The Law of Innocence

by Michael Connelly

  But her October surprise turned into a December dud. She didn’t even bother to call Herb Dahl into the courtroom to testify. He was told to go home.

  It was unclear whether the misstep with Lisa Trammel would have much impact on the jury, especially after the morning’s delivery of conclusive evidence about Sam Scales being killed in my garage while I was apparently on the premises. Either way, by the day’s end, Berg felt good enough about her case to bring it to an end. Whatever potential witnesses she still had in the wings, she decided to hold them for rebuttal and a big finish.

  “Your Honor,” she said, “the state rests.”

  47

  Wednesday, February 26

  I spent a restless night in my cell, listening to the random echoes of desperate men calling out in the dark. I heard steel doors bang and incongruous laughter from the deputies on the midnight shift. At times my body shook in physical reaction to the gravity of the moment. How could I sleep when I knew the next two days would determine the rest of my life? When deep down I knew that, should things go wrong, I would choose not to live this way for very long? I would make my escape one way or the other and I would be free.

  Incarceration does that. Makes you think about what is beyond the last wall. They can take your belt and shoelaces away but they can’t stop you from going over it. I’ve had three clients go over that wall in the weeks after conviction. Now that I had personally experienced the prospect of long-term incarceration, I understood their choice and respected it. I knew it would be my choice as well.

  Deputy Pressley got me to the courthouse early and I was in courtside holding, waiting for trial to begin, when Maggie and Cisco were allowed back for a precourt conference. I could tell by their faces that there was bad news.

  “Still no sign of Opparizio?” I guessed.

  “No,” Maggie said. “It’s worse.”

  “He’s dead,” Cisco said.

  “We have to rethink everything,” Maggie said. “We need to reset the order of wit—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said. “Back up. What happened? What do you mean he’s dead?”

  “They whacked him,” Cisco said. “His body was found last night. He was dumped on the side of the road near Kingman.”

  “That’s on the road up to Vegas. How did this happen when twenty-four hours ago your guys supposedly had him locked down?”

  “Remember I told you they had a camera on his door? They reviewed the tape this morning, and Opparizio got room service Monday night. No big deal, he took all his meals in. But this time his dinner was rolled in on a cart with a tablecloth on it.”

  “That’s how they got him out?”

  “Yeah, hidden in the cart. I think a guy posing as a room-service waiter whacked him in the room, put him under the cart, and wheeled him out. He had intercepted the food delivery at the service elevator. My guys found the real room-service guy at his apartment. He admitted he got paid to turn over his red jacket and go home. The guy was drunk as a skunk.”

  “So how did this…room-service hit man know where he was?”

  “I figure Opparizio called somebody and revealed that he’d been hit with our subpoena. They told him they’d get him out of there and set up the room-service gag. Only then they whacked him.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? They probably didn’t want to risk him testifying. They knew he was compromised.”

  I looked at Maggie to see if she had a take.

  “It could be any number of reasons,” she said. “It’s safe to say he became a liability. But we can’t dwell on that, Mickey. This changes everything. What is our defense now? How do we point the finger at Opparizio when he’s dead?”

  “What about Bosch?” I asked. “Does he know about this?”

  “I told him,” Cisco said. “He’s got contacts in Arizona and Nevada from his LAPD days. He was going to make some calls, see what he could find out.”

  I sat in silence for a long moment. I was brooding, trying to figure out how to reboot a third-party-culpability defense without the third party. I knew that Opparizio’s death did not change the defense theory, but as Maggie had said, it made it harder to point a finger at him.

  “All right,” I finally said. “We need to get through today and then regroup and see where we are tonight. Who do we have who’s ready to go?”

  “Well, we’ve got Schultz, the EPA guy,” Maggie said. “He got in last night. I told him we probably were going to hold him till tomorrow but we can get him ready for today. He’s just over at the Biltmore.”

  “Do it,” I said. “We also have Drucker. We can put him on first. Then go with the EPA guy.”

  “We supposedly have the Ventura County detective who arrested Sam the last time coming in today,” Cisco said. “Harry talked him into it. But that’s not a subpoena, so I’ll believe it when I see him. And we have Moira from the Redwood and the Rohypnol expert on subpoena. As soon as we’re done here, I’ll see who’s out in the hallway.”

  “What about Opparizio’s girlfriend?” I asked.

  “We served her the same night we papered Opparizio,” Cisco said. “She’s supposed to come in Thursday, but now with him dead, she probably split and is hiding. We took the eyes off her to put them on Opparizio, so…”

  “We don’t know where she is,” I finished. “So we don’t have her unless she decides to honor the subpoena. I would put the chances of that at zero.”

  “We also have you,” Maggie said.

  “I wasn’t going to testify,” I said.

  “Well, you may have to now,” she said. “Without Opparizio to pin the tail on, we’re probably going to need you to pull it all together.”

  “If I testify, who knows what Death Row Dana will bring up,” I said. “My whole history will be out there. The pills, the rehab, everything.”

  “I’m not worried,” Maggie said. “You can hold your own against her.”

  I was quiet for a few moments while thinking it through.

  “All right, let’s start with Drucker and then the others,” I finally said. “Hopefully we won’t have to decide about me till tomorrow. What about Ruth, the FBI agent?”

  “I’ve called, left messages,” Maggie said. “I’ll keep trying.”

  The door opened and Deputy Chan stuck his head in and gave us a five-minute warning. I stood up to go but then thought of something.

  “What about Milton? Did we get the cell records?”

  “Yes, I was going to tell you about it later,” Maggie said. “I didn’t want to pile on the bad news. We got the records but they don’t help.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He did get a text at the exact time on the video,” Maggie said. “But it was from another Metro cop in the civic center surveillance that night. He was just asking when they were going to eat and where.”

  “Any chance they dummied it up?” I asked.

  “The documents we received look legit,” Maggie said. “We can check for tampering but we aren’t going to be able to do anything with it this week.”

  “Okay, so I guess we drop it,” I said.

  “The problem is, the same stuff goes to Dana in discovery,” Maggie said. “She won’t drop it. You can count on her introducing it in rebuttal.”

  That was bad news and I now wished I hadn’t brought it up. Between losing Opparizio and handing the prosecution some solid rebuttal evidence, the defense was stumbling before it was even out of the gate. I knew that going head-to-head with Drucker again was going to be a challenge, but I needed to put a couple hits on the house.

  Five minutes later, I was at the defense table when Judge Warfield entered and took the bench. She seated the jury, then looked down at me and told me to call my first witness. She seemed slightly surprised and disappointed when I called Kent Drucker. I think she thought recalling a prosecution witness was a weak way to start my case.

  Drucker seemed surprised himself. He had been sitting in the gallery but now proceeded
through the gate and to the witness stand, stopping by the prosecution table to retrieve the murder book in case he was called on for details he didn’t quite remember.

  The detective was reminded by the judge that he was still under oath from his first round of testimony.

  “Detective Drucker, how many times did you search my home?” I asked.

  “Twice,” Drucker said. “The day after the killing and then in January, when we searched it again.”

  “And how many times did you search my warehouse?”

  “Just the once.”

  “My other two Lincolns?”

  “Once.”

  “Now, would you describe these searches as thorough?”

  “We try to be as thorough as possible.”

  “You try?”

  “We are thorough.”

  “If you were so thorough in the search of my house, why did you need to search it a second time?”

  “Because the investigation was ongoing and as new information was gathered, we realized that we needed to search again for different evidence.”

  “Now, one of the state’s experts testified yesterday that ballistic markings on the bullets that killed Sam Scales indicated that the murder weapon was a twenty-two-caliber Beretta handgun. Do you agree with that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And after all the thorough searches of my properties and cars, did you find such a weapon?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Did you find any ammunition for such a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Your experts also testified yesterday that there was convincing evidence that the murder of Sam Scales occurred in the garage located below my house. Do you agree with that?”

  “Yes.”

  “The coroner testified that time of death was between ten o’clock and midnight. Are you in agreement with that estimate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you conduct a canvass of the neighborhood where the murder occurred?”

  “Not me personally, but we did conduct a canvass.”

  “Who conducted it?”

  “Other detectives and patrol officers at the direction of my partner.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “It was about three days before we talked to everyone on the block. We had to keep going back until we got to everyone.”

  “You were being thorough, yes?”

  “Yes, we had a checklist of every house on the block and we made sure we spoke to someone from every address.”

  “How many said they heard gunshots between ten and midnight on the night of the murders?”

  “None. No one heard anything.”

  “And based on your experience and knowledge, did you draw a conclusion from that?”

  “Not really. There could have been a lot of factors.”

  “But you are sure, based on the evidence, that Mr. Scales was killed in my garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you assume the garage door was closed during the time of the killing to help prevent the gunshots from being heard?”

  “We considered that but it’s speculation.”

  “And you don’t want to speculate in a murder case, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Now, without revealing any results, you told the jury during your earlier testimony that the LAPD conducted sound tests in the garage, correct?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Again, not getting into any results, did you measure the sound of gunfire from inside the house?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “When you were test-firing guns in my garage, did you have anyone upstairs in the bedroom to determine if those shots could be heard?”

  “No, we did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just wasn’t part of our investigation at that point.”

  My hope was that Drucker’s answers would give credibility to the possibility that I had slept through the killing of Sam Scales in the garage below my house.

  “Okay, let’s move on,” I said. “Did your canvass of the neighborhood produce any reports of other sounds or unusual occurrences at the time of the murder?”

  “One neighbor reported hearing the voices of two men arguing the night of the shooting,” Drucker said.

  “Really? But you did not tell the jury about that during your earlier testimony, did you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Why is that? Wasn’t two men arguing on the night of the killing important to the case?”

  “After we received the toxicology report from the medical examiner, we determined that it was unlikely that Sam Scales was conscious at the time of the killing.”

  “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 re
cycles 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.”