Two Kinds of Truth

36

Bosch got to Union Station by 8:15 Wednesday morning. He parked in the short-term lot in front and went inside to wait for his daughter. Her train was only ten minutes behind schedule, and when they connected in the vast central waiting area, she had no baggage with her and only carried a book. She explained that her plan was to take a train back down to San Diego after the court hearing — unless Bosch needed her to stay. They ate crepes — her choice — at the station for breakfast before crossing Alameda and walking through the plaza by the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles on their way into the civic center. There, the monolithic Criminal Courts Building stood like a tombstone at the top of a rise.

They split up at the main entrance so Bosch could enter through the law enforcement pass-through because of his weapon. He showed his badge and made it through a solid ten minutes ahead of Maddie, who had to inch her way through the metal detector at the public entrance in a long line. They made up for the lost time by hopping onto an employees-only elevator and riding up to the ninth floor and Department 107, the courtroom at the end of the hallway, where Judge John Houghton presided.

The Preston Borders case was not scheduled to be called until ten a.m. but Mickey Haller had told Bosch to get to court early so they could discuss last-minute details and maneuvers. Bosch appeared to be the first person on his team to arrive. He sat in the back row of the gallery with his daughter and watched the proceedings. Houghton, a veteran jurist with a shock of silver hair, was on the bench, going through a calendar call of other cases on his docket, getting updates and scheduling further hearings. There was also a video crew setting up a pool camera in the jury box. Haller had told Bosch that so many local news stations had requested access to the hearing following the Times story that Houghton had specified that one randomly chosen crew could record the hearing and then share the video feed with the others.

“Is he going to be here?” Maddie whispered.

“Who?” Bosch asked.

“Preston Borders.”

“Yes, he’ll be here.”

He pointed to the metal door behind the desk where the courtroom deputy sat.

“He’s probably in a holding cell back there now.”

Bosch realized by her first question that she might have a fascination with Borders, the unrepentant death row killer. He second-guessed his allowing his daughter to come.

Bosch looked around. While Houghton was not the original judge on the Borders case, Department 107 was the original courtroom, and it looked to Bosch like it hadn’t been updated in the intervening thirty years. It was 1960s contemporary design, like most of the courthouses in the county. Light wood paneling covered the walls, with the judge’s bench, witness stand, and clerk’s corral all part of one module of sharp lines and faux wood. The great seal of the State of California was affixed to the wall at the front of the courtroom, three feet above the judge’s head.

The courtroom was cool, but Bosch felt hot under the collar of his suit. He tried to calm himself and be ready for the hearing. The truth was, he felt powerless. His career and reputation were essentially going to be in Mickey Haller’s hands and their fate possibly determined over the next few hours. As much as he trusted his half brother, passing the responsibility to someone else left him sweating in a cold room.

The first familiar face to enter the courtroom belonged to Cisco Wojciechowski. Bosch and his daughter slid down the bench and the big man sat down. He was as dressed up as Bosch had ever seen him, in clean black jeans and matching boots, an untucked white collared shirt, and a black vest with stylized swirls of silver thread. Bosch introduced his daughter and then she went back to reading her book, a collection of essays by a writer named B. J. Novak.

“How you feeling?” Cisco asked.

“One way or another, it will all be over in a few hours,” Bosch said. “How’s Elizabeth?”

“She had a rough night, but she’s getting there. I got one of my guys watching her. Maybe if you can, you could come by and see her. Encourage her. Might help.”

“Sure. But when I was there yesterday, it looked like she wanted to use my head as a battering ram on the door.”

“You go through big changes in the first week. It will be different today. I think she’s about to crest. It’s an uphill battle and then there’s a point where you’re suddenly going down the other side of the mountain.”

Bosch nodded.

“The question is, what happens at the end of the week?” Cisco said. “Do we just cut her loose, drop her off somewhere? She needs a long-range plan or she won’t make it.”

“I’ll think of something,” Bosch said. “You just get her through the week and I’ll take it from there.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Did you ever find anything out about the daughter? She still doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, I found out. Daisy. She was a runaway. Got into drugs in junior high, ran away from home. Was living on the street down in Hollywood and one night she got in the wrong car with somebody.”

“Shit.”

“She was...”

Bosch turned his body casually as if he were reaching down with his left hand to adjust the cuff of his right pant leg. His back to his daughter, he continued.

“Tortured — to put it politely — and left in a Dumpster in an alley off of Cahuenga.”

Cisco shook his head.

“I guess if anybody ever had a reason...”

“Right.”

“Did they at least catch the bastard?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

Cisco laughed without humor.

“Not yet?” he said. “Like it’s going to get solved ten years later?”

Bosch looked at him for a long moment without replying.

“You never know,” he said.

Haller entered the courtroom then, saw his investigator and client sitting together, and pointed in the direction of the hallway outside. He hadn’t noticed Maddie because the two bigger men had eclipsed her from the doorway angle. Bosch whispered to Maddie to stay where she was, and started to get up. Maddie put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“Who were you just talking about?”

“Uh, a woman from a case. She needed help and I asked Cisco to get involved.”

“What kind of help? Who’s Daisy?”

“We can talk about it later. I need to go out and talk to my — your uncle — about the hearing. Stay here and I’ll be back.”

Bosch got up and followed Cisco out. Most people in the long hallway congregated down in the middle near the snack bar, restrooms, and elevators. Team Bosch found an open bench with some privacy by the door to Department 107 and sat down, Haller in the middle.

“Okay, boys, are we ready to rock?” the lawyer said. “How are my witnesses? Where are my witnesses?”

“Locked and loaded, I think,” Cisco said.

“Tell me about Spencer,” Haller said. “You guys stayed with him, right?”

“All night,” Cisco said. “As of twenty minutes ago, he was still at his new lawyer’s office in the Bradbury.”

Bosch knew that meant Spencer was only two blocks away. Haller turned on the bench and looked at him eye to eye.

“And you, I told you to get some sleep,” he said. “But you still look like shit, and there’s dust on the shoulders of that suit, man.”

Haller reached out and roughly slapped off the dust that had settled on the suit during the two or more years it had been on a hanger in Bosch’s closet.

“I don’t have to remind you, this is probably all going to come down to you,” Haller said. “Be sharp. Be forthright. These people are fucking with everything that is important to you.”

“I know that,” Bosch said.

As if on cue, the CIU team came out of the stairwell down the hall, having taken the steps down from the D.A.’s Office. It was Kennedy, Soto, and Tapscott. They were heading to Department 107. Another woman, who was carrying a cardboard file box with two hands, followed. She was most likely Kennedy’s assistant.

Further behind them, coming from the elevator alcove at the same time, walked Cronyn and Cronyn. Lance Cronyn wore steel-rimmed glasses and had slicked-back jet-black hair that was obviously dyed. His suit was black with pinstripes and his tie a loud aqua. He looked like he went to great lengths to appear young, and the reason was right next to him, matching him stride for stride. Katherine Cronyn was at least twenty years his junior. She had flowing red hair and a voluptuous figure clad in a blue calf-length skirt and matching jacket over a chiffon blouse.

“Here they all come,” Bosch said.

Haller looked up from a yellow legal pad he was referring to and saw the opposition approaching.

“Like lambs to slaughter,” he said, his voice brimming with bravado and confidence.

Team Bosch remained seated as the others made the turn toward the courtroom door. Kennedy kept his eyes averted, as though there was no one sitting on the bench fifteen feet away. But Soto locked eyes with Bosch and peeled off from her team to approach him. She was unhesitant about speaking in front of Haller and Wojciechowski.

“Harry, why didn’t you call me back?” she asked. “I left you several messages.”

“Because there was nothing to say, Lucia,” Bosch said. “You guys believe Borders over me and there’s nothing else to say.”

“I believe the forensic evidence, Harry. It doesn’t mean I believe you planted the other evidence. The stuff in the paper didn’t come from me.”

“Then how did the evidence I found get there, Lucia? How did Dani Skyler’s pendant get into the suspect’s apartment?”

“I don’t know, but you weren’t in there alone.”

“So you’re still willing to pass the buck to a dead guy.”

“I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is that I don’t need to know the answer to that.”

Bosch stood up so he could speak to her face-to-face.

“Yeah, well, see, that doesn’t work for me, Lucia. You can’t believe in the forensic evidence without believing that the other evidence was planted in the apartment. And that’s why I didn’t call you back.”

She shook her head sadly and then turned away. Tapscott was holding the courtroom door open for her. He gave Bosch the deadeye stare as Soto went by him. Bosch watched the door silently close behind them.

“Look at this,” Haller said.

Bosch looked down the hall and saw two women approaching. They were dressed for a night of clubbing, with black skirts cut to midthigh and patterned black stockings, one with skulls on them, the other crucifixes.

“Groupies,” Cisco said. “If Borders walks out of here today, he’ll probably be banging a different broad every night for a year.”

The first two were followed by three more, dressed similarly and with tattoos and piercings to the max. Then from the elevator alcove came a woman in a pale yellow dress appropriate for court. Her blond hair was tied back and she walked with a hesitancy that suggested she had not been in a courthouse since the first trial thirty years before.

“Is this Dina?” Haller asked.

“That’s her,” Bosch said.

When Bosch had visited her Monday night, he thought Dina Rousseau was beautiful and the image of what her sister might have grown to be. She had given up on acting when she got married to a studio executive and started a family. She told Bosch she had no doubt that Preston Borders had been her sister’s killer and would not hesitate to tell a judge so or to appear in court simply as moral support.

Haller and Cisco joined Bosch in standing as she approached, and Bosch introduced her.

“We certainly appreciate your willingness to come here today and to testify if necessary,” Haller said.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t,” she said.

“I don’t know if Detective Bosch told you this, Ms. Rousseau, but Borders will be in the courtroom today. He’s been transported down from San Quentin for the hearing. I hope that is not going to cause you any undue emotional distress.”

“Of course it will. But Harry told me that he would be here, and I’m ready. Just point me to where I need to go.”

“Cisco, why don’t you take Ms. Rousseau into the courtroom and sit with her. We still have a few minutes and we’re going to wait for our last witness.”

Cisco did as instructed, and that left Bosch and Haller standing in the hallway. Bosch pulled his phone and checked the time. They had ten minutes until the hearing was scheduled to start.

“Come on, Spencer, where are you?” Haller said.

They both stared down the long hallway. Because the top of the hour was approaching, the crowds were thinning as people went into the various courtrooms for the start of hearings and trials. It left the space outside of court wide open.

Five minutes went by. No Spencer.

“Okay,” Haller said. “We don’t need him. We’ll work his absence to our advantage — he defied a valid subpoena. Let’s go in and do this.”

He headed toward the courtroom door and Bosch followed, taking one last glance toward the elevator alcove before disappearing inside.

Bosch saw that a number of reporters had slipped into the courtroom and were in the front row. He also saw that Cisco and Dina were in the last row, next to his daughter. Dina was staring toward the front of the courtroom, a growing look of horror on her face. Bosch followed the line of her vision and saw that Preston Borders was being led into the courtroom through the metal door that accessed the courthouse jail.

Courtroom deputies were on either side of and behind him. He walked slowly toward the defense table. He was in leg and wrist shackles, with a heavy chain running up between his legs and connecting the bindings. He was wearing orange jail scrubs — the color given to jailhouse VIPs.

Bosch had not seen Borders in person in nearly thirty years. Back then he had been a young man with a tan and 1980s actor hair — big, full, and wavy. Now he had a curved back and his hair was gray and thin, matching papery skin that received sunlight only one hour a week.

But he still had the flinty deadeye stare of a psychopath. As he entered, he glanced out into the courtroom gallery and smiled at the groupies who longed to be held by those eyes. They were standing in a middle row, bouncing on their heels and trying to hold themselves back from squealing.

Then his eyes went beyond them, and he found Bosch standing with Haller at the back. They were dark, sunken eyes, glowing like trash-can fires in an alley at night.

Glowing with hate.

37

Once Borders was seated at the defense table between Lance and Katherine Cronyn, the court clerk alerted Judge Houghton and he emerged from his chambers and retook his seat on the bench. He scanned the courtroom, eyeing those at the front tables as well as those in the gallery. His eyes seemed to hold on Haller as a recognizable face. He then got down to work.

“Next on the docket, California versus Borders, a habeas matter and motion to vacate set for evidentiary hearing,” Houghton said. “Before proceeding I want to make clear that the Court expects the rules of decorum to be followed at all times. Any outburst from the gallery will result in the quick removal of the offending party.”

As he spoke, Houghton was looking directly at the group of young women who had come to get a look at Borders. He then continued with the business at hand.

“We also have a motion to be heard that was filed on Friday by Mr. Haller, who I see in the back of the courtroom. Why don’t you come up, Mr. Haller. Your client can take a seat in the gallery.”

While Bosch slid into the row next to Cisco, his lawyer started up the center aisle toward the well of the courtroom. Before he even got to the gate, Kennedy was on his feet, objecting to Haller’s motion on technical terms. He argued that the motion was filed too late in the game and was without merit. Lance Cronyn stood and offered support to Kennedy’s argument, adding his own description of Haller’s motion.

“Your Honor, this is just a stunt by Mr. Haller to curry favor with the media,” Cronyn said. “As Mr. Kennedy aptly put it, this motion has no merit. Mr. Haller is simply looking for some free advertising at the expense of my client, who has suffered and waited for this day for thirty years.”

Haller had pushed through the gate and moved to a lectern located between the two tables at the head of the room.

“Mr. Haller, I’m assuming you have a response to that,” Houghton said.

“Indeed, I do, Your Honor,” Haller said. “For the record, I am Michael Haller, representing Detective Hieronymus Bosch in this matter. May it please the Court, my client has become aware of the petition for habeas corpus filed by Mr. Cronyn and supported by the District Attorney’s Office alleging that Mr. Bosch falsified material evidence used to convict Mr. Borders some twenty-nine years ago. Inexplicably, he was not subpoenaed for this hearing or otherwise invited to attend and testify in answer to these allegations. And I note here for the record that these unfounded allegations made their way into the Los Angeles Times and were reported as fact, and therefore have irrevocably damaged his professional and personal reputation, as well as his livelihood.”

“Mr. Haller, we don’t have all day,” Houghton said. “Make your argument.”

“Of course, Your Honor. My client fervently denies the allegations, which impugn his integrity, good name, and reputation. He has testimony and evidence he wants to present that is relevant and material to the resolution of these issues. In short, this whole thing is a scam, Your Honor, and we can prove it, if given the opportunity. Hence, I have filed on my client’s behalf a motion for leave to intervene, as well as a complaint answering the allegations against him. I have served notice to all parties, and it was most likely that service that resulted in the newspaper article mentioned earlier that trashed Mr. Bosch’s good reputation and standing in the law enforcement community.”

“Your Honor!” Kennedy cried. “The state objects to the malicious allegation made by Mr. Haller. The source of the newspaper story was certainly not my office or investigative team, as we attempted diligently to handle this in a manner least impactful to Mr. Bosch. The story came from somewhere else, and the state asks for sanctions against Mr. Haller.”

“Your Honor,” Haller said calmly. “I am willing to show Clerk of the Court records, and my client is willing to show his phone records, which together make it clear that within two hours of my filing motions Friday, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times was calling Mr. Bosch and asking for comment. My motions were filed under seal and therefore copied only to the parties opposing Mr. Bosch right here, right now. You can draw your own conclusions, Judge. I have drawn mine.”

Houghton swiveled in his high-backed leather chair for a moment before responding.

“I think we’ve batted that back and forth enough,” he said. “There won’t be any sanctions. Let’s move this along. Mr. Haller, both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Cronyn object to your client’s standing in this matter. How do you respond to that?”

Haller banged a fist down on the lectern for emphasis before wading into the fray again.

“How do I respond?” he asked. “I’m incredulous, Your Honor. Sunday’s newspaper dragged my client through the mud. It clearly implied that he planted evidence that sent a man away to death row. And here we are, and he was not even invited to the party? Given that the newspaper account and the allegations contained in the state’s petition implicate my client’s property rights in reputation and good name, I believe he has standing to intervene and defend those rights. If that is not the correct vehicle, then I would suggest the alternative, that he be viewed as a friend of the court and be permitted to testify and adduce evidence relevant to the issues the Court must weigh.”

Houghton solicited responses from Kennedy and Cronyn, but it became clear to Bosch that the judge found it difficult not to give him his day in court after his name and reputation were called into question by the Times and by the details of the original petitions, which the D.A.’s Office did not seek to seal from public view. Kennedy became frustrated when he made the same read on the judge’s words and demeanor as Bosch had.

“Your Honor, the state can’t be held responsible for an article in the newspaper,” he said. “I — we — were not the source of the story. If we made a mistake in not asking for our motion to be sealed, then okay, that is on us, but it’s surely not enough of an infraction to warrant this intervention by Bosch. There is a man sitting in this courtroom who has been on death row for more than ten thousand days — yes, I did the math — and it is our duty as officers of the court to make that injustice our priority today.”

“That is, if it’s an injustice,” Haller said quickly. “The evidence we seek to present tells a different story, Your Honor. It’s the story of a scam carried out by cunning minds and perpetrated on the citizenry as well as on Mr. Kennedy and his office.”

“I’m going to take ten minutes to refer to the code and then we’ll reconvene,” Houghton said. “Nobody go far. Ten minutes.”

The judge was up and off the bench quickly and he disappeared into the hallway behind the clerk’s corral that led to his chambers. Bosch liked that about Houghton. He had been in trials with the judge in the past and knew he was very assured as a courtroom referee. But he wasn’t conceited enough to assume he knew every nuance of the law as written. He was willing to call a quick time-out to check the code books so that when he made a ruling, it had the solid backing of the law.

Haller turned around and looked at Bosch. He pointed toward the rear door of the courtroom and Bosch understood that he was still wondering about Spencer. It was a sign that Haller was confident that the judge’s ruling was going to go his way.

Bosch got up and walked out of the courtroom to check on Spencer. The hallway was practically deserted now and there was no sign of him.

Bosch went back into the courtroom. The sound of the door drew Haller’s attention and Bosch shook his head.

The judge returned to the bench a minute early and immediately shot down a request from Kennedy to provide further argument. He then proceeded with his ruling.

“Although the statute and rules governing habeas procedure are within the penal code, it’s axiomatic that such a petition is in the nature of a civil action. Hence, an intervenor under civil rules would seem to be appropriate. Detective Bosch’s property right in his good name and reputation is an interest that he is entitled and permitted to protect and that is, to the Court’s observation and research, not being protected by the existing parties to this action. So I grant the motion for leave to intervene. Mr. Haller, you can call your first witness.”

Kennedy, who had inexplicably remained standing after his last objection was denied, quickly objected again.

“Your Honor, this is unfair,” he said. “We are not prepared for witnesses. The state requests that we carry this over thirty days in order to seek depositions and prepare for a hearing.”

Cronyn stood as well. Bosch expected him to protest any postponement but instead he seconded the request. Bosch thought he saw Kennedy wince. It was probably at that moment that the prosecutor knew he had somehow been played by Cronyn or Borders or both.

“What happened to the ten thousand days Mr. Kennedy mentioned earlier?” Houghton said. “The travesty of justice? Now you want to send the man whom your petition exonerates back to death row for another thirty days? We all know that with court calendars being what they are, there is no thirty-day delay. Putting this off for thirty days might as well be ninety, because my calendar is that far out. I’m not seeing a reason to delay these proceedings, gentlemen.”

Houghton swiveled in his chair again and looked down from the bench at Borders.

“Mr. Borders, are you willing to go back up to San Quentin for another three months while the attorneys get into this?”

There was a long moment before Borders responded and Bosch savored every second of it. There was no good answer for Borders. To accept the delay would be to reveal, as his attorney just had, that there was something wrong here. To say he did not accept his own attorney’s wish for a delay would be to invite Haller to trot his witnesses to the stand and risk the whole scam being exposed.

“I just want to get it right,” Borders finally said. “I’ve been up there a long time. I don’t suppose a little more time matters if it means they get it right.”

“That’s exactly what the Court is trying to do here,” Houghton said. “Get it right.”

Bosch caught movement in his peripheral vision and turned to see the courtroom door opening. A man in a suit who he presumed was a lawyer entered and he was followed by Terry Spencer.

They stepped in and surveyed the courtroom, and the soft bang of the door closing behind them drew the rest of the eyes in the room to them. Bosch turned to check that Haller saw that their witness had arrived. Then he looked at the faces at the defense table. Borders showed minimal interest in the new arrivals because he didn’t know Spencer by sight. But the reactions of the Cronyn legal team were telling. Lance Cronyn pursed his lips and blinked. He looked like a chess player who knew three moves out that he had lost. Katherine Cronyn’s reaction went beyond surprise. She looked like she was seeing a ghost. Her jaw went slack and her eyes turned from the man standing at the back of the courtroom to her husband, sitting on the other side of their client. Bosch read fear in them.

Bosch’s eyes then hunted through the rows of benches in the gallery for Lucia Soto. He found her in the front row by the courtroom deputy’s desk. It was clear that she recognized Spencer, but she had a puzzled look on her face. She genuinely wasn’t sure why the man from property control was in the courtroom.

“May I make a suggestion to the Court?”

The words came from Haller and they drew all attention away from Spencer.

“Go ahead, Mr. Haller,” Houghton said.

“What if all the lawyers and principals continue the hearing in camera,” Haller said. “I will give Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Cronyn a verbal proffer for each witness I intend to call and for each document and video I plan to introduce. They will then be better informed on whether to seek a delay or not. The reason I ask to move to chambers is that I would want to be shielded from the media should I not be one hundred percent accurate in my proffers.”

“How long will this take, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked.

“I’ll be quick. I think I can do it in fifteen minutes or less.”

“I like your idea, Mr. Haller, but we have a problem. I’m not sure I have room in chambers for all attorneys and their clients as well as Mr. Kennedy and his investigators. Additionally, we have a security issue with Mr. Borders, and I don’t think our courthouse deputies want him moved around the building. So, what I am going to do is use the courtroom for a closed in camera conference and ask that witnesses, members of the media, and all other observers leave for fifteen minutes so we can hear your proffers, Mr. Haller.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“The pool camera can stay but it needs to be turned off. Deputy Garza, please call for an additional deputy who can stand outside the door in the hallway until we are ready to invite the public back in.”

There was a commotion as several people stood at once to leave the courtroom. Bosch sat still at first, just admiring the genius of Haller’s move. Because he was giving the judge a summary of what would be shown and testified to, there would be no oaths taken and therefore no consequences for any exaggerations or untruths that might be exposed later.

Haller was about to get a free swing at the case against Bosch, and there was nothing Kennedy and the Cronyns could do about it.

38

Haller signaled Bosch to the front. He went through the gate and took a seat against the railing. He looked around and saw he was only about six feet from where Borders sat shackled between Cronyn and Cronyn. Two deputies were in chairs directly behind him.

He looked to the rear of the courtroom and saw people still bunched at the door and moving out. His daughter was last in line and looking back at him. She gave him a nod of confidence and he returned it. After she moved through the doorway, he returned his attention to Borders. He made a low whistle sound and it caught Borders’s ear. The man in orange turned and looked directly at Bosch.

Bosch winked.

Borders looked away. Haller stepped over and blocked Bosch’s view of him.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said. “Stay focused on what’s important.”

He took the empty seat next to Bosch and leaned in to him to whisper.

“I’m going to try to get you on the record,” he said. “No proffer from me. You. So, remember, be forthright, act outraged.”

“I told you, not a problem,” Bosch said.

Haller turned to check the back of the room.

“Did you talk to Spencer or Daly before they left?”

“No. Is Daly the lawyer?”

“Yeah, Dan Daly. He’s usually a federal court guy. Must be slumming today. Or he previously knew Spencer. I’ll put Cisco on it.”

Haller took out his phone and started typing a text to his investigator, who had been among those invited by the judge to leave the courtroom. Bosch stood up so he’d have an angle on the screen. Haller was telling Cisco to see if Daly would reveal what Spencer was willing to testify to. He told Cisco to text him back. Just as he sent the message off, Houghton called the courtroom back to order.

“Okay, we’re going to be on the record here, but this is a case management conference of the related parties present. Not part of the official hearing record. What is said here is not to go outside the courtroom. Mr. Haller, why don’t you walk us through what you plan to do with your witnesses and documents if your motion is granted. And let’s be brief.”

Haller stood up and went to the lectern, placing a legal pad down. Bosch could see that the top page was covered in notes, several of which were circled with arrows pointing to other circles. It was a schematic of the frame against Bosch. Beneath the pad he had a file containing the documents he would put before the judge.

“Thank you for this opportunity, Your Honor,” he began. “You won’t regret it. Because Mr. Cronyn and Mr. Kennedy are correct, there has been a miscarriage of justice here. Just not the one most people think has occurred.”

“Your Honor?” Kennedy said, holding his hands palms out and up in a what-is-going-on? gesture.

“Mr. Haller,” Houghton said. “If I may draw your eyes to the jury box to your left, you will see it is empty. I said be brief. I didn’t say make a statement to a nonexistent jury.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Haller said. “Thank you. Moving on, then. The District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit took on this case and in a forensic review of the evidence found DNA on the clothing of Danielle Skyler that did not come from her convicted killer, Preston Borders. Instead, it came from a now-deceased serial rapist named Lucas John Olmer.”

“Mr. Haller,” Houghton interrupted again. “You are reciting the known facts of the matter before the Court. I granted you entrance to the case as an intervenor. An intervention requires something new, a change in direction. Do you have that or not?”

“I do,” Haller said.

“Then get to it. Don’t tell the Court what it already knows.”

“What I have that’s new is this: Detective Bosch can show through documentation and sworn testimony that Lucas John Olmer’s DNA was planted in the evidence box in LAPD property control as part of an elaborate scheme to set Preston Borders free and realize millions of dollars in damages from a false conviction.”

Houghton held a hand out to stay Kennedy from an obvious objection.

“A scheme by whom, Mr. Haller?” Houghton asked. “Are you saying that Preston Borders on death row at San Quentin orchestrated this?”

“No, Your Honor,” Haller said. “I’m saying Preston Borders bought into it because he had no other shot left at freedom. But the scheme was orchestrated right here in Los Angeles by the law firm of Cronyn and Cronyn.”

Immediately Lance Cronyn was on his feet.

“I strenuously object to this charade!” he said. “Mr. Haller is besmirching my good reputation with this insidious accusation, when it is his client who—”

“Noted, Mr. Cronyn,” Houghton said, cutting off Cronyn in mid-paroxysm. “But let me remind you that we are in closed session here and nothing offered by counsel will reach the ears of the public.”

But then the judge turned his attention to Haller.

“You are making a very strong allegation, Mr. Haller,” he said. “You need to put up or shut up.”

“I’ll be putting up,” Haller said. “Right now.”

Haller briefly outlined the essential contradiction of the case as Bosch had expressed to Soto in the hallway. If the DNA found in evidence was legit, then the sea horse found during the search of Preston Borders’s apartment was not. It was an either/or proposition.

“Our position is that the sea-horse pendant was and always has been the true evidence of the case,” Haller said. “It is the DNA from Lucas John Olmer that was planted. And before outlining how that occurred, I would ask the Court to indulge me and allow my client to speak to this matter of planting evidence. He has spent more than forty years in law enforcement and it is his good name and reputation that are at stake here.”

Both Kennedy and Cronyn stood and objected to Bosch’s being allowed to enter testimony without cross-examination. Houghton quickly made a decision.

“We are not going to go down that road in this conference,” he said. “If we get back in open court and on the record, the Court will entertain that. I will say this, however. Detective Bosch has appeared in this courtroom many times over the years while I’ve had the honor to serve on the bench, and his integrity has never been called into question until now.”

Bosch nodded his thanks for the slim measure of support from the judge.

“Proceed, Mr. Haller,” Houghton said.

“Moving on, then,” Haller said as he opened the file he had on the lectern. “It is known to the Court and all parties here that Mr. Cronyn represented Lucas John Olmer in the case that resulted in his imprisonment until the time of his death sixteen months ago. Key evidence in that case was DNA evidence connecting Olmer to a series of sexual assaults for which he was charged. I submit to the Court now a copy of a court order taken from the record of that case requiring prosecutors to split DNA evidence with the defense for private testing.”

Kennedy stood to object.

“Your Honor, if counsel is trying to insinuate that Olmer’s DNA was handed to Cronyn so that he could secrete some of it for himself to use years later in a scheme to free a man from death row, then that is ridiculously offensive. As Mr. Haller certainly knows, Mr. Cronyn would not have come near that material. Chain-of-evidence protocol would require a secure lab-to-lab transfer. Mr. Haller is blowing smoke and wasting the Court’s time.”

Haller shook his head and smiled before defending himself.

“Blowing smoke, Your Honor? We will see who is blowing smoke. I am not suggesting that there was anything untoward in the lab-to-lab transfer before Olmer’s trial. But at trial the DNA was not ultimately challenged, as the defense chose to claim that the sex acts were consensual. The DNA matching was even stipulated to by the defense. The evidentiary record, however, is not complete post trial. According to Mr. Kennedy’s vaunted protocol, all genetic materials not used in the private lab’s analysis were to be returned after trial to the custody of the LAPD lab. There is no record of any material being returned. It’s missing, Your Honor, and was last in the hands of a lab working for Mr. Cronyn.”

Now it was Cronyn’s turn to stand up and protest.

“This is ridiculous, Judge. I never had that material and I wouldn’t know if the lab returned it or not. To have to sit here and have this sort of allegation—”

“Again, we are in closed session here,” Houghton said. “Let’s stay on point. Mr. Haller, what else do you have?”

“I have a couple more documents here I would like to tender to the Court,” Haller said. “The first is a letter from deputy city attorney Cecil French that confirms that the city has received a complaint for damages from Preston Borders regarding what he says is his false imprisonment for murder following a corrupt investigation by the LAPD. The complaint was filed by Lance Cronyn, attorney at law. The amount of damages being sought is not listed because they never are this early in the game, but common sense dictates that a man allegedly framed for murder by a city employee and sent to death row for almost three decades would be seeking millions of dollars in damages.”

Cronyn started to stand again but Houghton held up a hand like a traffic cop and the lawyer slowly sank back down to his seat. Haller continued.

“Additionally,” he said, “we have here a copy of the visitor log from San Quentin that shows Lance Cronyn has made regular visits to Preston Borders beginning in January of last year.”

“He is his attorney,” Houghton said. “Is there something sinister about an attorney visiting a client in prison, Mr. Haller?”

“Not at all, Your Honor. But in order to visit a death row inmate, you must be his attorney of record. Mr. Cronyn became that as of January of last year, several months before he sent the letter to the Conviction Integrity Unit allegedly clearing his conscience about Olmer’s confession to him.”

Bosch almost smiled. The timing of Cronyn’s beginnings with Borders was proof of nothing, but it certainly smacked of collusion, and the way Haller had walked the judge right into it was perfect. Bosch put his arm up on the empty chair next to him so he could casually glance to his right at Soto and Tapscott. They looked like they were seriously tracking the story Haller was spinning.

“Additionally,” Haller said, “if the motion to intervene is granted, Detective Bosch is prepared to present witnesses who contradict the key elements of the petitioner’s habeas motion. To wit, the petitioner throws the reputation of his trial attorney, Mr. David Siegel, to the wolves, saying that the late Mr. Siegel suborned Mr. Borders’s perjury at trial by telling him to testify that the key piece of evidence found in his apartment — the sea-horse pendant — was not the victim’s but a facsimile he bought on the Santa Monica pier.”

“And you have a witness who contradicts that testimony?” Houghton asked.

“I do, Your Honor,” Haller said. “I have Mr. David Siegel himself, who is willing to contradict the report of his own death as well as the contention that he suborned perjury from his client at the trial in nineteen eighty-eight. He is willing to testify that the entire testimony given by Mr. Borders was concocted by Mr. Borders himself in an attempt to explain away the damning evidence that he was in possession of the victim’s jewelry.”

Kennedy and Cronyn were both quickly to their feet, but Cronyn spoke first.

“Your Honor, this is absurd,” he said. “Even if it is proven that David Siegel is alive, his testimony would be a flagrant violation of attorney-client privilege and completely inadmissible.”

“Judge, I beg to differ with Mr. Cronyn,” Haller said. “Attorney-client privilege was wholly shattered by Mr. Borders when he revealed the inner workings of his trial strategy and sought to impugn the good name and reputation of his attorney in his petition — much as he maligned my client, Detective Bosch. I have in my possession a video proffer — an interview with Mr. Siegel seven days ago that shows him to be alive and sound of mind and defending himself against the slander perpetrated by Mr. Borders and his attorney.”

Haller reached into his pocket and produced a digital-storage stick containing the video in question. He held it up above his head, drawing all eyes in the courtroom to it.

The judge hesitated and then pulled the stemmed microphone closer. Cronyn and Kennedy sat back down.

“Mr. Haller,” Houghton said. “We’re going to hold off on your video for the time being. The Court finds it intriguing, but your fifteen minutes are just about up and this matter comes down to one thing. Olmer’s DNA was found on the victim’s clothing, and there seems to be no dispute about that. That clothing had been sealed in evidence archives for years — years before Mr. Olmer went to trial and Mr. Cronyn may or may not have come into possession of his genetic material, years before Mr. Cronyn ever met Mr. Borders, and years before Mr. Olmer died in prison. Do you have an answer for that? Because if you don’t, then it’s time to move on to a ruling on this matter.”

Haller nodded and looked down at his legal pad. Bosch caught a glimpse of Kennedy in profile and thought that he was smirking, no doubt because he believed Haller had no answer for the DNA’s being in the archive box.

“The Court is correct,” Haller then began. “We do not dispute the finding of DNA on the victim’s clothing. Detective Bosch — and I also — have the utmost belief in the integrity of the LAPD lab. We do not suggest that the results of the analysis are to be doubted. It is our belief that the DNA from Olmer was planted on the clothing prior to its being turned over to the lab.”

Kennedy jumped up again and hotly objected to the implication that there was corruption in either the property control section of the LAPD or the two detectives who reworked the case for the CIU.

“The moves by detectives Soho and Tapscott were well documented and aboveboard,” Kennedy said. “Knowing that desperate people sometimes make desperate claims, they went so far as to video their unsealing of the evidence box themselves in order to document that no tampering had taken place.”

Haller jumped in before the judge could respond.

“Exactly,” he said. “They videoed the whole thing, and if it may please the Court, I would like to play that video as part of my proffer. I have it cued up and ready to go on my laptop, Your Honor. I ask for the Court’s indulgence in extending my time. I can hook up my computer to the screen very quickly.”

He gestured toward the video screen on the wall opposite the jury box. There was a silence as Houghton considered the request, even as others in the courtroom were probably considering how Haller got a copy of the video. Bosch saw Soto sneak a sideways glance at him. He knew he was breaking their unspoken rule of confidentiality. She had not shared the video with him so he could use it in court.

“Set it up, Mr. Haller,” Houghton said. “I’ll consider it part of the proffer.”

Haller turned from the lectern and grabbed his briefcase, which was on the floor in front of the chair next to Bosch. As he opened the briefcase on the chair and retrieved his laptop, he spoke under his breath to Bosch.

“This is it,” he said.

“Like lambs to slaughter, right?” Bosch whispered.

Five minutes later Haller had the video playing on the wall screen. Everyone in the courtroom, including those who had already seen the video multiple times, watched with rapt attention. It ended without reaction from the judge or anyone else.

Haller then passed out copies of an 8 x 10 screen grab from the video to all the parties and the judge, then returned to the lectern.

“I’m going to play the video again but what you have in front of you is a screen grab from the one minute, eleven second mark,” he said.

He started replaying the video and then stopped it, freezing the screen on the moment that Terrence Spencer could be seen watching the two detectives from the next room.

Haller now pulled a pen-size laser pointer from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and circled the image of Spencer with a glowing red dot.

“This man, what is he doing? Just watching? Or does he have an interest that goes beyond curiosity?”

Kennedy stood once again.

“Your Honor, counsel’s flights of fancy are getting ridiculous. The video clearly shows the box was not tampered with. So what does he do? He tries to draw the eye away from what is obvious to something and someone who clearly works in the property control unit and would have a vested interest in monitoring the unsealing of evidence. Can we please move on from this charade and get to the sad business of correcting a severe miscarriage of justice?”

“Mr. Haller,” Houghton said. “My patience is also wearing thin.”

“Your Honor, if allowed to continue, my proffer will be completed in the next five minutes,” Haller said.

“Very well,” Houghton said. “Continue. With speed.”

“Thank you. As I was asking before being interrupted, what is this man doing? Well, we got curious and tried to find out. As it happens, Detective Bosch recognized this man as a longtime employee of the Property Control Unit. His name is Terrence Spencer. We decided to look into Mr. Spencer and what we found may startle the Court.”

Haller took another document from his file and glanced over at Lance Cronyn as he delivered it to the clerk, who in turn delivered it to the judge. While the judge was looking at it, Bosch saw Haller step back behind the lectern and use it as a blind as he pulled his phone from his pocket, held it down by his hip, and read a text message that was on the screen.

Bosch knew it was most likely the message from Cisco about Spencer that Haller had been waiting for.

Haller dropped the phone back into his pocket and continued to address the judge.

“What we found was that seven years ago Terrence Spencer almost lost his house in a foreclosure. It was a bad time in this country and a lot of people were in the same boat. Spencer got upside down, couldn’t make double mortgage payments, and the banks had lost patience. And he would have lost his house if it had not been for the efforts of his foreclosure attorney, Kathy Zelden, whom many of us in this courtroom now know as Kathy Cronyn.”

Bosch could literally feel the air in the courtroom go still. Houghton went from slouching in his luxurious leather chair to coming forward and leaning intently over the bench. He was holding up the document Haller had provided and intently scanning it as Haller continued.

“Zelden, now Cronyn, saved Spencer’s house at the time,” he said. “But all she really did was put off the inevitable. She put Spencer into a hard-money refi that carried a massive, half-million-dollar balloon payment due in seven years. Due, I should say, to a privately held investment fund that controlled whether or not Spencer could sell his property in an effort to get out from beneath the balloon. They chose to prevent the house’s sale because they knew it would come to them in foreclosure this summer.

“Well, poor Terry Spencer had no way out. He didn’t have half a million dollars and had no way to get it. He couldn’t even sell his house, because the mortgage holder wouldn’t allow it. So what does he do? He calls up his old lawyer, now a full partner in Cronyn and Cronyn, and says, What am I going to do? And Your Honor, from that point on, a conspiracy began. A conspiracy to defraud the District Attorney’s Office and frame my client for planting evidence. All in an effort to free Preston Borders and collect a multimillion-dollar settlement from the city of Los Angeles.”

Lance Cronyn stood up, ready to argue. Kennedy was hesitantly rising. But the judge held up his hand to stop all from speaking and looked squarely at Haller.

“Mr. Haller,” he intoned. “Those are very significant allegations. Do you plan to offer any evidence to go with them if I allow you to present this in open court?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Haller said. “The last witness I would present is Terrence Spencer himself. We were able to locate him over the weekend, hiding out at a home down in Laguna Beach that happens to be owned by the Cronyns. I had him served with a subpoena, and at this moment he’s out in the hallway with my investigator and ready to take the stand.”

39

The threat of Terrence Spencer’s testimony seemed to momentarily freeze things in the courtroom. Then it was Preston Borders who broke the silence with laughter. It started low and soon became a head-back, full-throated burst of mirthless irony. He then cut it off as if with the blade of a knife and spoke to his lawyer with a deadly snarl in his voice.

“You fucking moron. You said this would work. You said it was foolproof.”

Borders tried to stand but forgot that the lead chain between his legs had been clamped to his seat. He rose with the seat still awkwardly attached to him and then dropped back down.

“Get me out of here. Just take me back.”

Cronyn tried to huddle in close in order to silence his client.

“Get the fuck away from me, asshole. I’m going to tell them everything. Your whole fucking plan.”

Kennedy rose then, seeing the only path he could take. There was a stunned look on his face.

“Your Honor, at this time, the state wishes to withdraw its motions in this matter,” he said. “The state now opposes the habeas petition.”

“I’m sure it does,” the judge said. “But you can take your seat for the moment, Mr. Kennedy.”

Houghton turned his attention to the other table, specifically to Borders instead of the two lawyers who flanked him.

“Mr. Borders,” he said. “As you have seen, your petition for habeas corpus is no longer uncontested. It is opposed now by the District Attorney and the lead detective on the case. Furthermore, you have just expressed what I take as a desire to discharge your lawyer and abandon these proceedings. Is it in fact your desire to withdraw your petition?”

“Might as well,” Borders said. “It ain’t fucking going anywhere.”

“Very well,” the judge said. “The matter before the Court is withdrawn. Deputy Garza, you can take Mr. Borders out of here. But keep him in holding. I believe the detectives here may want to talk to him.”

The judge gestured toward Soto and Tapscott.

Garza nodded to the two deputies seated behind Borders and they moved in on the convict to unlock the lead chain and remove him. As he was stood up, Borders took a last look down at Lance Cronyn.

“Thanks for the road trip,” he said. “Better than three days in the cage.”

“Get him out,” Houghton ordered loudly.

“Fuck you all very much,” Borders called out as he was half walked, half carried through the door into the courthouse holding area. “And please tell my girls to stay in touch.”

The door banged closed and the sharp metal-on-metal reverb rolled through the courtroom like an earthquake.

Cronyn stood slowly to address the Court, but Houghton cut him off as well.

“Counselor, I advise you not to speak,” he said. “Anything you say here could be used against you later in another court of law.”

“But, Your Honor, if I may,” Cronyn insisted, “I need to put on the record how my client threatened me and my family and—”

“Enough, Mr. Cronyn. Enough. I’ve heard more than I need in order to know that you, your co-counsel, and your client came into this courtroom today with the clear intent of manipulating the court for financial gain, not to mention gaining the release into society of what appears to have been a rightfully convicted murderer, and tarnishing the reputation of a veteran police detective.”

“Your—”

“I’m not speaking to hear myself talk, Mr. Cronyn. I told you to be quiet. One more interruption and I will have you silenced.”

Houghton surveyed the entire court before bringing his eyes back to Cronyn and continuing.

“Now, I am assuming that the Los Angeles Police Department will have an interest in talking to you as well as to Terrence Spencer. Criminal charges may arise from that. I don’t know. I can’t control that. But what I can control is what happens in this courtroom, and I have to say that never in my twenty-one years on the bench have I seen such a concerted effort to undermine the rule of law by attorneys appearing before me. Therefore, I find Lance Cronyn and Katherine Cronyn in criminal contempt of this Court and order them taken into custody forthwith. Deputy Garza, you need to call a female court deputy in here as soon as possible to take custody of Ms. Cronyn.”

Katherine Cronyn immediately collapsed onto her husband’s shoulder in tears. As Bosch watched, her emotions shifted, and soon she was pounding a fist into her husband’s chest. He corralled her with his arms and pulled her into an embrace that stopped the pummeling and left only the tears. Deputy Garza walked up behind him, handcuffs dangling from one hand, ready to take him back into the jail.

“Now, Mr. Kennedy,” Houghton said, “I don’t know what you plan to do with the information Mr. Haller has brought to light, but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to call members of the media and the public back into the courtroom and tell them exactly what happened in here today. You’re not going to like it because you and your agency are not going to come off too well, considering it was a defense lawyer and his investigators who put this together under the nose of the LAPD and assorted other agencies.

“But I’ll say this. Your office owes Detective Bosch a big fat apology and I will be watching to make sure you give it on a big stage, in a timely manner, and without any ‘buts’ or ‘becauses’ or asterisks attached. Nothing short of full exoneration of the suspicions and allegations that were published in Sunday’s newspaper will suffice. Do I make myself clear on that, Mr. Kennedy?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Kennedy said. “We would be doing that even if you had not ordered it.”

Houghton frowned.

“Knowing what I know about politics and the justice system, I find that highly unlikely.”

The judge scanned the room again, found Bosch, and asked him to stand.

“Detective, I imagine you have been put through the wringer in recent days,” he said. “I want to apologize on behalf of the Court for this needless torment. I wish you the best of luck, sir, and you are welcome in my courtroom anytime.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Bosch said.

Two deputies, including a female, entered through the holding area door and joined Garza in taking the Cronyns into custody. The judge instructed his clerk to go out into the hallway to tell those waiting that they could return to the courtroom.

An hour later Houghton adjourned his court for the day, and Kennedy was left to wade through the gaggle of reporters who demanded his comments and reaction to what the judge had just announced.

Out in the hallway, Bosch watched Soto and Tapscott approach Terrence Spencer and take him into custody. Cisco came up next to Bosch and they watched the detectives lead Spencer down the hall.

“I hope he tells them how he rigged the box,” Bosch said. “I really want to know.”

“Not going to happen,” Cisco said. “He’s taking the fifth.”

“But you said he was going to testify.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your text to Haller in the courtroom. You said he was ready to testify.”

“No, I said you can put him on the stand but he’ll take the nickel. Why, what did Mick say?”

Bosch stared across the hallway at Haller, who was talking one-on-one with a reporter writing in a notebook. There was no camera, so Bosch assumed it was a print reporter — which most likely meant he was from the Times.

“Son of a gun,” he said.

“What?” Cisco asked.

“I saw him read your text, and then he told the judge that Spencer was ready to go on the stand. He didn’t exactly say he would testify, only that he’d go on the stand. He tipped the whole thing with that bluff. Borders took the bait and blew a gasket. That was it.”

“Smooth move.”

“Dangerous move.”

Bosch continued to stare at Haller and he started to put things into place.

40

After all the interviews were over, Team Bosch decided to get out of the courthouse and walk over to Traxx in Union Station to celebrate the across-the-board victory. While Haller and Cisco went into the restaurant to get a table, Bosch walked his daughter down to the ramp to the Metrolink train she was due to board. She had bought a return ticket on her app.

“I’m so glad I was here, Dad,” Maddie said.

“I’m glad you were here too,” Bosch said.

“And I’m so sorry if it sounded like I ever doubted you.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Mads. You didn’t.”

He pulled her into a long embrace and looked up the tunnel to the sunlight waiting at the boarding platform. He kissed the top of her head and let her go.

“I still want to come down for dinner when you get back to your house. I’ll get the app and take the train.”

“Definitely. Bye, Dad.”

“Bye, sweetie.”

He watched her walk up the ramp to the light. She knew he would and she turned at the top to wave. She was entirely in silhouette and then she was gone.

Bosch joined his lawyer and his investigator in a booth next to a window that looked out on the train station’s waiting area of mixed Art Deco and Moorish designs. Haller had already ordered martinis all around. They clinked glasses and toasted. The three musketeers, all for one and one for all. Bosch caught Haller’s eyes and nodded. His attorney apparently didn’t interpret it as the thank-you he felt he deserved.

“What?” Haller asked.

“Nothing,” Bosch said.

“No, what? What was that look you gave me?”

“What look?”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

Cisco watched them silently, knowing better than to get in the middle.

“All right,” Bosch said. “I saw you talking to that reporter in the hallway. After court. He was from the Times, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Haller said. “They have a major skinback to write. That’s what he called it when they have to set the record straight. It’s not a correction, because what they went with Sunday came out of court documents. But it was one-sided. It will be the full story tomorrow.”

“What was his name?”

“You know, I didn’t catch his name. All those guys, they’re the same.”

“Was it David Ramsey?”

“I just told you I didn’t get the guy’s name.”

Bosch just nodded and Haller once again saw judgment.

“If you have something to say, then say it,” he said. “And stop with the know-it-all judgmental looks.”

“I don’t have anything to say,” Bosch said. “And I don’t know it all but I know what you did.”

“For chrissakes, what are you talking about?”

“I know what you did.”

“Oh, here we go. What did I do, Bosch? Would you just tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”

“You’re the leak. You gave the story to the Times on Friday. You’re the one who gave it to Ramsey.”

Cisco was in the middle of a second sip from his martini, the fragile stemmed glass held by his thick fingers. He almost spilled it all over his nice dress vest.

“No fucking way,” he said. “Mick would never do—”

“Yeah, he did,” Bosch said. “He sold me out to the Times for a headline.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Haller said. “Are you fucking forgetting something? We won the case, man, and you had a Superior Court judge apologizing to you and demanding that the D.A.’s Office and the LAPD do the same thing. And you’re going to complain about my strategy?”

“So, you’re saying it was you,” Bosch said. “You admit it. You and Ramsey.”

“I’m saying that in order to win the day, we had to raise the stakes,” Haller said. “We needed to kick this thing out into the streets so that it would become public and it would be something that was talked about and would then draw every goddamn news channel in the city to that courtroom today. I knew if we did that, then the judge would have no choice but to give us standing and allow us to intervene.”

“And you would get, what, about a million dollars’ worth of free publicity out of it?”

“Jesus Christ, Bosch. You’re like a feral cat. You don’t trust anybody. I did it for you, not me, and look at what happened.”

Haller pointed out of the booth in the direction of the courthouse.

“The judge let us in over the objections of everybody in that courtroom,” he said. “And then we fucking won. Borders goes back up to death row for the rest of his sorry existence and every one of those bastards who tried to set you up and frame you is going to end up disbarred, fired, and probably in jail. Cronyn and Cronyn are already in jail, while you’re sitting here drinking a martini. You think the judge would have given us standing if the media wasn’t all over this?”

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “But my daughter read that shit Sunday and has had to wonder for three days if her father is the kind of guy who would plant evidence and send an innocent man to death row. On top of that, that story almost got me killed. If that had happened, I’d be dead and Borders would be walking the earth as a free man, to kill again.”

“Look, I’m sorry about that. I truly am. I didn’t want that to happen and I didn’t know you were working undercover, because you didn’t fucking tell me. But this is one of those rare times where the end justifies the means. Okay? We got the result we wanted, your reputation came out intact, and your daughter is riding that train, knowing her dad is a hero, not a criminal.”

Bosch nodded as though in agreement. But he wasn’t.

“You should’ve told me,” he said. “I’m the client. I should have been informed and given the choice.”

“And what would your choice have been?” Haller asked.

“We’ll never know now because you didn’t give it to me.”

“I know what it would’ve been, and that’s why I didn’t. End of fucking story.”

They stared at each other for a long, hard moment. Cisco hesitantly raised his glass over the middle of the table.

“Come on, water under the bridge, fellas,” he said. “We won. Let’s toast again. I can’t wait to read the paper tomorrow.”

As if each was waiting for the other to make the first move, Haller and Bosch continued their stare-down.

Haller broke first. He grabbed his glass by the stem and raised it up, sloshing vodka over the brim and down over his fingers. Bosch finally did the same.

The three musketeers clinked glasses like swords again, but it no longer seemed much like all for one and one for all.

41

As Bosch rounded the last curve on Woodrow Wilson Drive, he saw the city ride parked in front of his house. Someone was waiting for him. He turned the sound down on Kamasi Washington’s “Change of the Guard.” It was nearly five, and his plan was to get out of the suit and shower and change into street clothes before heading up to the Valley to visit Elizabeth Clayton in the dungeon where she was taking the cure.

As he pulled into the side carport, he saw who it was. Lucia Soto was sitting on the house’s front step, looking at her phone. Bosch parked and walked around to the front rather than avoiding her and going through the side door. She stood up, put the phone away, and wiped dust from the step off the back of her pants. She was still in the dark blue suit she had worn in court that morning.

“Been waiting long?” Bosch asked by way of a greeting.

“No,” she said. “I had some e-mailing to do. You should sweep your steps every now and then, Harry. Dusty.”

“Keep forgetting. How’d they take things today down at RHD?”

“Oh, you know, in stride. They always take things, good and bad, in stride.”

“And was it a good or bad thing?”

“I think good. Whenever a former detective is cleared of wrongdoing, that’s a good thing. Even if it is Harry Bosch.”

She smiled. He frowned and unlocked the door. He pushed it open for her.

“Enter,” he said. “I’m out of beer but I have some pretty good bourbon.”

“That sounds right,” she said.

Bosch entered behind her and then moved by so he could get to the living room first and make it a little more hospitable for a visitor. The past two nights he had fallen asleep on the couch, watching television and trying to clear his mind of all things related to his cases.

He squared up the couch pillows and grabbed the shirt draped over the arm. He headed back toward the kitchen with it.

“Have a seat and I’ll get the glasses.”

“Can we go out on the deck? I like it out there and it’s been a while.”

“Sure. There’s a broomstick in the slider track.”

“That’s new.”

He put the shirt in the washer, which was located by the kitchen’s side door to the carport. He grabbed the bottle off the top of the refrigerator and took two glasses down from a shelf before joining Soto on the deck.

“Yeah, there’ve been a couple break-ins in the neighborhood lately,” he said. “Both times the guy climbed up a tree to get on the roof and then came down on the back deck, where people sometimes don’t lock their doors.”

He gestured with the bottle toward the house next door, which was cantilevered like Bosch’s. The rear deck hung out over the canyon and seemed impossible to get to other than from inside. But it was clear the roof gave access.

Soto nodded. Bosch could tell she wasn’t really interested. She wasn’t visiting as part of the Neighborhood Watch committee.

He opened the bottle and poured a healthy slug into each of the glasses. He handed one to Soto but they didn’t toast. Considering everything between them at the moment, it would not have felt right.

“So did he tell you how he did it?” Bosch asked.

“Who?” Soto said. “How who did what?”

“Come on. Spencer. How’d he rig the evidence box?”

“Spencer hasn’t told us jack shit, Harry. His lawyer won’t let him talk to us and he said he wasn’t going to testify either. Your lawyer lied to the judge during the proffer.”

“No, he didn’t lie. Not to the judge, at least. Check the record. He said Spencer was in the hallway and was ready to take the stand. That wasn’t a lie. Whether he was going to testify once he got up there or take the fifth was another matter.”

“Semantics, Harry. I never knew you to hide behind words.”

“It was a bluff and it worked. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know about it. But it got the truth out, didn’t it?”

“It did, and it got us a search warrant. We didn’t need Spencer to talk.”

Bosch looked sharply at her. She had solved the mystery.

“Tell me.”

“We opened his locker. He had a stack of the twenty-year-old evidence stickers they put on the boxes back then. They were supposed to be destroyed when we went to the red crackle tape. But somehow he got a leftover stack and kept it.”

“So he opened the box, planted Olmer’s DNA, and put new labels on it.”

“He opened the bottom seam, because your signature was on the labels on top. And because his labels were old and yellow, the box looked totally legit. The thing is, we don’t think it was the only time. We got a search warrant for his house too, and we found some receipts from a pawn shop in Glendale. We checked there and he’s a regular customer, selling jewelry mostly. We think he might have been raiding boxes from closed cases, looking for valuables to pawn. He probably thought since the cases were old and closed, nobody would ever look.”

“So when Cronyn asked Spencer if he could get something into a box, he said no problem.”

“Exactly.”

Bosch nodded. The mystery was solved.

“What about the Cronyns?” he asked. “I assume they’re going for a one-for-one deal, right?”

“Probably,” she said. “She walks and he takes the hit. He’ll get disbarred but then he’ll just prop her up. Everyone will know that if you hire her, you hire him.”

“And that’s it? No jail time? The guy used the law to try to break a killer out of prison. Death row, no less. He gets a slap on the wrist?”

“Well, last I heard, they were still in jail because Houghton won’t set bail till tomorrow. Anyway, it’s early in negotiations, Harry. But Spencer still isn’t talking, and the only one who is talking is Borders. When your one and only witness is a murderer on death row, you don’t have a case you want to take to a jury. This is going to come down to plea agreements all around, and maybe Cronyn goes to jail, maybe not. Truth is, they’re more interested in nailing Spencer because he was inside the wire. He betrayed the department.”

Bosch nodded. He understood the thinking on Spencer.

“The department’s management team has already moved in,” Soto said. “They’re revamping the whole booking-and-retrieving process so that something like this can never happen again.”

Bosch moved to the wooden railing and leaned his elbows down. It was still at least an hour from sundown. The 101 freeway down in the pass was clogged in both directions. But there were very few sounds of horns. Drivers in L.A. seemed resigned to a fate of waiting in traffic without the kind of impotent cacophony of horns that Bosch always seemed to hear in other cities he’d visited. He always thought his deck gave him a unique angle on that distinctive L.A. trait.

Soto joined him at the railing and leaned down next to him.

“I didn’t really come up here to talk about the case,” she said.

“I know,” Bosch said.

She nodded. It was time to get to it.

“A really good detective who used to mentor me taught me to always follow the evidence. That’s what I thought I was doing with this thing. But somewhere I got manipulated or I took a wrong turn and I ended up where the evidence told me something my heart should have known was flat-out wrong. For that I’m truly sorry, Harry. And I always will be.”

“Thank you, Lucia.”

Bosch nodded. He knew she could have easily blamed it all on Tapscott. He was the senior detective in the partnership and he called the final shots on case decisions. Instead, she put it all on herself. She took the weight. That took guts and that took a true detective. Bosch had to admire her for it.

Besides, how could he hold anything against Soto when he had heard in his own daughter’s voice a worry that it all might be true, that Harry had fixed a case against an innocent man?

“So...,” Lucia asked. “Are we good again, Harry?”

“We’re good,” Bosch said. “But I sure hope people read the paper tomorrow.”

“Fuck anybody who still has a doubt after today.”

“I’ll go with that.”

Soto straightened up. She had said what she’d come to say and was ready to go home. Soon she would be in the iron ribbon of traffic he was staring down at.

She poured the remainder of her bourbon into Bosch’s glass.

“I gotta go.”

“Okay. Thanks for coming here to talk. Means a lot, Lucia.”

“Harry, if you need anything or there’s anything I can do for you, I owe you. Thanks for the booze.”

She headed for the open slider. Bosch turned and leaned back against the railing.

“There is, actually,” he said. “Something you could do.”

She stopped and turned around.

“Daisy Clayton,” he said.

She shook her head, not getting it.

“Am I supposed to know that name?”

Bosch shook his head and stood straight.

“No. She was a murder victim from before you ever made it to homicide. But you’re on cold cases. I want you to pull the file and work it.”

“Who was she?”

“She was a nobody, and nobody cared. That’s why her case is still open.”

“I mean who was she to you?”

“I never knew her. She was only fifteen years old. But there’s somebody out there who took her and used her and then threw her away like trash. Somebody evil. I can’t work the case because it’s Hollywood. Not my turf anymore. But it is yours.”

“You know what year?”

“Oh-nine.”

Soto nodded. She had what she needed, at least to pull the case and review it.

“Okay, Harry, I’m on it.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll tell you what I know when I know it.”

“Good.”

“See you, Harry.”

“See you, Lucia.”

42

After showering and changing into street clothes, Bosch went to the closet next to the front door and pulled the fireproof box off the shelf. He used a key to open it. It contained old legal documents, including birth certificates and his discharge papers from the U.S. Army. Bosch kept his wedding ring in the box as well as his two Purple Hearts, and the two life-insurance policies that listed his daughter as beneficiary.

There was also a faded color photo of Bosch and his mother. It was the only photograph of her he had, so he had always wanted to keep it safe rather than display it. He looked at it now for a few moments, this time his eyes drawn to his own image at eight years old rather than to his mother’s. He studied the hopefulness in the boy’s face and wondered where it had gone.

He put the photo to the side and dug further into the strongbox until he found what he was looking for.

It was an old sock stuffed with a rubber-banded roll of money. Without pulling it out of the sock now or counting it, Bosch shoved it into the side pocket of his jacket. The roll of money was the earthquake fund, mostly large bills he had been accumulating slowly — a twenty here and a fifty there — since the last big earthquake in 1994. In L.A., nobody wanted to be stuck without cash when the big one hit. ATMs would be knocked off-line and banks would be closed in a time of civic catastrophe. Cash would be king and Bosch had been planning accordingly for over twenty years. By his estimate, there was close to ten thousand dollars in the sock.

He put the other items back into the box, taking one last look at the mother-and-son photo. He had no recollection of posing for the shot or where it had been taken. It was a professional shot with a white — now yellowed — background. Maybe young Harry had tagged along with her when she had gotten head shots for her efforts to be cast as a movie extra. Maybe she then paid the photographer a little more for a quick photo with her son.

Bosch drove up the hill to Mulholland and then followed the snake to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, which dropped him down the north side into the Valley. As soon as he got bars on his phone, he called Bella Lourdes on her cell. He expected that she would be off duty and home by now. Still, she answered right away.

“Harry, I was going to call you, but I thought maybe you’d be out celebrating.”

“Oh, you mean the case? No, no celebration. Just glad it’s over.”

“I’ll say. Well, I was also going to call to tell you they ID’d the other Russian off his prints. You know how you were calling him Igor for the sake of keeping all the parties straight when you were telling the story?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the guy’s name actually was Igor. I mean, what are the chances?”

“Probably pretty good if you’re Russian.”

“Anyway, Igor Golz — G-O-L-Z — age thirty-one. Interpol had him as another member of the Bratva and longtime associate of Sluchek’s. They met in a Russian prison and probably came over here together.”

“Well, I guess that wraps things up on the farmacia case, huh?”

“I was nailing down the paperwork today. You back in tomorrow, now that your court thingy is over?”

“Yeah, my thingy’s over and I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Sorry, you know what I mean. It’ll be nice to have you back around.”

“Listen, I was calling to ask you something. The other day you mentioned that you had been around addicts, including someone in your own family. Do you mind if I ask who that was?”

“Yeah, my sister. Why do you want to know?”

“Is she all right now? I mean, not addicted?”

“As far as we know. We don’t see her that much. Once she got clean, she didn’t really want to be around the people who saw her at the low points, you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“She stole like crazy from my parents. Me too.”

“That’s what happens.”

“So we saved her but consequently we lost her. At least in a good way. She lives up in the Bay Area, and like I said, she’s supposedly four years sober and clean.”

“That part’s great. How did you get her clean?”

“Well, we didn’t actually do it. It was rehab.”

“Which one did you use? That’s why I’m calling. I need to get somebody into a place and I don’t know where to start.”

“Well, there’s the fancy ones that cost a fortune and those that don’t. You get what you pay for as far as creature comforts, but my sister was basically on the streets. So the place we got her into was like heaven. A room and a bed, you know? It was a mixture of circle jerks and private sessions with the shrinks. A piss test every day.”

“Where was it? What was it called?”

“It was called the Start. It was over there in Canoga Park. Four years ago it was like twelve hundred a week. There was no insurance, so we all chipped in. It’s gotta be more now. The opioid thing has made it hard to find a bed in some of these places.”

“Thanks, Bella. I’m going to check it out.”

“See you tomorrow at the station?”

“I’ll be there.”

Bosch was on the 101, transitioning north to the 405. He could see the plume of smoke from the brewery up ahead.

He called directory assistance and was connected to the Start. After being put on hold twice he was finally speaking to someone called the director of placement. She explained that the facility specialized in treating opioid addiction and that they did not reserve beds, choosing to work strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. At the moment, there were three beds open in the forty-two-bed facility.

Bosch asked about pricing and learned that the weekly all-inclusive fee had jumped more than fifty percent in four years to $1,880, paid in advance with a recommended four-week minimum of treatment. Bosch was reminded of Jerry Edgar’s sermon about the crisis being too big to shut down because everybody was making money on it.

Bosch thanked the director of placement and disconnected. Five minutes later he was pulling into the Road Saints compound. This time there were several motorcycles parked about the front yard and he wondered if he had stumbled into the monthly membership meeting. Before getting out of the Jeep, he called Cisco to see if he had arrived at the wrong time.

“No, man, I’ll come out and bring you in. Wednesdays are always big here for some reason. I don’t even know why.”

Bosch was leaning against the Jeep when Cisco came out.

“So how’s she doing?” he asked.

“Uh, resentful as ever,” Cisco said. “But I think that’s a good sign. I remember Mick Haller came by to visit me when I was in day four or five. I told him through the door that he could take his job and shove it up his ass. ’Course, a week later I had to ask him to pull it out of his ass and give it back to me.”

Bosch laughed.

“So have you heard about this place over in Canoga Park called the Start?” he asked.

“Yeah, the rehab,” Cisco said. “I’ve heard of it. But I don’t really know anything about it.”

“I heard from somebody that it was good. It got results for them. It costs about two grand a week, so it better.”

“That’s a lot of bread.”

“When Elizabeth is finished here, I want you to take her there, try to get her in. It’s first come, first served, but there are beds open now.”

“I think she’s going to need at least another day here, maybe two, before she gets cleaned up and can take that next step.”

“That’s fine. Whenever she’s ready.”

Bosch reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the sock containing the cash roll. He handed it to Cisco.

“Use this. It should get a month at that place. Maybe longer if she needs it.”

Cisco reluctantly took it.

“This is cash? You just want to give it to me?”

Cisco looked around the yard and through the fencing to the outside streets. Bosch realized how it might look to anyone watching.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Now Bosch looked around. He saw no sign of surveillance, but he probably wouldn’t have.

“No worries,” Cisco said. “For a good cause.”

“So, you’ll handle that?” Bosch asked. “You’ve been paying forward, backward, and sideways with this.”

“I don’t mind. We’re doing a good thing. You want to go in now?”

“You know what? I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t. If she’s going to get agitated, then she doesn’t need to see me. I don’t want to set her off.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, if she’s doing good, keep her doing good. I’m happy with that.”

Cisco tossed the sock up and then caught it.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Earthquake money?”

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I thought, what the hell, put it to good use.”

“Yeah, but you know you just jinxed the whole city. As soon as you spend the earthquake money, the big one hits. Everybody knows that.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just have to see. I’ll let you get back to it. Thanks, Cisco.”

“No, thank you. And someday I think she’ll be doing the thanking.”

“Not necessary now, not necessary then. Let me know how it goes with that other place if you get her in.”

“Will do.”

After driving away, Bosch cut west and went by the Start after Googling its location on his phone. He could tell it had once been a Holiday Inn or some other midrange hotel. It was now painted stark white. It looked clean and cared for — at least on the outside. He was happy with that.

He kept driving and started heading home. Almost the whole way he thought about his decision not to go in and visit Elizabeth Clayton. He wasn’t sure what that meant or what he was doing. She had tapped into a need he had to reach out and help someone, whether they welcomed his help or not. He was sure that if he sat down with a shrink for an hour — maybe his longtime LAPD counselor Carmen Hinojos — there would be a whole raft of psychological underpinnings to his actions. And the money. He had very specifically committed funds that would not upset any financial aspect of his life. So was there a sacrifice in that?

There had been a time when Bosch as a boy, obviously wanting to escape his life in youth halls and foster homes, had become fascinated with the great explorers who had discovered new lands and cultures. Men who had left their places and stations in life to find something new or to stand against something old, like slavery. As he traveled from one bed to another, the one thing he carried from place to place was a book about the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who had done both. Bosch didn’t remember the title of the book anymore but he remembered many of the ideas the man espoused. Over time he had cemented them like a mason into his own belief system and they formed the brick foundation of who he was as both a detective and a man.

Livingstone had said sympathy was no substitute for action. That was an essential brick in Bosch’s wall. He had built himself as a man of action and, at the moment when the integrity of his life’s work had been called into question by a man on death row, he had chosen to turn his sympathy for Elizabeth Clayton into action. He understood that but was unsure if anyone else would. They would see other motives. Elizabeth would as well, and that was why he had chosen not to see her.

He knew he had done what he needed to do and that he would probably never see her again.

It was only nine when he reached home, but Bosch was exhausted and looking forward to crashing into his bed for the first time in almost a week. He got in, checked the locks, and put the broomstick back into the track of the deck slider. He then walked down the hall, dropping his jacket and shirt on the floor as he went.

He finished getting undressed and crawled onto the bed, ready to completely succumb to sleep’s rehab and restoration. When he reached over to the clock so he could push the daily six a.m. alarm back a couple hours, he saw a folded envelope on the bed table. He unfolded it to find that it was addressed to him at the SFPD station.

He suddenly thought someone had been in the house and put the envelope there for him to find. Then his weary mind focused and he remembered placing the letter there three nights earlier. He had completely forgotten about it and had not slept in the bed since.

He decided the letter could wait until morning. He adjusted the alarm, turned off the light, and put his head between two pillows.

He lasted no more than thirty seconds. He pulled the top pillow away, reached up, and turned the light back on. He opened the envelope.

It contained a folded newspaper clip. It was a San Fernando Valley Sun story from almost a year earlier, reporting on the department’s renewed effort to find out what had happened to Esmerelda Tavares. Bosch had given the interview to a reporter for the local weekly, hoping to spawn feedback and possible information from the public. A few tips had come in but nothing of merit, nothing that panned out. And now a year later, this letter.

The clip was accompanied by a piece of white paper folded three times. In a handwritten scrawl it said,

The note included the name Angela and a phone number with an 818 area code.

The Valley.

Bosch got up and reached for his phone.

43

Angela Martinez, the author of the note to Bosch, turned out to know exactly what had happened to Esmerelda Tavares because she was Esmerelda Tavares.

On Wednesday night, Bosch had called the number on the letter he had received, and the woman who identified herself as Angela said she would meet him at nine the next morning at her home in Woodland Hills.

The woman who answered the door of the condo on Topanga Canyon Boulevard was blond and in her midthirties. Bosch had spent a lot of time over the previous two years looking at photographs of the dark-haired, dark-eyed Esme Tavares of fifteen years before. He had one shot of her, her lips pursed in a pout, posted in the cell so that he would always be reminded of the case. He had chosen the pout photo out of all the rest because he knew the set of a person’s closed mouth changed little over time. The woman who called herself Angela wasn’t smiling when she answered the door, and he knew right away that she was Esme.

And she recognized that he knew.

“You have to stop looking for me,” she said.

They sat in her living room and she told him her story. Once she got going, he could have filled in the details ahead of her, but he let her tell it just the same. Young woman caught in a bad marriage to an older, dominating man; physically abused regularly and tied to a baby she never wanted to have — that her husband wanted only as a means of controlling her. She made the hard choice to leave everything behind, including the child, and disappear.

She had help, and when Bosch probed deeper with his questions, it became clear that help came from a lover she had had on the side at the time and had now lived with for fifteen years. They had first moved away and lived in Salt Lake City together. They came back ten years later because both missed the city where they had grown up.

Her story had more holes in it than a San Pedro fishing net but Bosch thought the omissions and incongruities were designed to cast her in the best light in a place of deep shadows. She seemed to show no guilt about the daughter she had left in a crib or about the efforts of the community to find her. She professed to be unaware of all of that because she was then living in Salt Lake City.

She also claimed that her disappearance was not an effort in any way to cast suspicion on the husband she left behind. She said she had no alternative but to run.

“If I had tried to just leave him, he would have killed me,” she said. “Admit it, you thought he had killed me.”

“That might be true,” Bosch said. “But that was at least in part dictated by the circumstances of you disappearing with the baby left in the crib.”

In the end, Angela Martinez née Esmerelda Tavares was singularly unapologetic for what she had done. Not to Bosch, the police, or the community. And most of all not to her baby daughter, whom her husband gave up for adoption a year after his wife was gone.

“Do you even know where she is?” Bosch asked, the dispassionate detective pose not working at the moment.

“Wherever it is, I’m sure she’s in a better place than if I had stayed in that house of horrors,” Martinez said. “She might not have survived it. I know I wouldn’t have.”

“But how did you know he would give her up once you were gone? She could still be in that house of horrors as far as you knew back then.”

“No, I knew he would give her up. He only wanted her so I would be tied to him. I proved him very wrong.”

Bosch thought about the intervening years and all the efforts to find her. He thought about Detective Valdez, now the chief of police, haunted by the case for so long. Bosch knew that on one level it was a good outcome. The mystery was solved and Esme was alive. But Bosch didn’t feel good about it.

“Why now?” Bosch said. “Why’d you reach out now?”

“Albert and I want to get married,” she said. “It’s time. My husband never divorced me — that’s how controlling he was. He never had me declared dead. But I hired a lawyer and he’ll handle it now. The first step was to solve the mystery that everybody’s been so worked up about for so long.”

She smiled as though she was proud of her actions, energized by knowing she had kept the secret for so long.

“Aren’t you still afraid of him, your husband?” Bosch asked.

“Not anymore,” she said. “I was just a girl then. He doesn’t scare me now.”

Her smile had now turned into the pout from the photo Bosch had hung in the cell where he worked.

He stood up.

“I think I have what I need to close this out,” he said.

“That’s all you need to know?” she asked.

She seemed surprised.

“For now,” Bosch said. “I’ll get back to you if there’s anything else.”

“Well, you know where to find me,” she said. “Finally.”

Bosch headed to the station after that. He was morose. He was coming in with another case closed but there was nothing to feel good about. A lot of people had spent time, money, and emotions on Esme Tavares. As had always been suspected, Esme Tavares was dead. But Angela Martinez was alive.

After parking at SFPD, he made a swing through the detective bureau on his way to the main interior hallway of the station. The pods were empty and Bosch heard voices from the war room. He suspected the detectives were taking a joint lunch break.

The chief of police’s office was located at the center of the station and across a hallway from the watch lieutenant’s office. Bosch stuck his head in the door and asked Valdez’s secretary if the boss had a free five minutes. He knew that once he got in the room with the man, the conversation would likely last a lot longer. The secretary called back to the room behind her desk and got an approval. Bosch stepped in.

Valdez was in uniform as usual and seated behind his desk. He held up the A section of the Times.

“Just reading about you, Harry,” he said. “They exonerated you pretty good here. Congratulations.”

Bosch sat down across the desk from him.

“Thanks,” he said.

Bosch had read the story that morning before heading off to his appointment and was satisfied with it. However, he knew that more people read the Sunday edition of the Times than the Thursday paper. There was always going to be a gulf between those who had read that he was a crooked cop and those who read the never-mind-he’s-straight story.

It didn’t bother him too much. The one person he wanted most to read the latest story had already seen it online and had texted him, saying again that she was very proud of him and happy with the outcome of the Borders case.

“So,” he said. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, so I’ll just tell you. I just met Esme Tavares. She’s alive and well and living in Woodland Hills.”

Valdez almost came out of his seat. He leaned violently forward across the desk, his face showing his surprise.

“What?”

Bosch ran down the story, beginning with him opening the letter the night before.

“Mother of God,” Valdez said. “I’ve had her as dead for fifteen years. Let me tell you, many was the night I wanted to go to that house and drag that asshole husband of hers behind the back of my car until he told me where she was buried.”

“I know. Me too.”

“I mean, Christ, I fell in love with her. You know how you do with victims sometimes?”

“Yeah, I had a little bit of that too. Until today.”

“So did she tell you why?”

Bosch recounted the conversation he’d had that morning with Angela Martinez. As he told it, Valdez’s face grew increasingly dark with anger. He shook his head several times and wrote some notes down on a scratch pad on his desk.

When Bosch was finished, the chief checked his notes before speaking.

“Did you advise her?” he asked.

Bosch knew he was asking if Bosch had informed Martinez of her constitutional rights to an attorney and to avoid self-incrimination.

“No,” Bosch said. “I didn’t think I had to. She called me to her place and we sat in her living room. I identified myself and she obviously knew who I was. But it doesn’t matter, Chief. I know what you’re thinking, and those things never work out.”

“This is a fraud,” Valdez said. “Over the years, we’ve spent probably close to half a million dollars looking for her. I remember when she was first reported missing, the overtime was flowing like an open fire hydrant. It was all hands on deck. And then we’ve never let up, right on up to you taking the case and running with it.”

“Look, I hate to come off as defending her, but she committed a moral crime, not a crime that the D.A. will find prosecutable. She was escaping from what she considered a dangerous situation. She was long gone before the overtime and everything else started flowing. She can claim she didn’t know or that it was too dangerous to call in and say she was okay. She’s got a lot of defenses. The D.A. won’t touch it.”

The chief didn’t respond. He leaned back in his chair and stared at a toy police helicopter hanging on a string from the ceiling. He liked to say it was the tiny department’s air squadron.

“Shit,” he finally said. “I wish there was something we could do about it.”

“We just have to live with it,” Bosch said. “She was in a bad situation back then. She made the wrong choice, but people are flawed. They’re selfish. All this time we thought she was dead, she was pure and innocent to us. Now we find out she was the kind that would leave a baby in a crib to save herself.”

Bosch thought about Jose Esquivel Jr. dying with his cheek on the linoleum in the back hallway of his father’s business. He wondered if anybody was pure and innocent.

Valdez got up from his desk and went to the bulletin board over the low row of filing cabinets against the right wall. He flipped back some deployment sheets, then weeded through a stack of Wanted flyers until he found the MISSING leaflet with the photo of Esme Tavares on it circa 2002. He tore it off the board and crumpled it between his hands, crushing the ball as small as he could. He then fired a shot at a trash can at the end of the file cabinets.

He missed.

“What’s this world about, Harry?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “This week I closed out a double murder and a fifteen-year-old missing-persons case. And I don’t feel good about any of it.”

Valdez dropped back into his seat.

“You gotta feel good about the farmacia caper,” he said. “You took two pieces of shit off the board.”

Bosch nodded. But the truth was, it felt to him like he was walking in circles. True justice was the brass ring just out of reach.

Bosch stood up.

“You going to call up Carlos and tell him he’s off the hook?” he asked.

Carlos Tavares was Esmerelda’s husband, fifteen years a suspect.

“Fuck him,” Valdez said. “He’s still an asshole. He can read about it in the paper.”

Bosch went to the door and then looked back at his boss.

“I’ll have the report on this finished today,” he said.

“Good,” Valdez said. “Then we go drinking.”

“That sounds right.”

44

Bosch wanted to avoid the detective bureau. He didn’t want to talk anymore. Bella Lourdes and the others would find out soon enough about Esme Tavares being alive and well, and it would be the talk of the department and then the whole town. But Bosch had talked about it enough for the time being.

He walked out the front door of the station and then crossed the street. He went through the Public Works yard and into the jail. After unlocking his cell, he slid the heavy steel door open and it banged hard against its frame. Like the police chief, Bosch went to the photo of Esme Tavares to yank it down. But then he stopped. He decided to leave it in place so he would always see it and it would remind him about how wrong he had been about the case.

It was the child in the crib that had misled him. He knew this. It seemed against all laws of nature, and so it had led him and many others before him down the wrong path.

He stood there looking at the photo and considered the irony of the week. Elizabeth Clayton couldn’t recover from the loss of a child and wandered the earth as a zombie, not caring what was done to her or what depravity she had willingly sunk to. Esme Tavares left a child in a crib and apparently never looked back.

The reality of the world was dark and horrifying. Bosch sat down behind his makeshift desk to do the paperwork that would document the grim reality of it. But he found that he couldn’t even begin.

He contemplated this for a long moment and then stood back up. There was a bench that ran down the center of the cell perpendicular to his desk. He used it mostly to spread out photos and files so that he could review stubborn cases from a fresh angle, often looking at the crime scene photos placed side by side down the length of the scarred wooden bench. He had been told that the bench had been nicknamed “the diving board” back in the day because it had been the jumping-off point to oblivion for a handful of inmates over time. They would step up on the bench, wrap one leg from their jail pants through the bars guarding the overhead air vent, then wrap the other around their neck.

They’d jump off the end of the bench into the dark pool of emptiness, and their misery would be over.

Bosch stepped up onto the bench now. He reached above his head to grasp one of the overhead bars for support.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Checking the screen, he held the phone up, turning on the bench, moving his arm until he saw one service bar finally appear in the corner. With his thumb, he went to his contact list and scrolled until almost the end and hit the number he was looking for.

Lucia Soto answered right away.

“Harry, what’s up?”

“Did you pull that case I told you about?”

“Daisy Clayton? Yes, first thing this morning.”

“And?”

“You were right, gathering dust. Nobody’s worked it in three, four, years except for the annual due diligence reports, which are word-for-word copies of the year before. You know how it goes: ‘No viable leads at this time’ because they didn’t really look for viable leads.”

“And?”

“And I think they were wrong. I saw some stuff. There are workable angles. It was pretty much written off as a serial. Somebody who moved through Hollywood, did his thing, and moved on. But I’m not so sure about that. I looked at the photos. There was a familiarity with her and the place she was left. He knew the area. I’m going to—”

“Lucia.”

“What, Harry?”

“Cut me in.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. I want in. Let’s go get him.”