Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

I looked at Forsythe and shook my head.

“Andre’s not getting cold feet,” I said. “He still says he didn’t do it and still wants to see if you can prove he did.”

“So no deal, then.”

“No deal.”

“Then, I guess I’ll see you at jury selection, May sixth.”

That was the date Leggoe had set for the start of the trial. She was giving us four days max to pick a jury and a day for last-minute motions and opening statements. The real show would start the following week, when the prosecution began its case.

“Oh, you might see me before that. You never know.”

I snapped my briefcase closed and headed toward the steel door to the holding cell. The court deputy escorted me back and I found La Cosse waiting alone in the cell.

“We’ll be moving him back in fifteen,” the deputy said.

“Okay, thanks,” I said.

“Knock when you’re ready to come out.”

I waited until the deputy went back through the courtroom door before turning and looking at my client through the bars.

“Andre, I’m worried. It doesn’t look like you’re eating.”

“I’m not eating. How could anyone eat when they’re in here for something they didn’t do? Besides, the food is fucking horrible. I just want to go home.”

I nodded.

“I know, I know.”

“You are going to win this, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to give it my best shot. But just so you know, the DA is still floating a deal out there if you want me to pursue it.”

La Cosse emphatically shook his head.

“I don’t even want to hear what it is. No deal.”

“That’s what I thought. So we go to trial.”

“What if we win the motion to suppress?”

I shrugged.

“Don’t get your hopes up on that. I told you, it’s a long shot. You have to expect that we are going to go to trial.”

La Cosse lowered his head until his forehead was against one of the bars that separated us. He looked like he was going to cry.

“Look, I know I’m not a good guy,” he said. “I did a lot of bad things in my life. But I didn’t do this. I didn’t.”

“And I’m going to do my best to prove it, Andre. You can count on that.”

He drew his head up to look at me eye to eye and nodded.

“That’s what Giselle said. That she could count on you.”

“She said that? Count on me for what?”

“You know, like if anything happened to her, she knew she could count on you to not let it go by.”

I paused for a moment. In the past five months La Cosse and I had had limited communication. He was in jail and I was working a full caseload. We spoke when together for court hearings and during occasional phone calls from the pink module, where he was housed at Men’s Central. Even so, I thought I had gotten everything I needed from him in order to defend him at trial. But what he had just said was new information, and it gave me pause because it was about Gloria Dayton, who still remained an enigma to me.

“Why did she tell you that?”

La Cosse shook his head slightly, as though he didn’t understand the urgency I had put into my voice.

“I don’t know. We were just talking once and she mentioned you. You know, like if anything happens to me, then Mickey Mantle will go to bat for me.”

“When did she say that?”

“I don’t remember. She just said it. She said to make sure to let you know.”

With my one free hand I gripped one of the bars and moved closer to my client.

“You told me you came to me because she said I was a good lawyer. You didn’t tell me any of this other stuff.”

“I had just been arrested for murder and was scared shitless. I wanted you to take my case.”

I held myself back from reaching through the bars and grabbing him by the collar of his jumpsuit.

“Andre, listen to me. I want you to tell me exactly what she said. Use her words.”

“She just said that if something happened to her, I had to promise to tell you. And then something did happen and I got arrested. So I called you.”

“How close was this conversation to when she was murdered?”

“I can’t remember exactly.”

“Days? Weeks? Months? Come on, Andre. It could be important.”

“I don’t know. A week, maybe longer. I can’t remember because being in this place, all the noise and the lights on all the time and the animals, it wears you down and you start losing your mind. I can’t remember things, I don’t even remember what my mother looks like anymore.”

“Okay, calm down. You think about this on the bus ride and when you’re back in your own cell. I want you to remember exactly when this conversation took place. Okay?”

“I’ll try but I don’t know.”

“Okay, you try. I have to go now. I’ll be seeing you before the trial. There’s still a lot of prep work to be done.”

“Okay. And I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For getting you upset about Giselle. I can tell you are.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you eat the food they give you tonight. I want you to look strong for the trial. You promise me?”

La Cosse reluctantly nodded.

“I promise.”

I headed back to the steel door.

12

I walked back through the courtroom with my head down, oblivious of the hearing that Judge Leggoe had started following ours. I moved toward the rear exit, pondering the story La Cosse had just told me, that he had reached out to me following his arrest because Gloria Dayton had wanted me to know if something happened to her, not necessarily because she thought I should be his attorney. There was a significant difference in the stories and it helped ease the burden I’d carried for months in regard to Gloria. But did she want me to get this message so I would avenge her, or was it to warn me about some unseen danger? The questions put a new complexion on how I viewed things about Gloria and even myself. I now realized that Gloria might have known or at least feared that she was in danger.

The moment I stepped out of the courtroom and into the crowded hallway I was confronted by Fernando Valenzuela—the bondsman, not the former baseball pitcher. Val and I went way back and once shared a working relationship that was financially beneficial to both parties. But things turned sour years ago and we drifted apart. When I needed a bondsman these days, I usually went to Bill Deen or Bob Edmundson. Val was a distant third on that list.

Valenzuela handed me a folded document.

“Mick, this is for you.”

“What is it?”

I took the document and started to unfold it one handed, waving it to get it open.

“It’s a subpoena. You’ve been served.”

“What are you talking about? You’re running process now?”

“One of my many skills, Mick. Guy’s gotta make a living. Hold it up for me.”

“Fuck that.”

I knew the routine. He wanted to take a photo of me with the document to prove service. Service had been made but I wasn’t going to pose for pictures. I held the paper behind my back. Valenzuela took a photo with his phone anyway.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“This is totally unnecessary, Val,” I said.

He put his phone away and I looked at the paper. I immediately saw the styling of the case; Hector Arrande Moya vs Arthur Rollins, warden, FCI Victorville. It was a 2241 filing. This was a permutation of a habeas petition that was known by lawyers as a “true habeas,” because rather than being a last-ditch effort grasping at legal straws like ineffective counsel, it was a declaration that startlingly new evidence was now available that proved innocence. Moya had something new up his sleeve and somehow it involved me, meaning it must involve my late client Gloria Dayton. She was the only link between Moya and me. The basic cause of action in a 2241 filing was the claim that the petitioner—in this case, Moya—was being unlawfully detained in prison, and thus the civil action directed against the warden. There would be something more in the full filing, the claim of new evidence designed to get a federal judge’s attention.