The Law of Innocence

15

Thursday, January 9

I had no illusions about my innocence. I knew it was something only I could know for sure. And I knew that it wasn’t a perfect shield against injustice. It was no guarantee of anything. The clouds were not going to open for some sort of divine light of intervention.

I was on my own.

Innocence is not a legal term. No one is ever found innocent in a court of law. No one is ever exonerated by the verdict of a jury. The justice system can only deliver a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Nothing else, nothing more.

The law of innocence is unwritten. It will not be found in a leather-bound codebook. It will never be argued in a courtroom. It cannot be written into law by the elected. It is an abstract idea and yet it closely aligns with the hard laws of nature and science. In the law of physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the law of innocence, for every man not guilty of a crime, there is a man out there who is. And to prove true innocence, the guilty man must be found and exposed to the world.

That was my plan. To go further than a jury verdict. To expose the guilty and make my innocence clear. It was my only way out.

To that end, December proceeded with preparations for trial as well as prep for the anticipated move by the prosecution to recharge me and remand me back to a solo cell at Twin Towers. As the days until Christmas counted down, my paranoia rose incrementally. I expected the cruelest of moves by Death Row Dana as payback for the humiliation I had brought her in the last hearing — a Christmas Day arrest with courts closed for the holidays and me left unable to put our ready arguments before Judge Warfield until the calendar turned to the new year.

There was no evasive action that I could take. My current bail restriction forbade me to leave the county, and the ankle-mounted monitor broadcast my location to authorities twenty-four hours a day. If they wanted me, they could surely find me. There was no escape.

But no one came knocking. No one came looking for me.

I spent Christmas Eve with my daughter and she went to her mother’s on Christmas Day. And I got an early dinner with her a week later before she went off with friends to celebrate the changing of the year. Kendall was with me the whole time and even told me on New Year’s Eve that she was having all her belongings shipped back from Hawaii.

All in all, it was a great month of freedom and work in preparation for the trial that lay ahead of me. But it would have been better if I hadn’t been looking over my shoulder the whole time. I began to think that I had been played, that Harry Bosch had been fed the false narrative of my re-arrest as the real payback. Dana Berg had made sure I would not be able to rest easy in my newfound freedom, and so she had the last laugh.

As far as the investigation into eavesdropping on privileged conversations at Twin Towers that Judge Warfield had promised, Berg escaped unscathed. The illegal activity was laid squarely at the door of the jail intelligence unit. A report that was leaked to the Los Angeles Times during the news-starved week after Christmas resulted in a New Year’s Day exclusive on the front page that concluded that deputies had been listening for years to privileged conversations, the contents of which were then used to create tip sheets from nonexistent jailhouse informants. These were then turned over to police and prosecutors. It was one more black eye for the sheriff’s jail division, which in the prior decade had been the target of multiple federal investigations. Horror stories had abounded of jail deputies staging gladiator fights, putting inmates in cells with enemies, using gang members to carry out punishment beatings and rapes of other prisoners. Indictments had come and heads had rolled. The elected sheriff at the time and his second-in-command had even gone to prison for turning a blind eye to the corruption.

Now the eavesdropping scandal promised more scrutiny and disgrace. Most likely the feds would be back in play and the new year was sure to bring a free-for-all for defense attorneys looking to overturn convictions in cases affected by the illegal activity.

This caused me to double down on my resolve not to be returned to Twin Towers. Every deputy in the jail would know that the latest scandal that had befallen them was caused by me. I could clearly imagine the retribution that would be awaiting me if I went back.

I finally got a call from Harry Bosch. I had not heard from him since well before Christmas despite leaving messages of holiday greetings and requests for updates on his part of the investigation. I knew that nothing had happened to him — my daughter had reported seeing him at his house when she visited her cousin Maddie over the break. And now, finally, he called. He appeared not to be aware of my efforts to contact him over the past weeks. He simply said he had something he wanted me to see. I was still at home, having a second cup of coffee with Kendall, and he agreed to swing by and pick me up.

We drove south in his old Jeep Cherokee, the one with the squared-off design and the twenty-five-year-old suspension. Shake, rattle, and roll: the car shook every time its tires hit a seam in the asphalt, rattled with every pothole, and threatened to roll on every left turn as the aging springs compressed and the car tilted to the right.

He kept KNX news on and had the uncanny ability to engage in conversation while still keeping an ear on the radio and from time to time throwing comments on the news of the day into the conversation. Even when I turned the volume knob down to respond, he would then turn it back up.

“So,” I said, once we were down out of the hills. “Where are we going?”

“It’s something I want you to see first,” Bosch said.

“It’s about Opparizio, I hope. I mean, you were working on him and then you disappear for like a month.”

“I didn’t disappear. I was working the case. I told you you’d hear from me when I had something and now I think I do.”

“Well, I hope it’s a connection to Sam Scales and the case. Otherwise you’ve been chasing a pipe dream.”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

“Can you at least tell me how far we’re going? So I can tell Lorna when I’ll be back.”

“T.I.”

“What? They’re not going to let me in with this thing on my ankle.”

“We’re not going to the prison. I just want to show you something.”

“And a photo wouldn’t do?”

“I don’t think so.”

We drove in silence for a while after that. Bosch took the 101 south into downtown and then jumped onto the 110, which would be a straight shot down to Terminal Island at the Port of Los Angeles. There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about the stall in the conversation. We were half brothers and comfortable with the silences. Bosch listened to the news and I tuned it out with thoughts about the case. We were going to trial in under six weeks and I still had no grounds for a defense. Bosch may have gone silent but at least he had something he wanted me to see. My other investigator, Cisco, had been staying in close contact, but his efforts to background Sam Scales had so far been fruitless. I figured I was a week away from doing the unthinkable: throwing aside my right to a speedy trial and asking for time, for a continuance. But I worried that such a request would reveal too much. It would show desperation, panic, and maybe even signal guilt — I would be acting like someone delaying the inevitable.

“Where the hell is Wuhan?” Bosch said.

His words rescued me from the downward spiral of my thoughts.

“Who?” I asked.

He pointed to the radio.

“Not who,” he said. “It’s a place somewhere in China. Were you listening?”

“No, I was thinking,” I said. “What was it?”

“They’ve got a mystery virus over there, killing people.”

“Well, at least it’s there and not here.”

“Yeah, for how long?”

“You ever been over there, China?”

“Just to Hong Kong.”

“Oh, right... Maddie’s mom. Sorry I brought it up.”

“Long time ago.”

I attempted to change the subject.

“So, what’s Opparizio like?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Bosch responded.

“Well, I just remember, when I had him on the stand nine years ago, he was restrained at first but then out came the animal. He wanted to jump out of that chair and tear my throat out or something. He seemed more Tony Soprano than Michael Corleone, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, so far I haven’t laid eyes on the guy. That’s not what I’ve been doing.”

I looked out the window and tried to blunt my shock and upset. I then turned back to engage.

“Harry, then what have you been doing?” I asked. “You had Opparizio, remember? You should’ve—”

“Hold on, hold on,” he said. “I know I have Opparizio but it wasn’t about putting eyes on him. This isn’t a surveillance job. It’s about finding out what he was doing and whether or not it somehow connects to Scales and you. And that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Okay, then stop with the whole mystery trip thing. Where are we going?”

“Just take it easy. We’re almost there and you’ll be enlightened.”

“Really? ‘Enlightened’? Like divine intervention or something?”

“Not quite. But I think you’ll like it.”

He was right about one thing. We were almost there. I looked around to get my bearings and saw that we had crossed the 405 and were just a few miles from the end of the Harbor Freeway at Terminal Island. Through the windshield and to the left I could see the giant gantry cranes that loaded containers on and off cargo ships.

We were in San Pedro now. Once a small fishing village, it was now part of the giant Port of Los Angeles complex, serving as a bedroom community for many of those who worked on the docks and in the shipping and oil industries. It had once had a full courthouse where I appeared regularly on behalf of clients accused of crimes. But the justice complex was shuttered by the county in a cost-cutting move and the cases moved up to a courthouse by the airport. The San Pedro courthouse had now stood abandoned for well over a decade.

“I used to come down to Pedro a lot on cases,” I said.

“I used to come down when I was a teenager,” Bosch said. “Sneak out of whatever place they put me, come down to the docks. I got tattooed down here once.”

I just nodded. It looked like he was reliving the memory and I didn’t want to intrude. I knew very little about Bosch’s early life beyond what I had read once in an unauthorized profile in the Times. I remembered foster homes and an early enlistment in the army, with Vietnam as the destination. This was decades before we learned of our blood connection.

We crossed the Vincent Thomas, the tall green suicide bridge that connected to Terminal Island. The entire island was dedicated to port and industrial operations, with the exception of the federal prison at the far end. Bosch exited the freeway and used surface streets to get us moving along the northern edge of the island and next to one of the deep port channels.

“Taking a wild guess,” I said. “Opparizio has some kind of smuggling operation here. Stuff coming in on cargo containers. Drugs? Humans? What?”

“Not that I know of,” Bosch said. “I’m going to show you something else. You see this area?”

He pointed through the windshield toward a vast parking lot filled with plastic-wrapped cars fresh off the boats from Japan.

“There used to be a Ford Motor plant here,” Bosch said. “It was called Long Beach Assembly and they made the Model A. My mother’s father supposedly worked there in the thirties on the Model A line.”

“What was he like?” I asked.

“I never met him. Only heard the story.”

“And now it’s Toyotas.”

I gestured toward the vast parking lot of new cars ready to be disseminated to dealers across the West.

Bosch turned onto a crushed-shell road that ran alongside a rock jetty lining the channel. A black-and-white oil tanker the length of a football field, including the end zones, was slowly making its way down the channel to the port. Bosch pulled to a stop by what looked like an abandoned railroad spur and killed the engine.

“Let’s walk up to the jetty,” he said. “I’ll show you what we’ve got as soon as this tanker goes by.”

We followed an uphill walk to the top of a berm that ran behind the jetty as a barrier against high tides. By standing on top of it we got a solid view across the channel of the various petroleum refining and storage facilities vital to the operations of the port.

“Okay, so this is the Cerritos Channel right here and we are looking north,” Bosch said. “That’s Wilmington directly across the water and Long Beach to the right.”

“Okay,” I said. “What exactly are we looking at?”

“The center of the California oil business. You’ve got the Marathon, Valero, Tesoro refineries right there. Chevron is farther up. The oil comes in here from all over — even Alaska. Comes to port by supertanker, barge, rail, pipeline, you name it. Then it goes over there to the refineries and it gets processed and from there into distribution. Into tanker trucks and out to your local gas station and then into your own gas tank.”

“What’s it all got to do with the case?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. You see that refinery at the end there with the catwalks around the tanks?”

He pointed to the right and at a small refinery with a single stack billowing a white plume of smoke into the sky. An American flag was draped around the upper section of the stack. There were two side-by-side storage tanks that looked to be at least four stories tall and were surrounded by multiple catwalks.

“I see it,” I said.

“That’s BioGreen Industries,” Bosch said. “You won’t find Louis Opparizio’s name attached to any of the ownership documents but he holds the controlling interest in BioGreen. No doubt about it.”

Bosch had my undivided attention now.

“How did you find that out?” I asked.

“I followed the honey,” Bosch said.

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, nine years ago you were able to drag Opparizio through the legal wood chipper at the trial for your client Lisa Trammel. I pulled the transcript and read his testimony. He—”

“You don’t have to tell me. I was there, remember?”

Another tanker was coming down the channel. It was so wide, it had little margin for error as it navigated between the jagged rocks that lined both sides.

“I know you were there,” Bosch said. “But what you might not know is that Louis Opparizio learned a lot from getting pounded by you that day on the stand. Number one, he learned never again to be connected by legal documentation to any of his companies — legit or not. He currently owns nothing in his name and is connected to no company, board, or reported investment to anything. He uses people as fronts.”

“I’m damn proud I was able to teach him how to be a better criminal. How did you get around it?”

“The Internet is still a pretty useful tool. Social media, newspaper archives. Opparizio’s father died four years ago. There was a service in New Jersey and a virtual visitation book. Friends and family signed in, and damn if the funeral home’s website doesn’t still have it online.”

“More like hot damn. You got lots of names.”

“Names and connections. I started tracing, looking for stuff out here. Three Opparizio associates are vested owners of BioGreen and make up a majority interest. He controls it through them. One of them is named Jeannie Ferrigno, who in the last seven years has risen from a Vegas stripper with a couple of possession pops on her record to part owner of a variety of businesses from there to here and back again. I think Jeannie is Opparizio’s sidepiece.”

“Follow the honey.”

“Right to BioGreen.”

“This is getting good, Bosch.”

I pointed down the channel to the refinery.

“But if Opparizio has a secret ownership in businesses from here to Vegas, why are we looking at this one?”

“Because this is where the biggest money is. You see that place? It’s not a typical refinery. It’s a biodiesel plant. Basically, it makes fuel from plants and animal fat. It’s recycling waste into an alternate fuel that costs less and burns cleaner. And right now it’s the apple of the government’s eye because it reduces our national dependence on oil. It’s the future, and Louis Opparizio is riding the wave. The government is propping this business up, paying companies like BioGreen a premium on each barrel just to make it. That’s on top of what they get for then going out and selling that barrel.”

“And where there’s government subsidy, there is always corruption.”

“You got that right.”

I started pacing along the worn footpath on top of the berm. I was trying to see the connections and how this could all work.

“So, there’s a guy,” Bosch said. “A lieutenant who runs the bureau at Harbor Division. I trained him twenty-five years ago when he came through Hollywood detectives as a D-one.”

“Can you talk to him?” I asked.

“Already did. He knows I’m retired, so I told him I was fishing around for a friend who is interested in BioGreen as an investment. I wanted to know if there were any red flags and he told me, yeah, there’s a big red flag, an FBI flag on the place.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he is supposed to take no action on anything that comes across his plate from BioGreen. He’s supposed to alert the bureau and stand down. You understand what that means?”

“That the bureau’s working on something there.”

“Or at least keeping an eye on it.”

I nodded. This was getting better and better in terms of building a smoke screen for trial. But I knew I needed to do more than provide smoke. This wasn’t work for a client. It was for me.

“Okay, so all we need is a connection to Sam Scales, and we have something I can tee up in court,” I said. “I’ll call Cisco and see what he—”

“We already have it,” Bosch said.

“What are you talking about? Where does he connect?”

“The autopsy. Remember the fingernails? The scrapings showed vegetable oil, chicken fat, sugarcane. That’s biofuel, Mick. Sam Scales had biofuel under his fingernails.”

I looked down the channel at the BioGreen refinery. The smoke from the stack billowed ominously upward, helping to feed the dirty cloud that hung over the entire harbor.

I nodded.

“I think you found it, Harry,” I said. “The magic bullet.”

“Just be careful you don’t shoot yourself with it,” he said.

16

Sunday, January 12

Bosch’s discovery of BioGreen and its connection to Louis Opparizio and possibly Sam Scales served to kick-start the defense case by providing a focal point of investigation and strategy. The trip to Terminal Island was followed by an all-hands meeting the following morning at which tasks were delineated and assigned. Establishing a link between Scales and Opparizio was paramount and I wanted that to be the main focus of my investigators.

Locating Opparizio was another. He had insulated himself from direct ownership and control of the refinery operation and we needed to nail that down before trial. With no direct link we worked the secondary link: Jeannie Ferrigno. I told Cisco to put together a surveillance team in hopes that Jeannie would lead us to Opparizio, and then we would jump the surveillance to him. I wanted to be able to document for the jury that this man who held an undeniable grudge against me had an association with the man I was accused of killing. If we could make that connection, then I believed we had our frame.

The meeting ended with a lot of excitement. But for me the adrenaline ebbed quickly. While the investigators got the thrill of working in the field, I focused through the weekend on what many lawyers abhor: reviewing the case files. The paper trail of a case is a living thing that grows and changes. Documents and evidence reviewed at one point could look different or take on new significance when reviewed through the prism of time.

It was important to know the case inside and out, but I could only accomplish that through repeated reviews of the case files. It had now been more than two months since my arrest and the files had thickened by the week with the dissemination of discovery material. I had read and reviewed it all as it came in but it was also important to take it all in as a whole.

By Sunday morning I had filled several pages of a legal pad with notes, lists, and questions. One page was a list of what was missing from the case. At the top was Sam Scales’s wallet. It was not on the property report that described the clothing found on the body and the contents of its pockets.

No wallet. It was assumed that the killer — meaning me — had taken and disposed of it. This missing wallet was important to me because in the variety of scams for which I had defended Sam, he had never used his real name. It was the con man’s way. Each con required a new personality so that he could avoid being traced after the victims woke up to the fact that they had been had. To this end, I knew that Sam was gifted at reinventing himself. I only represented him the times he got caught. It was unknown how many cons he had pulled off without detection.

The missing wallet in this case was important because after a month of diligent work, Cisco Wojciechowski had come up empty in his efforts to background Scales. It was a black hole. We had found no digital record of his whereabouts in the two previous years. The wallet would help if it contained the identification of his current persona. It also would help connect him to BioGreen. If he was working there or involved in some kind of scheme with Opparizio, his current identity would be key to tracing it.

It was only when I reviewed the case file for a third time on Sunday evening that I noticed a discrepancy that appeared to flip the case over and give me one more grievance to take to Judge Warfield.

After strategizing next moves, I called Jennifer Aronson and spoiled her dinner plans. I told her to draw up an emergency motion to compel discovery from the prosecution. I told her that the request should clearly state that the prosecution had been withholding vital evidence from the defense since the start of the case and that the evidence in question was the victim’s wallet and its contents.

It was a provocative move and my guess was that Dana Berg would object to the accusation, and an evidentiary hearing would be quickly scheduled before Warfield. That was exactly what I wanted — a hearing presumed to be about a discovery dispute that would be about something else entirely.

I told Jennifer I wanted the request filed as soon as court opened in the morning and then I disconnected and let her go to work. I had not asked if the assignment intruded on her plans for the evening. I was only interested in protecting my own. Kendall had not gotten to the Musso & Frank Grill since her return from Hawaii. It had been her favorite restaurant and a place where we had shared many a martini and dinner in our first go-round. I was off martinis and all other alcohol now, but I had made a deal with her. Musso & Frank’s on Sunday night in exchange for allowing me to hole up in my home office and work through the weekend. That work had paid off big-time and now I was looking forward to the night out as much as Kendall was. I passed the case baton to Jennifer and told her I would meet her at the Nickel Diner in the morning after she filed. I asked her to tell the whole defense team to come for breakfast so we could update one another on the prior seventy-two hours.

Despite having to witness many martinis being prepared, served, and consumed, I found dinner at Musso’s a welcome distraction from thoughts on the case, if only for a few hours, and it pulled Kendall and me back toward the relationship we had shared for seven years before her departure for Hawaii. What drew me closest to her was her assumption that there would be no interruption in our relationship going forward. The idea that I could be found guilty of murder a month from now and be locked away in prison for the rest of my life had never entered her thinking or her discussion of our renewed life together. It was naive, yes, but also endearing. It made me not want to disappoint her, even as I understood that disappointing her would be the least of my problems if I didn’t win the case.

“You know,” I said, “being innocent is no guarantee of a not-guilty verdict. Anything can happen in trial.”

“You always say that,” she said. “But I know you’re going to win.”

“But before we make any great plans, let’s get the verdict, okay?”

“It doesn’t hurt to plan. As soon as this is over, I want to go somewhere and lie on a beach and forget all about this.”

“That will be nice.”

And I left it at that.

17

Monday, January 13

At breakfast the next morning Jennifer was the last to arrive. By then we had been around the table with team members reporting on their efforts since the last meeting. There had been little advancement, largely because of the weekend. Cisco said that he had had a surveillance team on Jeannie Ferrigno since Friday evening but there had been no sign of Louis Opparizio having contact with her. Meanwhile, Bosch told us that he was working his law enforcement contacts to try to determine why BioGreen was on the FBI’s radar.

Jennifer had not heard the updates and asked a few questions to catch up.

“Is there any confirmation beyond his dirty fingernails that Sam Scales was somehow involved with BioGreen?” she asked.

“Well, not under that name,” Bosch said. “I dummied in a call to check on employment for a car loan and they said they had no record of a Sam Scales working there now or ever.”

“What about the FBI?” Jennifer asked. “Do we know what they’re up to?”

“Not yet,” Bosch said. “I didn’t think we wanted to take a head-on approach to that question, so I’m sort of sniffing around the edges while trying to get a line on Scales.”

“I followed a tanker truck out of there Friday afternoon,” Cisco added. “For the hell of it. Just wanted to see where it went. But he went through a security gate at the port and I had to hold back. About a half hour later, he comes driving out and goes back to the refinery. I think he either picked up or dropped off a load.”

“Are we thinking Sam Scales was driving a truck?” Jennifer said. “What’s the scam in that?”

“Maybe he went straight,” Cisco said.

“No,” I said. “I knew Sam. He was never going to go straight. He was up to something and we still need to find it.”

There was silence for a few moments while I thought about what Bosch had said. I had spent the entirety of my career laboring in state courts and had few interactions with FBI agents or the federal government. Though Bosch had once been married to an FBI agent, I knew he had a history of antagonism when it came to his federal counterparts. The rest of my team were also outsiders when it came to the feds.

“We’ve got trial in a month,” I said. “What do you think about switching to a head-on approach to the bureau instead of sniffing around the edges?”

“We can do that,” Bosch said. “But you have to remember, the feds only respond to threat. Threat of exposure. Whatever they’ve got going down there, they want to keep it quiet and they’ll only take you seriously if they see you as endangering their secrecy or their investigation. That’s what a head-on approach is. You make yourself a threat. That’s how we always did it at the LAPD.”

I nodded and thought about that. Monica, one of the owners of the Nickel, brought over a variety plate of doughnuts to go with the pancakes and eggs we had already eaten. Jennifer, the only one who hadn’t had breakfast yet, reached for the chocolate-frosted entry.

“Anyone want to share this?” she asked.

There were no takers. Jennifer continued.

“I was going to say we should file a Freedom of Information Act request,” she said. “But those take forever. They probably wouldn’t even acknowledge receipt until after your trial.”

I nodded in agreement and then changed my mind.

“We could do that but then back it up with a subpoena requesting files on Scales,” I said.

“The FBI can ignore a subpoena,” Jennifer countered. “They don’t have to answer questions about federal investigations in state court.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just delivering the subpoena would be the threat Harry’s talking about. They would be on notice that this is coming up at my trial. It might bring them out of the shadows. Then we see what we can get.”

I looked at Bosch for confirmation. He nodded.

“It could work,” he said.

“Let’s do it,” Jennifer said.

“Jennifer, I know I’m putting everything on your plate,” I said. “But can you add the subpoena and FOIA request?”

“No problem,” she said. “The FOIA’s probably an online request. It’ll be done by the end of the day. I’ll work on the subpoena first. What are the parameters?”

“Sam Scales and any and all aliases,” I said. “Then include Louis Opparizio and BioGreen Industries. Anything else?”

Jennifer received a call on her cell and got up from the table to take it outside. The rest of us continued to talk through the subpoena idea.

“Even if it does bring them out, I’m not sure what you’ll get,” Bosch said. “You know what they say: the FBI doesn’t share. It eats like an elephant and shits like a mouse.”

Lorna laughed. It made me realize that Cisco had been silent through the whole discussion.

“Cisco, what do you think?” I asked.

“I think another way to get information about that place is for me to go down there and ask if they’re hiring,” Cisco said. “Maybe I get inside there and see what’s going on — even if they don’t hire me.”

“Put a hard hat on, and you look the part,” I said with a smile. “But no. If they’re running a con, they’d do a deep dive checking you out, and your name would connect to mine. I think I’d rather have you working with the Indians on Opparizio.”

Cisco called the men on his surveillance team the Indians. Political correctness aside, he likened them to the Indians in the old westerns who watched the wagon trains from the cliffs without the settlers having any clue.

“Well, ready to go if you need it,” Cisco said. “Surveillance gets a bit boring, you know?”

“Then I’ll tell you what,” I said. “If you are okay leaving your team on Opparizio and Ferrigno, why don’t you spend a couple days on Milton, the cop who pulled me over.”

Cisco nodded.

“I could do that,” he said.

“I still don’t buy his story,” I said. “If he was doing somebody’s bidding, I want to know whose and why.”

“On it,” Cisco said.

“What about me, Mickey?” Lorna said. “What do you need from me?”

I had to think fast about that. Lorna wouldn’t want to be left out of the case.

“Uh, go back into our files on Trammel,” I said. “Pull out anything that has to do with our background work on Opparizio. I don’t remember everything, and I have to be ready to go at him again — if we ever find him.”

Jennifer came back to the table from her call but didn’t sit down. She looked at me and held up her phone.

“We’re on,” she said. “Warfield set a hearing on the motion to compel for one o’clock today. She told Berg to bring her lead investigator too.”

I was surprised.

“That was quick,” I said. “We must’ve struck a nerve.”

“That was Andrew, Warfield’s clerk,” Jennifer said. “We definitely struck a nerve with the prosecution. He said Death Row Dana got mad as hell when he called her.”

“Good,” I said. “That’ll make it interesting. We’re going to put her lead detective on the stand before she does.”

I checked my watch and then looked at Lorna.

“Lorna, how long would it take to get a couple blowups off crime scene photos?” I asked.

“Give them to me now and I’ll put a rush on them,” she said. “You want them mounted on a hard back?”

“If we can,” I said. “More important just to have them for the hearing.”

I pushed my empty plate back and opened my laptop on the table. I pulled up the two crime scene photos I planned to display at the afternoon’s hearing: two different shots of Sam Scales in the trunk of my Lincoln. I sent them to Lorna and warned her that they were graphic. It wasn’t her delicate sensibilities I was trying to protect. It was the photo technician at the FedEx store that I wanted her to warn.

18

It felt good to enter Judge Warfield’s courtroom through the public entrance rather than the steel door from the holding cell. But at the same time, the “free man’s” entrance put me in a heavy confluence of post-lunch returnees to the courthouse, including Dana Berg, who mad-dogged me on the elevator like an OG from lockdown. I ignored it and saved my own enmity for court. I held the door for her but she declined to say thanks.

The media twins were already in their usual spots when we entered.

“I see you alerted the press,” Berg said.

“Not me,” I said. “Maybe they’re just vigilant. Isn’t that what we want in a free society? A vigilant press?”

“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree this time. They’re going to see you get your ass handed to you by the judge.”

“For the record, Dana, I don’t blame you. I actually like you, because you’re fierce and focused. I wish all our government people were. But you have people working for you who are not doing you any favors.”

We split as we went through the railing. She went left to the prosecution table, while I went right to the defense table. Jennifer was already seated there.

“Anything from Lorna?” I asked.

“She just parked and is on her way,” she said.

“Hope so.”

I opened my briefcase and pulled out a legal pad I had worked on while doing final prep in the first-floor cafeteria. Jennifer leaned over to look at my scribbling.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said.

I turned in my seat and checked the gallery. I had sent a text about the hearing to my daughter, but it was last minute and I was unsure of her Monday-afternoon class schedule. I had not heard back from her and she was not in the courtroom.

Judge Warfield was ten minutes late starting the afternoon session and that gave Lorna enough time to get to the courtroom with the photo exhibits. We were locked and loaded when Deputy Chan called the room to order and Warfield took the bench.

I held my pad in hand and was ready to be called to the lectern — it was my motion, my prerogative to go first. But Berg stood and addressed the court.

“Your Honor, before Mr. Haller is allowed to stand up here and feed his completely unfounded claims to the media that he has invited to the hearing, the state would request that the hearing be moved in camera so as not to taint the jury pool that the defense is trying to reach with these wild and wholly unsubstantiated accusations.”

I was standing before she was finished and the judge cued me.

“Mr. Haller?”

“Thank you, Judge. The defense objects to the motion to move this hearing to chambers. Just because Ms. Berg doesn’t like what she will hear is no reason to cover up what is said and presented. It’s true that these are serious allegations but sunlight is the best disinfectant, Your Honor, and this hearing should remain open to all. Additionally, and for the record, I did not alert the media to this emergency hearing. I don’t know who did. But it never occurred to me, as it apparently has to Ms. Berg, that a vigilant media would be a bad thing.”

I turned and gestured toward the two reporters as I finished. I saw then that Kent Drucker, the lead investigator on the case, had arrived and was sitting in the gallery row behind the prosecution table.

“Are you finished, Mr. Haller?” Warfield asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Submitted.”

“The request for a closed hearing is denied,” Warfield said. “Mr. Haller, do you have any witnesses?”

I paused. In a perfect world a lawyer never asks a question he doesn’t know the answer to. That means a good lawyer never puts a witness on the stand whom he or she cannot control or draw the needed answers from. I knew all of that but still made the call to go against the received wisdom.

“Your Honor, I see Detective Drucker in the courtroom. Let’s start with him as the first witness.”

Drucker went through the gate to the witness stand and was sworn in. He was a seasoned investigator with more than twenty years on the job, half of it working homicides. He wore a nice suit and carried his copy of the murder book with him. If he was surprised I had called on him, he didn’t show it. Since we were not in front of a jury, I skipped the soft introductory questions and got right to the heart of the matter.

“Detective, I see you brought your murder book with you.”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Would you mind going to the property report that was filed in regard to the belongings of the victim in this case, Sam Scales.”

Drucker opened the thick binder on the flat surface at the front of the witness box, leafed through it, and quickly found the report. I asked him to read it to the judge and he quickly ticked off items of clothing and shoes, as well as the contents of Scales’s pockets, which amounted to some loose change, a set of keys, a comb, and a money clip containing $180 in twenties.

“Anything else in his pockets?” I asked.

“No, sir,” Drucker responded.

“Cell phone?”

“No, sir.”

“No wallet?”

“No wallet.”

“Was that notable to you?”

“Yes.”

I waited for more and got nothing. Drucker was one of those witnesses who would not give an inch more than what was required.

“Can you tell us why?” I said, not hiding my exasperation.

“It raised a question,” Drucker said. “Missing wallet — could this have been a robbery?”

“But there was a money clip in his pocket, wasn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t that undercut the robbery theory and raise the possibility that the wallet was taken for another reason?”

“It could have, yes.”

“It ‘could have’? I’m asking if it did.”

“Everything was a question. The man was obviously murdered. There were a lot of possibilities as to motive.”

“Without a wallet and ID, how did you identify the victim as Sam Scales?”

“Fingerprints. There was a patrol sergeant on hand with a mobile reader. We got the ID pretty fast and it was more reliable than checking a wallet. People carry fake IDs.”

He had just unknowingly made a point that I intended to make.

“After you identified the victim as Sam Scales, did you do a criminal background check on him?”

“My partner did.”

“What did he find?”

“A long list of frauds, cons, and other crimes that I am sure you are familiar with.”

I ignored the barb and pressed on.

“Isn’t it a fact that in each of those frauds, cons, and other crimes, Sam Scales used a different alias?”

“That is correct.”

Berg sensed that a kill shot might be coming and stood up and objected.

“Your Honor, this is a motion to compel discovery, and counsel is leisurely walking the witness through the entire investigation of the case. Is there a purpose here?”

It wasn’t much of an objection but it did serve to knock me out of my rhythm. The judge admonished me to get to the point of my questioning or move on.

“Detective Drucker, knowing that the victim of this murder used different aliases, wouldn’t it have been important to the investigation to recover his wallet to see what alias he was using at the time of his death?”

Drucker digested the question for a long moment before responding.

“Hard to say,” he said.

I knew with that answer that I would never get what I wanted from Drucker. He was too wary of me to ever break free of the short answers that imparted very little information of value.

“Okay, let’s move on,” I said. “Detective, could you turn to the crime scene photos in your murder book and look at photographs thirty-seven and thirty-nine.”

While Drucker found the relevant pages in the murder book, I quickly set up two portable easels in front of the empty jury box and on them placed the 24 x 18 blowup shots Lorna had gotten made that morning. Each was a photograph of Sam Scales lying on his side in the trunk of my Lincoln. The second shot was a little tighter than the first.

“Did you find the photos, Detective Drucker?”

“Yes, I have them here.”

“Do your photos thirty-seven and thirty-nine correspond with the blowups I have put up for the court to see?”

“Do they correspond? I’m not—”

“Do they match, Detective? Are they identical?”

Drucker made a display of looking down at his photos and then at the two shots I had put up on the easels.

“They appear to be the same,” he finally said.

“Perfect,” I said. “Can you tell us for the record what the two photos depict?”

“They’re both shots of the victim in this case in the trunk of your car. One of the photos is zoomed closer in than the other.”

“Thank you, Detective. The victim is lying on his right side, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Okay, and can I now draw your attention to the victim’s left hip, which is up toward the camera. Do you see the left rear pocket of the victim’s pants?”

“I see it.”

“Do you see the rectangular-shaped distension of the pocket?”

Drucker hesitated as he realized where this was going.

“Do you see it, Detective Drucker?”

“I see some sort of pattern there. I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t think that is indicative of a wallet in that back pocket, Detective?”

“I couldn’t know for sure without looking in that pocket. All I do know is that there was no wallet turned in to me by forensics or the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Berg stood and objected to the line of questioning.

“Your Honor, counsel is trying to create suspicion about the investigation of this case based on a pattern he sees in the victim’s clothing. There is no wallet in that pocket because no wallet was recovered from the victim or the crime scene. The defense is using this issue, this ghost wallet, to distract the court and feed the media a conspiracy theory he hopes will get out to the jury pool. Once again the People object, first of all, to the hearing itself, and, second, to this being discussed in open court.”

She sat down angrily and the judge turned her eyes to me.

“Your Honor, that was a nice speech, but the fact remains that anybody with two eyes can see that the victim had a wallet in his back pocket. Now that wallet is gone and not only does it cast doubt on the investigation of this murder, but it puts the defense at a steep disadvantage because it is prohibited from examining the evidence that was in the wallet. Having said all of that, if the court will indulge me for five more minutes with this witness, I believe it will become abundantly clear that something was terribly wrong with this investigation.”

Warfield took her time before responding and this told me she was riding with me on this, not with the prosecution.

“You may continue with the witness, Mr. Haller.”

“Thank you, Judge. My colleague Ms. Aronson is now going to put the body-cam video for Officer Milton on the big screen. What we will show is the early moments of the tape, when Officer Milton uses the remote car key to pop the trunk.”

The video started to play on the flat-screen on the wall opposite the jury box. The angle was from the side of the rear end of the Lincoln. Milton’s hand came up into the screen as he used his thumb to pop the trunk. The lid came up, revealing the body of Sam Scales. The camera started moving as Milton reacted.

“Okay, stop it right there,” I said. “Can you back it up to the point where the trunk just comes open?”

Jennifer did so and froze the image. Milton had taken a safe side angle to the car as he opened the trunk, presumably because he did not know who or what was in it. This gave a two-second side view of the body, an angle the forensic photographer had not taken. It just happened to be captured by Milton’s body cam.

“Detective Drucker,” I said. “Can I draw your attention to the victim’s rear left pocket again? Does what you see from this angle change your opinion as to whether the victim had a wallet in his pocket at the time the body was discovered?”

All eyes were on the video screen except mine. I even saw one of the journalists slide down her gallery bench to get a better angle on the screen. The camera angle on the video clearly showed the back pocket of the victim’s pants to be slightly open because of an object inside it. It was a dark object but there was a line of lighter color running lengthwise in the middle of it.

To me, it was clearly a wallet with the edge of a currency bill poking out of it. To Drucker, it was still nothing.

“No,” he testified. “I can’t tell for sure what that is.”

I had him.

“What do you mean by ‘what that is,’ Detective?”

“I mean I can’t tell. It could be anything.”

“But you are now acknowledging that there is something in his pocket, correct?”

Drucker realized he had walked into a defense trap.

“Well, I can’t say for sure,” he said. “It could just be the lining of the pocket.”

“Really?” I said, full of disbelief. “You are now saying that is the lining of the pocket?”

“I’m saying I don’t know for sure.”

“Detective, can you go back to the property report you have in the murder book, and I’ll ask my last question.”

The room waited silently until Drucker had it in front of him.

“Okay, sir,” I said. “The property report lists where each item recovered came from, correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

Drucker seemed relieved to get an easy one. But I didn’t let it last long.

“Okay, then,” I said. “What does the report say was removed from the left rear pocket of the victim’s pants?”

“Nothing,” Drucker said. “Nothing is listed.”

“No further questions,” I said.

19

Like a good prosecutor, Dana Berg was thinking of the trial down the road. Her cross-examination of Detective Drucker was not so much about winning the day as it was about winning the trial. She had to make sure that what went on the record today would not turn a juror against Drucker or the prosecution at trial. The smartest move she made was to ask for a ten-minute recess after I finished my direct. That gave her the space to huddle with Drucker and get a handle on what was transpiring here.

When court reconvened, Drucker had a completely different view of the photographs and video I had showed him.

I was not surprised.

“Detective Drucker, did you get a chance to review all of the crime scene photos of the victim during the break?” she asked.

“Yes, I did,” Drucker said.

“And did you draw any new conclusions about what you saw?”

“I looked at all of the photos we have of the body in the trunk and I now believe that there most likely was a wallet in the rear pocket of the pants at the time the body was in the trunk.”

I had to smile. Berg was going to make it seem as though the prosecution team had made this discovery and brought it to light.

“And yet your own property report says no wallet. How do you explain that?”

“Well, obviously, the wallet was taken at some point.”

“Taken? You mean taken and misplaced?”

“Possibly.”

“Could it have been stolen?”

“Possibly.”

“When was the clothing that was on the body searched?”

“We didn’t touch it while it was in the trunk. We waited for the coroner’s people to arrive and then the body was removed from the trunk. We grabbed his prints with the reader and then the body was wrapped in plastic. After that, it was taken to the coroner’s office for autopsy.”

“So, can you say at what point the clothing was removed and examined and the property inventoried?”

“That all falls under the coroner’s duties. The body was prepped for autopsy the following day and I got a call from an investigator over there that I could swing by and pick up the property.”

“And did you?”

“Not right away. The autopsy was scheduled for the following morning. I waited to pick up the property then.”

“It wasn’t urgent?”

“Not really. The coroner’s investigator shot me an email with the property list. I noted that there was no wallet, and the other property didn’t appear to be germane to the investigation.”

“You got that email when?”

Drucker looked up innocently at the judge.

“Can I refer to my records?” he asked.

“You may,” Warfield said.

Drucker flipped through pages in the murder book and then stopped to read.

“I have the email here,” he said. “Got it at four twenty the afternoon after the callout.”

“So, doing the math,” Berg said. “The first you knew that there was no wallet was about seventeen hours after you were called to the murder scene to begin the investigation.

Correct?”

“Correct.”

“And during that time, you did not have custody of the victim’s clothing or personal belongings, correct?”

“Correct. Anything could have happened to the wallet in that time.”

“It could have been stolen or misplaced?”

“Correct.”

“Did you take the wallet, Detective Drucker?”

“No, I never even saw it.”

“Did you intentionally hold it back from the discovery package I asked you to put together for the defense?”

“I did not.”

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

I had to give Berg credit. She had skillfully pulled Drucker from the credibility scrap heap and would live to fight another day with him at trial. He was dismissed from the witness stand and I told the judge I had no other witnesses and was ready to argue. Berg also said she was ready to go.

My opening salvo was short and to the point.

“Your Honor, we have a situation here where the state has mishandled a key piece of evidence, hidden their malfeasance from the defense, and now it is the defense that is left damaged by their failure. Whether or not their actions were intentional, my right to a fair trial has been more than infringed on — it’s been trampled. I knew the victim. I knew his history and I knew his MO. He changed aliases the way some people change their shoes. The loss of this wallet, which contained the current identification of Sam Scales at the time of his death, has prevented my team from adequately being able to investigate the victim’s activities and therefore learn of potential threats and killers.

“That is my argument if you buy their explanation of the wallet being innocently misplaced or stolen by someone skulking around the halls of the coroner’s office. Personally, I don’t believe any of it. This was an intentional effort to subvert a fair trial. This was the prosecution and police getting together and—”

Berg jumped up and objected to my casting aspersions on the actions and motives of the prosecution.

“This is argument,” I said. “I can say whatever I want.”

“To a degree,” Warfield said. “I’m not going to let you stray from what is on the record. I think you have made your argument. Do you wish to add anything else?”

Berg had effectively knocked me off the rails and the judge wasn’t going to let me get back on.

“No, Your Honor,” I said. “Submitted.”

“Ms. Berg,” the judge said. “I hope you will be as succinct.”

Berg went to the lectern and began.

“Your Honor, the histrionics of defense counsel aside, there is no evidence that exists or was submitted here that indicates some great conspiracy to prevent a fair trial in the case and, most important of all, no evidence or indication of a plan to hold back or subvert the discovery process. Yes, the victim’s wallet went missing, but it was defense counsel himself who brought this to light only this morning. To come here and cry foul play and conspiracy, counsel is simply grandstanding for the media, and the state asks the court to dismiss the motion.”

I stood to respond but the judge did not allow it.

“I think I have heard enough, Mr. Haller. I know what you will say and then I know what Ms. Berg will say in return. So, let’s save the time, shall we?”

I got the message and sat down.

“The court finds the information revealed today to be very troubling,” Warfield continued. “The state concedes that there was a wallet in the victim’s pocket but it now cannot produce that wallet for examination by the defense. Whether the wallet disappeared through negligence or something more sinister, the situation still leaves the defense in a reduced position. As Mr. Haller has suggested, the wallet could have contained an alternate ID used by the victim. That in turn could lead to evidence supporting Mr. Haller’s position.”

Warfield paused there and appeared to be studying her notes for a moment before continuing.

“At this time, the court doesn’t know what the remedy is but is going to take forty-eight hours to consider it. And it will give the state those same forty-eight hours to either find the wallet or determine exactly what happened to it. I am continuing this hearing until Wednesday at one o’clock, and my suggestion to the prosecution is to not come back empty-handed. We are adjourned.”

Warfield then turned in her chair and stood up. She moved down the three steps from the bench quickly and gracefully, her robe flowing behind her as she reached the door leading to her chambers and disappeared.

“Good work,” Jennifer whispered in my ear.

“Maybe,” I whispered back. “We’ll see in a couple days. Did you get that subpoena printed?”

“Got it.”

“Let me go see if I can get her while she’s feeling it for the defense.”

While Jennifer opened her briefcase to get the document, Berg stopped by the defense table on her exit.

“You really think I had something to do with that? That I even knew about it?”

I looked up at her for a moment, then answered.

“I don’t know, Dana. All I do know is that from day one you’ve been trying to tilt the board so all the pieces roll to your side. So, give me a reason not to believe it. Go find the wallet.”

She frowned and walked away without a response.

“Here,” Jennifer said.

I took the subpoena and got up.

“I’m going to go,” she said. “Let me know if there’s a problem.”

“Will do. Let’s talk tomorrow morning. And thanks for jumping on this today.”

“No problem. You’ll get it to Cisco?”

“Yeah, but I think I’m going to go with him, see if I can rattle the cage a little bit.”

“Good luck with that. The FBI doesn’t usually rattle.”

I walked over to Warfield’s clerk and asked him to call the judge before she settled in to chambers and see if I could come back to get a subpoena signed. He reluctantly made the call and I could see the slight surprise on his face when the judge apparently told him to send me in.

The clerk opened a half door in his corral and buzzed me through the door to chambers. It led me into a hallway that was an extension of the clerk’s domain, with file cabinets on one side and a large printer and worktable on the other. I passed through to another hallway, this one lined with doors to individual judge’s chambers.

Warfield’s was one down to the left and her door was open. She was behind her desk and had hung her black robe on a coatrack.

“You have a subpoena for me?” she said.

“Yes, Judge,” I said. “A subpoena for records.”

I handed the document Jennifer had prepared across the desk. I remained standing while the judge studied it.

“This is federal,” she said.

“It’s for the FBI but it’s a state subpoena,” I explained.

“I can see that, but you know you’re spinning your wheels. The FBI won’t respond to a state subpoena. You have to go through the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Haller.”

“Some would say that going through the U.S. A’s Office would be spinning wheels, Judge.”

She kept her eyes on the subpoena and read out loud: “‘All documents related to interactions with Samuel Scales or aliases...’ ”

Now she dropped the paper on her desk, leaned back, and looked up at me.

“You know where this will go, right?” she said. “The circular file.”

“It may,” I said.

“You’re just fishing? Trying to get a reaction?”

“I’m working on a hunch. It would have helped if I had had the wallet and a name to work with. Do you have a problem with my fishing, Judge?”

I was speaking to the former defense attorney in her. I knew she had been in the same position: needing a break and backing a long shot to get it.

“I don’t have anything against what you’re doing,” Warfield said. “But it’s a little late in the game for it. You have trial in a month.”

“I’ll be ready, Judge,” I said.

She leaned forward, grabbed a pen from a fancy silver holder on the desk, and signed the subpoena. She handed it back to me.

“Thank you, Judge,” I said.

I walked to the door and she caught me before I could slip through.

“I cleared two weeks for jury selection and trial,” she said to my back.

I turned around to look at her.

“If you try to fuck me by running it up to game time and then asking for a delay, my answer’s going to be no.”

I nodded that I understood.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.

I walked through the door with my long-shot subpoena.

20

Back in the courtroom the clerk told me I’d had a visitor who had been waiting in the gallery but the deputy had shooed him out because the courtroom was dark for the rest of the day.

“A big guy?” I asked. “Black T-shirt, boots?”

“No,” the clerk said. “A Black guy. Had on a suit.”

That made me curious. I gathered the materials I had left at my place at the defense table and then left the courtroom. Out in the hallway I found my visitor waiting on a bench outside the courtroom door. I almost didn’t recognize him in the suit and tie.

“Bishop?”

“Counselor.”

“Bishop, what are you doing here? You got out?”

“I’m out, man, and ready to go to work.”

It then struck me. I had offered him a job when he got out of jail. Bishop read my hesitation.

“It’s okay, man, if you don’t have it. I know you got your trial and shit to worry about.”

“No, it’s okay. I just... it’s a surprise, that’s all.”

“Well, you need a driver?”

“I do, actually. I mean, not every day but I need a guy on call, yeah. When do you want to start?”

Bishop spread his arms as if to display himself.

“I got my funeral suit on,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”

“What about a driver’s license?” I asked.

“Got that, too. Went to the DMV as soon as I got out.”

“When was that?”

“Wednesday.”

“Okay, let me see it. I’ll have to shoot a photo of it and add you to the insurance.”

“No problem.”

He pulled a thin wallet out of a pants pocket and gave me a brand-new license. It looked legit to me as far as I could tell. I saw for the first time that his name was Bambadjan Bishop. I pulled my phone and took the photo.

“Where’s that name come from?” I asked.

“My mother was from Ivory Coast,” he said. “Her father’s name.”

“So, I have to go out to Westwood to drop a subpoena. You want to start right now?”

“I’m here. Ready to go.”

My Lincoln was parked in the black hole parking structure. We walked over and I gave Bishop the keys and took the back seat.

We worked our way up to the ground-level exit and I paid careful attention to his driving skills as I gave him the rundown on how the job worked. He was essentially on call 24/7 but most of the time I would need him during weekdays only. He needed to have a phone I could text him on. No burners. No alcohol. No weapons. He didn’t have to wear a tie but I liked the suit. He could shed the jacket whenever he was in the car. On the days I needed him he would have to get to my house, where the car was kept, and go from there. No overnight take-homes of the car.

“I got a phone,” he said when I was finished. “It ain’t a burner.”

“Good,” I said. “I need the number. Any questions?”

“Yeah, what’m I getting paid?”

“The four hundred I was paying you for protection is now suspended because you’re out and I’m out. I’ll pay you eight hundred a week to drive me. There will be a lot of downtime and days off.”

“I was thinking a thousand.”

“I was thinking eight. Let’s see how you do, then we can talk about a thousand. As soon as I get through this trial and am back to making money, we’ll talk. Do we have a deal?”

“Yeah. Deal.”

“Good.”

“Where we going in Westwood?”

“The federal building at Wilshire and the 405.”

“With all the flagpoles out front.”

“That’s it.”

We got out of the underground parking and Bishop worked his way to the 10 freeway and headed west without my having to issue instructions. That was a good sign. I pulled my phone and texted Cisco, telling him to meet me in the lobby of the federal building in Westwood.

I put the phone away and looked at Bishop’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“What do you want me to call you?” I said. “I’m so used to calling you Bishop but that was in jail and maybe—”

“Bishop is good.”

“So when I was in there, I wanted to mind my own business. I didn’t ask anybody anything. But now I have to ask you, what were you in Twin Towers for and how’d you get out?”

“I was doing a bullet on a probation violation. Normally they would have put me up at Pitchess but a guy from LAPD gang intel was working me and he didn’t like driving all the way up there all the time. So I got lucky. Got a solo cell at T.T. instead of a dayroom cot at Pitchess.”

“So, those times you said you had court, you were actually off snitching to gang intel?”

He glanced at me in the mirror, picking up the tone in my voice.

“I worked him,” he said. “He didn’t work me.”

“So, you’re not going to have to testify in a case?” I pressed. “I don’t want to make myself a target here, Bishop.”

“There is no case, Counselor. I worked it until my year was up and then I was out. If’n he comes around now, I can tell him to fuck off.”

His story tracked right. A bullet was a year and convicts serving a year or less usually weren’t sent to state prison. They served their short sentences in one of the county’s stockades, and the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho was the largest of them all.

“You’re a Crip, right?” I asked.

“I was an associate,” Bishop said.

“Which set?”

“Southside.”

During my time with the Public Defender’s Office I had represented defendants from probably every known clique and set of the Bloods and Crips, but that was long ago and no names of former clients came to mind.

“Before your time, but Southside guys supposedly took out Tupac in Vegas,” I said.

“That’s the word,” Bishop said. “But that was ancient history.

None of those OGs were around when I was.”

“What were you on probation for?”

“Slinging.”

“So, why do you want to work for me when you could go back to your homies and sling dope? More money in that.”

“You know why, man. I got a girl and a kid now. I’m gonna get married and be done with all that.”

“You sure, Bambadjan?”

“You check me, man. You’ll see. I never was a user and I’m outta that life. I’m gonna find a place up here to rent and never go back down there.”

Bishop transitioned onto the northbound 405 to get off on Wilshire Boulevard. The federal building rose seventeen floors next to the freeway, a building that looked like a giant gray tombstone.

Soon we were in the vast parking lot that surrounded it. I told Bishop to stay in the lot and that I would text him when I was coming out.

“This probably won’t take too long,” I said.

“Paying your taxes?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to start telling him my business just yet.

In the lobby I saw Cisco waiting on the other side of the metal detector. He had brought Lorna with him. This was fine because she was a state-registered process server as well. California statutes required that all subpoenas be delivered by process servers or licensed private detectives. It was a safety rule designed to circumvent the possibility of lawyers or their clients serving subpoenas and other legal documents on the people they were engaged in disputes with.

Normally I would be nowhere near this subpoena delivery but I wanted to be there to make a statement. A statement I hoped would engender a response from the bureau.

I joined Cisco and Lorna after getting through the metal detector. We took an elevator up to the fourteenth floor, where the largest FBI field office west of Chicago was located. We somehow ended up alone on the elevator.

“You know they aren’t going to accept this, right?” Cisco said.

“I know,” I said. “I just want to make some waves, bang a few drums, and see what happens.”

“The FBI?” Lorna said. “Don’t count on them reacting at all.”

“Just have your phone ready,” I said.

Keeping with the rules, I handed Cisco the subpoena that Judge Warfield had signed. The elevator doors opened on fourteen and we saw a reception counter protected with thick glass like a bank teller’s cage in a high-crime zone. A woman sat on a stool behind a slide-through drawer. She switched on a two-way speaker attached to the glass.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Cisco leaned down to the speaker and read the name on the subpoena.

“I’d like to see the SAC, John Trembley,” he said.

“Do you have identification?” the receptionist asked. “For all three of you?”

I pulled my wallet and dug out my driver’s license and a business card — one of the old ones printed before the California bar made me remove “Reasonable Doubt for a Reasonable Fee” from all of my advertising and marketing. Cisco and Lorna produced their IDs as well and we put all three in the drawer. The receptionist took her time studying them before responding.

“The special agent in charge doesn’t see anyone without an appointment,” the receptionist said. “I can give you an email you can use to reach out and set something up.”

Cisco held up the document with Trembley’s name written on it.

“I have a subpoena here signed by a judge requesting documents from Agent Trembley,” he said. “He needs to see it right away and I have to confirm service or we could both end up in contempt.”

“All subpoena service goes through the U.S. Attorney’s Office and they are located downtown,” the receptionist said. “You should know that.”

“I do know that,” Cisco said. “This is different. This subpoena has a clock on it.”

I leaned toward the speaker.

“Can you call Agent Trembley, please?” I asked. “He’ll want to know about this.”

The receptionist seemed annoyed by the request.

“Put it in the drawer,” she said.

The steel drawer slid out with our IDs, which we all collected. My business card was in the bottom. I took it and gave it to Cisco, who slid it under the paper clip attached to the multipage subpoena.

Cisco placed the subpoena in the drawer and it was immediately pulled in. The receptionist turned off the speaker while she pulled the subpoena out and looked at it. She then picked up a phone and made a call. The glass suppressed her side of a short conversation.

A few moments later a man in a suit stepped through a door behind the receptionist, took the subpoena, and only glanced at it as he opened a door and stepped into the waiting area.

“Agent Trembley?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Agent Eason. We don’t accept subpoenas here.” I nodded to the one in his hand.

“You just did,” I said.

“No, this has to be taken to the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” he said.

Lorna raised her cell phone and took a photo of Eason and the subpoena.

“Hey!” the agent cried. “No photos. Delete that now!”

“You’re served,” Cisco said.

Mission accomplished, I reached back and hit the elevator button. The doors opened right away. I looked back at Eason.

“My card’s there,” I said. “Tell Trembley he can call anytime.”

We left Eason standing there, holding the subpoena. As the elevator doors closed I saw him glance through the glass at the receptionist. He looked both angry and embarrassed.

Back down in the lobby I gave Lorna and Cisco the news about Bishop.

“I just hired a driver,” I said.

We walked through the glass doors to the flag plaza.

“Who?” Lorna asked. “I thought hiring someone was my job.”

“Bambadjan Bishop,” I said.

“What?” Lorna said. “Who?”

“Is that the guy who had your back in Twin Towers?” Cisco asked.

“Exactly,” I said. “He’s out and I’m trying him out as a driver. I sort of promised him the job when I was in there. The protection money to his girlfriend now stops and I’m paying him eight bills a week to drive.”

“And you trust him?” Lorna asked.

“Not exactly,” I said. “I need to make sure he’s legit. After the eavesdropping scam and now the wallet gone missing, I’m not going to be surprised by anything the other side pulls.”

“You think he’s wired up for them?” Lorna asked.

“No indication of that but I want to be sure,” I said. “That’s where you come in, Big Man.”

“Where is he?”

“Out in the lot somewhere. I’ll text him to come pick me up.”

“So you want me to bend him over the car or what?”

“I want you to search him for a wire but you don’t need to prone him out. I think he’ll cooperate. If he doesn’t, then we know.”

When we got to the parking lot, I texted the number Bishop had given me and we waited. When the Lincoln pulled up, Lorna and I got into the back and Cisco squeezed into the front for the meet and greet.

“Bishop, this is Lorna and Cisco,” I said. “Lorna manages the practice and she’ll get with you about any paperwork you need to set up the job. And Cisco’s my investigator and he needs to check you.”

“Check me for what?” Bishop said.

“A wire,” Cisco said. “Just a little pat-down.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bishop said. “I ain’t wearin’ no wire.”

“I don’t think you’re wearing one either,” I said. “But a lot of confidential conversations take place in this car. I need to be able to guarantee my clients that they are in fact confidential.”

“Whatever,” Bishop said. “I got nothing to hide.”

Cisco turned in his seat and reached his big hands toward Bishop’s chest. It took him less than a minute to make a determination.

“He’s clean,” Cisco said.

“Good,” I said. “Welcome to the team, Bishop.”

21

They came that night to my home. A knock so sharp that Kendall nearly shrieked. She was bingeing the last season of The Sopranos and was already on edge. I was sitting next to her on the couch, going through the files from the old Sam Scales cases I had handled.

I opened the door and a man and woman stood there. I knew they were feds before they said word one or showed their badges. They introduced themselves as agents Rick Aiello and Dawn Ruth. Over my shoulder they could see Kendall sitting on the couch and asked if there was a place we could speak privately. I stepped out through the front door and pointed to the table and chairs at the far end of the deck.

“Out here is good,” I said.

We moved toward the table, and the motion engaged the deck lights — two sconces on the wall and an overhead in the roof’s eave. That told me that the motion-activated camera attachment had engaged as well.

We stopped at the high-top table but no one sat down. I broke the ice.

“I suppose this is about the subpoena we dropped off for your boss today,” I asked.

“Yes, sir, it is,” said Aiello.

“We need to know why you believe that the bureau would have any information on the activities of Sam Scales,” Ruth said.

I smiled and spread my hands.

“Does it matter now?” I asked. “Aren’t the two of you confirming it by showing up here at my house at nine o’clock at night? I thought the subpoena might cause some commotion and consternation, but to be honest, I wasn’t expecting you guys till at least tomorrow, maybe Wednesday.”

“We’re glad you think it’s funny, Mr. Haller,” Aiello said. “We don’t.”

“No, what’s not funny is me being charged with the murder of a guy who was being watched by the FBI,” I said. “Maybe you can tell me — how did that happen?”

I was bluffing, hoping to get a confirmation or some indication I was on the right track with Sam Scales. But the agents were too smart for that.

“Good try,” Ruth said.

From the inside pocket of his standard-issue FBI blue blazer, Aiello pulled out a folded document and handed it to me.

“There’s your stupid little subpoena,” he said. “Wipe your ass with it.”

“What about my Freedom of Information Act petition?” I asked. “I guess I can wipe my ass with that too, huh?”

“We don’t expect to hear from you again,” Ruth said.

She nodded to Aiello and they turned back toward the steps. I watched them go and then, without thinking, I made a play for the camera.

“Or what?” I called after them. “You know it’s all going to come out at trial. I’m not going down so you can keep your BioGreen case secret.”

Ruth pirouetted perfectly and came back toward me. But Aiello passed her on the outside and got to me first.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I think you heard me pretty good,” I said.

He brought both hands up and shoved me backward into the deck railing, then moved in and held me leaning back over it, the street twenty-five feet below.

“Haller, you’ve been told,” he said. “Any attempt by you to compromise a federal investigation that has zero to do with your... situation... is going to be met with a very harsh response.”

Ruth made an effort to pull her partner off me but she didn’t have the weight or muscle.

“What’s going on at that plant?” I asked. “What’s Opparizio got going? I exposed that guy for what he was nine years ago. You’re kind of late to the game.”

Aiello put his own weight into leaning me farther over. It was a wooden railing and I felt it hard against my backbone. I was afraid the rail might give way and we would both fall to the street.

“Rick!” Ruth yelled. “Let him go. Now!”

Aiello finally pulled me by the collar back onto steady ground and pointed at my face.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” he said.

“Just barking up the wrong tree, huh?” I said. “Is that what—”

“You’re barking up the wrong planet, Haller,” Aiello said. “Stay away from it. Or you’ll bear witness to the power and might of the federal government.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“It is what it is,” Aiello said.

Ruth yanked her partner away by the arm.

“Have a good evening,” she said.

She pulled him toward the steps. They passed Kendall, who now stood in the open doorway to the house, drawn from the television by the raised voices. I watched them go, this time deciding not to bother baiting them further. They descended the stairs to the street. I heard Ruth admonish Aiello in a tense whisper.

“What the hell was that?” she said. “Get in the car.”

I heard the doors of their car open and close. Then the engine turned over and the tires shot gravel as they took off and drove down the hill.

“Who were they?” Kendall asked.

“FBI,” I said.

“What? What did they want?”

“To scare me. Let’s go in.”

The first thing I did when I got back inside was go to my Ring camera app and check whether the confrontation on the front deck could be seen and heard clearly. It was all there, but the sound was sketchy in places. I had no doubt that it could be teased out by a sound expert if I ever needed it. I sent the video to Cisco and Jennifer so they would have copies. I also wrote a short note to accompany the file transfer: Looks like we touched a nerve.

I returned to my spot on the couch next to Kendall but found it hard to get back into the grind of going through the case files.

“What exactly did they want?” Kendall asked.

“I rattled their cage today,” I said. “They wanted to rattle mine.”

“Did they?”

“Nope.”

“Good. You want to keep working?”

“Nah, I think I’m done for the night.”

“Then, let’s go to bed.”

“Good idea.”

But the move to the bedroom was interrupted by Cisco, who called after viewing the video I had sent. I told Kendall I’d be in in a few minutes.

“That looked a little testy,” Cisco said.

“They definitely aren’t happy with the subpoena we dropped on them,” I said. “Whatever they’ve got going at BioGreen, they don’t want us in the picture.”

“But we stay with it, right?”

“Right. You hear anything from the Indians after this morning?”

“I got a report on the sidepiece. Still no sign of Opparizio.”

“We have to find him. What about that other thing you were doing?”

“Yeah, I was going to fill you in tomorrow. There was nothing there tonight. No flags. After he left you at the house, he walked down the hill to Sunset, ordered food right there at Zankou Chicken, and waited for a ride. Then I see a car pull up and it’s his girlfriend.”

“How’d you know it was his girlfriend?”

“Because I’ve been dropping off cash to her every week since you got popped.”

“Right. Forgot.”

“She had the kid in the car too. They picked him up with dinner and went home to Inglewood. And that was it.”

“He didn’t make any calls?”

“A couple but I had eyes on him. They were social calls. He was smiling, animated — not like he was reporting in as a CI.”

“Still, if we get the chance, we should check the phone. Get the call log. I want to be sure.”

I realized that my tone indicated that I was disappointed Bambadjan Bishop didn’t appear to be snitching for the prosecution or the police. And I guess I was. If he was snitching, I could use that to my advantage, plus get the ultimate payoff when it came time to expose the wrongdoing in court.

“I think after the jail surveillance thing and now the missing wallet, they’d be crazy to try to submarine us,” Cisco said.

“You’re probably right,” I acknowledged. “But stay on him one more night. You never know.”

“Done.”

“Okay, Cisco, thanks. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

As soon as I disconnected, I thought about Bosch. I had not sent him the video of the confrontation with the two FBI agents.

I called him directly and he picked up after two rings.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let me get clear.”

I heard the distinctive sounds of a casino in the background: slot-machine bells, people shouting. Then it got quiet and Bosch said hello.

“It’s Mick. Where the hell are you?”

“Vegas. You couldn’t tell? I just checked in at the Mandalay.”

“What are you doing there? I thought you were working for me.”

I immediately regretted my choice of words.

“With me, I mean.”

“I am. That’s why I’m here. Following something.”

“Well, we struck a big nerve today with the bureau. Two agents just showed up here to tell me we’re barking up the wrong tree with BioGreen while confirming that we’re barking up the right tree.”

“They like to do that.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve got there, but I want to put everything we have into finding out about how Sam was mixed up with Opparizio and BioGreen. I still think it’s the magic bullet. It’ll win the case.”

“Got it. I should be back by tomorrow night.”

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”

“Tracking Sam Scales. The last time he got caught was for a phony online fundraiser for the victims of the music festival shooting out here. Remember that? The shooter was actually here at the Mandalay.”

“Of course. Another senseless act of hyperviolence perpetuated by the easy access to high-powered weapons.”

“You’re not an NRA guy, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Anyway, the state of Nevada was all over these scams related to the shooting and grabbed Scales in L.A. They extradited him back here for trial and he cut a deal and did fifteen months for fraud up at High Desert.”

“I remember he called me from the can out there. Wanted me to rep him but I said no. But couldn’t you have gotten all of this by phone? I need you back here.”

“Not what I’m doing tomorrow. High Desert State Prison is about an hour from here. Scales’s cellmate is still there and I’m going to go up and talk to him. Got it set up for eight a.m. I’ll head back to L.A. after that.”

“You think he has something?”

“He’s serving a five-year sentence for major fraud. He was selling phony casino chips, took in a couple million before they caught him. Anyway, these two spent fifteen months together in a cell. I’m thinking they may have traded a few stories about things they did and were planning to do.”

“Perfect, they put a fraud and a con artist together in the same cell. That’s some match,” I said.

“They usually try to keep white-collar guys together so they don’t get picked off by the heavies.”

“Thanks for schooling me.”

“Sorry, I guess you know more about jails than I do,” Bosch said.

“I don’t know if that’s a dig or a compliment. You fly over there or drive?”

“Drove.”

“Okay, call me when you’re heading back. And then I want to get everybody together Wednesday after court to figure out the next steps.”

“I’ll be there.”

After disconnecting the call, I thought about things for a few minutes. I felt that the team was getting close to the big secrets of the case. We had a momentum that could lead us to truth and triumph. It was just a question of whether we would get there in time.

Kendall called down the hall from the bedroom.

“Are you coming to bed or not?”

I stacked all the files I had spread around and got up from the couch. I dumped the files into my briefcase and clicked it closed.

“Coming.”

I headed into the hallway and she was standing there in her bathrobe. I stopped short.

“Scared me,” I said.

“You know, this is what happened before,” she said.

“What did?”

“You know. You let your work take over your life. Our lives. Night and day. And then what we had disappeared. And here we are, back together, and already you’re doing it again.”

I reached out and gently grabbed the robe’s terry-cloth belt, which she had loosely cinched around her waist. I tugged it playfully.

“Come here. This isn’t the same thing, babe. This is me. My case. I have to put everything into it or there might not be any future for us. We’ve got a month until trial. I just need you to put up with this for a month. Okay? Can you give me that?”

I moved my hands up her arms to her shoulders and waited. She said nothing. She just looked down at the floor between us.

“You can’t give me the month?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“It’s not that,” she said. “I can give you the month. But sometimes it’s like you’re talking to me like a juror, like you’re trying to convince me you’re not guilty.”

I let go of her shoulders.

“And what, you think I am?”

“No. I’m talking about the way you talk to me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “But if you think I’m trying to play you, then maybe you should go to bed and I should go back to work. I have to figure out how to convince a real jury I’m not a killer.”

I left her there in the hallway.

22

Tuesday, January 14

I worked late and fell asleep on the couch. I had forgotten to attach the charger to my ankle monitor and it woke me at 8:15 a.m. with a sharp intermittent beeping that told me the device’s battery would be dead in an hour. And I would be in violation of the terms of my bail.

I timed the beeps. At the moment, the alarm was on a five-second interval but I knew that would get shorter and the device would get ear-piercingly louder as the hour counted down. I couldn’t casually go into the bedroom to get the charger without the alarm waking Kendall, who liked to sleep in most mornings. But with no choice in the matter, I timed my move, went swiftly into the room, and managed to plug the charging cord into the ankle device before the next beep. It appeared that Kendall had slept through. She was on her side, turned away from me, and I could see her arm moving with each rhythmic breath of sleep. I now had an hour to pass while the device charged, but I had left my phone, laptop, and briefcase in the living room. I could unplug the charger and race with it out of the room but I felt I was pressing my luck already. And if the alarm sounded again, it would definitely wake up Kendall.

The bedroom TV remote was on the bed within reach, having been left there by Kendall the night before. I turned on the flat-screen and immediately muted the sound. I switched on the closed captions and started reading the news. The House was planning to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for what everybody in the country new was a nonstarter. But it was monopolizing the news feed. I watched and read captions for twenty minutes before another story broke in for a few seconds of airtime. It was a report on rising concerns in Asia after the mystery virus originating in Wuhan, China, was confirmed as having jumped borders to other countries.

I heard my phone ringing out in the living room. I checked my watch. It was now 8:45 and I believed the ankle monitor had sufficiently charged to the point where there would be no alarm beep if I disconnected it. I quickly yanked out the charging line and moved quickly to get the phone. I missed the call but saw it had come from Bosch. I called him right back.

“Mick, there’s an issue with the cellmate,” he said.

“You’re at the prison?” I asked.

“I’m here and I saw the guy. His name is Austin Neiderland, but he won’t talk to me. Says he’s got a name that will tell us all we need to know about what Sam Scales was into. But he wouldn’t give me the name.”

“What’s he want? He’s got to be through his appeals by now.”

“He wants you, Mick.”

“What’s that mean?”

“He said he would give only you the name. He knows about you. Scales must’ve told him that you were a good lawyer. Neiderland says he’ll give you the name if you just come up, sign in as his lawyer, and talk to him. See if there’s anything to be done on his case, I guess. He’s still got two years on his sentence. That means he still has to do eighteen months.”

“You mean today? Come there today?”

“Can you? I’ll set it up and wait here for you.”

“Harry, I can’t. I’ve got an ankle monitor and bail restrictions. I can’t leave the county.”

“Shit, I forgot.”

“What about a video connection? Can we set up something like that?”

“I checked and the prison only does it for court hearings. No teleconferencing interviews or attorney-client meetings.”

There was silence on the phone while I thought about this.

“So, what else did he say about this name?” I finally asked. “I mean, what if we jump through all these hoops and he says, yeah, it’s Louis Opparizio. Then we’re nowhere. We already have that name.”

“It’s not Opparizio,” Bosch said. “I tried that name on him and got a read. He didn’t know it.”

“Okay, so can this even be done today? I have court tomorrow. Even if I can convince the judge to let me go up there, I have to be back tonight — tomorrow morning at the latest. You think I can get in and out? It’s a prison, and they don’t like cooperating with defense lawyers.”

“Your call, Mick, but if you have to talk to the judge to get permission, maybe she can write you an order that gets you in.”

“Different states, Harry. She doesn’t have jurisdiction.”

“Well... what do you want to do?”

“Okay, hold tight. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”

I disconnected and thought about the best way to approach this. Then I called Lorna and asked if there was anything on my schedule.

“Your first witness list is due today,” she said. “But that’s it. And then you have the continuation of yesterday’s hearing tomorrow at one.”

“Okay, I already have a wit list ready,” I said. “I’ll send it in. I might be going to Las Vegas — if the judge lets me.”

“What’s in Vegas?”

“A prison where Sam Scales last served time. I want to talk to the guy he shared a cell with.”

“Good luck with that. Let me know.”

I next called Judge Warfield’s courtroom and got her clerk, Andrew. I said I wanted to set up a teleconference with the judge requesting that I be allowed to leave the county for the day to pursue a witness. The clerk said he would check with the judge and call me back. I reminded him that Dana Berg would need to be alerted.

While I waited, I decided to act as if I would gain the judge’s permission and I booked flights on JetSuite out of Burbank to Las Vegas. The outbound left in two hours.

Thirty minutes went by with no return call from the judge or her clerk. I called the courtroom back and pushed for an answer. Andrew said the judge was okay with a teleconference but Dana Berg had not responded to a message left for her.

“Can the judge just talk to me, then?” I asked. “This is time-sensitive. I can see this potential witness today only and need to know whether I can go. If you leave a message for Berg saying when the conference is taking place, my guess is she’ll respond and be on the call. If you just wait for her to call back, we’re going to be waiting all day.”

The clerk took what I said under advisement and said he would get back to me. Another twenty minutes went by and Andrew called, saying he was connecting me to a conference call with the judge and Deputy D.A. Dana Berg. My plane was leaving in seventy minutes.

Soon I heard the judge’s voice on the phone.

“I think we have everybody here,” she said. “Mr. Haller, you are asking for a deviation in bail restrictions?”

“Yes, Your Honor, just for one day,” I said. “I need to go to Las Vegas to see a witness.”

“Las Vegas. Really, Mr. Haller?”

“It’s not what you think, Judge. I won’t be anywhere near the Strip. Sam Scales was last incarcerated at High Desert State Prison about an hour north of Las Vegas. His cellmate is still there and I want to talk to him. The prosecution has given us nothing through discovery regarding Scales’s activities leading up to the murder. The cellmate could be an important witness for the defense. One of my investigators is at the prison as we speak. He said the inmate will only talk to me. I’ve booked an eleven forty flight to Vegas and a seven o’clock flight back.”

“That was a bit presumptuous, was it not, Mr. Haller?”

“No, Your Honor. I did not anticipate how the court would rule. I just wanted to make sure I could get there should the court allow it.”

“Ms. Berg, are you still with us? Does the prosecution object to the defense request?”

“Here, Your Honor,” Berg said. “I would first like to ask the name of the inmate he is going to see.”

“Austin Neiderland,” I said. “He’s at High Desert State Prison.”

“Your Honor,” Berg said. “The state objects to this travel outside of bail restrictions and maintains its original argument from the bail hearing. We believe Mr. Haller is a flight risk. More now than before because the closer we get to trial, the clearer it becomes to Mr. Haller that his conviction and permanent incarceration are certain.”

“Judge, the prosecution’s statement is ridiculous,” I said quickly. “I’ve now been out of custody for five weeks and I have done nothing but prepare for my defense, even with the handicap of being pitted against a prosecution that does not like to play by the rules.”

“Your Honor, there is no handicap and there is no evidence that the prosecution doesn’t play by the rules,” Berg said forcefully. “Defense counsel has been engaged since the beginning of—”

“Stop it, stop it,” Warfield shouted. “I do not intend to start my day playing referee to you two. I’m growing very weary of that. Now, as to the request, has counsel explored the possibility of teleconferencing this interview?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Believe me, that would be the way to go, but my investigator told me the prison does not make that available for meetings besides court hearings.”

“Very well,” Warfield said. “The court is going to allow Mr. Haller to interview this witness. I will make the appropriate notification to the bail and detention folks, and, Mr. Haller, you need to be back in this county by midnight tonight or Ms. Berg’s prophecy will become true. You will be considered a fugitive. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Thank you. And if I could make one other quick request?”

“Here we go,” Berg said.

“What is it, Mr. Haller?” Warfield asked.

“Your Honor, I have the ankle monitor and I’m sure that’s going to be a problem at the prison in Nevada,” I said.

“No way,” Berg jumped in forcefully. “You can’t be serious. We are not going to accept him taking off the monitor. The state—”

“I’m not asking for that,” I cut in. “I’m asking for a letter from the court that maybe Your Honor’s clerk could write up quickly and email me, explaining my standing — if it comes into question.”

There was a pause during which the judge was most likely waiting for Berg to object. But I thought the prosecutor probably believed she had overstepped with her loud objection to removal of the monitor. She had overplayed and now was silent.

“Very well,” Warfield said. “I will craft a note and have Andrew email it to you.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.

After the call, I contacted Bosch and told him I was coming. I told him to set up the appointment with Neiderland for 2 p.m. This would give me time to fly over and be driven up to the prison. I also told Bosch to keep an eye out.

“I had to give Neiderland’s name to the prosecution,” I said. “I doubt they’ll be able to get anybody out there before me. But they may try to fuck with us somehow.”

“I’ll stay right here,” Bosch said. “Look out for anything strange. Call when you’re getting close.”

A quick shower and shave later, I was in fresh travel clothes and ready to go. I downloaded and printed the letter from Judge Warfield and put it in my briefcase.

Kendall was awake and in the kitchen. There was a loud silence that she broke first.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “I know you need to put everything you’ve got into your defense. I was being selfish.”

“No, I’m sorry,” I countered. “I was ignoring you and that should never be. I’ll do better. I promise.”

“The best thing you can do for me is win your case.”

“That’s the plan.”

We hugged it out, then I kissed her goodbye.

Bambadjan Bishop was sitting at the bottom of the stairs when I exited my house and locked the door behind me.

“Right on time,” I said. “I like that.”

“Where’re we going?” he asked.

“Burbank Airport. I’m flying to Vegas. Then you’re free until eight tonight, when I come back. I’ll need you to pick me up.”

“Got it.”

The JetSuite terminal was not on the commercial airfield at Burbank. It was hidden in a long line of private jet operators and hangars. The beauty of the little-known airline was that it operated like a private jet but provided commercial service. I got there fifteen minutes before my flight and it was no problem.

The sold-out flight carried thirty passengers into the air above the San Gabriel Mountains and then out over the Mojave Desert. I finally started to relax after the rush-rush morning.

I had a window seat and the woman next to me was wearing a surgical mask. I wondered if she was sick or trying to prevent becoming sick.

I turned and looked down on the vast nothingness below. The brown, sun-burned desert went in all directions as far as the eye could see. It made everything seem inconsequential. Including me.

23

Harry Bosch was waiting for me in front of the prison’s main entrance. He met me at the door of my ride as I got out. The sun was blistering and I had forgotten to bring sunglasses. I squinted at him.

“Can I let this guy go and you drive me back to the airport?” I asked. “Flight’s at seven.”

“Yeah, no problem,” he said.

I made sure I had my briefcase, then tipped the driver and sent him off.

Bosch and I started toward the prison entrance.

“You go through the doors and then there’s another door just for visiting attorneys. Head in through there and it should all be set. Neiderland is supposed to be in a room by two.”

“You can go through the attorney chute with me,” I said. “You’re—”

“No, I’m not going in with you. It’ll just be you and him — attorney-client.”

“That’s what I’m saying, you work for me as an investigator and that puts you under the privilege umbrella.”

“Yeah, but you’re about to go to work for him and I’m not working for that guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I pick my cases, Mick. I don’t work for criminals — that would undo everything I ever did in my career.”

I stopped and looked at him for a moment.

“I guess I should take that as a compliment,” I finally said.

“I told you at Dan Tana’s that I believe you,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

I turned and looked up at the prison.

“Well, okay, then,” I said.

“I’ll be out here,” Bosch said. “You get a name from him, I’ll be ready to go to work on it.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Good luck.”

I didn’t get into a room with Neiderland until forty minutes later. The ankle monitor set off alarms with the jail staff as I had thought it might. The letter from Judge Warfield was deemed not good enough because it could have been forged. Somebody called the judge’s office to confirm that she had granted permission for me to travel to Nevada but was told the judge was currently on the bench. It wasn’t until Warfield took the midafternoon break and returned the call from chambers that I was led to the attorney-client interview room. I was running a half hour late and Neiderland looked angry when I arrived.

He sat in a chair across a bolted-down table from another chair. His hands were cuffed and a lead chain ran from his wrists to a ring bolted to the front of his chair, which in turn was bolted to the floor. Still, he tried to stand and yanked hard against the chain as I slid into my seat.

“Mr. Neiderland, I’m Michael Haller,” I began. “I’m sorry—”

“I know who the fuck you are,” he said.

“You told my—”

“Fuck you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“I just flew here from L.A. because you told my—”

“Don’t you fucking get it?”

He yanked his cuffed hands up until the lead chain snapped taut again. His hands were gripped as if around an imaginary neck. My neck.

“They didn’t used to do this,” he said. “Chain you down like this. Not with your lawyer. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know. You should be dead by now, motherfucker.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Why would I be dead?”

“Because I would’ve broken your fucking neck.”

He pushed his words through gritted teeth. He wasn’t a big man or heavily muscled. He had thin blond hair and a sallow complexion — no surprise considering his current address. But the look of sheer hatred on his face was downright scary. My first thought was that somehow there had been a setup and he was working for Louis Opparizio — a hit man in an elaborate scheme to take me out. But then I dismissed it. The circumstances of my visit defied such a plan. And there was clearly emotion behind the hate on Neiderland’s face.

“You were going to kill me,” I said. “Why?”

“Because you killed my friend,” he said, again through clenched teeth.

“I didn’t kill Sam Scales. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to find the person who did, and you just wasted a whole fucking day of my time and my investigator’s time. You may not believe me and I may even go down for it, but know this: there’s someone else out there who did it and walked away. And by not helping me, you help him.”

I got up and turned to the steel door, raising my arm to pound on it. I was frustrated and angry and wondering whether there would be an earlier flight back so that my entire day would not be wasted.

“Wait a minute,” Neiderland said.

I turned back to him.

“Prove it,” he said.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said. “And it doesn’t help when I go off on a wild—”

“No, I mean prove it right here.”

“How do I do that?”

“Sit down.”

He nodded to the empty seat. I reluctantly sat down.

“I can’t prove it to you,” I said. “Not yet, at least.”

“He told me you betrayed him,” Neiderland said. “Yeah, the famous Lincoln Lawyer. You went Hollywood when they made a movie about your ass and left all the people who counted on you in the gutter.”

“That’s not what happened. I didn’t go Hollywood. Sam stopped paying me. That was one thing. But the truth is, I just couldn’t do it anymore. He was hurting a lot of people, taking their money, making them feel like fools. He got off on it, but I’d had enough. I couldn’t take another case.”

Neiderland didn’t respond. I tried again. I wanted to win him over because I still thought he could be helpful.

“You were really going to kill me?” I asked. “With less than two years to go in here?”

“I don’t know,” Neiderland said. “But I was going to do something. I was mad. I still am.”

I nodded. I could feel the temperature in the room subsiding.

“For what it’s worth, I liked Sam,” I said. “He ripped off a lot of people, and that was hard to take, but somehow I always liked him. I just had to draw the line because what he was doing was reflecting on me in the media and at home. Added to that, he stopped paying me and that was the same as treating me like one of the fools he ripped off.”

“He outstayed his welcome with a lot of people,” Neiderland said.

I could see a door of communication opening.

“But not you?” I asked.

“No, I never abandoned him,” Neiderland said. “And he never abandoned me. We had plans for when I got out of here.”

“What were they?”

“Find one big score and then disappear.”

“What was the score? Did he already find it?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like he could put it in one of his letters. Everything here is monitored — visitors, phone calls, letters. You’re not even supposed to have contact with any ex-cons on the outside.”

“So, how did you communicate?”

Neiderland shook his head. He wasn’t going to go there.

“Hey, I’m your lawyer,” I said. “You can tell me anything, and they can’t listen and I can’t repeat it. It’s privileged.”

Neiderland nodded and relented.

“He sent me letters,” he said. “Posing as my uncle.”

I paused for a moment. I knew the next question and answer could change everything about the case. I also knew that when people make up stories, plays, and even cons, they usually salt their stories with truth. Neiderland had promised Harry Bosch a name if I came to the prison. Maybe that was the truth in his con.

“What’s your uncle’s name?” I asked.

“Was,” Neiderland said. “He’s dead now. His name was Walter Lennon. My mother’s brother.”

“Did you ever send Sam letters — as your uncle?”

“Sure. What else is there to do in here?”

“And do you remember where you sent the letters?”

“He had a garage apartment in San Pedro. But that was three months ago, when he was alive. They probably put his shit out on the street.”

“Do you remember the address?”

“Yeah, I looked at a few of his letters this morning. The return was 272 °Cabrillo. He said it was small. He was saving and we were going to get something bigger when I got out. He said we’d buy a place.”

The vibe I was getting was that Neiderland was talking about a romantic relationship without actually saying it. I realized that I had never known Sam Scales’s sexual orientation because it didn’t play a part in his crimes or our attorney-client relationship.

“Did he tell you how he was getting the money he was saving?”

“He said he was working at the port.”

“Doing what?”

“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

To Sam, working a job meant working a grift. I wrote the name and address down on my legal pad. It would be considered work product and not discoverable.

“Anything else you think I should know?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he said.

I thought about protecting the information I had just received — at least until we checked it out.

“An investigator from the LAPD might come to see you,” I said. “They think I killed Sam and that’s all they’re worried about. Just remember that you don’t have to talk to them. I’m your lawyer now, you can refer them to me.”

“I won’t tell them dick.”

I nodded. That was what I wanted.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’m going to head back.”

“What about your trial?” Neiderland asked. “Do you want me to testify?”

I wasn’t sure how I could use him in my defense, or whether I could get the judge to approve it. Teleconferencing from prison to courtroom would probably put the jury to sleep. There was also the question of conflict of interest. Neiderland was now technically my client — at least on paper at the prison.

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

I stood up again, ready to bang on the door.

“Are you really going to find out who killed him?” Neiderland asked. “Or are you just worried about proving you didn’t?”

“The only way to prove I didn’t do it is to prove who did,” I said. “That’s the law of innocence.”