Resurrection Walk

38

Bosch was worried. The rehearsal the day before had gone well. Posing as assistant attorney general Hayden Morris, Mickey Haller had cross-examined him intensely, hitting him most harshly on his lack of experience in using cellular data in homicide investigations. Bosch had held up well, by his own and Haller’s estimation, and he’d thought he was ready for whatever Morris threw at him on Monday morning. But now, sitting on the witness stand and waiting for the judge to convene court, Bosch was worried because Morris was not alone at the AG’s table. Next to him was a woman Bosch recognized as a former county prosecutor. She was good and tough and had been known in those days as Maggie McFierce. She was also Mickey Haller’s ex-wife and the mother of his only child.

Maggie McPherson had taken a leave of absence from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office to aid her ex-husband when he was wrongly accused of murder. Haller was eventually cleared, and McPherson had gone back to Ventura, where she was in charge of the Major Crimes Unit at the DA’s office. But that intel was obviously old, as it was now clear to Bosch that she worked for the AG. She was huddled with Morris at the opposing counsel’s table in a whispered conversation. On the table in front of her was the thick stack of printouts of cell-tower data Haller had turned over in discovery. Morris had pulled in a ringer. Bosch knew that McPherson would handle his cross-examination.

Bosch looked over at the petitioner’s table to see if Haller was exhibiting any concern or giving any indication of how he was going to play this. But Haller was preoccupied with the arrival of Lucinda Sanz from the courtroom holding cell. When she was finally seated and shackled to the table ring by the marshals, Haller looked around the courtroom. He noticed the journalist he had told Bosch about, gave her a nod, and continued his scan. Bosch caught his eye. Haller made a hand gesture — a flat palm down — that told Bosch to stay calm.

Bosch assumed that Haller was as surprised about Maggie McPherson’s appearance as he was, but the Lincoln Lawyer looked cool, calm, and collected. Bosch took his cue from that.

Testifying in criminal cases was nothing new to Bosch. He had been in the witness box hundreds of times. When he had thought about it over the weekend, he realized that the first time he’d been called to testify was in a drug case in 1973. He had been in patrol then, a P-1 stripe on the sleeve of his uniform. He had found an ounce of marijuana during the pat-down of a man loitering near Dorsey High School. All these years later, Bosch clearly remembered the suspect he had arrested. His legal name was Junior Teodoro. He was twenty years old and a dropout from Dorsey. The alert had gone out in that morning’s roll call about a dealer setting up near the school. Bosch and his partner at the time had spotted Teodoro, did a stop-and-hop so fast he couldn’t run away, and caught him with the goods during the pat-down.

Bosch’s testimony came at a preliminary hearing on the case. After Teodoro was bound over for trial, he and his attorney negotiated a plea agreement. Bosch remembered it so well because Junior Teodoro pleaded guilty and got a term of five to seven years in prison for something that fifty years later was no longer a crime. Bosch had often considered how time changed something that was righteous back in the day into something far from it today. He thought about how that bust and the harsh sentence that followed had changed the course of Teodoro’s life. When Bosch was still with the LAPD, he kept tabs on him through the California law enforcement tracking system, running his name from time to time. The prison gate became a revolving door for Teodoro. Whenever Bosch looked him up, he was either back in prison or recently released and on parole. Fifty years later, Bosch was still haunted by his part in setting Junior Teodoro on that path. And that was his worry now — that his testimony under cross-examination might somehow contribute to Lucinda Sanz losing her bid for freedom and that it would haunt him for the rest of his days.

McPherson and Morris finished their whispered conference and McPherson reached down to a slim briefcase on the floor and withdrew a legal pad. She wrote a few notes on it and then placed it on top of the printouts, ready to take it all with her to the lectern. She glanced over at Bosch and caught him staring at her. Possibly sensing his alarm, she smiled. Of all his cases over the years, none had landed on her desk for prosecution, yet he knew she was a courtroom killer. So Bosch understood that her smile carried no warmth for him. It was the kind of smile a cat might offer a cornered mouse.

There was finally a call to rise from the courtroom marshal, and Judge Coelho took the bench. She noticed Bosch on the witness stand.

“Please be seated,” she said. “I see Detective Bosch is already in place, but before we begin cross-examination, we have some business to attend to.”

Rather than sitting down, Bosch turned to step out of the witness stand.

“That’s all right, Detective Bosch,” Coelho said. “This shouldn’t take long. You may sit.”

Bosch sat down, noting that she had called him Detective Bosch.

“Mr. Morris, I see you have expanded your team today,” Coelho continued.

Morris stood to address the court.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said. “Assistant attorney general Margaret McPherson will handle the cross-examination of Mr. Bosch. She has expertise in the matters he testified to last week.”

“Well, that answers the question of whether there will be a cross-examination,” the judge said. “Mr. Haller, do you have anything you would like to bring to the attention of the court?”

Haller stood.

“Good morning, Your Honor,” Haller said. “As a matter of fact, I do. The petitioner objects to the addition of Ms. McPherson to the State’s team as a conflict of interest.”

Morris stood back up.

“Just hold it right there, Mr. Morris,” Coelho said. “What conflict is that, Mr. Haller?”

“Ms. McPherson and I were married at one time,” Haller said.

Bosch turned to check the judge’s reaction. It was clear she had not known of the marital history of the two lawyers before her.

“Interesting,” Coelho said. “I was not aware of that. When were you two married?”

“It was quite a while ago, Your Honor,” Haller said. “But there is an adult daughter and ongoing connections as well as ongoing upset over the dissolution of the marriage and its consequences.”

“How so, Mr. Haller?” the judge said.

“Your Honor, I believe Ms. McPherson harbors resentment over her career as a prosecutor for Los Angeles County being... thwarted by her relationship with me. I would not want that to interfere with my client’s ability to get a fair and impartial hearing on the facts of this petition.”

The judge turned her attention to Morris.

“Mr. Morris, are you attempting to inject outside conflict into this proceeding?”

“Not at all, Your Honor,” Morris said. “As I already stated on the record, Ms. McPherson is the expert on cellular data in the California Attorney General’s Office. Last year, in fact, she was hired away from the Ventura County prosecutor’s office because of her expertise in this field. This is an area of the law that is fairly new and that comes up frequently as alleged ‘new evidence’ in appellate and habeas briefs. This material was sprung on us last week, and with the continuance the court granted, I took it to our expert, Ms. McPherson, who has been analyzing the material in preparing for this witness’s cross-examination. There is no conflict, Your Honor. My understanding is that the marriage has been over for more years than it existed. There are no custody disputes because their one child is an adult and lives independently of her parents. There are no disputes at all, Judge. In fact, two years ago Ms. McPherson took a leave from the Ventura prosecutor’s office to provide legal help to Mr. Haller when he was charged with a crime.”

“Is all that true, Mr. Haller?” Coelho asked.

“It is true there are no custody or other legal disputes, Judge,” Haller said. “But on more than one occasion, I was blamed for setbacks, demotions, and changes in Ms. McPherson’s career, and, as I said earlier, I don’t want any possible grudge to hinder Lucinda Sanz’s right to a fair and impartial hearing on the petition.”

The judge frowned and even Bosch knew why. It was the judge who needed to be fair and impartial. Haller’s argument was misdirected. But before the judge could speak, Maggie McFierce did.

“Your Honor, may I be heard?” she said. “Everyone is talking about me. I think I should be allowed to respond.”

“Go ahead, Ms. McPherson,” Coelho said. “But be brief. This is not family court and I don’t want to turn it into an examination of a broken marriage and what grievances may exist therein.”

“I’m happy to be brief,” McPherson said. “The fact is, I hold no grudge against my ex-husband. It was indeed a complicated union between a prosecutor and a defense attorney, but it ended a long time ago. I have moved on, he has moved on, and our daughter is a grown woman making her way in the world. Mr. Morris did not even know of my marital history when he came to me last week and asked me to take a look at the material turned over in discovery. It wasn’t until I started working on it that I noticed that it was my ex-husband’s case and that the witness was Mr. Bosch, whom I have met on occasion. I immediately informed Mr. Morris but told him, as I am telling the court, that Mr. Haller and I have no conflict of interest. Our relationship as the parents of a young woman is not conflicted in any way and I hold no grudge against him, his client, or his witness.”

“I am not sure that was brief, but the court appreciates counsel’s honesty,” Coelho said. “Anything else, Mr. Haller?”

“Submitted,” Haller said.

Haller said it in a tone that dripped with defeat. He knew how this was going to go.

“Very well,” the judge said. “It is this court’s responsibility to remain fair and impartial in hearing evidence and determining the truth of things. I intend to do that. The objection is overruled. Now, Mr. Haller, is there anything else you would like to bring up with the court before we proceed with the witness?”

“Not at this time, Judge,” Haller said.

Coelho paused and looked at Haller. Bosch knew she was expecting him to announce that he had new discovery material to give to the AG. But there were no results yet from the DNA analysis begun the week before. This meant that Haller wouldn’t know until he heard from Shami Arslanian, who was stationed at Applied Forensics monitoring the work, whether or not he had new evidence to help Lucinda Sanz’s case.

“Very well,” the judge said again. “Then let’s proceed.

Ms. McPherson, your witness.”

39

For Bosch, it was a reminder of how far he had gone off mission. Maggie McFierce was a true believer, a career prosecutor who had never been lured away from the pursuit of justice to join the high-paid private sector. She had stayed on mission, and though jobs and agencies changed, she’d never wavered from the cause. And here was Bosch, heretofore a true believer, about to be pounded on the witness stand the way he had seen so many witnesses for criminal defendants get pounded in the past.

McPherson would be out to prove that Bosch was a gun for hire who would also lie for hire, who would cut corners and look only for the thing that would obscure the truth or hide it completely. She had no doubt done her homework on Bosch and knew his vulnerabilities. She attempted to exploit them right out of the gate.

“Mr. Bosch, how long have you worked as a defense investigator?” she asked.

“Uh, actually, I never have,” Bosch said.

“You are working for Mr. Haller, are you not?”

“I am working on a specific project for him that doesn’t involve defense work.”

“Did you not work for Mr. Haller’s own defense when he was accused of a crime?”

“I was more of an adviser. Like you were. Do you believe you have never worked for the defense?”

“I’m not the one answering questions here.”

“Sorry.”

“So what you’re telling the court is that you don’t consider working for Lucinda Sanz, an admitted and convicted killer, defense work?”

“Mr. Haller hired me to go through cases involving convicted people who claimed they were innocent. He wanted me to review them to see if any seemed plausible or worth another look. Lucinda Sanz’s case was one of them and—”

“Thank you, Mr. Bosch, I didn’t ask for the whole history of the case. But you would say that working on the Lucinda Sanz case is not defense work.”

“Correct. It’s not defense work. It’s truth work.”

“That’s clever, Mr. Bosch. What happens in your so-called truth work if you come across evidence that someone is guilty of the crime they were convicted of?”

“I tell Mr. Haller that’s it’s a no-go and we move on. I look into the next case.”

“And has that scenario ever occurred as you just outlined?”

“Uh, yes. Happened just a couple months ago.”

“Tell the court about that.”

“Well, it was this guy named Coldwell who was convicted of hiring a killer to murder his partner in a business investment. He was convicted largely on the testimony of the contract killer, who was also charged but was cooperating with the prosecution. He testified that he was paid twenty-five thousand dollars in cash to do the hit. The other evidence included Coldwell’s bank records. The prosecution was able to show that exactly twenty-five thousand had been accumulated through ATM withdrawals and personal checks Coldwell wrote to friends who cashed them and gave him the money.”

“What made you think he was innocent?”

“I didn’t. I thought that his case might be worth another look. I interviewed him and he said that he could account for the twenty-five thousand and give information he picked up in prison that would impeach the contract killer. I’ll spare you the full history on it, but I determined that Coldwell was guilty and we dropped it.”

“No, please, don’t spare us the details. What made him guilty — in your eyes?”

“He told me he had given the money to a mistress and that he couldn’t bring that up at his trial because he was still married then and his wife’s money was paying his trial lawyer. If they’d brought forth the mistress, Coldwell’s wife would have cut him off financially. As it turned out, his wife divorced him a couple years after he was convicted, so now he was ready to use the mistress. He also told me that an inmate who had been transferred from the prison where the hit man ended up — Soledad — said the hit man was bragging up there about setting up Coldwell for the murder.”

“Okay, let’s stop there. I think we need to move to the case at hand.”

Haller stood up and objected.

“Your Honor, she opened this door,” he said. “And now all of a sudden she wants to slam it closed because she knows that finishing the story might show that the witness has integrity, and that doesn’t fit with the State’s plan to attack his credibility.”

The judge didn’t hesitate in sustaining the objection.

“Counsel is right,” Coelho said. “This door was flung open by the State. I’d like to hear the end of the story. The witness will continue his answer if he has more to say.”

Haller nodded toward Bosch, thanked the judge, and sat down.

“I called the Department of Corrections,” Bosch said. “With the help of an intel officer at Soledad, I was able to determine that the hit man and the transferred inmate Coldwell mentioned had never been in the same cell block and would not have crossed paths while they were both housed there. So that knocked that part of his story out. Then I talked to the mistress and she wasn’t a good liar. Took me about twenty minutes to break her story. She admitted that Coldwell hadn’t given her twenty-five thousand dollars, that she had lied about it because he’d promised her money when he got out and sued the State for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. So that was it. We dropped the case — Mickey and I.”

“So, Mr. Bosch,” McPherson said, “what you want the court to know is that you call them like you see them.”

“I don’t know if that was a question, but yes, I call them like I see them.”

“Okay, well, then, let’s talk about the Sanz case and how you saw it. Okay, Mr. Bosch?”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

“Do you know what geofencing is, Mr. Bosch?”

“Yes, it’s kind of a fancy word for tracking the locations of cell phones through cellular data.”

“It has become a useful tool for law enforcement, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“In your direct testimony you said you have worked on hundreds of homicide cases, correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

“In how many of those cases did you use geofencing?”

“None. It was a technology that really didn’t come out until after I retired.”

“Okay, then how many times have you used it as a private investigator?”

“None.”

“What about as a nondefense investigator working for Mr. Haller?”

“This case was the first time.”

“One case. Would you say that makes you an expert on geofencing?”

“An expert? I don’t know what would make one an expert. I know how to read and map the data, if that’s what you mean.”

“How did you learn to read and map the data?”

“I had some help from Mr. Haller, who was familiar with geofencing from prior cases. But I learned the most when I studied the FBI’s internal field resource guide for agents in this area of investigation. It was put together by the Bureau’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team and is basically a how-to-do-it for agents. It’s very detailed — over a hundred pages — and I read it twice before I started work on the data we received in this case.”

McPherson had not expected an answer that complete and quickly went to sarcasm to cover her error in asking the question.

“Simple as that,” she said. “Take an online course and you’re an expert.”

“It’s not up to me to say whether I’m an expert,” Bosch said. “But it was the FBI’s online course, if you want to call it that. It was designed so that any agent could trace and map the movement of cellular devices. If you’re suggesting that I did it wrong or got it wrong, I would disagree. I think I got it right and it raises a lot of questions about Lucinda Sanz’s culp—”

“Move to strike the witness’s answer as nonresponsive.”

McPherson looked up at the bench, but before the judge could respond, Haller stood.

“Nonresponsive?” he said. “He didn’t get the chance to finish his response.”

The judge wasn’t interested in parrying with the lawyers.

“Let’s just move on to the next question,” Coelho said. “Continue, Ms. McPherson.”

Haller sat down. Bosch looked over at him for the first time during the cross. Haller nodded and did a small fist shake with his hand close to his chest. Bosch took it as a not-so-secret Stay strong gesture.

“Mr. Bosch,” McPherson said, pulling Bosch’s attention back. “Are you ill?”

Haller jumped up from his seat.

“Your Honor, what is this?” he said indignantly. “Counsel has no business asking about the witness’s health. What does it have to do with any question before this court?”

The judge cast a stern eye on McPherson.

“Ms. McPherson, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Your Honor,” McPherson said, “if the court will indulge me, it will become quite clear what I’m doing, and Mr. Haller is well aware of what I’m doing. The witness’s health is an issue if it affects his work.”

“You may proceed,” the judge said. “Cautiously.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” McPherson said. Focusing again on the witness stand, she asked, “Mr. Bosch, are you presently being treated for a medical condition?”

“No,” Bosch said.

McPherson looked surprised but quickly covered it.

“Then have you recently been treated for a medical condition?” she asked.

Bosch hesitated as he thought about how to phrase his answer.

“I was being treated earlier this year,” he finally said.

“Treated for what?” McPherson said.

Haller, apparently sensing where this could go, stood again to object.

“Your Honor, last week my asking a witness for her cell number had Mr. Morris jumping out of his shoes,” he said. “But now it’s okay to drag a witness’s personal medical history into the case? Aren’t there limits to invasion of privacy in this court?”

“Mr. Haller makes a good point, Ms. McPherson,” Coelho said.

“Your Honor, the witness’s medical status is important to this case, and I can demonstrate why if I am allowed to continue,” McPherson said. “Mr. Haller knows this and that is why he is jumping out of his shoes.”

“Make it fast, Ms. McPherson,” the judge said. “My patience is wearing thin.”

Haller sat down and the judge told Bosch he must answer the question.

“I was being treated for cancer,” Bosch said. “I was part of a clinical trial that ended almost six months ago.”

“And was the treatment successful?” McPherson asked.

“The doctors seemed to think so. They said I’m in partial remission.”

“And this clinical trial, was it to test a drug therapy?”

“Yes.”

“Using what drug?”

“It was an isotope, actually. I believe it is called lutetium one-seventy-seven.”

“You were being treated with this isotope while you worked on this case?”

“Yes. It was just one morning a week for twelve weeks.”

“And what are the possible side effects associated with lutetium one-seventy-seven?”

“Uh, well, there’s nausea, tinnitus, exhaustion. There’s a whole list, but other than those I just mentioned, I didn’t really have any side effects.”

“What about confusion and memory loss?”

“Uh, I think those were on the list but I haven’t experienced them.”

“Have you experienced any cognitive impairment while working on this case?”

Haller stood, arms out in an imploring gesture.

“Your Honor... really?”

The judge pointed to his empty chair.

“Your objection has been overruled,” she said. “Sit down,

Mr. Haller.”

Haller slowly sat down.

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” McPherson asked.

“No,” Bosch said. “I can remember, thank you. The answer is no, I have not experienced any cognitive impairment.”

“Have you asked a doctor about it or taken a cognitive test in the past six months?”

“No, I have not.”

McPherson looked down at a document she had carried with her to the lectern.

“Earlier this year, did you report a break-in at your home?” she asked.

“Uh, yes, I did,” Bosch said.

“And was this while you were being treated with the isotope lutetium one-seventy-seven?”

“Yes.”

McPherson asked the judge to allow her to approach the witness with a document she called State’s exhibit one. First McPherson dropped off copies to Haller and the judge. Bosch watched Haller read it and noticed alarm come into his eyes. He stood and objected, stating the document had not been submitted to him through discovery.

“Offered as impeachment, Your Honor,” McPherson said. “The witness just testified to having no cognitive issues.”

“Yes, I’ll allow it,” Coelho said.

Bosch braced himself as McPherson came to him with a copy of the document, and then returned to the lectern.

“Mr. Bosch, is that the police report from the alleged break-in at your home on Woodrow Wilson Drive?” she asked.

“Uh, looks like it,” Bosch said. “That’s my address. But I have not seen this before.”

“Well, you were a police officer. Does it look official to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you read the paragraph in the responding officer’s summary that I have highlighted in yellow?”

“Uh, yes. It says, ‘Upon questioning, victim seemed confused... and unsure if a break-in had occurred. Victim is ill and being treated. Possible... dementia. Walk-through of residence conducted. No evidence of burglary. No further follow-up is required.’”

Bosch felt his neck and back start to burn. He was stunned by what the responding officer had written.

“I wasn’t confused,” he said. “Because nothing was taken, I wasn’t sure there had been a break-in. That’s all. And dementia was his word, not—”

“Your Honor, move to strike the witness’s last comment as nonresponsive,” McPherson said.

“So moved,” Coelho said. “Do you have any other questions, Ms. McPherson?”

“No, Your Honor.”

She moved from the lectern and sat down next to Morris.

A silence engulfed the courtroom and Bosch noticed that no one was looking at him, not even Haller. It was like everyone was embarrassed for him. He wanted to shout, I have not lost my mind! but he knew that would support Maggie McFierce’s implication.

“Mr. Haller,” the judge finally said. “Redirect?”

Haller stood and slowly moved to the lectern.

“Thank you, Judge,” he said. “Mr. Bosch, during the course of this investigation, how many times have you gone out to the state prison in Chino to visit our client, Lucinda Sanz?”

Bosch looked up from the police report that was still in front of him.

“Four times,” he said. “Once with you, three times by myself.”

“That’s about an hour out, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you use one of the GPS apps to find your way out there?”

“Uh, no. I know where it is.”

“So you’ve never gotten lost or taken the freeway too far and gone past your exit?”

“No.”

“You drive me often while we are working, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you use a GPS app — why is that?”

“I don’t use them. I know where I’m going.”

“Thank you. I have nothing further.”