I reluctantly nodded. Cops stealing from cops. Why didn’t that surprise me?
“All right,” I said. “What else?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s got an arrest record and he checked the box on the sheet that said he’d never been popped before.”
“What was the arrest for?”
“Two arrests. ADW in ’ ninety-seven and conspiracy to commit fraud in ’ ninety-nine. No convictions but that is all I know for right now. When the court opens I can get more if you want.”
I wanted to know more, especially about how arrests for fraud and assault with a deadly weapon could result in no convictions, but if Cisco pulled records on the case, then he’d have to show ID and that would leave a trail.
“Not if you have to sign out the files. Let it go for now. You got anything else?”
“Yeah, I’m telling you, I think it’s all phony. On the sheet he says he’s an engineer with Lockheed. As far as I can tell, that’s not true. I called Lockheed and they don’t have a David McSweeney in the phone directory. So unless the guy’s got a job with no phone, then…”
He raised his hands palm up, as if to say there was no explanation but deception.
“I’ve only had t’night on this, but everything’s coming up phony and that probably includes the guy’s name.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t officially know his name, do we? It was blacked out on the J-sheet.”
“Right.”
“So I followed juror number seven and IDed him as David McSweeney, but who’s to say that’s the same name that was blacked out on the sheet. Know what I mean?”
I thought for a moment and then nodded.
“You’re saying that McSweeney could’ve hijacked a legitimate juror’s name and maybe even his jury summons and is masquerading as that person in the courthouse.”
“Exactly. When you get a summons and show up at the juror check-in window, all they do is check your DL against the list. These are minimum-wage court clerks, Mick. It would not be difficult to get a dummy DL by one of them, and we both know how easy it is to get a dummy.”
I nodded. Most people want to get out of jury duty. This was a scheme to get into it. Civic duty taken to extreme.
Cisco said, “If you can somehow get me the name the court has for number seven, I would check it, and I’m betting I find out there is a guy at Lockheed with that name.”
I shook my head.
“There’s no way I can get it without leaving a trail.”
Cisco shrugged.
“So what’s going on with this, Mick? Don’t tell me that fucking prosecutor put a sleeper on the jury.”
I thought a moment about telling him but decided against it.
“At the moment it’s better if I don’t tell you.”
“Down periscope.”
It meant that we were taking the submarine—compartmentalizing so if one of us sprang a leak it wouldn’t sink the whole sub.
“It’s best this way. Did you see this guy with anybody? Any KAs of interest?”
“I followed him over to the Grove tonight and he met somebody for a coffee in Marmalade, one of the restaurants they’ve got over there. It was a woman. It looked like a casual thing, like they sort of ran into each other unplanned and sat down together to catch up. Other than that, I’ve got no known associates so far. I’ve really only been with the guy since five, when the judge cut the jury loose.”
I nodded. He had gotten me a lot in a short amount of time. More than I’d anticipated.
“How close did you get to him and the woman?”
“Not close. You told me to take all precautions.”
“So you can’t describe her?”
“I just said I didn’t get close, Mick. I can describe her. I even got a picture of her on my camera.”
He had to stand up to get his big hand into one of the front pockets of his jeans. He pulled out a small, black, non-attention-getting camera and sat back down. He turned it on and looked at the screen on the back. He clicked some buttons on the top and then handed it across the table to me.
“They start there and you can scroll through till you get to the woman.”
I manipulated the camera and scrolled through a series of digital photos showing juror number seven at various times during the evening. The last three shots were of him sitting with a woman in Marmalade. She had jet-black hair that hung loose and shadowed her face. The photos also weren’t very crisp because they had been taken from long distance and without a flash.
I didn’t recognize the woman. I handed the camera back to Cisco.
“Okay, Cisco, you did good. You can drop it now.”
“Just drop it?”
“Yeah, and go back to this.”
I slid the file across the table to him. He nodded and smiled slyly as he took it.
“So what did you tell the judge up there at the sidebar?”
I had forgotten he had been in the courtroom, waiting to start his tail of juror seven.
“I told him I realized that you had done the original background search on the English-language default so I redid it to include French and German. I even printed the story out again Sunday so I would have a fresh date on it.”
“Nice. But I look like a fuckup.”
“I had to come up with something. If I’d told him you came across it a week ago and I’d been sitting on it since, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d probably be in lockup for contempt. Besides, the judge thinks Golantz is the fuckup for not finding it before the defense.”
That seemed to placate Cisco. He held up the file.
“So then, what do you want me to do with it?” he asked.
“Where’s the translator you used on the printout?”
“Probably in her dorm over in Westwood. She’s an exchange student I came up with on the Net.”
“Well, call her up and pick her up because you’re going to need her tonight.”
“I have a feeling Lorna isn’t going to like this. Me and a twenty-year-old French girl.”
“Lorna doesn’t speak French, so she will under -stand. They’re what, nine hours ahead over there in Paris?”
“Yeah, nine or ten. I forget.”
“Okay, then I want you to get with the translator and at midnight start working the phones. Call all the gendarmes, or whatever they call themselves, who worked that drug case and get one of them on a plane over here. At least three of them are named in that article. You can start there.”
“Just like that? You think one of those guys is going to just jump on a plane for us?”
“They’ll probably be stabbing one another in the back, trying to get the ticket. Tell them we’ll fly first class and put whoever comes out in the hotel where Mickey Rourke stays.”
“Yeah, what hotel’s that?”
“I don’t know but I hear he’s big over there. They think he’s like a genius or something. Anyway, look, what I’m saying is, just tell them whatever they want to hear. Spend whatever needs to be spent. If two want to come, then bring over two and we vet them and put the best one on the stand. Just get somebody over here. It’s Los Angeles, Cisco. Every cop in the world wants to see this place and then go back home and tell everybody what and who he saw.”
“Okay, I’ll get somebody on a plane. But what if he can’t leave right away?”
“Then get him going as soon as possible and let me know. I can stretch things in court. The judge wants to hurry everything along but I can slow it down if I need to. Probably next Tuesday or Wednesday is as far as I can go. Get somebody here by then.”
“You want me to call you tonight when I have it set up?”
“No, I need my beauty rest. I’m not used to being on my toes in court all day and I’m wiped out. I’m going to bed. Just call me in the morning.”
“Okay, Mick.”
He stood up and so did I. He slapped me on the shoulder with the file and then tucked it into the waistband at the
back of his jeans. He descended the steps and I walked to the edge of the deck to look down on him as he mounted his horse by the curb, dropped it into neutral, and silently started to glide down Fareholm toward Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
I then looked up and out at the city and thought about the moves I was making, my personal situation, and my professional deceit in front of the judge in court. I didn’t ponder it all too long and I didn’t feel guilty about any of it. I was defending a man I believed was innocent of the murders he was charged with but complicit in the reason they had occurred. I had a sleeper on the jury whose placement was directly related to the murder of my predecessor. And I had a detective watching over me whom I was holding back on and couldn’t be sure was considering my safety ahead of his own desire to break open the case.
I had all of that and I didn’t feel guilty or fearful about anything. I felt like a guy flipping a three-hundred-pound sled in midair. It might not be a sport but it was dangerous as hell and it did what I hadn’t been able to do in more than a year’s time. It shook off the rust and put the charge back in my blood.
It gave it a fierce momentum.
I heard the sound of the pipes on Cisco’s pan-head finally fire up. He had made it all the way down to Laurel Canyon before kicking over the engine. The throttle roared deeply as he headed into the night.
PART FIVE
—Take the Nickel
Forty-seven
On Monday morning I had my Corneliani suit on. I was sitting next to my client in the courtroom and was ready to begin to present his defense. Jeffrey Golantz, the prosecutor, sat at his table, ready to thwart my efforts. And the gallery behind us was maxed out once again. But the bench in front of us was empty. The judge was sequestered in his chambers and running almost an hour behind his own nine-o’clock start time. Something was wrong or something had come up, but we had not yet been informed. We had seen sheriff’s deputies escort a man I didn’t recognize into chambers and then out again but there had been no word on what was going on.
“Hey, Jeff, what do you think?” I finally asked across the aisle.
Golantz looked over at me. He was wearing his nice black suit, but he had been wearing it every other day to court and it wasn’t as impressive anymore. He shrugged.
“No idea,” he said.
“Maybe he’s back there reconsidering my request for a directed verdict.”
I smiled. Golantz didn’t.
“I’m sure he is,” he said with his best prosecutorial sarcasm.
The prosecution’s case had strung out through the entire previous week. I had helped with a couple of protracted cross-examinations but for the most part it had been Golantz engaging in overkill. He kept the medical examiner who had conducted the autopsies on Mitzi Elliot and Johan Rilz on the witness stand for nearly an entire day, describing in excruciating detail how and when the victims died. He kept Walter Elliot’s accountant on the stand for half a day, explaining the finances of the Elliot marriage and how much Walter stood to lose in a divorce. And he kept the sheriff’s forensic tech on for nearly as long, explaining his finding of high levels of gunshot residue on the defendant’s hands and clothes.
In between these anchor witnesses he conducted shorter examinations of lesser witnesses and then finally finished his case Friday afternoon with a tearjerker. He put Mitzi Elliot’s lifelong best friend on the stand. She testified about Mitzi confiding in her the plans to divorce her husband as soon as the prenuptial agreement vested. She told of the fight between husband and wife when the plan was revealed and of seeing bruises on Mitzi Elliot’s arms the next day. She never stopped crying during her hour on the stand and continually veered into hearsay testimony that I objected to.
As is routine, I asked the judge as soon as the prosecution rested for a directed verdict of acquittal. I argued that the state had not come close to establishing a prima facie case against Elliot. But as is also routine, the judge flatly denied my motion and said the trial would move to the defense phase promptly at nine a.m. the following Monday. I spent the weekend strategizing and preparing my two anchor witnesses: Dr. Shamiram Arslanian, my GSR expert, and a jet-lagged French police captain named Malcolm Pepin. It was now Monday morning and I was locked and loaded and ready to go. But there was no judge on the bench to let me.
“What’s going on?” Elliot whispered to me.
I shrugged.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Most times when the judge doesn’t come out, it has nothing to do with the case at hand. Usually, it’s about the next trial on his calendar.”
Elliot wasn’t appeased. A deep furrow had settled into the center of his brow. He knew something was up. I turned and looked back into the gallery. Julie Favreau was sitting three rows back with Lorna. I gave them a wink and Lorna sent back a thumbs-up. I swept the rest of the gallery and noticed that behind the prosecution table, there was a gap in the shoulder-to-shoulder spectators. No Germans. I was about to ask Golantz where Rilz’s family members were, when a uniformed sheriff’s deputy walked up to the rail behind the prosecutor.
“Excuse me.”
Golantz turned and the deputy beckoned him with a document he was holding.
“Are you the prosecutor?” the deputy said. “Who do I talk to about this?”
Golantz got up and walked over to the rail. He took a quick look at the document and handed it back.
“It’s a defense subpoena. Are you Deputy Stallworth?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’re in the right spot.”
“No, I’m not. I didn’t have anything to do with this case.”
Golantz took the subpoena back and studied it. I could see the wheels begin turning, but it was going to be too late when he figured things out.
“You weren’t on the scene at the house? What about the perimeter or traffic control?”
“I was home asleep, man. I work midnight shift.”
“Hold it a second.”
Golantz went back to his desk and opened a file. I saw him check the final witness list I had submitted two weeks before.
“What is this, Haller?”
“What’s what? He’s on there.”
“This is bullshit.”
“No, it’s not. He’s been on there for two weeks.”
I got up and went to the rail. I held out my hand.
“Deputy Stallworth, I’m Michael Haller.”
Stallworth refused to shake my hand. Embarrassed in front of the whole gallery, I pressed on.
“I’m the one who summoned you. If you wait out in the hall, I’ll try to get you in and out as soon as court starts. There’s some sort of delay with the judge. But sit tight and I’ll get to you.”
“No, this is wrong. I didn’t have anything to do with this case. I just got off duty and I’m going home.”
“Deputy Stallworth, there is no mistake here and even if there were, you can’t walk out on a subpoena. Only the judge can release you at my request. You go home and you’re going to make him mad. I don’t think you want him mad at you.”
The deputy huffed like he was being put out in a big way. He looked over at Golantz for help but the prosecutor was holding a cell phone to his ear and whispering into it. I had a feeling it was an emergency call.
“Look,” I said to Stallworth, “just go out into the hall and I’ ll—”
I heard my name along with the prosecutor’s called from the front of the courtroom. I turned and saw the clerk signaling us to the door that led to the judge’s chambers. Finally, something was happening. Golantz ended his call and got up. I turned from Stallworth and followed Golantz toward the judge’s chambers.
The judge was sitting behind his desk in his black robe. He appeared ready to go as well, but something was holding him back.
“Gentlemen, sit down,” he said.
“Judge, did you want the defendant in here?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. Just have a seat and I’ll tell you what�
�s going on.”
Golantz and I sat side by side in front of the judge. I could tell that Golantz was silently steaming over the Stallworth subpoena and what it might mean. Stanton leaned forward and clasped his hands together on top of a folded piece of paper on the desk in front of him.
“We have an unusual situation involving juror misconduct,” he said. “It is still… developing and I apologize for keeping you out there in the dark.”
He stopped there and we both looked at him, wondering if we were supposed to leave now and go back to the courtroom, or if we could ask questions. But Stanton continued after a moment.
“My office received a letter Thursday addressed personally to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to open it until after court on Friday—kind of an end-of-the-week catch-up session after everybody was sent home. The letter said—well, here is the letter. I’ve already handled it but don’t either of you touch it.”
He unfolded the piece of paper he’d weighted with his hands and allowed us to read it. I stood up so I could lean over the desk. Golantz was tall enough—even sitting down—that he didn’t have to.
Judge Stanton, you should know that juror number seven is not who you think he is and not who he says he is. Check Lockheed and check his prints. He’s got an arrest record.
The letter looked like it had come out of a laser printer. There were no other markings on the page other than the two creases from where it had been folded.
I sat back down.
“Did you keep the envelope it came in?” I asked.
“Yes,” Stanton said. “No return address and the postmark is Hollywood. I’m going to have the sheriff’s lab take a look at the note and the envelope.”
“Judge, I hope you haven’t spoken to this juror,” Golantz said. “We should be present and part of any questioning. This could just be a ploy by someone to get that juror off the panel.”
I expected Golantz to rush to the juror’s defense. As far as he was concerned, number seven was a blue juror.
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