The Wrong Side of Goodbye Page 10

  It had occurred at the Starbucks on Truman a month earlier. When Bosch and Lourdes found out that Maron delivered mail on a route that included three of the four victims’ homes, they decided the quickest way to identify or eliminate him as a suspect was to get his DNA and compare it to that from the rapist. They watched him for two days and, while he did nothing that engendered suspicion, he did stop on his morning breaks at the Starbucks, where he drank tea and ate a breakfast sandwich.

  In a bit of improvising, Lourdes followed Maron into the coffee shop on the third day, purchased an iced tea, and then sat at an outside table next to the mailman. When he was finished eating he wiped his mouth with a napkin, stuffed it into the empty paper bag his sandwich had come in, and tossed it into a nearby trash can. As he headed back to his mail van, Lourdes took a position guarding the trash can from being used by other patrons. When she saw Maron jump into the van, she removed the top of the trash can and looked down at the paper bag he had just discarded. She put on latex gloves and pulled out a plastic evidence bag to collect the possible DNA specimen. Bosch emerged from the follow car and pulled his phone so he could get a video of the collecting of the bag in case DNA from it was ever introduced in court. The courts had upheld the validity of surreptitious collection of DNA from public locations. He needed to document where the specimen was collected as well.

  The unforeseen problem was that Maron had left his cell phone on his table and realized it just as he was about to back out of his parking spot. He jumped back out of his van and went to retrieve the phone. Coming across Bosch and Lourdes collecting his discarded debris, he said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  At that point, knowing that Maron could flee, the detectives had to treat him as a suspect. They asked him to come to the station to answer questions and he angrily agreed. During the ensuing interview he denied any knowledge of the rapes. He acknowledged knowing three of the victims by name but said that was because he delivered their mail.

  While Bosch handled the interview, Lourdes was able to round up the four known victims and get them to come in for audiovisual lineups. Because the rapist had worn a mask during each assault, the detectives were hoping an identification might be made by one of the victims recognizing his voice, hands, or eyes.

  Four hours after the incident at the coffee shop Maron voluntarily but sullenly stood in a lineup that was viewed separately by all four women. He held his hands out and read sentences said by the rapist during the assaults. None of them identified him as their assailant.

  Maron was released that day and his innocence confirmed a week later when DNA from the napkin he wiped his mouth with was deemed no match to the DNA of the rapist. The chief of police sent him a letter apologizing for the incident and thanking him for his cooperation.

  Now, after pushing the mail through the slot, Maron walked back toward his van and then made a sudden turn toward Bosch’s car. Harry lowered the window to accept the verbal confrontation.

  “Hey, I want you to know, I hired a lawyer,” Maron said. “I’m going to sue all your asses for false arrest.”

  Bosch nodded like the threat was just par for the course.

  “I hope it’s a contingency deal,” he said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Maron said.

  “I hope you’re not paying your lawyer. Put it on contingency; that means he gets paid only if he wins. Because you aren’t going to win, Mitchell. If he’s telling you anything else, he’s lying.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You agreed to come in. There was no arrest. We even let you drive the mail van in so nothing would get stolen. You don’t have a case and the only one who will make book are the lawyers. Think about that.”

  Maron leaned down and put his hand on the Jeep’s windowsill.

  “So I’m just supposed to let it go, then,” he said. “I felt like I’m the one who got raped and it’s just ‘never mind.’”

  “Not even close, Mitchell,” Bosch said. “You say that to one of the real victims and they’d put you in your place. What you went through was a shitty couple of hours. There’s no end to what they’re going through.”

  Maron slapped the sill and stood up straight.

  “Fuck you!”

  He stalked back to his van and took off, the wheels screeching. The effect was undercut when sixty feet later he had to hit the brakes to make the delivery to the next house down.

  Bosch’s phone rang and he saw it was Lourdes.

  “Bella.”

  “Harry, where are you?”

  “Out and about. How’d it go at Foothill?”

  “A nonstarter. The cases didn’t match.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Oh, well. I just ran into your boy Mitch Maron. He’s still pissed at us.”

  “At Starbucks?”

  “No, I’m in front of Frida Lopez’s old house. He just came by to deliver the mail and tell me what a shit I am. Says he’s going to hire a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that. What are you doing there?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking. I guess hoping something would shake loose. I think our guy—something tells me it won’t be long before there’s another.”

  “I know what you mean. That’s why I was so hyped about this Foothill thing. Damn it! Why are there no other cases out there?”

  “That’s the question.”

  Bosch heard the call-waiting click on his phone. He checked the screen and saw that it was the number Whitney Vance had given him.

  “Hey, I got a call,” he said. “Let’s talk tomorrow about next moves.”

  “You got it, Harry,” Lourdes said.

  Bosch switched over to the other call.

  “Mr. Vance?”

  There was no answer, only silence.

  “Mr. Vance, are you there?”

  Silence.

  Bosch pushed the phone hard against his ear and put the window back up. He thought he might be able to hear breathing. He wondered if it was Vance and if he was unable to talk because of the health issue Sloan had mentioned.

  “Mr. Vance, is that you?”

  Bosch waited but heard nothing and then the call was disconnected.

  13

  Bosch made his way over to the 405 freeway and headed south through the Valley and over the Sepulveda Pass. It took him an hour to get down to LAX, where he slowly followed the loop on the departures level and parked in the last garage. He grabbed a flashlight from the glove box and then got out and quickly moved around the car, crouching down to point the light into the wheel wells and under the bumpers and the gas tank. But he knew that if his car had been tagged with a GPS tracker, the likelihood of him finding it would be very low. Advances in tracking technology had made the devices smaller and easier to hide.

  His plan was to go online and buy a GPS jammer but it would take a few days to get it. Meantime, he went into the car to return the flashlight to the glove box and gather the birth certificates into a backpack he kept on the floor. He then locked the car and took the pedestrian overpass to the United Airlines terminal where he rode an escalator down to the arrivals level. Circling around a baggage carousel that was surrounded by travelers fresh off a flight, he moved in and out of the crowd and went out the double doors to the pickup zone. He crossed the pickup lanes to the rental-car island and jumped on the first shuttle he saw, a yellow bus destined for the Hertz rental counters on Airport Boulevard. He asked the driver if they had cars available and the driver gave him the thumbs-up.

  The Cherokee that Bosch left in the parking garage was twenty-two years old. At the Hertz counter he was offered the option of trying out a brand-new Cherokee, and he took it despite the surcharge. Ninety minutes after leaving San Fernando he was back on the 405, heading north in a car that could not have been tagged by anyone hoping to follow him or keep GPS tabs on where he was going. Just the same, he checked the mirrors repeatedly to be sure.

  When he got up to Westwood he exited the freeway on Wilshire Bou
levard and made his way into the Los Angeles National Cemetery. It was 114 acres of graves containing soldiers from every war, every campaign, from the Civil War to Afghanistan. Thousands of white marble stones in perfect rows standing as a testament to the military precision and waste of war.

  Bosch had to use the Find a Grave screen in the Bob Hope Memorial Chapel to locate the spot where Dominick Santanello was buried on the North Campus. But soon he stood in front of it, looking down at the perfect green grass and listening to the constant hiss of the nearby freeway as the sun turned the sky in the west pink. Somehow, in little more than twenty-four hours, he had built a feeling of kinship with this soldier he had never met or known. They had both been on that boat in the South China Sea. And there was the fact that Bosch alone knew the secret history and tragedy heaped upon tragedy of the dead man’s short life.

  After a while he pulled out his phone and took a photo of the marker. It would be part of the report he would eventually give Whitney Vance—if the old man was able to receive it.

  While the phone was still in his hand it buzzed with a new call. The screen showed a number with an 805 area code and Bosch knew that was Ventura County. He took the call.

  “This is Harry Bosch.”

  “Uh, hello. This is Olivia Macdonald. You posted a message on my brother’s memorial page. You wanted to talk to me?”

  Bosch nodded, noting that she had already answered one question. Dominick Santanello was her brother.

  “Thank you for calling so quickly, Olivia,” Bosch said. “At the moment, I’m actually standing at Nick’s grave in Westwood. At the veterans’ cemetery.”

  “Really?” she said. “I don’t understand. What is going on?”

  “I need to speak to you. Could we meet? I could come to you.”

  “Well, I guess so. I mean, wait a minute. No. Not until you tell me what this is about.”

  Bosch thought for a long moment before responding. He didn’t want to lie to her but he couldn’t reveal his true purpose. Not yet. He was bound by confidentiality and the sheer complication of the story. She hadn’t blocked her number. He knew he could find her even if she told him to pound sand and hung up on him. But the connection he felt with Dominick Santanello extended to his sister. He didn’t want to hurt or haunt this woman, who at the moment was no more than a voice on the phone.

  He decided to take a shot in the dark.

  “Nick knew he was adopted, right?” he said.

  There was a long silence before she answered.

  “Yes, he knew,” Olivia said.

  “Did he ever wonder where he came from?” Bosch asked. “Who his father was. His mother…”

  “He knew his mother’s name,” Olivia said. “Vibiana. She was named after a church. But that was all our adoptive parents knew. He never pursued it past that.”

  Bosch closed his eyes for a moment. It was another piece of confirmation. It told him that since Olivia had been adopted too, she might understand the need to know.

  “I know more,” he said. “I’m a detective and I know the whole story.”

  There was another long pause before Olivia spoke.

  “Okay,” she said. “When do you want to meet?”

  14

  Bosch started Thursday morning shopping online. He studied an array of GPS detectors and jammers and chose a combo device that did both. It cost him two hundred dollars with two-day shipping.

  He next went to the phone to call an NCIS investigator at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. He had Gary McIntyre’s name and number on a list of contacts he took with him when he left the LAPD. McIntyre was a cooperative straight shooter that Bosch had worked with on at least three prior cases as a homicide investigator. He was now hoping to trade on that experience and mutual trust to obtain a copy of Dominick Santanello’s service package—the file containing all records of his military service, ranging from his training history to the location of every base he was ever stationed at, medals he was awarded, his leave and disciplinary history, and the summary report on his death in combat.

  The military records archive was routinely on the checklist of cold case investigation because of how frequently military service played a part in people’s lives. It was a good way to fill in details on victims, suspects, and witnesses. In this case Bosch already knew the military angle regarding Santanello but he would be able to layer it with a deeper history. His investigation was essentially at an end and he was now looking to put a full report together for Whitney Vance as well as possibly find a way to make a DNA confirmation that Dominick Santanello was his son. If nothing else, Bosch prided himself on being thorough and complete in his work.

  The files were made available to family members and their representatives but Bosch was not in a position to reveal he was working for Whitney Vance. He could play the law enforcement card but didn’t want that blowing back on him should McIntyre check to see if his request was part of an official investigation by the SFPD. So instead he was up front with McIntyre. He said he was calling about a case he had as a private investigator where he was trying to confirm Santanello as the son of a client whose name he could not reveal. He told McIntyre that he had a meeting later with Santanello’s adoptive sister and he might be able to swing a permission letter from her if needed.

  McIntyre told Bosch not to sweat it. He appreciated the honesty and would trust him. He said he needed a day or two to track down the file in question and then make a digital copy of it. He promised to make return contact when he was ready to send and Bosch could have until then to come up with a family permission letter. Bosch thanked him and said he looked forward to his call.

  Bosch’s appointment with Olivia Macdonald was not until 1 p.m., so he had the rest of the morning to review case notes and prepare. One thing he was already charged about was that the address she had given him for her home matched the address listed for the parents of Dominick Santanello on his birth certificate. This meant she was living in the home where her adopted brother had grown up. It might be a long shot but it put the chances of finding a DNA source into the realm of possibility.

  Bosch then made a call to defense attorney Mickey Haller, his half brother, to ask if he had a referral for a private lab that would be quick, discreet, and reliable in making a DNA comparison, should he come up with a source. Up until this point, Bosch had only worked DNA cases as a cop and had used his department’s lab and resources to get comparisons done.

  “I’ve got a couple I use—both fast and reliable,” Haller said. “Let me guess, Maddie finally figured out she’s too smart to have been your kid. Now you’re scrambling to prove she is.”

  “Funny,” Bosch said.

  “Well, then, is it for a case? A private case?”

  “Something like that. I can’t talk about it but I do have you to thank for it. The client wanted me because of that bit of business last year in West Hollywood.”

  The case that Whitney Vance had referenced during the interview involved a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and a couple of corrupt LAPD cops. It had ended badly for them in West Hollywood but it had begun with Bosch working a case for Haller.

  “Then it sounds like I’m due a commission on any funds you collect on this thing, Harry,” Haller said.

  “Doesn’t sound like that to me,” Bosch said. “But if you hook me up with a DNA lab, there might be something in it for you down the line.”

  “I’ll send you an e-mail, broheim.”

  “Thanks, broheim.”

  Bosch left the house at 11:30 so he would have time to grab something to eat on his way to Oxnard. Out on the street he checked in all directions for surveillance before hiking a block up to the spot where he had parked the rented Cherokee. He ate tacos at Poquito Más at the bottom of the hill and then jumped onto the 101 and followed it west across the Valley and into Ventura County.

  Oxnard was the biggest city in Ventura County. Its unattractive name was that of a sugar beet farmer who built a proc
essing plant in the settlement in the late nineteenth century. The city totally surrounded Port Hueneme, where there was a small U.S. Navy base. One of the questions Bosch planned to ask Olivia Macdonald was whether proximity to the base was what lured her brother into enlisting in the Navy.

  Traffic was reasonable and Bosch got to Oxnard early. He used the time to drive around the port and then along Hollywood Beach, a strip of homes on the Pacific side of the port where the streets were named La Brea and Sunset and Los Feliz after the well-known boulevards of Tinseltown.

  He pulled up in front of Olivia Macdonald’s house right on time. It was in an older, middle-class neighborhood of neatly kept California bungalows. She was waiting for Bosch in a chair on the front porch. He guessed that they were about the same age and he could see that, like her adoptive brother, it was likely she had both white and Latina origins. She had hair that was as white as snow and she was dressed in faded jeans and a white blouse.

  “Hello, I’m Harry Bosch,” he said.

  He reached his hand down to her and she shook it.

  “Olivia,” she said. “Please have a seat.”

  Bosch sat in a wicker chair across a small glass-topped table from her. There was a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses on the table and he accepted her offer of a glass just to be cordial. He saw a manila envelope on the table that had Do Not Bend handwritten on it and assumed it contained photos.

  “So,” she said, after pouring two glasses. “You want to know about my brother. My first question is, who is it you work for?”

  Bosch knew it would begin this way. He also knew that how he answered this question would determine how much cooperation and information he would get from her.

  “Well, Olivia, that’s the awkward part,” he said. “I was hired by a man who wanted to find out if he had a child back in 1951. But part of the deal was that I had to agree to the strictest confidence and not reveal who my employer was to anyone until he released me from that promise. So I’m sort of caught in the middle here. It’s a catch-22 thing. I can’t tell you who hired me until I can confirm that your brother was his son. You don’t want to talk to me until I tell you who hired me.”