Bosch squeezed her hand.
“Don’t say any more, Bella,” he said. “You did great. We got the guy and it’s over now. That’s all that matters.”
She closed her eyes again.
“I’m going to go back to sleep now,” she said.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be back soon, Bella. You hang in there.”
Bosch headed down the hall, thinking about Dockweiler torturing Bella to get information about him. He wondered where that would have led if things hadn’t ended that night.
In the waiting room Bosch found Valdez but no Taryn. The chief explained that she went home to get clothes for Bella for when she was released, whenever that would be. They spoke about the Screen Cutter case and what needed to be completed on their end for both the Sheriff’s shooting investigation and the prosecution of Dockweiler. They had forty-eight hours to present their case against the suspected rapist to the D.A.’s Office and ask for charges. Because Lourdes was out of commission in the hospital, Bosch was going to have to be point.
“I want this case to be airtight, Harry,” Valdez said. “And I want to hit him with everything we can. Every charge possible. I don’t want him ever breathing free air again.”
“Got it,” Bosch said. “That’s not going to be a problem. I’m going to go home, sleep till about noon, and then I’ll get back on it.”
Valdez clapped him on the upper arm in encouragement.
“Let me know what you need,” he said.
“You’re staying here?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah, for a while. Sisto texted and said he wanted to come by. I think I’ll wait for him. When this thing levels out, we need to all get together for some beers, make sure everybody’s okay.”
“That’ll be good.”
Bosch left the hospital then and ran into Sisto in the parking garage. He was in fresh clothes and looked like he might even have gotten some sleep.
“How’s Bella?” he asked.
“I don’t really know,” Bosch said. “She’s been through a kind of hell that’s hard to imagine.”
“Did you see her?”
“For a few minutes. The chief’s up there in the waiting room. He’ll get you in if he can.”
“Cool. See you back at the bureau.”
“I’m going to go home and sleep first.”
Sisto nodded and walked off. Bosch thought of something and then called after him.
“Hey, Sisto.”
The young detective walked back.
“Yeah, listen, I’m sorry for losing my cool and pushing you,” Bosch said. “And throwing your phone. It was just a tense situation, you know?”
“No, man, it was cool,” Sisto said. “You were right. I don’t want to be a fuckup, Harry. I want to be a good detective like you.”
Bosch nodded his thanks for the compliment.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get there. And you did good work last night.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to do something after you see Bella?”
“What do you mean?”
“Go over to Public Works and tape off Dockweiler’s desk. We’ll need to go through it. Then get the supervisor over there to pull records on all code inspections he did over the last four years. You’re looking for unpermitted dwellings.”
“You think that’s how he picked the victims?”
“I guarantee it. Pull all of those and put ’em on my desk. I’ll go through them when I get in and put him on the streets where our victims lived.”
“Cool. We need a warrant?”
“I don’t think so. Public records.”
“Okay, Harry, I’m on it. They’ll be on your desk.”
Bosch gave him a fist bump, then headed off to his car.
35
Bosch went home, took a long shower, and then crawled into his bed for what he intended to be a four-hour nap. He even tied a bandanna around his head and over his eyes to keep out the light of the day. But less than two hours into a deep trench of sleep he was awakened by a blaring guitar riff. He yanked the bandanna off and tried to do the same with the vestiges of sleep. Then clarity came and he realized it was the ringtone his daughter had programmed into his phone so he would know when she was calling: “Black Sun” by Death Cab for Cutie. She had programmed it into her own phone for his calls to her as well.
He grabbed at the phone, knocking it off the bed table to the floor, before finally picking it up and answering.
“Maddie? What’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing. What’s wrong with you? You sound weird.”
“I was sleeping. What’s going on?”
“Well I thought we were maybe going to have lunch today. Are you still at your hotel?”
“Shoot, I’m sorry, Maddie. I forgot to call you. I’m back home. I got called back last night on an emergency. An officer got abducted and we worked all night on it.”
“Holy shit! Abducted? Did you get him back?”
“It was a she, and yes, we got her back. But it was a long night and I’m just catching up. I think I’m going to be kind of busy for a few days. Can we do lunch or dinner this weekend or early next week?”
“Yeah, no worries. But how was she abducted?”
“Uh, it’s kind of a long story but he was a wanted guy and he sort of grabbed her before she grabbed him. But we got her back, he’s under arrest, and everything’s okay.”
He left the explanation short because he didn’t want her to know the details of what had happened to Bella Lourdes or that he had shot her abductor. That would make for a long conversation.
“Well, good. I guess, then, I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
“Did you have classes this morning?”
“Psychology and Spanish. I’m finished for the day.”
“That’s nice.”
“Uh, Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“I kind of also wanted to say I was sorry about what I said yesterday about the restaurant and everything. I didn’t know your reasons and it kind of sucked that I jumped on you. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, baby. You didn’t know and it’s all right.”
“So we’re cool?”
“We’re cool.”
“Love you, Dad. Now go to sleep.”
She laughed.
“What?”
“That’s what you used to say to me when I was little. ‘Love you, now go to sleep.’”
“I remember that.”
After disconnecting, Bosch pulled the bandanna back over his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
And failed.
Twenty minutes into the effort, with the Death Cab guitar hook an earworm playing in his head, he gave up on finding the sleep trench again and got out of bed. He took another quick shower to refresh himself and headed back north to San Fernando.
The number of media trucks outside the police station had doubled since the week before when the Screen Cutter was just a wanted man. Now that he had been identified, had abducted one cop, and had been shot by another, the case was big news. Bosch went in the side door as usual and was able to escape notice from the reporters gathered in the front lobby. The department’s media officer was usually the captain, as part of his catchall duties, but Bosch assumed Trevino would not be the point man on a story he had played a significant part in. He suspected the media management on this story would fall to Sergeant Rosenberg, who was affable and telegenic in a cop sort of way. He looked like a cop and talked like a cop and that’s what the media wanted.
The detective bureau was deserted and that was the way Bosch needed it. After an event like that of the night before, people tended to want to talk. They’d gather around the desk and tell it from their point of view, listen to it from somebody else’s point of view. It was therapeutic. But Bosch didn’t want to talk. He wanted to work. He had to write what he knew would be a lengthy and detailed charging document that would be first scrutinized by his superiors in the department, then by multiple prosecutors with the District Attorney’s Office and then a defense lawyer and, eventually, even the media. He wanted focus, and the quiet detective bureau would be perfect.