Майкл Коннелли - The Law of Innocence

I called him directly and he picked up after two rings.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let me get clear.”

I heard the distinctive sounds of a casino in the background: slot-machine bells, people shouting. Then it got quiet and Bosch said hello.

“It’s Mick. Where the hell are you?”

“Vegas. You couldn’t tell? I just checked in at the Mandalay.”

“What are you doing there? I thought you were working for me.”

I immediately regretted my choice of words.

“With me, I mean.”

“I am. That’s why I’m here. Following something.”

“Well, we struck a big nerve today with the bureau. Two agents just showed up here to tell me we’re barking up the wrong tree with BioGreen while confirming that we’re barking up the right tree.”

“They like to do that.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve got there, but I want to put everything we have into finding out about how Sam was mixed up with Opparizio and BioGreen. I still think it’s the magic bullet. It’ll win the case.”

“Got it. I should be back by tomorrow night.”

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”

“Tracking Sam Scales. The last time he got caught was for a phony online fundraiser for the victims of the music festival shooting out here. Remember that? The shooter was actually here at the Mandalay.”

“Of course. Another senseless act of hyperviolence perpetuated by the easy access to high-powered weapons.”

“You’re not an NRA guy, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Anyway, the state of Nevada was all over these scams related to the shooting and grabbed Scales in L.A. They extradited him back here for trial and he cut a deal and did fifteen months for fraud up at High Desert.”

“I remember he called me from the can out there. Wanted me to rep him but I said no. But couldn’t you have gotten all of this by phone? I need you back here.”

“Not what I’m doing tomorrow. High Desert State Prison is about an hour from here. Scales’s cellmate is still there and I’m going to go up and talk to him. Got it set up for eight a.m. I’ll head back to L.A. after that.”

“You think he has something?”

“He’s serving a five-year sentence for major fraud. He was selling phony casino chips, took in a couple million before they caught him. Anyway, these two spent fifteen months together in a cell. I’m thinking they may have traded a few stories about things they did and were planning to do.”

“Perfect, they put a fraud and a con artist together in the same cell. That’s some match,” I said.

“They usually try to keep white-collar guys together so they don’t get picked off by the heavies.”

“Thanks for schooling me.”

“Sorry, I guess you know more about jails than I do,” Bosch said.

“I don’t know if that’s a dig or a compliment. You fly over there or drive?”

“Drove.”

“Okay, call me when you’re heading back. And then I want to get everybody together Wednesday after court to figure out the next steps.”

“I’ll be there.”

After disconnecting the call, I thought about things for a few minutes. I felt that the team was getting close to the big secrets of the case. We had a momentum that could lead us to truth and triumph. It was just a question of whether we would get there in time.

Kendall called down the hall from the bedroom.

“Are you coming to bed or not?”

I stacked all the files I had spread around and got up from the couch. I dumped the files into my briefcase and clicked it closed.

“Coming.”

I headed into the hallway and she was standing there in her bathrobe. I stopped short.

“Scared me,” I said.

“You know, this is what happened before,” she said.

“What did?”

“You know. You let your work take over your life. Our lives. Night and day. And then what we had disappeared. And here we are, back together, and already you’re doing it again.”

I reached out and gently grabbed the robe’s terry-cloth belt, which she had loosely cinched around her waist. I tugged it playfully.

“Come here. This isn’t the same thing, babe. This is me. My case. I have to put everything into it or there might not be any future for us. We’ve got a month until trial. I just need you to put up with this for a month. Okay? Can you give me that?”

I moved my hands up her arms to her shoulders and waited. She said nothing. She just looked down at the floor between us.

“You can’t give me the month?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“It’s not that,” she said. “I can give you the month. But sometimes it’s like you’re talking to me like a juror, like you’re trying to convince me you’re not guilty.”

I let go of her shoulders.

“And what, you think I am?”

“No. I’m talking about the way you talk to me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “But if you think I’m trying to play you, then maybe you should go to bed and I should go back to work. I have to figure out how to convince a real jury I’m not a killer.”

I left her there in the hallway.

Tuesday, January 14

I worked late and fell asleep on the couch. I had forgotten to attach the charger to my ankle monitor and it woke me at 8:15 a.m. with a sharp intermittent beeping that told me the device’s battery would be dead in an hour. And I would be in violation of the terms of my bail.

I timed the beeps. At the moment, the alarm was on a five-second interval but I knew that would get shorter and the device would get ear-piercingly louder as the hour counted down. I couldn’t casually go into the bedroom to get the charger without the alarm waking Kendall, who liked to sleep in most mornings. But with no choice in the matter, I timed my move, went swiftly into the room, and managed to plug the charging cord into the ankle device before the next beep. It appeared that Kendall had slept through. She was on her side, turned away from me, and I could see her arm moving with each rhythmic breath of sleep. I now had an hour to pass while the device charged, but I had left my phone, laptop, and briefcase in the living room. I could unplug the charger and race with it out of the room but I felt I was pressing my luck already. And if the alarm sounded again, it would definitely wake up Kendall.

The bedroom TV remote was on the bed within reach, having been left there by Kendall the night before. I turned on the flat-screen and immediately muted the sound. I switched on the closed captions and started reading the news. The House was planning to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for what everybody in the country new was a nonstarter. But it was monopolizing the news feed. I watched and read captions for twenty minutes before another story broke in for a few seconds of airtime. It was a report on rising concerns in Asia after the mystery virus originating in Wuhan, China, was confirmed as having jumped borders to other countries.

I heard my phone ringing out in the living room. I checked my watch. It was now 8:45 and I believed the ankle monitor had sufficiently charged to the point where there would be no alarm beep if I disconnected it. I quickly yanked out the charging line and moved quickly to get the phone. I missed the call but saw it had come from Bosch. I called him right back.

“Mick, there’s an issue with the cellmate,” he said.

“You’re at the prison?” I asked.

“I’m here and I saw the guy. His name is Austin Neiderland, but he won’t talk to me. Says he’s got a name that will tell us all we need to know about what Sam Scales was into. But he wouldn’t give me the name.”

“What’s he want? He’s got to be through his appeals by now.”