The Fifth Witness

Eleven

The office was closed and locked for the evening but I was still in place at my desk, prepping for the preliminary hearing. It was a Tuesday in early March and I wished I could have opened a window to let in the cool evening breeze. But the office was hermetically sealed with vertical windows that did not open. Lorna hadn’t noticed that when she’d inspected the place and signed the lease. It made me miss working out of the backseat of the Lincoln, where I could slide a window down and catch the breeze whenever I wanted.

The preliminary hearing was a week away. By prepping, I mean I was trying to anticipate what my opponent Andrea Freeman would be willing to part with when she put her case before the judge.

A preliminary hearing is a routine step on the way to a trial. It is one hundred percent the prosecution’s show. The state is charged with presenting its case to the court and the judge then rules on whether there is sufficient evidence to take it forward to a jury trial. This isn’t the reasonable doubt threshold. Not even close. The judge only has to decide if a preponderance of the evidence supports the charges. If so, then the next stop is a full-blown trial.

The trick for Freeman would be to parcel out just enough evidence to cross that preponderance line and get the judge’s nod of approval without giving away the whole store. Because she knew that I would be going to school on whatever she presented.

There is no doubt that the prosecution’s burden is no burden at all. Though the idea of a preliminary hearing is to provide a check on the system and to make sure the government does not run roughshod over the individual, it is still a fixed game. The California state assembly saw to that.

Frustrated by the seemingly interminable duration of criminal cases as they slowly wound through the justice system, the politicians in Sacramento took action. The prevailing view was that justice delayed was justice denied, never mind that this sentiment conflicted with a basic component of the adversarial system-a strong and vigorous defense. The assembly sidestepped that minor inconvenience and voted for change, installing measures that streamlined the process. The preliminary hearing went from a full airing of the prosecution’s evidence to what is essentially a game of hide-and-seek. Few witnesses had to be called besides the lead investigator, hearsay was approved rather than discouraged and the prosecution need not offer even half of its evidence. Just enough to get by.

The result was that it was beyond rare that a case did not measure up to the level of preponderance and the preliminary hearing became a routine rubber-stamping of the charges on the way to trial.

Still, there was a value for the defense in the proceedings. I still got a peek at what was to come and an opportunity to raise questions about what witnesses and evidence were presented. And therein was the prep work. I needed to anticipate which cards Freeman would show and decide how I would play against them.

We were way past any notion of a plea agreement. Freeman still wasn’t giving on that end and my client still wasn’t taking. We were on a direct course toward a trial in April or May and I can’t say I was unhappy about it. We had a legitimate shot and if Lisa Trammel wanted to go for it I was going to be ready.

In recent weeks we had gotten some good news as well as bad on the evidence front. As expected, Judge Morales ruled against our motions to suppress the police interview and the search of Lisa’s home. This cleared the way for the prosecution to build its case around the pillars of motivation, opportunity and the single eyewitness account. They had the foreclosure action. They had Lisa’s history of protest against the bank. They had her incriminating admissions during her interview. And most of all, they had the eyewitness, Margo Schafer, who claimed to have seen Lisa just a block from the bank and only minutes after the killing.

But we were building a defense case that attacked these pillars and contained much evidence that was indeed exculpatory.

No murder weapon had been identified or found yet, and the state’s zeal to prove that a tiny blemish of blood found on a pipe wrench taken from the tool bench in Lisa’s garage had backfired when testing concluded it was not Mitchell Bondurant’s blood. Of course, the prosecution would not bring this up at the preliminary hearing or the trial, but I could and would. It is the defense’s job to take the miscues and mistakes of the investigation and ram them down the state’s throat. I would not hold back.

Additionally, my investigator had gathered information that would put into question the observations of the state’s key witness, even though we would not get that shot until trial. And we also had the hypothesis of innocence. The alternate theory was building nicely. We had served subpoenas on Louis Opparizio and his company ALOFT, the foreclosure mill at the center of the defense strategy.

I anticipated that no defense tactics or evidence would come up during the preliminary hearing. Freeman would put Detective Kurlen on the stand and he would walk the judge through the entire case, making sure to sidestep any weaknesses in the evidence. She would also put on the medical examiner and possibly a forensic analyst.

Schafer, the witness, was the only question. My first thought was that Freeman would hold her back. She could rely on Kurlen to present information from his interview with her, thereby bringing out what Schafer would eventually testify to at trial. No more was needed for a prelim. On the other hand, Freeman might put Schafer on the stand in a bid to see what I had. If I revealed during cross-examination how I planned to handle the witness, it would help Freeman prepare for what was ahead at trial.

It was all strategy and games at this point and I had to admit it was the best part of a trial. The moves made outside the courtroom were always more significant than those made inside. The inside moves were all prepped and choreographed. I preferred the improvisation done away from the courtroom.

I was underlining the name Schafer on my legal pad when I heard the phone ring in the reception area. I could have taken it on my set but didn’t bother. It was well after hours and I knew the number on the phone-book ad had been forwarded to the new office number. Anybody calling this late was probably looking for foreclosure advice. They could leave a message.

I pulled the blood analysis file to front and center on the desk. It contained the DNA comparison report that had been run on blood extracted from a crevice in the handle of the pipe wrench from Lisa’s tool bench. It had been a rush job, the prosecution popping for an expensive analysis from an outside firm rather than wait for the regional lab to do it. I imagined the disappointment Freeman must have felt when the report came in negative. Not Mitchell Bondurant’s blood. Not only was it a setback for the prosecution-a match would have killed any chance Lisa had at an acquittal and forced her into a plea agreement. But now Freeman knew I could wave the report in front of the jury and say, “See, their case is full of wrong turns and wrong evidence.”

We also scored when footage from video cameras in the bank building and garage entrance failed to show Lisa Trammel during the time before and after the killing. The cameras did not cover the entire facility but that was beside the point. It was exculpatory evidence.

Now my cell phone started to vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the ID. It was my agent, Joel Gotler, calling. I hesitated but then took the call.

“You’re working late,” I said by way of answering.

“Yeah, don’t you read your e-mails?” Gotler said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Sorry, my computer’s right here but I’ve been busy. What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a big problem. Do you read Deadline Hollywood?”

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s a blog. Look it up on your computer.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. Do it.”

I closed the blood file and slid it aside. I pulled my laptop over and opened it. I went online and navigated to the Deadline Hollywood site. I started scrolling. It looked like a list of short reports on Hollywood deals, box office estimates and studio comings and goings. Who bought and sold what, who left what agency, who was going down and who was going up, that sort of thing.

“Okay, what am I looking for here?”

“Scroll down to three forty-five this afternoon.”

The posts on the blog were time-stamped. I did as instructed and came to the late afternoon post Gotler wanted me to see. The headline alone kicked me in the nuts.

Archway Grabs Real-Life Murder Mystery

Dahl/McReynolds to produce

Sources tell me that Archway Pictures has anted up six figures against a seven-figure backend to acquire rights to the foreclosure-revenge case currently twisting its way through the justice system here in LaLaLand. The accused, Lisa Trammel, was represented by Herb Dahl in the deal and he will produce alongside Archway’s Clegg McReynolds. The multitiered deal includes TV and documentary rights. The ending of the story, however, has yet to be written as Trammel still faces trial in the murder of the banker who was trying to foreclose on her house. In a press release McReynolds said Trammel’s story will be used to put a magnifying glass on the foreclosure epidemic that has swept across the country in recent years. She is expected to go to trial in two months.

“That motherfucker,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” Gotler said. “What the hell is going on? I’m out there trying to sell this thing and was very close to a deal with Lakeshore and then I read this! Are you kidding me, Haller? You stab me in the back like this?”

“Look, I don’t know exactly what is going on here but I have a contract with Lisa Trammel and-”

“Do you know this guy Dahl? I do and he’s a complete sleaze.”

“I know, I know. He tried to make a move and I shut his ass down. He got Lisa to sign something but-”

“Ah, jeez, she signed with this guy?”

“No. I mean yes, but after she signed with me. I have a contract. I have first po-”

I stopped right there. The contracts. I remembered making copies and giving them to Dahl. I then put the originals back in the file in the trunk of the Lincoln. Dahl saw the whole thing.

“Son of a bitch!”

“What is it?”

I looked at the stack of files on the corner of my desk. They had all been generated by the Lisa Trammel case. But I had not brought in the files from the trunk of the Lincoln because I had been lazy. I figured they were all old contracts and old cases and maybe I wasn’t sure how I would ultimately like working out of a bricks-and-mortar office. The contracts file was still in the trunk.

“Joel, I’ll call you right back.”

“Hey, what is-”

I closed the phone and headed to the door. The Victory Building had its own two-level garage but it was not attached. I had to leave the building and walk to the garage next door. I trotted up the ramp and on the second level headed to my car, popping the trunk with the remote as I approached. My Lincoln was the only vehicle left on the upper level. I pulled the contracts file and leaned under the light from the trunk lid to look for the agreement Lisa Trammel had signed.

It wasn’t there.

To say I was angry was an understatement. I shoved the file back into its slot and slammed the lid. I pulled my phone and called Lisa as I headed back to the ramp. The call went to message.

“Lisa, this is your attorney. I thought we agreed that when I called you, you would answer. No matter what time, no matter what you were doing. But here I am calling and you’re not answering. Call… me… back. I want to talk to you about your little friend Herb and the deal he just made. I am sure you are aware of it. But what you may not be aware of is that I am going to be suing his ass for this stunt. I’m going to put him under the earth, Lisa. So call me back! Now!”

I closed the phone and squeezed it as I headed down the ramp. I barely noticed the two men walking up the ramp until one of them called to me.

“Hey, you’re that guy, right?”

I stopped, confused by the question, my mind still firmly wrapped around Herb Dahl and Lisa Trammel.

“Excuse me?”

“The lawyer. You’re the famous lawyer from TV.”

They both moved toward me. They were young guys in bomber jackets, hands in their pockets. I didn’t want to stop to make small talk.

“Uh, no, I think you’ve got the wrong-”

“No, man, that’s you. I seen you on the TV, right?”

I gave up.

“Yeah, I have a case. It gets me on TV.”

“Right, right, right… and what’s your name again?”

“Mickey Haller.”

As soon as I said my name I saw the silent one take his hands out of his jacket pockets and square his shoulders toward me. He was wearing black fingerless gloves. It wasn’t cool enough for gloves and in that moment I realized that, since there were no other cars up on the second level, these guys hadn’t been going up there. They had been looking for me.

“What’s this all-”

The silent man swung a left fist into my midsection. I doubled over just in time to feel his right fist crush three of my left ribs. I remembered dropping my phone at that point but little else. I know I tried to run but the talker blocked my way and then turned me around, pinning my elbows at my sides.

He was wearing black gloves, too.

Twelve

They left my face alone, but that was about the only thing that didn’t feel bruised or broken when I woke up in ICU at Holy Cross. The final tally included thirty-eight stitches in my scalp, nine fractured ribs, four broken fingers, two bruised kidneys and one testicle that had been twisted 180 degrees before the surgeons straightened it. My torso was the color of a grape Popsicle and my urine the dark hue of Coca-Cola.

The last time I had stayed in a hospital I got hooked on oxycodone, an addiction that nearly cost me my child and career. This time I told them I’d gut it out without the chemical help. And this of course was a painful mistake. Two hours after taking my stand I was pleading with the nurses, the orderlies and anyone who would listen to give me the drip. It finally took care of the pain but left me floating too close to the ceiling. It took them a couple days to find the right equilibrium of pain relief and consciousness. That was when I started accepting visitors.

Two of the first were a pair of detectives from the Van Nuys Division CAPs Unit. Their names were Stilwell and Eyman. They asked me basic questions so that they could complete their paperwork. They had about as much interest in determining who had attacked me as they did in the idea of working through lunch. I was, after all, the defense counsel to an alleged murderer their colleagues down the hall had popped. In other words, they weren’t going to get their own balls in a twist over this one.

When Stilwell closed his notebook I knew the interview-and the investigation-was over. He told me they would check back if anything came up.

“You forgot something, didn’t you?” I said.

I spoke without moving my jaw because somehow moving my jaw set off the pain receptors in my rib cage.

“What’s that?” Stilwell asked.

“You never asked me to describe my attackers. You didn’t even ask what color they were.”

“We can get all of that on our next visit. The doctor told us you need your rest.”

“You want to make an appointment for the next visit?”

Neither detective answered. They wouldn’t be coming back.

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “Goodbye, Detectives. I’m glad the Crimes Against Persons Unit is on this. Makes me feel safe.”

“Look,” Stilwell said. “Likely this was a random thing. Two muggers looking for an easy mark. The chances of us-”

“They knew who I was.”

“You said they recognized you from the TV and the newspapers.”

“I didn’t say that. I said they recognized me and made it appear as though it was from TV or something. If you really cared about this you would’ve made that distinction.”

“Are you accusing us of not caring about a random act of violence in this community?”

“Pretty much, yeah. And who says it was random?”

“You said you didn’t know or recognize the assailants. So unless you are changing your mind about that, there is no evidence that this was anything other than a random act. Or at best a lawyer hate crime. They recognized you and didn’t like that you defend murderers and scumbags and decided to relieve their frustrations on your body. Could’ve been a lot of things.”

My entire body throbbed with pain ignited by their indifference. But I was also tired and wanted them gone.

“Never mind, Detectives,” I said. “Go on back to Crimes Against Persons and fill out your paperwork. You can forget about this one. I’ll take it from here.”

I closed my eyes on them then. It was the only thing I could do.

The next time my lids came open I saw Cisco sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, staring at me.

“Hey, Boss,” he said gently, as if his usual booming voice might hurt me. “How’s it hanging?”

I coughed as I came fully awake and that set off a paroxysm of pain in my testicles.

“Feels like it’s still about a hundred eighty degrees to the left.”

He smiled because he thought I was delirious. But I was lucid enough to know that this was his second visit and that I had asked him to do some sleuthing when he had come the first time.

“What time is it? I’m losing track, sleeping so much.”

“Ten after ten.”

“Thursday?”

“No, Friday morning, Mick.”

I’d been sleeping more than I realized. I tried to sit up but the movement set off a burning wave of pain across my left side.

“Jesus Christ!”

“You okay, Boss?”

“Whadaya got for me, Cisco?”

He stood up and came to the side of the bed.

“Not a whole lot but I’m still working it out. I got a look at the police report, however. Not a lot there but it did say that you were found by the night cleaning crew that came in about nine o’clock to work in the building. They found you out cold on the garage ramp and called it in.”

“Nine o’clock wasn’t too long after. Did they see anything else?”

“No, they didn’t. According to the report. I plan to be there tonight to interview them myself.”

“Good. What about the office?”

“Me and Lorna checked as best we could. It doesn’t look like anybody was in there. Nothing missing, as far as we can tell. And it was left unlocked the whole night. I think you were the target, Mick. Not the office.”

The medication drip worked on a regulated feed system that parceled out the sweet juice of relief according to impulses sent from a computer in another room and programmed by someone I had never met. But at that moment that computer nerd was my hero. I felt the cold trickle of a boost moving through my arm and into my chest. I was silent as I waited for my screaming nerve endings to be calmed.

“What are you thinking, Mick?”

“My mind’s a blank. I told you I didn’t recognize them.”

“I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about who sent them. What’s your gut tell you? Opparizio?”

“It would certainly be the choice. He knows we’re coming for him. I mean, who else?”

“What about Dahl?”

I shook my head.

“What for? He already stole my contract and made the deal. Why beat me up after?”

“Maybe just to slow you down. Maybe to add intrigue to the project. This adds another dimension. It’s part of the story.”

“Seems like a stretch. I like Opparizio better.”

“But why would he do it?”

“Same thing. To slow me down. Warn me off. He doesn’t want to be a witness and he doesn’t want to be dragged through the shit he knows I have on him.”

Cisco shrugged.

“Still not sure I’m buying it.”

“Well, whoever it was doesn’t matter. This isn’t going to slow me down.”

“What exactly are you going to do about Dahl? He stole the contract.”

“I’m working on it. I’ll have a plan for that douche bag by the time I get out of here.”

“When’s that supposed to be?”

“They’re waiting to see if I’m healing all right. If not, they might take off my left nut.”

Cisco cringed as though I was talking about his left nut.

“Yeah, I try not to think about it,” I said.

“Okay then, moving on. What about the two men? I’ve got two white guys, early thirties, leather bomber jackets and gloves. You remember anything else this time?”

“Nope.”

“No regional or foreign accents?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Scars, limps or tattoos?”

“None that I remember. It went down pretty quick.”

“I know. You think you could pick them out of a six-pack?”

He was talking about a photo spread of mug shots.

“One of them I could. The one who did all the talking. I didn’t look at the other one too much. Once he hit me I wasn’t seeing anything.”

“Right. Well, I’ll keep working on it.”

“What else, Cisco? I’m getting tired.”

I closed my eyes to accentuate the point.

“Well, I was supposed to call Maggie as soon as you were awake. Her timing’s been off. Every time she’s been in here with Hayley you’ve been out.”

“You can call her. Just tell her to wake me up if I’m asleep. I want to see my kid.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her to bring her after school. Meantime, Bullocks wants to bring by the motion for a continuance for your approval and signature before filing it by the end of the day.”

I opened my eyes. Cisco had moved to the other side of the bed.

“What continuance?”

“For the prelim. She’s going to ask the judge to put it back a few weeks in light of your hospitalization.”

“No.”

“Mick, it’s Friday. The prelim’s Tuesday. Even if they let you out of here by then you’re not going to be in any kind of condition to-”

“She can handle it.”

“Who, Bullocks?”

“Yes. She’s good. She can handle it.”

“She’s good but green. Are you sure you want somebody just out of law school handling a prelim for a murder trial?”

“It’s a prelim. Trammel’s going to be bound over for trial whether I’m there or not. The best we can hope for is a little peek at the prosecution’s case strategy and Aronson will be able to report back on that.”

“You think the judge is going to allow it? He might see it as a move to set up an ineffective-counsel beef if there’s ultimately a conviction.”

“If Lisa signs off on it, we’ll be okay. I’ll call her and tell her it’s part of the case strategy. Bullocks can spend some time here with me over the weekend and I’ll prep her.”

“But what is the case strategy, Mick? Why not just wait till you’re healthy?”

“Because I want them to think they succeeded.”

“Who?”

“Opparizio. Whoever did this to me. Let them think I’m incapacitated or running scared. Whatever. Aronson handles the prelim and then we push this thing to trial.”

Cisco nodded.

“Got it.”

“Good. You go now and call Maggie. Tell her to wake me up no matter what the nurses say, especially if she comes with Hayley.”

“Will do, Boss. But, uh, there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Rojas is sitting out there in the waiting room. He wanted to visit but I told him to wait out there. He came yesterday, too, but you were sleeping.”

I nodded. Rojas.

“Did you check the car’s trunk?”

“I did. I didn’t see any evidence of a pick. No scratches on the tumblers.”

“Okay. When you go out, send him in.”

“You want to see him alone?”

“Yeah. Alone.”

“You got it.”

He left then and I grabbed the bed’s remote. I slowly and painfully raised the bed to about forty-five degrees so I was half sitting up for my next visitor. The adjustment ignited another run of searing pain that burned across my rib cage like an August brushfire.

Rojas tentatively entered the room, waving and nodding at me.

“Hey, Mr. Haller, how you doin’?”

“I’ve had better days, Rojas. How are you doing?”

“I’m good, I’m good. I just wanted to stop by and say hello and all.”

He was as nervous as a feral cat. And I thought I knew why.

“It was nice of you to come by. Why don’t you sit in that chair over there.”

“Okay.”

He took the chair in the corner. This allowed me a full view of him. I would be able to pick up all body movements as I tried to read him. He was already displaying some of the classic tells of a dissembler-avoidance of eye contact, inappropriate smiling, constant hand movement.

“Did the doctors tell you how long you have to stay here?” he asked.

“A few more days, I think. At least until I stop pissing blood.”

“Man, that’s bad shit! They going to catch who did it?”

“They don’t seem to be working too hard on it.”

Rojas nodded. I said nothing else. Silence is often a very useful interview tool. My driver then rubbed his palms up and down his thighs a few times and stood up.

“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt you. You probably have to get your sleep or something.”

“No, I’m up for the day, Rojas. It hurts too much to sleep. You can stay. What’s the hurry? You’re not driving somebody else now, are you?”

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that.”

He reluctantly sat down again. Rojas had been a client before he was my driver. He’d been popped on a possession-of-stolen-property beef and had a prior conviction to go with it. The prosecution wanted jail time but I was able to get him probation. He owed me three grand for my efforts but had lost his job since his employer was also the victim of the theft. I told him he could work it off by driving and translating for me and he took the job. I started out paying him $500 a week and counted an additional $250 against the debt. After three months the debt was cleared but he stayed on, collecting the whole $750 now. I thought he was happy and on the straight and narrow path, but maybe once a thief, always a thief.

“I just want you to know, Mr. Haller, that once you get out of here, I’m on call for you twenty-four hours a day. I don’t want you driving nowhere. If you even have to go down the hill to the Starbucks, I’ll be there to take you.”

“Thank you, Rojas. After all, I guess it’s the least you can do, right?”

“Uh…”

He looked confused but not that confused. He knew where this was headed. I decided not to dance around it any longer.

“How much did he pay you?”

He fidgeted in the seat.

“Who? For what?”

“Come on, Rojas. Don’t play it this way. It’s embarrassing.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe I should go after all.”

He stood up.

“We don’t have an agreement, Rojas. We don’t have a contract, no verbal promises, nothing. You walk out of this room and I fire you and that’s it. Is that what you want here?”

“Doesn’t matter if there’s an agreement. You can’t just fire me for no reason.”

“But I have the reason, Rojas. Herb Dahl told me all about it. You should know there’s no honor among thieves. He said you called him up and told him you’d get him whatever he needs.”

The bluff worked. I saw the rage explode in Rojas’s eyes. I had my finger on the nurse-call button just in case.

“That greasy little shit eater!”

I nodded.

“Good description. How-”

“I didn’t call his ass up. The fucker came to me. He said he just wanted fifteen seconds in the trunk. I shoulda known this would blow up on me.”

“I thought you were smarter than that, Rojas. How much did he pay you?”

“Four bills.”

“Not even a week’s pay and now you’re not going to have any pay.”

Rojas came close to the bedside. I held my finger on the call button. I figured he was going to either attack me or ask me for a deal.

“Mr. Haller… I… need this job. My kids…”

“This is like last time, Rojas. Didn’t you learn a lesson about ripping off your employer?”

“Yes, sir, I did. Dahl told me he just wanted to look at something but then he took it and when I tried to stop him he said, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ He had me. I couldn’t stop him.”

“You still have the four hundred?”

“Yes, I didn’t spend a thing. Four hundred-dollar bills. And they looked real to me.”

I pointed him back to the chair. I didn’t want him so close.

“Okay, time to make a choice, Rojas. You can walk out that door with your four hundred and I’ll never see you again. Or I can give you a second-”

“I want the second chance. Please, I’m sorry.”

“Well, you’re going to have to earn it. You’re going to have to help me make right what you did. I am going to sue Dahl for taking that document and I am going to need you to be the witness who explains exactly what happened.”

“I’ll do it but who will believe me?”

“That’s where your four hundred-dollar bills come in. I want you to go home or to wherever they are and-”

“I have them right here. In my wallet.”

He jumped up from the seat and pulled his wallet.

“Take them out like this.”

I held my finger and thumb close together.

“They can get fingerprints off money?”

“They sure can and if we can get Dahl’s off those then it doesn’t matter what he says about you. He’s nailed.”

I opened a drawer of the little table to the side of my bed. A plastic Ziploc bag containing my wallet and keys and loose change and currency was there. It had all been bagged by the paramedics who had been called to the garage of the Victory Building. Cisco had secured it and had only just given it back. I dumped the contents into the drawer and then handed the bag to Rojas.

“Okay, put the money in there and seal it.”

He did as instructed and then I waved him over to give me the bag. The hundreds looked crisp and new. Less prior handling of the currency would mean a better shot at pulling prints.

“Cisco will take it from here. I’ll call him and tell him to come back and pick these up. At some point he’ll need your prints.”

“Uh…”

Rojas’s eyes were on the bag and the money.

“What?”

“Will I get that money back?”

I put the bag in the drawer and slammed it shut.

“Jesus Christ, Rojas, get out of here before I change my mind and fire your ass.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, you know?”

“You’re sorry you got caught and that’s all. Just go! I can’t believe I just gave you a second chance. I must be a fucking idiot.”

Rojas retreated like a dog with its tail between its legs. After he was gone I slowly lowered the bed and tried not to think about his betrayal or who had sent the two men in black gloves or anything else to do with the case. I looked up at the bag of clear liquid hanging up there overhead and waited for the blessed boost that would make at least some of the pain go away.

Thirteen

As expected, Lisa Trammel was held to answer and ordered to stand trial for murder by Judge Dario Morales at the end of a daylong preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Superior Court. Using Detective Howard Kurlen as her primary carrier of evidence, Prosecutor Andrea Freeman deftly presented a net of circumstantial evidence that quickly enclosed Lisa. Freeman took the case across the preponderance threshold like a hundred-meter sprinter and the judge was equally swift in rendering his ruling. It was routine. Matter-of-fact. Chop-chop and Lisa was held to answer.

My client was there at the defense table for the hearing but I was not. Jennifer Aronson held forth for the defense as best she could in a one-sided game. The judge had allowed the hearing to proceed only after questioning Lisa exhaustively to assure himself that her decision to go forward without me there was knowing, voluntary and strategic. Lisa acknowledged in open court that she was aware of Aronson’s lack of courtroom experience and waived any claim to the argument of ineffective counsel as grounds for an appeal of the judge’s eventual determination.

I watched most of it from the confines of my home where I was continuing to recover from my injuries. KTLA Channel 5 had carried the morning session live in lieu of other local programming before flipping back to the usual slate of insipid afternoon talk shows. This meant I missed only the last two hours of the hearing. But that was okay because by that point I knew how it would go. There were no surprises and the only disappointment was in not getting any sort of new read on how the prosecution would unfurl the flag at trial, when it all counted.

As decided during our prep sessions in my room at Holy Cross, Aronson presented no witnesses or any affirmative defense. We chose to reserve any indication of our hypothesis of innocence for trial, when the threshold of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt raised the game to almost an even match. Aronson used cross-examination of the state’s witnesses sparingly. These were all seasoned veterans of courtroom testimony-Kurlen, a forensic expert and the medical examiner among them. Freeman chose not to put Margo Schafer on the stand, using Kurlen to recount his interview with the eyewitness who placed Lisa Trammel a block from the murder. There wasn’t much to get from the state’s lineup and so our strategy was to observe and wait. To bide our time. We would simply go at them at trial where we stood the best chance.

At the end of the hearing Lisa was ordered to stand trial before Judge Coleman Perry on the sixth floor of the courthouse. Perry was yet another judge I had never stood before. But since I knew his courtroom was one of four possible destinations for my client, I had done some checking with other members of the defense bar. The overall report I got was that Perry was a straight shooter with a short temper. He was fair until you crossed him and then he was prone to hold a grudge that might last an entire trial. It was good knowledge to have as the case progressed to its final stage.

Two days later, I finally felt ready to return to the fray. My broken fingers were bound tightly in a form-fitted plaster cast and my bruised torso was losing the shadings of deep blue and purple for a sickly tone of yellow. My scalp stitches had been removed and I was able to delicately comb my hair back over the shaved wound as if I was hiding a bald spot. Best of all, my formerly twisted testicle, which the doctor had ultimately chosen not to remove, was improving a little bit every day, according to the doctor and his powers of observation and palpation. It was left to see whether it would resume normal activity and function, or die on the vine like an unpicked Roma tomato.

By previous arrangement, Rojas had the Lincoln at the bottom of the front steps at eleven o’clock sharp. I slowly made my way down, walking cane firmly in hand. Rojas was there to help me get into the back of the car. We moved carefully and soon I was in my usual place, ready to roll. Rojas jumped behind the wheel and we jerked forward and down the hill.

“Easy, Rojas. It hurts too much for me to wear a seat belt. So don’t send me into the front seat.”

“Sorry, Boss. I’ll do better. Where are we going today? The office?”

He had gotten that Boss stuff from Cisco. I hated being called a boss, even though I knew that was what I was.

“The office is later. First we go to Archway Pictures on Melrose.”

“You got it.”

Archway was a second-tier studio across Melrose from one of the behemoths, Paramount Pictures. Started as a studio lot to handle the overflow demand for soundstages and equipment, it grew into a self-sustaining studio under the guidance of the late Walter Elliot. It now made its own slate of films each year and created its own overflow demand. Coincidentally, Elliot happened to be a client of mine at one time.

It took Rojas twenty minutes to get from my house above Laurel Canyon to the studio. He pulled up to the security booth at the signature arch that spanned the studio’s entrance. I lowered the window and told the security man who approached me that I was there to see Clegg McReynolds. He asked for my name and ID and I gave him my driver’s license. He retreated to the booth and consulted a computer screen. He frowned.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not on the drive-on list. Do you have an appointment?”

“No appointment but he’ll want to see me.”

I hadn’t wanted to give McReynolds too much advance notice.

“Well, I can’t let you in without an appointment.”

“Can you call him and tell him I’m here? He’ll want to see me. You know who he is, right?”

The implication was clear. This was one you didn’t want to screw up.

The guard slid the door shut while he made the call to McReynolds. Through the glass I saw him talking. He had a live one on the line. Then he slid the door open and extended the phone to me. It was on a long cord. I took it and then raised the window on the guard. Tit for tat.

“This is Michael Haller. Is this Mr. McReynolds?”

“No, this is Mr. McReynolds’s personal assistant. How can I help you, Mr. Haller? I see no appointment here in the book and, frankly, I don’t know who you are.”

The voice was female, young and confident.

“I’m the guy who is going to make your boss’s life miserable if you don’t get him on the line.”

There was a bubble of silence before the voice responded.

“I don’t think I like your threatening manner. Mr. McReynolds is on the set and-”

“It was not a threat. I don’t make threats. I just speak the truth. Where’s the set?”

“I’m not telling you that. You’re not getting anywhere near Clegg until I know what this is about.”

I noted that she was on a first-name basis with the boss. A horn blared from behind me. The cars were stacking up. The guard rapped his knuckles on my window, then bent down to try to see in through the smoked glass. I ignored him. A second horn honked from the rear.

“This is about your saving your boss a lot of grief. Are you familiar with the deal he announced last week regarding the woman accused of killing the banker foreclosing on her home?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, your boss acquired those rights illegally. I’m assuming this was through no fault or knowledge of his own. If I’m right, he’s the victim of a scam and I’m here to make it right for him. This is a one-time opportunity. After this, Clegg McReynolds gets pulled down into the quicksand.”

The final threat was punctuated with another long blast from the car directly behind me and a sharp rap on the window.

“Talk to the guard,” I said. “Tell him yea or nay.”

I lowered the window and handed the phone out to the angry guard. He held it to his ear.

“What’s it going to be? I’ve got a line of cars out to Melrose here.”

He listened and then stepped back into his booth and hung up the phone. Then he looked at me as he pushed the button that opened the gate.

“Stage nine,” he said. “Straight ahead and left at the end. You can’t miss it.”

I threw him a told-you-so smile as I raised the window and Rojas drove under the rising gate.

Stage 9 was a soundstage big enough to house an aircraft carrier. It was surrounded by equipment trucks, star wagons and craft services vans. Four stretch limos were parked end to end along one side, their engines running and drivers waiting for filming to end and the anointed to exit.

It looked like a major production but I wasn’t going to get the chance to see what it was about. Walking down the middle of the driveway between Buildings 9 and 10 were an older man and a younger woman. The woman wore a headset, which I assumed made her a PA. She pointed a finger at my approaching car.

“Okay, let me out here.”

Rojas stopped and as I was opening the door my phone rang. I pulled it and looked at the screen.

ID UNAVAILABLE

It said that on the calls I used to get from my clients in the drug trade. They used cheap throw-away phones to avoid wiretaps and record searches. I ignored the call and left the phone on the seat. You want me to answer your call, you gotta tell me who you are.

I slowly got out, leaving the cane behind as well. Why advertise a weakness, my father, the great lawyer, always said. I slowly walked toward the producer and his assistant.

“You’re Haller?” the man called out.

“That’s me.”

“I want you to know that this production you just pulled me out of is running a quarter million dollars an hour. They went ahead and shut down inside just so I could come outside to deal with you.”

“I appreciate that and I’ll make it quick.”

“Good. Now what the fuck is this about me being scammed? Nobody scams me!”

I looked at him and waited and said nothing. It only took McReynolds five more seconds to blow another gasket.

“Well, are you going to tell me or not? I don’t have all day here.”

I looked at his personal assistant and then back at him. He got the message.

“Uh-uh, I’m going to have a witness to anything that’s said here. The girl stays.”

I shrugged and pulled a compact recorder out of my pocket and turned it on. I held it up, its red light glowing.

“Then I’ll make sure I have a record, too.”

McReynolds looked down at the device and I could see the concern in his eyes. His voice, his words preserved on tape. That could be dangerous in a place like Hollywood. Visions of Mel Gibson danced in his head.

“Okay, turn that off and Jenny goes.”

“Clegg!” Jenny protested.

McReynolds reached down and spanked her hard on the rump.

“I said go.”

Humiliated, the young woman hurried off like a schoolgirl.

“Sometimes you have to treat ’em that way,” McReynolds explained.

“And I’m sure they learn from it.”

McReynolds nodded in agreement, not picking up on the sarcasm in my voice.

“So again, Haller, what’s this about?”

“It’s about you, Clegg, being played for a sucker by Herb Dahl, your partner on the Lisa Trammel deal.”

McReynolds emphatically shook his head.

“No way. Legal’s all over that deal. It’s squeaky clean. Even the woman signed off. Trammel. I could make her a three-hundred-pound whore who likes black dick in the movie and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That deal is perfect.”

“Yeah, well, what Legal’s missed is the part about neither one of them having the rights to the story to sell you in the first place. Those rights happen to reside here with me. Trammel signed them over to me before Dahl came along and took second position. He thought he could move up one by stealing the original contracts out of my files. Only that’s not going to work. I’ve got a witness to the theft and Dahl’s fingerprints. He’s going to go down on fraud and theft charges and your choice here is to decide whether you want to go down with him, Clegg.”

“Are you threatening me? Is this some sort of shakedown? Nobody shakes me down.”

“No, no shakedown. I just want what’s mine. So you can either stick with Dahl as your partner or you can have the same deal with me.”

“It’s too late. I signed. We all signed. The deal is done.”

He turned to walk away.

“Have you paid him?”

He turned back to me.

“Are you kidding? This is Hollywood.”

“And you probably only signed deal memos, right?”

“That’s right. Contracts in four weeks.”

“Then your deal is announced but not done. That’s how you do it in Hollywood. But if you want to make a change, you can. If you want to find a deal killer, you can.”

“I don’t want to do any of that. I like the project. Dahl brought it to me. I made the deal with him.”

I nodded like I understood his dilemma.

“Suit yourself. But I go to the police tomorrow morning and file the suit in the afternoon. You’ll be named as a defendant. As someone who colluded in the perpetration of the fraud.”

“I did no such thing! I didn’t even know about all of this until you told me.”

“That’s right. I told you and you did nothing. You chose to move forward with a thief despite knowing the facts. That’s collusion and that makes my case.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled the tape recorder out. I held it up so he could see the red light was still on.

“I’m going to tie this movie up so long, the girl whose ass you just slapped will be running this place by the time it’s done.”

This time I walked away and he called me back.

“Wait a minute, Haller.”

I turned around. He looked off to the north, toward the sign high on the mountain that drew everybody here.

“What do I need to do?” he asked.

“You need to make the same deal with me. I’ll take care of Dahl. He deserves something and he’ll get it.”

“I need a phone number to give Legal.”

I pulled a card and gave it to him.

“Remember, I have to hear something today.”

“You will.”

“By the way, what are the numbers on the deal?”

“Two-fifty against a million. Another quarter to produce.”

I nodded. A quarter million dollars up front would certainly fund Lisa Trammel’s defense. There might even be a piece left over for Herb Dahl. It all depended on how I wanted to handle this and how fair I wanted to be to a thief. Realistically, I’d have liked to put the guy in the ground, but then again he did find the project a legitimate home.

“Tell you what, I’m the only guy in town who will ever say this, but I don’t want to produce. You keep that part of the deal with Dahl. That’s his end.”

“As long as he’s not in jail.”

“Put a character clause in the contract.”

“That’ll be something new around here. I hope Legal can handle it.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Clegg.”

Once more I turned and headed back toward my car. This time Clegg came up alongside me and walked with me.

“We’ll be able to reach you, right? We’ll need you as a technical advisor. Especially on the screenplay.”

“You have my card.”

I got to the Lincoln and Rojas had the door open for me. Once again I carefully slipped in, nice and easy on the cojones, and then looked back at McReynolds.

“One more thing,” the producer said. “I was thinking of going to Matthew McConaughey with this. He’d be excellent. But who do you think could play you?”

I smiled at him and reached for the door handle.

“You’re looking at him, Clegg.”

I pulled the door closed and through the smoked glass watched the confusion spread on his face.

I told Rojas to head toward Van Nuys.

Fourteen

Rojas told me that my phone had been ringing repeatedly while I was talking to McReynolds. I checked it and found no messages. I then opened the call record and saw that a total of four calls from a line with an unavailable ID had come in during the ten minutes I was out of the car. The time intervals were too disparate for it to have been an errant fax call on a repeat dialer. Someone had been trying to reach me but apparently it wasn’t urgent enough to warrant leaving a message.

I called Lorna and told her I was on the way in. I filled her in about the deal I had made with McReynolds and said to expect a call from the Archway legal department before the end of the day. She was excited about the prospect of money coming in on the case instead of going out only.

“What else?”

“Andrea Freeman’s called twice.”

I thought about the four calls on my cell.

“You give her my cell?”

“I did.”

“I think I just missed her but she didn’t leave a message. Something must be up.”

Lorna gave me the number Andrea had left with her.

“Maybe you can reach her if you call right back. I’ll let you go.”

“Okay, but where’s everybody at right now, in or out?”

“Jennifer’s here in her office and I just heard from Cisco. He’s heading back from some field work.”

“What field work?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Okay, then I’ll see everybody when I get there.”

I disconnected and called the number for Freeman. I had not heard from her since I’d been attacked by the black-gloved boys. Even Kurlen had come by to visit and check on me. But not even a get-well-soon card from my worthy opponent. Now six calls in one morning but no messages. I was certainly curious.

She answered after one ring and got right down to business.

“When can you come in?” she said. “I’d like to float something by you before we hit the gas and go.”

It was her way of saying she was open to the possibility of ending this case with a plea agreement before the whole machinery of a trial started to crank to life.

“I thought you said there wasn’t going to be an offer.”

“Well, let’s just say cooler heads have prevailed. I’m not stepping back from what I think of your moves on this case, but I don’t see why your client should pay for your actions.”

Something was going on. I could sense it. Some sort of problem with her case had come up. A piece of evidence lost or a witness had changed stories. I thought of Margo Schafer. Maybe there was a problem with the eyewitness. After all, Freeman hadn’t trotted her out during the prelim.

“I don’t want to come into the DA’s office. You can come to my office or we meet on neutral ground.”

“I’m not afraid to enter the enemy’s camp. Where’s your office?”

I gave her the address and we agreed to meet in an hour. I disconnected the call and tried to zero in on what could have gone wrong with the state’s case at this point in the game. I came back to Schafer again. It had to be her.

My phone vibrated in my hand and I looked down at the screen.

ID UNAVAILABLE

Freeman was calling me back, probably to cancel the meeting and reveal that the whole thing was a charade, just another maneuver out of the prosecutorial psych-ops manual. I pushed the button and connected.

“Yes?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“Is this Michael Haller?”

A male voice, one I didn’t recognize.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Jeff Trammel.”

For some reason it took me a moment to place the name, and then it came through to me big time. The prodigal husband.

“Jeff Trammel, yes, how are you?”

“I’m good, I guess.”

“How did you get this number?”

“I was talking to Lisa this morning. I checked in. She told me I should call you.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. Jeff, are you aware of the situation your wife is in?”

“Yes, she told me.”

“You didn’t see it on the news?”

“There’s no TV or anything here. I can’t read Spanish.”

“Where exactly are you, Jeff?”

“I’d rather not say. You’d probably tell Lisa and I’d rather she didn’t have that information right now.”

“Will you be coming back for the trial?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any money.”

“We could get you some money for travel. You could come back here and be with your wife and son during this difficult time. You could also testify, Jeff. Testify about the house and the bank and all the pressures.”

“Um… no, I couldn’t. I don’t want to put myself out like that, Mr. Haller. My failings. That wouldn’t feel right.”

“Not even to save your wife?”

“More like my ex-wife. We just haven’t made it all legal.”

“Jeff, what do you want? Do you want money?”

There was a long pause. Now we would get down to it. But then he surprised me.

“I don’t want anything, Mr. Haller.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I just want to be left out of it. It’s not my life anymore.”

“Where are you, Jeff? Where is your life now?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

I shook my head in frustration. I wanted to keep him on the phone like a cop trying for a trace, only there was no trace.

“Look, Jeff, I hate to bring this up but it’s my job to cover all the bases, you know what I mean? And if we lose this case and there’s a conviction, then Lisa will be sentenced. There will be a time when her loved ones and her friends will be able to address the court and say good things about her. We will be able to bring up what we consider to be mitigating factors. Her fight to keep the house, for example. I would want to be able to count on you to come in and testify.”

“Then you think you’re going to lose?”

“No, I think we have a damn good chance of winning this thing. I really do. It’s an entirely circumstantial case with a witness I think we can blow out of the water. But I have to be prepared for the opposite result. Are you sure you can’t tell me where you are, Jeff? I can keep it confidential. I mean, I’ll need to know where you are if we’re going to send you money.”

“I need to go now.”

“What about the money, Jeff?”

“I’ll call you back.”

“Jeff?”

He was gone.

“I almost had him, Rojas.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

I put the phone down on the armrest for a moment and looked out to see where we were. The 101 through the Cahuenga Pass. I was still another twenty minutes out.

Jeff Trammel hadn’t said no to the money the last time I mentioned it.

My next call was to my client. When she answered I heard TV noise in the background.

“Lisa, it’s Mickey. We need to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Can you turn that TV off?”

“Oh, sure. Sorry.”

I waited and soon her end was silent.

“Okay.”

“First of all, your husband just called me. You gave him my number?”

“Yes, you told me to, remember?”

“Yes, that’s fine. I was just checking. It didn’t go well. It sounds like he wants to stay away.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Did he tell you where he is? If I knew that I could send Cisco to convince him to help us.”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“I think he might still be in Mexico. He said he had no money.”

“He said the same to me. He wants me to send him some of the movie money.”

“You told him about that?”

“There’s going to be a movie, Mickey. He should know.”

Or maybe she meant that he should have his nose rubbed in it.

“Where were you going to send the money?”

“He said I could just deposit it in Western Union and he could access it from any of their offices.”

I knew there were Western Union offices all over Tijuana and points south. I’d sent money to clients before. We could send the money and then narrow things down by seeing which office Jeff Trammel went into to get the cash. But if he was smart he wouldn’t go to the office closest to where he was living and we’d be back to square one.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll think about Jeff later. I also wanted to tell you that the deal Herb Dahl made with Archway has changed.”

“How so?”

“It’s with me now. I just left Archway. Herb can still produce if they ever make a movie. And he gets to stay out of jail. So he comes out ahead. You come out ahead because your defense team will now be paid for their work and you’ll get the rest, which by the way will be much more than you were ever going to see from Herb.”

“Mickey, you can’t do that! He made that deal!”

“I just unmade it, Lisa. Clegg McReynolds wasn’t interested in being entangled in the legal net I was about to throw over Herb’s head. You can tell Herb or you can have him call me if he wants.”

She was silent.

“There’s one more thing and this is important. You listening?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I’m going to the office where I’m going to meet with the prosecutor. She called the meeting. I think something’s up. Something’s gone wrong for their side. She wants to talk about a deal and she would have never agreed to come to my office if she didn’t have to. I just wanted you to know. I’ll call you after the meeting.”

“No deals, Mickey, unless she’s offering to stand on the steps of the courthouse and announce to CNN and Fox and all the others that I’m innocent.”

I felt the car swerve from course and looked out the window. Rojas was bailing off the freeway early because of traffic.

“Well, I don’t think that’s what she’s coming over to offer, but it is my duty to keep you informed of your choices. I don’t want you to become some sort of martyr for this… this cause of yours. You should listen to all offers, Lisa.”

“I’m not pleading guilty. Period. Is there anything else you want to talk about?”

“I’m good for now. I will call you later.”

I put the phone down on the armrest. Enough talk for now. I closed my eyes to rest for a few minutes. I tried to wiggle my fingers in the plaster and the effort hurt but was successful. The doctor who studied the X-rays said he believed the damage had occurred when someone stomped on my hand after I was on the ground and already unconscious. Lucky for me, I guess. He predicted full recovery for the fingers.

In the dark world behind my eyelids I saw the men in black gloves moving toward me. It played in a repetitive loop. I saw the dispassionate look in their eyes as they approached me. It was just a piece of business for them. Nothing else on the line. For me it was four decades of confidence and self-esteem shattered like small bones on the pavement.

After a while I heard Rojas from the front seat.

“Hey, Boss, we’re here.”

Fifteen

As I entered the reception area Lorna waved a hand in warning from behind the desk. She then pointed toward the door to my office. She was telling me that Andrea Freeman was already in there waiting. I made a quick detour to the other office, knocked once and opened the door. Cisco and Bullocks were behind their desks. I went to Cisco’s and put my phone down in front of him.

“Lisa’s husband called. In fact he called several times. Unavailable ID. Can you see what you can do?”

He rubbed a finger across his mouth as he considered the request.

“Our carrier has a threat-trace service. I give the exact time of the calls and they’ll see what they can find. Takes a few days but all they’ll be able to do is identify the number, not the location. You need law enforcement if you are going to try to triangulate this guy’s location.”

“I just want the number. Next time I want to call him instead of the other way around.”

“You got it.”

As I turned to leave I looked at Aronson.

“Bullocks, you want to come in and see what the district attorney’s office has to say?”

“Love to.”

We moved through the suite to my office. Freeman was sitting in a chair in front of my desk, reading e-mail on her phone. She was in non-court clothes. Blue jeans and a pullover sweater. It must’ve been all inside work today. I closed the door and she looked up.

“Andrea, can I get you something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“And you know Jennifer from the prelim.”

“Silent Jennifer, of course. Didn’t make a peep at the prelim.”

As I came around my desk I checked Aronson and saw her face and neck start to color with embarrassment. I tried to throw her a line.

“Oh, she wanted to make a peep or two but she had her orders from me. Strategy, you know. Jennifer, pull that chair over.”

Aronson dragged a side chair toward the desk and sat down.

“So, here we are,” I said. “What brings the DA’s office to my humble place of work?”

“Well, we’re getting close and I thought, you know. I figured you work the whole county and might not be as familiar with Judge Perry as I am.”

“That’s an understatement. I’ve never even been in front of him.”

“Well, he likes to keep a clean docket. He doesn’t care about headlines and hoopla. He’ll just want to know that there was a vigorous effort to end this matter through disposition. So I thought maybe we could have one more discussion about it before we get down to a full-blown trial.”

“One more? I don’t remember the first discussion.”

“Do you want to talk about it or not?”

I leaned back and swiveled in my chair as if mulling the question over. This was all a little dance and we both knew it. Freeman wasn’t acting out of some desire to please Judge Perry. There was something else unseen in the room. Something had gone wrong and there was an opportunity for the defense. I wiggled my fingers in the cast, trying to relieve an itch on my palm.

“Well…,” I said. “I’m not sure what you’re thinking. Every time I bring up a plea with my client she tells me to pound sand. She wants a trial. Of course, I’ve seen this before. The old no deal, no deal, no deal, yes deal scenario.”

“Right.”

“But my hands are sort of tied here, Andrea. My client has twice forbidden me from approaching your office with a tender. She won’t allow me to initiate. So here we are, you’ve come to me, so that works. But you have to open negotiations. You tell me what you’re thinking.”

Freeman nodded.

“Fair enough. I did make the call after all. Are we in agreement that this is off the record? Nothing leaves this room if no agreement is eventually struck.”

“Sure.”

Aronson nodded along with me.

“Okay then, this is what we are thinking. And this already has approval from on high. We drop down to man and recommend the mid-level.”

I nodded, projecting my lower lip in a manner that suggested that it was an offer with merit. But I knew that if she opened with manslaughter with a mid-range sentence recommendation, it could only get better for my client. I also knew that my instincts were right. There was no way the DA would float an offer like this unless something was seriously wrong. By my estimation their case was weak from the moment they put the cuffs on my client. But now something had fallen out of place. Something big, and I had to find out what that was.

“That’s a good offer,” I said.

“You’re damn right. We’re coming down off premeditated and lying in wait.”

“I’m assuming we’re talking voluntary manslaughter?”

“It would be hard even for you to make a case for involuntary. It’s not like she just happened to be in that garage. Do you think she’ll take it?”

“I don’t know. She’s said since the start no deals. She wants a trial. I can try to sell it. It’s just that…”

“Just that what?”

“I’m curious, you know? Why such a nice offer? Why are you coming down to this? What’s gone wrong inside your case that makes you feel you need to cut and run?”

“This is not cutting and running. She’ll still go to prison and there will still be justice. There’s nothing wrong with our case but trials are expensive and long. Across the board the DA’s office is trying for dispositions over trials. But dispositions that make sense. This is one of those times. You don’t want it, I’m ready to go.”

I held my hands up in surrender. I could see her focus on the plaster cast on my left hand.

“It’s not whether I want it. It’s my client’s choice and I have to give her all the information I can, that’s all. I’ve been in this position before. Usually a deal this good is too good to be true. You take it and you end up finding out later that the main witness was going to flake out or the prosecution just picked up a nice piece of exculpatory evidence you would’ve gotten in discovery if you’d hung on just a little bit longer.”

“Yeah, well, not this time. It is what it is. You have twenty-four hours and then it comes off the table.”

“What about going with the low range?”

“What?”

It was almost a shriek.

“Come on, you didn’t come in here and give me your last, best offer. No one works that way. You have one more give and we both know it. Voluntary manslaughter, low-range sentencing recommendation. She’ll do five to seven tops.”

“You’re killing me. The press will eat me alive.”

“Maybe, but I know your boss didn’t send you over here with one offer, Andrea.”

She leaned back and looked at Aronson and then around the rest of the room, her eyes trailing over the shelves of books that came with the office.

I waited. I glanced at Aronson and winked. I knew what was coming.

“I’m sorry about your hand,” Freeman said. “That must’ve hurt.”

“Actually, it didn’t. I was already down for the count when they did it. I never felt a thing.”

I held up my hand again and wiggled my fingers, their tips moving along the top edge of the cast.

“I can already move them pretty good.”

“Okay, low range. I still need to hear back in twenty-four hours. And this is all off the record. Other than to your client, this is not to be revealed outside of this room if it doesn’t go.”

“We already agreed to that.”

“Okay, then I guess that’s it. I’ll be heading back.”

She stood up and Aronson and I followed. We dropped into the sort of small talk that often follows a meeting of great importance.

“So who’s going to be the next DA?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Freeman said. “There’s no front-runner yet, that’s for sure.”

The office was currently operating with an interim district attorney following the appointment of its former holder to a top job in the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in Washington, D.C. A special election would be held in the fall to fill the slot and so far the field of candidates was uninspiring.

Finished with the pleasantries, we shook hands and Freeman left the office. Sitting back down, I looked at Aronson.

“So what do you think?”

“I think you’re right. The offer was too good and then she made it even better. Something’s gone wrong in her case.”

“Yeah, but what? We can’t exploit it if we don’t know what it is.”

I leaned forward to the phone and pushed the intercom. I told Cisco to come in. I swiveled in silence while we waited. Cisco entered, put my cell phone down on the desk and then took the seat where Freeman had sat.

“I have the trace underway. I’d give it three days. They don’t move that quickly.”

“Thanks.”

“So what’s up with the prosecutor?”

“She’s running scared and we don’t know why. I know you’ve vetted everything she’s given us and checked out the witnesses. I want to do it again. Something’s changed. Something they thought they had, they no longer have. We have to find out what it is.”

“Margo Schafer, probably.”

“How so?”

Cisco shrugged.

“Just speaking from experience. Eyewitnesses are unreliable. Schafer is a big part of a very circumstantial case. They lose her or she turns up shaky and they have a big problem. We already know it’s going to be tough to convince a jury that she saw what she claims she saw.”

“But we still haven’t talked to her?”

“She refused to be interviewed and is under no obligation to do so.”

I opened the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out a pencil. I pushed its point into the top opening of the cast and down between two fingers, then maneuvered the pencil back and forth to scratch my palm.

“What are you doing?” Cisco asked.

“What’s it look like? Itching my palm. It was driving me crazy the whole meeting.”

“You know what they say about itchy palms,” Aronson said.

I looked at her, wondering if there was some sort of sexual innuendo to the answer.

“No, what?”

“If it’s your right hand you are going to come into money. If it’s your left then you are going to pay out money. If you scratch them, you stop it from happening.”

“They teach you that in law school, Bullocks?”

“No, my mother always said it. She was superstitious. She thought it was true.”

“Well, if it is, I just saved us a bunch of money.”

I pulled the pencil out and put it back in the drawer.

“Cisco, take another run at Schafer. Try to catch her off guard. Show up somewhere she’d never expect it. See how she reacts. See if she talks.”

“You got it.”

“If she doesn’t talk, take another run at her background. Maybe there’s a connection we don’t know about.”

“If there is I’ll find it.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

Sixteen

As I had expected, Lisa Trammel wanted no part in a plea agreement that would put her in prison for as long as seven years, even though she faced the possibility of four times that amount if convicted at trial. She chose to take her chances on an acquittal and I couldn’t blame her. While I remained at a loss to explain the state’s change of heart, the offer of a defense-friendly disposition made me think the prosecution was running scared and that we had a legitimate fighting chance. If my client was willing to roll the dice, then so was I. It wasn’t my freedom at stake.

I was cruising home at the end of work the next day when I called Andrea Freeman to give her the news. She had left several messages early in the day and I had strategically not returned them, hoping to make her sweat. It turned out she was anything but feeling the heat. When I told her my client was passing on the offer she simply laughed.

“Uh, Haller, you might want to start returning your messages a little sooner. I tried several times this morning to get to you. That offer was permanently taken off the table at ten o’clock. She should’ve accepted it last night and it probably would have saved her about twenty years in prison.”

“Who pulled the offer, your boss?”

“I did. I changed my mind and that’s that.”

I couldn’t think of what could have caused such a dramatic change in less than twenty-four hours. The only activity on the case that morning that I knew of was Louis Opparizio’s attorney filing a motion to quash the subpoena we had served on him. But I didn’t see the connection to Freeman’s abrupt change in direction on the plea.

When I didn’t respond, Freeman moved to end the call.

“So, Counselor, I guess I’ll see you in court.”

“Yeah, and just so you know, I’m going to find it, Andrea.”

“Find what?”

“Whatever it is you’re hiding. The thing that went wrong yesterday, that made you bring me that offer. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s all fixed now, I’m going to find it. And when we get to trial, I’ll have it in my back pocket.”

She laughed into the phone in a way that immediately undercut the confidence I’d had in my statement.

“Like I said, I’ll see you in court,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said.

I put the phone down on the armrest and tried to intuit what was going on. Then it struck me. I might already be carrying Freeman’s secret in my back pocket.

The letter from Bondurant to Opparizio had been hidden in the haystack of documents Freeman had turned over. Maybe she had found it only recently herself and realized what I could do with it, how I could build a defense case around it. It happens sometimes. A prosecutor gets a case with what seems like overwhelming evidence, and hubris sets in. You go with what you’ve got and other potential evidence goes undiscovered until late. Sometimes too late.

I became convinced. It had to be the letter. A day ago she was running scared because of the letter. Now she was confident. Why? The only difference between yesterday and today was the motion to quash the Opparizio subpoena. All at once I understood her strategy. The prosecution would support the dismissal of the subpoena. If Opparizio didn’t testify I might not be able to get the letter before the jury.

If I had it right, then there could be a severe setback for the defense at the hearing on the motion. I now knew I had to be prepared to fight as though my case depended on it. Because it did.

I decided to put the phone in my pocket. No more calls. It was Friday evening. I would put the case aside and take it all up again in the morning. Everything could wait until then.

“Rojas, put on some music. It’s the weekend, man!”

Rojas hit the button on the dash to play the CD. I had forgotten what I had in there but soon identified the song as Ry Cooder singing “Teardrops Will Fall,” a cover of the 1960s classic on his anthology disc. It sounded good and it sounded right. A song about love lost and being left alone.

The trial would start in less than three weeks. Whether or not we figured out what Freeman was hiding, the defense team was locked and loaded and ready to go. We still had some outstanding subpoenas to serve but otherwise we were fit for battle and I was growing more confident every day.

The following Monday I would hole up in my office and start choreographing the defense case. The hypothesis of innocence would be carefully revealed piece by piece and witness by witness until it all came together in a crushing wave of reasonable doubt.

But I still had a weekend to fill before that and I wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and Lisa Trammel and everything else. Cooder was now on to “Poor Man’s Shangri-La,” the one about the UFOs and space vatos in Chávez Ravine before they took it away from the people and put up Dodger Stadium.

What’s that sound, what’s that light?

Streaking down through the night

I told Rojas to turn it up. I lowered the back windows and let the wind and music blow through my hair and ears.

UFO got a radio

Little Julian singing soft and low

Los Angeles down below

DJ says, we gotta go

To El Monte, to El Monte, pa El Monte

Na, na, na, na, na

Livin’ in a poor man’s Shangri-La

I closed my eyes as we cruised.

Seventeen

Rojas dropped me at the steps of my home and I slowly made my way up while he put the Lincoln in the garage. His own car was parked on the street. He’d take it home and come back Monday, the usual routine.

Before opening the door I stepped to the far end of the deck and looked out at the city. The sun still had a couple hours of work ahead, then would set on another week. From up here the city had a certain sound that was as identifiable as a train whistle. The low hiss of a million dreams in competition.

“You all right?”

I turned around. It was Rojas at the top of the steps.

“Yeah, fine. What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I saw you standing up here and thought maybe something was wrong, like you were locked out or something.”

“No, I was just checking out the city.”

I went over to the door, pulling out my house key.

“Have a good weekend, Rojas.”

“You too, Boss.”

“You know, you should probably stop calling me Boss.”

“Okay, Boss.”

“Whatever.”

I turned the lock and pushed the door open. I was immediately greeted with a sharp and multivoiced cheer of “Surprise!”

I once got shot in the gut after opening the same door. This surprise was a lot better. My daughter rushed forward and hugged me and I hugged her back. I looked around the room and saw everybody: Cisco, Lorna, Bullocks. My half brother Harry Bosch and his daughter, Maddie. And Maggie was there, too. She came up next to Hayley and kissed me on the cheek.

“Uh,” I said, “I’ve got some bad news. Today is not my birthday. I am afraid you’ve all been led astray by someone with some sort of devious plan to get cake.”

Maggie punched me on the shoulder.

“Your birthday’s Monday. Not a good day for a surprise party.”

“Yeah, exactly as I had planned it.”

“Come on, get out of the door and let Rojas in. Nobody’s staying that long. We just wanted to say happy birthday.”

I leaned forward and kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear.

“What about you? You’re not staying long either?”

“We’ll see about that.”

She escorted me in through a gauntlet of handshakes, kisses and back pats. It was nice and totally unexpected. I was placed in the seat of honor and handed a lemonade.

The party lasted another hour and I got time to visit with all my guests. I hadn’t seen Harry Bosch in a few months. I had heard he’d come by the hospital but I wasn’t awake for the visit. We had worked a case the year before, with me as a special prosecutor. It had been nice being on the same side and I had thought the experience would keep us close. But it hadn’t really worked out that way. Bosch remained as distant as ever and I remained as saddened about it as ever.

When I saw the opportunity I moved toward him and we stood side by side in front of the window that gave the best view of the city.

“From this angle it’s hard not to love it, isn’t it?” he asked.

I turned from the view to him and then back. He was drinking a lemonade, too. He had told me he’d stopped drinking when his teenage daughter had come to live with him.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

He drained his glass and thanked me for the party. I told him he could leave Maddie with us if she wanted to visit Hayley longer. But he said that he already had plans to take her to a shooting range in the morning.

“A shooting range? You’re taking your daughter to a shooting range?”

“I’ve got guns in the house. She should know how to use them.”

I shrugged. I guessed there was a logic in it.

Bosch and his daughter were the first to leave and soon afterward the party ended. Everybody left except for Maggie and Hayley. They had decided to stay the night.

Exhausted by the day and the week and the month, I took a long shower and then got into bed early. Soon Maggie came in, after talking Hayley to sleep in her room. She closed the door and that was when I knew my real birthday present was coming.

She hadn’t brought any nightclothes with her. Lying on my back, I watched her get undressed and then slip under the covers with me.

“You know, you’re a piece of work, Haller,” she whispered.

“What did I do this time?”

“You just trespassed all over the place.”

She moved in close and then over on top of me. She bent down, tenting my face with her hair. She kissed me and started slowly moving her hips, then put her lips against my ear.

“So,” she said. “Normal function and activity, that’s what the doctor told you, right?”

“That’s what he said.”

“We’ll see.”