Michael Connelly - The Wrong Side of Goodbye

It was a disgusting process with the can largely filled with rotting food and the occasional disposable baby diaper. It also appeared that at some point during the weekend someone had vomited directly into the receptacle. It took him a solid ten minutes to thoroughly dig through it to the bottom. He found no mask and no gloves.

Undaunted, Bosch went to the next trash can twenty yards further down Maclay and started the same process. Without his jacket on, his badge was visible on his belt, and that probably stopped shop owners and passersby from asking what he was doing. At the second can he drew the attention of a family eating at the front window of a taqueria ten feet away. Bosch tried to conduct his search while positioning his body as a visual blind to them. It was more of the same detritus in the second can but he hit pay dirt halfway through the excavation. There in the debris was a black leather wrestling mask with a green-and-red design.

Bosch straightened up out of the can and stripped off his gloves, dropping them to the ground next to the trash can. He then pulled his cell phone and took several photos of the mask in place in the can. After documenting the find he called the SFPD com room and told the officer in charge he needed to call in an evidence team from the Sheriff’s Department to collect the mask from the trash receptacle.

“You can’t bag it and tag it yourself?” the officer asked.

“No, I can’t bag it and tag it,” Bosch said. “There is going to be genetic evidence inside and possibly outside the mask. I want to go four by four on it so some lawyer down the line doesn’t get to tell a jury I did it all wrong and tainted the case. Okay?”

“Okay, okay, I was just asking. I need to get Captain Trevino to sign off on this and then I’ll call the Sheriff’s. It might be a while.”

“I’ll be here waiting.”

A while turned out to be three hours. Bosch waited patiently, spending part of the time talking to Lourdes when she called him after he had texted her a photo of the mask. It was a good find and would help bring a new dimension to their understanding of the Screen Cutter. They also agreed there would undoubtedly be genetic material inside the mask that could be linked to the rapist. In that regard it would be like the semen collected in three of the other assaults: a definitive link, but only if the suspect was identified. Bosch said he was holding out hope that they would do better and that the treated leather of the mask would hold a fingerprint left when the mask was pulled on and adjusted. A fingerprint would be a whole new angle. The Screen Cutter may never have been DNA-typed, but he could have been fingerprinted. A driver’s license in California required a thumbprint. If there was a thumbprint on the mask, they might be in business. Bosch had worked cases with the LAPD where prints were pulled off of leather coats and boots. It wasn’t a reach to hope the mask could be the case breaker.

“You done good, Harry,” Lourdes said. “Now I wish I was working today.”

“It’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’re both on the case now. My get is your get and vice versa.”

“Well, that attitude will make Captain Trevino happy.”

“Which is what we are all striving for.”

She was laughing as they disconnected.

Bosch went back to waiting. Repeatedly through the afternoon he had to shoo away pedestrians aiming to use the trash can for its public purpose. The one instance where someone got by him was when he remembered he had left his sports coat on the bus bench up at the corner and walked back to retrieve it. When he turned back around he saw a woman who was pushing a baby carriage throw something into the receptacle containing the mask. She had come out of nowhere and Bosch was too late to stop her. He expected to find another disposable diaper when he returned but instead found a half-eaten ice-cream cone splatted directly on the mask.

Cursing to himself, Bosch put on latex again, reached in, and flipped the melting chocolate mess off the mask. When he did so he saw a single glove much like the one he was wearing underneath the mask. It reduced his frustration level but not by much.

The two-man forensic team from the Sheriff’s Department didn’t arrive until almost 4 p.m. and they didn’t seem too pleased about the Sunday afternoon callout or the fact that they would be working in a trash can. Bosch was unapologetic and asked them to photograph, chart, and collect the evidence. That process, which included emptying the entire contents of the can onto plastic sheets and then examining each piece before transferring it to a second sheet took nearly two hours.

In the end, the mask and two gloves were recovered and taken to the Sheriff’s lab for analysis along all lines of evidence. Bosch asked for a rush but the lead forensic tech just nodded and smiled as though he was dealing with a naive child who thought he was first in line in life.

Bosch got back to the detective bureau at seven and saw no sign of Captain Trevino. The door to his office was closed and the transom window dark. Bosch sat down in his cubicle and typed up an evidence report on the recovery of the mask and gloves and the anonymous tip that led to them. He then printed two copies, one for his file and one for the captain.

He went back to the computer and filled out a supplemental lab request form that would be sent to the Sheriff’s lab at Cal State L.A. and serve as a means of doubling-down on the request for a rush. The timing was good. A courier from the lab made a weekly stop at the SFPD on Mondays to drop off and pick up evidence. Bosch’s request for a rush would get to the lab by the next afternoon, even if the forensic tech who collected the evidence didn’t pass along his verbal request. In the request Bosch asked for a complete examination of the mask inside and out for fingerprints, hair, and all other genetic material. Additionally, he asked the lab to check the inside of the latex gloves for similar evidence. He cited the fact that the investigation was a serial offender case as the reason for fast-tracking the analysis. He wrote: “This offender will not stop his terror and violence against women until we stop him. Please speed this along.”

This time he printed out three copies of his work — one for his own case file, one for Trevino, and the third for the lab courier. After dropping off the third copy at the evidence control room, Bosch was clear to head home. He had put in a solid day and had broken out a good lead with the mask and gloves. But instead he headed back to his cubicle to shift cases and spend some time on the Vance investigation. Thanks to the attendance board, he knew that Trevino had long ago signed out for the day and that he need not worry about being discovered.

Bosch was intrigued by the story Halley Lewis had told him about Dominick Santanello being drawn into the Chicano Pride movement while in training down in San Diego. His description of the park beneath a freeway overpass was particularly worth checking into. Bosch came at it from several angles on Google and soon enough was looking at photos and a map of a place called Chicano Park, which was located beneath the 5 freeway and the exit to the bridge crossing San Diego Bay to Coronado Island.

The photos of the park showed dozens of murals painted on every concrete pillar and stanchion supporting the overhead freeway and bridge. The murals depicted religious allegories, cultural heritage, and individuals of note in the Chicano Pride movement. One pillar was painted with a mural that marked the founding of the park in April 1970. Bosch realized that Santanello was in Vietnam by then, which meant that his association with the woman Lewis identified as Gabriela began before the park was formally approved by the city and dedicated.