Michael Connelly - The Reversal

Royce did the smart thing. He decided to let emotions cool for a night. He stood and told the judge that he reserved the right to recall Gleason as a witness during the defense phase of the trial. In effect he put off her cross-examination. He then retook his seat.

Bosch checked his watch. It was four-fifteen. The judge told Haller to call his next witness but Bosch knew there were no more witnesses. Haller looked at McPherson and in unison they nodded. Haller then stood up.

“Your Honor,” he said. “The People rest.”

Wednesday, April 7, 7:20 P.M .

The prosecution team convened for dinner at Casa Haller. I made a thick Bolognese using a store-bought sauce for a base and boiled a box of bow tie pasta. Maggie chipped in with her own recipe for Caesar salad that I had always loved when we were married but hadn’t had in years. Bosch and his daughter were the last to arrive, as Harry first took Sarah Ann Gleason back to her hotel room following court and made sure she was secure for the night.

Our daughters were shy upon meeting and embarrassed by how obvious their parents were about watching the long-awaited moment. They instinctively knew to move away from us and convened in the back office, ostensibly to do their homework. Pretty soon after, we started to hear laughter from down the hall.

I put the pasta and sauce into a big bowl and mixed it all together. I then called the girls out first to serve themselves and take their dishes back to the office.

“How’s it going back there, anyway?” I asked them while they were making their plates. “Any homework getting done?”

“Dad,” Hayley said dismissively, as if my question were a great invasion of privacy.

So I tried the cousin.

“Maddie?”

“Um, I’m almost finished with mine.”

Both girls looked at each other and laughed, as if either the question or its answer were cause for great glee. They scurried out of the kitchen then and back to the office.

I put everything out on the table, where the adults were sitting. The last thing I did was make sure the door to the office was closed so the girls would not hear our conversation and we would not hear theirs.

“Well,” I said as I passed the pasta to Bosch. “We’re finished with our part. Now comes the hard part.”

“The defense,” Maggie said. “What do we think they have in store for Sarah?”

I thought for a moment before answering and tried my first bow tie. It was good. I was proud of my dish.

“We know they’ll throw everything they can at her,” I finally said. “She’s the case.”

Bosch reached inside his jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper. He opened it on the table. I could see that it was the defense’s witness list.

“At the end of court today Royce told the judge he would complete the defense’s case in one day,” he said. “He said he’s calling only four witnesses but he’s got twenty-three listed on here.”

“Well, we knew all along that most of that list was subterfuge,” Maggie said. “He was hiding his case.”

“Okay, so we have Sarah coming back,” I said, holding up one finger. “Then we have Jessup himself. My guess is that Royce knows he has to put him on. That’s two. Who else?”

Maggie waited until she finished a mouthful of food before speaking.

“Hey, this is good, Haller. When did you learn to make this?”

“It’s a little thing I like to call Newman’s Own.”

“No, you added to it. You made it better. How come you never cooked like this when we were married?”

“I guess it came out of necessity. Being a single father. What about you, Harry? What do you cook?”

Bosch looked at us both like we were crazy.

“I can fry an egg,” he said. “That’s about it.”

“Let’s get back to the trial,” Maggie said. “I think Royce has got Jessup and Sarah. Then I think he’s got the secret witness we haven’t found. The guy from the last rehab center.”

“Edward Roman,” Bosch said.

“Right. Roman. That makes three and the fourth one could be his investigator or maybe his meth expert but is probably just bullshit. There is no fourth. So much of what Royce does is misdirection. He doesn’t want anybody’s eyes on the prize. Wants them looking anywhere but right at the truth.”

“What about Roman?” I said. “We haven’t found him, but have we figured out his testimony?”

“Not by a long shot,” Maggie said. “I’ve gone over and over this with Sarah and she has no idea what he’s going to say. She couldn’t remember ever talking about her sister with him.”

“The summary Royce provided in discovery says he will testify about Sarah’s ‘revelations’ about her childhood,” Bosch said. “Nothing more specific than that and, of course, Royce claims he didn’t take any notes during the interview.”

“Look,” I said, “we have his record and we know exactly what kind of guy we’re dealing with here. He’s going to say whatever Royce wants him to say. It’s that simple. Whatever works for the defense. So we should be less concerned by what he says-because we know it will be lies-and more concerned with knocking him out of the box. What do we have that can help us there?”

Maggie and I both looked at Bosch and he was ready for us.

“I think I might have something. I’m going to go see somebody tonight. If it pans out we’ll have it in the morning. I’ll tell you then.”

My frustrations with Bosch’s methods of investigation and communication boiled over at that point.

“Harry, come on. We’re part of a team here. This secret agent stuff doesn’t really work when we’re in that courtroom every day with our asses on the line.”

Bosch looked down at his plate and I saw the slow burn. His face grew as dark as the sauce.

“ Your asses on the line?” he said. “I didn’t see anywhere in the surveillance reports that Jessup was hanging around outside your house, Haller, so don’t tell me about your ass being on the line. Your job is in that courtroom. It’s nice and safe and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But no matter what happens, you’re back in court the next day. You want your ass on the line, try working out there.”

He pointed out the window toward the view of the city.

“Hey, guys, let’s just calm down here,” Maggie said quickly. “Harry, what’s the matter? Has Jessup gone back to Woodrow Wilson? Maybe we should just revoke this guy and put him back in lockup.”

Bosch shook his head.

“Not to my street. He hasn’t been back there since that first night and he hasn’t been up to Mulholland in more than a week.”

“Then what is it?”

Bosch put his fork down and pushed his plate back.

“We already know there’s a good chance that Jessup has a gun from that meeting the SIS saw him have with a convicted gun dealer. They didn’t see what he got from the guy, but since it came wrapped in a towel, it doesn’t take a lot to figure it out. And then, you want to know what happened last night? Some bright guy on the surveillance decides to leave his post to use the john without telling anybody and Jessup walked right out of the net.”

“They lost him?” Maggie asked.

“Yeah, until I found him right before he found me, which might not have turned out so well. And you know what he’s up to? He’s building a dungeon for somebody and for all I know-”

He leaned forward over the table and finished in an urgent whisper.

“-might be for my kid!”

“Whoa, wait, Harry,” Maggie said. “Back up. He’s building a dungeon? Where?”

“Under the pier. There’s like a storage room. He put a lock on the door and dropped canned food off there last night. Like he’s getting it ready for somebody.”