The Brass Verdict Page 11

  “Anybody from there check in on the homicide investigation?”

  “Not yet.”

  I thought about this and shrugged.

  “Well, maybe they will and then you’ll know.”

  “Yeah, and maybe they won’t. It’s not their style, if you know what I mean. Now your turn. What do you have that’s federal?”

  “Nothing. I confirmed that Vincent had no federal cases.”

  I watched Bosch do a slow burn as he realized I had played him.

  “You’re telling me you have found no federal connections? Not even a bureau business card in that office?”

  “That’s right. Nothing.”

  “There’s been a rumor going around about a federal grand jury looking into corruption in the state courts. You know anything about that?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve been on the shelf for a year.”

  “Thanks for the help.”

  “Look, Detective, I don’t get this. Why can’t you just call over there and ask who was calling your victim? Isn’t that how an investigation should proceed?”

  Bosch smiled like he was dealing with a child.

  “If they want me to know something, they’ll come to me. If I call them, they’ll just shine me on. If this was part of a corruption probe or they’ve got something else going, the chances of them talking to a local cop are between slim and none. If they’re the ones who got him killed, then make it none.”

  “How would they get him killed?”

  “I told you, they kept calling. They wanted something. They were pressuring him. Maybe someone else knew about it and thought he was a risk.”

  “That’s a lot of conjecture about five calls that don’t even add up to five minutes.”

  Bosch held up the yellow pad.

  “No more conjecture than this list.”

  “What about the laptop?”

  “What about it?”

  “Is that what this is all about, something in his computer?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How can I tell you when I have no idea what was in it?”

  Bosch nodded the point and stood up.

  “Have a good day, Counselor.”

  He walked out, carrying the legal pad at his side. I was left wondering whether he had been warning me or playing me the whole time he had been in the room.

  Sixteen

  Lorna and Cisco arrived together fifteen minutes after Bosch’s departure and we convened in Vincent’s office. I took a seat behind the dead lawyer’s desk and they sat side by side in front of it. It was another score-keeping session in which we went over cases, what had been accomplished the previous night and what still needed to be done.

  With Cisco driving, I had visited eleven of Vincent’s clients the night before, signing up eight of them and giving back files to the remaining three. These were the priority cases, potential clients I hoped to keep because they could pay or their cases had garnered some form of merit in my review. They were cases I could win or be challenged by.

  So it had not been a bad night. I had even convinced the woman charged with indecent exposure to keep me on as her attorney. And of course, bagging Walter Elliot was the icing on the cake. Lorna reported that she had faxed him a representation contract and it had already been signed and returned. We were in good shape there. I could start chipping away at the hundred thousand in the trust account.

  We next set the plan for the day. I told Lorna that I wanted her and Wren—if she showed up—to run down the remaining clients, apprise them of Jerry Vincent’s demise and set up appointments for me to discuss the options of legal representation. I also wanted Lorna to continue building the calendar and familiarizing herself with Vincent’s files and financial records.

  I told Cisco I wanted him to focus his attention on the Elliot case, with particular emphasis on witness maintenance. This meant that he had to take the preliminary defense witness list, which had already been compiled by Jerry Vincent, and prepare subpoenas for the law enforcement officers and other witnesses who might be considered hostile to the defense’s cause. For the paid expert witness and others who were willingly going to testify at trial for the defense, he had to make contact and assure them that the trial was moving forward as scheduled, with me replacing Vincent at the helm.

  “Got it,” Cisco said. “What about the Vincent investigation? You still want me monitoring?”

  “Yes, keep tabs on that and let me know what you find out.”

  “I found out that they spent last night sweating somebody but kicked him loose this morning.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “A suspect?”

  “They cut him loose, so whoever it was is cleared. For now.”

  I nodded as I thought about this. No wonder Bosch looked like he had been up all night.

  “What are you going to be doing today?” Lorna asked.

  “My priority starting today is Elliot. There are a few things on these other cases that I’ll need to pay some attention to but for the most part I’m going to be on Elliot from here on out. We’ve got jury selection in eight days. Today I want to start at the crime scene.”

  “I should go with you,” Cisco said.

  “No, I just want to get a feel for the place. You can get in there with a camera and tape measure later.”

  “Mick, isn’t there any way you can convince Elliot to delay?” Lorna asked. “Doesn’t he realize that you need time to study and understand the case?”

  “I told him that, but he’s not interested. He made it a condition of my hire. I had to agree to go to trial next week or he’d find another lawyer who could. He says he’s innocent and doesn’t want to wait a single day longer to prove it.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  I shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter. He believes it. And he’s got this strange confidence in it all turning out his way—like the Monday morning box office. So I either get ready to go to trial at the end of next week or I lose the client.”

  Just then the door to the office swung open and revealed Wren Williams standing tentatively in the doorway.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  “Hello, Wren,” I said. “Glad you’re here. Could you wait out there in reception, and Lorna will be right out to work with you?”

  “No problem. You also have one of the clients waiting out here. Patrick Henson. He was already waiting when I came in.”

  I looked at my watch. It was five of nine. It was a good sign in regard to Patrick Henson.

  “Then, send him in.”

  A young man walked in. Patrick Henson was smaller than I thought he would be, but maybe it was the low center of gravity that made him a good surfer. He had the requisite hardened tan but his hair was cropped short. No earrings, no white shell necklace or shark’s tooth. No tattoos that I could see. He wore black cargo pants and what probably passed as his best shirt. It had a collar.

  “Patrick, we spoke on the phone yesterday. I’m Mickey Haller and this is my case manager, Lorna Taylor. This big guy is Cisco, my investigator.”

  He stepped toward the desk and shook our hands. His grip was firm.

  “I’m glad you decided to come in. Is that your fish on the wall back there?”

  Without moving his feet Henson swiveled at the hips as if on a surfboard and looked at the fish hanging on the wall.

  “Yeah, that’s Betty.”

  “You gave a stuffed fish a name?” Lorna asked. “What, was it a pet?”

  Henson smiled, more to himself than to us. “No, I caught it a long time ago. Back in Florida. We hung it by the front door in the place I was sharing in Malibu. My roommates and me, we’d always say, ‘Hellooo, Betty’ to it when we came home. It was kind of stupid.”

  He swiveled back and looked at me.

  “Speaking of names, do we call you Trick?”

  “Nah, that was just the name my agent came up with. I don’t have him anymore. Yo
u can just call me Patrick.”

  “Okay, and you told me you had a valid driver’s license?”

  “Sure do.”

  He reached into a front pocket and removed a thick nylon wallet. He pulled his license out and handed it to me. I studied it for a moment and then handed it to Cisco. He studied it a little longer and then nodded, giving it his official approval.

  “Okay, Patrick, I need a driver,” I said. “I provide the car and gas and insurance and you show up here every morning at nine to drive me wherever I need to go. I told you the pay schedule yesterday. You still interested?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Are you a safe driver?” Lorna asked.

  “I’ve never had an accident.” Patrick said.

  I nodded my approval. They say an addict is best suited for spotting another addict. I was looking for signs that he was still using. Heavy eyelids, slow speech, avoidance of eye contact. But I didn’t pick up on anything.

  “When can you start?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t have anything… I mean, whenever you want, I guess.”

  “How about we start right now? Today will be a test-drive. We’ll see how you do and we can talk about it at the end of the day.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Okay, well, we’re going to get out of here and hit the road and I’ll explain in the car how I like things to work.”

  “Cool.”

  He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and awaited the next move or instruction. He looked like he was about thirty but that was because of what the sun had done to his skin. I knew from the file that he was only twenty-four and still had a lot to learn.

  Today the plan was to take him back to school.

  Seventeen

  We took the 10 out of downtown and headed west toward Malibu. I sat in the back and opened my computer on the fold-down table. While I waited for it to boot up I told Patrick Henson how it all worked.

  “Patrick, I haven’t had an office since I left the Public Defender’s Office twelve years ago. My car is my office. I’ve got two other Lincolns just like this one. I keep them in rotation. Each one’s got a printer and a fax and I’ve got a wireless card in my computer. Anything I have to do in an office I can do back here while I’m on the road to the next place. There are more than forty courthouses spread across L.A. County. Being mobile is the best way to do business.”

  “Cool,” Patrick said. “I wouldn’t want to be in an office either.”

  “Damn right,” I said. “Too claustrophobic.”

  My computer was ready. I went to the file where I kept generic forms and motions and began to customize a pretrial motion to examine evidence.

  “I’m working on your case right now, Patrick.”

  He looked at me in the mirror.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I reviewed your file and there’s something Mr. Vincent hadn’t done that I think we need to do that may help.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get an independent appraisal of the necklace you took. They list the value as twenty-five thousand and that bumps you up to a felony theft category. But it doesn’t look like anybody ever challenged that.”

  “You mean like if the diamonds are bogus there’s no felony?”

  “It could work out like that. But I was thinking of something else, too.”

  “What?”

  I pulled his file out of my bag so I could check a name.

  “Let me ask you a few questions first, Patrick,” I said. “What were you doing in that house where you took the necklace?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I was dating the old lady’s youngest daughter. I met her on the beach and was sort of teaching her to surf. We went out a few times and hung out. One time there was a birthday party at the house and I was invited and the mother was given the necklace as a gift.”

  “That’s when you learned its value.”

  “Yeah, the father said they were diamonds when he gave it to her. He was real proud of ’em.”

  “So then, the next time you were there at the house, you stole the necklace.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “It wasn’t a question, Patrick. It’s a fact. I’m your lawyer now and we need to discuss the facts of the case. Just don’t ever lie to me or I won’t be your lawyer anymore.”

  “Okay.”

  “So the next time you were in the house, you stole the necklace.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “We were there alone using the pool and I said I had to go to the can, only I really just wanted to check the medicine cabinet for pills. I was hurting. There weren’t any in the bathroom downstairs so I went upstairs and looked around. I looked in the old lady’s jewelry box and saw the necklace. I just took it.”

  He shook his head and I knew why. He was thoroughly embarrassed and defeated by the actions his addiction had made him take. I had been there myself and knew that looking back from sobriety was almost as scary as looking forward.

  “It’s all right, Patrick. Thank you for being honest. What did the guy say when you pawned it?”

  “He said he’d only give me four bills because the chain was gold but he didn’t think the diamonds were legit. I told him he was full of shit but what could I do? I took the money and went down to TJ. I needed the tabs and so I took what he was giving. I was so messed up on the stuff, I didn’t care.”

  “What’s the name of the girl? It’s not in the file.”

  “Mandolin, like the instrument. Her parents call her Mandy.”

  “Have you talked to her since you were arrested?”

  “No, man. We’re done.”

  Now the eyes in the mirror looked sad and humiliated.

  “Stupid,” Henson said. “The whole thing was stupid.”

  I thought about things for a moment and then reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a Polaroid photograph. I handed it over the seat and tapped Patrick on the shoulder with it.

  “Take a look at that.”

  He took the photo and held it on top of the steering wheel while he looked at it.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

  “I tripped over a curb and did a nice face plant in front of my house. Broke a tooth and my nose, opened up my forehead pretty good, too. They took that picture for me in the ER. To carry around as a reminder.”

  “Of what?”

  “I had just gotten out of my car after driving my eleven-year-old daughter home to her mother. By then I was up to three hundred twenty milligrams of OxyContin a day. Crushing and snorting first thing in the morning, except for me, the mornings were the afternoon.”

  I let him register that for a few moments before continuing.

  “So, Patrick, you think what you did was stupid? I was driving my little girl around on three hundred twenty migs of hillbilly heroin.”

  Now I shook my head.

  “There’s nothing you can do about the past, Patrick. Except keep it there.”

  He was staring directly at me in the mirror.

  “I’m going to help you get through the legal stuff,” I said. “It’s up to you to do the rest. And the rest is the hard part. But you already know that.”

  He nodded.

  “Anyway, I see a ray of light here, Patrick. Something Jerry Vincent didn’t see.”

  “What is it?”

  “The victim’s husband gave her that necklace. His name is Roger Vogler and he’s a big supporter of lots of elected people in the county.”

  “Yeah, he’s big into politics. Mandolin told me that. They hold fund-raisers and stuff at the house.”

  “Well, if the diamonds on that necklace are phony, he’s not going to want that coming up in court. Especially if his wife doesn’t know.”

  “But how’s he gonna stop it?”

  “He’s a contributor, Patrick. His contributions helped elect at least four members of the county
board of supervisors. The county supervisors control the budget of the District Attorney’s Office. The DA is prosecuting you. It’s a food chain. If Dr. Vogler wants to send a message, believe me, it will be sent.”

  Henson nodded. He was beginning to see the light.

  “The motion I’m going to file requests that we be allowed to independently examine and appraise the evidence, to wit, the diamond necklace. You never know, that word ‘appraise’ may stir things up. We’ll just have to sit back and see what happens.”

  “Do we go to court to file it?”

  “No. I’m going to write this thing up right now and send it to the court in an e-mail.”

  “That’s cool!”

  “The beauty of the Internet.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Haller.”

  “You’re welcome, Patrick. Can I have my picture back now?”

  He handed it over the seat and I took a look at it. I had a marble under my lip, and my nose was pointing in the wrong direction. There was also a bloody friction abrasion on my forehead. The eyes were the toughest part to study. Dazed and lost, staring unsteadily at the camera. This was me at my lowest point.

  I put the photo back in my pocket for safekeeping.

  We drove in silence for the next fifteen minutes while I finished the motion, went online, and sent it. It was definitely a shot across the prosecution’s bow and it felt good. The Lincoln lawyer was back on the beat. The Lone Ranger was riding again.

  I made sure I looked up from the computer when we hit the tunnel that marks the end of the freeway and dumps out onto the Pacific Coast Highway. I cracked the window open. I always loved the feeling I got when I’d swing out of the tunnel and see and smell the ocean.

  We followed the PCH as it took us north to Malibu. It was hard for me to go back to the computer when I had the blue Pacific right outside my office window. I finally gave up, lowered the window all the way, and just rode.

  Once we got past the mouth of Topanga Canyon I started seeing packs of surfers on the swells. I checked Patrick and saw him taking glances out toward the water.

  “It said in the file you did your rehab at Crossroads in Antigua,” I said.

  “Yeah. The place Eric Clapton started.”

  “Nice?”