The Law of Innocence

37

Wednesday, February 19

The world seemed to be on the edge of chaos. More than a thousand people were dead from a mystery virus in China. Almost a billion people were on lockdown there and American citizens had been evacuated. There were cruise ships out on the Pacific that were floating incubators of the virus, and no vaccine was on the horizon. The president was saying the crisis would pass, while his own virus expert was saying brace for a pandemic. Closer to home, Jennifer Aronson’s father had just died in Seattle of an undiagnosed illness, and she was not getting any answers.

In L.A., it was the second day of jury selection in the trial of my life.

We had been proceeding at a rapid pace. The four days scheduled for voir dire had been cut in half by a judge who also felt that there was a coming wave. She wanted this trial over with before the wave hit, and while I wasn’t comfortable hurrying to pick a jury, I was right there with the judge. I wanted this over. Some of the deputies at Twin Towers had started wearing masks and I took that as a sign. I didn’t want to be in lockup when that wave the judge was worried about came in.

Still, picking the twelve strangers who would deliberate the case involved the most important decisions of the trial. Those twelve would hold my life in their hands, and the time allotted to choosing them had been chopped in half. This had caused me to take extraordinary measures to quickly try to find out who these people were.

Jury selection was an art form. It involved research, knowledge of social and cultural data, and, finally, gut instinct. What you want in the end is a panel of attentive people who are there for the truth. What you look for and hope to root out are those who view the truth through the prism of bias — racial, political, cultural, and so forth. And those with ulterior motives for serving.

The process begins with the judge weeding out jurors who have conflicts of schedule, can’t sit in judgment of others, or can’t grasp the meaning of legal tenets like reasonable doubt. It then moves to the lawyers, who may question jurors further to determine if they should be dismissed for cause — reasons of bias or background. The prosecution and defense are also given an equal number of peremptory challenges allowing them to dismiss jurors for unstated reasons. And that is where gut instinct most often comes into play.

All of this must be synthesized into decisions about whom to keep in and whom to kick out. That is the art — to finally arrive at a panel of twelve people you believe will be open to your cause. I fully admit that there is an advantage to the defense in that it has to win the belief of only one juror to be successful — one doubter of the state’s case. One holdout for the defense can hang a jury and force the state to start over, or even reconsider whether to go forward with a second trial at all. The state must win all twelve hearts and minds to get a conviction. Still, the state’s advantages beyond this one are so enormous as to make the defense’s jury advantage negligible. But you take what you are given, and therefore jury selection has always been sacred to me, made all the more so this time because I was the defendant.

It was 2 p.m. and the judge was expecting — no, demanding — that a jury be empaneled by the close of court in three hours. I could push it into the next day, because the judge ultimately wouldn’t want to enforce a demand that was potentially reversible on appeal. But if I did force the issue, there would be consequences down the line in terms of rulings from the bench.

Besides that, I was down to my last peremptory challenge and I knew there was no way I would be able to milk it for three more hours. We would fill the box before the courtroom went dark and the prosecution in the murder of Sam Scales would begin in the morning.

The good news was that the panel was largely set with jurors who I believed ranged on the defense meter from yellow — the middle ground — to deep green for pro-defense. Because of long-embedded and rightful distrust of police in minority communities, Black and brown jurors were always prized by the defense because they tended to view the testimony of police officers with suspicion. I had managed to keep four African Americans and two Latinas on the panel, fending off Dana Berg’s efforts to jettison the Blacks in particular. When one Black panelist revealed under questioning that she had once made a donation to the local Black Lives Matter organization, Berg first asked for the woman to be dismissed for cause. Making the request to an African-American judge took a certain level of courage, but it also underlined Berg’s singular purpose in convicting me. When the judge denied the motion, the prosecutor then attempted to use a peremptory challenge. That was when I swung in with an objection that the move was based on race, a clear exception to the rules of peremptory challenges. The judge agreed and the juror was seated. The ruling put Berg on notice in regard to future efforts to sculpt the jury along racial lines but then allowed me to do just that.

It was a big win for the defense but the last round of challenges had left three new faces in the box and I had just one peremptory. All three were white — two women and one man. And this was where my extraordinary juror profiling came into play. Early the morning before, Cisco had posted himself in the First Street garage, where jurors were directed to park. At that point, a few hundred potential jurors had been summoned for jury duty. Cisco had no way of knowing who would end up on my panel but he took note of character-defining aspects of the people arriving: things like make and model of cars, registrations, bumper stickers, interior contents, and so on. A person driving a Mercedes SL is going to have a different worldview from someone driving a Toyota Prius.

Sometimes you want the Mercedes on the jury. Sometimes you want the Prius.

After the first morning session with the hundred people called for the panel in my case, Cisco went back to the garage at lunchtime and then again at the end of the day. By his fourth time in the garage on Wednesday morning, he was recognizing people assigned to my case and building intel on many of them.

When court was back in session, he returned from the garage, sat in the gallery, and communicated what he knew about each potential juror to my co-counsel. I wasn’t alone at the table but I wasn’t with Jennifer Aronson either. My new co-counsel was Maggie McPherson. She had taken a leave of absence from the District Attorney’s Office and answered my distress call. I could think of no one better to be sitting next to as I faced the most difficult challenge of my life.

You never want to use your last peremptory, because you never know who will take the seat of the potential juror you just dismissed. You could clear the way for a new face that is a prosecutor’s dream, and you are left with nothing with which to stop it. So you always hold back the last peremptory for emergency circumstances only. I learned this the hard way as a baby lawyer when I was defending a man accused of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. I felt sure that the assault charge was bogus, an add-on by the arresting officer because of personal animosity. The officer was white and my client Black. During jury selection I gambled with my last peremptory to kick out a potential juror who was yellow on my meter. There were still several African Americans in the courtroom pool waiting to be randomly called to the box. I figured my chances were almost fifty-fifty that one of them would get the call to take the open seat for questioning. The move paid off. A Black woman was called, but under questioning she revealed that she was the daughter of a retired law enforcement officer who had served in the Sheriff’s Department for thirty-two years. I questioned her at length, trying to elicit an answer that would get her bumped for cause, but she maintained her stance that she could view the case impartially. The judge denied my request to dismiss her, so there I was, with a cop’s daughter on my assault-on-a-police-officer jury and no peremptory to change it. My client went down on all charges and spent a year in a county detention center for a crime I believed he had not committed.

I followed my usual routine for charting and tracking jurors through the selection process. A plain manila file folder was open flat on the defense table. I had drawn what I called the ice-cube tray across both flaps: a long rectangle divided into fourteen squares for the jury of twelve and two alternates. Each cube was two inches square — the size of a small Post-it Note. I wrote the salient thoughts and details about each prospective juror in the cube numbered for the jury box seat the candidate occupied. As jurors were dismissed and new people took the seats, I used Post-its to cover the no-longer-needed details and start again. Charting everything on the file folder allowed me to flip it closed if inquiring eyes wandered over from the prosecution table.

The prosecution got to question the new additions to the panel first. And while Berg went through her routine questions, Maggie and I checked the texts coming to her laptop from Cisco, who had to disguise what he was doing because no one but the attorneys on the case was allowed to use electronic devices in the courtroom. Cisco hid his phone from the courtroom deputies by keeping it down on the bench next to one of his massive thighs.

To protect the anonymity of the jury in a criminal case, the prospective jurors were referred to by numbers given to them when they checked in at the jury coordination center on the first floor. Cisco’s texts did the same.

That reference was to the male member of the new trio. It was an interesting piece of information but not something I would be able to go at directly without possibly giving away how I got the information. Revealing that I had an investigator scoping out potential jurors in the parking garage would not go over well with the judge or the California bar. It didn’t go over well with Maggie McFierce either. She was getting a quick education in criminal defense and didn’t always like what she was learning. But I wasn’t worried. She was now co-opted by the attorney-client relationship.

I had watched number 17 stand up in the gallery when his number was called. He had squeezed past others out of the row and then moved to the jury box for questioning without showing any obvious physical difficulty or handicap. Of course, there were other possible unseen issues that could have resulted in his receiving a handicap tag. But it bothered me. If the man was a cheat, I didn’t want him on the jury.

Cisco immediately followed his first missive with a text on one of the women.

This was good intel. Politics were a good window into a person’s soul. If 68 was a supporter of the president, it was likely she was a law-and-order hard-liner — not good for a guy accused of murder. That this person would continue to support the president after the media had documented his many, many untruths was a factor as well. It was blind loyalty to a cause, and an indicator that truthfulness was not an important part of her framework.

I agreed with Cisco. She had to go.

On the third potential juror — number 21 — Cisco had limited intel.

I didn’t know what an Extinction Rebellion sign was but I thought I understood the sticker’s message. Both pieces of information were almost useless. Both could be indicators of a judgmental personality, particularly when it came to the environment and crime. I drove a gas-eating Lincoln and that would certainly come out in trial. And I was charged with a very violent crime while being a person who associated professionally with others charged with violent acts.

I kept an ear on the proceedings as Berg questioned the new candidates but I also huddled with Maggie as she pulled out the questionnaires the three had filled out when reporting for jury service.

Immediately I changed my mind about 21. I liked what I read. She was thirty-six years old, unmarried, lived in Studio City, and had a job as a prep chef at one of the upscale restaurants at the Hollywood Bowl. This told me she liked music and culture and chose to work in a place that had both. She also listed reading first among her hobbies. I didn’t think anyone who was a reader could avoid coming across stories — nonfiction or fiction — that underscored the frailties of the American justice system, chief among them that the police don’t always get it right and that innocent people are sometimes accused and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. I believed that would give 21 an open mind. She would listen closely to my case.

“I want her,” I whispered.

“Yeah, she looks good,” Maggie whispered back.

I moved on to the other two questionnaires. I saw that 68, the other female, was my age and had gotten married the same year she graduated from Pepperdine, a conservative Christian school in Malibu. Add all of that to the Trump bumper sticker, and I was convinced. She had to go.

Maggie agreed.

“You want to use the last challenge?” she asked.

“No, I’m going to question her,” I said. “Try to get her bumped for cause.”

“What about the guy? There’s nothing here.”

She was referring to 17. I scanned his questionnaire and had to agree with Maggie. Nothing on the single page drew a flag. He was forty-six years old and married, an assistant principal at a private school in Encino. I was familiar with it because Maggie and I had flirted with the idea of sending Hayley there for elementary school many years before. We took the tour and went to a parents’ presentation but ultimately got a bad vibe. Most of the students came from well-to-do families. We weren’t destitute by any means but Maggie was a civil servant and I was always chasing money cases. Some years were fat, some were thin. We thought the peer pressure on our daughter would be unhealthy. We enrolled her somewhere else.

“You remember this guy?” I asked. “He would have been there when we looked at the place.”

“I don’t recognize him,” Maggie said.

“I’ll see what I can get on Q and A. You okay with my taking all three?”

“Of course. It’s your case. I don’t want you deferring to me.”

While Berg finished her canvassing of the jurors, I wrote notes on all three on Post-its and attached them to the corresponding squares on my ice-cube tray chart. I wrote in green for 21 and red for 68. For 17, I wrote a yellow question mark. Then I folded the file closed.

38

When it was my turn to question the people who might decide my future, the judge verbally cut me off at the knees before I even got to the lectern.

“You have fifteen minutes, Mr. Haller,” she said.

“Your Honor, we technically have three open seats and then the alternates to fill,” I protested. “The prosecution just took way more than fifteen minutes to question these three.”

“No, you’re wrong. I timed it. Fourteen minutes. I’m giving you fifteen. Starting now. You can use the time to argue with me or to question the jurors.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

I went to the lectern and started with number 68.

“Juror sixty-eight, I was looking at your questionnaire and didn’t see what your husband does for a living.”

“My husband was killed in Iraq seventeen years ago.”

That brought a moment of silence — a collective holding of breath — as I retooled my approach. I could not let the jurors who were already seated see me treat the woman with anything but kid gloves.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “And that I even brought the memory up.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “The memory never goes away.”

I nodded. Though I had stumbled into this, I had to find a way to finesse my way out.

“Uh, on the questionnaire, you didn’t check that you had been a victim of a crime. Don’t you consider the loss of your husband to be in a way a crime?”

“That was war. That was different. He gave his life for his country.”

God and country — a defense lawyer’s nightmare on a jury.

“Then he was a hero,” I offered.

“And still is,” she said.

“Right. He still is.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you been on a jury before, ma’am?”

“It was one of the questions on the form. No, I have not. And please don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like my mother.”

There was a slight tickle of laughter in the courtroom. I smiled and pressed on.

“I will refrain from doing that. Let me ask you a question: If a police officer testifies to one thing and then a regular citizen testifies and says the opposite, whom do you believe?”

“Well, I guess you just have to weigh what each one says and try to figure out who’s telling the truth. It could be the officer. But it might not be.”

“But do you give the police officer the benefit of the doubt?”

“Not necessarily. I would have to hear more about the officer. You know, who he is, how he comes across. Like that.”

I nodded. It was becoming clear that she was a Jury Judy — someone who wants to be on the jury and gives the right answer to every question whether or not it reflects her true sentiments. I am always suspicious of people who want to be on a jury, who want to judge others.

“Okay, and as the judge explained yesterday, you know that I am both the defendant and defense attorney in this case. If at the end of this trial you think that I probably committed the crime of murder, how do you vote in the jury room?”

“I would have to trust my instincts after weighing the evidence.”

“Which means what? How would you vote?”

“If I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, I vote guilty.”

“Is thinking I probably did it convincing? Is that what you mean?”

“No, like I said, I would have to feel you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“What does reasonable doubt mean to you, ma’am?”

Before 68 could answer, the judge cut in.

“Mr. Haller, are you trying to bait the juror?” Warfield said. “She asked you not to call her that.”

“No, Judge,” I said. “I just forgot. My Southern manners. I apologize.”

“That’s all well and good, but I know you were born right here in Los Angeles, because I knew your father.”

“Just a figure of speech, Your Honor. I won’t say the offending word again.”

“Very well, continue. You’re using up all your time on this one juror. I’m not giving you an extension.”

Fifteen minutes to interview the people who might decide your fate. I thought I had my first point of appeal should the trial not go the way I wanted it to. I turned my attention back to the woman in the jury box.

“If you could, can you tell us what you believe reasonable doubt to mean?”

“Just that there’s no other possible explanation. Based on the evidence and your evaluation of it, it couldn’t have been anybody else.”

I realized I wasn’t going to be able to make any headway with her. She had her answers rehearsed. I had to wonder whether she had been following the case in the media.

“Yesterday morning the judge asked for a show of hands for anyone who had read about this case in the media. You did not raise your hand, correct?”

“That’s correct. I had never heard of it before.”

I didn’t believe her. She knew about the case and for some reason wanted to be on the jury. I checked my watch and moved on to Mr. 17. I had no choice.

“Sir, you are an assistant principal at a private elementary school, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I see on the questionnaire that you have a master’s degree in education and are working on a doctorate.”

“Yes, part-time on the doctorate.”

“Is there a reason why you haven’t chosen to teach at the university level?”

“Not really. I like working with younger kids. That’s where I get my fulfillment.”

I nodded.

“It says you also coach the boys’ basketball team at the school. Does that require a lot of physical activity on your part?”

“Well, I think the boys should see their coach as someone who can keep up with them. Someone in shape.”

“You do strength-training exercises with them?”

“Uh, sometimes.”

“You run with them?”

“I do laps in the gym with them.”

“What is your philosophy on sport? Winning is everything?”

“Well, I’m competitive, yes, but I don’t think winning is everything.”

“What do you think, then?”

“I think winning is better than losing.”

That drew some polite laughter. And I changed the direction of my questions.

“Your wife. According to the info sheet, she is a teacher as well?”

“Yes, same school. We met there.”

“So I assume you carpool to school together?”

“No, I have the coaching after school, and she has a part-time job at a crafts store. So different schedules, different cars.”

“Do you think that there are serious crimes and not serious crimes?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you think that there are some crimes that shouldn’t be considered crimes?”

“I don’t really understand.”

“I guess I’m talking about the highs and lows. Murder — that’s a crime, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And those who murder should pay for their crimes. You agree?”

“Of course.”

“What about smaller crimes? Crimes where there are no victims — should we bother with those?”

“A crime is a crime.”

The judge intervened again.

“Mr. Haller, do you intend to question juror twenty-one with the time you have left?” she asked.

I was annoyed at the interruption. I was building toward a decision with 17 and she shouldn’t have interrupted.

“As soon as I’m finished here, Your Honor,” I said, my frustration clear in my voice. “Can I proceed?”

“Go ahead,” Warfield said.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Haller.”

I turned back to 17 and attempted to gather my splintered momentum.

“Sir, is a crime a crime, no matter how big or small?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“What about jaywalking? It’s against the law but do you think it’s a crime?”

“Well, if that’s what the law is, then, yes, I guess it’s a crime. A minor crime.”

“What about parking in a handicapped zone when you have no handicap?”

It was a gamble. All I knew about 17 was what I had read on the questionnaire and what I learned in the text from Cisco about his parking in a handicapped spot. I had to make a call on him but could only dance around the essential question: Was he a cheater?

We stared at each other in silent communication before 17 finally spoke.

“There might be a reasonable explanation for someone doing that,” he said.

There it was. He didn’t believe he needed to play by the rules. He was a cheater and he had to go.

“So what you’re saying is that—”

Warfield interrupted again.

“Your time is up, Mr. Haller,” she said. “Counsel, approach.”

I cursed under my breath and turned away from 17.

We had been handling challenges at the bench so the objections to jurors — possibly embarrassing to them — were not made in open court. But when I got to the bench, I was too hot to worry about keeping my voice down.

“Your Honor, I need time to question the last juror,” I said. “You can’t arbitrarily set my time based on what time the state needed. That is patently unfair to the defense.”

Maggie had joined the conference at the bench. She now lightly touched my arm as the judge responded. It was a warning to tread carefully.

“Mr. Haller, your time management is not my problem,” Warfield said. “I made it abundantly clear from the start of day yesterday, start of day today, and at the start of your most recent questioning of potential jurors: we are going to finish jury selection today and opening statements are tomorrow. We are now approaching three o’clock and we still have alternates to seat and I imagine at least one or two jurors. Your time was up. Now, does either of you have a challenge?”

Before Berg could say a word, I spoke.

“I would like to confer with counsel first,” I said. “Could we take the afternoon break and then consider challenges?”

“Very well,” the judge said. “Ten minutes. Step back.”

The lawyers returned to our tables while the judge informed the courtroom of the afternoon break. She sternly said that court would resume in ten minutes sharp. I slid into my seat and huddled with Maggie.

“This is crazy,” I said. “Fifteen minutes to question three jurors? She’s nuts, and this is reversible.”

“Look, you have to calm down, Mick,” Maggie said. “You can’t cross swords with a judge before the trial even starts. That’s suicide.”

“I know, I know. I’ll be calm.”

“Now, what are we going to do? We only have one challenge.”

Before answering, I looked over and saw that Berg was also huddling with her co-counsel — the bow-tie guy. I had an idea. I looked back at Maggie.

“How many challenges do they have left?” I asked.

She looked at a score sheet she was keeping.

“Three,” she said.

“I don’t want to give up ours,” I said. “I want to try something. I want you to go into the hall for the break. Don’t come back until the ten minutes are up.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about the challenges yet. Just go.”

She tentatively got up and went out through the gate toward the door to the hall. I checked the prosecution table and then turned toward Chan, the courtroom deputy, and signaled him over. I opened my file, revealing the ice-cube tray chart. I quickly switched the Post-its I had used to mark jurors 21 and 17, putting the green light on the schoolteacher.

The deputy stepped over.

“I gotta use the can,” I said. “Can somebody take me back?”

“Stand up,” he said.

I did as instructed. Chan handcuffed me and walked me to the custody door.

“You’ve got about five minutes,” he said.

“I only need two,” I said.

He led me into the secured holding area and into a cell where there was an open toilet. There were two men sitting on a bench in the cell, at this hour most likely waiting to be transported back to Twin Towers after their court appearances. I stood at an angle preventing them from seeing my business and urinated into the toilet while Chan waited in the hallway outside the cell.

I took my time washing my hands in the sink next to the toilet. I wanted to give the bow-tie guy enough time to see that I had left my chart open on the defense table.

“Let’s go, Haller,” Chan said from outside the tank.

“Coming,” I said.

After I returned to my seat at the defense table, I closed the file and looked over at the prosecution table. Berg and her cohort were no longer talking but looking straight ahead and waiting for court to resume.

Soon several members of the jury pool were returning to the courtroom. Maggie came back to the defense table and sat down.

“So, what are we doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to try to get sixty-eight kicked for cause,” I said. “And I’m hoping the state boots the teacher.”

“Why would they do that? He’s perfect for them. I know I’d want him if this was my case.”

I flipped open the file and pointed to the Post-its. Maggie was staring at them, putting the ruse together when the judge returned to the bench and called counsel forward.

At the bench, the prosecution went first.

“Your Honor, the People will use a peremptory challenge to dismiss number seventeen,” Berg said.

I jerked my head back like I had been slapped and then shook it in disappointment. I hoped I wasn’t overacting.

“You’re sure?” Warfield asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Berg said.

The judge wrote a note down on a pad.

“Mr. Haller, anything from the defense?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “The defense seeks the dismissal of juror sixty-eight for cause.”

“That cause being what?” the judge asked.

“Clear animosity exhibited toward the defense,” I said.

“Because she doesn’t like to be called ma’am?” Warfield asked. “I don’t want to be called that either.”

“That and a generally combative tone, Judge,” I said. “She clearly doesn’t like me, and that is grounds for cause.”

“Your Honor, can I be heard on this?” Berg said.

“You don’t need to be,” Warfield said. “I’m denying the motion to dismiss for cause. My tally shows you have one last peremptory, Mr. Haller. You want to use it?”

I paused for a moment to consider. If I used my last peremptory, I would have nothing left while we sat the replacements for 68 and 17. I didn’t want the Trumper on the jury but it was risky being unable to control the last two slots on the panel. The alternates would be handled separately, with additional peremptory challenges.

“Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “I am waiting.”

I pulled the trigger.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “We thank and excuse juror sixty-eight.”

“And that is using your last challenge?” Warfield asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Very well, you can step back.”

I knew it would be useless to ask for additional challenges. Berg would oppose it and the judge, with her hard-line adherence to her schedule, would be disinclined to be generous. I returned to my place at the defense table and decided to dwell on the one good thing that had just happened. I had managed to get rid of two potentially problematic jurors with one challenge. I would never know whether leaving my chart open to the potential spying eyes of the prosecution table had played a part in the dismissal of the schoolteacher, but I had to think it did. I listened as the judge thanked and dismissed him along with the widow of the war hero.

For the moment, the chef from the Hollywood Bowl was secure.

The judge quickly referred to a list of numbers randomly selected by a computer and called the next two prospective jurors into the box.

We had little more than an hour to finish.

39

Thursday, February 20

It was time. It was Thursday morning at 10 a.m. and the trial would now move past the preliminaries to opening statements from the lawyers. The jury and alternates had been seated the day before without additional angst from me. My gamble with my last peremptory had paid off in that the final candidates for placement on the jury had not raised any serious flags for the defense. The jury was sworn in and we were good to go.

I felt comfortable with the overall panel. There were no known prosecution bogeys and three members of the jury I actually thought tilted toward the defense side of the scale. In most trials you are lucky if you get even one.

Still, my comfort with the jury was offset by the knot in my stomach. I was fully recovered from the attack on the bus, but the tension of a sleepless night had carried through into the day. I was nervous. I had tried many cases and I knew that anything could happen. It wasn’t a comforting knowledge. I was fully prepared to engage in this battle, but I knew there would be casualties and I could not guarantee that the truth would not be among them. Innocent men were found guilty. I didn’t want to be one of them.

An opening statement is merely a blueprint of the case to come. My strategy was a third-party-culpability defense. That was a legal way of saying somebody else did it and I was either intentionally framed or the police were so incompetent that they bungled the case and framed me in the process. I was fully aware that it would be awkward and possibly off-putting for me to stand in front of the jury and espouse this line of defense. This was why I had assigned the opening statement to Maggie McPherson. I wanted her to point to me and summon all her fierceness when she said I was innocent and that the state did not have a case that would prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

At the same time, I didn’t want Maggie saying much beyond that. When it came to opening statements, I was from the Legal Siegel school of law. He always said, save your powder, meaning less is more; don’t reveal your case or its surprises until it’s time to present your evidence. That’s when it mattered. Legal Siegel also said that opening statements were not worth spending much time on because they would soon be forgotten as the prosecution presented its case, followed by the defense.

There was the option of withholding the defense’s opening statement until the start of its case. I had taken that option on occasion in prior trials but I never liked doing it. I always felt it unwise to miss the opportunity to address the jury early on, no matter how briefly. Since we were starting this trial on a Thursday, I knew it would be six or seven days before the defense phase started, and that seemed too long to go without countering the state with my own view of the case.

I passed all this wisdom on to Maggie, though such advice was not remotely necessary for her. She had given and sat through more than her share of opening statements and already knew that less was always more.

However, this wisdom was apparently never part of Dana Berg’s training. She stood before the jury first and delivered an opener that lasted almost ninety minutes. I would have preferred to sleep through it but I had to carefully monitor it and take notes. An opening statement was a promise to the jury of what you will present during your case in chief. It was unwise to promise something and then not deliver it. That was why I took notes. I would keep a scorecard, and as the case progressed I would be sure to point out to the jury where the state had failed to deliver on the goods promised.

Berg started by detailing the night of my arrest and the discovery of Sam Scales in the trunk of my car. This was where she made her first mistake, telling the jury that they would hear from Officer Roy Milton about how a routine traffic stop — started when he saw my car had no license plate — led to the discovery of the murder victim.

I wrote her words down verbatim because I would use them against Officer Milton when he was brought into court to testify. There was nothing routine about the traffic stop or anything else that night.

At an early point in her statement, Berg interjected a note about Sam Scales, describing him as a small-time grifter who never lived a life on the straight and narrow.

“In fact, Mr. Scales knew Mr. Haller because Mr. Haller was the attorney who defended him most often,” Berg said. “But no matter what crimes Mr. Scales contemplated or committed, he did not deserve to be murdered in the trunk of his lawyer’s car. You must remember that no matter what you hear about Sam Scales, he was the victim in this case.”

While Berg went long, she was also pretty straightforward, sticking closely to what she said the evidence in the case would show. There was a lot but it was all window dressing on the key elements of the case — that the victim was found in my trunk and that ballistic evidence would show that the killing took place in my garage.

There were a few times when I could have objected when Berg strayed from statement into argument, but I was mindful of perceptions. I didn’t want the jury to see me as some sort of petty referee or interrupter, so I let the editorializing go. The prosecutor wrapped it up after eighty-five minutes with a summary of her summary, repeating the major points she promised to deliver during the trial and sounding a lot like a closing argument.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence we will present over the next several days will show that Mr. Haller was engaged in a long-running dispute with Sam Scales over money. It will show that he knew that his best and only chance of getting his money was to kill Sam Scales and draw it from his estate. And it will show beyond a reasonable doubt that he did indeed carry out that plan to kill Mr. Scales in the garage of his home. It would have been the perfect murder if not for the sharp eyes of a police officer who noticed a missing license plate on a dark street. I ask that you pay attention to the evidence presented and not be swayed by efforts to distract you from your very important job. Thank you.”

The judge called for a fifteen-minute break before the defense got its turn. I, of course, was going nowhere. I turned to scan the gallery as people got up to use the restrooms or just stretch their legs. I saw that the courtroom had gotten crowded as the case got underway — more media and more observers from both in and out of the courthouse. I saw several attorneys I knew and other courthouse workers. In the front row were my team and family. Cisco and Lorna. Bosch was there and had even brought his daughter, Maddie. She sat next to my daughter. I smiled at them now.

Kendall Roberts was not in the courtroom. After I was taken into custody, she had assessed her situation and decided to call it quits with me a second time. She had moved out of my house and left no forwarding address. I could not say I was left heartbroken. The strain the case had put on our relationship had been clear even before I was jailed for the second time. In fact, I couldn’t blame her for extricating herself from it all. She had tried to tell me in person, coming to court for one of my hearings, but the circumstances didn’t allow it. So she had written me a note and sent it to the jail. And that was the last I had heard from her.

Toward the end of the break, Hayley got up and squeezed down the row until she came to the railing behind the defense table and in front of Cisco. Since I was a custody, I was not allowed to touch her or get close. But Maggie slid her chair all the way back to the rail.

“Thanks for being here, Hay,” I said.

“Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You’re going to win, Dad. And Mom. You’re going to prove what I already know.”

“Thanks, baby,” I said. “How’s Maddie?”

“She’s good,” Hayley said. “I’m glad she made it. It’s really good to see Uncle Harry too.”

“How long can you stay?” Maggie asked.

“I cleared the whole day,” Hayley said. “I’m not going anywhere. I mean, my mom and dad on the same team — what could be better than that?”

“I hope it doesn’t leave you behind in classes,” Maggie said.

“Don’t worry about my classes,” our daughter, the future lawyer, said. “Just worry about this.”

She gestured to the front of the courtroom, meaning the case. “We’re locked and loaded,” I said. “Confident.”

“That’s good,” Hayley said.

“Do me a favor and keep your eye on the jury,” I said. “If you see anything, let me know during the breaks.”

“Like what?” Hayley asked.

“Like anything,” I said. “A smile, a shake of the head. Somebody falling asleep. I’ll be watching too. But we can use any read we can get.”

“You got it,” she said.

“Thanks for being here,” I said somberly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said. “Both of you.”

She moved back to her seat, and Cisco and Bosch leaned forward to the railing to speak confidentially, even though I had to keep the same separation from them.

“We all set on everything?” I asked.

“We’re good,” Cisco said.

Then he looked at Bosch for agreement and Bosch nodded.

“Good,” Maggie said. “Looking at Dana’s witness list, I’m guessing that the state’s case will go to at least Tuesday. So we should be ready with subpoenas and everything else on Monday, just in case.”

“Done,” Cisco said.

“Good,” Maggie said.

People were returning to their seats. The break was almost over.

“Well, this is it,” I said. “We’re here. I want to thank you guys for everything.”

They both nodded.

“This is what we do,” Cisco said.

I turned back to the table and then leaned toward Maggie, who was already back to studying notes scribbled on a legal pad in front of her.

“You ready?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Quick and dirty.”

The courtroom settled and the judge came back to the bench.

“Mr. Haller,” she said. “Your opening statement.”

I nodded but it was Maggie who stood up and went to the lectern. She carried her legal pad and a glass of water. We had not informed the judge or prosecution who would be making the opening statement for the defense. I picked up a note of surprise on Berg’s face when she turned in her seat toward the lectern, expecting to see me. I hoped it would be the first of many times she would be caught off guard.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning,” Maggie said. “My name is Maggie McPherson and I am co-counsel for the defense on this case. As you have been told by the court, the defendant, Michael Haller, is also representing himself in this trial. More often than not it will be Mr. Haller who stands here to question witnesses and speak to the judge. But for this opening statement we agreed that it would be best for me to speak on his behalf.”

I had a clear view of the entire jury box, and my eyes traveled from one face to another. First the front row and then the back. I saw real interest and attention but I knew this was the group’s first exposure to the defense’s case. I also knew that they might be disappointed by not getting the finer details in Maggie’s speech.

“I am going to be brief here,” she said. “But first let me say congratulations. You are all part of something that is sacred and one of the cornerstones of our democracy. In fact, no institution in modern society is more democratic than a jury. Look at yourselves. You are twelve strangers randomly brought together for one purpose. You will elect a leader and each one of you will have an equal vote. Your duty is so important because you have the power to take away a citizen’s life, liberty, and livelihood. It’s an awesome and urgent responsibility. And once you carry out your charge, you disband and go back to your lives. There is nothing as important as the duty you have agreed to take on in this courtroom.”

When we were married, I had watched Maggie in trial dozens of times and she always riffed in opening statements on the democracy of the jury. There was no change here except that she now stood — for the first time — for the defense. After the preamble, she got down to the case at hand.

“So, now your work begins,” she said. “Remember as you go, opening statements are basically all talk. Not evidence. Ms. Berg spoke to you for ninety minutes but she did not give you any evidence. It was just talk. The defense wants to get to the evidence — or in the state’s case, the lack of evidence. We want to prove to you that the state has made a terrible mistake and charged the wrong man — an innocent man — with this crime.”

Maggie raised her hand and pointed to me at the defense table.

“That man is innocent,” Maggie McFierce said. “And there is really nothing else to say. We don’t have to prove his innocence in order for you to return a verdict of not guilty. But I promise you we will.”

She paused to underline the emphatic statement and looked down at the notes on her legal pad.

“You are going to hear two stories in this trial,” she continued. “The prosecution’s story and our story. The prosecution will point the finger at the defendant. We will show that a man whose name the state will never mention and doesn’t want you to even know is responsible for the death of Sam Scales. Only one of these stories can be true. We ask for your patience and diligence and hope that you will keep an open mind and wait for the defense’s case. Again, only one story can be true, and you will choose it. Pay careful attention to the facts. But be aware that facts can be twisted. We will show that as we go. You all were given notebooks. Keep tabs on who is twisting the facts and who is not. Write it down so that when you go into the deliberations at the end of this trial, you know the facts and you know who told the truth and who didn’t.”

Maggie paused to take a drink from her glass of water. It was a trial attorney’s trick. Always take a prop like a glass of water to the lectern when giving an opening statement or closing argument. Taking a drink of water allows one to underline an important statement or to collect thoughts before proceeding.

After putting the glass down, she moved toward her closing.

“A trial is a search for truth,” she said. “And in this trial you are the truth seekers. You must be unbiased and undaunted. You must question everything. Question everything every witness says from the stand. Question their words, question their motives. Question the prosecutor, question the defense. Question the evidence. If you do that, you will find the truth. And that is, that the wrong man sits now at the defense table while there is a killer out there still. Thank you.”

She took her glass and her pad and returned to the defense table. I turned to her as she sat down and I nodded.

“Great start,” I whispered.

“Thank you,” she whispered back.

“Better than I could ever do.”

She squinted like she wasn’t sure what she had just heard was true.

But I meant it. It was true.

40

The prosecution is always tasked with establishing the timeline, presenting the evidence with a clear starting and ending point. It is linear storytelling and is sometimes long and laborious, but required. In order to get to the body found in the trunk of my Lincoln, Dana Berg had to tell the jury how it came to be that my car was stopped and the trunk opened. That meant she had to start with Officer Roy Milton.

Milton was called to the witness stand directly after the lunch break and Berg quickly set up through testimony where he was and what he was doing when he noticed my car had no rear plate and pulled me over. She then used Milton to introduce the videos from his car and body cam, and the jury had a visceral you-are-there experience in the finding of Sam Scales in the trunk of my Lincoln.

I carefully watched the jurors during the playing of the body cam. Some were clearly repulsed when the Lincoln’s trunk came open and the body was revealed. Some leaned into it, fascinated, it seemed, by the discovery of the murder.

As the testimony proceeded, Maggie tracked what Milton was saying against a transcript of his testimony from the discovery hearing back in December. Any contradiction could be brought up and called out during cross-examination. But Milton stuck close to the previous story, in some cases using the same wording — a sign that prior to trial he had been coached by Berg not to stray from what was already on the record.

Milton’s sole purpose as a witness was to get the videos into evidence and in front of the jury. They were a powerful start to the case for the state. But then it was my turn to take on Milton in cross-examination. I had waited two months for this and my measured and polite questioning during the hearing in December would be a thing of the past. I adjusted the microphone on the lectern and went right at him with the first question. My goal was to rattle him in any way I could for as long as I could. I knew that if I succeeded, I would be rattling Dana Berg as well.

“Officer Milton, good afternoon,” I began. “Can you please tell the jury who it was that told you to follow and then conduct a traffic stop of the Lincoln Town Car I was driving on the night of October twenty-eighth?”

“Uh, no, I can’t,” Milton said. “Because that didn’t happen.”

“You are telling this jury that you received no prior notice or instruction to pull me over on a traffic stop after I left the Redwood Bar?”

“That is correct. I saw your car and noticed it had no plate and—”

“Yes, we heard what you told Ms. Berg. But what you are telling me and this jury now is that you received no direction to pull me over. Is that correct?”

“Correct.”

“Did you receive a radio call telling you to stop me?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did you receive a message on your car’s computer terminal?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did you receive a call or a text message on your personal cell phone?”

“No, I did not.”

Berg stood and objected, saying that I was repeatedly asking the same question.

“The question has been asked and answered, Your Honor,” she said.

Warfield agreed.

“It’s time to move on, Mr. Haller,” she said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “So, Officer Milton, if I were to produce a witness at this trial who alerted you to the fact that I was leaving the bar, then that person would be lying, correct?”

“Yes, that would be a lie.”

I looked up at the judge and asked if the attorneys could approach the bench. She waved us up. I got there first and waited for Berg and McPherson to join.

“Judge,” I said. “I’d like to set up my own playback of the videos from the patrol car and Officer Milton’s body cam.”

Berg raised her hands palms up in a what-gives? gesture.

“We just watched the videos,” she said. “Are we trying to bore the jury to death?”

“Mr. Haller, explain,” Warfield said.

“My tech guy has put them side by side on one screen and time-coordinated them,” I said. “The jury will see them simultaneously and be able to see what happens inside the car at the same moment as things are happening on the street.”

“Your Honor, the People object,” Berg said. “We have no way of knowing whether these have been edited or altered by this so-called tech guy. You can’t allow this.”

“Judge, we don’t know if the prosecution edited or altered what they played for the jury,” I said. “I will provide a copy to the prosecution and they can examine it all they want. If they find that it was altered, I’ll turn in my bar ticket. But what’s really happening here is that the prosecution knows just where I’m going with this, knows that it is indeed probative, and she simply doesn’t want the jury to see it. This is a search for truth, Judge, and the defense has the right to put this before the jury.”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about, Judge,” Berg said. “The People still object based on lack of foundation. If he wants to play it during the defense phase, he can bring in his tech guy and try to establish foundation. But this is the state’s case right now and he should not be allowed to hijack it.”

“Your Honor,” Maggie said. “The prosecution has already laid the foundation by playing the videos to the jury. To allow the prosecution to play what it wants to show to the jury but prevent the defense from doing so would be a wholly unacceptable injury to the defense.”

There was a pause while the judge considered the intensity of Maggie’s unexpected argument. It gave me pause as well.

“We’re going to take the afternoon break early and I’ll come back with my ruling,” Warfield said. “Get your equipment set up, Mr. Haller, in case I allow it. Now step back.”

I returned to the defense table, pleased with our arguments, especially the strong hint from Maggie that preventing the defense from playing its video might be a reversible error.

The judge adjourned court for a fifteen-minute break. Maggie and I never left the defense table. I stayed because my only choice would be to go back into the courtside lockup. She did because she was connecting her laptop to the courtroom’s audio-visual system. If we got the judge’s okay, we would put the simultaneous videos on the big screen mounted on the wall over the clerk’s station and across from the jury box.

While Maggie worked, I checked the courtroom and saw Hayley and Maddie Bosch holding fast, still in the same seats. I nodded and smiled and they did the same.

When the judge retook the bench, she immediately ruled that I could play the simultaneous videos. While Dana Berg offered another objection, I turned to Maggie.

“We all set?” I asked.

“Good to go,” she said.

“Okay, and where are the time codes?”

“Hold on.”

She opened her briefcase and looked through a stack of documents before pulling out a page that had the video time codes I needed in order to cross-examine Milton. I stood up and went to the lectern with the document and a remote control for the playback. The judge overruled Berg’s objection and I began.

I explained to Milton that I would show him videos from both his car and his body cam running side by side in synchronized time. I began the playback at a point before Milton followed me and while I was still in the Redwood. The view from the patrol car’s camera was through the windshield, looking west down Second Street to the intersection of Broadway and two blocks beyond to the tunnel. On the south side of Second the red neon sign that said redwood was visible half a block up. The view from Milton’s body cam was low because he was apparently sitting slumped in his car. The screen showed his car’s steering wheel and dashboard. His left arm and hand were visible, the arm propped on the sill of the open driver’s-side window and his hand draped over the top of the steering wheel.

I asked Milton to describe for the jury what he was seeing on the screen and he grudgingly obliged.

“Not much, if you ask me,” he said. “On the left is the car cam and that is looking west down Second Street. Then on the right is my body cam and I’m just sitting in the car.”

The body cam was picking up the intermittent sound of the police radio in the patrol car. I let it play and checked my list of time codes. I then looked back up at the screen.

“Now, do you see the entrance of the Redwood up on the left side of Second Street?” I asked.

“Yes, I see it,” Milton said.

The door to the bar opened and out stepped two figures. It was too dark to identify them in the red glow of the neon. They spoke on the sidewalk for a few seconds and then one walked west in the direction of the tunnel, and the other went east, moving toward the camera.

This was followed by a low-level buzzing sound that clearly came from a cell phone. I used the remote to stop the playback.

“Officer Milton, was that you getting an email or a text on your cell phone?” I asked.

“Sounded like it,” Milton said matter-of-factly.

“Do you recall what the message was?”

“No, I don’t. In the course of a night I could get fifty messages. I don’t remember them all the next day, let alone three months later.”

I pushed the play button and the videos continued. Soon the figure walking east on Second Street stepped into the illumination from a streetlight. It was clearly me.

As I became recognizable in the light, the angle on the body cam changed as Milton apparently straightened up in his seat.

“Officer Milton, you seem to have gone on alert here,” I said. “Can you tell the jury what you’re doing?”

“Not really doing anything,” Milton said. “I saw somebody on the street and was eyeballing him. It turned out to be you. You can read into that whatever you want but it didn’t mean anything to me.”

“Your car is running at this point, correct?”

“Yes, that’s standard.”

“Was that message on your phone an alert that I was leaving the Redwood?”

Milton scoffed.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “I had no idea who you were, what you were doing, or where you were going.”

“Really?” I said. “Then maybe you can explain this next sequence.”

I hit the play button and we watched. I checked the jury and saw all eyes on the screen. One witness into the trial and I had them riding with me. I could feel it.

On the screen I had turned the corner and then disappeared off camera as I headed to the parking lot to get into my Lincoln. Seconds ticked by with nothing happening but I didn’t want to fast-forward. I wanted the jurors to know exactly what was going on here.

Then the Lincoln appeared in the patrol car cam as I drove into the left-turn lane on Broadway at Second. The car held there as I waited for the traffic signal to change.

On the body-cam video, Milton’s right arm came up and pulled the transmission lever from park to drive. The move registered on the digital dashboard as a D appeared on the screen. I froze it there and looked at Milton. He still didn’t look concerned.

“Officer Milton,” I said. “On direct examination you told the jury that you did not decide to pursue my car until you saw that it was missing the rear plate. Can you see the rear bumper from this angle?”

Milton looked up at the big screen and acted like he was bored.

“No, you can’t.”

“But it is clear from your own body cam that you just put your patrol car into drive. Why did you do that if you had not seen the rear bumper of my car?”

Milton was silent for a long moment as he contemplated an answer.

“I, uh, guess it was just cop instincts,” he finally said. “So that I would be ready to move if I needed to move.”

“Officer Milton,” I said. “Do you want to change any of your earlier testimony to better reflect the facts as they are seen and heard on the video?”

Berg sprang up from her spot to object to my badgering the witness. The judge overruled her, saying, “I want to hear his answer for myself.”

Milton declined the opportunity to change his testimony.

“So, then,” I said. “It is your sworn testimony that you were not there specifically to wait and target me. Do I have that correct?”

“That’s right,” Milton said.

Now there was a defiant tone in his voice. That was what I wanted the jury to hear. The how-dare-you-question-me tone of the police state that at least some of them knew so well. A tone that I believed would trigger their suspicions that something here was not right.

“And you do not wish to change or correct your earlier testimony?” I asked.

“No,” Milton said emphatically. “I do not.”

I paused for a moment to underline that answer and snuck a glance at the jury before looking down at my notes. I was sure Berg and Milton thought I was bluffing — that I was engaging in theatrics in implying that I had a witness in the wings who would further blow Milton and his story out of the water. But I didn’t care about them. I was more concerned with what the jury thought. By implying as much, I had created an unspoken bargain with the jury. A promise. I would have to deliver on it or be held accountable.

“Let’s jump forward,” I said.

I advanced the video to the point where Milton popped the trunk and discovered the body. I knew it was a risky move to show the body to the jury again. Any murder victim shown in repose after a violent end will draw sympathy from a juror and may kick-start instinctive needs for justice and revenge — all of which could be directed at me, the accused. But I thought the risk-reward balance would be in my favor here.

During her playback of the videos, Berg had kept the sound on a low setting. I did not. I set the audio at a level that could be clearly heard. When the trunk came up and the body was seen, there was Milton’s very clear “Oh shit,” followed by a stifled laugh that carried the unmistakable tone of gloating in it.

I stopped the playback.

“Officer Milton, why did you laugh when you found the body?” I asked.

“I didn’t laugh,” Milton said.

“What was that, then? A guffaw?”

“I was surprised by what was in the trunk. It was an expression of surprise.”

I knew he had prepped for this with Berg.

“An expression of surprise?” I said. “Are you sure you weren’t gloating about the predicament you knew I would now be in?”

“No, that wasn’t the case at all,” Milton insisted. “I felt like a semi-boring night just got interesting. After twenty-two years, I was going to make my first arrest for homicide.”

“Move to strike as nonresponsive,” I said to the judge.

“You asked the question, he answered,” she responded. “Overruled. Continue, Mr. Haller.”

“Let’s listen again,” I said.

I replayed the moment on the video, turning the sound up louder. The gloating laugh was unmistakable, no matter how Milton tried to couch it.

“Officer Milton, are you telling the jury that you did not laugh when you opened the trunk and discovered the body?” I asked.

“I’m saying I might’ve been a little giddy, but not gloating,” Milton said. “It was a nervous laugh, that’s all.”

“Did you know who I was?”

“Yes, I had your ID. You told me you were a lawyer.”

“But did you know of me before you pulled me over?”

“No, I did not. I don’t pay much attention to lawyers and all of that.”

I felt that I had gotten all I could out of the moment. I had thrown at least some suspicion on the prosecution’s very first witness. I decided to leave it at that. No matter what came next, I felt we had opened the trial with a strong showing of contesting the state’s evidence.

“No further questions,” I said. “But I reserve the right to recall Officer Milton to the witness stand during the defense phase of the trial.”

I returned to the defense table. Berg took the lectern and tried to mitigate the damage on redirect, but there wasn’t much that could be done with the video evidence I had presented. She walked Milton through his story again, but he could not express a good and believable reason for his dropping the car into drive before he could have seen the rear bumper of my car. And the buzzing of the cell phone just prior to that had cemented in place the possibility that he had been told to pull me over.

I leaned into Maggie to whisper.

“Do we have the subpoena ready on his cell?” I asked.

“All set,” she said. “I’ll take it to the judge as soon as we adjourn.”

We were going to ask the judge to allow us to subpoena the call and text records from Milton’s personal cell phone. We had planned to follow his testimony and the playing of videos with the subpoena so as not to show our hand to Milton or Berg. My guess was that if we got the cell records, there would be no call or text that matched up with the buzzing sound heard on the video we had just played for the jury. This was because I was pretty sure that Milton would have used a throwaway phone for work like this. Either way it would be a win when I brought him back to testify during the defense phase. If there was no record of a text to his registered cell, he would have to explain to the jury where the buzzing sound came from. And when I asked if he had a burner with him that night, his denial would ring false to the jury, who had clearly heard that unexplained buzzing sound.

Overall, I felt the Milton cross-examination had been a score for the defense, and Berg apparently already needed to regroup. With a half hour still to go in the court day, she asked Warfield to adjourn early so she could review evidence with her next witness, Detective Kent Drucker. She had anticipated that the defense’s opening statement and cross-examination of Milton would both last longer than they had.

Warfield reluctantly agreed but warned both sides that they should expect full days of court and should plan accordingly with their witnesses.

Immediately after adjournment, Maggie went to the clerk with the subpoena for Milton’s cell records. I waved goodbye to the rest of my team and my loved ones and was taken into the courtside holding tank. I changed from my suit into blues in preparation for being driven back to Twin Towers in a sheriff’s patrol car. While I waited in the cell to be escorted down the security elevator to the prisoner loading garage, Dana Berg came into the holding area and looked at me through the bars.

“Way to go, Haller,” she said. “Score one for the defense.”

“The first of many,” I said.

“We’ll see about that.”

“What do you want, Dana? You come to tell me you see the light and are dropping the charges?”

“You wish. I just wanted to come back and say, well played. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t a play. It might be a game to you but it’s life or death to me.”

“Then that’s why you should savor today’s win. There won’t be any more.”

Having delivered her message, she turned from the bars and disappeared, heading back to the courtroom.

“Hey, Dana!” I called.

I waited and a few seconds later she was back at the bars.

“What?”

“The Hollywood Bowl chef.”

“What about her?”

“I wanted her on the jury. I switched the tags on my chart during the break because I knew you’d send your bow-tie guy over to steal a look.”

I could see the surprise momentarily move across her face. Then it was gone. I nodded.

“That was a play,” I said. “But today? That was the real thing.”

41

Friday, February 21

Possibly it was in reaction to the Milton testimony the day before, but Dana Berg came to court Friday morning with a plan not just to even the score in the jury’s ledger but to tip the scales permanently to the state’s side. She had choreographed a day that would stack the blocks of evidence and motive against me so high that the jurors would be able to see nothing else and would go into the weekend with my guilt permeating their brains. It was a good strategy and I needed to do something about it.

Kent Drucker was the lead detective on the case. That made him lead storyteller as well. Berg used him to take the jury through the investigation at a leisurely pace. I could and did object on occasion but it all amounted to a buzzing of gnats. I could not disrupt the flow of one-sided, unchallenged information to the jury until I could cross-examine the witness. And it was Berg’s goal to prevent that from happening until after the weekend.

The morning session was largely just nuts and bolts. She walked Drucker through the initial phase of the investigation, from his callout at his home out in Diamond Bar to the full crime scene investigation. She did the smart thing and owned all the mistakes that had been made, revealing through Drucker that the victim’s wallet had somehow gone missing from either the crime scene or coroner’s office.

“And did you ever recover the wallet?” Berg asked.

“Not yet,” Drucker said. “It’s just... gone.”

“Was there an investigation into the theft?”

“There’s an ongoing investigation.”

“And did losing the wallet hamper the homicide investigation?”

“To some extent, yes.”

“How so?”

“Well, we were able to identify the victim pretty quickly from fingerprints, so that was not an issue. But the victim’s criminal history indicated that he changed IDs frequently and adopted a new name, address, bank account, et cetera with each new scam that he perpetrated. My thinking was that the wallet contained the documentation of whatever identity he was using at the time of the murder. That was gone and it would have been useful to have that from the start.”

“Did you eventually find that identity?”

“We did, yes.”

“How?”

“We learned it through discovery in this case. The defense team had that information and we eventually figured it out when they put the name of the victim’s landlord on their witness list.”

“The defense team? Why would they have it ahead of the police?”

I objected, telling the judge that the question asked for speculation. But the judge wanted to hear the answer and overruled. It emboldened Drucker, with long experience testifying in murder trials, to go a step too far.

“I’m not clear on how the defense got ahead of us,” he said. “The defendant exercised his rights and stopped talking to us after his arrest.”

“Objection!” I bellowed. “The witness has just disparaged my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and not be compelled to testify against myself.”

“Approach the bench,” the judge said angrily, glaring at Berg as she walked to the sidebar.

Maggie joined me at the bench. I could tell she was as angry as I was at Drucker’s cheap shot.

“Mr. Haller, you have made your objection,” Warfield said. “Are you requesting a mistrial?”

Berg interrupted to say, “Your Honor, I hardly think that—”

“Be quiet, Ms. Berg,” Warfield snapped. “You’ve been a prosecutor for long enough to know that you must instruct your witnesses never to comment on a defendant’s right to remain silent after arrest. I consider this prosecutorial misconduct and will take it under advisement to be dealt with at a later time. For now, I would like to hear from Mr. Haller.”

“I’d like an instruction,” I said. “In the strongest terms possible. I have a—”

“I’m capable of fashioning a suitable instruction, Mr. Haller,” Warfield said. “But I want to make certain that you are waiving any request for further remedy.”

“I am not moving for a mistrial, Your Honor,” I said. “I am on trial for a crime I didn’t commit. I am here for exoneration, not just acquittal. Even if the court were to grant motions for mistrial and to dismiss with prejudice based on prosecutorial misconduct, there would forever be a cloud of suspicion over me. I want my trial and I will be satisfied with a strongly worded jury instruction.”

“Very well,” Warfield said. “Your motion is granted and I will instruct the jury. You can all step back now.”

Once we were all seated, the judge turned to face the jury.

“Members of the jury, Detective Drucker just now unfairly commented on Mr. Haller’s constitutional right to remain silent,” she said. “A bell once rung cannot be unheard, but I instruct you to disregard the comment and not to infer from it any evidence of guilt. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants to any person accused of a crime the right to remain silent and not to be compelled to incriminate himself. This right is as old as this country. There are good reasons for it that are too numerous to review with you now. Suffice it to say that in this case, as you have heard, Mr. Haller is a criminal defense lawyer and he has a firm grasp on why an accused would not want to submit to an interrogation by his accusers. He was well within his rights to decline to speak following his arrest. Detective Drucker, on the other hand, ought to know better than to even mention the assertion of a constitutional right to remain silent. So, because it is so fundamental and important to our justice system, I repeat: Disregard the comment on Mr. Haller’s post-arrest invocation of his right to remain silent, and do not infer from it any evidence of guilt.”

The judge then turned slightly to focus on Drucker. His face was already red from humiliation.

“Now, Detective Drucker,” she said. “Do you need time to review with Ms. Berg how to testify without unconstitutional, unfair, and unprofessional comment?”

“No, Judge,” Drucker mumbled, staring straight ahead.

“Look at me when I address you,” Warfield said.

Drucker turned his whole body in the witness stand to look up at her. The judge’s penetrating glare held his for what he must have considered an eternity. Then she turned the lasers on Berg.

“You may resume your inquiry, Ms. Berg,” she said.

Resuming her position at the lectern, Berg asked: “Detective, do you know whether the defendant knew Sam Scales?”

“Over a period of years, Michael Haller appeared as counsel of record in almost every criminal case brought against Sam Scales. He had a long-term relationship with the victim and most likely knew his routines and practices.”

“Objection!” I said indignantly. “Again, Your Honor, speculation.”

The judge pinned the witness with her scowl.

“Detective Drucker,” she said. “You will confine your testimony to what you know from personal observation and experience. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Judge,” the twice-chastened detective said.

“Continue, Ms. Berg,” Warfield said.

Berg was trying to turn an investigative failure on the part of the police into suspicion of the defense and the defendant. I knew I might be hanging a lantern on the suspicion the prosecution was throwing at me, but a few stern warnings from the judge to the prosecution were an unexpected victory, and they blended well with my strategy of exposing the investigation and prosecution as sloppy and unfair.

It was good to get these little victories in the midst of a long stretch of pro-prosecution testimony. You take them where you can get them. I soon returned to writing notes on my legal pad to remind myself to hit these strategy buttons harder during cross-examination — whenever that would finally be.

Berg continued to question Drucker right up until the lunch break and by then had only covered the first night’s investigation. There was more to come in the afternoon session and it was becoming increasingly clear that I would not get my shots at the detective until after the weekend. I checked the jury as they were filing out of the box to leave for lunch. I saw a lot of stretching of arms and signs of lethargy. The chef even yawned. It was okay for them to grow tired of the prosecution’s case, just as long as they hadn’t already made a decision about me.

I took lunch in the courtside holding tank with Maggie and Cisco. The judge had allowed them to bring food in to me during the lunch-break working sessions. Friday’s meal came from Little Jewel and I devoured the shrimp po’boy like a man who has just been rescued from a life raft found floating in the middle of the Pacific. We talked about the case, though I had my mouth full most of the time.

“We need to knock this train off its tracks,” I said. “She’s going to run the clock out in the afternoon session, and then those jurors go home for the weekend with my guilt in their heads.”

“It’s a filibuster,” Maggie said. “That’s what we call it in the D.A.’s Office. Keep the witness away from the defense for as long as possible.”

I knew that in the afternoon session Berg would probably move on to the part of the investigation that supported the charges against me. She would also start hitting on motive, and by the end of the day, her case would be practically complete. It would then be more than forty-eight hours before I got the chance to fight back in cross-examination.

Realistically, the afternoon session would last three hours. The lunch recess ended at 1:30 and no judge in the building would keep a jury past 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. I needed to cut a big chunk out of that three hours and somehow knock Berg’s case delivery into next week. It wouldn’t matter how much time she monopolized on Monday. I’d step up with cross-examination the minute it was over. It was the weekend I couldn’t give her — two full days with only one side of the story in a juror’s mind was an eternity.

I looked down at what was left of my sandwich. The fried shrimp was delicately wrapped in a homemade rémoulade.

“Mickey, no,” Maggie said. I looked up at her.

“What?”

“I know what you’re thinking. The judge will never buy it. She was a defense attorney and she knows all the tricks.”

“Well, if I throw up on the defense table, she’ll buy it.”

“Come on. Food poisoning — that’s really bush league.”

“Then, fine, you come up with a way to delay Death Row Dana and knock her off her game.”

“Look, almost all her questions are leading. Start objecting. And every time Drucker gives an opinion, call him on it.”

“Then I look like a nitpicker to the jury.”

“Then I’ll do it.”

“Same thing — we’re a team.”

“Better looking like a nitpicker than like a murderer.”

I nodded. I knew objections would delay things but they would not be enough. They would slow Berg down but not stop her. I needed something more. I looked at Cisco.

“Okay, listen, your assignment once we get back out there is to watch the jury,” I said. “Keep your eyes on them. They were already looking tired this morning and now they just ate lunch. Anybody starts nodding off, text Maggie and we’ll put it in front of the judge. That’ll buy us some time.”

“On it,” Cisco said.

“Meantime, did you check their social media since yesterday?” I asked.

“I’ll have to check with Lorna,” Cisco said. “She was watching all of that stuff so I was freed up for whatever you needed.”

Part of his backgrounding job on the jurors was to continue to gather intel on them. Through his work in the garage, he had been able to pick up names through car registrations and other means. He then parlayed that into monitoring their social-media accounts wherever possible for any references to the trial.

“Okay, call her before we start the afternoon session,” I said. “Tell her to check. See if anybody’s bragging about being on the jury, saying anything the court should know about. If there’s something there, we can bring it up, maybe get a juror-misconduct hearing going. That would knock Berg’s plan back till Monday.”

“What if it’s one of our keepers?” Maggie asked.

She was talking about the seven jurors I had down as green on my sympathies chart. Possibly sacrificing one of them for a two-hour delay was a tough trade-off.

“We’ll see when we get there,” I said. “If we even get there.”

The discussion ended when Deputy Chan came to the holding-room door and said it was time to move me back into the courtroom to start the afternoon session.

Once court resumed, I started things off with an objection to Berg’s ongoing use of leading questions in the examination of Detective Drucker. As I had anticipated, this brought a fierce response from Berg, who called the complaint unfounded. The judge saw merit in her argument.

“Defense counsel knows that to object well after the fact is not a sustainable objection,” Warfield said.

“If it please the court,” I said. “My objection is to alert the court that this is happening as a matter of course. It is not unfounded and I thought a directive from the bench could put an end to it. However, the defense is more than fine making contemporaneous objections as we proceed.”

“Please do so, Mr. Haller.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

The dispute had taken ten minutes off the clock and knocked Berg a bit off her game as she returned Drucker to the witness stand and continued to question him. Not wanting to give me the satisfaction of a sustainable objection to the form of her questions, she took extra care and time with them. This was what I wanted and I hoped the slower pace might have the added bonus of fatiguing the freshly fed jury. If one dropped into slumber, I would be able to chew up more time by asking the judge for a directive to the jury.

But all of those efforts proved moot when, an hour into the afternoon session, Berg handed me all I needed to run the clock out myself. She had moved Drucker’s testimony into an area exploring who Sam Scales was and what he might have been up to at the time of his murder. Drucker recounted how he had learned that Scales had been using the alias Walter Lennon and had found applications for credit cards and subsequent billing statements under the name and address last used by Scales. Berg then moved to enter the documents as prosecution exhibits.

I leaned toward Maggie and whispered.

“Did we get this stuff?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I don’t think so.”

Berg walked copies to us after dropping duplicates off with the court clerk. I placed the pages on the table between Maggie and me and we quickly studied them. A murder case generates a tremendous number of documents and sometimes keeping track of it all is a full-time job. This case was no different. Plus, Maggie had come into the case, replacing Jennifer, only two weeks earlier. Neither of us had command of all of the paperwork. That had been more Jennifer’s job than mine because I wanted to keep a minimal number of documents with me in the jail.

But I was pretty sure I had never seen these papers before.

“You have the discovery report there?” I asked.

Maggie went into her briefcase and pulled out a file. She located a printout with a one-line description of all documents received from the District Attorney’s Office as part of discovery. She ran her finger down the column and then checked a second page.

“No, they’re not here,” she said.

I immediately stood up.

“OBJECTION!” I said with a fervor I rarely used in a courtroom.

Berg stopped in mid-question to Drucker. The judge startled as if the steel door to the holding cell had been slammed with great force.

“What is your objection, Mr. Haller?” she asked.

“Judge, once again the prosecution has willfully violated the rules of discovery,” I said. “The efforts to keep the defense from evidence to which it rightfully should have access has just been staggering in—”

“Let me stop you right there,” the judge said quickly. “Let’s not get into this in front of the jury.”

Warfield then told the jurors that court was adjourning for a short afternoon break. She asked them to be back in the assembly room in ten minutes.

We waited as the jurors slowly made their way out of the box and to the courtroom’s exit. My anger grew with each second of silence. Warfield waited for the door to close behind the last juror before finally addressing the situation.

“Okay, Mr. Haller,” she said. “Now speak.”

I moved to the lectern. I had hoped to manufacture a delay tactic that would push the most damaging part of Drucker’s testimony into Monday, when I would be able to address and mitigate it in a timely manner. I didn’t care whether the delay was legit, but I had just been handed a discovery violation that was as righteous as anything I could have imagined. I teed it up and swung hard.

“Judge, this is just incredible,” I began. “After all the issues we’ve already had in discovery, they just go and do it again. I have never seen these documents, they are not on any supplemental discovery lists, they are a complete surprise. And now they’re exhibits? They want the jury to see them but they never let me see them, and I’m the one being tried for murder here. I mean, come on, Judge. How can this keep happening again and again? And with no sanctions, no deterrent.”

“Ms. Berg, Mr. Haller says he hasn’t received this in discovery. What is your response?” Warfield said.

I had been aware the entire time I was speaking that Berg was leafing through a thick white binder that had the word DISCOVERY ON its spine. She was moving through it a second time, this time back to front, when the judge called her to answer. She stood and addressed the court from her table.

“Your Honor, I can’t explain it,” she said. “It was supposed to be in a discovery package delivered two weeks ago. I have someone checking the emails to defense counsel but this is the master list I’m looking at here and I don’t see the documents in question on it. All I can say is that it was an oversight, Judge. A mistake. And I can assure the court that it was not intentional.”

I shook my head as though I was being offered a deal on an ice-cube farm in Siberia. I was not impressed.

“Judge, oops is not a legal excuse,” I said. “I am unable to evaluate the authenticity, relevance, or materiality of these exhibits, nor am I prepared to confront and cross-examine this witness about them. I have been severely prejudiced in my ability to prepare and present my defense. The state’s lack of respect for my rights has to be corrected. Respect to the system, respect to the court, respect to the rules we all have to learn and must play by.”

The judge pursed her lips as she realized the discovery violation was confirmed and had to be dealt with.

“All right, Mr. Haller, taking counsel at her word, the violation appears to be a mistake,” she said. “The issue now, however, is how to proceed, and that depends on what this evidence means to the People’s case and the ability of the accused to confront the testimony and evidence against him. Ms. Berg, what is the relevance and materiality of this evidence and testimony? To what issue does it relate?”

“These are documents relating to Sam Scales alias Walter Lennon’s finances and bank accounts,” Berg said. “They are relevant to the defendant’s motive for killing him. They are crucial to the People’s case for special circumstances.”

“Mr. Haller,” Warfield said. “Would you please look at the documents provided to you and tell me how long you will need to review and investigate them?”

“Judge, I can tell you right now that I will need at least the weekend, possibly more, because the banks are closed over the weekend and my ability to investigate will be limited. But that is only one of the issues. These documents and the testimony related to them ought to be excluded from evidence. The prosecution, in its zeal to—”

“We’re losing the day, Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “Please get to the point.”

“Exactly,” Berg chimed in. “Judge, it is clear that counsel is engaged in tactics to delay the testimony of my witness. He would like nothing better than—”

“Your Honor,” I cut in loudly. “Am I missing something? I’m the victim here, and the prosecution is now trying to blame me for her malfeasance, intentional or otherwise.”

“It was a mistake!” Berg yelled. “A mistake, Judge, and he’s trying to make it look like the end of the world. He—”

“All right, all right!” the judge yelled. “Everyone just settle down and be quiet.”

In California, judges don’t use gavels — it’s supposed to be the kinder, gentler justice system — or surely the hammer would have just come down hard. In the silence that followed the judge’s outburst, I saw her eyes rise above the lawyers in front of her to the clock on the rear wall of the courtroom.

“It’s now after three o’clock,” she said. “Tempers are running hot. In fact, you both are bringing far more heat than illumination to this proceeding. I’m going to bring the jury back in and send them home for the weekend.”

Berg hung her head in defeat as Warfield continued.

“We’ll take this matter up Monday morning,” she said. “Mr. Haller, I want a submission from you to my clerk on remedies by Monday, eight a.m. You will copy Ms. Berg by email with a draft of your submission by Sunday evening. Ms. Berg, you too will file your submission as to why this evidence should not be excluded or why other proposed sanctions would be inappropriate. As I have repeatedly said in this courtroom, I take the rules of discovery very seriously. There are no honest mistakes when it comes to discovery. It is the backbone of case preparation, and the rules must be rigorously and jealously adhered to. Any infraction, whether intentional or not, must be seriously dealt with as a violation of the accused’s fundamental right to due process. Now let’s bring the jury back in here so they can get an early start on the weekend.”

I moved back to the defense table and sat down. I whispered to Maggie.

“Talk about falling in shit and coming up smelling like a rose,” I said.

“Glad now that I didn’t let you claim food poisoning?” she said.

“Uh, that falls under attorney-client privilege, not to be mentioned ever again.”

“My lips are sealed. I’ll write the motion and get it in. What about sanctions?”

“I feel like we just got them. Her putting this over till Monday is a home run for us.”

“So, no sanctions?”

“I didn’t say that. You never miss an opportunity for sanctions against the state. That’s just too rare to pass up. But I don’t want a mistrial, and if what the Iceberg says is true about the evidence being crucial to her case for special circumstances, the judge won’t exclude it. Let’s think about it some — we have the weekend. I’ll take the printouts and read it all over tomorrow, maybe get some ideas. Can you come to Twin Towers on Sunday to meet?”

“I’ll be there. Maybe meet Hayley for lunch first.”

“Good. Sounds like a plan.”

The door to the assembly room opened and the jurors began filing down the two rows of seats in the box. It was the end of day two of prosecution’s case and by my count I was still ahead.

42

Sunday, February 23

They didn’t start moving me to one of the attorney conference rooms until almost three o’clock. The runner who took me down was wearing a mask that matched the green of his uniform. That told me that the face covering had been officially distributed by the Sheriff’s Department, a sign that the coming wave was a real threat.

When he walked me through the door of the interview room Maggie was already there and waiting. And she, too, wore a mask.

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “This thing is real? It’s coming?”

She didn’t say anything as the deputy led me to a seat and removed the handcuffs. He then recited the rules.

“No touching,” he said. “No electronic devices. The camera’s on. No audio, but we’ll be watching. If you get up from the chair, we’re coming in. Understood?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Understood,” Maggie said.

He left the room then and locked the door behind him. I looked up at the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Despite the scandal and internal investigation that I had tipped off, it was still in place and we were expected to take it on faith that no one was listening to our conversation.

“How are you, Mickey?” Maggie asked.

“I’m worried,” I said. “Everybody’s wearing masks but me.”

“Don’t you have TV in the module? CNN? People are dying in China from this virus. They think it is probably here.”

“They changed shifts in the bubble, and the new people in there with the remotes only give us ESPN and Fox News.”

“Fox has its head in the sand. They’re just protecting the president, who still says everything’s going to be fine.”

“Well, if he said it, it must be true.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

I saw that she had some documents spread out on the table in front of her.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I got work done.”

“Did you see Hayley today?”

“Yes, we ate lunch at Moreton Fig. It was nice.”

“Love that place. Miss it. Miss being with her.”

“You’re going to get out of here, Mickey. We have a strong case.”

I just nodded to that. I wished that I could see her whole face so I could read her better. Was she just giving me a pep talk, or did she really believe what she was saying?

“You know, I don’t have it, whatever it is,” I said. “The virus. You don’t need to wear the mask.”

“You might not know if you have it,” she said. “Anyway, it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the air recirculation in this place. They’re saying the jails and prisons are going to be vulnerable. At least you’re not on those buses going back and forth from court anymore.”

I nodded again, studying her. The mask accentuated her dark, intense eyes. Those eyes had been what first pulled me toward her twenty-five years ago.

“Which way do you think Hayley’s going to go?” I asked. “Prosecution or defense?”

“Hard to say,” she said. “I don’t know, actually. She’ll make her own decision. She did say she’s not going to classes this week. She wants to watch the trial full-time.”

“She shouldn’t. She’ll fall too far behind.”

“I know. But there’s too much at stake for her. I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

“Hardheaded. I know where she gets that.”

“Me too.”

I thought I detected a smile behind the mask.

“Maybe she’ll go into criminal defense and we could have a family law firm,” I said. “Haller, Haller, and McFierce, Attorneys-at-Law.”

“Funny,” she said. “Maybe.”

“Do you really think they’re going to take you back after this? You’ve betrayed the tribe, crossed to the dark side, all of that. I’m not sure they let you do that on a temporary basis.”

“Who knows? And who’s to say that I want to go back? I see Dana in that courtroom and I really ask myself, do I want that anymore? I don’t know. Once they moved me out of Major Crimes to make room for the young hard chargers like her, I knew my career... it wasn’t exactly over but it had... plateaued. It wasn’t important anymore.”

“Oh, come on. Environmental protection? What you do is still important.”

“If I have to go after one more dry cleaner for dumping chemicals down the storm sewer, I think I’ll just kill myself.”

“Don’t kill yourself. Come partner with me.”

“Funny.”

“I mean it.”

“That’s okay.”

I took that as a hit. Her quick no reminded me of what had gotten between us and ended things, despite our daughter inextricably binding us together for life.

“You always thought I was dirty because of what I do,” I said. “Like it rubbed off on me somehow. I’m not dirty, Mags.”

“Well, you know the saying,” she said. “Lie down with dogs...”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I told you. No matter what I think about what you do, I know you and I know you didn’t do this. You couldn’t have. And, besides, Hayley came to me. She asked me to help you. No, she told me. She said you needed me.”

I hadn’t known any of that. That stuff about Hayley was new and it cut me to the bone.

“Wow,” I said. “Hayley never said anything to me.”

“The truth is, she didn’t have to tell me,” Maggie said. “I wanted to do it, Mickey. I mean that.”

A silence followed that. I nodded my thanks. When I looked up, Maggie was pulling the elastic straps off her ears and removing the mask.

“Should we get down to business?” she said. “They only gave us an hour.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anything back yet on Milton’s phone?”

“They’re stringing that out but I’ll go to the judge if I have to.”

“Good. I want to burn that guy’s ass.”

“We will.”

“Sanctions?”

She wore no lipstick and I guessed that she had wanted to keep the makeup off her mask. Seeing her face now, I got that pang in my chest. She had been the only one who ever did that to me. Mask or no mask, makeup or no makeup, she was beautiful to me.

“I say we go big or go home,” she said. “We tell the judge to put bail back on the table.”

I snapped out of my reverie.

“As a sanction?” I said. “I doubt Warfield would go for that. The trial will be over by the end of this week. She won’t let me out just to possibly yank me back in if there’s a guilty verdict. And then I don’t think I want to put up a bond for what might amount to just four or five days of freedom.”

“I know,” Maggie said. “The judge won’t go for it and it’s a losing argument, but that’s just it. It’s an argument and we start the week with it and Dana has to expend all her Monday-morning energy on it.”

“Takes some of the wind out of her sails,” I said.

“Exactly. It’s a big distraction from her trial plan.”

I nodded. I liked it.

“Smart,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Maggie said. “I’ll write it up and get it to all parties before six. Tomorrow I’ll handle the argument too.”

I had to smile. I admired how Maggie was justifying her McFierce reputation on both sides of the aisle and for my benefit.

“Perfect,” I said. “What do we ask for when Warfield shuts us down?”

“Nothing,” she said. “We just bank it.”

“Okay.”

She seemed pleased that I did not push back on her plan.

“So, where are we on everything else?” I asked.

“Opparizio,” Maggie said. “He knows something is up and left town yesterday. By car. Cisco had his guys on him.”

“Don’t tell me he left the state. Vegas?”

“No, he probably thought he’d be tracked there easy. He drove to Arizona. Scottsdale. He checked into a resort out there called the Phoenician. Cisco will go out tomorrow and hit him with the subpoena.”

“What if he knows that he doesn’t need to respond to a subpoena from another state? It’s probably the reason he left.”

“Something tells me he doesn’t and he left town because he was feeling the heat. He’s gotta know there’s a trial in the murder he’s responsible for. Best to get out of town till it’s over. Anyway, Cisco said they’ll video the whole thing, make it an airtight service looking totally legit. The question is, what day do you want him here?”

We had to think about that. We had Dana Berg’s witness list and from that could extrapolate how long her case might take to put before the jury. We had already delayed things Friday with Drucker, but before that, the prosecutor had been stringing out his testimony in an attempt to run it up to the weekend. Berg would likely shift strategy now and move more quickly with him, trying to build momentum. She then had a deputy coroner on her wit list, the lead crime scene investigator, and then a few ancillary witnesses to follow.

“I’m thinking Dana has two days left at the max,” I said.

“I’m thinking the same,” Maggie said. “So we go with Opparizio on Wednesday?”

“Yeah, Wednesday. Good. Means I’ll be telling my side of this in less than seventy-two hours. Can’t wait.”

“Me neither.”

“And our other witnesses are set?”

“They’re all good to go. I have the retired EPA guy — Art Schultz — flying in Wednesday morning. The rest are all local. So we should have everybody on hand, and you can put them on in whatever order we decide works best.”

“Perfect.”

“Depending on what we get on the phone records, you can slip Milton in anywhere or make him the grand finale. Have Moira from the bar and then him as a one-two punch at the end.”

I nodded. It was good to set up witnesses so that we could handle any surprises or no-shows. Nothing would annoy Warfield or any judge more than having the jury ready but no witnesses to present to them. We needed to avoid that at all costs.

“What’s our contingency if Opparizio doesn’t come back or sends a lawyer to quash?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Maggie said. “We could go to Warfield for a bench warrant. That’ll work across state lines. We’ll just have to get the locals out there to scoop him up.”

“That could delay things for days.”

“That’s why we play to Warfield. No one wants this trial over with more than you. But she’s second on that list, and we’ll make her see that she’s got to use her power to bring Opparizio in. He’s the centerpiece of the defense case. This could be reversed if we don’t get the opportunity to put him on the stand.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

There was a pause in the conversation and then I pointed it down another difficult track.

“What about the FBI?” I asked. “Have we given up on that?”

“No, not yet,” Maggie said. “I’ve talked to some people over there — sneaking into my office and using the phone. It helps to have the D.A.’s Office come up on their caller ID — they actually take the calls. I’m just trying to get an off-the-record sit-down with Agent Ruth.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“I know but I think if I can just talk to her, I can work something out. I know she’ll never get permission to testify, but if she would agree to just come and sit in court when it’s our turn to tell the story, we might win her over.”

“To do what, testify without the bureau’s permission?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“That would be fantastic. But no way.”

“You never know. She’s already helped you once. Maybe she’ll do it again. We just need to find a way for her to do it. I think she might come to court anyway to see what comes out about Opparizio and BioGreen.”

“Well, send her an embossed invitation. We’ll save her a front-row seat. But I think it’ll be a seat that doesn’t get used.”

It appeared we had covered everything. The week ahead would determine the future of my life. I felt confident in Maggie and myself and our case. But the dread was still there. It never went away. Anything could happen in court.

Maggie picked up her mask and started looping the straps behind her ears. Even with the elastic the loops were too tight and pulled her ears slightly forward. In that moment I saw our daughter when she was younger and her ears were one of her most pronounced features.

“What?” Maggie asked.

“What?” I said.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Oh, nothing. Your mask sort of pulls your ears out. It reminded me of Hay. Remember when we used to say she had to grow into her ears?”

“I do. And she did.”

I nodded at the memory and watched Maggie cover her smile.

“So,” I said. “Who are you dating these days?”

“Uh, that’s none of your business,” she said.

“True. But I want to ask you out. I don’t want it to be a problem.”

“Really? Why? Ask me out where?”

“Next Sunday — one week from tonight. We go out and celebrate the big NG. I’ll take you to Mozza.”

“You’re certainly confident.”

“I have to be. It’s the only way to go. You in or out?”

“What about Hayley?”

“Hayley too. The whole firm — Haller, Haller, and McFierce, bringing new meaning to family law.”

Maggie laughed.

“Okay, you’re on.”

She gathered the paperwork and got up. She knocked on the steel door and then turned back to me.

“Stay safe, Mickey.”

“That’s the plan. You, too.”

The door was opened by a deputy, this one without a mask, and I watched her go. I realized after the door closed that I was falling in love again with Maggie McFierce.

43

Monday, February 24

I was already in place at the defense table when Maggie arrived. She dropped a folded Metro section from the Times in front of me as she pulled her chair out.

“I take it you haven’t seen the paper,” she said.

“Nope,” I said. “I asked that it be delivered with my breakfast every morning but it never comes.”

She tapped her finger on a story at the bottom corner of the page. The headline said it all: “Sheriff: Inmate Acted Alone in Assault on ‘Lincoln Lawyer.’ ”

I started scanning the story but Maggie summarized it as I read.

“They say that Mason Maddox acted completely on his own when he attempted to kill you. No one put him up to it and the Sheriff’s Department comes out squeaky clean, even though it was the sheriff’s office that handled the investigation.”

I stopped reading and tossed the paper onto the table.

“Bullshit,” I said. “Then why’d he do it?”

“That story says he told investigators he mistook you for another inmate he had a grudge against,” Maggie said.

“Yeah, well, like I said—”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m still going to sue their asses when I get out of here.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The conclusion of the investigation was not surprising but it made me feel more vulnerable. If the attack by Maddox had been orchestrated as payback by deputies in the jail, there was nothing to stop them from trying again. The first effort had been white-washed — so would be the second.

I didn’t get much time to dwell on it. Judge Warfield soon took the bench, and the jury remained in the assembly room while the hearing on the discovery issue that was revealed Friday continued. Maggie McFierce made a strong argument for reinstatement of bail as a sanction against the prosecution but it went down without Dana Berg’s even having to respond. Warfield simply rejected it out of hand with a simple “We’re not doing that.”

The judge then asked if the defense wanted to entertain other sanctions. Maggie declined and the issue was left open, meaning it might come into play and give the defense an edge down the line if there was a tight ruling involving judicial discretion. The hope was that the judge would remember the prosecution’s unremedied violation of discovery and tip her discretion our way.

Detective Kent Drucker was returned to the witness stand, and the prosecution took up where it had been forced to leave off Friday. As I had expected, Berg shortened her questions and picked up her pace, using the morning session to take Drucker through the post — crime scene investigation. This included the search of my home the morning after I was arrested, which led to the discovery of the blood and the bullet on the floor of my garage.

To me this was the most damning evidence in the whole case but also the most confounding. To believe I was innocent, you had to believe that I slept through the murder that occurred right below my living space and then unknowingly drove around with the body in my trunk for a day. To believe I was guilty, you had to believe I went out and drugged and abducted Sam Scales, or had someone do it for me, then put his body in the trunk of the Lincoln and shot him before spending the next day with his body still in the trunk while I drove to and from the courthouse. Either way was a hard sell. And both the prosecution and defense knew it.

At one point Berg put several blow-up photos of my house on easels in front of the jury box to help build the case for the guilty scenario. The house was located on a hillside that sloped down from the rear of the property to the front. At street level was the double-wide garage. Stairs to the right went up to the residential space above, which included the front deck, where I had been confronted by agents Aiello and Ruth. The front door led into the living room and dining room, which were directly over the garage. In the back were my bedroom and my home office.

Berg moved Drucker through some testimony involving their testing of gunshots with and without various sound suppressors, so-called silencers, and with the garage door open or closed, in an effort to determine if someone could have broken into the garage, put a drugged Sam Scales into the trunk, and then shot him multiple times without my hearing it from above.

Before Berg could ask the detective what his conclusions were, I objected and asked for a sidebar. The judge told us to approach.

“Judge, I know what counsel is doing,” I began. “She’s going to ask him if all of this testing with gunfire could be heard upstairs, but the witness is not an expert in ballistics or the science of sound. He can’t give an opinion on this. No one can. There are too many factors not accounted for. Was the TV on? Was the stereo on? What about the washing machine and the dishwasher? You see, Judge? You can’t allow this. Where was I in the house when this was supposedly happening? In the shower? Asleep with earplugs in? She is trying to rebut a defense position before we have even put up a defense.”

“Counsel makes a good point, Ms. Berg,” Warfield said. “I’m inclined to stop this line of questioning.”

“Your Honor,” Berg said. “We’ve gone down this path for the past twenty minutes. If I’m not allowed to finish, the state will be unfairly held in a bad light by the jury. The witness is describing efforts made by the police to see if the suspect could actually be innocent. What happens during the defense phase when Mr. Haller trots out the tired tunnel-vision defense? He’ll accuse Detective Drucker of only focusing on his guilt to the exclusion of possibly exculpatory evidence. He can’t have it both ways.”

“You make a good point as well, Ms. Berg,” Warfield said. “We are going to take the lunch break now and I’ll have a ruling on the objection when we come back at one sharp.”

Court was adjourned and I was led back to the courtside holding cell for the hour break. Maggie didn’t join me there for almost a half hour, finally coming in with a sandwich Lorna had picked up at Cole’s, as well as news from Arizona.

“They got him,” she said. “He was staying in his suite, having food brought in, and they thought they were going to have to door-knock him with the subpoena, when he ventured out to the pool. They got him in a bathing suit and bathrobe.”

“Tony Soprano,” I said, recalling that the television mobster liked to lounge around the pool in a bathrobe.

“Exactly what I thought.”

“They get it on video?”

“The whole thing. I have it on my phone. I can show you in the courtroom but they wouldn’t let me bring it in here.”

I unwrapped my sandwich. It was roast beef on a roll. I took a bite and spoke with my mouth full.

“Good. So we have Opparizio for Wednesday — if he shows up.”

I took another bite. The sandwich was delicious, but then I noticed she wasn’t eating.

“You want some of this?” I asked. “It’s great.”

“No, I’m too nervous to eat,” Maggie said.

“What, about the trial?”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t think Maggie McFierce ever got nervous.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“So, who is Opparizio using these days? Back during the Lisa Trammel case, he used Zimmer and Cross to try to quash our subpoena. They failed. I heard he fired them right after that.”

“As far as we can tell from documents we’ve located on BioGreen, he uses the firm of Dempsey and Geraldo for a lot of his stuff. Whether they provide criminal defense, I don’t know.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“I’ve run up against them before. They rep a lot of cops. Especially Dempsey. Looks like with Opparizio they’re at the other end of the spectrum.”

Maggie pursed her lips and I knew she was considering something.

“What?” I said.

“Just thinking, is all,” she said. “I’d like to get a list of their clients who are cops. See if there’s a connection to Officer Milton.”

“You can get that.”

“They’re not going to just give it to me.”

“No, but you have access to the county courts database. Put their names into it, and you’ll get hits on every case they’re involved with.”

“I took a leave, Mickey, remember? I could get fired if I did that.”

“You told me yesterday you were sneaking in to use your office phone.”

“That’s different.”

“How’s—”

Deputy Chan opened the cell door and told us it was time to go back to court. Maggie and I dropped the conversation there.

Once we were back at the defense table, Maggie pulled her phone and played me the video she had received from Cisco in Scottsdale. She had the sound down low but I could hear enough. And I could tell from Opparizio’s contorted and red face that he was angry at being served with the subpoena. He was equally upset with the camera recording the event. He lunged at it, his bathrobe flapping open and his flour-white gut hanging over his board shorts. The man behind the camera — one of Cisco’s Indians — was lighter on his feet and the lens swiftly moved out of range of Opparizio’s swinging hand without ever losing him in the frame.

The reference to Tony Soprano had been spot-on and I wondered if Opparizio himself embraced the resemblance.

After missing the camera, Opparizio followed the momentum of his swinging arm and turned back toward Cisco. Opparizio took two steps toward him while Cisco calmly stood his ground. I saw his shoulders and arms tense. So did Opparizio. He thought better of his move and stopped in his tracks. He went with the finger instead of the fight, pointing it at Cisco’s face and yelling an empty threat at him. At no point did Opparizio say anything about the subpoena being invalid when served in another state. He clearly didn’t know.

Maggie cut the video as Chan announced that court was coming to order.

“That’s the end,” she whispered. “He runs back to his room after cussing Cisco out.”

She dropped the phone into her briefcase as Judge Warfield took the bench.

Before bringing the jury back in, the judge ruled on the objection I had made.

“Ms. Berg, you have accomplished what you set out to show,” she said. “Detective Drucker has testified to the experiments at the defendant’s house, but his opinions about what the experiments mean are irrelevant. You will move on to another area of inquiry.”

Another minor victory for the defense.

The jury was brought in and Detective Drucker returned to the stand. Berg completed eliciting his direct testimony an hour into the afternoon, ending with a line of questioning designed to outline the motive for my killing Sam Scales: money.

Through Drucker’s testimony about the search of my records at my warehouse, she introduced the letter I had sent Scales in a final effort to collect the money he owed me. The letter was entered into the record as a state’s exhibit without my objection. I didn’t want to keep it from the jury. It was my belief that it cut both ways, and that would become clear when I put on my defense.

Through her questioning, Berg tried to make it seem to the jury that the letter was a key piece of evidence that I had tried to conceal by burying it in records hidden in a massive warehouse full of other possessions and junk.

“Where exactly did you find this letter in Mr. Haller’s warehouse?”

“There was a small closet toward the back of this place. The door was kind of hidden behind a rack of clothes. But we found it, and inside we found some file cabinets. The drawers were full of files and didn’t really seem to be in any order. We found a file on Sam Scales and the letter was inside it.”

“And when you read the letter, did you recognize it as potential evidence in the case?”

“Yes, right away. It was a demand — a final demand — for money that Haller believed he was owed.”

“Did you perceive the letter as a threat to Sam Scales?”

Maggie hit my arm and nodded toward the witness stand. She wanted me to object before Drucker could answer — giving an opinion on what should be a jury decision. But I shook my head. I wanted Drucker’s answer so that I could turn it against him when it was my time.

“Yes, definitely a threat,” Drucker said. “It says right in the letter that this was the final request before serious action would follow.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Berg said. “Now the final thing I want to do is have you introduce a video in which you spoke to the defendant, but in his capacity as his own lawyer. Do you recall that conversation?”

“I do.”

“And it was video-recorded?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s play that for the jury.”

Maggie leaned in to me.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“His last try to get me to confess,” I whispered back. “I told him to fuck off.”

The video was played on the big wall screen over the clerk’s station. It was from an interview room at Twin Towers. I had already been jailed for a week or so when Drucker and his partner, Lopes, came to see me to tell me what they had and to see if I would roll over.

“We see you’re going to defend yourself on this thing,” Drucker said. “So, we’re here today to talk to you as a lawyer, not as the defendant, okay?”

“Whatever,” I said. “If you’re going to talk to me as a lawyer, you should have a prosecutor with you. But you’ve had your head up your ass on this from the beginning, Drucker. Why do I get the dumbest pair of detectives on the squad who can’t see what this is?”

“Sorry we’re so dumb. What is it we aren’t seeing?”

“It’s a setup. Somebody did this to me and you bought it hook, line, and sinker. You’re pathetic.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here. I know you said you won’t talk to us, and that’s your right. So we’re telling you, the attorney of record on this, what we’ve got and what the evidence shows. Maybe it changes your ‘client’s’ mind, maybe it doesn’t. But now is the time if you want to try to talk to us.”

“Go ahead, tell me what you got.”

“Well, we’ve got the body of Sam Scales in the trunk of your car. And we can prove through ballistics and other evidence that he was killed in your garage when you were supposedly upstairs twiddling your thumbs.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re trying to bluff me. You think I’m that stupid?”

“We’ve got blood on the floor and ballistics — we found the slug on the floor of your garage, Haller. You did this and we can prove it. And I gotta tell you, it looks like it was planned. That’s first-degree and that’s life without parole. You have — your client has — a kid. If he ever wants to see that kid again outside a prison, now is the time for him to come in and tell us exactly what happened. Was it heat of the moment, a fight, what? You see what I mean, Counselor? Your client is fucked. And there is a small window here where we can go see the D.A. to explain this and get you — uh, him — the best deal possible.”

There was a long beat of silence on the video as I just stared at Drucker. I realized that this was what Dana Berg wanted the jury to see. The hesitation looked like I was considering the offer from Drucker — and wouldn’t only a guilty man pause to weigh the choice? That, of course, was not what I was doing. I was trying to think of a way to elicit more information about the case. Drucker had just mentioned two key pieces of evidence that at the time were new to me. Blood and ballistics — a bullet slug found in my garage. I wanted to trick out more from him, and that was what the pause was all about. But the jury would not read it that way.

“You want me to make a deal?” I said on the video. “Fuck your deal. What else you got?”

Drucker clearly smiled on the video. He knew what I was doing. He had given up all he was going to.

“Okay,” he said. “Just remember this moment, when we gave you the chance.”

Drucker started to get up from the table. Berg ended the video.

“Your Honor,” she said. “At this time I have no more questions for Detective Drucker but I request leave to bring him back for further testimony as the state’s case progresses.”

“Very well,” Judge Warfield said. “It is a little too early to take the afternoon break. Mr. Haller, Ms. McPherson, do you have questions for this witness?”

I stood and moved to the lectern.

“Your Honor,” I began. “Detective Drucker will be a key witness during the defense phase of the trial and I’ll defer the bulk of my questions until then. But if I may, I will ask the witness a few questions now regarding the testimony he’s given since the lunch break. There were things said that were incomplete and inexcusable and I don’t want them to languish in the minds of the jurors for even a day.”

Berg stood up immediately.

“Judge, I object to the characterization of the witness and his testimony,” she said. “Counsel is trying to—”

“Sustained,” Warfield said. “You inquire, Mr. Haller. You do not argue. Keep your tone and opinions to yourself.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, acting as though there had been no rebuke.

I checked the notes I had scribbled on a yellow pad just a few minutes before.

“Okay, Detective Drucker,” I began. “Let’s talk about this letter you say you interpreted as a threat to violence.”

“I called it a threat,” Drucker said. “I didn’t call it a threat to violence.”

“But isn’t that what you are really saying, Detective? We’re here because this is a murder case, correct?”

“Yes, this is a murder case. No, I did not say the letter was a threat to violence.”

“You didn’t say it, but you want the jury to make that leap for you, correct?”

Berg objected, saying I was already badgering the witness three questions into the cross-examination. The judge told me to watch my tone but said that the witness could answer the question.

“I am stating facts,” Drucker answered. “The jury can draw whatever conclusion or connection they see fit.”

“You said this mysterious closet where you found this letter was hidden behind a rack of clothes, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, there was a stand-up rack of clothes that obscured the door and that we had to move.”

“So, now it’s obscured and not hidden?”

“Is that a question?”

“This rack of clothes that hid or obscured the closet door — was it on wheels, Detective Drucker?”

“Uh, yes, I believe so.”

“So when you said you and your fellow searchers had to move it, you mean you just rolled it out of the way, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And, by the way, was I present at this search?”

“You were.”

“But you didn’t mention that earlier in your testimony, did you?”

“No, it didn’t come up.”

“And was I not the one who told you to move the rack of clothes to get to the closet where I kept my financial records?”

“I don’t recall that.”

“Really? You don’t recall coming to my home with your search warrant and my volunteering to take you to my warehouse, where I kept the records you wanted to search?”

“You did agree to meet us at the warehouse and open it for us so we wouldn’t have to break the lock.”

“Okay, and once we were there and you found this so-called hidden closet, did I not tell you what file drawer to look in for communications between me and Sam Scales?”

“I don’t remember it that way, no.”

“Well, how many file cabinets were in the storage room, Detective?”

“I don’t remember.”

“More than one?”

“Yes.”

“More than two?”

“I don’t remember how many there were.”

I disengaged from Drucker and looked up at the judge.

“Objection, Your Honor,” I said. “The witness is unresponsive to the question asked.”

“Answer the question, Detective,” the judge told the detective.

“There were more than two,” Drucker said. “There may have been as many as five.”

“Thank you, Detective,” I said. “Did you search all five of those filing cabinets?”

“No. You said most of them contained client files and were covered by attorney-client privilege. You refused to unlock them.”

“But I unlocked the filing cabinet containing my financial records, isn’t that right, Detective?”

“I don’t remember whether it was locked.”

“But you remember that you were prohibited from searching some filing cabinets but not the one you searched, is that correct?”

“I suppose that is correct.”

“So, first you didn’t remember that I showed you the filing cabinet containing my financial documents, but now you admit that in fact I did show you where to search for my financial records. Do I have that right, Detective?”

“Objection!” Berg shouted.

Warfield raised her hand to cut off anything further.

“This is cross-examination, Ms. Berg,” she said. “Impeachment of the witness’s credibility is a proper issue of inquiry. Answer the question, Detective.”

“You did direct us to the filing cabinet,” Drucker said. “I apologize for my misstatement. I was not visualizing the events as I experienced them.”

“Okay, let’s move on here,” I said. “You said you searched the cabinet, found the file on Sam Scales, and removed the document now marked as state’s L. Do I have all that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you look for or take any other documents during the search of my records?”

“Yes. There were two earlier letters to Sam Scales of similar nature — asking for money.”

“You mean asking him to pay his legal bills?”

“Yes.”

“Did they include threats to violence if he did not pay?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Is that why they have not been introduced in court today?”

Berg objected and asked for a sidebar. I was on a roll with Drucker and didn’t want to lose momentum. I withdrew the question, negating the objection and need for a sidebar, then pressed on.

“Did you take anything else from my storage files, Detective Drucker?”

“No. The warrant covered only financial communications between you and the victim.”

“So, you did not ask the judge who signed the warrant for permission to check my tax returns to see if I had written off the Sam Scales debt as a business loss?”

Drucker had to think for a moment before answering. This was completely new information to be considered.

“It’s a simple question, Detective,” I prompted. “Did you—”

“No, we did not ask for tax returns,” Drucker said.

“Do you think if you had known that this debt was turned into a tax deduction, it would have mitigated your belief that it was the motive behind the killing of Sam Scales?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it might have been good information to have as you investigated the case?”

“All information is good to have. We like to throw out a wide net.”

“But not wide enough in this case, correct?”

Berg objected to the question, saying it was argumentative. The judge sustained the objection, and that was what I wanted. I didn’t want Drucker to answer the question. It was meant for the jury.

“Your Honor,” I said. “I have no further questions at this time but will be calling Detective Drucker back as a defense witness.”

I returned to the defense table while Berg called her next witness. Maggie gave me the nod for my first swing at Drucker.

“Good stuff,” she said. “Should I have Lorna go to the warehouse and pull the tax return? We could use it as a defense exhibit.”

“No,” I whispered. “There is no deduction.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t know this because you’ve spent your life in public service. Same with Berg and same with Drucker. Even the judge was a public defender before she got elected. But a private attorney can’t deduct unpaid fees as a business loss. The IRS won’t allow it. You just have to eat the loss.”

“So it was a bluff?”

“Pretty much. About as much bullshit as them saying that letter I sent Sam was a threat to kill without really saying it.”

Maggie leaned back and stared straight ahead as she computed this.

“Welcome to criminal defense,” I whispered.

44

linear, methodical, routine — Dana Berg was following textbook case delivery. The prosecution usually had such advantages in terms of its wealth and reach that that was usually all it took. The state overwhelmed with its power and might. Prosecutors could afford to be unimaginative, even stodgy. They trotted out their cases to the jury like furniture instructions from Ikea. Step-by-step with big illustrations, all the tools you needed included. No need to look elsewhere. No need to worry. And at the end you have a sturdy table that is both stylish and functional.

Berg ran out the afternoon with testimony and video from the lead criminalist who had been in charge of the crime scene and then the deputy coroner who had conducted the autopsy on the victim. Both witnesses were part of the building blocks of the state’s case, even if they offered no evidence that directly implicated me. With the criminalist, I passed on the opportunity to ask questions. There was nothing to be gained there. With the coroner, Berg ran her direct examination past the usual 4:30 p.m. cutoff for testimony. Judge Warfield liked to use the last half hour of the day to dismiss the jury with warnings about avoiding media reports and discussing the case on social media or anywhere else, and then to check with the lawyers for any new business to consider.

But I stood up to address the court before she could do it.

“Your Honor, I have only a few questions for the witness,” I said. “If I can get them in today, the prosecution can start tomorrow with a new witness and Dr. Jackson will be able to go back to his important work at the coroner’s office.”

“If you’re sure, Mr. Haller,” the judge responded, a suspicious tone in her voice.

“Five minutes, Judge. Maybe less.”

“Very well.”

I went to the lectern with only my copy of the autopsy report and nodded to the witness, Dr. Philip Jackson.

“Dr. Jackson, good afternoon,” I began. “Can you tell the jury if it was your opinion that the victim in this case was obese?”

“He was overweight, yes,” Jackson said. “I’m not sure he would be considered obese.”

“How much did he weigh at autopsy?”

Jackson referred to his own copy of the autopsy report before responding.

“He weighed two hundred six pounds,” he said.

“And how tall was he?” I followed.

“He was five foot eight.”

“Are you aware that the National Institutes of Health table of desired weights for adults places the maximum optimum weight of an adult male five foot eight in height at one hundred fifty-eight pounds?”

“Not off the top of my head, no.”

“Would you like to review the table, Doctor?”

“No. That sounds about right. I don’t dispute it.”

“Okay. How tall are you, Dr. Jackson?”

“Uh, six foot even.”

“And your weight?”

As I expected, Berg stood and objected on the grounds of relevancy.

“Where are we going with this, Judge?” she asked.

“Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “We are going to adjourn and take this up in the—”

“Your Honor,” I interrupted. “Three more questions and we’ll be there. And the relevancy will be clear.”

“Hurry, Mr. Haller,” Warfield said. “You may answer the question, Dr. Jackson.”

“One ninety,” Jackson said. “Last I checked.”

There was a slight murmur of laughter from the jury box and gallery.

“Okay, so you’re a relatively big guy,” I said. “When it came time during the autopsy to examine the victim’s back for injuries, did you turn the body over yourself?”

“No, I had help,” Jackson said.

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s difficult to move a body that weighs more than yourself.”

“I imagine so, Dr. Jackson. Who helped you?”

“As I recall, Detective Drucker witnessed the autopsy and I enlisted his help in turning the body over.”

“Judge, I have no further questions.”

Berg had no redirect and Warfield moved to adjourn court for the day. As she gave the jury the routine warnings, Maggie reached over and patted my hand.

“That was good,” she whispered.

I nodded and liked how she had touched me. It was my hope that the five-minute cross-examination of Jackson would leave the jury with something to think about as they went home for the night.

So far, Berg had offered nothing in the way of testimony or evidence that explained how I had gotten Sam Scales, who was essentially built like a mailbox, into the trunk of my car in order to shoot him. The possibilities ranged from my having an accomplice to help move an incapacitated Sam into the trunk to my drugging him and then ordering him into the trunk at gunpoint before those drugs took effect. I didn’t know whether Berg was planning to avoid the issue altogether or if something was coming further down the line in her presentation.

But for the moment, at least, I had control of the issue. And it was a bonus that my weight loss since my initial arrest had now reached nearly thirty pounds, leaving me at least fifty pounds lighter than Sam Scales at death. I had checked the jury during my final questions to Jackson and several were looking at me instead of the witness, most likely sizing up whether I could have manhandled the 206-pound mailbox into the trunk of my car.

Going to trial is always a gamble. The prosecution is always the house in this game. It holds the bank and deals the cards. You take any win you can get. As Deputy Chan came to collect me and take me back into courtside holding, I felt good about the day. I had spent less than fifteen minutes cross-examining the state’s witnesses but felt I had scored points and put a hit on the house. Sometimes that was all you could ask for. You plant seeds that help keep jurors thinking and that hopefully sprout and bloom during the defense phase of the trial. For the third trial day in a row, I felt momentum building.

I changed into my blues in the holding cell and waited for a runner to come get me and take me down to the dock. Sitting on the bench, I thought about where Dana Berg would take the trial next. It seemed to me that the case had largely been delivered to the jury through Drucker.

Tomorrow would certainly center on my garage. The state’s wit list included another criminalist, who had handled the search there the morning after the killing, a DNA expert who would testify that the blood collected from the floor of the garage came from Sam Scales, and a ballistics expert who would testify about the analysis of the bullet evidence.

But I couldn’t help thinking that there was going to be something else. Something not on a list. An October surprise, as members of the defense bar liked to call a sandbagging by the prosecution.

There was a clue to something coming. I had noticed that Kent Drucker left the courtroom after his testimony concluded. He was not replaced by his partner, Lopes, which meant that Berg was flying blind through the rest of the afternoon — no case detective on hand in case she needed documents or a refresher on aspects of the case. This rarely happened in a murder trial and it told me something was up. Drucker and Lopes were working on something. It had to be case-related, because they would have been taken out of the homicide rotation once the trial started. I was sure there was an October surprise coming.

This was how the rules of fairness in trial procedure were subverted. By putting off the investigative work on a witness or piece of evidence until trial is underway, the prosecutor can claim that it was a newfound witness or piece of evidence and that is why there was no forewarning to opposing counsel. The defense did it as well — I’d had people poised to drop a subpoena on Louis Opparizio, who would be my own October surprise. But there was something inappropriate and unfair about it when the prosecution, which held all the power and all the cards, did it. It was like the New York Yankees always getting the best players because they had the most money. It was why my favorite team in baseball was whatever team was playing the Yankees.

My thoughts were interrupted when the runner came to the holding cell to escort me down to the prisoner transport dock in the courthouse basement. Twenty minutes later I was in the back of a sheriff’s cruiser being driven solo back to Twin Towers, courtesy of the order from Judge Warfield. I noticed that the driver was a different deputy from the one who had driven me that morning and last week. This driver seemed familiar to me but I couldn’t place him. Between the jail and the courthouse I had seen so many different deputies in the past four months that there was no way I could remember them all.

After we pulled out of the courthouse complex and onto Spring, I leaned forward to the metal grille that separated the driver from the rear compartment, where I was locked into a plastic form-fitting seat.

“What happened to Bennet?” I asked.

I had noted the name on the new guy’s uniform when he was putting me into the car. Pressley. It, too, was familiar but not enough for me to place it.

“Assignment change,” Pressley said. “I’ll be driving you the rest of this week.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Have you worked in the keep-away module lately?”

“No, I’m in transport.”

“Thought I recognized you.”

“That’s because I’ve sat behind you in court a few times.”

“Really? This case?”

“No, this goes back. Alvin Pressley is my nephew. You had him as a client for a while.”

Alvin Pressley. The name, followed by a face, came back to me. A twenty-one-year-old kid from the projects caught slinging dope with enough quantity in his pockets to qualify for a big-time prison sentence. I was able to score him a better deal: a year in the county stockade.

“Oh, yeah. Alvin,” I said. “You stood for him at the sentencing, right? I remember his uncle was a deputy.”

“I did.”

Here was the hard question.

“So, how’s Alvin doing these days?”

“He’s doing good. That was a wake-up call for him. Got his shit together, moved out to Riverside to get away from all the crap. He lives with my brother out there. They got a restaurant.”

“Good to hear.”

“Anyway, you did right by me with Alvin, so I’m going to do right by you. There’s people in the jail not happy with you.”

“Tell me about it. I know.”

“I’m serious now. You gotta watch your back in there, man.”

“Believe me, I do know. You’re driving me because I got choked out by a guy on the bus. You know about that?”

“Everybody knows about that.”

“What about before? Did people know that was going to go down?”

“I don’t know, man. Not me.”

“The story they put in the paper today was bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens like that when you’re making waves. Remember that.”

“I’ve known that my entire life, Pressley. Is there something you want to tell me that I don’t know?”

I waited. He said nothing, so I tried prompting him.

“Sounds like you took a risk asking to drive me,” I said. “Might as well tell it.”

We turned off Bauchet Street and into the inmate-reception garage at Twin Towers. Two deputies came to the car to get me and move me back up to the keep-away module.

“Just watch yourself,” Pressley said.

I had long assumed I was a target for any number of the forty-five hundred inmates held inside the jail’s octagonal walls. Anything could spur violence — the cut of your hair, the color of your skin, the look in your eyes. Getting warned about the deputies charged with keeping me safe was another matter.

“Always,” I said.

The door opened and a deputy reached in to unlock my cuffs from the seat and then pull me out.

“Home, sweet home, asshole,” he said.

45

Tuesday, February 25

The morning session in court had not gone well for the defense. Through crime scene analysis, DNA, and ballistics, prosecution witnesses had convincingly offered proof that Sam Scales had been shot to death in the trunk of my Lincoln while it was parked in my garage. While the case was missing the murder weapon, and none of the evidence could put me in the garage pulling the trigger, it was what defense attorneys call commonsense evidence. The victim was killed in the defendant’s car in the defendant’s garage. Common sense dictates that the defendant was responsible. There was, of course, room in that chain of circumstances for reasonable doubt, but sometimes common sense was an overriding factor in a juror’s decision. And whenever I had checked the faces of the jurors during the morning session, I never saw any skepticism. They were paying rapt attention to the parade of witnesses that wanted to bury me in guilt.

Two of the witnesses I did not even bother to question on cross. There had been nothing in their testimony I could attack, no loose thread I could use to unravel their claims. With the ballistics expert, I thought I scored a point when I asked if any of the bullet slugs recovered in the case showed markings from a silencer being used on the weapon. His answer, as I knew it would be, was that sound-suppression devices do not come into contact with the discharged bullet, so it is impossible to tell if such an attachment was on the murder weapon.

But then Dana Berg took the point away and scored her own when she used my question on redirect to bring out from her expert the fact that sound suppressors do not reduce the report of a gunshot to anything even approaching silence.

I likened going into courtside holding during the lunch break to going into the locker room at halftime. My team was down and I felt the weight of dread as Deputy Chan led me into the holding cell. After securing me, he would bring Maggie McPherson in with lunch, and I was sure we would dissect the morning session to see if there was any way to repair the damage when we moved into the defense phase of the trial.

But those thoughts disappeared like smoke after I went through the steel door from the courtroom and was directed by Chan down the hallway to the attorney-client room. I immediately heard a voice echoing off the steel and concrete walls. A female voice. As we passed the holding cells on either side, I looked through the bars on the right and saw Dana Berg sitting on a bench in the cell. I remembered now that she had gotten up from the prosecution table the moment the judge had left the bench. Now she was in the holding cell, but it wasn’t her voice I’d heard. It was coming from another woman but I could not see her because the cell extended to the right along a concrete wall beyond the barred door.

I knew the voice. I just couldn’t place it.

Chan delivered me to the attorney-client room.

“Hey, who’s that Berg is with?” I asked casually.

“Your old girlfriend,” Chan said offhandedly.

“What girlfriend?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Come on, Chan. If I’m going to find out, you might as well tell me.”

“I actually don’t know. It’s all on the down-low. All I heard was that she was brought down from Chowchilla.”

He slid the solid steel door closed behind me and I was left alone with the single clue as to who was in the cell with Berg. Chowchilla was up in California’s Central Valley and the location of one of the biggest women’s prisons in the state. While my client list ran 80 percent or more male, I had a few female clients in the prison system. I usually didn’t track my clients once they were adjudicated and sent off to prison, but I knew of one former client who, last I heard, was serving a fifteen-year stretch for manslaughter in Chowchilla. It was her voice, distorted by echoes off steel and concrete, that I now recognized.

Lisa Trammel. She was the October surprise.

The door slid back open to allow Maggie to come in with the bag containing our lunch. But I had just lost my appetite. After the door banged closed again, I told her why.

“They’ve got a witness they’re bringing in and we need to fight it,” I began.

“Who?” Maggie asked.

“You hear the voices in the other cell? That’s her. Lisa Trammel.”

“Lisa Trammel. Why do I know that name?”

“She was a client. She was charged with murder and I got her off.”

I saw the prosecutor in Maggie react.

“Jesus, now I remember,” she said.

“They just brought her down from Chowchilla to testify,” I said.

“About what?”

“I don’t know. But I know the voice and I know she’s in there with Dana Berg. Her case was the one I hung on Opparizio in court. He was the straw man. I got him to take the Fifth.”

“Okay, let’s think about this.”

Maggie started opening the bag and taking out wrapped sandwiches Lorna had ordered from Nickel Diner. Lorna knew I liked their BLT and that was what I got.

Maggie held her sandwich up to take a bite but first said, “Come on, Mickey. They don’t bring somebody down from Chowchilla on a whim. There’s something. Think.”

“Look, you have to understand that she’s a liar,” I said. “A good liar. She had me convinced nine years ago when we went to trial. I mean, totally convinced.”

“Okay, so what can she lie about that will help the prosecution here?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know.

“It could be anything,” I said. “She was a longtime client. I handled her foreclosure defense, then the murder. She was a lot like Sam Scales, a skilled liar who eventually played me and never—”

I snapped my fingers as I got it.

“Money. Like Sam, she didn’t pay me. Berg is going to use her to support motive. She’s going to lie about the money, say I threatened her or something.”

“Okay, I should handle this out there. First the objection, then the cross if she’s allowed to testify. It will look bad you going after her.”

“Agreed.”

“So tell me everything I need to know.”

Thirty minutes later lunch was over and I was returned to the courtroom. Cisco, back from Arizona, was standing at the railing. It looked like he had something urgent to say. I spoke to Chan as he was removing my handcuffs.

“All right if I talk to my investigator here?”

“Make it fast. The judge is ready to come out.”

I stepped over to the rail so we could speak confidentially.

“Two things,” Cisco said. “First, we lost Opparizio in Scottsdale.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “I thought your guys were going to stay with him.”

“They were. They set up on his room and were ready to go whenever he made a move but he never did. I just got a call. Housekeeping cleared his room this morning. He’s gone. His car is still there but he’s gone.”

“Damn it.”

“Sorry, Mick.”

“Something’s going on. Tell them to keep looking for him. He might come back for his car.”

“They’re on the car. They’re also trying to figure out how he got out of the room. They had cameras set up in the hallway.”

“Okay, what’s the other thing?”

“Well, you remember Herb Dahl, that sleazeball movie producer who got hooked up with Lisa Trammel back in the day?”

“What about him?”

“He’s sitting out in the hallway by the courtroom door. I think he might be here as a witness.”

I nodded. The picture was becoming clearer.

“They also brought Lisa down from Chowchilla,” I said. “She’s in holding and ready to go too.”

“They weren’t on the wit list,” Cisco said.

“Yeah, it’s an October surprise. Listen, I just thought of something. Step out and call Lorna, tell her to pull the Lisa Trammel file and bring in the letters she’s sent me over the years. Get them to Maggie ASAP. That means you might have to wait out on Spring Street for her.”

“You got it.”

“And let me know as soon as you hear something on Opparizio.”

“Will do.”

Cisco headed out of the courtroom. I got to my seat just as Deputy Chan announced that court was in session and the judge emerged from chambers. Maggie stood up as I sat down, a signal to the judge that there was business to attend to before bringing in the jury. I didn’t get a chance to tell her about Herb Dahl or the hate letters Lisa Trammel had sent me from prison. I looked over at the prosecution table and saw Berg follow Maggie in rising to her feet.

“Back on the record,” Warfield said. “Ms. McPherson, I saw you standing first. Do you wish to address the court?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Maggie said. “It has come to the defense’s attention that the state is going to introduce a witness that is not on any list the defense was given. This witness is a convicted killer who has lied under oath in the past and will do so again today if she is allowed to testify.”

“Well, this is all news to me,” Warfield said. “Ms. Berg, I see you standing as well. Do you wish to address this issue?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Berg said.

While Berg identified Lisa Trammel as the witness and gave her argument for putting her on the stand, I tugged on Maggie’s sleeve and she bent down to hear me whisper.

“She’s got a backup witness out in the hallway,” I said. “A movie producer named Herb Dahl. Lisa and Dahl were in cahoots against me during the trial.”

Maggie just nodded, then straightened back up and refocused on Berg’s statement to the judge.

“It is pattern evidence, Your Honor,” Berg said. “Evidence of prior bad acts in terms of how the defendant treated his clients, demanding money from them and then making threats and carrying out those threats when no money was exchanged. Additionally, I have a second witness named Herbert Dahl, who has firsthand knowledge of these activities and was threatened over money by Mr. Haller as well.”

“You still have not addressed why these witnesses are suddenly appearing in my courtroom today without notice to the defense or the court,” Warfield said. “I know Ms. McPherson’s next argument — that the defense has been sandbagged by this. I think it is a very valid argument.”

Berg disagreed, saying there was no sandbagging because Trammel and Dahl were not even known to her until Saturday, when she opened a letter Trammel had sent from prison after seeing a television report about the Sam Scales case. The prosecutor offered the letter, including the postmarked envelope, to the judge for examination. She handed a copy to Maggie for us to share.

“Judge, that letter arrived on my desk last Wednesday,” Berg said. “You will see it is postmarked the day before. As you know, we were in trial last week. I had no time to go through the mail. I did that on Saturday and found the letter. I immediately contacted Detective Drucker and we drove up to Chowchilla to talk to Ms. Trammel and gauge her potential as a witness. We heard her story and believed it was something the jury should hear — if we could find a way to back it up. She had given us the name Herbert Dahl. While Ms. Trammel was being transported down here yesterday, Detective Drucker finished his testimony and then went to interview Mr. Dahl. There is no subterfuge here, no sandbagging. We brought these witnesses to the attention of the court as soon as they were determined to be truthful and important for the jury to hear.”

While Maggie pushed back, I studied the letter. It laid out a one-sided story of how badly I supposedly had treated Lisa Trammel. She blamed me for putting her in prison and leaving her penniless. She claimed that I operated on greed and the constant need for media adoration — the two qualities that I believed best described Lisa herself.

In the end, Maggie could not swing the judge. Warfield ruled that Trammel and Dahl could testify and it would be up to the jury to decide whether they were truthful and if their stories had any merit.

“However,” Warfield said, “I will grant the defense ample time to prepare for these witnesses if necessary. Ms. McPherson, how long would you need?”

“May I confer with counsel?” Maggie asked.

“Of course,” the judge said.

Maggie sat down and huddled with me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have been able to stop this.”

“No worries,” I said. “You did your best. But don’t worry. The prosecution just made a big mistake.”

“Really? It seems to me that she just got her way.”

“Yes, but we can use Trammel to open the door to Opparizio. Then we destroy her on the stand.”

“So, how much time to prepare?”

“None. Let’s go right at her.”

“Are you sure?”

“I just told Cisco to get Lorna to pull the file on Lisa Trammel. I think we may be able to counter their October surprise with our own little surprise.”

“Good. Tell me more.”

46

I had heard Lisa Trammel’s voice but had not seen her in courtside holding. She was now walked into the courtroom by Deputy Chan. I saw a woman who was almost unrecognizable to me. Her hair had turned gray and was cropped short in a man’s cut. Her paper-white skin seemed to be stretched over her bones, as she looked to be half the weight of the woman I had known and defended a decade before. She wore a baggy orange jumpsuit and had a blurry blue prison tattoo — a line of stars — arching over her left eyebrow. All eyes from the jury were on this curiosity as she stood to be sworn in.

Once Trammel was seated on the witness stand, Dana Berg moved to the lectern and began to draw out her story.

“Ms. Trammel, where do you currently reside?”

“I’m at the Central California Women’s Prison in Chowchilla.”

“And how long have you been there?”

“Uh, six years. Before that, I spent three down at Corona.”

“That’s a prison, too, in Corona?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you incarcerated?”

“I was sentenced to fifteen years for manslaughter.”

“And what were the details of that crime?”

“I killed my husband. It was an abusive relationship and I ended it.”

I was watching the jurors more than I was watching Trammel. How they reacted to her would influence how Maggie would conduct her cross-examination. For the moment, they were attentive, even having just come from lunch. Trammel was enough of a change of pace to keep them interested and alert. I noticed that the Hollywood Bowl chef was leaning forward and sitting at the edge of her seat.

“Are you familiar with the defendant in this case, Michael Haller?” Berg asked.

“Yes, he was my lawyer,” Trammel said.

“Can you point him out for the jury?”

“Yes.”

Trammel pointed at me and for the first time our eyes locked. I saw the hate burning behind hers.

“Can you tell us about that relationship?” Berg asked.

Trammel was slow to break her stare away from me.

“Yes,” she said. “I hired him about eleven years ago to try to save my home. I was a single mother of a nine-year-old son and I had gotten behind on the mortgage and the bank was foreclosing on me. I hired him to help me after I got a flyer in the mail.”

Trammel had come to me during the wave of foreclosures that swept across the country following the 2008 financial crisis. Foreclosure defense was the growth sector in law and I signed on like many other criminal defense lawyers. I made a lot of money, kept several people in their homes, and unfortunately met and agreed to defend Lisa Trammel.

“Did you have a job then?” Berg asked.

“I was a teacher,” Trammel said.

“Okay, and was Mr. Haller able to help you?”

“Yes and no. He delayed the inevitable. He filed papers and challenged the bank’s actions, and he delayed things more than a year.”

“And then what happened?”

“I was arrested. I got accused of killing the man at the bank who was taking away my home.”

“What was his name?”

“Mitchell Bondurant.”

“And were you put on trial for the murder of Mitchell Bondurant?”

“Yes.”

“And who was your attorney?”

“It was him. Haller. The case got a lot of attention. In the press, you know. And he, like, begged me to let him defend me.”

“Do you know why that was?”

“Like I said, the case got a lot of media attention. It was free publicity for him and that was the deal. I didn’t have any money for a lawyer, so I said yes.”

“And the case went to trial?”

“Yes, and I was found innocent.”

“You mean not guilty?”

“Yes, not guilty. By the jury.”

Trammel turned and looked at the jury as she said this last part, as if to say, a jury believed me before and you must believe me now. My eyes scanned down the two rows of jurors — their eyes all on Trammel — and then continued into the crowded gallery. I saw my daughter watching with rapt attention as well.

“Did there come a time when you had a financial dispute with Mr. Haller?” Berg asked.

“Yes, there did,” Trammel said.

“And what was that about?”

“There was a movie producer who had attended the trial and was interested in making a movie about the case. Because of the foreclosure angle, it was a story that spoke to the time and people would be interested, especially because I was innocent, you know?”

“What was the movie producer’s name?”

“Herb Dahl. He had a deal at Archway Pictures, where he brought them projects. He said they were interested in the movie.”

“And how did that become a dispute with Mr. Haller?”

“Well, he told me he wanted to get paid. Halfway through the trial, he said he wanted part of the movie money.”

I slowly shook my head at the lie. It was an involuntary response, not meant for the jury. But Berg noticed and turned her attention from Trammel to the judge.

“Your Honor, could you please instruct Mr. Haller not to make demonstrations distracting to the jury?”

Warfield looked at me.

“Mr. Haller, you know better,” she said. “Please refrain from showing reaction to the testimony.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “But it’s hard not to react to lies about your—”

“Mr. Haller,” the judge barked. “You know better than to make such a comment as well.”

The judge closed her mouth in a tight line as she probably considered slapping me with a contempt citation. She thought better of it.

“You’ve been warned,” she finally said. “Proceed, Ms. Berg.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said. “Ms. Trammel, did Mr. Haller tell you how much money he wanted?”

“Yes,” Trammel said. “A quarter million dollars.”

“And did you agree to pay him that?”

“No. I didn’t have it, and Herb Dahl said I would be lucky to get half of that as an up-front payment from the studio for my story.”

“How did Mr. Haller respond to that?”

“He threatened me. He said there would be consequences if I didn’t pay him what he deserved.”

“What happened next?”

“I was found not guilty and I told him a deal was a deal. He got good publicity for the case, especially when I was found innocent. I said that he would probably get paid when they made a movie because they would need to use his name and what he did at the trial and all.”

“Did he accept that?”

“No. He said that there were consequences and I would be sorry.”

“Then what happened?”

“The police came to my house with a search warrant and they found my husband. He was buried in the backyard. I had buried him after he died. I was afraid that nobody would believe me about the abuse and that I would lose my son.”

Trammel was tearful now. It could be heard in her voice rather than seen on her face. To me it was all an act. A good one. Berg underlined the moment with a strategic pause and I saw the jury watching the witness closely, looks of sympathy on some of their faces, including the Hollywood Bowl chef.

This was an unmitigated disaster.

I leaned toward Maggie and whispered.

“This is so much bullshit,” I said. “She’s an even better con artist now than she was back then.”

At that moment, I thought I saw sympathy on Maggie’s face as well. It made me not want to turn to see my own daughter’s face.

“Did Mr. Haller represent you in the new case involving your husband’s death?” Berg asked.

“No, no way,” Trammel said. “He was the one who told them I had buried Jeffrey. I needed somebody I could—”

“Objection, hearsay,” Maggie said.

“Sustained,” Warfield said. “The answer is no. The jury will disregard the rest of the answer.”

Berg retooled for a moment, obviously looking for a way to get to the answer she wanted — that I had ratted out Trammel when she wouldn’t pay me. It wouldn’t be much of a leap from that to believing I would kill Sam Scales when he didn’t pay me.

“Did there come a time when you began to suspect that you could not trust Mr. Haller as your attorney?” she asked.

“Yes,” Trammel said.

“And when was that?”

“When they found my husband’s body and I got arrested for murder. I knew he had told the police.”

“I object again,” Maggie said. “Assumes facts not in evidence. Ms. Berg is trying to put something in front of the jury that is pure speculation. There is no record anywhere that Mr. Haller or any member of his staff broke the rules of the attorney-client relationship, yet the prosecution persists in—”

“You told them!” Trammel yelled, pointing her finger at me. “You were the only one who knew. This was the payback—”

“Silence!” Warfield yelled. “There is an objection before the court and the witness will remain silent.”

The judge’s voice had cut Trammel off like an ax coming down. She paused and looked at all parties before continuing.

“Ms. Berg, you need to school and control your witness on what is hearsay and what is not,” she said. “One more improper outburst and you will both be held in contempt.”

She turned to the jury.

“The jury will disregard the statements of the witness,” she said. “They are hearsay and not evidence.”

She turned back to the attorneys.

“You may continue, Ms. Berg,” she said. “Carefully.”

As attention in the courtroom returned to Berg, I heard a low whisper from behind and turned to see Cisco offering a file across the rail. I tapped Maggie on the arm and signaled her to take the file. She immediately opened it on the table between us.

Meanwhile, Berg was only too happy to end her direct examination of Trammel. She had gotten the message to the jury that I was vindictive when it came to money.

“Your Honor, I have nothing further for this witness,” she said.

The judge threw it to the defense, and Maggie asked for a brief recess before she questioned the witness. The judge gave us fifteen minutes and we spent the time reading the correspondence that had come in from Trammel over the years.

When court reconvened, Maggie was ready. She got up with her legal pad and went to the lectern. She came out aggressive.

“Ms. Trammel, have you ever lied to the police?” she asked.

“No,” Trammel said.

“You’ve never lied to the police?”

“I said no.”

“How about under oath? Have you ever lied under oath?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you lying right now under oath?”

“No, I—”

Berg objected, saying McPherson was badgering the witness, and the judge sustained the objection, telling Maggie to move on. She did.

“Isn’t it true, Ms. Trammel, that early on, you agreed to share any movie revenues from your story with Mr. Haller?”

“No, he wanted publicity, not money. That was the agreement.”

“Did you kill Mitchell Bondurant?”

Trammel involuntarily pulled back from the witness-stand microphone as the question came out of the blue. Berg stood and objected again, reminding the judge that Trammel had been found not guilty in the Bondurant case.

“Everyone knows that a not-guilty verdict is not a finding of innocence,” Maggie argued.

The judge ruled that Trammel could answer the question.

“No, I did not kill Mitchell Bondurant,” she answered pointedly.

“Then, was it established at trial who did?” Maggie asked.

“There was a suspect named, yes.”

“Who was that?”

“A man named Louis Opparizio. A Las Vegas mobster. He was brought in to testify, but he took the Fifth because he didn’t want to.”

“Why was Louis Opparizio a suspect in Mr. Bondurant’s murder?”

“Because they had shady dealings together and Mr. Bondurant had contacted the FBI about it. There was an investigation starting and then Mr. Bondurant got killed.”

“After you were found not guilty, was Opparizio charged with the crime?”

“No, he never was.”

We now had Opparizio on the trial record and known to the jury. If nothing else came out of Maggie’s cross, that was the one thing we could take into the defense phase and work with.

But Maggie wasn’t finished. She asked the judge for a moment and then walked to the defense table, where she retrieved the letters that had been in the Trammel file. She had planned it that way. She wanted Trammel to track her movements as she went to pick up the loose pages. She wanted Trammel to know what was coming.

“Now, Ms. Trammel, you clearly blame Mr. Haller for your current situation in prison, correct?” she asked.

“I’ve owned what I did,” Trammel said. “I didn’t go to trial. I pleaded guilty and have taken full responsibility.”

“But you blame Mr. Haller for the police finding your husband’s body buried in the backyard, do you not?”

“I thought the judge said I can’t answer that.”

“You can speak for yourself. You can’t speak for him.”

“Then, yes, I blame him.”

“But isn’t it true that you are the one who has threatened Mr. Haller and repeatedly told him that there would be consequences for his actions?”

“No, that’s not true.”

“Do you remember writing Mr. Haller a series of letters from prison?”

Trammel paused before answering.

“It was a long time ago,” she finally said. “I don’t remember.”

“What about more recently,” Maggie pressed. “Say, a year ago. Did you send a letter from prison to Mr. Haller?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What is your inmate number at the prison in Chowchilla?”

“A-V-one-eight-one-seven-four.”

Maggie looked up at the judge.

“Judge, may I approach the witness?” she asked.

After receiving permission from the judge, Maggie handed an envelope to Trammel and asked her to open it and remove the letter that was inside.

“Do you recognize that as a letter you sent last April ninth to Mr. Haller?” she asked.

Berg stood to object. She couldn’t know what was in the letter but she knew it was bad.

“Your Honor, I have not been shown the document,” she said. “It could be from anyone.”

“Overruled,” Warfield said. “You’ll get your chance when Ms. McPherson is done authenticating the letter through this unexpected witness, Ms. Berg. You may continue, Ms. McPherson.”

“Is that your prisoner number on the outside of the envelope, Ms. Trammel?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t write it there,” Trammel said.

“But that is in fact your signature at the end of the letter, correct, Ms. Trammel?”

“It looks like it, but I can’t be sure. It could be forged.”

“Please examine these four other letters and confirm that they also bear your signature and inmate number.”

Trammel looked at the letters put down in front of her.

“Yes,” she finally said. “It looks like my signature, but I can’t be sure. There are a lot of women in prison who are there because they forged signatures on checks.”

“And you say it is possible that they forged letters to your attorney over a span of nine years?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know. Anything is possible.”

Except it wasn’t, and Maggie was destroying her.

“Your Honor,” she said. “The defense offers in evidence what will be marked as defense exhibits A through E.”

Maggie handed the exhibits to the clerk to be marked.

“If further authentication is needed, Mr. Haller’s office manager can testify to receiving the letters and securing them over the years in a file,” she said.

“Let’s take a look at these letters,” Warfield said.

I trailed Maggie to the bench for the sidebar. The judge quickly scanned the original letters while Berg was handed copies.

“As an officer of the court and a prosecutor for twenty-plus years, I can represent to the court that the state prisons do not allow inmates to send letters anonymously,” Maggie said. “That was why her inmate number was written on the return address of each envelope.”

“Even if the letters are from her, there is a relevancy issue here, Judge,” Berg said.

“Oh, they’re relevant all right, Ms. Berg,” the judge said. “She just sat there and accused the defendant of threatening her over money. The exhibits are admitted. Ms. McPherson, you may proceed.”

We returned to our positions and Maggie approached the witness stand. She put another letter down in front of Trammel.

“Ms. Trammel, did you write this and send it to Mr. Haller from Chowchilla?” she asked.

Trammel looked at the letter and took a long time to read it.

“The thing is,” she said, “I was diagnosed as bipolar at the inmate-reception center nine years ago, so sometimes I kind of slip into a fugue and do things I don’t always remember doing.”

“Is that your inmate number on the envelope?”

“Yes. But I don’t know who put it on there.”

“Is that your name on the letter?”

“Well, yes, but anybody could have written that.”

“Could you read the letter to the jury, please?”

Trammel looked at Berg and then at the judge, hoping someone would say she didn’t have to read what she had sent to me.

“Go ahead, Ms. Trammel,” Warfield said. “Read the letter.”

Trammel looked at the letter for a long moment before finally beginning to read.

I watched the jury as she read it. I could see that Trammel’s credibility disintegrated with each word she read. And some of that probably rubbed off on Berg. The prosecutor sat at her table, realizing that she had been blinded by greed. Greed for one more piece of evidence against me. She had heard Trammel’s story through Drucker and thought it was the thing that would slam the prison door shut on me.

But her October surprise turned into a December dud. She didn’t even bother to call Herb Dahl into the courtroom to testify. He was told to go home.

It was unclear whether the misstep with Lisa Trammel would have much impact on the jury, especially after the morning’s delivery of conclusive evidence about Sam Scales being killed in my garage while I was apparently on the premises. Either way, by the day’s end, Berg felt good enough about her case to bring it to an end. Whatever potential witnesses she still had in the wings, she decided to hold them for rebuttal and a big finish.

“Your Honor,” she said, “the state rests.”

47

Wednesday, February 26

I spent a restless night in my cell, listening to the random echoes of desperate men calling out in the dark. I heard steel doors bang and incongruous laughter from the deputies on the midnight shift. At times my body shook in physical reaction to the gravity of the moment. How could I sleep when I knew the next two days would determine the rest of my life? When deep down I knew that, should things go wrong, I would choose not to live this way for very long? I would make my escape one way or the other and I would be free.

Incarceration does that. Makes you think about what is beyond the last wall. They can take your belt and shoelaces away but they can’t stop you from going over it. I’ve had three clients go over that wall in the weeks after conviction. Now that I had personally experienced the prospect of long-term incarceration, I understood their choice and respected it. I knew it would be my choice as well.

Deputy Pressley got me to the courthouse early and I was in courtside holding, waiting for trial to begin, when Maggie and Cisco were allowed back for a precourt conference. I could tell by their faces that there was bad news.

“Still no sign of Opparizio?” I guessed.

“No,” Maggie said. “It’s worse.”

“He’s dead,” Cisco said.

“We have to rethink everything,” Maggie said. “We need to reset the order of wit—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said. “Back up. What happened? What do you mean he’s dead?”

“They whacked him,” Cisco said. “His body was found last night. He was dumped on the side of the road near Kingman.”

“That’s on the road up to Vegas. How did this happen when twenty-four hours ago your guys supposedly had him locked down?”

“Remember I told you they had a camera on his door? They reviewed the tape this morning, and Opparizio got room service Monday night. No big deal, he took all his meals in. But this time his dinner was rolled in on a cart with a tablecloth on it.”

“That’s how they got him out?”

“Yeah, hidden in the cart. I think a guy posing as a room-service waiter whacked him in the room, put him under the cart, and wheeled him out. He had intercepted the food delivery at the service elevator. My guys found the real room-service guy at his apartment. He admitted he got paid to turn over his red jacket and go home. The guy was drunk as a skunk.”

“So how did this... room-service hit man know where he was?”

“I figure Opparizio called somebody and revealed that he’d been hit with our subpoena. They told him they’d get him out of there and set up the room-service gag. Only then they whacked him.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? They probably didn’t want to risk him testifying. They knew he was compromised.”

I looked at Maggie to see if she had a take.

“It could be any number of reasons,” she said. “It’s safe to say he became a liability. But we can’t dwell on that, Mickey. This changes everything. What is our defense now? How do we point the finger at Opparizio when he’s dead?”

“What about Bosch?” I asked. “Does he know about this?”

“I told him,” Cisco said. “He’s got contacts in Arizona and Nevada from his LAPD days. He was going to make some calls, see what he could find out.”

I sat in silence for a long moment. I was brooding, trying to figure out how to reboot a third-party-culpability defense without the third party. I knew that Opparizio’s death did not change the defense theory, but as Maggie had said, it made it harder to point a finger at him.

“All right,” I finally said. “We need to get through today and then regroup and see where we are tonight. Who do we have who’s ready to go?”

“Well, we’ve got Schultz, the EPA guy,” Maggie said. “He got in last night. I told him we probably were going to hold him till tomorrow but we can get him ready for today. He’s just over at the Biltmore.”

“Do it,” I said. “We also have Drucker. We can put him on first. Then go with the EPA guy.”

“We supposedly have the Ventura County detective who arrested Sam the last time coming in today,” Cisco said. “Harry talked him into it. But that’s not a subpoena, so I’ll believe it when I see him. And we have Moira from the Redwood and the Rohypnol expert on subpoena. As soon as we’re done here, I’ll see who’s out in the hallway.”

“What about Opparizio’s girlfriend?” I asked.

“We served her the same night we papered Opparizio,” Cisco said. “She’s supposed to come in Thursday, but now with him dead, she probably split and is hiding. We took the eyes off her to put them on Opparizio, so...”

“We don’t know where she is,” I finished. “So we don’t have her unless she decides to honor the subpoena. I would put the chances of that at zero.”

“We also have you,” Maggie said.

“I wasn’t going to testify,” I said.

“Well, you may have to now,” she said. “Without Opparizio to pin the tail on, we’re probably going to need you to pull it all together.”

“If I testify, who knows what Death Row Dana will bring up,” I said. “My whole history will be out there. The pills, the rehab, everything.”

“I’m not worried,” Maggie said. “You can hold your own against her.”

I was quiet for a few moments while thinking it through.

“All right, let’s start with Drucker and then the others,” I finally said. “Hopefully we won’t have to decide about me till tomorrow. What about Ruth, the FBI agent?”

“I’ve called, left messages,” Maggie said. “I’ll keep trying.”

The door opened and Deputy Chan stuck his head in and gave us a five-minute warning. I stood up to go but then thought of something.

“What about Milton? Did we get the cell records?”

“Yes, I was going to tell you about it later,” Maggie said. “I didn’t want to pile on the bad news. We got the records but they don’t help.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“He did get a text at the exact time on the video,” Maggie said. “But it was from another Metro cop in the civic center surveillance that night. He was just asking when they were going to eat and where.”

“Any chance they dummied it up?” I asked.

“The documents we received look legit,” Maggie said. “We can check for tampering but we aren’t going to be able to do anything with it this week.”

“Okay, so I guess we drop it,” I said.

“The problem is, the same stuff goes to Dana in discovery,” Maggie said. “She won’t drop it. You can count on her introducing it in rebuttal.”

That was bad news and I now wished I hadn’t brought it up. Between losing Opparizio and handing the prosecution some solid rebuttal evidence, the defense was stumbling before it was even out of the gate. I knew that going head-to-head with Drucker again was going to be a challenge, but I needed to put a couple hits on the house.

Five minutes later, I was at the defense table when Judge Warfield entered and took the bench. She seated the jury, then looked down at me and told me to call my first witness. She seemed slightly surprised and disappointed when I called Kent Drucker. I think she thought recalling a prosecution witness was a weak way to start my case.

Drucker seemed surprised himself. He had been sitting in the gallery but now proceeded through the gate and to the witness stand, stopping by the prosecution table to retrieve the murder book in case he was called on for details he didn’t quite remember.

The detective was reminded by the judge that he was still under oath from his first round of testimony.

“Detective Drucker, how many times did you search my home?” I asked.

“Twice,” Drucker said. “The day after the killing and then in January, when we searched it again.”

“And how many times did you search my warehouse?”

“Just the once.”

“My other two Lincolns?”

“Once.”

“Now, would you describe these searches as thorough?”

“We try to be as thorough as possible.”

“You try?”

“We are thorough.”

“If you were so thorough in the search of my house, why did you need to search it a second time?”

“Because the investigation was ongoing and as new information was gathered, we realized that we needed to search again for different evidence.”

“Now, one of the state’s experts testified yesterday that ballistic markings on the bullets that killed Sam Scales indicated that the murder weapon was a twenty-two-caliber Beretta handgun. Do you agree with that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And after all the thorough searches of my properties and cars, did you find such a weapon?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Did you find any ammunition for such a gun?”

“No.”

“Your experts also testified yesterday that there was convincing evidence that the murder of Sam Scales occurred in the garage located below my house. Do you agree with that?”

“Yes.”

“The coroner testified that time of death was between ten o’clock and midnight. Are you in agreement with that estimate?”

“Yes.”

“Did you conduct a canvass of the neighborhood where the murder occurred?”

“Not me personally, but we did conduct a canvass.”

“Who conducted it?”

“Other detectives and patrol officers at the direction of my partner.”

“How long did that take?”

“It was about three days before we talked to everyone on the block. We had to keep going back until we got to everyone.”

“You were being thorough, yes?”

“Yes, we had a checklist of every house on the block and we made sure we spoke to someone from every address.”

“How many said they heard gunshots between ten and midnight on the night of the murders?”

“None. No one heard anything.”

“And based on your experience and knowledge, did you draw a conclusion from that?”

“Not really. There could have been a lot of factors.”

“But you are sure, based on the evidence, that Mr. Scales was killed in my garage?”

“Yes.”

“Do you assume the garage door was closed during the time of the killing to help prevent the gunshots from being heard?”

“We considered that but it’s speculation.”

“And you don’t want to speculate in a murder case, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Now, without revealing any results, you told the jury during your earlier testimony that the LAPD conducted sound tests in the garage, correct?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Again, not getting into any results, did you measure the sound of gunfire from inside the house?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“When you were test-firing guns in my garage, did you have anyone upstairs in the bedroom to determine if those shots could be heard?”

“No, we did not.”

“Why not?”

“It just wasn’t part of our investigation at that point.”

My hope was that Drucker’s answers would give credibility to the possibility that I had slept through the killing of Sam Scales in the garage below my house.

“Okay, let’s move on,” I said. “Did your canvass of the neighborhood produce any reports of other sounds or unusual occurrences at the time of the murder?”

“One neighbor reported hearing the voices of two men arguing the night of the shooting,” Drucker said.

“Really? But you did not tell the jury about that during your earlier testimony, did you?”

“No, I did not.”

“Why is that? Wasn’t two men arguing on the night of the killing important to the case?”

“After we received the toxicology report from the medical examiner, we determined that it was unlikely that Sam Scales was conscious at the time of the killing.”

“So the neighbor who heard two men arguing was wrong or lying?”

“We believe she was mistaken. It could have been a TV she heard, or the time could have been different. It wasn’t clear.”

“So you discarded it and didn’t bother telling the jury.”

“No, it wasn’t discarded. It was—”

“Is that what you do, Detective? If something doesn’t fit with your theory of the case, you just hide it from the jury?”

Berg objected for a variety of reasons and Warfield sustained them all, admonishing me to let the witness finish his answers.

“Go ahead, Detective,” I said. “Finish your answer.”

“We evaluate every potential witness,” Drucker said. “We found the information from this witness not to be credible. No one else heard an argument, and there was an indication that the witness may have been confused about the night in question. We have not hidden anything from the jury.”

I asked the judge for a moment and then walked over to the defense table, where I leaned down to whisper to Maggie.

“Do you have that arrest report from Ventura?” I whispered.

Maggie was ready with the report and handed me a file.

“Okay,” I said. “Anything else I should get on the record before the big finish?”

Maggie thought for a long moment before responding.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it’s time to go for it.”

I nodded.

“Is Schultz here yet?” I asked.

“Cisco texted,” she said. “He’s out in the hallway and ready to go.”

I held up the arrest report.

“What about this guy Rountree?” I asked.

“He’s out there, too, sitting with Harry,” Maggie said. “But so far the bartender is a no-show.”

“All right, then. Depending on how this next part goes, I might take Detective Rountree next.”

“Sounds good. And by the way, don’t be obvious about it but Agent Ruth is sitting in the back row.”

I stared at Maggie for a long moment. I didn’t know what to make of the FBI agent’s presence. Was she here to watch and report? Or had the death of Louis Opparizio changed things?

“Mr. Haller?” the judge said. “We’re waiting.”

I nodded once to Maggie and walked back to the lectern. My focus returned to Drucker.

“Detective, you testified earlier that Sam Scales was using the name Walter Lennon at the time of his death. True?”

“Yes, if I testified to it, it’s true. You don’t have to ask again.”

“I’ll remember that, Detective. Thank you. What else did you learn about Walter Lennon?”

“Where he lived. Where he supposedly worked.”

“Where was it that he supposedly worked?”

“He told his landlord he worked at a refinery called BioGreen near where he was living in San Pedro. We could not confirm that.”

“Did you try?”

“We went to BioGreen. They had no record of a Walter Lennon or Samuel Scales as an employee. The head of HR did not recognize a photo of Sam Scales.”

“You left it there?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what BioGreen does?”

“It’s a refinery. It recycles oil. Makes clean fuel.”

“Would the oil it recycles be considered grease?”

Drucker hesitated as he realized that he had just stepped into a hole.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

“You don’t know,” I said. “Did you ask?”

“We were talking to the personnel manager. I doubt she would know the answer to that question.”

I almost smiled. Drucker was coming off as defensive and trying to turn an obvious shortcoming in his investigation into pushback against me.

“Thank you, Detective,” I said. “Can you tell me if you have ever heard the phrase bleeding the beast?”

Again, Drucker took time to think.

“I can’t say I have,” he said.

“Then we’ll move on,” I said. “Can you tell the jury what part in this case Louis Opparizio played?”

“Uh, no, I can’t.”

“Do you know that name?”

“Yes, I’ve heard it.”

“In what context?”

“It came up in this case. A witness mentioned it yesterday, and prior to that, people were talking about the methods of distraction you would use and that I should be ready for.”

“Well, I don’t want to distract you, Detective, so we’ll move on. Can you tell the jury, did you research the criminal record of Sam Scales after he was identified as the victim?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And what did you find?”

“That he had an extensive record as a con man and a fraud. But you know about that.”

Drucker was now getting surly, but that was okay with me. It meant I was getting under his skin. That wasn’t a bad thing.

“Can you tell the jury the details of his last arrest?”

Drucker opened the murder book.

“He was arrested for running a fraudulent online fundraising scheme for victims of the music festival shooting out in Las Vegas,” Drucker said. “He was convicted and—”

“Let me stop you right there, Detective,” I said. “I asked about the last time Sam Scales was arrested, not convicted.”

“They’re one and the same. The Vegas case.”

“What about his arrest in Ventura County eleven months before his death?”

Drucker looked down at the open murder book in front of him.

“I have nothing on that,” he said.

I opened the file Maggie had given me. The moment was precious. I knew I was about to put another hit on the house — a big hit — and it was a moment any trial lawyer would savor.

“Your Honor, may I approach the witness?” I asked.

The judge granted permission and I walked forward with the arrest report that had been anonymously slipped under my front door. I handed a copy to the clerk and then one to Dana Berg before putting a third copy down in front of Drucker. As I made my way back to the lectern, I casually checked the gallery, nodded surreptitiously to my daughter, and looked beyond her to the back row. I saw Agent Dawn Ruth. We locked eyes for a moment before I turned back to face Drucker. I knew I had to move quickly because as soon as Berg confirmed that a copy of the arrest report was not in the defense’s discovery file, she would raise holy hell.

“What is that, Detective Drucker?” I asked.

“It looks like an arrest report from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

“And who is the arrestee?”

“Sam Scales.”

“Arrested when and for what?”

“December first, 2018, for operating a fraudulent online fundraiser for victims of a mass shooting in a bar in Thousand Oaks.”

“This is a standard arrest form, correct?”

“Yes.”

“At the bottom of the form, there are a series of boxes that are checked. What do they indicate?”

I checked the prosecution table. Berg’s bow-tied second was looking through files.

“One is marked ‘interstate fraud,’ ” Drucker said.

“And what does the reference to ‘FBI–LA’ mean?” I asked quickly.

“That the FBI’s office in L.A. was notified of the arrest.”

“Why did this arrest not come up on your search of Sam Scales’s criminal record?”

“He probably wasn’t charged and the arrest wasn’t put into the computer.”

“Why would that happen?”

“You’ll have to ask the Ventura sheriffs about that.”

“Is this what you would see when someone who is arrested agrees to cooperate with the authorities in some way?”

“Like I said, you’d have to ask Ventura about that.”

I checked the prosecutors again. Bow-tie was whispering to Berg now.

“Isn’t this standard operating procedure for law enforcement?” I asked. “To arrest someone for one crime in order to leverage their cooperation in a bigger investigation of a bigger fish?”

“I don’t know anything about this arrest,” Drucker said in an annoyed tone. “You have to ask Ventura. It was their case.”

In my peripheral vision I saw Berg start to stand to object.

“Sam Scales was an FBI informant, wasn’t he, Detective Drucker?” I asked.

Before Drucker could reply, Berg made the objection and asked for a sidebar. The judge checked the clock on the back wall and decided to take the midmorning break. She said she would hear Berg’s objection in chambers during the break.

As the jurors filed out, I returned to the defense table and sat down. Maggie leaned toward me.

“You got it in,” she whispered. “No matter what happens now, the jury knows he was an informant.”

I nodded. That was the big finish. That was the hit on the house.

48

Judge warfield was upset and Dana Berg was livid. Neither bought my explanation for the discovery violation. That was when Maggie McFierce stepped up, willing to take the fall so the defense — my defense — could move on unscathed.

“Judge, this is my fault,” she said. “I dropped the ball on this.”

Warfield looked at her suspiciously.

“Do tell, Ms. McPherson.”

“As you know, Mr. Haller lost his co-counsel and I agreed to step in. It was late in the game and I have been playing catch-up, familiarizing myself with the evidence, the defense theory, and the prosecution’s case. Things have fallen through the cracks. As Mr. Haller has explained, the origin of the police report in question is unknown. It was slipped—”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Berg cut in. “And if that is what you’re going to spin, you should never come back to the office and they should never take you.”

“Ms. Berg, let her finish,” Warfield said. “And don’t make it personal when you have the opportunity to respond. Continue, Ms. McPherson.”

“As I was saying,” Maggie said. “The origin of this document was unknown and, frankly, questionable. It had to be confirmed and we had an investigator on it. He confirmed it and it was moved into the case presentation file at the beginning of the week. I have been in court all week and organizing the defense presentation at night. There was a miscommunication between Mr. Haller and myself. It didn’t help that he is incarcerated and not available to me at a moment’s notice. It was my understanding that we were not going to introduce the arrest report until later in the week and that would give me time to turn copies over to the state and the court today. All of that changed this morning when we learned from our investigator that Detective Rountree from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department was in town today and could testify.”

There was a slight pause as we waited for the judge to react to the explanation. But Berg reacted first.

“This is such bullshit,” she said. “They planned it this way from the start so my detective would be blindsided in front of the jury.”

“He wouldn’t have been blindsided if his investigation was as thorough as he claimed,” I said.

“Hold it right there,” Warfield said. “We’re not going to turn this into a boxing match. And Ms. Berg, I would check that language unless you want to be the only one who leaves here with sanctions.”

“Your Honor, you can’t be serious,” Berg erupted. “You’re giving them a pass on this?”

The outrage was clear in her voice.

“What would you have me do, Ms. Berg?” the judge asked. “The document is clearly of importance to this case. What’s your solution? Withhold it from the jury because of the defense’s misdeeds, intentional or not? That is not going to happen. Not in my courtroom. This is a search for truth, and there is no way on God’s green earth that I am keeping the document or the defense’s investigation of it from the jury. Look at yourself, Ms. Berg — this is evidence that should have been brought forward by the state. And if I find out that this is something the D.A.’s Office did have and deep-sixed, then we will really see some sanctions.”

Berg seemed to shrink two sizes in her seat under the judge’s withering comeback. She dropped off the offensive and immediately moved to her own defense.

“I can assure you, Judge, that neither I nor the D.A.’s Office knew a thing about this until it was brought up in court by the defense,” she said.

“That is good to hear,” Warfield said. “And let the court remind you that there have been multiple violations of discovery by the People resulting in no sanctions and just one instruction to the jury. I am willing to make an instruction in this matter but would be concerned that it would accentuate the cause of the defense in bringing this document forward.”

The judge was saying she was willing to tell the jury that the defense broke the rules, but that admonishment might serve to simply underline the importance of the arrest report.

“That won’t be necessary,” Berg said. “But, Your Honor, once again, rules have been intentionally broken and the defense should not simply be allowed to walk away. There should be consequences.”

Warfield looked at Berg for a long moment before speaking.

“Again, what would you have me do, Ms. Berg?” she asked. “You want counsel cited for contempt? You want them fined? What is the appropriate financial penalty for this?”

“No, Your Honor,” Berg said. “I think the penalty should be the witness. Counsel mentioned that the Ventura County detective was in town and would testify. I request that the court disallow his testimony as—”

“The defense objects to that,” Maggie said. “At minimum, we need Detective Rountree to authenticate the report. He also needs to explain what happened with the FBI. He has driven down all the way from—”

“Thank you, Ms. McPherson,” Warfield cut in. “But I think Ms. Berg has come up with an equitable solution to this trespass on the rules of discovery. The report comes in as a defense exhibit but not the witness.”

“Your Honor,” Maggie pressed. “How do we explain to the jury the significance of what happened?”

“You’re a smart lawyer,” Warfield said. “You’ll find a way.”

The answer left Maggie speechless.

“I think we are finished here,” Warfield said. “Let’s go back out and, Mr. Haller, you can continue your examination of the detective.”

“Your Honor,” I said, “I think I am finished with the detective and ready to move on.”

“Very well,” Warfield said. “Ms. Berg can cross-examine if she wishes. Court will resume in ten minutes.”

We filed out of chambers and headed to the courtroom, Berg sullenly following Maggie, me, and Deputy Chan, a required part of the procession since I was in custody.

“I hope you can live with yourself after this,” Berg said to Maggie’s back.

Maggie turned to her without breaking stride.

“I just hope you can,” she said.

When court resumed, Berg had a handful of questions for Drucker but she stayed away from the Ventura County arrest and did little more than some clarification work on the detective’s previous answers. In the meantime, Maggie went out into the hallway to tell Detective Rountree that he had driven a long way from Ventura for nothing, and to prep Art Schultz and bring him in when Drucker finally stepped down.

By prior agreement, Schultz was to be Maggie’s witness. I wanted her to play it like a prosecutor and use Schultz to bring out the details of the crime that I believed were at the heart of the case.

Schultz was a Trojan horse. He had been added to our witness list as a retired biologist with the Environmental Protection Agency who would discuss the material found beneath the victim’s fingernails. This was to make him appear inconsequential. The hope was that Berg’s investigators wouldn’t bother or would be stretched too thin with other case priorities to speak to him in advance of his testimony. That had worked and now he was going to take the stand, where Maggie would use him to plant the tent pole that would hold up the defense theory and case.

Schultz looked like he had retired early, possibly to move into a career as an expert witness on all things EPA-related. He was early to mid fifties, trim and fit, with a deep tan. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and a wedding band.

“Good morning, Mr. Schultz,” Maggie began. “Can we begin with you telling the jury who you are and what you do for a living?”

“I’m retired now but I spent thirty years with the Environmental Protection Agency,” Schultz said. “I was in the enforcement division and primarily worked in the West, my last office being in Salt Lake. I stayed there when I retired three years ago.”

“Are you a biologist by training?”

“Yes, I am. Have degrees from UNLV and the University of San Francisco.”

“And you were asked to analyze the material found under the fingernails of the victim in this case, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And what did you identify the material as?”

“I agreed with the findings of the medical examiner that is was a mixture of materials. There was chicken fat and vegetable oil. A small percentage of sugarcane. It was what we called feedstock. Restaurant grease is basically what it is.”

“When you say ‘we,’ Mr. Schultz, whom do you mean?”

“My colleagues in EPA enforcement.”

“And you dealt with feedstock — restaurant grease — in EPA enforcement?”

“Yes. I was assigned to enforcement of regulations regarding the EPA’s biofuel program. That program is about renewable fuel — recycling feedstock into biodiesel fuel. It is a program designed to reduce our national dependence on oil from the Middle East.”

“And so, why was there a need for enforcement?”

Berg stood and objected, spreading her hands and expressing her puzzlement at what this line of questioning had to do with the case at hand.

“Your Honor,” Maggie responded. “I’m asking for the court’s indulgence. It will become critically clear very soon what this has to do with the killing of Sam Scales.”

“Proceed, Ms. McPherson, but get there soon,” Warfield said. “The witness may answer the question.”

Maggie repeated the question. I had positioned myself so I could watch most of the jurors. So far no one appeared bored, but we were moving into a stage where the leaps between the steps of the defense case were getting wider. We needed their full attention and patience.

“Enforcement was needed because where there is money, there is always going to be fraud,” Schultz said.

“Are you talking about government money?” Maggie asked.

“Yes. Government subsidies.”

“How did that work? The fraud, I mean.”

“It’s a costly process. Waste fuel, feedstock, whatever you want to call it, has to be collected before it even gets to the refinery. You don’t pump it out of the ground like crude oil. It is collected through recycling centers, trucked to the refinery, then processed, sold, and shipped back out. To encourage the conversion of refineries to biofuel, the government started a subsidy program. Basically, the government pays the manufacturer two dollars a barrel for manufacturing biofuel.”

“What would that mean in terms of, say, a tanker truck full of renewable fuel?”

“A tanker truck carries about two hundred barrels. So that would be four hundred dollars paid to the refinery every time the truck leaves with its payload.”

“And that’s where the fraud is?”

“Yes. My last big case was in Ely, Nevada. A refinery up there. They were running a scheme, running the same oil in and out of the plant. They had a fleet of tankers that were going in and out with the same cargo. They would change the labeling only. In basic terms, it would say ‘feedstock’ coming in and ‘biodiesel’ going out. But it was the same stuff, and they were collecting four hundred dollars a pop. They were running twenty-five trucks and were taking a hundred thousand dollars a week off the government.”

“How long did that go on?”

“About two years before we got onto them. The U.S. government lost about nine million on the deal.”

“Were there arrests and a prosecution?”

“The FBI came into it and shut it down. There were arrests and people went to prison, but they never caught the main guy.”

“And who was that?”

“Unknown. The FBI told me it was run by the mob out of Vegas. They used somebody as a front to buy into the refinery and then the fraud started.”

“Did this scam have a name?”

“The scammers called it ‘bleeding the beast.’ ”

“Do you know why it was called that?”

“They said that the U.S. government was the beast. And it was so big and had so much money that it would never notice what was being bled off in the scam.”

Berg stood again.

“Objection, Your Honor,” she said. “This is an interesting story, but how does it tie into Sam Scales being found shot to death in the defendant’s garage and then found in the trunk of the defendant’s car?”

I had to admire Berg for mentioning the two key elements of her case in her objection, reminding the jurors to keep their eyes on the prize.

“That is the question, Ms. McPherson,” Warfield said. “I have to admit I am growing a bit weary, waiting for things to connect here.”

“Your Honor, just a few more questions and we will be there,” Maggie said.

“Very well,” Warfield said. “Proceed.”

I heard the soft bump of the courtroom door closing and turned to check the gallery. Agent Ruth was gone. I guessed that she knew what at least one of the two last questions to Schultz was going to be.

“Mr. Schultz, you called this the last big case you were involved in,” Maggie said. “When was it?”

“Well,” Schultz said, after pausing to remember the details, “as far as we know, the fraud started in 2015, and we caught on and closed it down two years later. The prosecutions of some of the lower-level players came after I retired.”

“Okay, and you said that when the fraud was discovered, you notified the FBI. Correct?”

“Yes, the FBI took it over.”

“Do you remember the names of the case agents who handled the investigation?”

“There were a lot of agents but the two they put in charge of it were from here in L.A. Their names were Rick Aiello and Dawn Ruth.”

“And did they tell you the case you were involved in was unique?”

“No, they said it was happening at refineries all over the country.”

“Thank you, Mr. Schultz. I have no further questions.”

49

The testimony from Art Schultz was key to our case, but more than anything, it was his last few answers that really put us in play. The mention of the FBI agents by name gave us some leverage and we intended to use it. With Opparizio dead, it might be my only way to an NG.

While I watched Dana Berg complete a perfunctory cross-examination of the retired EPA biologist, Maggie McFierce went out into the hallway with her laptop to compose a court order that we would submit to the judge for consideration. She was back by the time Berg was finished with Schultz. I stood and said the defense needed to address the judge outside the presence of the jury and the media. Judge Warfield considered the request, then reluctantly sent the jurors off to an early lunch and invited the lawyers to her chambers.

As usual, because of my custody status, Deputy Chan came into chambers with us and positioned himself by the door.

“Judge,” I said while we were still choosing seats and sitting down. “Can I ask that Deputy Chan be posted outside the door? Nothing personal with him, but what we are going to discuss here is pretty sensitive.”

The judge stared at me for a long moment. I knew she didn’t have to be reminded of the investigation that was instigated by this court into illegal eavesdropping and intel-gathering activities by Chan’s department. But before she could speak, Berg objected to my request.

“It’s a safety issue, Your Honor,” she said. “Mr. Haller might be in his finest suit but he is still in custody and charged with murder. I don’t think there should be any time that he is not under the supervision and control of the Sheriff’s Department. I personally am not comfortable with the deputy outside the room.”

I shook my head.

“She still thinks I want to escape,” I said. “I’m two days away from notching a not-guilty on this case and she thinks I’m planning to flee. Shows how clueless she is.”

The judge held up her hand to stop me from going on.

“Mr. Haller, you should know by now that personal attacks will get you nowhere in my court,” she said. “And that includes my chambers. Deputy Chan has been assigned to my courtroom for four years. I trust him completely. He stays, and what you say here will not be leaked or distributed other than through the official record.”

She nodded to the court reporter, who was at her usual spot in the corner with her stool and steno machine.

“Now,” Warfield continued. “What are we doing here?”

I nodded to Maggie.

“Judge,” she said, “I just wrote and sent an order to your clerk for your signature. It’s a petition for a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum, ordering one of the FBI agents just named in court to appear and give testimony.”

“Hold on,” Warfield said.

She picked up her desk phone, called her clerk, and told him to download and print three copies of Maggie’s order and bring them to chambers. She then hung up and told Maggie to continue.

“Judge, we want you to order FBI agent Dawn Ruth to appear in court to give testimony,” Maggie said.

“Didn’t I sign a subpoena for the FBI a month ago?” the judge asked.

“And they ignored it as the federal government can and is wont to do,” Maggie said. “Standard operating procedure at the fed. That’s why we want you to issue the writ. It will be difficult for the U.S. Attorney and Agent Ruth to ignore you, especially if the writ should go to warrant.”

This last part was a hint. Should the judge issue the writ, she could give it some teeth. The U.S. Attorney could ignore it or tell Agent Ruth not to respond to it. But if failure to comply resulted in an arrest warrant, then Agent Ruth and the U.S. Attorney would be vulnerable to being taken into custody as soon as they strayed outside the federal building and onto territory where Judge Warfield held jurisdiction. It would be a bold move, but Maggie and I had guessed that Warfield was the kind of judge who would be up for it.

“The People object,” Berg said. “This is all part of a carefully orchestrated attempt to distract the jury from the evidence. This is Haller’s specialty, Your Honor. He does it in every case, every trial. It’s not going to work here, because it’s a con. Call it the ‘bleeding the beast’ con. But it has nothing — nothing — to do with the evidence.”

“This is not a distraction, Judge,” I said, cutting in before anyone else could speak. “Agents Rick Aiello and Dawn Ruth were just named by a witness in front of the jury. Agent Ruth was in the courtroom before that, keeping tabs on this case. Every one of those jurors—”

“Wait just a second, Mr. Haller,” Warfield said. “You know Agent Ruth by sight?”

“Yes,” I said. “She and Aiello confronted me at my house when my team started digging into this. They are the agents who went to Ventura County to take Sam Scales off the hands of the Sheriff’s Department up there.”

That was just an educated guess on my part, but it seemed logical, since I was sure the leaked arrest report had come from Ruth. I pressed on.

“We now have Ruth’s and Aiello’s names on the record and out in front of the jury,” I said. “They are expecting to hear from at least one of them, and the defense is entitled to their testimony.”

“They also have the name Louis Opparizio,” Berg said. “Are we going to see him?”

I turned to look at Berg. She had a smirk on her face. It was a slip. She obviously would have known that Opparizio was on our witness list and that Warfield had signed a defense subpoena for him. But to already know that Opparizio was dead was a major tell. It meant that the prosecution had been tracking Opparizio to a greater extent than I had thought. It also meant that Berg had been lying in wait and was ready to make a move to prevent his appearance or to neutralize him if he was allowed to testify. Her slip of the tongue had allowed me a glimpse behind the curtain.

All of this apparently passed by Maggie in the heat of the moment and she pressed on with her argument.

“Your Honor,” she said, “it is your obligation to ensure that the defendant has a fair trial. That can’t happen here without the testimony of the FBI. This is the whole case. The only alternative is to dismiss the charge.”

“Yeah, right,” Berg said sarcastically. “That’s not happening. Judge, you can’t do this. This is a giant distraction. They just want to put the FBI out there to draw the jury away from the truth. You can’t—”

“You don’t speak for the court, Ms. Berg,” Warfield said. “Let me ask the obvious question here. The agents were referenced in testimony regarding a three-year-old fraud case in Nevada. Where is the relevancy to this case?”

“They told Schultz that this was happening all over the country,” Maggie said.

“The defense will show through the agent’s testimony and other evidence that the Nevada case is more than relevant to the murder of Sam Scales,” I added. “We will show that Sam Scales was involved in a copycat scheme at BioGreen at the Port of Los Angeles.”

“But Detective Drucker testified that he could not confirm that Sam Scales even worked there,” Warfield said.

“That’s exactly why we need Agent Ruth to testify,” I said. “She can confirm it, because she’s the one who sent him in there as an informant. He was working for them and that’s what got him killed.”

I noticed that Maggie had turned in her seat and was looking at me. I knew I was revealing more than I should, and promising more than I could deliver. But I instinctively felt that this was the key moment of the case. I needed to get Agent Ruth on the stand and was willing at this point to say anything to get her there.

“Your Honor,” Maggie said. “It’s a third-party-culpability case and getting Agent Ruth to testify is how we get there.”

Berg shook her head.

“You can’t be seriously considering this,” she said. “This is as thin as a spider’s web. You can see right through it. There is nothing here but conjecture. No evidence, no testimony that remotely links whatever is going on at BioGreen with the murder of Sam Scales in his garage!”

She punctuated her objection with a finger pointed at me.

There was a pause while Warfield considered all arguments, and then she ruled.

“Thank you for your arguments,” she said. “I’m going to sign the writ ordering Agent Ruth to appear at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. This time I will transmit it to the U.S. Attorney and I will remind him that he has to leave the building at the end of the day, and when he does, he’s on my turf. Additionally, I will tell him that this case has garnered a lot of media attention and I can guarantee that the reporters in the courtroom tomorrow will hear my thoughts on the FBI and the U.S. Attorney if they do not comply.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Maggie said.

“Judge, the People still object to this,” Berg said.

“Your objection was overruled,” Warfield said. “Do you have something else?”

“Yes, a running objection,” Berg said. “With all due respect, since the start of this trial, the court has continuously ruled in a way that has been prejudicial to the People.”

That brought a stunned silence to the room. Berg was accusing the judge of shucking her impartiality and favoring the defense with her rulings. As a jurist who came out of the defense bar, Warfield would be particularly sensitive to such a charge. Berg was baiting Warfield into an outburst that might prove the objection.

But the judge seemed to compose herself before responding.

“Your running objection is noted but overruled,” she said calmly. “If counsel’s statement is intended to try to inflame or intimidate the court, be assured that you have failed in the effort and that the court will continue to make rulings impartially and independently based on the law and applied to the case.”

Warfield paused there to see if Berg had another comeback, but the prosecutor remained silent.

“Now, is there any other business to discuss?” Warfield asked. “I would like to get this order out and then have some lunch.”

“Your Honor,” Maggie said, “we have lost our main witness for today and—”

“And who was that?” Warfield asked.

“Louis Opparizio,” Maggie said.

“Was the subpoena delivered?” Warfield asked.

“Yes, it was,” Maggie said.

“Then why isn’t he here?” Warfield asked.

“He was murdered,” Maggie said. “His body was found yesterday.”

“What?” the judge yelped.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “In Arizona.”

“And does this have anything to do with this case?” Warfield asked.

“We think so, Your Honor,” Maggie said.

“Which is why you need the FBI to come in and testify,” Warfield said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Maggie said. “And other than Opparizio, we had only one other witness scheduled for today — Detective Rountree, whom you disallowed.”

“Are you saying you have no other witnesses to your case?” Warfield asked.

“We have only one: Mr. Haller,” Maggie said. “And we don’t want him to testify until after we possibly hear from the FBI and Agent Ruth. He would be our last witness.”

Warfield looked pained. She clearly didn’t want to lose the afternoon.

“I seem to recall more names on your witness list,” she said.

“That is true but the course of the trial has dictated changes to our strategy,” I said. “We’ve dropped some witnesses just this morning. We had a toxicology expert good to go today but Detective Drucker and the deputy medical examiner already covered the same ground. We had the landlord on subpoena but Detective Drucker covered her information as well.”

“I seem to recall you had a bartender on your list,” Warfield said.

I hesitated. We had described Moira Benson on the witness list as someone who would testify to my not drinking at the NG celebration and being totally sober when I left it. But that had been a disguise to hide the real value of her testimony. What she had actually been going to tell the jury was that she had gotten a phone call at the Redwood on the night of the party, and an anonymous caller had asked whether I had left yet. At the time, I had paid the tab and was moving toward the door, slowed by handshakes and thank-yous from the well-wishers who had gotten their nightly alcohol intake on me. She told the caller I was heading to the door. Under the defense theory, that call resulted in a text to Milton, alerting him that I was leaving. But now, with the cell records we had received, we couldn’t complete the one-two punch the defense had hoped for. It didn’t mean it didn’t happen that way. The cell records could have been doctored, or Milton could have gotten a text on a burner. But we couldn’t move the supposition from theory to fact and I couldn’t put the bartender on the stand.

“Her testimony is also unneeded based on recent records we acquired,” I said.

The judge thought for a moment and decided not to inquire any further about the bartender.

“So, all you have left is the FBI, which we don’t know about, and Mr. Haller,” she said.

“And it would really change our strategy if he had to testify before we heard from Agent Ruth,” Maggie said.

“If we hear from Agent Ruth,” Warfield said.

“Judge, this is ridiculous,” Berg said. “They had no strategy. This whole thing about Ruth came up today.”

“Counsel is wrong,” Maggie said. “The FBI has been on our radar from the start. And we always planned to end with Mr. Haller’s forceful denial of the charge. We would like to keep it that way.”

“Very well,” Warfield said. “I’m going to let the jury go for the day. Hopefully tomorrow we will hear from the FBI and then the defendant. Either way, you would all be advised to use the time we are not in session this afternoon to work on closing arguments. You may be giving them tomorrow afternoon.”

“Judge, we will be introducing evidence in rebuttal,” Berg said. “And possibly a witness, depending on tomorrow’s testimony.”

“That will be your prerogative,” Warfield said.

I noticed that Berg had stopped addressing Warfield as Your Honor. I wondered if the judge noticed too.

“I think we are done here,” Warfield said. “I will see everyone back in court at one o’clock, when I will dismiss the jury.”

Moving back to the courtroom through the hallway outside the judge’s chambers, I walked up behind Berg, who was leading the way this time.

“You knew Opparizio was dead before we went in there,” I said. “If it was all just a choreographed attempt to distract the jury, why were you so on top of him?”

“Because I can see you coming from a mile away, Haller,” Berg responded. “And we were ready for Opparizio, dead or alive. You obviously were not.”

She kept walking at speed and I slowed down so Maggie could catch up.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just more bullshit. So, what do you think our chances are with the writ?”

“Getting an agent on the stand?” Maggie said. “Somewhere between zero and zero. I think this is going to come down to you up there and winning the jury over. So be ready and be at your best.”

We walked in silence after that. I knew that whatever the risks were that lay ahead, they were all on me.

50

With the jury sent home and the courtroom dark, Maggie McPherson and I were allowed to work in the attorney-client room in courtside holding until it was time for my private shuttle back to Twin Towers.

We got a lot done. Rather than focus, as the judge had suggested, on a closing argument, we worked on questions for the final two witnesses — Special Agent Dawn Ruth and me. And this was most critical with Agent Ruth because it was the questions that would most likely contain the information we wanted to get to the jury. We anticipated that if we were lucky enough to get Ruth on the stand, she would at best be a reluctant witness. We wouldn’t ask, Was Sam Scales an FBI informant? We would ask, How long was Sam Scales an FBI informant? That way, the jurors would get the information we needed them to hear, whether or not the actual questions were answered.

It was agreed that I would question Ruth — if she responded to the judge’s writ — and Maggie would, of course, question me. She convinced me during the work session that I had to testify. Once past that hurdle, I embraced the idea and started thinking about the questions and answers we were composing together.

I stayed in my suit as we worked, not wanting to spend that time with Maggie in prisoner’s garb. It was a little thing, and she probably didn’t even care, but I did. Besides our daughter, she had always been the most important woman in my life, and I cared what she thought of me.

I knew there was a camera on us the whole time and touching was forbidden, but at one point I couldn’t help myself. I reached across the table and put my hand on hers as she was trying to write down one of the questions she would ask me the next day.

“Maggie, thank you,” I said. “No matter what happens, you were here for me and it has meant more than you’ll ever know.”

“Well,” she said. “Let’s get the NG — as you like to call it — and everything will be all right.”

I withdrew my hand but it was too late. A voice came from the speaker box next to the camera and told me not to touch her again. I acted like I didn’t even hear it.

“Still thinking about going back to the D.A.’s Office after this?” I asked. “Now that you’ve seen behind the curtain of high-stakes defense work?”

I was smiling good-naturedly, wanting to take a small break.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sure the bosses are getting a steady diet of complaints about me from Dana. The well may be poisoned — especially when we win. Maybe I could get used to sticking it to the man.”

She said it with full sarcasm. But she smiled and I smiled back.

At 4 p.m. I got a fifteen-minute heads-up from Deputy Chan that I was being moved to the shuttle and I had to lose the suit. Maggie said she was going to go.

“When you get out of here, call Cisco,” I told her. “Get a copy of the video with the room-service guy in Arizona and bring it to court tomorrow. We might need it.”

“Good idea,” she said.

Twenty minutes later I was in the back of a cruiser being driven to Twin Towers by Deputy Pressley. He took the normal route from the courthouse, crossing the 101 freeway on Main Street and dropping down Cesar Chavez Avenue to Vignes Street.

But at Vignes, instead of turning left toward Bauchet Street and the jail, he turned right.

“Pressley, what’s up?” I said. “Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer.

“Pressley,” I repeated. “What’s going on?”

“Just calm down,” Pressley said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

But his answer didn’t calm me. Instead, high concern gripped me. The stories about sheriff’s deputies committing or orchestrating atrocities in the jails had permeated the local justice system. Nothing was unimaginable. But fact or fiction, the stories all took place inside the jail, where the situations were controlled and unseen by outside witnesses. Pressley was taking me away from the jail and we were driving behind the Union Station railway complex, bouncing over tracks and entering a maintenance yard where the workers had punched out at five sharp.

“Pressley, come on, man,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. I thought we had an understanding. You told me to watch my back. Why are you doing this?”

I was leaning forward as far as the seat belt and the cuff lock between my legs would allow me. I saw a slight smile crack across his face and I realized he had played me. He wasn’t a sympathizer. He was one of them.

“Who put you up to this, Pressley?” I demanded. “Was it Berg? Who?”

Again, only silence from my abductor. Pressley pulled the car into an open work bay covered with a corrugated and rusted metal roof. He then hit the release on the rear door locks and got out of the car.

I tracked him as he walked around the front of the car. But he stopped there and looked back at me through the windshield. I was puzzled. Was he going to pull me out, or what?

The rear door across from me opened and I turned to see Special Agent Dawn Ruth slide onto the plastic seat next to me.

“Agent Ruth,” I blurted out. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Calm down, Haller,” she said. “I’m here to talk.”

I turned and looked through the windshield again at Pressley. I realized I had read him completely wrong just now.

“And I should ask you the same question,” Ruth said. “What the fuck is going on?”

I looked back at her, regaining some of my composure and cool.

“You know what’s going on,” I said. “What do you want?”

“First of all, this conversation didn’t happen,” she said. “If at any time you try to say it did, I will have four agents ready to alibi me and you will look like a liar.”

“Fine. What exactly is the conversation?”

“Your judge is out of control. Ordering me to appear to testify? That’s not going to happen.”

“Fine, don’t show up. Then you can read about it in the Times. But if you ask me, that’s no way to keep an investigation under wraps.”

“And you think testifying in open court is?”

“Look, if you cooperate, we can choreograph your testimony. We can protect what you need to protect. But I need to get on the record that Sam Scales was an informant and Louis Opparizio found out and had him whacked.”

“Even if that’s not what happened?”

I looked at her for a long moment before responding.

“If that’s not what happened, then what did?” I finally asked.

“Think about it,” she said. “If Opparizio thought Sam was an informant, would he still go on running the scam at BioGreen? Or would he have killed Sam and closed up shop?”

“Okay, so you’re saying the scam’s been ongoing — even after Sam got killed. So the bureau’s operation is also ongoing.”

I tried to put it together but couldn’t.

“Why was Sam killed?” I asked.

“You probably knew him better than anybody,” Ruth said. “Why do you think?”

It clicked.

“He was running his own scam,” I said. “On the bureau and Opparizio. What was it?”

Ruth hesitated. She was steeped in a culture that never gave away secrets. But now was the time — in a conversation that would and could be denied.

“He was running a skim,” Ruth said. “We found out after he was dead. He secretly started his own oil distro company. Incorporated, registered with the government. He was running tankers back and forth to the port, but half the subsidies were going to him.”

I nodded. The story was easy to pick up from there.

“Opparizio found out and had to whack him,” I said. “He didn’t want an investigation to come to BioGreen and he saw an opportunity to settle a score with me.”

“And I’m not going to testify to any of this,” she said.

“There’s no reason not to. Opparizio is dead, in case you didn’t hear.”

“You think Opparizio was in charge of this? You think he was the target? He was running one operation. We’re watching six refineries in four states. Ongoing operations. Opparizio wasn’t giving the orders, he was following them. And that’s why it was easy for them to decide he had to go. His freelancing vendetta with you showed poor business judgment and that’s not tolerated by these people. At all. You think he snuck off to Arizona to avoid a subpoena? Don’t be silly. He was hiding from them, not you.”

“You were watching him too?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Through the windshield I could see Pressley pacing in front of the car. I had a feeling that we were on a clock. This was an unsanctioned stop.

“Does he work for you, too?” I asked. “Pressley? Or do you have something on him?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Ruth said.

My thoughts returned to my own situation.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I said. “Sacrifice myself? Take a conviction so your case goes on? That’s crazy. You’re crazy if you think I’ll do that.”

“We had hoped that our investigation would be at the arrest phase before your case even made it to court,” she said. “We would then square it. But that didn’t happen — you refused to delay the case. A lot of things that were supposed to happen didn’t.”

“No fucking kidding. Let me ask you one thing. Were you watching when they killed Sam? Did you guys just let it happen — to protect your case?”

“We would never let something like that happen. Especially just to protect a case. They grabbed him inside the refinery. We had nobody else inside. We didn’t know he was dead until the LAPD ran his prints after finding his body in your trunk.”

Through the windshield, I saw Pressley start signaling to Ruth. He pointed to his watch and then twirled a finger in the air. He was telling her to wrap it up. When we were crossing the 101 earlier, he had used the cruiser’s radio to report that he was moving his prisoner to Twin Towers. It wouldn’t be long before they noticed we had not arrived.

“So, why didn’t you just go to the LAPD or the D.A.’s Office and lay this all out?” I asked. “You could have told them just to back off of me, and none of this would have happened.”

“That would have been a little difficult to do with Sam being found in your trunk in your garage and the media storm that followed,” Ruth said. “This whole thing has been an unavoidable clusterfuck from the start.”

“And you ended up with a guilty conscience. That’s why you slipped the Ventura arrest report under my door.”

“I’m not saying I did that.”

“You don’t have to. But thank you.”

Ruth opened her door.

“So, what happens tomorrow?” I asked.

She looked back at me.

“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s out of my hands, that’s for sure.” She exited and closed the door, then walked off to the rear and I didn’t bother to turn to watch her go. Pressley quickly got in behind the wheel. He backed out of the work bay and headed out of the yard the way we had come in.

“Sorry, Pressley,” I said. “I panicked before and read you wrong.”

“Not the first time that’s been done,” he said.

“You an agent or just working with them?”

“Think I’d tell you?”

“Probably not.”

“So, if anything comes up at the Towers about us being late, I’m going to say I pulled over because you were getting sick.”

I nodded.

“I’ll back that up,” I said.

“They won’t even ask you,” he said.

We were back on Vignes Street. Through the windshield I could see Twin Towers up ahead.

51

Thursday, February 27

In the morning they woke me early and put me in the escort cruiser before eight o’clock. No one at the jail told me why.

“Pressley, you know why I’m going over so early?” I asked. “Court won’t even be open for an hour.”

“Not a clue,” Pressley said. “They just told me to get you there.”

“Any fallout from the little detour home last night?”

“What detour?”

I nodded and looked out the window. I hoped that whatever this was, Maggie McPherson had been alerted.

When we got to the courthouse, I was passed off to a runner who took me into the lockdown elevator and used a key to operate it. That was when I began to fill in the blanks. I was usually taken to the ninth floor, where Judge Warfield’s courtroom was located. The runner turned the key next to the button for the eighteenth floor. Every trial lawyer in the city knew that the main District Attorney’s Office was located on the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building.

Off the elevator I was ushered into a locked interview room that I assumed was used to interview criminal suspects when they agreed to cooperate. It was not a good practice to let agreements like that sit. People change their minds — both criminal suspects and lawyers. If somebody facing a tough charge or a tough sentence makes the quiet offer in court to provide substantial assistance to authorities, you don’t set up an appointment for the next day. You take them upstairs and extract whatever information there is to extract. And it happened in the room that I was now sitting in.

Handcuffed to a waist chain and still in my blues, I sat in the room alone for fifteen minutes before I started staring up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling and yelling that I wanted to see my lawyer.

This drew no response for another five minutes and then the door opened and the runner was there. He escorted me down a hall and through a door. I entered what looked like a boardroom — most likely where policy was set and prosecutors and supervisors discussed big cases. Ten tall-back chairs stood around a large oval table, and most of them were occupied. I was led to an open seat next to Maggie McPherson. I either recognized most of the people gathered around the table or could guess who they were. On one side sat Dana Berg, along with her bow-tied second, as well as John “Big John” Kelly, the District Attorney, and Matthew Scallan, who I knew to be Berg’s boss and head of the Major Crimes Unit. In that capacity he had also formerly been Maggie’s boss until they moved her to the Environmental Protection Unit.

Lined up across the table from the state prosecutors were the feds. I saw Agent Ruth and her partner, Rick Aiello, along with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, Wilson Corbett, and another man whom I did not recognize but assumed was a midlevel prosecutor most likely overseeing the BioGreen investigation.

“Mr. Haller, welcome,” Kelly said. “How are you today?”

I looked at Maggie before answering and she gave a slight shake of her head. It was enough for me to understand that she did not know what this was about either.

“I just spent another night in your wonderful accommodations at Twin Towers,” I said. “How do you think I feel, Big John?”

Kelly nodded like he knew that would be my response.

“Well, we think we have some good news for you, then,” Kelly said. “If we can come to an agreement on some things here, we’re going to drop the case against you. You could sleep in your own bed tonight. How would that be?”

I took a scan of the faces in the room, beginning with Maggie’s. She looked surprised. Dana Berg looked mortified, and Rick Aiello looked the way he did the last time I had seen him on my front porch: angry.

“Dismissed?” I asked. “A jury has been sworn in. Jeopardy has attached.”

Kelly nodded.

“Correct,” he said. “You cannot be retried under the double jeopardy clause. No do-overs. It’s done. Over.”

“And what are the things we would have to come to an agreement on?” I asked.

“I’ll let Mr. Corbett take that one,” Kelly said.

I knew little about Corbett other than that he’d had no experience as a prosecutor before being appointed U.S. Attorney by the current president.

“We have a situation,” he said. “We have an ongoing investigation that reaches far deeper than you know. It doesn’t end with Louis Opparizio. But to expose even a small part of it in a court case would imperil the larger case. We need you to agree to be silent until the larger case is completed and adjudicated.”

“And when will that be?” Maggie asked.

“We don’t know,” Corbett said. “It is ongoing. That is all I can tell you.”

“So, how would this work?” I asked. “Charges are just dropped without explanation?”

Kelly took back the floor. I was staring at Dana Berg as he spoke. “We would move to dismiss the charges as contrary to the public interest,” he said. “We will state that the District Attorney’s Office has come into information and evidence that casts grave doubt on the validity and justice of our case. What that information and evidence is will remain confidential as part of an ongoing investigation.”

“That’s it?” I said. “That’s all you say? What about her? What does Dana say? She’s been calling me a murderer for four months.”

“We want to draw as little attention to this as possible,” Kelly said. “We can’t grandstand this and still protect the federal investigation.”

Berg was staring down at the table in front of her. I could tell she was not down with this plan. She was a true believer in her case until the end.

“So, that’s the deal?” I said. “Charges dropped but I can never say why, and you people never say you were wrong?”

No one responded.

“You think you’re making an accommodation,” I said. “You think this is a deal where you let a murderer walk for the greater good.”

“We’re not passing judgment,” Kelly said. “We know you have information that could be detrimental to the greater good should it come out.”

I pointed to Dana Berg.

“She is,” I said. “She passed judgment when she put me in jail. She thinks I killed Sam Scales. You all do.”

“You don’t know what I think, Haller,” Berg said.

“I pass,” I said.

“What?” Kelly said.

Maggie put her hand on my arm to try to stop me.

“I said, I pass,” I responded. “Take me down to court. I’ll take my chances with the jury. I get a not-guilty from them, and I’m clean and clear. And I can tell the whole world how I was set up right under the FBI’s nose and then railroaded by the D.A.’s Office. I like that deal better.”

I used my legs to start pushing my chair back and turned to look for the deputy who had brought me in.

“What do you want, Haller?” Corbett asked.

I looked back at him.

“What do I want?” I said. “I want my innocence back. I want it said that your new information and evidence clearly exonerates me of this charge. I want either you, Big John, or Dana to say that. First in a motion to the court, then to the judge in open court, and then I want it at the press conference on the courthouse steps. If you can’t give me that, then I’ll get it from the jury and we have nothing to talk about.”

Kelly looked across the table at his federal counterpart. I saw the nod and the transmission of approval.

“I think we can accommodate that,” Kelly said.

Berg leaned back abruptly as though she had been slapped across the face.

“Good,” I said. “Because that’s not all.”

“Jesus Christ,” Aiello said.

“I want two more things,” I said, ignoring Aiello and looking directly at Kelly. “I want no backlash on my co-counsel. She goes back to work for you after this. No pay cut, no job change.”

“That was already going to be the case,” Kelly said. “Maggie is one of our best and—”

“Great,” I said. “Then it won’t be a problem for you to put it in writing.”

“Michael,” Maggie said. “I don’t—”

“No, I want it in writing,” I said. “I want all of this in writing.”

Kelly slowly nodded.

“You’ll get it in writing,” he said. “What’s the second thing?”

“Well, I think we made a convincing case in court that Officer Roy Milton was waiting for me that night four months ago,” I said. “His story about the missing license plate is bullshit. I was framed for this, and then I was beaten and nearly killed while my name and reputation were repeatedly dragged through the mud. The LAPD will never investigate this, but you have a Public Integrity Unit. I will be filing a complaint and I don’t want it mothballed. I want it investigated to a conclusion. This could not have gone down without inside help, and Milton is the starting point. I’m sure there is a link somewhere to Opparizio — I’d start with his lawyers — and I want to know what that link is.”

“We’ll open a file,” Kelly said. “We’ll investigate in good faith.”

“Then I think we’re good,” I said.

Berg shook her head at my list of demands. Maggie saw me focusing on Berg and put her hand on my arm again, hoping to hold me back. But it was my moment and I couldn’t let it pass.

“Dana, I know you’ll never believe this was a frame,” I said. “A lot of people won’t. But maybe someday when the feds run this investigation out to the end, they’ll take the time to show you where you and the LAPD went wrong.”

For the first time, Berg turned and looked at me.

“Fuck you, Haller,” she said. “You are scum and no deal you make will ever change that. I’ll see you in the courtroom. I want to get this over with as soon as possible.”

She got up from her seat then and left the room. There was a long silence. I spent most of it with my attention on Agent Ruth. I wanted to help her but I didn’t want to throw her under the bus for having helped me.

“Are we finished here?” Corbett asked, putting his hands on the arms of his chair and pausing before pushing himself up.

“I have something for the agents,” I said.

“We don’t want anything from you,” Aiello said.

I nodded to Maggie.

“We have a video,” I said. “It’s got your killer on it. The man who killed Opparizio and snuck his body out of the hotel in Scottsdale. We’ll get it to you. Maybe it will help.”

“Don’t bother,” Aiello said. “We don’t want your help.”

“No,” Ruth said. “We’ll take it. Thank you.”

She looked at me and nodded. I could tell her words were sincere and that at least one person in the room did not believe they were setting free a murderer.

52

An hour later I was in my suit and stood in the courtroom before Judge Warfield. She had dismissed the jury but said they could stay if they wanted to and they all did. Dana Berg had, in a reluctant but carefully worded statement, reported to the court that new evidence of a confidential nature had come to light that exonerated me of the charges. She said the District Attorney’s Office was withdrawing the charge with prejudice and would expunge my arrest record.

Maggie McPherson stood next to me while my daughter and the members of my team stood behind me. Despite an admonishment from the judge to contain emotions, people in the courtroom clapped as the prosecutor finished her announcement. I looked over to the jury box and saw that the Hollywood Bowl chef was one of them. I nodded. I’d had her down correctly on my scorecard.

Now it was the judge’s turn.

“Mr. Haller,” Judge Warfield said. “A grave injustice has been committed against you and it is the court’s sincere hope that you can recover from this and continue your career as an officer of the court and defender of the rights of those who stand accused. Now that you have had this experience yourself, perhaps you will be better suited to serve in this capacity. I wish you all the best, sir. You are free to go.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.

My voice cracked as I said it. The magnitude of what had happened in the last two hours had left me shaking in my suit.

I turned and put my arms around Maggie, then reached back to my daughter. Soon the three of us were in a single embrace with the courtroom railing awkwardly between daughter and parents. I followed this with handshakes and smiles with Cisco and Bosch. I said nothing, because words were hard. I knew that would all come later.

53

Friday, February 28

We waited a day before hosting a celebration at the Redwood. By then the word had gotten out through press conferences and the media that I had been cleared of all charges and exonerated. It seemed appropriate to gather in the place where all the upheaval in my life had started. There were no invitations and no guest list. It was an open invitation to the courthouse set — with Lorna’s company credit card held at the bar for the tab.

It got crowded quickly but I had made sure that the defense team got the big round table in the back reserved just for us. I sat there like a godfather in a mob flick, surrounded by my capos and receiving the well-wishes and handshakes of those who had come to the party to celebrate a rare win for the defense.

The drinks were flowing, though I maintained my sobriety, drinking orange juice on the rocks with a few maraschino cherries thrown in for style. Moira, the bartender, relieved at not having had to testify, was calling the concoction the Sticky Mickey, and it caught on, though most of the others in the bar were taking theirs with a couple shots of vodka in the mix.

I sat between my two ex-wives, Maggie McFierce to my left and our daughter next to her, Lorna on my right followed by Cisco. Harry Bosch was directly across the table from me. For the most part I was quiet, just taking it all in and occasionally holding my drink up to clink glasses with a friend leaning over Bosch’s shoulder to say well done.

“You okay?” Maggie whispered to me at one point.

“Yeah, I’m great,” I said. “Just getting used to it being over, you know?”

“You should go away. Go somewhere and clear your mind of all of this.”

“Yeah. I was thinking of going out to Catalina for a few days. They just reopened the Zane Grey and it’s really nice.”

“You’ve been there already?”

“Uh, online.”

“I wonder if they still have that room with the fireplace we used to get.”

I thought about that — the memory of when we were together and we’d go to Catalina for weekend getaways. There was a good chance that our daughter had been conceived there. Had I ruined the memory by taking Kendall there?

“You could come with me, you know,” I said.

Maggie smiled and I saw the shine I remembered so well in her dark eyes.

“Maybe,” she said.

That was good enough for me. I smiled as I looked out at the crowd. They were all there for the free booze. But also for me. I realized I had forgotten about Bishop. I should have invited him.

I then noticed that Cisco and Bosch had their heads together and were talking in serious tones.

“Hey,” I said. “What?”

“Just talking about Opparizio,” Cisco said.

“What about him?” I asked.

“You know, why they hit him,” Cisco said. “Harry says they had to.”

I looked at Bosch and tilted my head back. I wanted to hear his take. I had told no one about my conversation with Agent Ruth in the back of Deputy Pressley’s cruiser.

Bosch leaned as much as he could across the table. It was loud in the bar and not the proper setting for yelling murder theories out loud.

“He let personal business get in the way of the real business,” Bosch said. “He should have taken care of Scales cleanly. Whacked him, buried him, put him in an oil barrel and dropped it in the channel. Anything but what he did. He used the situation — whatever it was — to try to settle an old score with you. That was his mistake and it made him vulnerable. He had to go, and the thing is, he knew it. I don’t think he was out in Arizona hiding from you and a subpoena. He was hiding from a bullet.”

I nodded. The former homicide detective was very close.

“You think they found him through us?” I asked. “Followed us out there to him?”

“You mean followed me,” Cisco said.

“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “I sent you out there.”

“About Opparizio?” Cisco said. “I don’t feel a thing about that guy.”

“It could’ve been the way,” Bosch said. “He could have made a slip himself. Told his girlfriend or somebody. Made a call.”

I shook my head.

“That room-service trick,” I said. “That tells me the hitter knew we were there watching him. I think they used us to get to him.”

I thought of the video the Indians had taken and that I had turned over to Agent Ruth. The room-service hit man was white, maybe forty years old, with thinning red hair. He didn’t look menacing. He looked nondescript. He looked like he belonged in the red room-service jacket he had used to bluff his way into Opparizio’s room.

“Well, too bad,” Maggie said. “He tried to pin a murder rap on you, Mickey. Just like Cisco, I have a hard time coming up with any sympathy for Louis Opparizio.”

The conversation shifted to speculation about who the federal target was and most agreed it was probably a corporate mobster, someone from the Las Vegas casino world who had been backing the biofuel play. But all of that was above our pay grade. I could only hope that one day Agent Ruth would call me and say, “We got him.” Then I would know the identity of the man ultimately responsible for almost destroying my life.

Soon I was back to just enjoying the moment and watching the people in the bar. Eventually my eyes fell on a woman standing at the bar and I excused myself from the table to join her.

“Have you tried the Sticky Mickey?” I asked.

Jennifer Aronson turned and saw it was me. A broad smile broke across her face. She pulled me into a hug and held me.

“Congratulations!”

“Thank you! When did you get back?”

“Today. As soon as I heard, I knew I had to get back here for this.”

“Once again, I’m sorry about your father.”

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“How did everything go afterward?”

“It was all right. I ended up being nursemaid to my sister, who got sick.”

“But you’re okay?”

“I feel fine. But enough about me. Cisco told me that Maggie is a natural-born defense lawyer. That true?”

“Yeah, she was great. But it’s not going to stick. She’s going back to the D.A.”

“She’s a lifer, I guess.”

“And you know, you did all the groundwork, Bullocks. I wouldn’t be standing here free if you hadn’t been there for me.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“It’s true. Come sit at the table with us. The team’s all there.”

“I will, I will. I just want to move around a little bit, say some hellos. So many people are here from the courts.”

I watched her push through the crowd and start giving friends hugs and high fives. I stepped back toward the bar so I could lean my back against it and take in the whole scene. I looked across the room and realized that few of those in front of me were truly celebrating that I was innocent and had defeated the forces against me. Most of them simply believed I had beaten the case, that I was not guilty by the legal standard, which didn’t at all mean I was innocent.

It was a moment that seared me. I knew then how I would always be looked at in the courtroom, in the courthouse, in the city.

I turned toward the bar and saw Moira.

“Can I get you something, Mick?” she asked.

I hesitated. I looked at all the bottles lined against the mirror at the back of the bar.

“No,” I finally said. “I think I’m fine.”