Michael Connelly - The Wrong Side of Goodbye

He worked another two hours without a break or even a look up from the computer screen. When he was finished he took a gulp of cold black coffee and hit the print button. The universal printer on the other side of the room spit out six single-spaced pages of a chronology that began with the first Screen Cutter rape four years earlier and ended with Kurt Dockweiler lying facedown on his kitchen floor with a bullet lodged in his spine. Bosch proofed it with a red pen, made the corrections on the computer, and printed it again. He then took it to the chief’s office, where he found him talking on the phone to yet another reporter. He covered the receiver again.

“USA Today,” he said. “This story is going coast to coast.”

“Make sure they spell your name right,” Bosch said. “I’m going to need you to read and approve this. I want to file on Dockweiler first thing tomorrow morning. I’m going for five counts of forcible rape, one count attempted rape, then kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and multiple counts of theft of government property.”

“The kitchen-sink approach. I like it.”

“Let me know. I have to go write up the evidence report and the search warrant that we got approved last night.”

Bosch was about to leave the office, when Valdez held up a finger, then returned to his phone call.

“Donna, I need to go,” he said. “You have the details in the press release, and like I said, we’re not putting out either officer’s name at this time. We took a really bad character out of circulation and we’re all very proud of that. Thank you.”

Valdez hung up the phone, even as he and Bosch could hear the reporter’s voice asking another question.

“All day long,” Valdez said. “They’re calling from all over the place. Everybody wants to get photos of the dungeon. Everybody wants to talk to Bella and you.”

“I heard you on the phone earlier when you used that word dungeon ,” Bosch said. “That’s how things take on a whole new life in the media. It’s a fallout shelter, not a dungeon.”

“Well, as soon as Dockweiler has a lawyer he can sue me. These reporters... One of them told me the average cost of incarcerating an inmate is thirty K a year but with Dockweiler likely being a paraplegic now, it will double for him. I said, so what are you saying, we should have just executed him on the spot to save the money?”

“We did have our chance.”

“I’ll forget you said that, Harry. I don’t even want to think about what you were going to do to him last night.”

“Just what was necessary to find Bella.”

“Well, we did anyway.”

“We got lucky.”

“That wasn’t luck. That was good detective work. Anyway, you should be ready. They’re trying to find out who the shooter was and when they learn it was you, they’ll connect it to West Hollywood last year and everything else before. Be prepared.”

“I’ll take a vacation and disappear.”

“Good idea. So this is good to go?”

He had picked up the document Bosch had delivered.

“You tell me,” Bosch said.

“Okay, give me fifteen minutes,” Valdez said.

“By the way, where’s the captain been all day? Sleeping?”

“No, he’s staying at the hospital with Bella. I wanted someone there to keep the media away and in case she needed anything.”

Bosch nodded. It was a good move. He told Valdez he would be in the bureau and to call or e-mail if he wanted any changes to the charging document.

He returned to his computer in the detective bureau. He was just putting the finishing touches on a report summarizing the physical evidence they had amassed in the case when his cell phone buzzed. It was Mickey Haller calling.

“Yo, Bro, haven’t heard from you,” the lawyer said. “You talk to the granddaughter yet?”

The Vance case had been so thoroughly crowded out of Bosch’s mind with the events of the past eighteen hours that it seemed like his trip to San Diego had been a month ago.

“No, not yet,” Bosch said.

“What about Ida Parks Whatever-Her-Name-Is?” Haller asked.

“Ida Townes Forsythe. No, haven’t gotten to her yet either. Things have sort of been crazy with my other job.”

“Holy shit. You’re on that thing with the guy and the dungeon up there in Santa Clorox?”

It was an old nickname for Santa Clarita, reflecting its early incarnation as a destination for white flight from Los Angeles. It seemed somehow inappropriate coming from a guy Bosch knew grew up in Beverly Hills, the county’s first bastion of white isolationism and privilege.

“Yes, I’m on the case,” Bosch said.

“Tell me, is the guy hooked up with a lawyer yet?” Haller asked.

Bosch hesitated before answering.

“You don’t want to go there,” he said.

“Hey, I’ll go anywhere,” Haller said. “Have case, will travel. But you’re right, this probate stuff may keep me occupied for a while.”

“They file probate on Vance yet?”

“Nope. Waiting.”

“Well, I should be back on that sometime tomorrow. When I find the granddaughter I’ll let you know.”

“Bring her in, Harry. I’d like to meet her.”

Bosch didn’t answer. His attention was drawn to his screen, where he had just received an e-mail from Valdez approving his case summary and charging affidavit. He now had to finish the evidence report and the search warrant and he would be good to go.

On Wednesday morning Bosch was at the District Attorney’s Office as soon as the doors opened. Because it was a high profile case he had arranged to come in for an appointment to file charges against Dockweiler. Rather than going to an intake prosecutor who would file the case and then pass it on, never to see it again, the Dockweiler prosecution was assigned from the start to a veteran trial attorney named Dante Corvalis. Bosch had never worked with Corvalis previously but knew of him by reputation — his nickname in the courthouse was “The Undefeated” because he had never lost a case.

The process of filing went smoothly, with Corvalis only rejecting Bosch’s request for charges relating to the property crimes Dockweiler had committed. The prosecutor explained that it would already be a complicated case with the testimony of multiple victims and DNA analysis to explain to the jury. There was no need to spend prep time or court time on Dockweiler’s theft of tools, concrete, and a manhole cover from the Department of Public Works. That, simply, was small-time stuff that might create jury backlash.

“It’s the effect of TV,” Corvalis said. “Every trial you see on the box lasts an hour. Juries on real cases get impatient. So you can’t overprosecute a case. And the bottom line is, we don’t need it. We’ve got enough here to put him away forever. And we will. So let’s forget about the manhole cover — except for when you testify about finding Bella. It will be a nice detail to draw out in your testimony.”

Bosch couldn’t argue the point. He was happy just to have one of the office’s major players on the case from the start. Bosch and Corvalis agreed to set a schedule of meeting every Tuesday to discuss preparations for the case.

Bosch was out of the Foltz Building by ten. Rather than go to his car, he walked down Temple and then crossed over the 101 freeway at Main Street. He walked through Paseo de la Plaza Park and then down Olvera Street through the Mexican bazaar, assuring himself that he could not be followed by car.

At the end of the long passage through the souvenir stalls he turned and looked back to see if he had a tail on foot. Satisfied after several minutes that he was alone, he continued antisurveillance measures by crossing Alameda and entering Union Station. He passed through the giant waiting room and then took a circuitous path to the roof, where he pulled a TAP card out of his wallet and got on the Metro’s Gold Line.