Michael Connelly - The Wrong Side of Goodbye

Bosch entered the police station through the side door and headed down the back hall to the detective bureau. At the crossroads with the main hallway he looked right and saw a gathering of people outside the door to the roll-call room. Among them was Bella Lourdes, who caught Bosch in her peripheral vision and signaled him over. She was wearing jeans and a black golf shirt with the SFPD badge and unit designation on the left breast. Her gun and real badge were on her belt.

“What’s going on?” Bosch asked.

“We got lucky,” Lourdes said. “The Screen Cutter made an attempt today but the victim got away. The chief said that’s enough. He’s going public.”

Bosch just nodded. He still thought it was the wrong move but he understood the pressure on Valdez. Having sat on knowledge of the previous cases was going to look bad enough. Lourdes was right about that. They were lucky the chief wasn’t in the roll-call room telling the media about a fifth rape.

“Where’s the victim?” Bosch asked.

“In the War Room,” Lourdes said. “She’s still pretty shaky. I was giving her some time.”

“How come I wasn’t called?”

Lourdes looked surprised.

“The captain said he couldn’t reach you.”

Bosch just shook his head and let it go. It was a petty move on Trevino’s part, but there were more important things to worry about.

Bosch looked over the heads of Lourdes and the others in the hallway to try to get a glimpse of the press conference. He could see Valdez and Trevino at the front of the room. He could not tell how many members of the media had shown up, because the reporters would be sitting and the camera operators would be at the back. He knew it all depended on what else was going on in Los Angeles that day. A serial rapist on the loose in San Fernando, where the population largely ignored English-language media, was probably not a massive draw. He had seen that one of the media trucks outside was from Univision Noticias. That would get the word out locally.

“So did Trevino or Valdez talk about a control?” he asked.

“A control?” Lourdes asked.

“Holding something back that only we and the rapist would know. So we can kick out false confessions, confirm a true confession.”

“Uh... no, that didn’t come up.”

“Maybe Trevino should have actually tried to call me instead of trying to run a play on me.”

Bosch turned away from the group.

“You ready to go back and talk to her?” he asked. “How’s her English?”

“She understands English,” Lourdes said, “but likes to speak in Spanish.”

Bosch nodded. They started down the hall toward the detective bureau. The War Room was a large meeting room next to the bureau, with a long table and a whiteboard wall where raids, cases, and deployments could be D&Ded — diagrammed and discussed. It was usually used for operations like DUI task force sweeps and parade coverage.

“So what do we know?” Bosch asked.

“You probably know her or recognize her,” Lourdes said. “She’s a barista at the Starbucks. She works part-time on the morning shift. Six to eleven every day.”

“What’s her name?”

“Beatriz with a Z . Last name Sahagun.”

Bosch couldn’t connect the name with a face. There were three women who were usually working at Starbucks in the mornings when he came in. He assumed he would recognize her when he got to the War Room.

“She went right home after work?” Bosch said.

“Yes, and he’s waiting for her,” Lourdes said. “She lives on Seventh a block off of Maclay. Fits the profile: single family house, residential abutting commercial. She comes in and immediately knows something’s off.”

“She saw the screen?”

“No, she didn’t see anything. She smelled him.”

“Smelled him?”

“She just said she came in and the house didn’t smell right. And she remembered our fuckup with the mailman. She was working there at the Starbucks that day we took Maron down. Then the next time he came in for his coffee and breakfast sandwich, he told the girls behind the counter that the police had mistaken him for a rapist that was hitting in the neighborhoods. So she was immediately alarmed. She comes home, something isn’t right, and she grabs a broom in the kitchen.”

“Holy shit, brave girl. She should’ve gotten out of there.”

“Fucking A, I know. But she sneaks up on him . Comes into the bedroom and knows he’s behind the curtain. She can tell. So she takes a swing with the broom like Adrian Gonzalez and clocks the guy. Right in the face. He falls out, brings the curtain down with him. He’s dazed, doesn’t know what the fuck happened, and then just jumps through the window and books it. We’re talking right through the glass.”

“Who’s working that scene?”

“The A team, and the captain put Sisto on it to babysit. But Harry, guess what? We got the knife.”

“Wow.”

“He dropped it when she hit him and then it got tangled up in the curtain and he left it. Sisto just called me when they found it.”

“Does the chief know about it?”

“No.”

“That’s our control. We need to tell Sisto and the A team to keep it on the down-low.”

“Got it.”

“What mask was he wearing?”

“Didn’t get to that yet with her.”

“What about her menstrual cycle?”

“Didn’t ask about that either.”

They were now at the door to the War Room.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “You ready? You take lead.”

“Let’s do it.”

Bosch opened the door and held it as Lourdes went in first. He immediately recognized the woman sitting at the big table as someone who made his iced lattes at the Starbucks around the corner. She was always smiling and friendly and was usually making his drink before he had even ordered it.

Beatriz Sahagun was texting someone on her phone as they entered. She looked up solemnly and recognized Bosch. A small smile played on her face.

“Iced latte,” she said.

Bosch nodded and smiled back. He offered his hand and she shook it.

“Beatriz, I’m Harry Bosch. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Bosch and Lourdes took seats across the table from her and began asking her questions. With the general story already known, Lourdes was able to take a deeper dive, and new details emerged. On occasion Bosch would ask a question and Lourdes would repeat it in Spanish to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Beatriz answered the questions slowly and thoughtfully and that allowed Bosch to understand most of what was said without needing Lourdes to translate back to him.

Beatriz was twenty-four years old and fit the physical profile of the Screen Cutter’s prior victims. She had long brown hair, dark eyes, and a slight build. She had worked at Starbucks for two years and primarily as a barista because her English-language skills were not up to the level required for taking orders and payments. She reported to Bosch and Lourdes that she had had no troubling encounters with customers or fellow employees. She had no stalkers or issues with former boyfriends. She shared her house with another Starbucks barista who usually worked the day shift and was gone at the time of the intrusion.

In the course of the interview Beatriz revealed that the intruder in her house was wearing a Lucha Libre wrestling mask and she offered the same description of it as the previous Screen Cutter victim — black, green, and red.

She also revealed that she tracked her menstrual cycle on a calendar she kept on her bedside table. She explained that she was raised as a strict Catholic and had practiced the rhythm method of birth control with her former boyfriend.

The detectives paid particular attention to what had alerted Beatriz to the possibility that there was an intruder in her house. The smell. Under careful questioning she revealed that she believed it was not the smell of cigarettes but the smell exuded by someone who smokes. Bosch understood the distinction and thought it was a good get. The Screen Cutter was a smoker. He didn’t smoke while he was in her house but he had a scent trail that she picked up on.