Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

Then my phone started vibrating. I pulled it from my pocket, checking the caller ID before answering because I didn’t want to intrude on the moment.

LA COUNTY JAIL

Normally, I wouldn’t take a call after hours from the jail. Most of the time it’s a collect call from somebody who got my name and number from somebody else. Nine out of ten times it’s somebody who says he has money for private counsel but ultimately proves to be lying about that and everything else. But this time I knew there was a good chance it was Andre La Cosse. He had taken to calling me from the jail after court to discuss what had happened that day and what to expect the next. I stood up and worked my way around the table so I could walk out into the loft and be able to hear the call.

“Hello?”

“I’m looking for Michael Haller.”

It wasn’t Andre and it wasn’t a collect call. I instinctively closed the door to the boardroom to further insulate myself from the noise.

“This is Haller. Who is this?”

“This is Sergeant Rowley at the Men’s Central jail. I am calling to tell you there has been an incident involving your client Andre La Cosse.”

He had pronounced “La Cosse” wrong.

“What do you mean? What incident?”

I started pacing across the empty wooden floor, putting more space between me and the boardroom.

“The inmate was assaulted early this evening in the transportation center at the Criminal Courts Building. Another inmate is being investigated.”

“Assaulted? What does that mean? How bad is it?”

“He was stabbed multiple times, sir.”

I closed my eyes.

“Is he dead? Is Andre dead?”

“No, sir, he was transported in critical condition to the jail ward at County/USC Medical Center. No other details on his condition are available at this time.”

I opened my eyes, turned, and unconsciously raised my left hand in an impotent gesture. A sharp pain shot through my elbow, reminding me of my injury, and I dropped my arm to my side.

“How could this happen? What exactly is the transportation center at CCB?”

“The TC is the staging area in the courthouse basement where custodies are loaded on buses for transport back to our different holding facilities. Your client was about to be transported back to Men’s Central when the assault took place.”

“Aren’t these people in shackles? How could—”

“Sir, the incident is under investigation and I can’t—”

“Who is the investigator? I want his number.”

“I’m not at liberty to give you that information. I am only calling as a courtesy to tell you there has been an incident and your client is at County/USC. Yours is the only name on his sheet here.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know that information, sir.”

“You don’t know shit, do you?”

I disconnected before I heard a reply. I started walking toward the boardroom. Lorna, Cisco, and Jennifer were standing behind the glass window, watching me. They knew something was up.

“Okay,” I said after entering. “Andre got stabbed in the courthouse before they put him on the bus tonight. He’s at County/USC.”

“Oh my god!” Jennifer exclaimed.

Her hands went to her face. She had sat next to Andre through several days of the trial, often whispering in his ear explanations about what I was doing when I dealt with witnesses. I was too busy with the trial. She had become the chief handholder, and that had drawn them close.

“How?” Cisco said. “Who?”

“I don’t know. They said another inmate is under investigation. This is what I want to do. I’m going to go to County/USC and see what his status is and if I can get in to see him. Cisco, I want you on the investigation. They wouldn’t tell me the name of the suspect. I want to know who it is and what connections he could have to Marco and Lankford.”

“You think they’re behind this?” Lorna asked.

“Anything’s possible. I spoke to Lankford today after court. I tried to rattle him but he didn’t rattle. Maybe he knew what was going to come down.”

“I thought you had Moya’s people protecting him,” Jennifer said.

“In the jail module, yeah,” I said. “But it would be impossible to cover the buses and the courthouse. It’s not like I could get him a bodyguard.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“I want you to take Legal back first. Then I want you to blueprint an argument against mistrial.”

Jennifer seemed to come out of the shock of the moment and focus for the first time on what I had just said.

“You mean—”

“I was told he was in critical condition. I don’t know if that means he’s going to live or die. But either way I doubt he’s going to court in the foreseeable future. The default setting on that is to go to mistrial and start over when he’s recovered. If Leggoe doesn’t come to that on her own, then Forsythe will make the motion because he saw his case start to go sideways today. We have to stop it. We’re about to win this case. Let’s proceed with the trial.”

Jennifer pulled a pad and pen up from her bag that was on the floor.

“So we want to continue the trial with Andre in absentia? I’m not sure that will fly.”

“They proceed with cases when defendants escape during trial. Why not here? There’s got to be a precedent. If not, we need to make one.”

Jennifer shook her head.

“In those escape cases, the defendants forfeit the right to be present by their own actions in escaping. This is different.”

Not interested in the legal discussion, Cisco stepped out into the loft space so he could start working his phone.

“No, it’s different but the same,” I said. “It’s just going to come down to the judge and judicial discretion.”

“Judicial discretion is a big fucking tent,” Legal said.

I nodded and pointed at him.

“He’s right, and we have to find space in that tent.”

“Well, I would say that at the very least we are going to need a waiver from Andre,” Jennifer said. “The judge won’t even consider it if Andre hasn’t signed off, and we don’t know if he’s in a condition to sign or understand any of this.”

“Pull out your computer and let’s write up the waiver right now.”

There was a printer on the counter beneath our whiteboard. We had set things up for printing in the loft after my car was wrecked and the printer I had was destroyed.

“You’re sure he’ll be able to knowingly sign?” Jennifer asked.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You write it up, I’ll get it signed.”

I spent six hours in a family waiting room on the lockdown floor at County/USC. For the first four hours I was repeatedly told that my client was in surgery. I was then told he was in recovery but that I could not see him because he had not regained consciousness. During the whole time, I never lost my cool with anyone. I did not complain and I did not yell.

But by two o’clock in the morning I had reached the limits of my patience and started demanding to see my client at ten-minute intervals. I pulled out the full arsenal, threatening legal action, media attention, even FBI intervention. It got me nowhere.

By then I had received two updates from Cisco on his investigation of the investigation. In his first call, he confirmed much of what we had suspected; that a fellow inmate who had been in the courthouse for his own trial had attacked Andre, using a shiv fashioned from a piece of metal. Though shackled at the waist like all the men waiting in lines to load onto jail buses, the suspect dropped to the ground and managed to slip the waist chain down over his feet, freeing his movements enough to attack Andre and stab him seven times in the chest and abdomen before he was overpowered by jail deputies.