Майкл Коннелли - Law of Innocence

“So the neighbor who heard two men arguing was wrong or lying?”

“We believe she was mistaken. It could have been a TV she heard, or the time could have been different. It wasn’t clear.”

“So you discarded it and didn’t bother telling the jury.”

“No, it wasn’t discarded. It was—”

“Is that what you do, Detective? If something doesn’t fit with your theory of the case, you just hide it from the jury?”

Berg objected for a variety of reasons and Warfield sustained them all, admonishing me to let the witness finish his answers.

“Go ahead, Detective,” I said. “Finish your answer.”

“We evaluate every potential witness,” Drucker said. “We found the information from this witness not to be credible. No one else heard an argument, and there was an indication that the witness may have been confused about the night in question. We have not hidden anything from the jury.”

I asked the judge for a moment and then walked over to the defense table, where I leaned down to whisper to Maggie.

“Do you have that arrest report from Ventura?” I whispered.

Maggie was ready with the report and handed me a file.

“Okay,” I said. “Anything else I should get on the record before the big finish?”

Maggie thought for a long moment before responding.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it’s time to go for it.”

I nodded.

“Is Schultz here yet?” I asked.

“Cisco texted,” she said. “He’s out in the hallway and ready to go.”

I held up the arrest report.

“What about this guy Rountree?” I asked.

“He’s out there, too, sitting with Harry,” Maggie said. “But so far the bartender is a no-show.”

“All right, then. Depending on how this next part goes, I might take Detective Rountree next.”

“Sounds good. And by the way, don’t be obvious about it but Agent Ruth is sitting in the back row.”

I stared at Maggie for a long moment. I didn’t know what to make of the FBI agent’s presence. Was she here to watch and report? Or had the death of Louis Opparizio changed things?

“Mr. Haller?” the judge said. “We’re waiting.”

I nodded once to Maggie and walked back to the lectern. My focus returned to Drucker.

“Detective, you testified earlier that Sam Scales was using the name Walter Lennon at the time of his death. True?”

“Yes, if I testified to it, it’s true. You don’t have to ask again.”

“I’ll remember that, Detective. Thank you. What else did you learn about Walter Lennon?”

“Where he lived. Where he supposedly worked.”

“Where was it that he supposedly worked?”

“He told his landlord he worked at a refinery called BioGreen near where he was living in San Pedro. We could not confirm that.”

“Did you try?”

“We went to BioGreen. They had no record of a Walter Lennon or Samuel Scales as an employee. The head of HR did not recognize a photo of Sam Scales.”

“You left it there?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what BioGreen does?”

“It’s a refinery. It recycles oil. Makes clean fuel.”

“Would the oil it recycles be considered grease?”

Drucker hesitated as he realized that he had just stepped into a hole.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

“You don’t know,” I said. “Did you ask?”

“We were talking to the personnel manager. I doubt she would know the answer to that question.”

I almost smiled. Drucker was coming off as defensive and trying to turn an obvious shortcoming in his investigation into pushback against me.

“Thank you, Detective,” I said. “Can you tell me if you have ever heard the phrase bleeding the beast ?”

Again, Drucker took time to think.

“I can’t say I have,” he said.

“Then we’ll move on,” I said. “Can you tell the jury what part in this case Louis Opparizio played?”

“Uh, no, I can’t.”

“Do you know that name?”

“Yes, I’ve heard it.”

“In what context?”

“It came up in this case. A witness mentioned it yesterday, and prior to that, people were talking about the methods of distraction you would use and that I should be ready for.”

“Well, I don’t want to distract you, Detective, so we’ll move on. Can you tell the jury, did you research the criminal record of Sam Scales after he was identified as the victim?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And what did you find?”

“That he had an extensive record as a con man and a fraud. But you know about that.”

Drucker was now getting surly, but that was okay with me. It meant I was getting under his skin. That wasn’t a bad thing.

“Can you tell the jury the details of his last arrest?”

Drucker opened the murder book.

“He was arrested for running a fraudulent online fundraising scheme for victims of the music festival shooting out in Las Vegas,” Drucker said. “He was convicted and—”

“Let me stop you right there, Detective,” I said. “I asked about the last time Sam Scales was arrested, not convicted.”

“They’re one and the same. The Vegas case.”

“What about his arrest in Ventura County eleven months before his death?”

Drucker looked down at the open murder book in front of him.

“I have nothing on that,” he said.

I opened the file Maggie had given me. The moment was precious. I knew I was about to put another hit on the house—a big hit—and it was a moment any trial lawyer would savor.

“Your Honor, may I approach the witness?” I asked.

The judge granted permission and I walked forward with the arrest report that had been anonymously slipped under my front door. I handed a copy to the clerk and then one to Dana Berg before putting a third copy down in front of Drucker. As I made my way back to the lectern, I casually checked the gallery, nodded surreptitiously to my daughter, and looked beyond her to the back row. I saw Agent Dawn Ruth. We locked eyes for a moment before I turned back to face Drucker. I knew I had to move quickly because as soon as Berg confirmed that a copy of the arrest report was not in the defense’s discovery file, she would raise holy hell.

“What is that, Detective Drucker?” I asked.

“It looks like an arrest report from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

“And who is the arrestee?”

“Sam Scales.”

“Arrested when and for what?”

“December first, 2018, for operating a fraudulent online fundraiser for victims of a mass shooting in a bar in Thousand Oaks.”

“This is a standard arrest form, correct?”

“Yes.”

“At the bottom of the form, there are a series of boxes that are checked. What do they indicate?”

I checked the prosecution table. Berg’s bow-tied second was looking through files.

“One is marked ‘interstate fraud,’ ” Drucker said.

“And what does the reference to ‘FBI-LA’ mean?” I asked quickly.

“That the FBI’s office in L.A. was notified of the arrest.”

“Why did this arrest not come up on your search of Sam Scales’s criminal record?”

“He probably wasn’t charged and the arrest wasn’t put into the computer.”

“Why would that happen?”

“You’ll have to ask the Ventura sheriffs about that.”

“Is this what you would see when someone who is arrested agrees to cooperate with the authorities in some way?”

“Like I said, you’d have to ask Ventura about that.”

I checked the prosecutors again. Bow-tie was whispering to Berg now.

“Isn’t this standard operating procedure for law enforcement?” I asked. “To arrest someone for one crime in order to leverage their cooperation in a bigger investigation of a bigger fish?”