Michael Connelly - The Reversal

“I think one thing he’s going to argue is that the charges are no longer valid without a preliminary hearing,” Maggie said. “This will give him two bites out of the apple. He’ll first ask the judge to dismiss but at the very least to order a new prelim.”

“But the verdict of the trial was what was reversed,” I said. “It goes back to the trial and we have a new trial. The prelim is not what was challenged.”

“Well, that’s what we’ll argue.”

“Good, you get to handle that one. What else?”

“I’m not going to keep throwing out angles if you keep giving them back to me to be prepared for. That’s the third one you’ve given me and by my scorecard you’ve only taken one.”

“Okay, I’ll take the next one sight unseen. What do you have?”

Maggie smiled and I realized I had just walked into my own ambush. But before she could pull the trigger, the office door opened and Bosch entered without knocking.

“Saved by the bell,” I said. “Harry, what’s up?”

“I’ve got a witness I think you two should hear. I think he’s going to be good for us and they didn’t use him in the first trial.”

“Who?” Maggie asked.

“Bill Clinton,” Bosch said.

I didn’t recognize the name as belonging to anyone associated with the case. But Maggie, with her command of case detail, brought it together.

“One of the tow truck drivers who worked with Jessup.”

Bosch pointed at her.

“Right. He worked with Jessup back then at Aardvark Towing. Now he owns an auto repair shop on LaBrea near Olympic. It’s called Presidential Motors.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “What does he do for us as a witness?”

Bosch pointed toward the door.

“I got him sitting out there with Lorna. Why don’t I bring him in and he can tell you himself?”

I looked at Maggie, and seeing no objection, I told Bosch to bring Clinton in. Before stepping out Bosch lowered his voice and reported that he had run Clinton through the crime databases and he had come up clean. He had no criminal record.

“Nothing,” Bosch said. “Not even an unpaid parking ticket.”

“Good,” Maggie said. “Now let’s see what he has to say.”

Bosch went out to the reception room and came back with a short man in his midfifties who was wearing blue work pants and a shirt with an oval patch above the breast pocket. It said Bill. His hair was neatly combed and he didn’t wear glasses. I saw grease under his fingernails but figured that could be remedied before he ever appeared in front of a jury.

Bosch pulled a chair away from the wall and placed it in the middle of the room and facing my desk.

“Why don’t you sit down here, Mr. Clinton, and we’ll ask you some questions,” he said.

Bosch then nodded to me, passing the lead.

“First of all, Mr. Clinton, thank you for agreeing to come in and talk to us today.”

Clinton nodded.

“That’s okay. Things are kind of slow at the shop right now.”

“What kind of work do you do at the shop? Is there a specialty?”

“Yeah, we do restoration. Mostly British cars. Triumphs, MGs, Jags, collectibles like that.”

“I see. What’s a Triumph TR Two-Fifty go for these days?”

Clinton looked up at me, surprised by my apparent knowledge of one of the cars he specialized in.

“Depends on the shape. I sold a beauty last year for twenty-five. I put almost twelve into the restoration. That and a lot of man-hours.”

I nodded.

“I had one in high school. Wish I’d never sold it.”

“They only made them for one year. ’Sixty-eight. Makes it one of the most collectible.”

I nodded. We had just covered everything I knew about the car. I just liked it because of its wooden dashboard and the drop top. I used to cruise up to Malibu in it on weekends, hang out on the surf beaches even though I didn’t know how to surf.

“Well, let’s jump from ’sixty-eight to ’eighty-six, okay?”

Clinton shrugged.

“Fine by me.”

“If you don’t mind, Ms. McPherson is going to take notes.”

Clinton shrugged again.

“So then, let’s start. How well do you remember the day that Melissa Landy was murdered?”

Clinton spread his hands.

“Well, see, I remember it real well because of what happened. That little girl getting killed and it turning out I was working with the guy who did it.”

“Must’ve been pretty traumatic.”

“Yeah, it was for a while there.”

“And then you put it out of your mind?”

“No, not exactly… but I stopped thinking about it all the time. I started my business and everything.”

I nodded. Clinton seemed genuine enough and honest. It was a start. I looked at Bosch. I knew he had pulled some nugget from Clinton that he believed was gold. I wanted him to take over.

“Bill,” Bosch said. “Tell them a little about what was going on with Aardvark at the time. About how business was bad.”

Clinton nodded.

“Yeah, well, back then we weren’t doing so hot. What happened was they passed a law that nobody could park on the side streets off of Wilshire without a resident sticker, you know? Anybody else, we got to tow. So we would go in the neighborhoods on a Sunday morning and hook up cars right and left on account of the church services. In the beginning. Mr. Korish was the owner and we were getting so many cars that he hired another driver and even started paying us for our overtime. It was fun because there were a couple other companies with the same contract, so we were all competing for tows. It was like keeping score and we were a team.”

Clinton looked at Bosch to see if he was telling the right story. Harry nodded and told him to keep going.

“So then it all kind of went bad. The people started getting wise and they stopped parking over there. Somebody said the church was even making announcements: ‘Don’t park north of Wilshire.’ So we went from having too much to do to not enough. So Mr. Korish said he had to cut back on costs and one of us was going to have to go, and maybe even two of us. He said he was going to watch our performance levels and make his decision based on that.”

“When did he tell you this in relation to the day of the murder?” Bosch asked.

“It was right before. Because all three of us were still there. See, he didn’t fire anybody yet.”

Taking over the questioning, I asked him what the new edict did to the competition among tow truck drivers.

“Well, it made it rough, you know. We were all friends and then all of a sudden we didn’t like each other because we wanted to keep our jobs.”

“How was Jason Jessup to work with then?”

“Well, Jason was real cutthroat.”

“The pressure got to him?”

“Yeah, because he was in last place. Mr. Korish put up a tote board to keep track of the tows and he was last place.”

“And he wasn’t happy about it?”

“No, not happy. He became a real prick to work with, excuse my French.”

“Do you remember how he acted on the day of the murder?”

“A little bit. Like I told Detective Bosch, he started claiming streets. Like saying Windsor was all his. And Las Palmas and Lucerne. Like that. And me and Derek-he was the other driver-we told him there were no rules like that. And he said, ‘Fine, try hooking a car on one of those streets and see what happens.’ ”

“He threatened you.”

“Yeah, you could say that. Definitely.”

“Do you remember specifically that Windsor was one of the streets he claimed was his?”

“Yes, I do. He claimed Windsor.”

This was all good information. It would go to the state of mind of the defendant. It would be a challenge getting it on the record if there wasn’t additional corroboration from Wilbern or Korish, if either was still alive and available.