Date: 2014-01-14 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Thriller; Detective; Novella; Crime; Mystery; Suspense; Short Stories
Description: I n this original short story* * from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, **LAPD Detective Harry Bosch seeks justice for the forgotten NOTE: This file includes a preview of Michael Connelly's novel The Crossing. **In "Switchblade," an anonymous tip puts Bosch on a case that has remained unsolved for decades, the vicious stabbing of a teenage boy whose body was found in an abandoned Old Hollywood restaurant. Cold cases are often the toughest: With no body, no murder scene, and no fingerprints, Bosch nevertheless gets lucky when DNA evidence from the murder weapon points to a
Publisher: Little, Brown

Switchblade

An Original Story

Michael Connelly

Little, Brown and Company

New York  Boston  London

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The saying goes that hope springs eternal. So too with homicide. At the Los Angeles Police Department, a decade of successes by the Open-Unsolved Unit in closing old and sometimes forgotten murder cases created a steady stream of inquiries from the loved ones of victims. They came from around the world, from any place there was an unquenched desire for justice. Every day came the calls and e-mails and even visits. People asking about cases, hoping to spark the interest of the squad that investigated the past, seeking its hidden killers.

So high was the tide of hope for justice and closure that the OU Unit could not handle all the inquiries and still dedicate the time needed to the actual investigations. The department dug into the budget and hired a sorter—that is, a civilian employee who worked out of the OCP, the Office of the Chief of Police, and sorted through the dozens of requests that came in each week, sometimes each day.

The sorter’s name was Emily Robertson and her main tools for dealing with case inquiries were the department’s murder logs. These leather-bound books contained a chronological list of every murder committed in the City of Angels going back to 1896. One page, one murder. There were more than fifty of these somber volumes on the shelves behind Emily’s desk. When an inquiry came to her or was referred to her— whether it was a phone call, an e-mail, or a walk-in—it was Emily’s job to find the reference to the case in the murder logs. By confirming the case and the year of the crime, Emily then knew which detective team in the Open-Unsolved Unit she should refer the inquiry to for follow-up. Each of the eight teams in the unit was assigned specific years of responsibility. Any unsolved cases from its assigned years went to that detective team.

Sometimes the follow-up took weeks, sometimes months. Every detective in the unit carried a sizable caseload, with investigations under way at varying stages. With more than six thousand unsolved murders on the books, there was no shortage of work. If the referred case proved workable—that is, if there was evidence that bore analysis with contemporary technologies and investigative techniques—then Emily would step out of the picture as the detectives took over. If the review of the case determined that there was no means of proceeding or evidence to analyze, then it was referred back to Emily, who had the difficult task of informing a family or a loved one that the case still remained unsolved and unworkable—a dead end.

Detective Harry Bosch enjoyed the sight of Emily Robertson when she came into the squad room each Friday morning with the week’s sorting of inquiries. Not only did it mean the possibility of fresh cases for him to work, but he also liked talking with Emily. She was an attractive woman of about forty. She was too young for Bosch, though he could still think about it.

The main attraction for Bosch, however, was that she spoke with emotional fervor about the cases she had sorted and the people who had come to her. She was the gateway between people whose questions had gone unanswered for so long and the detectives they hoped would bring resolution. The bottom line was that although Emily was not a detective, she understood the mission. That everybody counted or nobody counted. She seemed to take every case to heart, and that was a pitch over the plate to Harry Bosch. Indeed, the word around the squad was that Emily had seen a newspaper story announcing the sorting position and left a successful career as a legal secretary to take the job at a considerable reduction in pay.

The Billy Ratliff case began for Bosch with Emily. On a Friday morning more than a year ago, she entered the OU squad room with the usual stack of green files she had prepared, one for each case she had sorted. Bosch watched her from his cubicle and waited. His partner that day was on vacation, so Harry waited patiently by himself to see if a file or two would come to him. Emily made her way around the room, dispensing files, sometimes with a conversation, sometimes leaving a file on an empty desk because the corresponding detectives were out in the field or off duty.

She waited to come to Bosch last. She had one file left in her hand when she arrived at his cubicle.

“Good morning, Detective Bosch.”

“Good morning, Emily. When are you going to start calling me Harry?”

“I’m sorry. I always forget. Harry.”

She nodded, as if trying the name out and seeing if it worked.

“What do you have there?”

She handed him the green file.

“There is not a lot in there. This one was anonymous—came in yesterday. He didn’t say much but I was able to find the case. Nineteen ninety-two. One of your years.”

“Sure is.”

Bosch opened the file. It contained only two sheets of paper. One was a photocopy of the page from the murder log where she had found the case recorded. The other page was just a few notes from the anonymous call she had received. Bosch read this page first.

7/20/12—anon.

male—40s?

vic: “Billy” 1991–95 Hollywood—stabbed

“Patrick Sewell killed that boy.”

That was it. Bosch looked up at Emily and smiled.

“You know, maybe next time you get one of these, you should transfer it down here,” he said. “This doesn’t sound like a family member. This is a tip and it should’ve gone to the tip line, where officers take the info and can ask questions, or if it’s an old case like this, just transfer it down here.”

She nodded.

“I know, I know. I tried to put him on hold so I could transfer the call and he said he wouldn’t hold. He said, ‘I told you all I have to say,’ and then he hung up.”

Bosch frowned.

“And you think you got the name right?”

“I think so. He said it twice. He said, ‘Patrick Sewell killed that boy. Patrick Sewell.’”

“Okay. So he gave the suspect’s full name twice but only a partial on the victim’s. Just Billy.”

“Right. And there were a lot of murders in the nineties. I started looking through them all until I saw the name. They didn’t know who it was at first, then they updated it with the name. William Ratliff. I think this is the case. I didn’t find any other unsolved cases in the Hollywood area with a victim named Billy or William.”

Bosch nodded again and looked back down at the file to read the entries on the log page.

187 W/M 20s—08:40 2/9/92—1628 N. Vine

R/O Whitcomb (6A67) called to scene by city building inspector Oscar Reyes. Victim in abandoned/burned restaurant (Brown Derby). Victim stabbed multiple times torso/c. Wrists bound behind back. Victim naked. Hollywood 187—Rodgers/Quinlan.

Bosch knew that the famed Old Hollywood restaurant where the body had been found had been destroyed during the 1992 riots. It stood partially intact afterward but was abandoned except by the homeless for almost another two years before being leveled and turned into a parking lot.

Bosch distantly remembered the murder as the Brown Derby case. This was not because of any involvement on his part in the investigation in 1992 but because he had reviewed the stored evidence and case records—contained in a binder called a murder book—when he was assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit and given responsibility for the year 1992. He rated the cases he reviewed on a scale of one to five, with a five designation meaning there was highly viable forensic evidence that could be followed up on. But his memory at the moment was that he had rated the Brown Derby case a one or a two after he ran fingerprints collected at the crime scene and got no matches in the data banks, where millions of prints were stored. He didn’t recall there being any DNA or other evidence worth pursuing using modern technology and science.

Below the initial entry was a short second paragraph added to the log by Homicide detectives Rodgers and Quinlan after an initial assessment of the case and identification of the victim had been confirmed.

02/10/92 additional—victim ID through fingerprints

William Ratliff—dob 7/14/73
multiple 646(b) 92-94

SID 94-00064 (prints, clothing, knife, tape)

No suspects at this time

The second entry meant that the nineteen-year-old victim had been identified through fingerprints that matched those taken during multiple arrests for prostitution and soliciting. It also mentioned that the Scientific Investigation Division was processing all evidence from the crime scene. The shorthand on the entry indicated this included all collected fingerprints, the victim’s clothing, a switchblade knife that may have been the murder weapon, and the tape that had been used to bind him.

“What do you think?”

Bosch looked up at Emily, who was still standing next to his cubicle.

“Well,” he said. “I remember this case and—”

“You were a detective in ’92?”

There was genuine surprise in her voice.

“It was only twenty years ago,” he said, smiling. “I actually was on the homicide table at Hollywood Division and worked with these guys, Rodgers and Quinlan. But it wasn’t my case, and that’s not why I remember it. What I meant was that I remember reviewing this case when I was transferred to this unit and ’92 became one of my years. I looked through all the open cases from that year. There were a lot. We had the riots that year. Anyway, I looked at this one and I don’t remember there being any workable leads. I don’t remember this name—Patrick Sewell—being in the file.”

“Okay. Is there anything you can do with it?”

Bosch shrugged.

“I’ll follow up, see if I can find out who this guy Patrick Sewell is and go from there.”

“Okay.”

“Meantime, if the anonymous tipster calls you again, try to get him to me. Tell him a detective needs to talk to him.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Thanks, Emily. You have a good day.”

“You too, Harry.”

Bosch smiled because she had used his first name.

The evidence box from archives took three days to get to Bosch after he formally made the request. By then he had already pulled the murder book from the Records Division and reviewed the case again. Billy Ratliff was a homeless kid who ended up on the streets of Hollywood at age fifteen. He was small in stature with blond hair and a toothy smile. He fell in with a group of fellow runaways who squatted in abandoned apartments and buildings and sometimes lived in city parks and homeless shelters. They were drug users and panhandlers and prostitutes. Billy was known to engage in all three activities and was in and out of juvenile halls and then jails after he turned eighteen. He always came back to the boulevard and the so-called “rat pack” in which he eventually served, as the oldest, in the capacity of alpha male.

The investigative theory contained in the murder book was that Billy’s street life took a fatal turn when he crossed paths with a psychopath who took him into the kitchen of a closed restaurant for an exchange of sex for money or drugs. According to the autopsy report, Ratliff was stabbed seven times in the chest and torso with a rage and ferocity that were evidenced by indentations in the wounds made by the hilt of the killer’s knife. The murder was classified as a hate crime because a psychological profile of the killing drawn up by a department shrink concluded that it was likely motivated by homophobic rage.

No next-of-kin notification was ever made in the case. Members of the rat pack provided little investigative help about the crime and were not even sure where Ratliff was from, though records at a youth shelter called My Friend’s Place had a file on Ratliff that said he was from Long Beach. Rodgers and Quinlan could never locate anyone from Billy Ratliff’s family. Nobody claimed his body and it was cremated at taxpayers’ expense.

Nowhere in the murder book did Bosch find the name Patrick Sewell. It never came up in interviews and wasn’t in the routine harvest of names of local miscreants and possible suspects known to be operating in the Hollywood area at the time. The detectives also pulled lists of suspects in other hate crimes that occurred in Hollywood in the previous year and nowhere did Sewell come up on the radar.

Despite there being no mention of Sewell in the murder book, Bosch had no trouble tracking him down twenty years later. A check of law enforcement databases spit out a Patrick Sewell serving a life sentence at San Quentin for a murder committed in Orange County four years after the Billy Ratliff killing. Bosch requested the case records from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and learned that the murder Sewell was in prison for was the stabbing of a man Sewell had picked up at a gay bar in Irvine.

The case had several similarities to the Ratliff murder, most notably that both victims had been homosexuals stabbed with a switchblade and that rage was clearly part of the motivation. In the Orange County case, Sewell had stabbed the victim with such force that at one point his hand slipped over the hilt of the knife and he cut himself, transferring his own blood to the victim and leaving the evidence that would help convict him.

This gave Bosch an idea. Ratliff had been cremated, so there was no going to the interred body to look for evidence. But according to the evidence report in the murder book, the switchblade had been found at the crime scene submerged in an industrial-size sink full of rancid water. It was surmised that the suspect had attempted to clean the weapon in the dark waters of the sink and left it there in panic or so that he would not be found in possession of it.

When the stored evidence from the Ratliff case arrived from archives, Bosch found that the sealed box contained the switchblade along with Ratliff’s clothes and the gray duct tape that had been used to bind and gag him. Bosch’s name was on the chain-of-custody receipt on the box. He had been the last one to open it seven years before while he was reviewing unsolved cases from the years assigned to him.

Back then he was quickly going through cases, looking for obvious investigative points of origin such as fingerprints and DNA sources. This time was different. This time he would go deeper. He had a clue to work with now.

Bosch took the entire box to the Regional Crime Lab, where he left its contents with various experts—the clothing to be viewed under lighting that would make body fluids fluoresce, the duct tape to be checked by specialists using new methods to expose fingerprints and fibers, and the switchblade to be examined by a DNA expert.

The knife was most intriguing to Bosch. Though ostensibly cleaned by the killer and left submerged in contaminated water for an estimated nineteen hours—the span from time of death to discovery of the body by a city inspector and then the draining of the sink by a crime scene tech—there was still a chance that microscopic DNA could be found on the weapon. The knife was cheaply made and stamped HECHO
EN MEXICO on the blade. It had been found in the closed position, meaning sometime between the murder and the weapon’s abandonment it had been closed, presumably by the killer. Bosch pointed this out to the DNA intake tech he brought it to and asked him to check the channel in the knife’s handle where the blade was hidden when not extended.

A week later Bosch received a call at his desk from a criminalist at the crime lab. His name was Jack Hardy and he said he had been given the task of disassembling the switchblade from the Ratliff case.

“I got good news for you, Detective,” he said. “We found DNA in the handle.”

“That’s great. Is there enough for comparison?”

“We think so. We’re going to put together a package for the DOJ.”

Bosch knew that all DNA analysis in criminal matters was handled by the California Department of Justice lab in Sacramento. The wait for results could be interminable.

“How long before we hear back?” he asked, even though he suspected he would not receive an encouraging response.

“Six months,” Hardy said. “Three if we’re lucky.”

“The guy who I think did this comes up on his first parole hearing on another murder in five months. He’s up at San Quentin. The way they let people out these days, I’d hate to see this guy get out before we can hit him with this.”

“I hear you. I’ll see what I can do to speed things along.”

The regional lab in L.A. had to be one of the DOJ lab’s biggest and most important customers. People knew people between the facilities and sometimes favors could be done. Bosch hoped for the best, but that was all he could do. He had taken the Ratliff case as far as he could take it. Now it was time to wait on it while he worked other cases. This was the routine in the Open-Unsolved Unit. A lot of irons in the fire at all times. Bosch waited for the science to deliver while he moved on to a different case.

The next time Emily Robertson came through the squad room with that week’s sorting, Bosch updated her on where things stood with the case. He said it was a long shot but at least they had a shot.

She seemed pleased. She even called him Harry after he gave her the update.

It took the DOJ lab four months to return a verdict. DNA from the switchblade had been matched to two people: William Ratliff and Patrick Sewell.

Bosch could not have asked for a better result. Blood from both the victim and the suspect were found on the murder weapon. It looked like a slam dunk. Bosch took what he had to the District Attorney’s Office to request that a murder charge be lodged against Sewell. He spoke with a deputy DA named Lionel Dupree, who was in the pool of prosecutors assigned to cold cases because of the unique challenges they posed at trial. The Lion, as Dupree was called by the cops in OU, did not call it a slam dunk.

“It’s not even a layup,” he told Bosch. “Science can be challenged—how was that switchblade stored? how many people had access to it over twenty years? what about the deterioration of the specimen while it was in the sink?—and don’t get me started on test contamination up at DOJ. You get a good lawyer and there could be a hundred challenges to this, Harry. And believe me, when it comes to murder cases with death-penalty risk, they’re all good lawyers.”

“So you’re not going to file?” Bosch said incredulously. “I thought you were ‘the Lion’—not afraid of any case.”

“No, I didn’t say I won’t file. And I’m not afraid of this or any other case. I just want to be bulletproof when we go into court. I want more than DNA.”

“So what do I do? The case is old. This is what I’ve got.”

“First of all, you go up to the Q and see this guy, see if you can get an admission. And second—and this is the big one—find the witness.”

“What witness?”

“Whoever it was who called in and put this guy’s name on this. They have to have seen or heard something. They gave Sewell’s name and they were right. Find me that caller and then we probably have a slam dunk here.”

Bosch nodded reluctantly. He knew the Lion was right when it came to making cases but sometimes you had what you had and you needed to roll the dice. He left the DA’s Office disappointed and knowing the case might stall out. For Dupree, as long as Sewell was in prison on the other killing, it didn’t make sense to move ahead with a risky prosecution.

One week after Bosch met with Lionel Dupree he was sitting in a visiting room in the Adjustment Center at the California State Prison at San Quentin. The AC was so named in the nineteenth century because it was the building where new inmates were oriented to the prison’s rules and routines, and it was now also where law enforcement interviews took place. Patrick Sewell was taken from his job in the prison’s mattress factory and brought to Bosch for the interview. Bosch had had a long time to consider how he would play the inmate and had even written out a script which he’d edited and then committed to memory.

Sewell was surprisingly small for a killer of men. Bosch had his file on the table in front of him and knew he was exactly five foot six and 130 pounds. He had brown hair and glasses and had a thin smile on his face. It was a phony sort of smile designed to cloak true intentions. He wore a baggy blue shirt and pants, the color status meaning he had achieved a level of trust inside the prison that allowed him certain freedoms within its twenty-five-foot stone walls. It also meant that he was on a pathway toward parole. Bosch’s script would play on that.

“Patrick, I’m Detective Harry Bosch from the Los Angeles Police Department. How are you doing today?”

Sewell paused before speaking. He presumably had no idea what Bosch was there for.

“I’m doing okay,” he finally said.

“Good. How are you set for your parole hearing next month?”

Sewell shrugged.

“I’m ready, I guess.”

“The captain tells me you’ve been a model prisoner. You must want to get out very badly.”

“I don’t think there’s anybody who wants to be here.”

Bosch nodded.

“That’s true, Patrick. You know if they turn you down, you don’t get another shot for two years. Then if they turn you down again, it’s four years. Best chance is the first shot.”

“What do you want, Mr. LAPD?”

“What I want is to ask you about some years and some specific dates and to see if you can remember where you were and what you might’ve seen during those times.”

“What if I don’t want to answer?”

“You don’t have to. But here’s the trick. If you don’t answer me, that’s called being uncooperative. And that’s going to go in your jacket, and those three parole board members next month are going to know it. Not sure you want that, since I see you got fifteen years in already.”

“Sixteen.”

“My mistake. Sixteen.”

“What dates are you talking about?”

“Well, first let’s do this right.”

Bosch reached into his suit pocket to retrieve his mini voice recorder. He put it down on the table between them and turned it on. He then identified himself and Sewell as well as their location and the date of the recording. Then, reading from a card he had also pulled from a pocket, he gave Sewell the Miranda warning, notifying him of his right to an attorney during the questioning that was to follow. Sewell, wanting to be cooperative, waived his rights and agreed to answer questions. Bosch went right to the script he had committed to memory.

“Mr. Sewell, have you ever been in Los Angeles?”

“Of course. Many times.”

“Did you ever live there?”

“Not really. I stayed with friends every now and then but I never paid rent or anything like that.”

“When were the times you stayed with friends?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to remember after so many years. It was on and off.”

“Was it near the time of your arrest and incarceration in 1996?”

“It could’ve been. I don’t remember.”

“What about before that, earlier in the nineties?”

“I’m sure I was there. In and out.”

“Did you know an individual named William Ratliff? He was known as Billy by his friends.”

“Who now?”

“William Ratliff. He went by Billy.”

“No, I didn’t know anybody who went by Billy.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Where’d you live in 1992?”

“’Ninety-two? That’s way back. In ’92 I was still living part of the time in my mother’s place in Tustin.”

“What about the other part of the time?”

“Uh, you know, around. I’d stay with friends. You know, in and out.”

“When would you go to Los Angeles?”

“Los Angeles? Like on weekends every now and then.”

“Did you drive up there?”

“Yeah, I had a car.”

“So you were in Los Angeles in 1992?”

“I don’t remember exactly. It’s a long—”

“Ever in Hollywood?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I’ve read your application for parole.”

“You’re allowed to do that?”

“Yes, Patrick, the department of probation and parole allowed me to see it. And I see in the candidate’s comments section that you take full responsibility for the crime that put you up here.”

“Yes. I told them I’m sorry.”

“So you are admitting you did it? At your trial you denied it all the way.”

Bosch was drawing Sewell into a corner. In order to get paroled, he had to acknowledge his crimes and hope that his confession would be seen by the board as part of his rehabilitation and redemption.

“I am admitting that I had poor self-control and that I acted out. It cost an innocent man his life and for that I am very sorry.”

“Where did you buy the switchblade you killed that innocent man with?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. Where did you buy the switchblade? You killed the victim in ’96 with a switchblade. Daniel Hunter, a gay man you picked up in a bar. You went to his apartment and stabbed him repeatedly with a switchblade and you admitted as much in your application for parole.”

Bosch paused. Sewell didn’t say anything.

“Now, I want to know where you got the switchblade, Patrick. You told me you were cooperating here.”

The pause continued. Sewell eyes stared cold and hard at Bosch because he knew it was one thing that could not be recorded on Bosch’s micro-recorder and used against him.

“In TJ,” he finally said. “They sold them there cheap.”

“Tijuana,” Bosch said. “Did you go there a lot?”

“Not too much. When I got the urge.”

“The urge to travel or the urge to buy a switchblade?”

“The urge for authentic Mexican food.”

“When did you buy the knife?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you buy more than one down there, Patrick?”

“Just the one, as far as I remember.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Did you stab Billy Ratliff with a switchblade you bought in Mexico?”

“No, don’t be crazy. The answer is no.”

“Were you in Los Angeles on February 9, 1992?”

“How am I supposed to remember something like that?”

“Yes or no?”

“I don’t remember!”

“There is a witness who tells us you killed Billy Ratliff.”

“That is bullshit!”

“No, he says you killed him. You stabbed him with a switchblade just like you stabbed Daniel Hunter. Both of them gay, both of them stabbed with a cheap switchblade from Tijuana. It was you.”

“No, you’re wrong and you can’t prove a thing. What witness? There was no witness.”

“Yeah, how do you know there was no witness?”

Sewell realized he was skirting too close to an admission.

“Look,” he said. “You’re trying to pin this on me because I got a parole hearing coming up. I’m trying to cooperate but you’re accusing me and there isn’t one shred of evidence against me.”

“Depends on what you consider a shred.”

The convict stared at Bosch for a long moment.

“And what’s that mean?”

“It means the smallest shred in the world connects you to Ratliff. We’ve got DNA. On the murder weapon. You stabbed him so hard your fingers slipped over the hilt and you cut yourself. Just like with Hunter.”

Sewell shook his head.

“You are lying. I wasn’t even there.”

“The science doesn’t lie. You can forget parole, Sewell. You can forget everything. This time we’re going for the death penalty. You want to save yourself from that, then you talk. You tell everything. You’ll never get out of here but you’ll be alive.”

“Fuck you, liar. You wouldn’t even be here if you had a case. I’m out of here.”

He stood up and started calling for the guard.

Before Bosch left the Adjustment Center, he got the names of every prisoner who had ever shared a cell with Sewell. He figured the tip to the sorter had to have come from someone he had bragged to about his crimes. Bosch would start with the cell mates.

The next month, Sewell was denied parole after the three-member board heard a presentation from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office that included graphic details of the murder of Daniel Hunter and also news that Sewell’s DNA had been linked to a homicide being worked as a cold case in Los Angeles.

The denial meant Sewell would remain safely behind prison walls for at least the next two years. This took some of the urgency off Bosch but he still worked the case as a hobby, slowly making his way down the list of forty-one cell mates Sewell had had over his years at San Quentin. Some were dead but most were incarcerated in other prisons and jails, which made them easy to get to. Bosch sometimes piggybacked interviews with them while conducting interviews on other cases that came and went.

Ten months passed before Bosch checked the last name off the list. He had found no one who made the call to the Open-Unsolved Unit’s public line. He visited the Lion at the DA’s Office to try to persuade him to go ahead with the case, even though DNA would be the only hard evidence. He argued that the circumstantial evidence—the similarities between the Hunter and Ratliff murders, Sewell’s evasiveness during the San Quentin interview—would help win the day in court, but Dupree was unmoved. He stuck to the argument that as long as Sewell was in prison, there was no need to mount a potentially risky and costly prosecution. He fortified this with the fact that Sewell’s first parole request had been denied, an indicator he was not going anywhere, and the hope that the longer they waited the better the chance that the anonymous caller might come to light.

On a slow day at the start of the new year, Bosch took a ride down to Santa Ana and the Orange County DA’s Office. He asked to see Ken McDowell, the deputy DA who prosecuted Sewell back in 1996. The two men had never spoken in person, though McDowell was aware of Bosch’s efforts and had been the prosecutor who appeared at Sewell’s first parole hearing to urge that he not be released.

Bosch explained to McDowell where the case was and why it was stalled.

“I’m grasping at straws here,” Bosch said.

McDowell, who was now the head deputy DA, shook his head and said he couldn’t help Bosch.

“It’s weird, though,” he said. “Our case started the same way.”

“What do you mean?” Bosch asked.

“Anonymous tip. Somebody—it was a woman—called the OC sheriff’s tip line and said the guy we’re looking for in that Irvine stabbing was Patrick Sewell. We took it from there, but we never did find out who the lady was who made the call.”

Bosch had not seen that in the abbreviated records he had received from Orange County at the start of his investigation. He asked McDowell if he could look at the full file on the case, and the prosecutor allowed him permission as long as he didn’t remove any records from the office. Bosch made the deal and spent the afternoon in an unused and windowless conference room looking through two cardboard file boxes.

Near the back of the second box was a copy of the presentencing report prepared on Sewell before he was sentenced for the murder of Daniel Hunter. Bosch learned many details about Sewell’s life that he’d been unaware of. He learned that when Sewell was a child, his father had abandoned the family after revealing that he was homosexual. He also learned that as an adult Sewell had had his own troubled marriage.

On the second Friday in February, Bosch invited Emily Robertson for lunch at Pete’s Café, a restaurant heavily favored by police and civilians who worked out of the nearby Police Administration Building. They engaged in simple conversation on the short walk over from the PAB. It was only after they were seated at the restaurant and Bosch looked over the lunch specials that he realized it was Valentine’s Day.

He became flustered, thinking that Emily would get the wrong idea. She was at least twenty years younger, and even the idea of a relationship seemed inappropriate. Bosch thought maybe people in the restaurant would think she was his daughter or his secretary. Either way it didn’t matter. What was important was that Emily not misunderstand.

“Emily, I know it’s Valentine’s Day but that’s not why I asked you to lunch.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I asked you because I wanted to talk to you about work-related things.”

“What things?”

“Well, actually, one thing. One case. Patrick Sewell.”

Her eyes widened.

“Are they going to prosecute?”

“Uh, that hasn’t been decided. Take a look at this.”

From his inside suit coat pocket Bosch withdrew a folded document. He flattened it on the table and slid it over for her to see. She looked at it but seemed confused.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s a marriage license,” Bosch said. “Your marriage license from 1995, when you married Patrick Sewell.”

Emily bowed her head.

“I don’t want to cause you any more upset than is necessary, Emily,” Bosch said quickly. “But I need to know what’s going on.”

He waited. She said nothing. She didn’t look up at him.

“You married Patrick Sewell in ’95 and divorced him eight months later in ’96—the same year he killed Daniel Hunter. He was arrested in ’96 after an anonymous caller —a woman—put detectives onto him. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Emily nodded without looking up.

“Two years ago, when you brought me the green file with the tip about Sewell and the Billy Ratliff murder, that was you again.”

“Yes.”

The voice was weak, the head still down.

“Emily, look at me. Please.”

She finally looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with tears, threatening the carefully drawn eyeliner. Bosch felt that they were attracting stares from the other Valentine’s Day couples in the restaurant but he didn’t care.

“There was no anonymous call to Open-Unsolved,” he said. “You made that up.”

“Yes.”

“Why then? Why did you wait so long?”

“He was going to come up for parole. I had to try to do something.”

She explained that after she and Sewell got married, she learned very quickly that he was mentally imbalanced and carried a deep-seated rage over his father’s abandonment and the reasons behind it. He told Emily that growing up, there were times when the rage overcame him and he acted out. In one emotional moment he spoke of killing a homosexual teenager named Billy in Hollywood.

Emily never got any more details about the supposed murder. Years later, at the same time she began to worry that Sewell would be set free through parole, she saw a newspaper story about the success of the Open-Unsolved Unit and the department’s plan to hire a civilian to help deal with the massive number of inquiries that came in each year.

“I thought it would give me access to the records and I would be able to look for the case,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” Bosch said. “Why didn’t you just call in the tip like you did before in Orange County? Why change careers? Why go at it by yourself?”

“Because I wanted to. I had to do it myself to make up for not saying anything for so long. I guess I was afraid of him, even in prison. I still am. He knew I had made the call before. He sent me a letter from prison saying he knew.”

Bosch wanted to know more about why she had done things the way she did but he also knew his first responsibility was to make a case, to bring the Lion what he needed to go forward with a trial.

“What did he tell you about Billy?”

“He told me he got retribution once. That’s what he called it. Retribution for his father. He said the victim’s name was even Billy—that was his father’s name. He called it turkey hunting in Hollywood. He said he tied him up and carved him like a turkey in a restaurant kitchen.”

“Where was this when he told you?”

“In bed one morning. That’s when he would talk to me. A lot of times he was talking about fantasies and things that were not real. I thought the story about Billy was just another one of his weird fantasies. But then after I saw blood on Patrick’s clothes and then found out about the boy in Irvine who was killed, I realized at least some of his stories were real.”

“Were there any other details that you can remember?”

“No, everything I told you was everything he said.”

“You’ll have to testify against him.”

“I can’t. I don’t want to be in the same room with him.”

“You have to, Emily. No choice. In less than a year he gets another shot at parole.”

“I was married to him.”

“Doesn’t matter. The spousal exclusion doesn’t apply.”

She nodded. She already knew the law. She looked down again and whispered.

“Okay, Harry. I’ll do it.”

Bosch nodded. It was time to call the Lion.

Watch for information about the Bosch TV pilot
coming soon to Amazon Studios.

Michael Connelly’s new thriller, The Gods of Guilt, features defense attorney Mickey Haller, who returns with a haunting case.

Following is an excerpt from the novel's opening pages.

Part 1

Glory Days

Tuesday, November 13

1

I approached the witness stand with a warm and welcoming smile. This, of course, belied my true intent, which was to destroy the woman who sat there with her eyes fixed on me. Claire Welton had just identified my client as the man who had forced her out of her Mercedes E60 at gunpoint on Christmas Eve last year. She said he was the one who then shoved her to the ground before taking off with the car, her purse, and all the shopping bags she had loaded into the backseat at the mall. As she had just told the prosecutor who questioned her, he had also made off with her sense of security and self-confidence, even though for these more personal thefts he had not been charged.

“Good morning, Mrs. Welton.”

“Good morning.”

She said the words like they were synonyms for please don’t hurt me. But everyone in the courtroom knew it was my job to hurt her today and thereby hurt the state’s case against my client, Leonard Watts. Welton was in her sixties and matronly. She didn’t look fragile but I had to hope she was.

Welton was a Beverly Hills housewife and one of three victims who were roughed up and robbed in a pre-Christmas crime spree resulting in the nine charges against Watts. The police had labeled him the “Bumper Car Bandit,” a strong-arm thief who followed targeted women from the malls, bumped into their cars at stop signs in residential neighborhoods, and then took their vehicles and belongings at gunpoint when they stepped out of their cars to check for damage. He then pawned or resold all the goods, kept any cash, and dropped the cars off at chop shops in the Valley.

But all of that was alleged and hinged on someone identifying Leonard Watts as the culprit in front of the jury. That was what made Claire Welton so special and the key witness of the trial. She was the only one of the three victims who pointed Watts out to the jury and unequivocally claimed that he was the one, that he did it. She was the seventh witness presented by the prosecution in two days but as far as I was concerned she was the only witness. She was the number one pin. And if I knocked her down at just the right angle, all the other pins would go down with her.

I needed to roll a strike here or the jurors who were watching would send Leonard Watts away for a very long time.

I carried a single sheet of paper with me to the witness stand. I identified it as the original crime report created by a patrol officer who was first to respond to the 911 call placed by Claire Welton from a borrowed cell phone after the carjacking occurred. It was already part of the state’s exhibits. After asking for and receiving approval from the judge, I put the document down on the ledge at the front of the witness stand. Welton leaned away from me as I did this. I was sure most members of the jury saw this as well.

I started asking my first question as I walked back to the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables.

“Mrs. Welton, you have there the original crime report taken on the day of the unfortunate incident in which you were victimized. Do you remember talking with the officer who arrived to help you?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“You told him what happened, correct?”

“Yes. I was still shaken up at the—”

“But you did tell him what happened so he could put a report out about the man who robbed you and took your car, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“That was Officer Corbin, correct?”

“I guess. I don’t remember his name but it says it on the report.”

“But you do remember telling the officer what happened, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And he wrote down a summary of what you said, correct?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And he even asked you to read the summary and initial it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but I was very nervous.”

“Are those your initials at the bottom of the summary paragraph on the report?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Welton, will you now read out loud to the jury what Officer Corbin wrote down after talking with you?”

Welton hesitated as she studied the summary before reading it.

Kristina Medina, the prosecutor, used the moment to stand and object.

“Your Honor, whether the witness initialed the officer’s summary or not, counsel is still trying to impeach her testimony with writing that is not hers. The people object.”

Judge Michael Siebecker narrowed his eyes and turned to me.

“Judge, by initialing the officer’s report, the witness adopted the statement. It is present recollection recorded and the jury should hear it.”

Siebecker overruled the objection and instructed Mrs. Welton to read the initialed statement from the report. She finally complied.

“‘Victim stated that she stopped at the intersection of Camden and Elevado and soon after was struck from behind by a car that pulled up. When she opened her door to get out and check for damage, she was met by a black male thirty to thirty-five YOA—’ I don’t know what that means.”

“Years of age,” I said. “Keep reading, please.”

“‘He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her the rest of the way out of the car and to the ground in the middle of the street. He pointed a black, short-barrel revolver at her face and told her he would shoot her if she moved or made any sound. The suspect then jumped into her car and drove off in a northerly direction, followed by the car that had rear-ended her vehicle. Victim could offer no…”

I waited but she didn’t finish.

“Your Honor, can you instruct the witness to read the entire statement as written on the day of the incident?”

“Mrs. Welton,” Judge Siebecker intoned. “Please continue to read the statement in its entirety.”

“But, Judge, this isn’t everything I said.”

“Mrs. Welton,” the judge said forcefully. “Read the entire statement as the defense counselor asked you to do.”

Welton relented and read the last sentence of the summary.

“‘Victim could offer no further description of the suspect at this time.’”

“Thank you, Mrs. Welton,” I said. “Now, while there wasn’t much in the way of a description of the suspect, you were from the start able to describe in detail the gun he used, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know about how much detail. He pointed it at my face so I got a good look at it and was able to describe what I saw. The officer helped me by describing the difference between a revolver and the other kind of gun. I think an automatic, it’s called.”

“And you were able to describe the kind of gun it was, the color, and even the length of the barrel.”

“Aren’t all guns black?”

“How about if I ask the questions right now, Mrs. Welton?”

“Well, the officer asked a lot of questions about the gun.”

“But you weren’t able to describe the man who pointed the gun at you, and yet two hours later you pick his face out of a bunch of mug shots. Do I have that right, Mrs. Welton?”

“You have to understand something. I saw the man who robbed me and pointed the gun. Being able to describe him and recognize him are two different things. When I saw that picture, I knew it was him, just as sure as I know it’s him sitting at that table.”

I turned to the judge.

“Your Honor, I would like to strike that as nonresponsive.”

Medina stood up.

“Judge, counsel is making broad statements in his so-called questions. He made a statement and the witness merely responded. The motion to strike has no foundation.”

“Motion to strike is denied,” the judge said quickly. “Ask your next question, Mr. Haller, and I do mean a question.”

I did and I tried. For the next twenty minutes I hammered away at Claire Welton and her identification of my client. I questioned how many black people she knew in her life as a Beverly Hills housewife and opened the door on interracial identification issues. All to no avail. At no point was I able to shake her resolve or belief that Leonard Watts was the man who robbed her. Along the way she seemed to recover one of things she said she had lost in the robbery. Her self-confidence. The more I worked her, the more she seemed to bear up under the verbal assault and send it right back at me. By the end she was a rock. Her identification of my client was still standing. And I had bowled a gutter ball.

I told the judge I had no further questions and returned to the defense table. Medina told the judge she had a short redirect and I knew she would ask Welton a series of questions that would only reinforce her identification of Watts. As I slid into my seat next to Watts, his eyes searched my face for any indication of hope.

“Well,” I whispered to him. “That’s it. We are done.”

He leaned back from me as if repelled by my breath or words or both.

“We?” he said.

He said it loud enough to interrupt Medina, who turned and looked at the defense table. I put my hands out palms down in a calming gesture and mouthed the words Cool it to him.

“Cool it?” he said aloud. “I’m not going to cool it. You told me you had this, that she was no problem.”

“Mr. Haller!” the judge barked. “Control your client, please, or I’ll have—”

Watts didn’t wait for whatever it was the judge was about to threaten to do. He launched his body into me, hitting me like a cornerback breaking up a pass play. My chair tipped over with me in it and we spilled onto the floor at Medina’s feet. She jumped sideways to avoid getting hurt herself as Watts drew his right arm back. I was on my left side on the floor, my right arm pinned under Watts’s body. I manage to raise my left hand and caught his fist as it came down at me. It merely softened the blow. His fist took my own hand into my jaw.

I was peripherally aware of screams and motion around me. Watts pulled his fist back as he prepared for punch number two. But the courtroom deputies were on him before he could throw it. They gang-tackled him, their momentum taking him off me and onto the floor in the well in front of the counsel tables.

It all seemed to move in slow motion. The judge was barking commands no one was listening to. Medina and the court reporter were moving away from the melee. The court clerk had stood up behind her corral and was watching in horror. Watts was chest down on the floor, a deputy’s hand on the side of his head, pressing it to the tile, an odd smile on his face as his hands were cuffed behind his back.

And in a moment it was over.

“Deputies, remove him from the courtroom!” Siebecker commanded.

Watts was dragged through the steel door at the side of the courtroom and into the holding cell used to house incarcerated defendants. I was left sitting on the floor, surveying the damage. I had blood on my mouth and teeth and down the crisp white shirt I was wearing. My tie was on the floor under the defense table. It was the clip-on I wear on days I visit clients in holding cells and don’t want to get pulled through the bars.

I rubbed my jaw with my hand and ran my tongue along the rows of my teeth. Everything seemed intact and in working order. I pulled a white handkerchief out of an inside jacket pocket and started wiping off my face as I used my free hand to grab the defense table and help myself up.

“Jeannie,” the judge said to his clerk. “Call paramedics for Mr. Haller.”

“No, Judge,” I said quickly. “I’m okay. Just need to clean up a little bit.”

I picked my tie up and then made a pathetic attempt at decorum, reattaching it to my collar despite the deep red stain that had ruined the front of my shirt. As I worked the clip into my buttoned collar, several deputies reacting to the courtroom panic button undoubtedly pushed by the judge stormed in through the main doors at the back. Siebecker quickly told them to stand down and that the incident had passed. The deputies fanned out across the back wall of the courtroom, a show of force in case there was anyone else in the courtroom thinking about acting out.

I took one last swipe at my face with the handkerchief and then spoke up.

“Your Honor,” I said. “I am deeply sorry for my client’s—”

“Not now, Mr. Haller. Take your seat and you do the same, Ms. Medina. Everybody calm down and sit down.”

I did as instructed, holding the folded handkerchief to my mouth and watching as the judge turned his seat fully toward the jury box. First he told Claire Welton that she was excused from the witness stand. She got up tentatively and walked toward the gate behind the counsel tables. She looked more shaken than anyone else in the courtroom. No doubt for good reason. She probably figured that Watts could have just as easily gone after her as me. And if he had been quick enough he would’ve gotten to her.

Welton sat down in the first row of the gallery, which was reserved for witnesses and staff, and the judge proceeded with the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry that you had to see that display. The courtroom is never a place for violence. It is the place where civilized society takes its stand against the violence that is out on our streets. It truly pains me when something like this occurs.”

There was a metal snapping sound as the door to the holding cell opened and the two courtroom deputies returned. I wondered how badly they had roughed up Watts while securing him in the cell.

The judge paused and then returned his attention to the jury.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Watts’s decision to attack his attorney has prejudiced our ability to go forward. I believe—”

“Your Honor?” Medina interrupted. “If the state could be heard.”

Medina knew exactly where the judge was headed and needed to do something.

“Not now, Ms. Medina, and do not interrupt the court.”

But Medina was persistent.

“Your Honor, could counsel approach at sidebar?”

The judge looked annoyed with her but relented. I let her lead the way and we walked up to the bench. The judge hit the switch on a noise-canceling fan so the jury would not overhear our whispers. Before Medina could state her case, the judge asked me once more if I wanted medical attention.

“I’m fine, Judge, but I appreciate the offer. I think the only thing the worse for wear is my shirt, actually.”

The judge nodded and turned to Medina.

“I know your objection, Ms. Medina, but there is nothing I can do. The jury is prejudiced by what they just saw. I have no choice.”

“Your Honor, this case is about a very violent defendant who committed very violent acts. The jury knows this. They won’t be unduly prejudiced by what they saw. The jury is entitled to view and judge for themselves the demeanor of the defendant. Because he voluntarily engaged in violent acts, the prejudice to the defendant is neither undue nor unfair.”

“If I could be heard, Your Honor, I beg to differ with—”

“Besides that,” Medina continued, running me over, “I fear the court is being manipulated by this defendant. He knew full well that he could get a new trial this way. He—”

“Whoa, wait a minute here,” I protested. “Counsel’s objection is replete with unfounded innuendo and—”

“Ms. Medina, the objection is overruled,” the judge said, cutting off all debate. “Even if the prejudice is neither undue nor unfair, Mr. Watts has effectively just fired his attorney. I can’t require Mr. Haller to go forward in these circumstances and I am not inclined to allow Mr. Watts back into this courtroom. Step back. Both of you.”

“Judge, I want the people’s objection on the record.”

“You shall have it. Now step back.”

We went back to our tables and the judge turned off the fan and then addressed the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as I was saying, the event you just witnessed has created a situation prejudicial to the defendant. I believe that it will be too difficult for you to divorce yourself from what you just saw as you deliberate on his guilt or innocence of the charges. Therefore, I must declare a mistrial at this time and discharge you with the thanks of this court and the people of California. Deputy Carlyle will escort you back to the assembly room where you may gather your things and go home.”

The jurors seemed unsure of what to do or whether everything was over. Finally, one brave man in the box stood up and soon the others followed. They filed out through a door at the back of the courtroom.

I looked over at Kristina Medina. She sat at the prosecution table with her chin down, defeated. The judge abruptly adjourned court for the day and left the bench. I folded my ruined handkerchief and put it away.

2

My full day had been scheduled for trial. Suddenly released from it, I had no clients to see, no prosecutors to work, and no place to be. I left the courthouse and walked down Temple to First. At the corner there was a trash can. I took out my handkerchief, held it to my lips and spit all the debris from my mouth into it. I then tossed it away.

I took a right on First and saw the Town Cars parked along the sidewalk. There were six of them in line like a funeral procession, their drivers gathered together on the sidewalk, shooting the shit and waiting. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but ever since the movie, a whole contingent of Lincoln lawyers had cropped up and routinely crowded the curbs outside the courthouses of L.A. I was both proud and annoyed. I had heard more than a few times that there were other lawyers out there saying they were the inspiration for the film. On top of that, I had jumped into the wrong Lincoln at least three times in the past month.

This time there would be no mistake. As I headed down the hill I pulled my cell phone and called Earl Briggs, my driver. I could see him up ahead. He answered right away and I told him to pop the trunk. Then I hung up.

I saw the trunk of the third Lincoln in line rise and I had my destination. When I got there I put my briefcase down and then took off my jacket, tie, and shirt. I had a T-shirt on underneath, so I wasn’t stopping traffic. I chose a pale blue oxford from the stack of backup shirts I keep in the trunk, unfolded it, and started pulling it on. Earl came over from the klatch with the other drivers. He had been my driver on and off for nearly a decade. Whenever he ran into trouble he came to me and then worked off my fee by driving. This time it wasn’t his own trouble he was paying for. I handled his mother’s foreclosure defense and got her straightened out without her having to go homeless. That got me about six months’ worth of driving from Earl.

I had draped my ruined shirt over the fender. He picked it up and examined it.

“What, somebody spill a whole thing of Hawaiian Punch on you or something?”

“Something like that. Come on, let’s go.”

“I thought you had court all day.”

“I did too. But things change.”

“Where to, then?”

“Let’s go by Philippe’s first.”

“You got it.”

He got in the front and I jumped in the back. After a quick stop at the sandwich shop on Alameda I had Earl point the car west. The next stop was a place called Menorah Manor, near Park La Brea in the Fairfax District. I said I’d be about an hour and got out with my briefcase. I had tucked my fresh shirt in but didn’t bother clipping my tie back on. I wouldn’t need it.

Menorah Manor was a four-story nursing home on Willoughby east of Fairfax. I signed in at the front desk and took the elevator up to the third floor, where I informed the woman at the nurses’ desk that I had a legal consultation with my client David Siegel and was not to be disturbed in his room. She was a pleasant woman who was used to my frequent visits. She nodded her approval and I went down the hallway to room 334.

I entered and closed the door after putting the DO
NOT
DISTURB sign on the outside handle. David “Legal” Siegel was lying in bed, his eyes on the screen of a muted television bolted to the upper wall across from the bed. His thin white hands were on top of a blanket. There was a low hiss from the tube that brought oxygen to his nose. He smiled when he saw me.

“Mickey.”

“Legal, how are you doing today?”

“Same as yesterday. Did you bring anything?”

I pulled the visitor’s chair away from the wall and positioned it so I could sit in his line of vision. At eighty-one years old, he didn’t have a lot of mobility. I opened my briefcase on the bed and turned it so he could reach into it.

“French dip from Philippe the Original. How’s that?”

“Oh, boy,” he said.

Menorah Manor was a kosher joint and I used the legal consultation bit as a way around it. Legal Siegel missed the places he’d eaten at during a near-fifty-year run as a lawyer in downtown. I was happy to bring him the culinary joy. He had been my father’s law partner. He was the strategist, while my father had been the front man, the performer who enacted the strategies in court. After my father died when I was five, Legal stuck around. He took me to my first Dodgers game when I was a kid, sent me to law school when I was older.

A year ago I had come to him after losing the election for district attorney amid scandal and self-destruction. I was looking for life strategy, and Legal Siegel was there for me. In that way, these meetings were legitimate consultations between lawyer and client, only the people at the desk didn’t understand that I was the client.

I helped him unwrap the sandwich and opened the plastic container holding the jus that made the sandwiches from Philippe’s so good. There was also a sliced pickle wrapped in foil.

Legal smiled after his first bite and pumped his skinny arm like he had just won a great victory. I smiled. I was glad to bring him something. He had two sons and a bunch of grandchildren but they never came around except on the holidays. As Legal told me, “They need you until they don’t need you.”

When I was with Legal we talked mostly about cases and he would suggest strategies. He was absolute aces when it came to predicting prosecution plans and case roll outs. It didn’t matter that he had not been in a courtroom in this century or that penal codes had changed since his day. He had baseline experience and always had a play. He called them moves, actually—the double-blind move, the judge’s robes move, and so on. I had come to him during the dark time that followed the election. I wanted to learn about my father and how he had dealt with the adversities of his life. But I ended up learning more about the law and how it was like soft lead. How it could be bent and molded.

“The law is malleable,” Legal Siegel always told me. “It’s pliable.”

I considered him to be part of my team, and that allowed me to discuss my cases with him. He’d throw out his ideas and moves. Sometimes I used them and they worked, sometimes not.

He ate slowly. I had learned that if I gave him a sandwich, he could take an hour to eat it, steadily chewing small bites. Nothing went to waste. He ate everything I brought him.

“The girl in three-thirty died last night,” he said between bites. “A shame.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How old was she?”

“She was young. Early seventies. Just died in her sleep and they carted her out this morning.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. Legal took another bite and reached into my briefcase for a napkin.

“You’re not using the jus, Legal. That’s the good stuff.”

“I think I like it dry. Hey, you used the bloody flag move, didn’t you? How’d it go?”

When he’d grabbed the napkin, he had spotted the extra blood capsule I kept in a Ziploc bag. I had it just in case I swallowed the first one by mistake.

“Like a charm,” I said.

“You get the mistrial?”

“Yep. In fact, mind if I use your bathroom?”

I reached into the briefcase and grabbed another Ziploc, this one containing my toothbrush. I went into the room’s bathroom and brushed my teeth. The red dye turned the brush pink at first but soon it was all down the drain.

When I came back to the chair, I noticed that Legal had finished only half his sandwich. I knew the rest must be cold and there was no way I could take it out to the dayroom to heat it in the microwave. But Legal still seemed happy.

“Details,” he demanded.

“Well, I tried to break the witness but she held up. She was a rock. When I returned to the table, I gave him the signal and he did his thing. He hit me a little harder than I was expecting but I’m not complaining. The best part is I didn’t have to make the motion to declare a mistrial. The judge went right to it on his own.”

“Over prosecution’s objection?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. Fuck ’em.”

Legal Siegel was a defense attorney through and through. For him, any ethical question or gray area could be overcome by the knowledge that it is the sworn duty of the defense attorney to present the best defense of his client. If that meant tipping a mistrial when the chips were down, then so be it.

“Now the question is, will he deal now?”

“It’s actually a she, and I think she’ll deal. You should’ve seen the witness after the scuffle. She was scared and I don’t think she’ll be wanting to come back for another trial. I’ll wait a week and have Jennifer call the prosecutor. I think she’ll be ready to deal.”

Jennifer was my associate Jennifer Aronson. She would need to take over representation of Leonard Watts, because if I stayed on, it would look like the setup it was and that Kristina Medina had alluded to in the courtroom.

Medina had refused to negotiate a plea agreement before the trial because Leonard Watts declined to give up his partner, the guy who drove the car that bumped into each of the victims. Watts wouldn’t snitch, and so Medina wouldn’t deal. Things would be different in a week, I thought, for a variety of reasons: I had seen most of the prosecution’s case laid out in the first trial, Medina’s main witness was spooked by what had happened in front of her in court today, and mounting a second trial would be a costly use of taxpayers’ money. Added to that, I had given Medina a glimpse of what might come if the defense presented a case to a jury—namely my intention to explore through expert witnesses the pitfalls of interracial recognition and identification. That was something no prosecutor wanted to deal with in front of a jury.

“Hell,” I said, “she might call me before I even have to go to her.”

That part was wishful thinking but I wanted Legal to feel good about the move he had strategized for me.

While I was up I took the extra blood capsule out of the briefcase and dropped it into the room’s hazardous-waste container. There was no need for it anymore and I didn’t want to risk it breaking open and ruining my paperwork.

My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was my case manager, Lorna Taylor, calling but I decided to let it go to message. I’d call her back after my visit with Legal.

“What else you got going now?” Legal asked.

I spread my hands.

“Well, no trial now, so I guess I have the rest of the week off. I may go down to arraignment court tomorrow and see if I can pick up a client or two. I could use the work.”

Not only could I use the income but the work would keep me busy and not thinking about the things in my life that were wrong. In that sense the law had become more than a craft and a calling. It kept me sane.

By checking in at Department 130, the arraignment court in the downtown Criminal Courts Building, I had a shot at picking up clients the public defender was dropping because of conflict of interest. Every time the DA filed a multi-defendant case, the PD could take on only one defendant, putting all others in conflict. If those other defendants did not have private counsel, the judge would appoint counsel to them. If I happened to be there twiddling my thumbs, more often than not I’d pick up a case. It paid government scale but it was better than no work and no pay.

“And to think,” Legal said, “at one point last fall you were running five points up in the polls. And now here you are, scrounging around first-appearance court looking for handouts.”

As he had aged, Legal had lost most of the social filters normally employed in polite company.

“Thanks, Legal,” I said. “I can always count on you for a fair and accurate take on my lot in life. It’s refreshing.”

Legal Siegel raised his bony hands in what I guessed was an apologetic gesture.

“I’m just saying.”

“Sure.”

“So what about your daughter, then?”

This was how Legal’s mind worked. Sometimes he couldn’t remember what he’d had for breakfast, but he seemed to always remember that I had lost more than the election the year before. The scandal had cost me the love and companionship of my daughter and any shot I’d had at putting my broken family back together.

“Things are still the same there, but let’s not go down that road today,” I said.

I checked my phone again after feeling the vibration signaling I had received a text. It was from Lorna. She had surmised that I wasn’t taking calls or listening to voice-mail. A text was different.

Call me ASAP—187

Her mention of the California penal code number for murder got my attention. It was time to go.

“You know, Mickey, I only bring her up because you don’t.”

“I don’t want to bring her up. It’s too painful, Legal. I get drunk every Friday night so I can sleep through most of Saturday. You know why?”

“No, I don’t know why you would get drunk. You did nothing wrong. You did your job with that guy Galloway or whatever his name was.”

“I drink Friday nights so I am out of it Saturdays because Saturdays were when I used to see my daughter. His name was Gallagher, Sean Gallagher, and it doesn’t matter if I was doing my job. People died and it’s on me, Legal. You can’t hide behind just doing your job when two people get creamed at an intersection by the guy you set free. Anyway, I gotta go.”

I stood up and showed him the phone as if it were the reason I needed to go.

“What, I don’t see you for a month and now you already have to go? I’m not finished with my sandwich here.”

“I saw you last Tuesday, Legal. And I’ll see you sometime next week. If not then, then the week after. You hang in and hold fast.”

“Hold fast? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means hold on to what you got. My half brother, the cop, told me that one. Finish that sandwich before they come in here and take it from you.”

I moved toward the door.

“Hey, Mickey Mouse.”

I turned back to him. It was the name he bestowed on me when I was a baby, born at four and a half pounds. Normally I’d tell him not to call me that anymore. But I let him have it so I could go.

“What?”

“Your father always called the jurors the ‘gods of guilt.’ You remember that?”

“Yep. Because they decide guilty or not guilty. What’s your point, Legal?”

“The point is that there are plenty of people out there judging us every day of our lives and for every move we make. The gods of guilt are many. You don’t need to add to them.”

I nodded but couldn’t resist a reply.

“Sandy Patterson and her daughter Katie.”

Legal looked confused by my response. He didn’t recognize the names. I, of course, would never forget them.

“The mother and daughter Gallagher killed. They’re my gods of guilt.”

I closed the door behind me and left the DO
NOT
DISTURB sign on the knob. Maybe he’d get the sandwich down before the nurses checked on him and discovered our crime.

3

Back in the Lincoln I called Lorna Taylor and by way of greeting she said the words that always put the two-edged sword right through me. Words that excited and repelled me at the same time.

“Mickey, you’ve got a murder case if you want it.”

The thought of a murder case could put the spark in your blood for many reasons. First and foremost, it was the worst crime on the books and with it came the highest stakes in the profession. To defend a murder suspect you had to be at the very top of your game. To get a murder case you had to have a certain reputation that put you at the top of the game. And in addition to all that, there was the money. A murder defense—whether the case goes to trial or not—is expensive because it is so time-consuming. You get a murder case with a paying customer and you likely make your whole nut for the year.

The downside is your client. While I have zero doubt that innocent people are charged with murder, for the most part the police and prosecutors get it right and you are left to negotiate or ameliorate the length and terms of punishment. All the while you sit at the table next to a person who has taken a life. It’s never a pleasant experience.

“What are the details?” I asked.

I was in the back of the Town Car with a legal pad ready on the fold-down worktable. Earl was heading toward downtown on Third Street, a straight shot in from the Fairfax District.

“The call came in collect from Men’s Central. I accepted and it was a guy named Andre La Cosse. He said he was arrested for murder last night and he wants to hire you. And get this, when I asked him where the referral came from, he said the woman he is accused of killing had recommended you. He said she told him you were the best.”

“Who is it?”

“That’s the crazy thing. Her name, according to him, is Giselle Dallinger. I ran her through our conflict app and her name doesn’t come up. You never represented her, so I am not sure how she got your name and made this recommendation even before she was supposedly killed by this guy.”

The conflict app was a computer program that digitized all our case files and allowed us to determine in seconds whether a prospective client had ever come up in a previous case as a witness, a victim, or even a client. At twenty-plus years into this career, I could not remember every client’s name, let alone the ancillary characters involved in cases. The conflict app saved us enormous amounts of time. Previously, I would often dig into a case only to find out I had a conflict of interest in representing the new client because of an old client, witness, or victim.

I looked down at my legal pad. So far I had written down only the names, nothing else.

“Okay, whose case is it?”

“LAPD West Bureau Homicide.”

“Do we know anything else about it? What else did this guy say?”

“He said he is supposed to have his first appearance tomorrow morning and he wanted you there. He said he was set up and didn’t kill her.”

“Was she a wife, girlfriend, business associate, or what?”

“He said she worked for him but that’s all. I know you don’t like your clients talking on jailhouse phones, so I didn’t ask him anything about the case.”

“That’s good, Lorna.”

“Where are you, anyway?”

“I went out to see Legal. I’m heading back downtown now. I’ll see if I can get in to see this guy and feel it out. Can you get a hold of Cisco and have him do some preliminaries?”

“He’s already on it. I can hear him on the phone with somebody now.”

Cisco Wojciechowski was my investigator. He was also Lorna’s husband, and they worked out of her condo in West Hollywood. Lorna also happened to be my ex-wife. She was wife number two, coming after the wife who bore me my only child—a child who was now sixteen years old and wanted nothing to do with me. Sometimes I thought I needed a flowchart on a whiteboard to keep track of everybody and their relationships, but at least there were no jealousies between me and Lorna and Cisco, just a solid working relationship.

“Okay, have him call me. Or I’ll call him after I get out of jail.”

“Okay, good luck.”

“One last thing. Is La Cosse a paying customer?”

“Oh, yeah. He said he didn’t have cash but he had gold and other ‘commodities’ he could trade.”

“Did you give him a number?”

“I told him you would need twenty-five just to get started, more later. He didn’t freak out or anything.”

The number of defendants in the system at any given time who could not only afford a $25,000 retainer but were willing to part with it were few and far between. I knew nothing about this case but it was sounding better to me all the time.

“Okay, I’ll check back when I know something.”

“Cheers.”

Some of the air came out of the balloon before I even laid eyes on my new client. I had filed an engagement letter with the jail office and was waiting for the detention deputies to find La Cosse and move him into an interview room, when Cisco called with the preliminary information he had been able to glean from human and digital sources in the hour or so since we had gotten the case.

“Okay, a couple things. The LAPD put out a press release on the murder yesterday but so far nothing on the arrest. Giselle Dallinger, thirty-six years old, was found early Monday morning in her apartment on Franklin west of La Brea. She was found by firefighters who were called because the apartment had been set on fire. The body was burned but it is suspected that the fire was set in an attempt to cover up the murder and make it look accidental. Autopsy is still pending but the release says there were indications she had been strangled. The press release labeled her a businesswoman but the Times ran a short on it on their website that quotes law enforcement sources as saying she was a hooker.”

“Great. Who is my guy then, a john?”

“Actually, the Times report says the coppers were questioning a business associate. Whether that was La Cosse it doesn’t say but you put two and two together—”

“And you get pimp.”

“Sounds like it to me.”

“Great. Seems like a swell guy.”

“Look at the bright side, Lorna says he’s a paying client.”

“I’ll believe it when the cash is in my pocket.”

I suddenly thought of my daughter, Hayley, and one of the last things she had said to me before she cut off contact. She called the people on my client list the dregs of society, people who are takers and users and even killers. Right now I couldn’t argue with her. My roster included the carjacker who targeted old ladies, an accused date rapist, an embezzler who took money from a student trip fund, and various other societal miscreants. Now I would presumably add an accused murderer to the list—make that an accused murderer in the business of selling sex.

I was beginning to feel that I deserved them as much as they deserved me. We were all hard-luck cases and losers, the kind of people the gods of guilt never smiled upon.

My daughter had known the two people my client Sean Gallagher killed. Katie Patterson was in her class. Her mom was their homeroom mother. Hayley had to switch schools to avoid the scorn directed at her when it was revealed by the media—and I mean all the media—that J. Michael Haller Jr., candidate for Los Angeles County District Attorney, had sprung Gallagher from his last DUI pop on a technicality.

The bottom line is that Gallagher was out drinking and driving because of my so-called skills as a defense lawyer, and no matter how Legal Siegel tried to soothe my conscience with the old “you-were-just-doing-your-job” refrain, I knew in the dark shadows of my soul that the verdict was guilty. Guilty in the eyes of my daughter, guilty in my own eyes as well.

“You still there, Mick?”

I came out of the dark reverie, realizing I was still on the phone with Cisco.

“Yeah. Do you know who’s working the case?”

“The press release names Detective Mark Whitten of West Bureau as the lead. His partner isn’t listed.”

I didn’t know Whitten and had never come up against him on a case, as far as I could remember.

“Okay. Anything else?”

“That’s all I have at the moment but I’m working it.”

Cisco’s info had dampened my excitement. But I wasn’t going to jettison the case just yet. Guilty conscience aside, a paycheck was a paycheck. I needed the dough to keep Michael Haller & Associates solvent.

“I’ll call you after I meet the man, which is right now.”

A detention deputy was directing me into one of the attorney-client booths. I got up and headed in.

Andre La Cosse was already in a chair on the other side of a table with a three-foot-high plexiglass divider cutting it in half. Most of the clients I visit in Men’s Central adopt a slouch and a laid-back, cavalier attitude about being in jail. It’s a protective measure. If you act unconcerned about being locked into a steel building with twelve hundred other violent criminals, then maybe they’ll leave you alone. On the other hand, if you show fear, then the predators will see it and exploit it. They’ll come for you.

But La Cosse was different. First of all, he was smaller than I had expected. He was slightly built and looked to me like he had never once picked up a set of barbells. He was in a baggy orange jail jumper but seemed to carry himself with a pride that belied his circumstances. He didn’t exactly show fear, but he wasn’t showing the exaggerated nonchalance I had seen so many times before in these places. He sat upright on the edge of his chair and his eyes tracked me like lasers as I came into the small space. There was something formal about the way he held himself. His hair was carefully feathered at the sides and it looked like he might have been wearing eyeliner.

“Andre?” I said as I sat down. “I’m Michael Haller. You called my office about handling your case.”

“Yes, I did. I shouldn’t be here. Somebody killed her after I was there but nobody will believe me.”

“Slow down a second and let me get set up here.”

I took a legal pad out of my briefcase and the pen from my shirt pocket.

“Before we talk about your case, let me ask a couple of things first.”

“Please.”

“And let me say from the beginning that you can never lie to me, Andre. You understand that? If you lie, I fly—that’s my rule. I can’t be working for you if we don’t have a relationship where I can believe that everything you tell me is the god’s honest truth.”

“Yes, that won’t be a problem. The truth is the only thing I’ve got on my side right now.”

I went down a list of the basics, gathering a quick bio for the files. La Cosse was thirty-two, unmarried, and living in a condo in West Hollywood. He had no local relatives, the nearest being his parents in Lincoln, Nebraska. He said he had no criminal record in California, Nebraska, or anywhere else and had never had so much as a speeding ticket. He gave me phone numbers for his parents and his cell phone and landline—these would be used to track him down in the event he were to get out of jail and not live up to our fee arrangement. Once I had the basics I looked up from my legal pad.

“What do you do for a living, Andre?”

“I work from home. I’m a programmer. I build and manage websites.”

“How did you know the victim in this case, Giselle Dallinger?”

“I ran all her social media. Her websites, Facebook, e-mail, all of it.”

“So you’re sort of a digital pimp?”

La Cosse’s neck immediately grew scarlet.

“Absolutely not! I am a businessman and she is—was—a businesswoman. And I did not kill her, but nobody around here will believe me.”

I made a calming gesture with my free hand.

“Let’s cool it down a little bit. I’m on your side, remember?”

“Doesn’t seem like it when you ask a question like that.”

“Are you gay, Andre?”

“What does that matter?”

“Maybe nothing but maybe it will mean a lot when the prosecutor starts talking about a motive. Are you?”

“Yes, if you have to know. I don’t hide it.”

“Well, in here maybe you should, for your own safety. I can also get you moved into a homosexual module once you’re arraigned tomorrow.”

“Please don’t bother. I don’t want to be classified in any way.”

“Suit yourself. What was Giselle’s website?”

“Giselle-for-you-dot-com. That was the main one.”

I wrote it down.

“There were others?”

“She had sites tailored to specific tastes that would come up if someone searched with certain words or things they were looking for. That’s what I offer—a multi-platform presence. That’s why she came to me.”

I nodded as though I were admiring his creativity and business acumen.

“And how long were you in business with her?”

“She came to me about two years ago. She wanted a multi-dimensional online presence.”

“She came to you? What does that mean? How did she come to you? Do you run ads online or something?”

He shook his head as though he was dealing with a child.

“No, no ads. I only work with people recommended to me by someone I already know and trust. She was recommended by another client.”

“Who was that?”

“There is a confidentiality issue there. I don’t want her dragged into this. She doesn’t know anything and has nothing to do with this.”

I shook my head as though I was dealing with a child.

“For now, Andre, I’ll let it pass. But if I take this case, I will at some point need to know who referred her. And you cannot be the one who decides whether someone or something has relevance to the case. I decide that. You understand?”

He nodded.

“I’ll get a message to her,” he said. “As soon as I have her okay, I will connect you. But I do not lie and I do not betray confidences. My business and my life are built on trust.”

“Good.”

“And what do you mean, ‘if I take the case’? I thought you took the case. I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?”

“I’m still deciding.”

I checked my watch. The sergeant I checked in with said I would get only a half hour with La Cosse. I still had three separate areas of discussion to cover—the victim, the crime, and my compensation.

“We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s move on. When was the last time you saw Giselle Dallinger in person?”

“Sunday night late—and when I left her she was alive.”

“Where?”

“At her apartment.”

“Why did you go there?”

“I went to get money from her but I didn’t get any.”

“What money and why didn’t you get it?”

“She went out on a job and my arrangement with her is I get paid a percentage of what she makes. I had set her up on a Pretty Woman Special and I wanted my share—these girls, if you don’t get the money right away, it has a tendency to disappear up their noses and other places.”

I wrote down a summary of what he had just said even though I wasn’t sure what most of it meant.

“Are you saying that Giselle was a drug user?”

“I would say so, yes. Not out of control, but it’s part of the job and part of the life.”

“Tell me about the Pretty Woman Special. What does that mean?”

“The client takes a suite at the Beverly Wilshire like in the movie Pretty Woman. Giz had the Julia Roberts thing going, you know? Especially after I had her photos airbrushed. I assume you can figure it out from there.”

I had never seen the movie but knew it was a story about a prostitute with a heart of gold meeting the man of her dreams on a paid date at the Beverly Wilshire.

“How much was the fee for that?”

“It was supposed to be twenty-five hundred.”

“And your take?”

“A thousand, but there was no take. She said it was a dead call.”

“What’s that?”

“She gets there and there’s nobody home, or whoever answers the door says he didn’t call for her. I check these things out as best as I can. I check IDs, everything.”

“So you didn’t believe her.”

“Let’s just say I was suspicious. I had talked to the man in that room. I called him through the hotel operator. But she claimed there was nobody there and the room wasn’t even rented.”

“So you argued about it?”

“A little bit.”

“And you hit her.”

“What? No! I have never hit a woman. I’ve never hit a man, either! I didn’t do this. Can’t you be—”

“Look, Andre, I’m just gathering information here. So you didn’t hit her or hurt her. Did you physically touch her anywhere?”

La Cosse hesitated and in that I knew there was a problem.

“Tell me, Andre.”

“Well, I grabbed her. She wouldn’t look at me and so that made me think she was lying. So I grabbed her up around her neck—with one hand only. She got mad and I got mad and that was it. I left.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, nothing. Well, out on the street, when I was going to my car, she threw an ashtray down at me from her balcony. It missed.”

“But how did you leave it when you were up in the apartment?”

“I said I was going to go back to the hotel and knock on the guy’s door myself and get our money. And I left.”

“What room was it and what was the guy’s name?”

“He was in eight thirty-seven. His name was Daniel Price.”

“Did you go to the hotel?”

“No, I just went home. I decided it wasn’t worth it.”

“It seemed worth it when you grabbed her by the throat.”

He nodded at the inconsistency but didn’t offer any further explanation. I moved off the subject—for now.

“Okay, then what happened? When did the police come?”

“They showed up at about five yesterday.”

“Morning or afternoon?”

“Afternoon.”

“Did they say how they came up with you?”

“They knew about her website. That led to me. They said they had questions and I agreed to talk to them.”

Always a mistake, voluntarily talking to the cops.

“Do you remember their names?”

“There was Detective Whitten and he did most of the talking. His partner’s name was something like Weeder. Something like that.”

“Why did you agree to talk to them?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I did nothing wrong and wanted to help? I stupidly thought that they were trying to find out what happened to poor Giselle, not that they came with what they thought happened and just wanted to plug me into it.”

Welcome to my world, I thought.

“Did you know she was dead before they arrived?”

“No, I had been calling and texting her all day and leaving messages. I was sorry about the whole blowup the night before. But she didn’t call back and I thought she was still mad about the argument. Then they came and said she was dead.”

Obviously, when a prostitute is found dead, one of the first places the investigation goes is to the pimp, even if it is a digital pimp who doesn’t fit the stereotype of sadistic bruiser and who doesn’t keep the women in his stable in line through threat and physical abuse.

“Did they record the conversation with you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did they inform you of your constitutional right to have an attorney present?”

“Yes, but that was later at the station. I didn’t think I needed an attorney. I did nothing wrong. So I said fine, let’s talk.”

“Did you sign a waiver form of any kind?”

“Yes, I signed something—I didn’t really read it.”

I held my displeasure in check. Most people who enter the criminal justice system end up being their own worst enemies. They literally talk their way into the handcuffs.

“Tell me how this went. You talked to them at first in your home and then they took you to West Bureau?”

“Yes, first we were in my place for about fifteen minutes and then they took me to the station. They said they wanted me to look at some photos of suspects but that was just a lie. They never showed me any photos. They put me in a little interview room and kept asking questions. Then they told me I was under arrest.”

I knew that for them to make the arrest they had to have physical or eyewitness evidence linking La Cosse to the murder in some way. In addition, something he told them must not have squared with the facts. Once he lied, or they thought he lied, he was arrested.

“Okay, and you told them about going to the victim’s apartment on Sunday night?”

“Yes, and I told them she was alive when I left.”

“Did you tell them about grabbing her by the neck?”

“Yes.”

“Was that before or after they read you your rights and had you sign the waiver?”

“Uh, I can’t remember. I think before.”

“It’s okay. I’ll find out. Did they talk about any other evidence, confront you with anything else they had?”

“No.”

I checked my watch again. I was running out of time. I decided to end the case questions there. Most of the information I would get in discovery if I took on the case. Besides that, it’s a good idea to limit the information you get directly from a client. I would be stuck with whatever La Cosse told me and it might color the moves I made later in the case or at trial. For example, if La Cosse told me he had indeed killed Giselle, then I would not be able to put him on the stand to deny it. That would make me guilty of suborning perjury.

“Okay, enough on that for now. If I take this case, how are you going to pay me?”

“In gold.”

“I was told that, but I mean how? Where does this gold come from?”

“I have it in a safe place. All my money is in gold. If you take the case, I will have it delivered to you before the end of the day. Your manager said you needed twenty-five thousand dollars to start. We’ll use the New York Mercantile Exchange quote on valuation and it will simply be delivered. I haven’t really been able to check the market in here but I’m guessing a one-pound bar will cover it.”

“You realize that will only cover my start-up costs, right? If this case goes forward to preliminary hearing and trial, then you’re going to need more gold. You can get cheaper than me but you’re not going to get better.”

“Yes, I understand. I will have to pay to prove my innocence. I have the gold.”

“All right, then, have your delivery person bring the gold to my case manager. I’m going to need it in hand before your first appearance in court tomorrow. Then I’ll know you’re serious about this.”

I knew time was fleeting but I silently studied La Cosse for a long moment, trying to get a read on him. His story of innocence sounded plausible but I didn’t know what the police knew. I only had Andre’s tale and I suspected that as the evidence in the case was revealed, I would learn that he wasn’t as innocent as he claimed to be. It’s always that way.

“Okay, last thing, Andre. You told my case manager that I came recommended to you by Giselle herself, is that right?”

“Yes, she said you were the best lawyer in town.”

“How did she know that?”

La Cosse looked surprised, as if the whole conversation so far had been based on a given—that I knew Giselle Dallinger.

“She said she knew you, that you’d handled cases for her. She said you got her a really good deal once.”

“And you’re sure it was me she was talking about.”

“Yes, it was you. She said you hit a home run for her. She called you Mickey Mantle.”

That stopped my breath short. I’d had a client once—a prostitute, too—who would call me that. But I had not seen her in a long time. Not since I put her on a plane with enough money to start over and never come back.

“Giselle Dallinger was not her real name, was it?”

“I don’t know. It’s all I knew her by.”

There was a hard rap on the steel door behind me. My time was up. Some other lawyer needed the room to talk to some other client. I looked across the table at La Cosse. I was no longer second-guessing whether to take him on as my client.

Without a doubt, I was taking the case.

About the Author

Michael Connelly is the author of twenty-five previous novels including the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Black Box, The Drop, The Fifth Witness, The Reversal,
The Scarecrow, The Brass Verdict, and The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as the bestselling Harry Bosch series of novels. He is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He spends his time in California and Florida.

michaelconnelly.com

MichaelConnellyBooks

@ConnellyBooks

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Books by Michael Connelly

Featuring Harry Bosch

The Black Echo

The Black Ice

The Concrete Blonde

The Last Coyote

Trunk Music

Angels Flight

A Darkness More Than Night

City of Bones

Lost Light

The Narrows

The Closers

Echo Park

The Overlook

Nine Dragons

The Drop

The Black Box

Featuring Mickey Haller

The Lincoln Lawyer

The Fifth Witness

Featuring Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller

The Brass Verdict

The Reversal

The Gods of Guilt

Featuring Jack McEvoy

The Poet

The Scarecrow

Other Novels

Blood Work

Void Moon

Chasing the Dime

Anthologies

Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion: New Stories about Cops, Criminals, and the Chase
(editor)

Nonfiction

Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

Short Stories

Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories (ebook only)

Angle of Investigation: Three Harry Bosch Stories (ebook only)

Mulholland Dive: Three Stories (ebook only)

The Safe Man: A Ghost Story
(ebook only)

Switchblade
(ebook only)

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Table of Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Welcome
4. Switchblade
5. A Preview of The Gods of Guilt
6. About the Author
7. Books by Michael Connelly
8. Newsletters
9. Copyright

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2014 by Hieronymus, Inc.
Excerpt from The Gods of Guilt © 2013 by Hieronymus, Inc.
Author photograph by Mark DeLong Photography
Cover design by Allison J. Warner
Photograph by Baevskiy Dmitry/Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First edition: January 2014

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ISBN 978-0-316-36986-2

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