Майкл Коннелли - Two Kinds of Truth

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

“May I make a suggestion to the Court?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

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

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

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

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

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

Bosch winked.

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

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

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

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

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

Haller turned to check the back of the room.

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

“No. Is Daly the lawyer?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I do,” Haller said.

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

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

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

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

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

Immediately Lance Cronyn was on his feet.

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

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

But then the judge turned his attention to Haller.

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

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

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

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