Resurrection Walk

34

The rooftop lounge at the Conrad gave us a great view across downtown. It was the kind of view that made you love this city because it reminded you that anything was possible down there on the street.

But we were having none of that — Bosch, Arslanian, Cisco, and me. We sat there silently mourning the losses of the day. Bosch’s testimony had been the lone shining moment for Lucinda Sanz’s cause, but even that, it turned out, was too good to be true. Judge Coelho granted the AG’s request for more time to study the cell-tower data we had presented. She recessed the hearing until the following Monday morning, giving Morris and his minions three days — five if they kicked into overtime and worked through the weekend — to find ways to undermine the impact of Bosch’s testimony and evidence.

But that ruling was minor compared to the loss of Arslanian’s testimony and crime re-creation. That ruling was a case killer and I found myself not only angry at Morris but also deeply disappointed in the judge for not making law and approving the AI-based re-creation. So we sat there with a stunning view of the city in all directions, but none of us could see the beauty in it. The sky was growing dim and so were Lucinda Sanz’s chances of freedom.

“I’m so sorry, Mickey,” Arslanian said. “If only I—”

“No, Shami,” I said. “This is on me. I should have seen it coming. I should have asked you about the platform.”

“You’re going to appeal the judge’s ruling, right?” Bosch asked.

“Of course,” I said. “But like I said in court, in the meantime Lucinda goes back to Chino and waits it out. We’re talking about years and years. Even if we win in the Ninth, it will go up to the Supreme Court. That’s a five- to six-year ride. We may get lucky and make new law, but Lucinda will have served her sentence and be out by then.”

“What about what you always say about not being able to unring the bell?” Cisco said. “The judge saw the whole thing, didn’t she? She might have kicked it out, but she knows it was good stuff.”

I shook my head.

“There’s that, but the judge knows she’s got the eyes of the AG on her,” I said. “She’ll bend over backward not to let it be part of her ruling.”

“This is my fault,” Arslanian said.

“Come on, give that a rest,” I said. “I’m the captain of this sinking ship. It’s all on me and I go down with it.”

“Not if you put Sanger back on the stand and prove the lie,” Bosch said. “The judge owes you one and she knows it. Prove Sanger a liar and she might give you MacIsaac. If we get him on the stand, we get the true story and it points to Sanger, not Lucinda.”

I took a long pull on my cranberry and soda and shook my head again.

“I don’t think Coelho thinks she owes me anything,” I said. “Fed judges are appointed for life. They don’t look back unless the Ninth Circuit tells them to.”

That drew another long silence. I drained my glass and looked for the waitress.

“Another round?” I asked.

“I’m good,” Bosch said.

“Another beer,” Cisco said.

“I’m good,” Arslanian said.

There was no waitress in sight. I stood up with my glass and grabbed Cisco’s empty. I turned to go to the bar.

“I wish we had those GSR pads,” Arslanian said.

I turned back around.

“Wouldn’t matter,” I said. “These people weren’t stupid. They would have replaced the pads they used on Lucinda with pads loaded with GSR.”

“I know that,” Arslanian said. “And I know the evidence was destroyed after the case was adjudicated. But I’m not talking about testing them for GSR. If those pads were wiped over Lucinda’s hands, they would have picked up skin cells along with any GSR. Most people, including defense lawyers, weren’t really thinking about touch DNA back then. But testing is so sophisticated now that we’d be able to prove whether those pads were actually used on her.”

I almost dropped the two glasses from my hands. I quickly put them back down on the table.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You may have just—”

I stopped speaking. My mind was racing through the documents I had seen from the original case against Lucinda.

“What?” Arslanian prompted.

“The DA’s file from the original prosecution,” I said. “We got a copy in discovery. There was an evidence transfer order in there. Frank Silver was going through the usual moves. He asked for an evidence split so he could have a private lab test the GSR. There were two pads and the judge had one of them transferred to Silver’s lab. But then he pleaded Lucinda out and it didn’t matter.”

“You’re saying that the pad might still be at the lab?” Cisco asked.

“Stranger things have happened,” I said. “The file’s in the back of the Lincoln.”

“Be back in five minutes,” Bosch said.

He got up and headed toward the elevator. I looked at Cisco.

“Cisco, give me your phone,” I said. “Silver probably won’t take a call from mine.”

Cisco pulled out his phone, punched in the passcode, and handed it over. I took out my wallet and dug through it until I found the business card I had taken months ago from the slot next to Silver’s office door. I had kept it in case I needed to reach him.

I called the cell number listed and Silver answered cheerfully.

“Frank Silver, how can I help you?”

“Don’t hang up.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Haller. I need your help.”

“You need my help? Bullshit. You need my help hanging a five-oh-four around my neck. Have a nice night.”

“Silver, don’t hang up. I mean it, I need your help. And you know I never filed the five-oh-four. It was a prop.”

There was a beat of silence.

“This better not be a trick,” Silver finally said.

“It’s not,” I said. “I need you to think back to when you were working the case. You got an evidence split order so you could have a private lab test one of the GSR pads supposedly taken from Lucinda. You remember?”

“If it’s in the file, then I did it.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I’ve had a few cases since then, believe it or not. I can’t remember every detail about every case.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. Neither can I. But do you know what lab you used and whether you or the court ever got the evidence back after testing? I don’t remember seeing any lab report in the file.”

Again there was silence and it was almost as if I could hear Silver’s mind grinding on how to play this.

“You want the name of my lab,” he said.

“Come on, Silver, don’t blow your chance at this,” I said. “Does the lab still have the GSR evidence?”

“As a matter of fact, I think it does. But they won’t give it to anybody but me.”

“That’s fine. We need to confirm it still exists. If it does, then you might come out the hero in all of this.”

“I’ll call you in the morning.”

“That—”

He disconnected. I gave the phone back to Cisco.

“What lab did he use?” Arslanian asked.

“He’s being coy,” I said. “Won’t give that up or pull the evidence — if it still exists — unless he’s sure he gets to be the hero.”

“Guy’s a loser,” Cisco said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But we need to play along or we may not get our evidence.”

Bosch returned with the file from the Lincoln. I quickly brought him up to date.

“So we wait until tomorrow?” he asked.

“Let’s see what’s in the file first,” I said.

I opened the file and flipped through the early motions of the case until I found Silver’s request for an independent analysis of evidence. The request was approved with an order from superior court judge Adam Castle to transfer one of the collected GSR pads to an independent lab called Applied Forensics in Van Nuys.

“We might have just gotten lucky,” I said. “One of the GSR pads was transferred to Applied Forensics. Silver got a court order for the transfer, so it’s likely that Applied Forensics would not have been allowed to destroy or transfer the evidence without a court order. And if such an order existed, it would be in this file. It means the evidence should still be there, even after five years.”

“Then how do we get it?” Cisco asked.

“We don’t,” I said. “I’ve never used Applied Forensics, but they’ve pitched me for my business. They have a full DNA lab. All we need to do is get Silver to tell them to test the evidence for touch DNA.”

“Not just that,” Arslanian said. “There will likely be touch DNA from whoever wiped the pads and whoever was wiped. We need to get Lucinda’s DNA to the lab for a comparison.”

“Do we have her DNA?” Cisco asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “But I have a plan for getting it. The question is, can we get a comparison done by Monday, when we’re back in court?”

“If I stay on top of Applied Forensics we can,” Arslanian said. “I’ll camp out there and walk them through it.”

“No, Shami, you need to get back home,” I said.

“Please let me do this,” she said. “I need to.”

I nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “So you three go to Applied Forensics in the morning. Silver will likely go there too, so be there as soon as they’re open. I’ll go see the judge. I’ll wait to hear from you before I knock on her door.”

“How do we know Silver won’t try to run a game on us?” Bosch asked.

“I’ll call him in the morning,” I said. “If he becomes a problem, Cisco will make him see the light.”

Everyone looked at Cisco. He gave us a nod.

35

On Wednesday morning at ten I was posted on the hallway bench outside Judge Coelho’s courtroom. I knew the courtroom would be dark now that the habeas hearing was continued. While I was checking my phone for messages, the courtroom door opened and out stepped one of the journalists who had attended the hearing Monday and Tuesday. She was young, dark-haired, and attractive and had a serious air about her. I had not recognized her among the other journalists I knew from previous trials and cases.

“Mr. Haller, I’m surprised to see you here,” she said. “I mean, with the case put over till Monday.”

“I need to see the clerk about something,” I said. “You’re a journalist, right? You were here both days of the hearing.”

“Yes, Britta Shoot,” she said as she held out her hand.

I shook it.

“Shoot?” I asked. “Really?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know, it’s a little coincidental since this case is about a shooting.”

“Who do you work for?”

“For myself mostly — I’m a freelancer. But I’ve had my stories published in the New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, a lot of publications. I often write about technology and I’m working on a book about geofencing, how it’s increasingly being used by law enforcement — and some defense attorneys like yourself — and the Fourth Amendment privacy issues and all of that.”

“Interesting. How did you hear about this case?”

“Uh, a source told me that geofencing was going to come up. And, boy, it sure did yesterday with your witness Bosch. I’d like to interview him — and you — if you have time.”

“It will have to wait until this is over. Federal judges aren’t too keen on attorneys and witnesses from their ongoing cases talking to the media.”

“It’s a long-term project. The judge would not see anything until the book comes out, but I can wait. I know you have your hands full, especially after the ruling on the re-creation. AI in the courts is another story I’d like to write about.”

She put her computer bag down on the bench next to me, unzipped it, and gave me a business card. It just had her name and phone number on it.

“That’s my cell,” she said.

“Four-one-five — you’re down from San Francisco?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m going back up later today but I’ll be sure to be here Monday.”

“Yeah, don’t miss Monday.”

“Why? Got a surprise?”

“Maybe. We’ll see. What were you in the courtroom for?”

“I wanted to get a copy of your subpoena for the tower data and a copy of what you entered as an exhibit. I got the subpoena but the cost of the data printout is a little over my budget.”

“Yeah, they charge something like a buck a page for copying costs. Here.”

I pulled out my wallet, dug out a card, and handed it to her.

“If you come back Monday, I’ll give you a copy,” I said.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “You sure?”

“Yeah, not a problem.”

“That’s really nice. You’re saving me money and time. I would have had to wait till the end of the day for them to copy everything. I can get back on an earlier flight now.”

I held up her card.

“Cool,” I said. “Maybe someday you can do me a favor. Interview me for your book or maybe a profile in The New Yorker, huh?”

She smiled.

“Maybe,” she said. “See you Monday.”

“Monday,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

I watched her head down the hall to the elevator. I wondered who her source was and guessed it was probably someone in the AG’s office who knew about the subpoena I had gotten for the cell-tower data.

I pulled my phone out and googled geofencing because I had never heard the term before. I was halfway through a Harvard Law Review article on the Fourth Amendment issues surrounding the use of cell data to track individuals when my phone buzzed. It was Bosch.

“Give me good news,” I said.

“Good and bad,” he said. “The evidence is still here and when they did their testing, they only used half of the piece they got. So there is a pristine half in cold storage.”

“Okay, what’s the bad news?”

“Second-Place Silver stiffed them back then. After Lucinda went to prison, he didn’t need a report on the GSR and decided not to pay for it. So they don’t like him too much for that. They’re not giving up the evidence till somebody pays.”

“How much is the tab?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

“You have a credit card, Harry? Put it on that and expense it. You’ll get it back.”

“That’s what I thought. There’s one other thing. Silver is making noise about getting paid himself.”

“Fucking weasel. Nobody’s getting paid on this. Where is he? Let me talk to him.”

“Hold on. He’s with Cisco and Shami. I think Cisco wants to put him in a headlock and squeeze.”

“Yeah, not yet. Put Silver on and then see if they’ll take a credit card on the past invoice.”

“Hold on.”

I heard a door open and close and knew Harry had called me from his car. There was the sound of another door as he entered Applied Forensics. I heard some muffled voices and then Frank Silver was on the phone.

“Mick, you heard the good news?”

“I did. I also heard you’re making noise about wanting money.”

“This is only coming together because of me, and my time is money. I want a couple grand, that’s all.”

“First of all, we don’t know what we have there yet. Second, I’m going to have to pay the bill you skipped out on five years ago. And last and most important, you’re a witness in this case. If I pay you a dime before you testify and the AG finds out, you aren’t a witness anymore.”

“I told you, I’m not testifying. I’m not letting you throw me under the bus on an ineffective rap.”

“That ship has sailed, Frank. You don’t have to worry. That’s not why you’re a witness. If this pans out with Applied Forensics, I’m going to need you to get on the stand and set it up. Tell how the evidence got there and why it’s still there five years later. It’ll be your moment to be the hero.”

“I like that. But then I get paid.”

“Listen, there may be some CJA money when this is all said and done, but you don’t get paid until we all get paid.”

“‘CJA’? What’s that?”

“It’s federal money for defense lawyers — the Criminal Justice Act. It won’t be a lot but it will be something, and whatever we get, you’ll get it all. I’m about to talk to Judge Coelho and I’ll bring it up. Now put Harry back on the phone.”

“Okay, Mick. By the way, I like Harry. But I don’t like that big guy you got.”

“You’re not supposed to. Put Harry on.”

I stood up and paced in the hall while I waited. I was trying to contain my excitement over what this could mean. Bosch’s voice came back on the call.

“Mick?”

“Yeah. They taking your credit card?”

“Yeah, I gave it to them.”

“Okay, what’s Shami doing?”

“She’s on a tour of the lab now. They love her. I guess she’s sort of famous in her field.”

“That she is. When she’s finished with the tour, tell her to prep them for a court order directing them to test the evidence for DNA and then compare it to a sample that should be coming in by the end of the day.”

“Will do. And we want a rush on it, right?”

“We will pay for expedited testing. Need this back by Monday.”

“Okay. What about you?”

“I’m about to go see the judge to try to get this rolling.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Thanks, I’ll need it.”

I disconnected and headed to the courtroom door.

36

The lights in the courtroom were out except for the bulb positioned above the clerk’s corral to the right of the judge’s bench. Coelho’s clerk was a young man fresh from USC Law named Gian Brown. He was more than used to me coming in over the past six months to drop off motions and subpoena requests for the judge. Brown told me each time that this task would be much easier on me if I just emailed the documents and requests, but I never did that. I wanted him to know me, to get used to me. I wanted him to like me. I learned he enjoyed a caramel macchiato on occasion and brought them to him from the building’s cafeteria, even though each time he protested that the gesture would earn me no favors with him or the judge. I always said that I wasn’t trying to procure favors because I didn’t need any.

But now I did.

“Mr. Haller, you do know that we’re dark today, right?” Brown asked.

“Must’ve forgotten,” I said.

He smiled and I smiled.

“Then, let me guess, you have a motion for us,” Brown said.

“I have an ask,” I said. “A big ask. I need to see the judge about an SDT that is very time-sensitive. Is she here?”

“Uh, she is,” Brown said. “But she’s got her Do Not Disturb on.”

He pointed to a small red light on a panel on the corral’s half wall. Next to it was the button he pushed when all parties were present and ready for the judge to enter the courtroom.

“Well, Gian, I need you to call her or buzz her because she’ll want to hear what I’ve got to say,” I said.

“Um...”

“Please, Gian. It’s important to the case. It’s important that it be brought to her attention as soon as possible. In fact, I think she will be upset with you if she learns there was a delay because of a little red light.”

“Okay, well, let me just go back and see if her door is open.”

“Do that. Thank you. If it’s closed, knock on it.”

“We’ll see. Just stay here and I’ll be back.”

He got up and went through the door at the rear of the corral into the hall that led to the judge’s chambers.

I waited three minutes and then the door finally opened. Brown came through without the judge. He was shaking his head.

“Her door is closed,” he said.

“Well, did you knock?” I asked.

“No. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Without a second thought, I stood on my toes and leaned over the half wall of the corral. I reached my hand toward the judge’s call button. My feet were in the air and I was balanced on the six-inch-wide wall cap.

“Hey!” Brown exclaimed.

I pushed the button and held my finger on it until my weight pulled me back and my feet were on the floor.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Brown yelled.

“I need to see her, Gian,” I said. “It’s an emergency.”

“Doesn’t matter. You had no right to do that. You need to leave the courtroom now.”

I raised my hands and started backing away from the corral.

“I’m going to be in the hall,” I said. “I’ll be there all day or until she—”

I heard buzzing from the corral. Brown walked to his desk and picked up the phone.

“Yes, Judge,” he said.

As he listened, I started returning to the corral.

“It’s Mr. Haller,” Brown said. “He pushed the button because I wouldn’t disturb you.”

I got to the corral and leaned over the half wall.

“Judge, I need to see you,” I said loudly.

Brown put his hand over the phone and turned his back to me. “He said it’s an SDT and there’s a time issue,” he said. “Yes, that was him. He’s still here.”

Brown listened for a few seconds and then hung up. He spoke with his back still to me.

“She said she’d see you,” he said. “You can go in.”

“Thank you, Gian,” I said. “I owe you a macchiato.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Extra caramel.”

I went through the corral to the hall. Judge Coelho was standing in the open door to her chambers. Instead of a black robe, she wore blue jeans and a button-down corduroy shirt.

“This better be good, Mr. Haller,” she said.

She turned and led the way into her chambers.

“Please excuse my casual dress,” she said as she walked behind her desk. “Because of the continuance we are dark all day, and my plan was to catch up on my writing.”

I knew that meant she was writing decisions and court orders. She took the seat behind her desk and pointed to one of the chairs across from her.

“Subpoena duces tecum,” she said. “You are up to something you don’t want Mr. Morris to know about. Yet.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said.

“Sit down, please. Talk to me.”

“Thank you. Time is of the essence, Judge. We learned this morning that evidence from the original case was not disposed of after it was adjudicated five years ago. Lucinda Sanz’s original attorney had received a split of evidence for independent testing — one of the gunshot-residue pads allegedly wiped over Sanz’s hands and clothing.”

“And you’re saying it’s still available?”

“It’s at the independent lab that her attorney Frank Silver took it to. Applied Forensics in Van Nuys. We also learned that they did not use all of the material when they conducted a gunshot-residue test back then. They are still holding a piece of a GSR pad that was untested.”

“And just what do you want to do with it?”

“Judge, I need a subpoena from you for a DNA swab from my client in the federal detention center. Then I need you to issue a sealed order directing Applied Forensics to compare her DNA to that of the untested evidence held at the lab there.”

She stared at me for a long moment, trying to connect the dots.

“Okay, walk me through it,” she finally said.

“Our contention has always been that the GSR evidence in the original case against Sanz was planted,” I said. “It had to have been planted, because she did not shoot a gun. So, she was wiped by Deputy Sanger with GSR pads, but then somewhere along the line the pads were switched with contaminated pads that then tested positive for GSR. The DNA test we are asking for should find Sanz’s touch DNA — skin cells — on the pad at Applied Forensics if it was actually swiped on her skin.”

“Then the test you are asking for will cut both ways. If her DNA is found on that pad, your contention is proven wrong. Are you sure you want to take that chance, Mr. Haller?”

“Absolutely, Judge. We are all in.”

“We? You’ve discussed the risks with your client? If her DNA is on that GSR pad, you know where this will go.”

“She knows what’s going on and she’s all in too. She’s innocent. She knows her DNA won’t be on that pad.”

It wasn’t a lie. Lucinda had called collect from the detention center the night before and I had told her that there might be a remaining GSR pad from the original investigation. I walked her through what a DNA test could prove. She told me what I had just told the judge: that she was innocent and, if given the chance, would do the test.

“Your Honor,” I added, “the cell-tower data plus the crime re-creation, though it was disallowed by the court, show my client’s innocence. This test will as well.”

“I admire your confidence in your client and what you believe the evidence will show,” Coelho said. “But then why do you need the subpoena and court order to be under seal?”

“Because until we have a result, my fear is that there could be an obstruction of justice.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Haller. Do you really think so? Someone is going to break in at Applied Forensics and steal the evidence?”

“It’s a possibility, Judge. Since taking on this case, both my investigator and I have had break-ins at our homes, although seemingly nothing was taken. My home office was ransacked and my computer destroyed — maple syrup poured onto the keyboard. These were acts of intimidation and I would ask the court to seal this until we have a test result. Once we have that, the court can share it with the world if it so wishes.”

“Are there police reports on these break-ins?”

“Yes, we both made reports and I can request copies from the LAPD if the court needs them. But as I said, time is of the essence here. I also filed an insurance claim to cover a new computer and pay for the cleanup. In fact, they wouldn’t take a claim without a police report. Anyway, in the old days when people wanted to intimidate you, they’d urinate or defecate on your stuff. But with DNA tracing, they got smarter. They used a bottle of my own maple syrup — a gift from my daughter.”

“Lovely.”

She paused for a moment, as if considering whether to believe me about the break-ins without seeing the official documentation.

“How fast can this testing be done?” she finally said.

“If we get Lucinda Sanz’s DNA to them by the end of the day, we’ll have results by Monday,” I said.

“That will be a task, getting the marshals at detention to act that quickly.”

“You could give me the subpoena and an order from you allowing me immediate access to my client.”

Coelho shook her head. She started writing on a legal pad.

“No, we’re not going to do that,” she said. “I want the U.S. Marshals Service to handle the collection of DNA and its delivery to the lab. That way, there will be no issues later with chain of custody should this work out the way you think and hope it will.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Very smart.”

“Don’t be obsequious, Mr. Haller. It doesn’t look good on you.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“I’ll prepare these now and have copies for you within the hour. It will probably take me the same amount of time it will take you to go to the cafeteria and get my clerk an apology macchiato.”

I was silent. She looked up from her writing.

“Yes, he told me about those,” she said. “Each time he told me. He didn’t want there to be any question of favoritism.”

“Understood,” I said.

“You can go. Wait in the courtroom. Gian will bring you copies when they’re ready.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.”

I got up and headed to the door. I was elated but trying not to show it. I put my hand on the knob but then looked back at the judge. She had already turned her seat to face the computer on a side table, but somehow she knew I had not left the room.

“Something else, Mr. Haller?” she asked.

“You said you were using the day for writing,” I said. “Because of the continuance.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Would you reconsider the ruling on Dr. Arslanian’s crime re-creation? Judge, I think you have a chance to make a sig—”

“Don’t push it, Mr. Haller. If I were you, I’d leave while I was ahead.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

I opened the door and stepped out.

37

On Sunday, the Lucinda Sanz team, now grudgingly including Frank Silver, gathered without our client in the mock courtroom at Southwestern Law School. As an alumnus who was a minor donor but had a mostly positive public profile — especially after the Ochoa case — I was afforded access to the school’s facilities when they were not in use. And so we set up shop in the small courtroom that featured a judge’s bench, a witness stand, and a small gallery. Monday would be the day we won or lost our habeas motion and I wanted those who could rehearse to rehearse.

The DNA results from Applied Forensics, which we’d expected on Friday, were late, and I’d spent the past two days working on my witness lineup the way a baseball manager works on a batting lineup for the first game of the World Series. I had to figure out who was up there to bunt, who might be able to steal a base, and who could bat cleanup. I had to figure out what the opposing team would be pitching to my hitters and how best to prepare them.

The marshals hadn’t delivered the DNA swab from Lucinda Sanz to the lab until Thursday afternoon, and that was only after I had gone back to the courthouse, talked my way past a still-angry Gian Brown, and asked the judge to light a fire under the marshals.

With the delay, the earliest Applied Forensics could guarantee we’d have the results was noon on Monday. I had to schedule witnesses and rehearse on the assumption that I would have those results and they would be exculpatory for my client.

First at bat would be Harry Bosch. I had no choice there, unless Hayden Morris had taken his five days to analyze the cell-tower results and decided not to cross-examine him. But I thought this unlikely. At a minimum, Morris would assail Bosch’s credibility. Bosch was old and largely out of the game. He had decades of experience working homicide investigations, but he had never before used geofencing — the term I learned from Britta Shoot — in an investigation. This made Bosch ripe for attack and I had to admit that this was what I would do if I were a prosecutor on this case. So I needed to make sure that Bosch was well armored and ready for Monday morning.

My hope was that Bosch’s cross-examination would run through the morning and that I would have the Applied Forensics results in hand when it was time to call new witnesses to the stand. If Morris finished his cross early, I would need to wade in with a redirect examination of Bosch that would take us to the lunch break and possibly even further into the day.

Once Bosch was dismissed from the witness stand, Frank Silver was up. He would tell the judge how a piece of a GSR pad allegedly swiped over Lucinda Sanz’s hands had been found in pristine condition in a Van Nuys lab five years after it was transferred there. Frank would be followed by a recall of Shami Arslanian and then the lab tech who’d conducted the DNA comparison. Though Stephanie Sanger was certainly not a member of my team, the main event would be her return to the witness stand. No rehearsal could prepare me for that. It would be up to me, and all I knew was that my questions to Sanger had to carry the information I needed to get to the judge. My feeling was that Sanger would not break on the stand and would confine herself to as few words as possible when answering questions under oath.

That was the lineup as I knew it so far. But there were always contingencies. The plan was to use the DNA evidence and Sanger’s denials to force the judge to take action and compel FBI agent MacIsaac to appear for questioning. That was the ultimate goal: an FBI agent confirming under oath that Roberto Sanz was cooperating in an investigation of his own unit. If I got it there, I had no doubt that Lucinda Sanz would walk free.

Overall, the rehearsal went well. I put Cisco Wojciechowski up on the judge’s bench so that there was an intimidating presence looking over the shoulder of the witnesses as they testified. Bosch was good on the stand — he’d spent hundreds of hours testifying in his career. Shami Arslanian was her usual charming and professional self. Jennifer Aronson, sitting in for Stephanie Sanger, gave one-word and sarcastic answers, but I was able to hone my questions in response and deliver the goods. The one fly in the ointment was Silver, who steadfastly inflated his own worth and legal acumen in answer to my initial questions. It forced me to reshape how I would question him when the testimony was for real.

I felt that it had been a successful day. We broke at five p.m. and I took everybody, even Silver, to an early dinner in the private wine room at Musso and Frank’s. There was solid camaraderie on the team, and we all held up our glasses, whether they contained alcohol or not, toasted Lucinda, and promised to do our very best for her the next day.

It was after eight when I parked in the garage beneath my house. My intention was to go directly to sleep so I would be rested and ready in the morning. I closed the garage and slowly climbed the stairs. Three steps from the top, I saw a man sitting in one of the bar chairs at the far end of the deck. His back was to me and his feet were propped up on the rail. It looked like he was relaxing and staring out at the lights of the city. The only thing missing was a bottle of beer.

He spoke without turning to look at me.

“I’ve been waiting for you for a couple hours,” he said. “I figured on a Sunday night you’d be home.”

The key to the house was in my hand. The door was at the top of the stairs. I knew I could get to the knob and get it open before he got to me. But something told me that if this had been a plan to intimidate or hurt me, it wouldn’t be one man sitting leisurely at the end of the front deck. I moved the keys in my hand so one was jutting between my fingers and would do some damage if I had to throw a punch. I cautiously walked over. As I got close, a jolt went through me — the man was wearing a black ballistic mask that covered his whole face.

“Relax,” he said. “If I’d wanted to put you down, you’d already be down.”

I steadied myself, tightened my fists, and moved closer. But not close enough for him to reach out to me.

“Then what’s with the mask?” I said. “And who the fuck are you?”

He lowered his feet to the foot rail of the bar chair and turned away from the view.

“I thought you were smarter than that, Haller,” he said. “I obviously don’t want you to see my face.”

I suddenly realized who he was.

“The elusive Agent MacIsaac,” I said.

“Bravo,” he said.

“Something tells me you’re not here to tell me you’ll testify.”

“I’m here to tell you I will not and that you need to stand down on that.”

“I’ve got an innocent client and I think you can help me prove it. I can’t stand down.”

“Helping you prove it doesn’t necessarily mean me testifying.”

I thought about those words for a long moment as I stared at the eyes behind the oval cutouts in the mask. Before I could come up with my next question, he asked one.

“Why do you think I can’t testify? Why is the U.S. attorney willing to defy a federal judge if it comes to that?”

“Because the Bureau will be embarrassed by what is revealed in court: that the FBI was willing to let Lucinda Sanz go to prison as long as it didn’t come out that its agent’s actions got her ex-husband killed.”

MacIsaac laughed. It was muffled behind the mask, but I heard it and it made me angry.

“You’re going to deny it even here?” I said. “Sanger watched you and Sanz meet. An hour later he was dead, and Lucinda goes down as the fall guy. Meanwhile, the Bureau — and you — look the other way.”

“I want to help you but you don’t know shit about what went down,” MacIsaac said.

“So school me, Agent MacIsaac. Why won’t you testify and what’s with the fucking mask?”

“Can we just go inside? I don’t like talking out here in the open.”

“No, we’re not going inside. Not until you tell me why you’re really here.”

“If we’re staying out here because you want to keep me on camera, that’s not happening.”

I turned and looked up at the Ring camera I’d had installed under the roof eave after the break-in six months earlier. There was a Dodgers baseball cap hung over the lens.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“I’m not even supposed to be here, okay?” MacIsaac said. “I came because I understand what you’re doing. But your case is more than five years old. We’ve moved on and I’m working on something else, something that cuts across lines of national security. I can’t appear in court because I can’t take any risks with that case. People could die. Do you understand?”

“You’re telling me you can’t show your face because you’re working undercover.”

“That’s part of it, yes.”

“There are no cameras in the courtroom. We could even arrange for you to testify in the judge’s chambers. You could wear your mask, for all I care.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t go anywhere near that courthouse. It’s watched.”

“By who?”

“I’m not getting into that. It’s got nothing to do with your case. The point is, I need you to stand down. We can’t have this blow up in the media. There might be photos out there they could use. If that happens, I’m dead and the case I’m working is dead.”

“So I’m supposed to just let my client rot in prison while you go on about your national-security business.”

“Look, I thought she did it, okay? All these years I was mad at her because killing him ended the investigation. But then you come along and I’m following the case and I start seeing what you’re seeing. I think you might have something, but I can’t help you in court.”

“Then what can you do for me? For her?”

“I can tell you that Roberto Sanz was no hero, but in a way, he was trying to be.”

“The shoot-out at Flip’s was no ambush. He was ripping those guys off. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“He agreed to wear a wire. That day we met, he said he would do it. We were going to take down the whole unit. And then an hour later, it was over.”

“Because Sanger saw you two.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Obviously. Let me ask you something: Did he come to you or did you go to him?”

“He came to us. He wanted to clear his conscience, try to make things right. The clique he was in was taking things too far.”

“Just tell me this. He got killed right after you met with him, so how could you think it was his ex-wife?”

MacIsaac seemed to consider the question for the first time.

“Arrogance,” he finally said. “We’re the FBI. We don’t make mistakes like that. I thought the meeting was clean. I had a backup and they didn’t see anybody shadowing him. And then when I read about the evidence against your client, the GSR and all of that, I guess I believed what I wanted to believe. We shut down the investigation and moved on to the next one.”

“And an innocent woman has been sitting in a cell for five years. Great story. Our tax dollars at work. But you need to give me something, MacIsaac, or this is all going to come out. With or without you on the stand, I’ll get it out there. I’ve already started. And if I get the judge to compel your testimony and it blows your cover, I don’t really care. Lucinda Sanz is not going back to that cell. You understand that?”

“I understand. And I have something for you. That’s why I’m here. I want to trade. Sanz told me things in that meeting. The clique was just a ground team. They were working for something bigger.”

“Who?”

“More like what. But we go inside to talk about it.”

“What is the obsession with going inside my house?”

“We’re exposed out here.”

I knew not to trust this man inside or outside my house. But I had to know what he knew.

I realized that my left hand was still balled into a fist, with the teeth of my house key protruding between my fingers. I released my grip and the key fell into my palm.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go in.