Two Kinds of Truth

by Michael Connelly

  “Might as well,” Borders said. “It ain’t fucking going anywhere.”

  “Very well,” the judge said. “The matter before the Court is withdrawn. Deputy Garza, you can take Mr. Borders out of here. But keep him in holding. I believe the detectives here may want to talk to him.”

  The judge gestured toward Soto and Tapscott.

  Garza nodded to the two deputies seated behind Borders and they moved in on the convict to unlock the lead chain and remove him. As he was stood up, Borders took a last look down at Lance Cronyn.

  “Thanks for the road trip,” he said. “Better than three days in the cage.”

  “Get him out,” Houghton ordered loudly.

  “Fuck you all very much,” Borders called out as he was half walked, half carried through the door into the courthouse holding area. “And please tell my girls to stay in touch.”

  The door banged closed and the sharp metal-on-metal reverb rolled through the courtroom like an earthquake.

  Cronyn stood slowly to address the Court, but Houghton cut him off as well.

  “Counselor, I advise you not to speak,” he said. “Anything you say here could be used against you later in another court of law.”

  “But, Your Honor, if I may,” Cronyn insisted, “I need to put on the record how my client threatened me and my family and—”

  “Enough, Mr. Cronyn. Enough. I’ve heard more than I need in order to know that you, your co-counsel, and your client came into this courtroom today with the clear intent of manipulating the court for financial gain, not to mention gaining the release into society of what appears to have been a rightfully convicted murderer, and tarnishing the reputation of a veteran police detective.”

  “Your—”

  “I’m not speaking to hear myself talk, Mr. Cronyn. I told you to be quiet. One more interruption and I will have you silenced.”

  Houghton surveyed the entire court before bringing his eyes back to Cronyn and continuing.

  “Now, I am assuming that the Los Angeles Police Department will have an interest in talking to you as well as to Terrence Spencer. Criminal charges may arise from that. I don’t know. I can’t control that. But what I can control is what happens in this courtroom, and I have to say that never in my twenty-one years on the bench have I seen such a concerted effort to undermine the rule of law by attorneys appearing before me. Therefore, I find Lance Cronyn and Katherine Cronyn in criminal contempt of this Court and order them taken into custody forthwith. Deputy Garza, you need to call a female court deputy in here as soon as possible to take custody of Ms. Cronyn.”

  Katherine Cronyn immediately collapsed onto her husband’s shoulder in tears. As Bosch watched, her emotions shifted, and soon she was pounding a fist into her husband’s chest. He corralled her with his arms and pulled her into an embrace that stopped the pummeling and left only the tears. Deputy Garza walked up behind him, handcuffs dangling from one hand, ready to take him back into the jail.

  “Now, Mr. Kennedy,” Houghton said, “I don’t know what you plan to do with the information Mr. Haller has brought to light, but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to call members of the media and the public back into the courtroom and tell them exactly what happened in here today. You’re not going to like it because you and your agency are not going to come off too well, considering it was a defense lawyer and his investigators who put this together under the nose of the LAPD and assorted other agencies.

  “But I’ll say this. Your office owes Detective Bosch a big fat apology and I will be watching to make sure you give it on a big stage, in a timely manner, and without any ‘buts’ or ‘becauses’ or asterisks attached. Nothing short of full exoneration of the suspicions and allegations that were published in Sunday’s newspaper will suffice. Do I make myself clear on that, Mr. Kennedy?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Kennedy said. “We would be doing that even if you had not ordered it.”

  Houghton frowned.

  “Knowing what I know about politics and the justice system, I find that highly unlikely.”

  The judge scanned the room again, found Bosch, and asked him to stand.

  “Detective, I imagine you have been put through the wringer in recent days,” he said. “I want to apologize on behalf of the Court for this needless torment. I wish you the best of luck, sir, and you are welcome in my courtroom anytime.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Bosch said.

  Two deputies, including a female, entered through the holding area door and joined Garza in taking the Cronyns into custody. The judge instructed his clerk to go out into the hallway to tell those waiting that they could return to the courtroom.

  An hour later Houghton adjourned his court for the day, and Kennedy was left to wade through the gaggle of reporters who demanded his comments and reaction to what the judge had just announced.

  Out in the hallway, Bosch watched Soto and Tapscott approach Terrence Spencer and take him into custody. Cisco came up next to Bosch and they watched the detectives lead Spencer down the hall.

  “I hope he tells them how he rigged the box,” Bosch said. “I really want to know.”

  “Not going to happen,” Cisco said. “He’s taking the fifth.”

  “But you said he was going to testify.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your text to Haller in the courtroom. You said he was ready to testify.”

  “No, I said you can put him on the stand but he’ll take the nickel. Why, what did Mick say?”

  Bosch stared across the hallway at Haller, who was talking one-on-one with a reporter writing in a notebook. There was no camera, so Bosch assumed it was a print reporter—which most likely meant he was from the Times.

  “Son of a gun,” he said.

  “What?” Cisco asked.

  “I saw him read your text, and then he told the judge that Spencer was ready to go on the stand. He didn’t exactly say he would testify, only that he’d go on the stand. He tipped the whole thing with that bluff. Borders took the bait and blew a gasket. That was it.”

  “Smooth move.”

  “Dangerous move.”

  Bosch continued to stare at Haller and he started to put things into place.

  40

  After all the interviews were over, Team Bosch decided to get out of the courthouse and walk over to Traxx in Union Station to celebrate the across-the-board victory. While Haller and Cisco went into the restaurant to get a table, Bosch walked his daughter down to the ramp to the Metrolink train she was due to board. She had bought a return ticket on her app.

  “I’m so glad I was here, Dad,” Maddie said.

  “I’m glad you were here too,” Bosch said.

  “And I’m so sorry if it sounded like I ever doubted you.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Mads. You didn’t.”

  He pulled her into a long embrace and looked up the tunnel to the sunlight waiting at the boarding platform. He kissed the top of her head and let her go.

  “I still want to come down for dinner when you get back to your house. I’ll get the app and take the train.”

  “Definitely. Bye, Dad.”

  “Bye, sweetie.”

  He watched her walk up the ramp to the light. She knew he would and she turned at the top to wave. She was entirely in silhouette and then she was gone.

  Bosch joined his lawyer and his investigator in a booth next to a window that looked out on the train station’s waiting area of mixed Art Deco and Moorish designs. Haller had already ordered martinis all around. They clinked glasses and toasted. The three musketeers, all for one and one for all. Bosch caught Haller’s eyes and nodded. His attorney apparently didn’t interpret it as the thank-you he felt he deserved.

  “What?” Haller asked.

  “Nothing,” Bosch said.

  “No, what? What was that look you gave me?”

  “What look?”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  Cisco watched them silently, knowing
better than to get in the middle.

  “All right,” Bosch said. “I saw you talking to that reporter in the hallway. After court. He was from the Times, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Haller said. “They have a major skinback to write. That’s what he called it when they have to set the record straight. It’s not a correction, because what they went with Sunday came out of court documents. But it was one-sided. It will be the full story tomorrow.”

  “What was his name?”

  “You know, I didn’t catch his name. All those guys, they’re the same.”

  “Was it David Ramsey?”

  “I just told you I didn’t get the guy’s name.”

  Bosch just nodded and Haller once again saw judgment.

  “If you have something to say, then say it,” he said. “And stop with the know-it-all judgmental looks.”

  “I don’t have anything to say,” Bosch said. “And I don’t know it all but I know what you did.”

  “For chrissakes, what are you talking about?”

  “I know what you did.”

  “Oh, here we go. What did I do, Bosch? Would you just tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”

  “You’re the leak. You gave the story to the Times on Friday. You’re the one who gave it to Ramsey.”

  Cisco was in the middle of a second sip from his martini, the fragile stemmed glass held by his thick fingers. He almost spilled it all over his nice dress vest.

  “No fucking way,” he said. “Mick would never do—”

  “Yeah, he did,” Bosch said. “He sold me out to the Times for a headline.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Haller said. “Are you fucking forgetting something? We won the case, man, and you had a Superior Court judge apologizing to you and demanding that the D.A.’s Office and the LAPD do the same thing. And you’re going to complain about my strategy?”

  “So, you’re saying it was you,” Bosch said. “You admit it. You and Ramsey.”

  “I’m saying that in order to win the day, we had to raise the stakes,” Haller said. “We needed to kick this thing out into the streets so that it would become public and it would be something that was talked about and would then draw every goddamn news channel in the city to that courtroom today. I knew if we did that, then the judge would have no choice but to give us standing and allow us to intervene.”

  “And you would get, what, about a million dollars’ worth of free publicity out of it?”

  “Jesus Christ, Bosch. You’re like a feral cat. You don’t trust anybody. I did it for you, not me, and look at what happened.”

  Haller pointed out of the booth in the direction of the courthouse.

  “The judge let us in over the objections of everybody in that courtroom,” he said. “And then we fucking won. Borders goes back up to death row for the rest of his sorry existence and every one of those bastards who tried to set you up and frame you is going to end up disbarred, fired, and probably in jail. Cronyn and Cronyn are already in jail, while you’re sitting here drinking a martini. You think the judge would have given us standing if the media wasn’t all over this?”

  “I don’t know,” Bosch said. “But my daughter read that shit Sunday and has had to wonder for three days if her father is the kind of guy who would plant evidence and send an innocent man to death row. On top of that, that story almost got me killed. If that had happened, I’d be dead and Borders would be walking the earth as a free man, to kill again.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about that. I truly am. I didn’t want that to happen and I didn’t know you were working undercover, because you didn’t fucking tell me. But this is one of those rare times where the end justifies the means. Okay? We got the result we wanted, your reputation came out intact, and your daughter is riding that train, knowing her dad is a hero, not a criminal.”

  Bosch nodded as though in agreement. But he wasn’t.

  “You should’ve told me,” he said. “I’m the client. I should have been informed and given the choice.”

  “And what would your choice have been?” Haller asked.

  “We’ll never know now because you didn’t give it to me.”

  “I know what it would’ve been, and that’s why I didn’t. End of fucking story.”

  They stared at each other for a long, hard moment. Cisco hesitantly raised his glass over the middle of the table.

  “Come on, water under the bridge, fellas,” he said. “We won. Let’s toast again. I can’t wait to read the paper tomorrow.”

  As if each was waiting for the other to make the first move, Haller and Bosch continued their stare-down.

  Haller broke first. He grabbed his glass by the stem and raised it up, sloshing vodka over the brim and down over his fingers. Bosch finally did the same.

  The three musketeers clinked glasses like swords again, but it no longer seemed much like all for one and one for all.

  41

  As Bosch rounded the last curve on Woodrow Wilson Drive, he saw the city ride parked in front of his house. Someone was waiting for him. He turned the sound down on Kamasi Washington’s “Change of the Guard.” It was nearly five, and his plan was to get out of the suit and shower and change into street clothes before heading up to the Valley to visit Elizabeth Clayton in the dungeon where she was taking the cure.

  As he pulled into the side carport, he saw who it was. Lucia Soto was sitting on the house’s front step, looking at her phone. Bosch parked and walked around to the front rather than avoiding her and going through the side door. She stood up, put the phone away, and wiped dust from the step off the back of her pants. She was still in the dark blue suit she had worn in court that morning.

  “Been waiting long?” Bosch asked by way of a greeting.

  “No,” she said. “I had some e-mailing to do. You should sweep your steps every now and then, Harry. Dusty.”

  “Keep forgetting. How’d they take things today down at RHD?”

  “Oh, you know, in stride. They always take things, good and bad, in stride.”

  “And was it a good or bad thing?”

  “I think good. Whenever a former detective is cleared of wrongdoing, that’s a good thing. Even if it is Harry Bosch.”

  She smiled. He frowned and unlocked the door. He pushed it open for her.

  “Enter,” he said. “I’m out of beer but I have some pretty good bourbon.”

  “That sounds right,” she said.

  Bosch entered behind her and then moved by so he could get to the living room first and make it a little more hospitable for a visitor. The past two nights he had fallen asleep on the couch, watching television and trying to clear his mind of all things related to his cases.

  He squared up the couch pillows and grabbed the shirt draped over the arm. He headed back toward the kitchen with it.

  “Have a seat and I’ll get the glasses.”

  “Can we go out on the deck? I like it out there and it’s been a while.”

  “Sure. There’s a broomstick in the slider track.”

  “That’s new.”

  He put the shirt in the washer, which was located by the kitchen’s side door to the carport. He grabbed the bottle off the top of the refrigerator and took two glasses down from a shelf before joining Soto on the deck.

  “Yeah, there’ve been a couple break-ins in the neighborhood lately,” he said. “Both times the guy climbed up a tree to get on the roof and then came down on the back deck, where people sometimes don’t lock their doors.”

  He gestured with the bottle toward the house next door, which was cantilevered like Bosch’s. The rear deck hung out over the canyon and seemed impossible to get to other than from inside. But it was clear the roof gave access.

  Soto nodded. Bosch could tell she wasn’t really interested. She wasn’t visiting as part of the Neighborhood Watch committee.

  He opened the bottle and poured a healthy slug into each of the glasses. He handed one to Soto but they didn’t toast. Considering everything bet
ween them at the moment, it would not have felt right.

  “So did he tell you how he did it?” Bosch asked.

  “Who?” Soto said. “How who did what?”

  “Come on. Spencer. How’d he rig the evidence box?”

  “Spencer hasn’t told us jack shit, Harry. His lawyer won’t let him talk to us and he said he wasn’t going to testify either. Your lawyer lied to the judge during the proffer.”

  “No, he didn’t lie. Not to the judge, at least. Check the record. He said Spencer was in the hallway and was ready to take the stand. That wasn’t a lie. Whether he was going to testify once he got up there or take the fifth was another matter.”

  “Semantics, Harry. I never knew you to hide behind words.”

  “It was a bluff and it worked. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know about it. But it got the truth out, didn’t it?”

  “It did, and it got us a search warrant. We didn’t need Spencer to talk.”

  Bosch looked sharply at her. She had solved the mystery.

  “Tell me.”

  “We opened his locker. He had a stack of the twenty-year-old evidence stickers they put on the boxes back then. They were supposed to be destroyed when we went to the red crackle tape. But somehow he got a leftover stack and kept it.”

  “So he opened the box, planted Olmer’s DNA, and put new labels on it.”

  “He opened the bottom seam, because your signature was on the labels on top. And because his labels were old and yellow, the box looked totally legit. The thing is, we don’t think it was the only time. We got a search warrant for his house too, and we found some receipts from a pawn shop in Glendale. We checked there and he’s a regular customer, selling jewelry mostly. We think he might have been raiding boxes from closed cases, looking for valuables to pawn. He probably thought since the cases were old and closed, nobody would ever look.”

  “So when Cronyn asked Spencer if he could get something into a box, he said no problem.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bosch nodded. The mystery was solved.