The Wrong Side of Goodbye

by Michael Connelly

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, I’m still here.”

  “Okay, we don’t normally do this but I have an address here that you can use to mail a card to Abigail. I can’t give out her phone number without her permission and I just tried and couldn’t reach her.”

  “The address will be fine, then. If I put it in the mail today, she should get it in time.”

  The woman proceeded to give Bosch an address on Vineland Boulevard in Studio City. He wrote it down, thanked her, and quickly got off the phone.

  Bosch looked at the address. It would be a quick drive from his house down into the Valley and Studio City. The address included a unit number, which made him think it could be a retirement home, considering Turnbull’s age. There might be real security involved beyond the usual gates and buttons found at every apartment complex in the city.

  Bosch grabbed a rubber band out of a kitchen drawer and stretched it around the stack of birth certificates. He wanted to take them with him, just in case. He grabbed his keys and was heading toward the side door when there was a hard knock at the front of the house. Changing course, he went to the front door.

  The unnamed security man who had escorted Bosch through the Vance house the day before was standing on the front step.

  “Mr. Bosch, I’m glad I caught you,” he said.

  His eyes fell on the banded stack of birth certificates and Bosch reflexively dropped the hand that held them down and behind his left thigh. Annoyed that he had made such an obvious move to hide them, he spoke abruptly.

  “What can I do for you?” he said. “I’m on my way out.”

  “Mr. Vance sent me,” the man said. “He wanted to know if you have made any progress.”

  Bosch looked at him for a long moment.

  “What’s your name?” he finally asked. “You never said it yesterday.”

  “Sloan. I’m in charge of security at the Pasadena estate.”

  “How did you find out where I live?”

  “I looked it up.”

  “Looked it up where? I’m not listed anywhere and the deed to this house isn’t in my name.”

  “We have ways of finding people, Mr. Bosch.”

  Bosch looked at him for a long moment before responding.

  “Well, Sloan, Mr. Vance told me to talk only to him about what I was doing. So if you’ll excuse me.”

  Bosch started to close the door and Sloan immediately put his hand out and stopped it.

  “You really don’t want to do that,” Bosch said.

  Sloan backed off and held his hands up.

  “I apologize,” he said. “But I must tell you, Mr. Vance took ill yesterday after speaking with you. He sent me this morning to ask you if you’ve made any headway.”

  “Headway with what?” Bosch asked.

  “With the job you were hired to do.”

  Bosch held up a finger.

  “Can you wait here one minute?” he asked.

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He closed the door and put the stack of birth certificates under his arm. He went to the dining room table, where he had left the business card with the direct number to Vance printed on it. He punched in the number on his phone and then went back to the front door, opening it while listening to his call ringing.

  “Who are you calling?” Sloan asked.

  “Your boss,” Bosch said. “Just want to make sure he’s okay with our discussing the case.”

  “He won’t answer.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll just—”

  The call clicked over to a long beep without an outgoing message from Vance.

  “Mr. Vance, this is Harry Bosch. Please call me back.”

  Bosch recited his number, disconnected, and then spoke to Sloan.

  “You know what I don’t get? I don’t get Vance sending you here to ask that question without first telling you what the job is he hired me to do.”

  “I told you, he has taken ill.”

  “Yeah, well, then I’ll wait until he’s better. Tell him to call me then.”

  Bosch read the look of hesitation on Sloan’s face. There was something else. He waited and Sloan finally delivered.

  “Mr. Vance also has reason to believe the phone number he gave you has been compromised. He wants you to report through me. I’ve been in charge of his personal security for twenty-five years.”

  “Yeah, well, he’ll have to tell me that himself. When he gets better, you let me know and I’ll come back out there to the palace.”

  Bosch swung the door closed and it caught Sloan by surprise. It banged loudly in its frame. Sloan knocked on it again but by then Bosch was quietly opening the side door to the carport. He exited the house, then stealthily opened the door of his Cherokee and got in. The moment the engine turned over he dropped the vehicle into reverse and backed out quickly into the road. He saw a copper-colored sedan parked pointing downhill across the street. Sloan was walking toward it. Bosch turned the wheel and backed out to his right, then gunned the Cherokee uphill, speeding by Sloan at the door to his car. He knew Sloan would have to use the carport to turn around in the narrow street, a maneuver that would give Bosch enough time to lose him.

  After twenty-five years of living there, taking the curves of Woodrow Wilson Drive came as second nature to Bosch. He quickly arrived at the stop sign at Mulholland Drive and banged a hard right without pausing. He then followed the asphalt snake along the mountain ridgeline until he reached Wrightwood Drive. He checked his mirrors and saw no sign of Sloan or any other follow car. He took the sharp right onto Wrightwood and quickly descended the northern slope into Studio City, hitting the Valley floor at Ventura Boulevard.

  A few minutes later he was on Vineland, parked against the curb in front of an apartment complex called the Sierra Winds. It was built next to the 101 freeway overpass and looked old and worn. There was a twenty-foot concrete sound-barrier wall running along the curve of the freeway but Bosch imagined that the sound of traffic still swept across the sprawling two-story complex like a sierra wind.

  The important thing was that Abigail Turnbull was not living in a retirement center after all. Bosch would have no trouble getting to her door and that was a good break.

  10

  Bosch loitered near the gated entrance to the apartment complex and acted like he was on a phone call, when all he was really doing was replaying a year-old message his daughter had left him after she had accepted admission to Chapman University.

  “Dad, it’s a really exciting day for me and I want to thank you for all your help in getting me to this point. And I am so glad I won’t be too far away from you and that whenever we need each other we will only be an hour away. Okay, well, maybe two because of traffic.”

  He smiled. He didn’t know how long messages would be retained on his phone but he hoped he would always be able to listen to the pure joy he heard in his daughter’s voice.

  He saw a man approaching the gate from the other side and timed his approach to reach it at the same time. He acted like he was trying to carry on a phone conversation while digging his key to the gate out of his pocket.

  “That’s great,” he said into the phone. “I feel the same way about it too.”

  The man on the other side pushed open the gate to exit. Bosch mumbled a thank you and entered. He preserved the message from his daughter one more time and put his phone away.

  Signs along the stone pathway directed him to the building he was looking for and he found Abigail Turnbull’s apartment on the first floor. As he approached he saw that the front door was open behind a screen door. He heard a voice from within the apartment.

  “All done, Abigail?”

  He stepped closer without knocking and looked through the screen. He could see down a short hallway into a living room, where an old woman was sitting on a couch with a folding table in front of her. She looked old and frail and had on thick glasses and an obvious wig of brown hair. Another woman, much younger, was clearing a dish off the table and gatheri
ng silverware. The woman Bosch assumed was Abigail was just finishing a late breakfast or early lunch.

  Bosch decided to wait to see if the caregiver would be leaving after cleaning up. The apartment fronted a small courtyard where the water tumbling down a three-level fountain masked most of the freeway noise. It was most likely the reason Turnbull was able to leave her door open. Bosch took a seat on a precast concrete bench in front of the fountain and put the stack of birth certificates down next to him. He checked his phone for messages while he waited. No more than five minutes later he heard the voice from the apartment again.

  “You want the door left open, Abigail?”

  Bosch heard a muffled reply and watched as the caregiver stepped out of the apartment, carrying an insulated bag for transporting meals. Bosch recognized it as belonging to a charitable meal delivery service for shut-ins that his daughter had volunteered for while she was a senior in high school. He realized that she might have delivered meals to Abigail Turnbull.

  The woman followed the path toward the front gate. Bosch waited a moment and then approached the screen door and looked in. Abigail Turnbull was still seated on the couch. The folding table was gone and in its place in front of her was a walker with two wheels. She was staring across the room at something Bosch could not see but he thought he could hear the low murmur of a television.

  “Ms. Turnbull?”

  He said it loudly in case she had hearing loss. But his voice startled her and she looked fearfully toward the screen door.

  “I’m sorry,” Bosch said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  She looked around her as if to see if she had anyone with her as backup if needed.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “I’m a detective,” Bosch said. “I want to ask you about a case I’m working on.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t know any detectives.”

  Bosch tried the screen door. It was unlocked. He opened it halfway so that she could see him better. He held his SFPD badge up and smiled.

  “I’m working on an investigation and I think you could help me, Abigail,” he said.

  The woman who had delivered her meal had called her by her full first name. He thought he would try. Turnbull didn’t reply but Bosch could see her hands ball into nervous fists.

  “Do you mind if I come in?” he said. “This will only take a few minutes.”

  “I don’t have visitors,” she said. “I don’t have any money to buy anything.”

  Bosch slowly entered the hallway. He kept the smile on his face even though he felt bad about scaring the old woman.

  “I’m not trying to sell you anything, Abigail. I promise.”

  He stepped down the hallway and into the small living room. The TV was on and Ellen DeGeneres was on the screen. There was only the couch and a kitchen chair set in the corner of the room. Behind it there was a small kitchenette with a half-size refrigerator. He put the birth certificates under one arm and pulled his SFPD ID out of his badge wallet. She reluctantly took it from him and studied it.

  “San Fernando?” she said. “Where is that?”

  “Not too far,” he said. “I—”

  “What are you investigating?”

  “I’m looking for someone from a long time ago.”

  “I don’t understand why you want to talk to me. I’ve never been to San Fernando.”

  Bosch pointed to the chair against the wall.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Go ahead. I still don’t know what you want with me.”

  Bosch pulled the chair over and sat down in front of her, her walker between them. She wore a loose-fitting housedress with a faded pattern of flowers on it. She was still looking at his ID card.

  “How do you say this name?” she asked.

  “Hieronymus,” Bosch said. “I was named after a painter.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “You’re not alone. I read the article that was in the paper a few years ago about St. Helen’s. It had the story you told at the anniversary party. About your daughter coming there for answers and finding you.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m working for a man—a very old man—who is looking for answers. His child was born at St. Helen’s and I’m hoping you could help me find him or her.”

  She leaned back as if to remove herself from the discussion and shook her head.

  “So many children were born there,” she said. “And I was there for fifty years. I can’t remember all of the babies. Most of them got new names when they left.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “I know. But this I think was a special case. I think you’d remember the mother. Her name was Vibiana. Vibiana Duarte. I’m talking about the year after you got to St. Helen’s.”

  Turnbull closed her eyes as if to ward off a great pain. Bosch knew instantly that she knew and remembered Vibiana, that his journey back through time had found a destination.

  “You remember her, don’t you?” he said.

  Turnbull nodded once.

  “I was there,” she said. “It was an awful day.”

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  “Why? It’s a long time ago.”

  Bosch nodded. It was a valid question.

  “Remember when your daughter came to St. Helen’s and found you? You called it a miracle. It’s like that. I’m working for a man who wants to find his child, the child he had with Vibiana.”

  Bosch could see the anger work into her face and immediately regretted his choice of words.

  “It’s not the same,” she said. “He wasn’t forced to give up his baby. He abandoned Vibby and he abandoned his son.”

  Bosch quickly tried to repair the damage, but he noted that she had said the child was a boy.

  “I know that, Abigail,” he said. “Not the same at all. I know that. But it’s a parent who is looking for his child. He’s old and he’s going to die soon. He has a lot to pass on. It won’t make up for things. Of course not. But is that our call or the son’s call to make? Do we not even allow the son to make that choice?”

  She remained quiet while considering Bosch’s words.

  “I can’t help you,” she finally said. “I have no idea what happened to that boy after the day they took him.”

  “Just, if you can, tell me what you do know,” Bosch said. “I know it’s an awful story, but tell me what happened. If you can. And tell me about Vibby’s son.”

  Turnbull cast her eyes down toward the floor. Bosch knew she was seeing the memory and that she was going to tell the story. She reached out both hands and gripped her walker as if reaching for support.

  “He was frail, that one,” she began. “Born underweight. We had a rule, no baby could go home until it weighed at least five pounds.”

  “What happened?” Bosch asked.

  “Well, the couple that was there to take him couldn’t. Not like that. He needed to be healthier and heavier.”

  “So the adoption was delayed?”

  “Sometimes it happened like that. Delayed. They told Vibby she had to get weight on him. She had to keep him in her room and feed him with her milk. Feed him all the time to get him healthy and get his weight up.”

  “How long did that last?”

  “A week. Maybe longer. All I know is that Vibby got that time with her baby that nobody else ever got with theirs. That I never got. And then after that week it was time for the switch. The couple came back and the adoption proceeded. They took Vibby’s baby.”

  Bosch glumly nodded. The story got worse from every angle.

  “What happened to Vibby?” he asked.

  “My job back then was in the laundry,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of money. There were no dryers. We hung everything on the clotheslines in the field behind the kitchen. Before they built the addition there.

  “Anyway, the morning after the adoption, I took sheets out t
o hang and I saw that one of the clotheslines was missing.”

  “Vibiana.”

  “And then I heard. One of the girls told me. Vibby had hanged herself. She had gone into the bathroom and tied the rope to one of the shower pipes. They found her in there but it was too late. She was dead.”

  Turnbull looked down. It was as if she didn’t want to make eye contact with Bosch over such a horrible story.

  Bosch was repelled by the tale. It sickened him. But he needed more. He needed to find Vibiana’s son.

  “So that was it?” he asked. “The boy was taken and never came back?”

  “Once they were gone, they were gone.”

  “You remember his name? The name of the couple who adopted him?”

  “Vibby called him Dominick. I don’t know if that name stayed with him. They usually didn’t. I called my daughter Sarah. When she came back to me her name was Kathleen.”

  Bosch pulled up the stack of birth certificates. He was sure he remembered seeing the name Dominick when he had gone through the documents that morning on the back deck. He started quickly moving through the stack again, looking for the name. When he found it, he studied the full name and date. Dominick Santanello was born on January 31, 1951. But his birth wasn’t registered with the recorder’s office until fifteen days later. He knew the delay was probably caused by the baby’s weight postponing the adoption.

  He showed the sheet to Turnbull.

  “Is this him?” he asked. “Dominick Santanello?”

  “I told you,” Turnbull said. “I only know what she called him.”

  “It’s the only birth certificate with Dominick on it from that time period. It’s got to be him. It’s listed as a home birth, which was how they did it back then.”

  “Then I guess you found who you’re looking for.”

  Bosch glanced at the birth certificate. In the boxes denoting the race of the child, “Hisp.” was checked. The Santanello family’s address was in Oxnard in Ventura County. Luca and Audrey Santanello, both of them twenty-six years old. Luca Santanello’s occupation was listed as appliance salesman.

  Bosch noticed that Abigail Turnbull’s hands tightly gripped the aluminum tubes of her walker. Thanks to her, Bosch believed he had found Whitney Vance’s long missing child, but the price had been high. Bosch knew he would carry the story of Vibiana Duarte with him for a long time.