The Brass Verdict

Fifty-four

Bosch knocked on my door early Thursday morning. I hadn’t combed my hair yet but I was dressed. He, on the other hand, looked like he had pulled an all-nighter.

“I wake you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I have to get my kid ready for school.”

“That’s right. Wednesday nights and every other weekend.”

“What’s up, Detective?”

“I’ve got a couple of questions and I thought you might be interested in knowing where things stand on everything.”

“Sure. Let’s sit out here. I don’t want her hearing this.”

I patted down my hair as I walked toward the table.

“I don’t want to sit,” Bosch said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

He turned to the railing and leaned his elbows down on it. I changed directions and did the same thing right next to him.

“I don’t like to sit when I’m out here either.”

“I have the same sort of view at my place,” he said. “Only it’s on the other side.”

“I guess that makes us flip sides of the same mountain.”

He turned his eyes from the view to me for a moment.

“Something like that,” he said.

“So, what’s happening? I thought you’d be too angry with me to ever tell me what was going on.”

“Truth is, I think the bureau moves too slowly myself. They didn’t like what you did very much but I didn’t mind. It got things rolling.”

Bosch straightened up and leaned back on the railing, the view of the city behind him.

“So then, what’s happening?” I asked.

“The grand jury came back with indictments last night. Holder, Lester, Carlin, McSweeney, and a woman who’s a supervisor in the jury office and was the one who gave them access to the computers. We’re taking them all down simultaneously this morning. So keep it under your hat until we have everybody hooked up.”

It was nice that he trusted me enough to tell me before the arrests. I thought it might be even nicer to go down to the CCB and watch them take Holder out of there in handcuffs.

“Is it solid?” I asked. “Holder is a judge, you know. You better have it nailed down.”

“It’s solid. McSweeney gave it all up. We’ve got phone records, money transfers. He even taped her husband during some of the conversations.”

I nodded. It sounded like the typical federal package. One reason I never took on federal cases when I was practicing was that when the Big G made a case, it usually stayed made. Victories for the defense were rare. Most times you just got flattened like roadkill.

“I didn’t know Carlin was hooked up in this,” I said.

“He’s right at the center. He goes way back with the judge and she used him to approach Vincent in the first place. Vincent used him to deliver the money. Then when Vincent started getting cold feet because the FBI was sniffing around, Carlin got wind of it and told the judge. She thought the best thing to do was get rid of the weak link. She and her husband sent McSweeney to take care of Vincent.”

“Got wind of it how? Wren Williams?”

“Yeah, we think. He got close to her to keep tabs on Vincent. We don’t think she knew what was going on. She’s not smart enough.”

I nodded and thought about how all the pieces fit together.

“What about McSweeney? He just did what he was told? The judge tells him to hit a guy and he just does it?”

“First of all, McSweeney was a con man before he was a killer. So I don’t for a minute think we’re getting the whole truth out of him. But he says the judge can be very persuasive. The way she explained it to him, either Vincent went down or they all went down. There was no choice. Besides, she also promised to increase his cut after he went through with the trial and tipped the case.”

I nodded.

“So what are the indictments?”

“Conspiracy to commit murder, corruption. This is only the first wave. There will be more down the road. This wasn’t the first time. McSweeney told us he’d been on four juries in the last seven years. Two acquittals and two hangers. Three different courthouses.”

I whistled as I thought of some of the big cases that had ended in shocking acquittals or hung juries in recent years.

“Robert Blake?”

Bosch smiled and shook his head.

“I wish,” he said. “O.J., too. But they weren’t in business back then for that one. We just lost those cases on our own.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is going to be huge.”

“Biggest one I’ve ever had.”

He folded his arms and glanced over his shoulder at the view.

“You’ve got the Sunset Strip and I’ve got Universal,” he said.

I heard the door open and looked back to see Hayley peeking out.

“Dad?”

“What’s up, Hay?”

“Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. Hayley, this is Detective Bosch. He’s a policeman.”

“Hello, Hayley,” Bosch said.

I think it was the only time I had ever seen him put a real smile on his face.

“Hi,” my daughter said.

“Hayley, did you eat your cereal?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then you can watch TV until it’s time to go.”

She disappeared inside and closed the door. I checked my watch. She still had ten minutes before we had to leave.

“She’s a cute kid,” Bosch said.

I nodded.

“I gotta ask you a question,” he said. “You started this whole thing tumbling, didn’t you? You sent that anonymous letter to the judge.”

I thought for a moment before answering.

“If I say yes, am I going to become a witness?”

I had not been called to the federal grand jury after all. With McSweeney giving everything up, they apparently didn’t need me. And I didn’t want to change that now.

“No, it’s just for me,” Bosch said. “I just want to know if you did the right thing.”

I considered not telling him but ultimately I wanted him to know.

“Yeah, that was me. I wanted to get McSweeney off the jury and then win the case fair and square. I didn’t expect Judge Stanton to take the letter and consult other judges about it.”

“He called up the chief judge and asked her advice.”

I nodded.

“It’s gotta be what happened,” I said. “He calls her, not knowing she was behind the whole thing. She then tipped McSweeney and told him not to show up for court, then used him to try to clean up the mess.”

Bosch nodded as though I was confirming things he already knew.

“And you were part of the mess. She must’ve figured you sent the letter to Judge Stanton. You knew too much and had to go – just like Vincent. It wasn’t about the story we planted. It was about you tipping Judge Stanton.”

I shook my head. My own actions had almost brought about my own demise in the form of a high dive off Mulholland.

“I guess I was pretty stupid.”

“I don’t know about that. You’re still standing. After today none of them will be.”

“There’s that. What kind of deal did McSweeney cut?”

“No death penalty and consideration. If everybody goes down, then he’ll probably get fifteen. In the federal system that means he’ll still do thirteen.”

“Who’s his lawyer?”

“He’s got two. Dan Daly and Roger Mills.”

I nodded. He was in good hands. I thought about what Walter Elliot had told me, that the guiltier you were, the more lawyers you needed.

“Pretty good deal for three murders,” I said.

“One murder,” Bosch corrected.

“What do you mean? Vincent, Elliot and Albrecht.”

“He didn’t kill Elliot and Albrecht. Those two didn’t match up.”

“What are you talking about? He killed them and then he tried to kill me.”

Bosch shook his head.

“He did try to kill you but he didn’t kill Elliot and Albrecht. It was a different weapon. On top of that, it didn’t make sense. Why would he ambush them and then try to make you look like a suicide? It doesn’t connect. McSweeney is clean on Elliot and Albrecht.”

I was stunned silent for a long moment. For the last three days I had believed that the man who killed Elliot and Albrecht was the same man who had tried to kill me and that he was safely locked in the hands of the authorities. Now Bosch was telling me there was a second killer somewhere out there.

“Does Beverly Hills have any ideas?” I finally asked.

“Oh, yeah, they’re pretty sure they know who did it. But they’ll never make a case.”

The hits kept coming. One surprise after another.

“Who?”

“The family.”

“You mean like the Family, with a capital F? Organized crime?”

Bosch smiled and shook his head.

“The family of Johan Rilz. They took care of it.”

“How do they know that?”

“Lands and grooves. The bullets they dug out of the two victims were nine-millimeter Parabellums. Brass jacket and casing and manufactured in Germany. BHPD took the bullet profile and matched them to a C-ninety-six Mauser, also manufactured in Germany.”

He paused to see if I had any questions. When I didn’t, he continued.

“Over at BHPD they’re thinking it’s almost like somebody was sending a message.”

“A message from Germany.”

“You got it.”

I thought of Golantz telling the Rilz family how I was going to drag Johan through the mud for a week. They had left rather than witness that. And Elliot was killed before it could happen.

“Parabellum,” I said. “You know your Latin, Detective?”

“Didn’t go to law school. What’s it mean?”

“Prepare for war. It’s part of a saying. ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ What will happen with the investigation now?”

Bosch shrugged.

“I know a couple of Beverly Hills detectives who’ll get a nice trip to Germany out of it. They fly their people business class with the seats that fold down into beds. They’ll go through the motions and the due diligence. But if the hit was done right, nothing will ever happen.”

“How’d they get the gun over here?”

“It could be done. Through Canada or Der FedEx if it absolutely, positively has to be there on time.”

I didn’t smile. I was thinking about Elliot and the equilibrium of justice. Somehow Bosch seemed to know what I was thinking.

“Remember what you said to me when you told me you had told Judge Holder you knew she was behind all of this?”

I shrugged.

“What did I say?”

“You said sometimes justice can’t wait.”

“And?”

“And you were right. Sometimes it doesn’t wait. In that trial, you had the momentum and Elliot looked like he was going to walk. So somebody decided not to wait for justice and he delivered his own verdict. Back when I was riding patrol, you know what we called a killing that came down to simple street justice?”

“What?”

“The brass verdict.”

I nodded. I understood. We were both silent for a long moment.

“Anyway, that’s all I know,” Bosch finally said. “I gotta go and get ready to put people in jail. It’s going to be a good day.”

Bosch pushed his weight off the railing, ready to go.

“It’s funny you coming here today,” I said. “Last night I decided I was going to ask you something the next time I saw you.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. It was the right thing to do.

“Flip sides of the same mountain… Do you know you look a lot like your father?”

He said nothing. He just stared at me for a moment, then nodded once and turned to the railing. He cast his gaze out at the city.

“When did you put that together?” he asked.

“Technically last night, when I was looking at old photos and scrapbooks with my daughter. But I think on some level I’ve known it for a long time. We were looking at photos of my father. They kept reminding me of somebody and then I realized it was you. Once I saw it, it seemed obvious. I just didn’t see it at first.”

I walked to the railing and looked out at the city with him.

“Most of what I know about him came from books,” I said. “A lot of different cases, a lot of different women. But there are a few memories that aren’t in books and are just mine. I remember coming into the office he had set up at home when he started to get sick. There was a painting framed on the wall – a print actually, but back then I thought it was a real painting. The Garden of Earthly Delights. Weird, scary stuff for a little kid…

“The memory I have is of him holding me on his lap and making me look at the painting and telling me that it wasn’t scary. That it was beautiful. He tried to teach me to say the painter’s name. Hieronymus Bosch. Rhymes with ‘anonymous,’ he told me. Only back then, I don’t think I could say ‘anonymous’ either.”

I wasn’t seeing the city out there. I was seeing the memory. I was quiet for a while after that. It was my half brother’s turn. Eventually, he leaned his elbows down on the railing and spoke.

“I remember that house,” he said. “I visited him once. Introduced myself. He was on the bed. He was dying.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I just told him I’d made it through. That’s all. There wasn’t really anything else to say.”

Like right now, I thought. What was there to say? Somehow, my thoughts jumped to my own shattered family. I had little contact with the siblings I knew I had, let alone Bosch. And then there was my daughter, whom I saw only eight days a month. It seemed like the most important things in life were the easiest to break apart.

“You’ve known all these years,” I finally said. “Why didn’t you ever make contact? I have another half brother and three half sisters. They’re yours, too, you know.”

Bosch didn’t say anything at first, then he gave an answer I guessed he had been telling himself for a few decades.

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to rock anybody’s boat. Most of the time people don’t like surprises. Not like this.”

For a moment I wondered what my life would’ve been like if I had known about Bosch. Maybe I would’ve been a cop instead of a lawyer. Who knows?

“I’m quitting, you know.”

I wasn’t sure why I had said it.

“Quitting what?”

“My job. The law. You could say the brass verdict was my last verdict.”

“I quit once. It didn’t take. I came back.”

“We’ll see.”

Bosch glanced at me and then put his eyes back out on the city. It was a beautiful day with low-flying clouds and a cold-air front that had compressed the smog layer to a thin amber band on the horizon. The sun had just crested the mountains to the east and was throwing light out on the Pacific. We could see all the way out to Catalina.

“I came to the hospital that time you got shot,” he said. “I wasn’t sure why. I saw it on the news and they said it was a gut shot and I knew those could go either way. I thought maybe if they needed blood or something, I could… I figured we matched, you know? Anyway, there were all these reporters and cameras. I ended up leaving.”

I smiled and then I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it.

“What’s so funny?”

“You, a cop, volunteering to give blood to a defense attorney. I don’t think they would’ve let you back into the clubhouse if they knew about that.”

Now Bosch smiled and nodded.

“I guess I didn’t think about that.”

And just like that, both our smiles disappeared and the awkwardness of being strangers returned. Eventually Bosch checked his watch.

“The warrant teams are meeting in twenty minutes. I gotta roll.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you around, Counselor.”

“I’ll see you around, Detective.”

He went down the steps and I stayed where I was. I heard his car start up, then pull away and go down the hill.

Fifty-five

I stayed out on the deck after that and looked out at the city as the light moved across it. Many different thoughts filtered through my head and flew off into the sky like the clouds up there, remotely beautiful and untouchable. Distant. I was left feeling that I would never see Bosch again. That he would have his side of the mountain and I would have mine and that’s all there would be.

After a while I heard the door open and steps on the deck. I felt my daughter’s presence by my side and I put my hand on her shoulder.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

“Just looking.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“What did that policeman want?”

“Just to talk. He’s a friend of mine.”

We were both silent for a moment before she moved on.

“I wish Mom had stayed with us last night,” she said.

I looked down at her and squeezed the back of her neck.

“One thing at a time, Hay,” I said. “We got her to have pancakes with us last night, didn’t we?”

She thought about it and gave me the nod. She agreed. Pancakes were a start.

“I’m going to be late if we don’t go,” she said. “One more time and I’ll get a conduct slip.”

I nodded.

“Too bad. The sun’s just about to hit the ocean.”

“Come on, Dad. That happens every day.”

I nodded.

“Somewhere, at least.”

I went in for the keys, then locked up and we went down the steps to the garage. By the time I backed the Lincoln out and had it pointed down the hill, I could see the sun was spinning gold on the Pacific.