Майкл Коннелли - The Law of Innocence

“They can try. They’re the government. The beast. And the game is always rigged in the beast’s favor.”

I lugged the suitcase up the stairs and through the front door. Kendall was standing in the living room, holding an envelope out to me.

“Somebody slid this under the door,” she said.

I took the envelope and studied it while rolling the suitcase to the bedroom. It was a plain white envelope with nothing written on either side of it. The flap was not sealed.

After putting the suitcase on the bed for unpacking, I opened the envelope. It contained a single folded document. It was a photocopy of the face sheet of a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department arrest report dated December 1, 2018. The suspect arrested on suspicion of fraud was identified on the form as Sam Scales. The summary stated that Scales had used the name Walter Lennon to set up a funding site to raise money for the families of victims killed in a mass shooting the month before in a bar in Thousand Oaks. I didn’t need the arrest report to remember the incident at the Borderline Bar & Grill. A sheriff’s deputy and twelve customers were killed. The money-raising scam appeared to be very similar to the one Scales went to prison in Nevada for.

I walked into the home office to the desk, where I had left my case files. I was sure that the Ventura County arrest was not on the rap sheet we had received in discovery from the District Attorney’s Office. I opened the victim folder and found the arrest record. There was no listing of the arrest in December 2018.

Kendall followed me into the office.

“What is it?” she asked.

“An arrest report for Sam Scales,” I said. “A case over a year ago in Ventura County.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, it’s not on the rap sheet the prosecution gave us in discovery.”

The face sheet of the arrest report was a form with various windows and boxes below the handwritten summary. Under the box where fraud had been checked off was another checklist where the box marked interstate had a slash through it. At the bottom of the list was a line where the author of the form had written “FBI–LA.”

“Were they trying to hide it from you?” Kendall asked.

I looked up at her.

“What?”

“Was the prosecutor trying to hide that arrest from you?”

“I think they didn’t know about it. I think the FBI came and scooped Sam up.”

Kendall looked confused but I did not explain further. My mind was racing ahead to the possibilities of what the arrest report could mean.

“I have to make a call,” I said.

I pulled my phone and called Harry Bosch. He answered right away.

“Harry, it’s me. I’m meeting Jennifer for lunch downtown, then I have to go to court. Can you meet us? I have something you need to see.”

“Where?”

“Rossoblu at one.”

“Rossoblu? Where’s that?”

“City Market South, off Eleventh.”

“I’ll be there.”

I disconnected. I felt a push of momentum. The arrest report could confirm a lot of things about Sam Scales and the case. It could also be a way to penetrate the FBI wall.

“Who put that under the door?” Kendall asked.

I thought about Agent Ruth but didn’t say her name.

“I think it was somebody who wanted to do the right thing,” I said.

In anticipation of my return to custody, the courtroom had three times the number of deputies usually on hand for a hearing involving a noncustodial defendant. They were posted by the door, in the gallery, and on the other side of the gate. It was clear from the start that no one was planning on my leaving the way I had come in.

My daughter had been unable to take me up on an invitation to lunch because of a class but now was in the front row of the gallery, directly behind the defense table. She sat next to Lorna, who sat next to Cisco. I hugged Hayley and spoke to each of them, trying to be encouraging even though it was hard for me to be encouraged myself.

“Dad, this is so unfair,” Hayley said.

“Nobody ever said the law is fair, Hay,” I told her. “Remember that.”

I moved down the line to Cisco. He had not been to lunch and didn’t know about the arrest report that had been slipped under my door. I had chosen Bosch to run with it because of his law enforcement pedigree. I believed he was better suited to make contact with the Ventura County sheriff’s investigator who had arrested Sam Scales.

“Anything new?” I asked.

He knew I was talking about the surveillance and the hopes of locating Louis Opparizio.

“Not as of this morning,” he said. “The guy’s a ghost.”

I nodded, disappointed, and then moved through the gate to the defense table, where I sat down alone and collected my thoughts. I had beat Jennifer to the courtroom from our lunch because she had to find parking in the black hole while I’d had Bishop drop Kendall and me at the front door. I looked at notes from our lunch meeting and rehearsed in my mind what I would say to the judge. I had never been nervous or intimidated in a courtroom. I had always felt at home and fed off the animosity that was usually directed at the defense from the prosecution table, the bench, sometimes even the jury box. But this was different. I knew that if I failed here, I would be the one who was escorted through the steel door into lockup. Before, when I was arrested, there had been no opportunity to argue my case before being booked. This time I had a chance. It was a long shot because the state was within the rule of law in making its moves. But that didn’t make it right and I had to convince the judge of that.

My concentration broke when I noticed Dana Berg and her bow-tied second take seats at the prosecution table. I didn’t turn to look at them. I didn’t say good afternoon. This had gotten personal, with Berg repeatedly seeking to take away my freedom to prepare my case unfettered. She was now the enemy and I would treat her as such.

Jennifer slid into the seat next to me.

“Sorry, no parking in the black hole,” she said. “I had to go down to a pay lot on Main.”

She seemed out of breath. The parking lot must have been more than a few blocks down Main.

“No worries,” I said. “I’m ready to go.”

She turned in her seat to acknowledge our line of supporters, then turned back to me.

“Bosch not coming?” she asked.

“I think he wanted to get going,” I said. “You know, head up to Ventura.”

“Right.”

“Listen, if this doesn’t turn out the way we want it to and I go back to Twin Towers, you’ll need to deal with Bosch on the Ventura thing. Make sure there’s no paper. He’s not used to how we work things on the defense side. No paper, no discovery. Okay?”

“Got it. But things are going to work out, Mickey. We’re going to tag-team them and we are a damn good team.”

“I hope so. I like your confidence — even if the whole legislature and penal code is against us.”

I turned and made one more sweep of the gallery, making momentary eye contact with the two reporters who were in their usual places in the second row.

A few minutes later the deputy called the courtroom to order as Judge Warfield came through the door to chambers and took the bench.

“Back on the record with California versus Michael Haller, ” she said. “We have new charges filed in the case, warranting a custody-and-arraignment hearing as well as a reading of the indictment. And we have a six-eight-six motion from the defense as well. Let’s start with the charges.”

I waived a formal reading of the indictment.

“How do you plead?” Warfield asked.

“Not guilty,” I said crisply.

“Very well,” Warfield said. “Now let us take up the issue of pretrial release or detention. And I have a feeling we are going to have a lot of back-and-forth between the lawyers today, so let’s remain at our respective tables to reduce traffic and time. Please speak loudly and clearly when addressing the court so the record will be clear. What is the position of the People, Ms. Berg?”