Meanwhile, the fate and whereabouts of James Marco officially remain a mystery. He left the courthouse that day in June, slipping out in the confusion and alarm immediately following the Lankford suicide. He has not been seen since, and his face now graces Wanted posters in the same federal building where he once worked. He is the subject of wide-ranging investigations by the FBI and his own DEA. According to unnamed sources quoted in the Times series, the crimes and corruption of the ICE team he headed for over a decade run deep, and a federal grand jury will be hearing evidence well into next year. The unnamed sources said Marco was believed to have sided with one faction in a long-running war within the Sinaloa cartel and had been doing that faction’s bidding in Southern California. It was even suggested that the effort to put Hector Moya in prison for life came on orders from Marco’s bosses in Mexico.
Among the other things the grand jury is probing, according to the Times, is an alleged relationship between Marco and the female attorney who represented Patrick Sewell, the man charged with attacking Andre in the courthouse transportation center.
The U.S. Marshal’s Office is primarily focusing its search for Marco in southern Mexico, where it is believed he may have escaped to with the aid of the cartel leaders who long ago corrupted him. But I am pretty sure they will never find him. Hector Moya told me once about how his enemies disappear, never to be found. Two weeks ago I received an e-mail from an address unknown to me but with a subject line that simply said Saludos Del Fuego. I opened the e-mail to find an embedded video and nothing else. It was only fifteen seconds long, but the video provided a lifetime’s worth of horror. It depicts a man hanging by his neck from a tree. He is obviously dead, his badly beaten face swollen and bloody, his skin and clothes burned black in places.
I am pretty sure the dead man is Marco. I forwarded the video to the deputy marshal heading the search for him. Once it is authenticated, I expect there to be an announcement that Marco is believed dead, though it is unlikely they will ever find a body.
I have deleted the video from my computer but it will never be erased from my mind. I have no doubt that it came from Moya and no doubt that he wanted me to know what became of Marco. When I think about the rogue agent’s fate, I remember the night in June at the loft when I was surrounded by my team and raised a glass to justice for Gloria Dayton and Earl Briggs. Some forms of justice are more horrible than others. But in this case I think justice has been rightly served.
Officially, Gloria Dayton’s murder remains open because no one has been or will ever be convicted of the crime. The memory of Glory Days now resides in a city’s consciousness as she takes her place in the pantheon of public victims.
In the meantime, not so much attention has been paid to Earl Briggs. His case remains open and the subject of the grand jury’s ongoing investigations. But I mourn him more than Gloria or any other. I often think of the miles we rode together, the ground we covered on the road and in life.
Everybody has a jury, the voices they carry inside. Earl Briggs sits on my jury, Gloria Dayton, too. They are there with Katie and Sandy, my mother, my father, and soon Legal Siegel as well. Those I have loved and those I have hurt. Those who bless me and those who haunt me. My gods of guilt. Every day I carry on and I carry them close. Every day I step into the well before them and I argue my case.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The starting point for this story came alive during a discussion with Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi, producers of The Lincoln Lawyer. To them the author will always be grateful.
The author also relied upon the help of many others in the research and writing of this book. They include Asya Muchnick, Bill Massey, Daniel Daly, Roger Mills, Dennis Wojciechowski, John Romano, Greg Kehoe, Terrill Lee Lankford, Linda Connelly, Alafair Burke, Rick Jackson, Tim Marcia, John Houghton, Jane Davis, Heather Rizzo, Pamela Marshall, and Henrik Bastin. Many, many thanks to all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Connelly is the author of twenty-five previous novels including the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Black Box, The Drop, The Fifth Witness, The Reversal, The Scarecrow, The Brass Verdict, and The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as the bestselling Harry Bosch series of novels. He is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He spends his time in California and Florida.
ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
Fiction
The Black Echo
The Black Ice
The Concrete Blonde
The Last Coyote
The Poet
Trunk Music
Blood Work
Angels Flight
Void Moon
A Darkness More Than Night
City of Bones
Chasing the Dime
Lost Light
The Narrows
The Closers
The Lincoln Lawyer
Echo Park
The Overlook
The Brass Verdict
The Scarecrow
Nine Dragons
The Reversal
The Fifth Witness
The Drop
The Black Box
Non-Fiction
Crime Beat
E-books
Suicide Run
Angle of Investigation
Mulholland Dive
The Safe Man
Copyright
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Orion Books
This eBook first published in 2013 by Orion Books
Copyright © 2013 by Hieronymus, Inc.
The moral right of Michael Connelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 3436 7
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The Gods of Guilt (Mickey Haller 5) Page 36