Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

"It's a long story, Jacob. I'll have to tell you later. What I need from you right now is a name. I need an attorney. A criminal defense attorney. Somebody good but who doesn't like getting his face on TV or his name in the papers."

Pierce knew that what he was asking for was a rarity in Los Angeles. But containing the situation was going to be as urgent as possibly defending himself against a bogus murder charge. It had to be handled quickly and discreetly, or the falling dominoes Pierce had imagined moments earlier would become the crushing blocks of reality that toppled both him and the company.

Kaz cleared his throat before responding. He gave no indication that Pierce's request was out of the ordinary or anything other than normal in their professional relationship.

"I think I have a name for you," he said. "You'll like her."

On Wednesday morning Pierce was on the phone with Charlie Condon when a woman in a gray suit walked into his hospital room. She handed him a card that said JANIS

LANGWISER, ATTORNEY AT LAW on it. He cupped his hand over the phone and told her he was wrapping up the call.

"Charlie, I've got to go. My doctor just came in. Just tell him we have to do it over the weekend or next week."

"Henry, I can't. He wants to see Proteus before we send in the patent. I don't want to delay that and you don't, either. Besides, you've met Maurice. He won't be put off."

"Just call him again and try to delay it."

"I will. I'll try. I'll call you back."

Charlie hung up and Pierce clipped the phone back into the bed's side guard. He tried to smile at Langwiser but his face was sorer than it had been the day before and it hurt to smile. She put out her hand and he shook it.

"Janis Langwiser. Pleased to meet you."

"Henry Pierce. I can't say the circumstances make it a pleasure to meet you."

"That's usually the way it is with criminal defense work."

He had already gotten her pedigree from Jacob Kaz. Langwiser handled the criminal defense work for the small but influential downtown firm of Smith, Levin, Colvin amp;

Enriquez. The firm was so exclusive, according to Kaz, that it wasn't listed in any phone book. Its clients were A-list, but even people on that list still needed criminal defense from time to time. That's where Langwiser came in. She'd been hired away from the district attorney's office a year earlier, after a career that included prosecuting some of Los Angeles 's higher-profile cases of recent years. Kaz told Pierce that the firm was taking him as a client as a means of establishing a relationship with him, a relationship that would be mutually beneficial as Amedeo Technologies moved toward going public in years to come. Pierce didn't tell Kaz that there would be no eventual public offering or even an Amedeo Technologies if this situation wasn't handled properly.

After polite inquiries about Pierce's injuries and prognosis, Langwiser asked him why he thought he needed a criminal defense attorney.

"Because there is a police detective out there who believes I'm a killer. He told me he was going to the DA's office to try to charge me with a number of crimes, including murder."

"An L.A. cop? What's his name?"

"Renner. I don't think he ever told me his first name. Or I don't remember it. I have his card but I never looked at -"

"Robert. I know him. He works out of Pacific Division. He's been around a long time."

"You know him from a case?"

"Early in my career at the DA I filed cases. I filed a few that he brought in. He seemed like a good cop. I think thorough is the word I would use."

"It's actually the word he uses."

"He's going to the DA for a murder charge?"

"I'm not sure. There's no body. But he said he was going to charge me with other stuff first. Breaking and entering, he says. Obstruction of justice. I guess he'll try to make a case for the murder after that. I don't know how much is bullshit threats and how much he can do. But I didn't kill anybody, so I need a lawyer."

She frowned and nodded thoughtfully. She gestured to his face.

"Is this thing with Renner in any way related to your injuries?"

Pierce nodded.

"Why don't we start at the beginning."

"Do we have an attorney-client relationship at this point?"

"Yes, we do. You can speak freely."

Pierce nodded. He spent the next thirty minutes telling her the story in as much detail as he could remember. He freely told her about everything he had done, including the crimes he had committed. He left nothing out.

As he talked Langwiser leaned against the equipment counter. She took notes with an expensive-looking pen on a yellow legal pad she took from a black leather bag that was either an oversized purse or an undersized briefcase. Her whole manner exuded expensive confidence. When Pierce was finished telling the story, she went back to the part about what Renner had called an admission from him. She asked several questions, first about the tone of the conversation at that point, what medications Pierce was on at the time and what ill effect from the attack and surgery he was feeling. She then asked specifically what he had meant by saying it was his fault.

"I meant my sister, Isabelle."

"I don't understand."

"She died. A long time ago."

"Come on, Henry, don't make me guess about this. I want to know."

He shrugged now, and this hurt his shoulder and ribs.

"She ran away from home when we were kids. Then she got killed… by some guy who had killed a lot of people. Girls he picked up in Hollywood. Then he got killed by the police and that… was it."

"A serial killer… when was this?"

"The eighties. He was called the Dollmaker. They all get names from newspapers, you know? Back then, at least."

He could see Langwiser reviewing her contemporary history.

"I remember the Dollmaker. I was at UCLA law school back then. I later knew the detective who was the one who shot him. He just retired this year."

Her thoughts seemed to drift with the memory, then she came back.

"Okay. So how did that get confused with Lilly Quinlan in your conversation with Detective Renner?"

"Well, I've been thinking about my sister a lot lately. Since this thing with Lilly came up.

I think it's the reason I did what I did."

"You mean you think you are responsible for your sister? How can that be, Henry?"

Pierce waited a moment before speaking. He carefully put the story together in his mind.

Not the whole story. Just the part he wanted to tell her. He left out the part that he could never tell a stranger.

"My stepfather and I, we used to go down there. We lived in the Valley and we'd go down to Hollywood and look for her. At night. Sometimes during the day, but mostly at night."

Pierce stared at the blank screen of the television mounted on the wall across the room.

He spoke as though he were seeing the story on the screen and repeating it to her.

"I would dress up in old clothes so I would look like them -one of the street kids. My stepfather would send me into the places where the kids hid and slept, where they would have sex for money or do drugs. Whatever…"

"Why you? Why didn't your stepfather go in?"

"At the time, he told me that it was because I was a kid and I could fit in and be allowed in. If a man walked into one of those places by himself, everybody might run. Then we'd lose her."

He stopped talking and Langwiser waited but then had to prompt him.

"You said at the time he told you that was the reason. What did he tell you later?"

Pierce shook his head. She was good. She had picked up the subtleties of his telling of the story.

"Nothing. It's just that… I think… I mean, she ran away for a reason. The police said she was on drugs but I think that came after. After she was on the street."