Michael Connelly: The Wrong Side of Goodbye

Bosch nodded.

“That would be good, yes.”

Vance nodded back and offered the lopsided smile again. He looked down for a moment and then back up at Bosch, his eyes deeply set and shiny behind rimless glasses.

“A long time ago I made a mistake,” he said. “I never corrected it, I never looked back. I now want to find out if I had a child. A child I could give my gold pen to.”

Bosch stared at him for a long moment, hoping he might continue. But when he did he seemed to have picked up another string of memory.

“When I was eighteen years old I wanted nothing to do with my father’s business,” Vance said. “I was more interested in being the next Orson Welles. I wanted to make films, not airplane parts. I was full of myself, as young men often are at that age.”

Bosch thought of himself at eighteen. His desire to blaze his own path had led him into the tunnels of Vietnam.

“I insisted on film school,” Vance said. “I enrolled at USC in 1949.”

Bosch nodded. He knew from his prior reading that Vance had spent only a year at USC before changing paths, transferring to Caltech and furthering the family dynasty. There had been no explanation found in his Internet search. Bosch now believed he was going to find out why.

“I met a girl,” Vance said. “A Mexican girl. And soon afterward, she became pregnant. It was the second worst thing that ever happened to me. The first was telling my father.”

Vance grew quiet, his eyes down on the desk in front of him. It wasn’t difficult to fill in the blanks but Bosch needed to hear as much of the story from Vance as he could.

“What happened?” he asked.

“He sent people,” Vance said. “People to persuade her not to have the child. People who would drive her to Mexico to take care of it.”

“Did she go?”

“If she did, it was not with my father’s people. She disappeared from my life and I never saw her again. And I was too much of a coward to go find her. I had given my father all he needed to control me: the potential embarrassment and disgrace. Even prosecution because of her age. I did what I was told. I transferred to Caltech and that was the end of it.”

Vance nodded, as though confirming something for himself.

“It was a different time then... for me and for her.”

Vance looked up now and held Bosch’s eyes for a long moment before continuing.

“But now I want to know. It’s when you reach the end of things that you want to go back...”

A few heartbeats went by before he spoke again.

“Can you help me, Mr. Bosch?” he asked.

Bosch nodded. He believed the pain in Vance’s eyes was real.

“It was a long time ago but I can try,” Bosch said. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions and take some notes?”

“Take your notes,” Vance said. “But I warn you again that everything about this must remain completely confidential. Lives could be in danger. Every move you make, you must look over your shoulder. I have no doubt that efforts will be made to find out why I wanted to see you and what you are doing for me. I have a cover story for that, which we can get to later. For now, ask your questions.”

Lives could be in danger . Those words ricocheted inside his chest as Bosch took a small notebook from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He pulled out a pen. It was made of plastic, not gold. He’d bought it at a drugstore.

“You just said lives could be in danger. Whose lives? Why?”

“Don’t be naive, Mr. Bosch. I am sure you conducted a modicum of research before coming to see me. I have no heirs — at least known heirs. When I die, control of Advance Engineering will go to a board of directors who will continue to line their pockets with millions while fulfilling government contracts. A valid heir could change all of that. Billions could be at stake. You don’t think people and entities would kill for that?”

“It’s been my experience that people will kill for any reason and no reason at all,” Bosch said. “If I find you have heirs, are you sure you want to possibly make them targets?”

“I would give them the choice,” Vance said. “I believe I owe them that. And I would protect them as well as is possible.”

“What was her name? The girl you got pregnant.”

“Vibiana Duarte.”

Bosch wrote it down on his pad.

“You know her birthdate by any chance?”

“I can’t remember it.”

“She was a student at USC?”

“No, I met her at the EVK. She worked there.”

“EVK?”

“The student cafeteria was called Everybody’s Kitchen. EVK for short.”

Bosch immediately knew this eliminated the prospect of tracing Vibiana Duarte through student records, which were usually very helpful, since most schools kept close track of their alums. It meant the search for the woman would be more difficult and even more of a long shot.

“You said she was Mexican,” he said. “You mean Latina? Was she a U.S. citizen?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think she was. My father—”

He didn’t finish.

“Your father what?” Bosch asked.

“I don’t know if it was the truth but my father said that was her plan,” Vance said. “To get pregnant so I would have to marry her and she would become a citizen. But my father said a lot of things to me that weren’t true and he believed a lot of things that were... out of step. So I don’t know.”

Bosch thought about what he had read about Nelson Vance and eugenics. He pressed on.

“By any chance, do you have a photograph of Vibiana?” he asked.

“No,” Vance said. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wished for a photograph. That I could just look at her one more time.”

“Where did she live?”

“By the school. Just a few blocks away. She walked to work.”

“Do you remember the address? The street, maybe?”

“No, I don’t remember. It was so long ago and I spent so many years trying to block it out. But the truth is, I never really loved anybody again after that.”

It was the first time Vance mentioned love or gave an indication of how deep the relationship had been. It had been Bosch’s experience that when you looked back at a life, you used a magnifying glass. Everything was bigger, amplified. A college tryst could become the love of a lifetime in memory. Still, Vance’s pain seemed real so many decades after the events he was describing. Bosch believed him.

“How long were you together with her before all of this happened?” he asked.

“Eight months between the first and last times I ever saw her,” Vance said. “Eight months.”

“Do you remember when she told you she was pregnant? I mean, what month or time of year?”

“It was after the start of the summer session. I had enrolled just because I knew I would see her. So late June 1950. Maybe early July.”

“And you say you met her eight months before that?”

“I had started in September the year before. I noticed her right away working at the EVK. I didn’t get the courage to talk to her for a couple months.”

The old man looked down at the desk.

“What else do you remember?” Bosch prompted. “Did you ever meet her family? Do you remember any names?”

“No, I didn’t,” Vance said. “She told me her father was very strict and they were Catholic, and I was not. You know, we were like Romeo and Juliet. I never met her family and she never met mine.”

Bosch seized on the one piece of information in Vance’s answer that might advance the investigation.

“Do you know what church she went to?”

Vance looked up, his eyes sharp.

“She told me she was named after the church where she was baptized. St. Vibiana’s.”

Bosch nodded. The original St. Vibiana’s was in downtown, just a block from the LAPD headquarters, where he used to work. More than a hundred years old, it was badly damaged in the 1994 earthquake. A new church was built nearby and the old structure was donated to the city and preserved. Bosch wasn’t sure but he believed it was an event hall and library now. But the connection to Vibiana Duarte was a good one. Catholic churches kept records of births and baptisms. He felt this bit of good information countered the bad news that Vibiana had not been a USC student. It was also a strong indication that she might have been a U.S. citizen, whether or not her parents were. If she was a citizen, she would be easier to track through public records.