Michael Connelly - The Reversal

Royce realized his defeat could get even worse. He cut his losses.

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

He sat down. The judge then ended the hearing and we packed up and headed toward the rear doors. But not as quickly as Royce. He and his client and supposed co-counsel split the courtroom like men who had to catch the last train on a Friday night. And this time Royce didn’t bother stopping outside the courtroom to chat with the media.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” Maggie said when we got to the elevators.

I shrugged.

“You stuck up for yourself. Did you really mean that, what you said about moving on from Bell to better things?”

“From him, yes. Definitely.”

I looked at her but couldn’t read her beyond the spoken line. The elevator doors opened, and there was Harry Bosch waiting to step off.

Thursday, March 4, 10:40 A.M .

Bosch stepped off the elevator and almost walked right into Haller and McPherson.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“You missed it,” Haller said.

Bosch quickly turned and hit one of the bumpers on the elevator doors before it could close.

“Are you going down?”

“That’s the plan,” Haller said in a tone that didn’t hide his annoyance with Bosch. “I thought you weren’t coming to the hearing.”

“I wasn’t. I was coming to get you two.”

They rode the elevator down and Bosch convinced them to walk with him a block over to the Police Administration Building. He signed them in as visitors and they went up to the fifth floor, where Robbery-Homicide Division was located.

“This is the first time I’ve been here,” McPherson said. “It’s as quiet as an insurance office.”

“Yeah, I guess we lost a lot of the charm when we moved,” Bosch replied.

The PAB had been in operation for only six months. It had a quiet and sterile quality about it. Most of the building’s denizens, including Bosch, missed the old headquarters, Parker Center, even though it was beyond decrepit.

“I’ve got a private room over here,” he said, pointing to a door on the far side of the squad room.

He used a key to unlock the door and they walked into a large space with a boardroom-style table at center. One wall was glass that looked out on the squad room but Bosch had lowered and closed the blinds for privacy. On the opposite wall was a large whiteboard with a row of photos across the top margin and numerous notes written beneath each shot. The photos were of young girls.

“I’ve been working on this nonstop for a week,” Bosch said. “You probably have been wondering where I disappeared to so I figured it was time to show you what I’ve got.”

McPherson stopped just a few steps inside the door and stared, squinting her eyes and revealing to Bosch her vanity. She needed glasses but he’d never seen her wearing them.

Haller stepped over to the table, where there were several archival case boxes gathered. He slowly pulled out a chair to sit down.

“Maggie,” Bosch prompted. “Why don’t you sit down?”

McPherson finally broke from her stare and took the chair at the end of the table.

“Is this what I think it is?” she asked. “They all look like Melissa Landy.”

“Well,” Bosch said. “Let me just go over it and you’ll draw your own conclusions.”

Bosch stayed on his feet. He moved around the table to the whiteboard. With his back to the board he started to tell the story.

“Okay, I have a friend. She’s a former profiler. I’ve never-”

“For whom?” Haller asked.

“The FBI, but does it matter? What I’m saying is that I’ve never known anybody who was better at it. So, shortly after I came into this I asked her informally to take a look at the case files and she did. Her conclusions were that back in ’eighty-six this case was read all wrong. And where the original investigators saw a crime of impulse and opportunity, she saw something different. To keep it short, she saw indications that the person who killed Melissa Landy may have killed before.”

“Here we go,” Haller said.

“Look, man, I don’t know why you’re giving me the attitude,” Bosch said. “You pulled me in as investigator on this thing and I’m investigating. Why don’t you just let me tell you what I know? Then you can do with it whatever you want. You think it’s legit, then run with it. You don’t, then shitcan it. I will have done my job by bringing it to you.”

“I’m not giving you any attitude, Harry. I’m just thinking out loud. Thinking about all the things that can complicate a trial. Complicate discovery. You realize that everything you are telling us has to be turned over to Royce now?”

“Only if you intend to use it.”

“What?”

“I thought you’d know the rules of discovery better than me.”

“I know the rules. Why did you bring us here for this dog and pony show if you don’t think we should use it?”

“Why don’t you just let him tell the story,” McPherson said. “And then maybe we’ll understand.”

“Then, go ahead,” Haller said. “Anyway, all I said was ‘Here we go,’ which I think is a pretty common phrase indicating surprise and change of direction. That’s all. Continue, Harry. Please.”

Bosch glanced back at the board for a moment and then turned back to his audience of two and continued.

“So my friend the profiler thinks Jason Jessup killed before he killed Melissa Landy, and most likely was successful in hiding his involvement in these previous crimes.”

“So you went looking,” McPherson said.

“I did. Now, remember our original investigator, Kloster, was no slouch. He went looking, too. Only problem was he was using the wrong profile. They had semen on the dress, strangulation and a body dump in an accessible location. That was the profile, so that is what he went looking for and he found no similars, or at least no cases that connected. End of story, end of search. They believed Jessup acted out this one time, was exceedingly disorganized and sloppy, and got caught.”

Harry turned and gestured to the row of photographs on the whiteboard behind him.

“So I went a different way. I went looking for girls who were reported missing and never showed up again. Girls reported as runaways as well as possible abductions. Jessup is from Riverside County so I expanded the search to include Riverside and L.A. counties. Since Jessup was twenty-four when he was arrested I went back to when he was eighteen, putting the search limits from nineteen eighty to ’eighty-six. As far as victim profile, I went Caucasian aged twelve to eighteen.”

“Why did you go as old as eighteen?” McPherson asked. “Our victim was twelve.”

“Rachel said-I mean, the profiler said that sometimes starting out, these people pick from their own peer group. They learn how to kill and then they start to define their targets according to their paraphilias. A paraphilia is-”

“I know what it is,” McPherson said. “You did all of this work yourself? Or did this Rachel help you?”

“No, she just worked up the profile. I had some help from my partner pulling all of this together. But it was tough because not all the records are complete, especially on cases that never got above runaway status, and a lot was cleared out. Most of the runaway files from back then are gone.”

“They didn’t digitize?” McPherson asked.

Bosch shook his head.

“Not in L.A. County. They prioritized when they switched over to computerized records and went back and captured records for major crimes. No runaway cases unless there was the possibility of abduction involved. Riverside County was different. Fewer cases out there so they archived everything digitally. Anyway, for that time period in these two counties, we came up with twenty-nine cases over the six-year period we’re looking at. Again, these were unresolved cases. In each the girl disappeared and never came home. We pulled what records we could find and most didn’t fit because of witness statements or other issues. But I couldn’t rule out these eight.”