Michael Connelly: The Crossing

Haller nodded.

“Tell you the truth, that doesn’t happen too often. I can probably count on my two hands how many times I’ve prevailed on a motion to suppress.”

“You tell your client that?”

“Somehow the subtleties of the law are lost on him. He just wants to know when he’s getting out.”

They ate at Traxx in Union Station. It was a nice place that was courthouse close and favored at lunchtime by judges and lawyers. The waitress knew Haller and she didn’t bother giving him a menu. He simply ordered the usual. Bosch took a quick look and ordered a hamburger and French fries, which seemed to disappoint Haller.

On the walk over they had talked about family matters. Bosch and Haller were half brothers and had daughters the same age. In fact, the girls were planning to room together in September at Chapman University down in Orange County. Both had applied to the school without knowing the other’s intention until they celebrated their acceptance letters on the same day on Facebook. From there their plan to be roommates quickly formed. The fathers were happy about this because they knew they would be able to pool their efforts to monitor the girls’ well-being and adjustment to college life.

Now as they sat at the table with a window that looked out on the train station’s cavernous waiting room, it was time to get down to business. Bosch was expecting an update on the case Haller was handling for him. The previous year Bosch had been suspended from the LAPD on a trumped-up beef when he had picked the lock on a captain’s office door so he could look at old police records connected to a murder investigation he was actively working. It was a Sunday and Bosch didn’t want to have to wait for the captain to come in the next day. The infraction was minor but could have been the first step in the firing process.

More important, to Bosch it was a suspension without pay that also halted payments to his Deferred Retirement Option Plan. That meant he had no salary and no access to his DROP funds while he fought the suspension and took it to a Board of Rights — a process that would take a minimum of six months, pushing him past his retirement date anyway. With no money coming in to cover living expenses and college around the corner for his daughter, Bosch retired so he could access his retirement and DROP funds. He then hired Haller to file a lawsuit against the city, charging that the police department had engaged in unlawful tactics to force him into pulling the pin.

Because Haller had requested a meeting in person, Bosch expected that the news would not be good. Previously Haller had given him updates on the case by phone. Bosch knew something was up.

He decided to put off discussing his case by going back to the hearing that had just ended.

“So I guess you’re pretty proud of yourself, getting that drug dealer off,” he said.

“You know as well as I do that he’s not going anywhere,” Haller responded. “The judge had no choice. Now the D.A. will deal it down and my guy will still do some time.”

Bosch nodded.

“But the cash in the trunk,” he said. “I bet that goes back to him. What’s your piece on that? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Fifty K, plus I get the car,” Haller said. “He won’t need it in jail. I got a guy handles that stuff. A liquidator. I’ll get another couple grand out of the car.”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad if I can get it. Need to pay the bills. Hennegan hired me because he knew my name from a bus bench right there at Florence and Normandie. He saw it from the backseat of the cruiser they put him in and he memorized the phone number. I’ve got sixty of those benches around town and that costs money. Gotta keep gas in the tank, Harry.”

Bosch had insisted on paying Haller for his work on the lawsuit, but it wasn’t anything as stratospheric as the potential Hennegan payday. Haller had even been able to keep costs down on the lawsuit by having an associate handle most of the non-courtroom work. He called it his law enforcement discount.

“Speaking of cash, you see how much Chapman is going to cost us?” Haller asked.

Bosch nodded.

“It’s steep,” he said. “I made less than that the first ten years I was a cop. But Maddie’s got a couple scholarships. How’d Hayley do on those?”

“She did all right. It certainly helps.”

Bosch nodded and it seemed as though they had covered everything but the thing the meeting was about.

“So, I guess you can give me the bad news now,” he said. “Before the food gets here.”

“What bad news?” Haller asked.

“I don’t know. But this is the first time you called me in for an update on things. I figure it’s not looking good.”

Haller shook his head.

“Oh, I’m not going to even talk about the LAPD thing. That case is chugging along and we still have them in the corner. I wanted to talk about something else. I want to hire you, Harry.”

“Hire me. What do you mean?”

“You know I have the Lexi Parks case, right? I’m defending Da’Quan Foster?”

Bosch was thrown by the unexpected turn in the conversation.

“Uh, yeah, you’ve got Foster. What’s it have to do—”

“Well, Harry, I’ve got the trial coming up in six weeks and I don’t have jack shit for a defense. He didn’t do it, man, and he is in the process of being totally fucked by our wonderful legal system. He’s going to go down for her murder if I don’t do something. I want to hire you to work it for me.”

Haller leaned across the table with urgency. Bosch involuntarily leaned back from him. He still felt as though he were the only guy in the restaurant who didn’t know what was going on. Since his retirement he had pretty much dropped out of having day-to-day knowledge of things going on in the city. The names Lexi Parks and Da’Quan Foster were on the periphery of his awareness. He knew it was a case and he knew it was big. But for the past six months he had tried to stay away from newspaper stories and TV reports that might remind him of the mission he had carried for nearly thirty years — catching killers. He had gone so far as to start a long-planned-but-never-realized restoration project on an old Harley-Davidson motorcycle that had been gathering dust and rust in his carport shed for almost twenty years.

“But you’ve already got an investigator,” he said. “That big guy with the big arms. The biker.”

“Yeah, Cisco, except Cisco’s on the DL and he’s not up to handling a case like this,” Haller said. “I catch a murder case maybe once every other year. I only took this one because Foster’s a longtime client. I need you on this, Harry.”

“The disabled list? What happened to him?”

Haller shook his head like he was in pain.

“The guy rides a Harley out there every day, lane-splitting whenever he wants, wearing one of those novelty helmets that is total bullshit when it comes to protecting your neck. I told him it was only a matter of time. I asked him for dibs on his liver. There is a reason they call them donor cycles. And it doesn’t matter how good a rider you are, it’s always the other guy.”

“So what happened?”

“He was cruising down Ventura one night a while back and some yahoo comes up, cuts him off, and pushes him into head-on traffic. He dodges one car and then has to lay the bike down — it’s an old one, no front brakes — and he skids through an entire intersection on his hip. Luckily he was wearing leathers, so the road rash wasn’t too hideous, but he fucked up his ACL. He’s down for the count right now and they’re talking about a total knee replacement. But it doesn’t matter. My point is, Cisco’s a great defense investigator and he already took a swing at this. What I need is an experienced homicide detective. Harry, I’m not going to be able to live with it if my guy goes down for this. Innocent clients leave scars, if you know what I mean.”