Authors: Michael Connelly
“Not even for her sister?”
“Maybe not. We’re talking about twenty-four years ago.”
McPherson was quiet for a long moment and then finally responded.
“That’s a cynical view of the world, Harry. When are you planning on going up there?”
“As soon as I can. But I have to make arrangements for my daughter. She stayed with a friend when I went up to get Jessup at San Quentin. It didn’t turn out so good and now I have to hit the road again.”
“Sorry to hear that. I want to go up with you.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle it. But it might be good to have a woman and a prosecutor with you. More and more, I think she’s going to be the key to this whole thing and she’s going to be my witness. Our approach to her will be very important.”
“I’ve been approaching witnesses for about thirty years. I think I—”
“Let me have the travel office here make the arrangements. That way we can go up together. Talk out the strategy.”
Bosch paused. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to change her mind.
“Whatever you say.”
“Good. I’ll tell Mickey and contact travel. We’ll book a morning flight. I’m clear tomorrow. Is that too soon for you? I’d hate to wait on this till next week.”
“I’ll make it work.”
Bosch had had a third reason to call her but now decided to hold back. Her taking over the trip to Washington made him gun-shy about discussing his investigative moves.
They hung up and he was left drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk as he contemplated what he would say to Rachel Walling.
After a few moments he pulled out his cell phone and used it to make the call. He had Walling’s number in its memory. To his surprise, she answered right away. He had envisioned her seeing his name on the ID and letting him go to the message. They’d had a relationship that was long over but still left a trail of intense feelings.
“Hello, Harry.”
“Hello, Rachel. How are you?”
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Pretty good. I’m calling about a case.”
“Of course. Harry Bosch never goes through channels. He goes direct.”
“There are no channels for this. And you know I call you because I trust you and more than anything else respect your opinion. I go through channels and I get some profiler in Quantico who’s just a voice on the phone. And not only that, he doesn’t call me back with anything for two months. What would you do if you were me?”
“Oh… probably the same thing.”
“Besides that, I don’t want the bureau’s official involvement. I am just looking for your opinion and advice, Rachel.”
“What’s the case?”
“I think you’re going to like it. It’s a twenty-four-year-old murder of a twelve-year-old girl. A guy went down for it back then and now we have to retry him. I was thinking a profile of the crime might be helpful to the prosecutor.”
“Is this that Jessup case that’s in the news?”
“That’s right.”
He knew she would be interested. He could hear it in her voice.
“All right, well, bring by whatever you’ve got. How much time are you giving me? I’ve got my regular job, you know.”
“No hurry this time. Not like with that Echo Park thing. I’ll probably be out of town tomorrow. Maybe longer. I think you can have a few days with the file. You still in the same place above the Million Dollar Theater?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, I’ll drop the box by.”
“I’ll be here.”
Wednesday, February 17, 3:18
P.M
.
T
he holding cell next to Department 124 on the thirteenth floor of the CCB was empty except for my client Cassius Clay Montgomery. He sat morosely on the bench in the corner and didn’t get up when he saw me come back.
“Sorry I’m late.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.
“Come on, Cash. It’s not like you’d be going anywhere. What’s it matter if you were waiting here or back in County?”
“They got TV in County, man,” he said, looking up at me.
“Okay, so you missed
Oprah.
Can you come over here so I don’t have to shout our business across the room?”
He got up and came over to the bars. I stood on the other side, beyond the red line marking the three-foot threshold.
“Doesn’t matter if you shout our business. There ain’t nobody left to hear it.”
“I told you, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a busy day.”
“Yeah, and I guess I’m just a no-count nigger when it comes to being on TV and turnin’ into the man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw you on the news, dog. Now you a prosecutor? What kinda shit is that?”
I nodded. Obviously, my client was more concerned with me being a turncoat than with waiting until the last hearing of the day.
“Look, all I can tell you is that I took the job reluctantly. I am not a prosecutor. I am a defense attorney. I’m your defense attorney. But every now and then they come to you and they want something. And it’s hard to say no.”
“So what happens to me?”
“Nothing happens to you. I’m still your lawyer, Cash. And we have a big decision to make here. This hearing is going to be short and sweet. It’s to set a trial date and that’s it. But Mr. Hellman, the prosecutor, says the offer he made to you is good only until today. If we tell Judge Champagne we’re ready to go to trial today, then the deal disappears and we go to trial. Have you thought about it some more?”
Montgomery leaned his head in between two bars and didn’t speak. I realized he couldn’t pull the trigger on a decision. He was forty-seven and had already spent nine years of his life in prison. He was charged with armed robbery and assault with great bodily injury and was looking at a big fall.
According to the police, Montgomery had posed as a buyer at a drive-through drug market in the Rodia Gardens projects. But instead of paying, he pulled a gun and demanded the dealer’s drugs and money roll. The dealer went for the gun and it went off. Now the dealer, a gang member named Darnell Hicks, was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
As is usual in the projects, no one cooperated with the investigation. Even the victim said he didn’t remember what happened, choosing in his silence to trust that his fellow Crips would handle justice in the matter. But investigators made a case anyway. Picking up my client’s car on a video camera at the entrance to the projects, they found the car and matched blood on the door to the victim.
It wasn’t a strong case but it was solid enough for us to entertain an offer from the prosecution. If Montgomery took the deal he’d be sentenced to three years in prison and would likely serve two and a half. If he gambled and took a conviction at the end of a trial, then he’d be looking at a mandatory minimum of fifteen years inside. The add-on of GBI and use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery were the killers. And I knew firsthand that Judge Judith Champagne wasn’t soft on gun crimes.
I had recommended to my client that he take the deal. It was a no-brainer to me but then I wasn’t the one who had to do the time. Montgomery couldn’t decide. It wasn’t so much about the prison time. It was the fact that the victim, Hicks, was a Crip and the street gang had a long reach into every prison in the state. Even taking the three-year sentence could be a death penalty. Montgomery wasn’t sure he would make it.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “It’s a good offer. The DA doesn’t want to go to trial on this. He doesn’t want to put a victim on the stand who doesn’t want to be there and may hurt the case more than help it. So he’s gone as low as he can go. But it’s up to you. Your decision. You’ve had a couple weeks now and this is it. We have to go out there in a couple minutes.”
Montgomery tried to shake his head but his forehead was pressed between the two bars.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means shit. Can’t we win this case, man? I mean, you a prosecutor now. Can’t you get a good word in for me on this?”
“They’re two different matters, Cash. I can’t do anything like that. You got your choice. Take the three or we go to trial. And like I told you before, we can certainly do some stuff at trial. They’ve got no weapon and a victim who won’t tell the story, but they still got his blood on the door of your car and they got video of you driving it out of Rodia right after the shooting. We can try to play it the way you said it went down. Self-defense. You were there to buy a rock and he saw
your
roll and tried to rip
you
off. The jury might believe it, especially if he won’t testify. And they might believe it even if he does testify because I’ll make him take the fifth so many times they’ll think he’s Al Capone before he gets off the stand.”
“Who’s Al Capone?”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, man, who is he?”
“Never mind, Cash. What do you want to do?”
“You’re cool if we go to trial?”
“I’m cool with it. It’s just that there is that gap, you know?”
“Gap?”
“There is a wide gap between what they’re offering you right now and what you could get if we lose at trial. We’re talking about a minimum twelve-year swing, Cash. That’s a lot of time to gamble with.”
Montgomery backed away from the bars. They had left twin impressions on both sides of his forehead. He now gripped the bars in his hands.
“The thing is, three years, fifteen years, I ain’t going to make it either way. They got hit men in every prison. But in County, they got the system and ev’rybody is separated and locked up tight. I’m okay there.”
I nodded. But the problem was that any sentence over a year had to be served in a state prison. The county system was a holding system for those awaiting trial or sentenced to short terms.
“Okay, then I guess we go to trial.”
“I guess we do.”
“Sit tight. They’ll be coming back for you soon.”
I knocked quietly on the courtroom door and the deputy opened it. Court was in session and Judge Champagne was holding a status conference on another case. I saw my prosecutor sitting against the rail and went over to confer. This was the first case I’d had with Philip Hellman and I had found him to be extremely reasonable. I decided to test the limits of that reason one last time.
“So, Mickey, I hear we are now colleagues,” he said with a smile.
“Temporarily,” I said. “I don’t plan to make it a career.”
“Good, I don’t need the competition. So what are we going to do here?”
“I think we are going to put it over one more time.”
“Mickey, come on, I’ve been very generous. I can’t keep—”
“No, you’re right. You’ve been completely generous, Phil, and I appreciate that. My client appreciates that. It’s just that he can’t take a deal because anything that puts him in a state prison is a death penalty. We both know that the Crips will get him.”
“First of all, I don’t know that. And second of all, if that’s what he thinks, then maybe he shouldn’t have tried to rip off the Crips and shoot one of their guys.”
I nodded in agreement.
“That’s a good point but my client maintains it was self-defense. Your vic drew first. So I guess we go to trial and you’ve got to ask a jury for justice for a victim who doesn’t want it. Who will testify only if you force him to and will then claim he doesn’t remember shit.”
“Maybe he doesn’t. He did get shot, after all.”
“Yeah, and maybe the jury will buy that, especially when I bring out his pedigree. I’ll ask him what he does for a living for starters. According to what Cisco, my investigator, has found out, he’s been selling drugs since he was twelve years old and his mother put him on the street.”
“Mickey, we’ve already been down this road. What do you want? I’m getting ready to just say fuck it, let’s go to trial.”
“What do I want? I want to make sure you don’t fuck up the start of your brilliant career.”
“What?”
“Look, man, you are a young prosecutor. Remember what you just said about not wanting the competition? Well, another thing you don’t want is to risk putting a loss on your ledger. Not this early in the game. You just want this to go away. So here’s what I want. A year in County and restitution. You can name your price on restitution.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He said it too loud and drew a look from the judge. He then spoke very quietly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not really. It’s a good solution when you think about it, Phil. It works for everybody.”
“Yeah, and what’s Judge Judy going to say when I present this? The victim is in a wheelchair for life. She won’t sign off on this.”
“We ask to go back to chambers and we both sell it to her. We tell her that Montgomery wants to go to trial and claim self-defense and that the state has real reservations because of the victim’s lack of cooperation and status as a high-ranking member of a criminal organization. She was a prosecutor before she was a judge. She’ll understand this. And she’ll probably have more sympathy for Montgomery than she does for your drug-dealing victim.”
Hellman thought for a long moment. The hearing before Champagne ended and she instructed the courtroom deputy to bring Montgomery out. It was the last case of the day.
“Now or never, Phil,” I prompted.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he finally said.
Hellman stood up and moved to the prosecution table.
“Your Honor,” he intoned, “before we bring the defendant out, could counsel discuss this case in chambers?”
Champagne, a veteran judge who had seen everything at least three times, creased her brow.
“On the record, gentlemen?”
“That’s probably not necessary,” Hellman said. “We would like to discuss the terms of a disposition in the case.”
“Then by all means. Let’s go.”
The judge stepped down from the bench and headed back toward her chambers. Hellman and I started to follow. As we got to the gate next to the clerk’s pod, I leaned forward to whisper to the young prosecutor.
“Montgomery gets credit for time served, right?”
Hellman stopped in his tracks and turned back to me.