The Law of Innocence

by Michael Connelly

  Ruth yanked her partner away by the arm.

  “Have a good evening,” she said.

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

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

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

  “Who were they?” Kendall asked.

  “FBI,” I said.

  “What? What did they want?”

  “To scare me. Let’s go in.”

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

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

  “What exactly did they want?” Kendall asked.

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

  “Did they?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. You want to keep working?”

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

  “Then, let’s go to bed.”

  “Good idea.”

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

  “That looked a little testy,” Cisco said.

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

  “But we stay with it, right?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Right. Forgot.”

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

  “He didn’t make any calls?”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Done.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “It’s Mick. Where the hell are you?”

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

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

  I immediately regretted my choice of words.

  “With me, I mean.”

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

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

  “They like to do that.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “You’re not an NRA guy, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

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

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

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

  “You think he has something?”

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

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

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

  “Thanks for schooling me.”

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

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

  “Drove.”

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

  “I’ll be there.”

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

  Kendall called down the hall from the bedroom.

  “Are you coming to bed or not?”

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

  “Coming.”

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

  “Scared me,” I said.

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

  “What did?”

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

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

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

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

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

  She shook her head.

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

  I let go of her shoulders.

  “And what, you think I am?”

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

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

  I left her there in the hallway.

  22

  Tuesday, January 14

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

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

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

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

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

  “You’re at the prison?” I asked.

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

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

  “He wants you, Mick.”

  “What’s that mean?”

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

  “You mean today? Come there today?”

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

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

  “Shit, I forgot.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Well…what do you want to do?”

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

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

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

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

  “What’s in Vegas?”

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

  “Good luck with that. Let me know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Las Vegas. Really, Mr. Haller?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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