The Lincoln Lawyer Collection

by Connelly, Michael

  “Did I just hear you right, Haller?”

  “I don’t know what you heard, Williams, but I’m not going back for a rehearing. You have to understand something. You gave me a bag of shit for a case and I have to do the best I can with it. What evidence we do have is twenty-four years old. We have a big hole blown in the side of the case with the DNA and we have an eyewitness we can’t find. So that tells me I have to do whatever I can do to make this case.”

  “And what’s that got to do with letting this man out of jail?”

  “Don’t you see, man? Jessup has been in prison for twenty-four years. It was no finishing school. Whatever he was when he went in? He’s worse now. If he’s on the outside, he’ll fuck up. And if he fucks up, that only helps us.”

  “So in other words, you are putting the general public at risk while this guy is out there.”

  “No, because you are going to talk to the LAPD and get them to watch this guy. So nobody gets hurt and they are able to step in and grab him the minute he acts out.”

  Another silence followed but this time I could hear muffled voices and I figured that Williams was talking it over with his advisor, Joe Ridell. When his voice came back to me, it was stern but had lost the tone of outrage.

  “Okay, this is what I want you to do. When you want to make a move like this, you come to me first. You understand?”

  “That’s not going to happen. You wanted an independent prosecutor. That’s what you’ve got. Take it or leave it.”

  There was a pause and then he hung up without further word. I closed my phone and watched for a few moments as Clive Royce exited the courtroom and waded into the crowd of reporters and cameras. Like a seasoned expert, he waited a moment for everyone to get their positions set and their lenses focused. He then proceeded with the first of what would be many impromptu but carefully scripted press briefings.

  “I think the District Attorney’s Office is running scared,” he began.

  It was what I knew he would say. I didn’t need to listen to the rest. I walked away.

  Eight

  Wednesday, February 17, 9:48 A.M.

  Some people don’t want to be found. They take measures. They drag the branch behind them to confuse the trail. Some people are just running and they don’t care what they leave in their wake. What’s important is that the past is behind them and that they keep moving away from it.

  Once he back-checked the DA investigator’s work, it took Bosch only two hours to find a current name and address for their missing witness, Melissa Landy’s older sister, Sarah. She hadn’t dragged a branch. She had used the things that were close and just kept moving. The DA’s investigator who lost the trail in San Francisco had not looked backwards for clues. That was his mistake. He had looked forward and he’d found an empty trail.

  Bosch had started as his predecessor had, typing the name Sarah Landy and birth date April 14, 1972, into the computer. The department’s various search engines provided myriad points of impact with law enforcement and society.

  First there were arrests on drug charges in 1989 and 1990—handled discreetly and sympathetically by the Division of Children’s Services. But she was beyond the reach and understanding of DYS for similar charges in late 1991 and two more times in 1992. There was probation and a period of rehabilitation and this was followed by a few years during which she left no digital fingerprints at all. Another search site provided Bosch with a series of addresses for her in Los Angeles in the early nineties. Harry recognized these as marginal neighborhoods where rents were probably low and drugs close by and easy to acquire. Sarah’s illegal substance of choice was crystal meth, a drug that burned away brain cells by the billions.

  The trail on Sarah Landy, the girl who had hidden behind the bushes and watched her younger sister get taken by a killer, ended there.

  Bosch opened the first file he had retrieved from the murder box and looked at the witness information sheet for Sarah. He found her Social Security number and fed that along with the DOB into the search engine. This gave him two new names: Sarah Edwards, beginning in 1991, and Sarah Witten in 1997. With women changes of last names only were usually an indicator of marriage, and the DA’s investigator had reported finding records of two marriages.

  Under the name Sarah Edwards, the arrests continued, including two pops for property crimes and a tag for soliciting for prostitution. But the arrests were spread far enough apart and perhaps her story was sad enough that once again she never saw any jail time.

  Bosch clicked through the mug shots for these arrests. They showed a young woman with changing hairstyles and colors but the unwavering look of hurt and defiance in her eyes. One mug shot showed a deep purple bruise under her left eye and open sores along her jawline. The photos seemed to tell the story best. A downward spiral of drugs and crime. An internal wound that never healed, a guilt never assuaged.

  Under the name Sarah Witten, the arrests didn’t change, only the location. She had probably realized she was wearing thin on the prosecutors and judges who had repeatedly given her breaks—most likely after reading the summary of her life contained in the presentencing investigations. She moved north to San Francisco and once again had frequent encounters with the law. Drugs and petty crime, charges that often go hand in hand. Bosch checked the mug shots and saw a woman who looked old beyond her years. She looked like she was forty before she was yet thirty.

  In 2003 she did her first significant jail time when she was sentenced to six months in San Mateo County Jail after pleading guilty to a possession charge. The records showed that she served four months in jail followed by a lockdown rehab program. It was the last marker on the system for her. No one with any of her names or Social Security number had been arrested since or applied for a driver’s license in any of the fifty states.

  Bosch tried a few other digital maneuvers he had learned while working in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where Internet tracing was raised to an art form, but could not pick up the trail. Sarah was gone.

  Putting the computer aside, Bosch took up the files from the murder box. He started scanning the documents, looking for clues that might help him track her. He got more than a clue when he found a photocopy of Sarah’s birth certificate. It was then that he remembered that she had been living with her mother and stepfather at the time of her sister’s murder.

  The birth name on the certificate was Sarah Ann Gleason. He entered it into the computer along with her birth date. He found no criminal history under the name but he did find a Washington State driver’s license that had been established six years earlier and renewed just two months before. He pulled up the photo and it was a match. But barely. Bosch studied it for a long time. He would have sworn that Sarah Ann Gleason was getting younger.

  His guess was that she had left the hard life behind. She had found something that made her change. Maybe she had taken the cure. Maybe she had a child. But something had changed her life for the better.

  Bosch next ran her name through another search engine and got utility and satellite hookups under her name. The addresses matched the one on her driver’s license. Bosch was sure he had found her. Port Townsend. He went onto Google and typed it in. Soon he was looking at a map of the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of Washington. Sarah Landy had changed her name three times and had run to the farthest tip of the continental United States, but he had found her.

  The phone rang as he was reaching for it. It was Lieutenant Stephen Wright, commander of the LAPD’s Special Investigation Section.

  “I just wanted you to know that as of fifteen minutes ago we’re fully deployed on Jessup. The full unit’s involved and we’ll get you surveillance logs each morning. If you need anything else or want to ride along at any point, you call me.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. I will.”

  “Let’s hope something happens.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Bosch disconnected. And made the call to Maggie McPherson.

  �
��Couple things. First, SIS is in place now on Jessup. You can let Gabriel Williams know.”

  He thought he heard a small chuckle before she responded.

  “Ironic, huh?”

  “Yeah. Maybe they’ll end up killing Jessup and we won’t have to worry about a trial.”

  The Special Investigation Section was an elite surveillance squad that had existed for more than forty years despite a kill rate higher than that of any other unit in the department, including SWAT. The SIS was used to clandestinely watch apex predators—individuals suspected in violent crimes who would not cease until caught in the act and stopped by the police. Masters of surveillance, SIS officers waited to observe suspects committing new crimes before moving in to make arrests, often with fatal consequences.

  The irony McPherson mentioned was that Gabriel Williams was a civil rights attorney before running for and winning the DA’s post. He had sued the department over SIS shootings on multiple occasions, claiming that the unit’s strategies were designed to draw suspects into deadly confrontations with police. He had gone so far as to call the unit a “death squad” while announcing a lawsuit over an SIS shooting that had left four robbers dead outside a Tommy’s fast-food franchise. That same death squad was now being used in a gambit that might help win the case against Jessup and further Williams’s political rise.

  “You’ll be informed of his activities?” McPherson asked.

  “Every morning I’ll get the surveillance log. And they’ll call me out if anything good happens.”

  “Perfect. Was there something else? I’m in a bit of a rush. I’m working on one of my preexisting cases and have a hearing about to start.”

  “Yeah, I found our witness.”

  “You’re brilliant! Where is she?”

  “Up in Washington on the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. A place called Port Townsend. She’s using her birth name, Sarah Ann Gleason, and it appears that she’s been living clean up there for about six years.”

  “That’s good for us.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “How so?”

  “It looks to me like most of her life has been spent trying to get away from what happened that Sunday in Hancock Park. If she’s finally gotten past it and is living the clean life up there in Port Townsend, she might not be interested in picking at old scabs, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not even for her sister?”

  “Maybe not. We’re talking about twenty-four years ago.”

  McPherson was quiet for a long moment and then finally responded.

  “That’s a cynical view of the world, Harry. When are you planning on going up there?”

  “As soon as I can. But I have to make arrangements for my daughter. She stayed with a friend when I went up to get Jessup at San Quentin. It didn’t turn out so good and now I have to hit the road again.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I want to go up with you.”

  “I think I can handle it.”

  “I know you can handle it. But it might be good to have a woman and a prosecutor with you. More and more, I think she’s going to be the key to this whole thing and she’s going to be my witness. Our approach to her will be very important.”

  “I’ve been approaching witnesses for about thirty years. I think I—”

  “Let me have the travel office here make the arrangements. That way we can go up together. Talk out the strategy.”

  Bosch paused. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to change her mind.

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Good. I’ll tell Mickey and contact travel. We’ll book a morning flight. I’m clear tomorrow. Is that too soon for you? I’d hate to wait on this till next week.”

  “I’ll make it work.”

  Bosch had had a third reason to call her but now decided to hold back. Her taking over the trip to Washington made him gun-shy about discussing his investigative moves.

  They hung up and he was left drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk as he contemplated what he would say to Rachel Walling.

  After a few moments he pulled out his cell phone and used it to make the call. He had Walling’s number in its memory. To his surprise, she answered right away. He had envisioned her seeing his name on the ID and letting him go to the message. They’d had a relationship that was long over but still left a trail of intense feelings.

  “Hello, Harry.”

  “Hello, Rachel. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “Pretty good. I’m calling about a case.”

  “Of course. Harry Bosch never goes through channels. He goes direct.”

  “There are no channels for this. And you know I call you because I trust you and more than anything else respect your opinion. I go through channels and I get some profiler in Quantico who’s just a voice on the phone. And not only that, he doesn’t call me back with anything for two months. What would you do if you were me?”

  “Oh… probably the same thing.”

  “Besides that, I don’t want the bureau’s official involvement. I am just looking for your opinion and advice, Rachel.”

  “What’s the case?”

  “I think you’re going to like it. It’s a twenty-four-year-old murder of a twelve-year-old girl. A guy went down for it back then and now we have to retry him. I was thinking a profile of the crime might be helpful to the prosecutor.”

  “Is this that Jessup case that’s in the news?”

  “That’s right.”

  He knew she would be interested. He could hear it in her voice.

  “All right, well, bring by whatever you’ve got. How much time are you giving me? I’ve got my regular job, you know.”

  “No hurry this time. Not like with that Echo Park thing. I’ll probably be out of town tomorrow. Maybe longer. I think you can have a few days with the file. You still in the same place above the Million Dollar Theater?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay, I’ll drop the box by.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Nine

  Wednesday, February 17, 3:18 P.M.

  The holding cell next to Department 124 on the thirteenth floor of the CCB was empty except for my client Cassius Clay Montgomery. He sat morosely on the bench in the corner and didn’t get up when he saw me come back.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.

  “Come on, Cash. It’s not like you’d be going anywhere. What’s it matter if you were waiting here or back in County?”

  “They got TV in County, man,” he said, looking up at me.

  “Okay, so you missed Oprah. Can you come over here so I don’t have to shout our business across the room?”

  He got up and came over to the bars. I stood on the other side, beyond the red line marking the three-foot threshold.

  “Doesn’t matter if you shout our business. There ain’t nobody left to hear it.”

  “I told you, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a busy day.”

  “Yeah, and I guess I’m just a no-count nigger when it comes to being on TV and turnin’ into the man.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I saw you on the news, dog. Now you a prosecutor? What kinda shit is that?”

  I nodded. Obviously, my client was more concerned with me being a turncoat than with waiting until the last hearing of the day.

  “Look, all I can tell you is that I took the job reluctantly. I am not a prosecutor. I am a defense attorney. I’m your defense attorney. But every now and then they come to you and they want something. And it’s hard to say no.”

  “So what happens to me?”

  “Nothing happens to you. I’m still your lawyer, Cash. And we have a big decision to make here. This hearing is going to be short and sweet. It’s to set a trial date and that’s it. But Mr. Hellman, the prosecutor, says the offer he made to you is good only until today. If we tell Judge Champagne we’re ready to go to trial today, then
the deal disappears and we go to trial. Have you thought about it some more?”

  Montgomery leaned his head in between two bars and didn’t speak. I realized he couldn’t pull the trigger on a decision. He was forty-seven and had already spent nine years of his life in prison. He was charged with armed robbery and assault with great bodily injury and was looking at a big fall.

  According to the police, Montgomery had posed as a buyer at a drive-through drug market in the Rodia Gardens projects. But instead of paying, he pulled a gun and demanded the dealer’s drugs and money roll. The dealer went for the gun and it went off. Now the dealer, a gang member named Darnell Hicks, was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  As is usual in the projects, no one cooperated with the investigation. Even the victim said he didn’t remember what happened, choosing in his silence to trust that his fellow Crips would handle justice in the matter. But investigators made a case anyway. Picking up my client’s car on a video camera at the entrance to the projects, they found the car and matched blood on the door to the victim.

  It wasn’t a strong case but it was solid enough for us to entertain an offer from the prosecution. If Montgomery took the deal he’d be sentenced to three years in prison and would likely serve two and a half. If he gambled and took a conviction at the end of a trial, then he’d be looking at a mandatory minimum of fifteen years inside. The add-on of GBI and use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery were the killers. And I knew firsthand that Judge Judith Champagne wasn’t soft on gun crimes.

  I had recommended to my client that he take the deal. It was a no-brainer to me but then I wasn’t the one who had to do the time. Montgomery couldn’t decide. It wasn’t so much about the prison time. It was the fact that the victim, Hicks, was a Crip and the street gang had a long reach into every prison in the state. Even taking the three-year sentence could be a death penalty. Montgomery wasn’t sure he would make it.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “It’s a good offer. The DA doesn’t want to go to trial on this. He doesn’t want to put a victim on the stand who doesn’t want to be there and may hurt the case more than help it. So he’s gone as low as he can go. But it’s up to you. Your decision. You’ve had a couple weeks now and this is it. We have to go out there in a couple minutes.”