had no doubt now. Dockweiler had kept a key to his desk in the detective bureau after transferring to Public Works and was the one who had clandestinely been checking the Screen Cutter file.
Bosch opened the front door with the second key he tried and then held the door as Dockweiler was walked in by Sisto and Trevino.
Valdez was the last to enter. Bosch was holding up Dockweiler’s key ring by the file key.
“What’s that?” Valdez asked.
“The key to my file drawer on his ring,” Bosch said. “I figured out last week that somebody was reviewing my files—especially on the Screen Cutter. I, uh, thought it was someone in the bureau. But it was him.”
Valdez nodded. It was another detail falling into place.
“Where do we put him?” Sisto asked.
“In the kitchen, if there’s a table and chairs,” Trevino said. “Lock him to a chair.”
Bosch followed the chief down the entrance hall and to the left into the kitchen and watched as Sisto and Trevino used two pairs of cuffs to secure Dockweiler to a chair in front of a cluttered table in a small dining nook that was the glass add-on Bosch had noticed from the backyard. It had floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides with venetian blinds to help control the heat the sun generated on the glass. Bosch wondered if Dockweiler had considered that when he added the atrium room to his house.
“This is bullshit,” the former detective said as soon as he was secured to the chair. “You got no warrant, you got no case, you come busting in here. This won’t stand. This will go down in flames and then I’ll own all of you assholes. And the city of San Fernando.”
Dockweiler’s face was dirty from the struggle on the front lawn. But in the harsh fluorescent light from the kitchen ceiling fixture Bosch could see slight discoloration in the corners of his eyes and an unnatural thickness in the upper nose. Residual bruising and swelling from a significant impact. He could also see that Dockweiler had tried to hide the purplish-yellow bruising with makeup.
The kitchen table had been set up as a bill-paying station. There were credit-card invoices and two checkbooks stacked sloppily on the left. On the right were pay stubs, financial records, and unopened mail in piles. At center was a coffee mug filled with pens and pencils and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. The house had the distinct smell of a smoker’s home. Bosch picked it up with every breath.
Bosch went to the window over the kitchen sink and unlocked and opened it to let some fresh air in. He then went to the table. He moved the mug to the left side of the table because he wanted nothing between himself and Dockweiler when they talked. He started to pull out the chair directly across the table from him. He knew that there were two things at stake in the interrogation that was about to begin: Bella Lourdes and the Screen Cutter case.
Bosch was about to sit down, when Trevino stopped him.
“Hold on, hold on.”
He pointed toward the hallway.
“Chief, let’s step out and talk for a minute,” Trevino said. “Bosch, you too. Sisto, you stay with him.”
“Yeah, you guys go out and talk about it,” Dockweiler mocked. “Try to figure out how you fucked this whole thing up and how you’re going to un-fuck it.”
Bosch turned at the archway that led from the kitchen into the hallway. He looked at Dockweiler, then at Sisto. He nodded. Whatever their differences, Sisto and Trevino had played it right when they had come up the side of the house. The chief might be a dead man if they hadn’t.
Sisto nodded back.
Trevino led the way down the hallway to the front door. Bosch and Valdez followed. They spoke in low voices and Trevino got right to the point.
“I’m going to handle the interview,” Trevino said.
Bosch looked from Trevino to Valdez and waited a moment for the chief to speak against that idea. But Valdez said nothing. Bosch looked back at Trevino.