Michael Connelly - The Reversal

“Hello, Harry.”

“Hello, Rachel. How are you?”

“I’m fine. And you?”

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

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

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

“Oh… probably the same thing.”

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

“What’s the case?”

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

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

“That’s right.”

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

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

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

“That’s it.”

“Okay, I’ll drop the box by.”

“I’ll be here.”

Wednesday, February 17, 3:18 P.M .

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

“Sorry I’m late.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

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

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

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

“So what happens to me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Montgomery tried to shake his head but his forehead was pressed between the two bars.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means shit. Can’t we win this case, man? I mean, you a prosecutor now. Can’t you get a good word in for me on this?”

“They’re two different matters, Cash. I can’t do anything like that. You got your choice. Take the three or we go to trial. And like I told you before, we can certainly do some stuff at trial. They’ve got no weapon and a victim who won’t tell the story, but they still got his blood on the door of your car and they got video of you driving it out of Rodia right after the shooting. We can try to play it the way you said it went down. Self-defense. You were there to buy a rock and he saw your roll and tried to rip you off. The jury might believe it, especially if he won’t testify. And they might believe it even if he does testify because I’ll make him take the fifth so many times they’ll think he’s Al Capone before he gets off the stand.”

“Who’s Al Capone?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No, man, who is he?”

“Never mind, Cash. What do you want to do?”

“You’re cool if we go to trial?”

“I’m cool with it. It’s just that there is that gap, you know?”

“Gap?”

“There is a wide gap between what they’re offering you right now and what you could get if we lose at trial. We’re talking about a minimum twelve-year swing, Cash. That’s a lot of time to gamble with.”

Montgomery backed away from the bars. They had left twin impressions on both sides of his forehead. He now gripped the bars in his hands.

“The thing is, three years, fifteen years, I ain’t going to make it either way. They got hit men in every prison. But in County, they got the system and ev’rybody is separated and locked up tight. I’m okay there.”