nuns who were lost. There were nine names and photos, all of them of the women in habits. They all looked the same.
They arrived at a sparely furnished sitting room with an old box television in the corner. Another nun was waiting for them. She was in her sixties and wore rimless glasses in front of sharp eyes that Bosch guessed had seen things that rivaled what his own had seen.
“Detectives, please be seated,” she said. “I am Sister Geraldine Turner but around here people call me Sister G. I believe the woman in the photograph you gave Sister Theresa is our Sister Esther. Is she all right? What is this about?”
Bosch lowered himself onto a padded bench across a coffee table from the nun. Soto sat next to him.
“Sister G, we have no news about Sister Esther,” Bosch said. “We are looking for her because we need her help on a case we’re working on.”
Sister G put her hand on her chest as if to calm her beating heart.
“Thanks be to God,” she said. “I thought perhaps the worst had happened.”
“Where exactly is Sister Esther?” Bosch asked.
“She is on a mission to Estado de Guerrero, Mexico. She went to the village of Ayutla and we have heard reports that vigilantes and narcos are fighting there. We have not heard from her in over a week now.”
“Why did she go there?”
“We all have missions, Detective. We bring books and medical supplies and we bring the word of God to children. It is our calling.”
“When was Sister Esther supposed to check in or be back? Is she overdue?”
“No, she is not overdue. She doesn’t return for another two weeks, in fact. But we make weekly contact with home base when we can. This is home base, Detective. It has been ten days since we heard from her.”
Bosch nodded. Sister G made the sign of the cross as she sent a quick prayer up for Sister Esther.
“Were you here when Sister Esther came to the convent twenty years ago?” Soto asked.
“Yes,” Sister G said. “I believe I am the only one of us here now who was in the convent then. Many of us have gone to the Lord.”
“Do you remember the circumstances of her coming here?” Soto asked.
“It was a long time ago,” the nun responded. “I do remember she was from Los Angeles—I remember because it was as though we had received an angel from the City of Angels.”
“How so?” Bosch asked.
“Well, we were in dire need at the time,” Sister G said. “We had a mortgage then and it was well overdue. We were faced with losing this wonderful place we call home base, and then she arrived. She paid off the whole mortgage. And she said she wanted to join us. We took her under our wing and led her to the vows.”
Bosch nodded.
“Would you like to see Sister Esther’s work?” Sister G asked.
“How do you mean?” Bosch asked.
She pointed to the old television to her right.
“We keep video records of our missions,” she said. “It helps with fund-raising. I believe we have Sister Esther’s last mission in the DVD player. She went to a school in Chiapas. Have you heard of the cinturones de miseria?”
Bosch looked at Soto for a translation.
“The barrio,” she said. “The slums.”
“Chiapas has the most extreme poverty in all of Mexico,” Sister G said.
The nun took a remote control off the table next to her chair and turned on the television and DVD player. Soon the screen was depicting a scene in a school where two nuns in all-white habits were serving food to children in a threadbare classroom. The children had dirty clothes and many had swollen bellies. Bosch didn’t have to ask which nun was Sister Esther. He recognized her from photographs of Ana Acevedo.
Sister G fast-forwarded the DVD and stopped it at a point where the nuns were conducting a class. Sister Esther was reading from a Bible with an ornate gold design on its leather cover. The children, who ranged in age from about six to early teens, listened with rapt attention.
Sister G jumped the video again and stopped it at a scene in which the two nuns were leaving the village where there appeared to be no paved roads and no power poles. They were about to board a colorful but old bus. Over the windshield of the bus the destination read “Cristobal de las Casas.” Bosch had never heard of the place.
A young boy of about eight