The Crossing

by Michael Connelly

  “Hey, Mick!”

  I glanced at him but didn’t stop walking. I knew from experience not to. If one member of the media downed you, the rest of the pride would catch up and pile on. I didn’t want to be devoured. I hit the stairwell door and started down.

  “No comment.”

  He stayed with me, stride for stride.

  “I’m not writing about the trial. I’m covering the new murders. I thought maybe you and I could have the same deal again. You know, trade informa—”

  “No deal, Jack. And no comment. Catch you later.”

  I put my hand out and stopped him on the first landing. I left him there, went down two more landings, and then went out into the hallway. I walked down to Judge Holder’s courtroom and entered.

  Michaela Gill was in the clerk’s pod and I asked if I could see the judge for a few minutes.

  “But I don’t have you down for an appointment,” she said.

  “I know that, Michaela, but I think the judge will want to see me. Is she back there? Can you tell her I only want ten minutes? Tell her it’s about the Vincent files.”

  The clerk picked up the phone, punched a button, and gave the judge my request. Then she hung up and told me I could go right back to her chambers.

  “Thank you.”

  The judge was behind her desk with her half-glasses on, a pen poised in her hand as if I had interrupted her in the middle of signing an order.

  “Well, Mr. Haller,” she said. “It’s certainly been an eventful day. Have a seat.”

  I sat in the familiar chair in front of her.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Judge.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  She asked the question without looking at me. She started scribbling signatures on a series of documents.

  “I just wanted you to know I will be resigning as counsel on the rest of the Vincent cases.”

  She put the pen down and looked over her glasses at me.

  “What?”

  “I’m resigning. I came back too soon or probably should never have come back at all. But I’m finished.”

  “That’s absurd. Your defense of Mr. Elliot has been the talk of this courthouse. I watched parts of it on television. You clearly were schooling Mr. Golantz and I don’t think there were many observers who would have bet against an acquittal.”

  I waved the compliments away.

  “Anyway, Judge, it doesn’t matter. It’s not really why I’m here.”

  She took her glasses off and put them down on the desk. She looked hesitant but then asked the next question.

  “Then, why are you here?”

  “Because, Judge, I wanted you to know that I know. And soon enough everybody else will as well.”

  “I am sure I don’t know what you are talking about. What do you know, Mr. Haller?”

  “I know that you are for sale and that you tried to have me killed.”

  She barked out a laugh but there was no mirth in her eyes, only daggers.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No, it’s no joke.”

  “Then, Mr. Haller, I suggest you calm down and compose yourself. If you go around this courthouse making these kinds of outlandish accusations, then there will be consequences for you. Severe consequences. Maybe you are right. You are feeling the stress of coming back too soon from rehab.”

  I smiled and I could tell by her face that she immediately realized her mistake.

  “Slipped up there, didn’t you, Judge? How’d you know I was in rehab? Better yet, how did juror number seven know how to lure me away from home last night? The answer is, you had me backgrounded. You set me up and sent McSweeney out to kill me.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about and I don’t know this man you say tried to kill you.”

  “Well, I think he knows you, and the last time I saw him he was about to start playing Let’s Make a Deal with the federal government.”

  It hit her like a punch in the gut. I knew revealing it to her wasn’t going to endear me to Bosch or Armstead, but I didn’t care. Neither of them was the guy who had been used like a pawn and had nearly taken the high dive off Mulholland. I was that guy and that entitled me to confront the person I knew was behind it.

  “I put it together without having to make a deal with anybody,” I said. “My investigator traced McSweeney. Nine years ago he was arrested for an ADW and who was his attorney? Mitch Lester, your husband. The next year he was popped again for fraud and once again it was Mitch Lester on the case. There’s the connection. It makes a nice little triangle, doesn’t it? You have access to and control of the jury pool and the selection process. You can get into the computers and it was you who planted the sleeper on my jury. Jerry Vincent paid you but then he changed his mind after the FBI came sniffing around. You couldn’t run the risk that Jerry might get jammed up with the FBI and try to deal a judge to them. So you sent McSweeney.

  “Then, when it all turned to shit yesterday, you decided to clean house. You sent McSweeney—juror number seven—after Elliot and Albrecht, and then me. How am I doing, Judge? I miss anything so far?”

  I said the word “judge” like it had the same meaning as garbage. She stood up.

  “This is insane. You have no evidence connecting me to anyone but my husband. And making the leap from one of his clients to me is completely absurd.”

  “You’re right, Judge. I don’t have evidence but we’re not in court here. This is just you and me. I just have my gut instincts and they tell me that this all comes back to you.”

  “I want you to leave now.”

  “But the feds, on the other hand? They have McSweeney.”

  I could see it strike fear in her eyes.

  “Guess you haven’t heard from him, have you? Yeah, I don’t think they’re letting him make any calls while they debrief him. You better hope he doesn’t have any of that evidence. Because if he puts you in that triangle, then you’ll be trading your black robe for an orange jumpsuit.”

  “Get out or I will call courthouse security and have you arrested!”

  She pointed toward the door. I calmly and slowly stood up.

  “Sure, I’ll go. And you know something? I may never practice law again in this courthouse. But I promise you that I’ll come back to watch you be prosecuted. You and your husband. Count on it.”

  The judge stared at me, her arm still extended toward the door, and I saw the anger in her eyes slowly change to fear. Her arm drooped a little and then she let it drop all the way. I left her standing there.

  I took the stairs all the way down because I didn’t want to get on a crowded elevator. Eleven flights down. At the bottom I pushed through the glass doors and left the courthouse. I pulled my phone and called Patrick and told him to pull the car around. Then I called Bosch.

  “I decided to light a fire under you and the bureau,” I told him.

  “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t want to wait around while the bureau took its usual year and a half to make a case. Sometimes justice can’t wait, Detective.”

  “What did you do, Haller?”

  “I just had a conversation with Judge Holder—yes, I figured it out without McSweeney’s help. I told her the feds had McSweeney and he was cooperating. If I were you and the bureau, I’d hurry the fuck up with your case and in the meantime keep tabs on her. She doesn’t seem like a runner to me, but you never know. Have a good day.”

  I closed the phone before he could protest my actions. I didn’t care. He had used me the whole time. It felt good to turn the tables on him, make him and the FBI do the dancing at the end of the string.

  PART SIX

  —The Last Verdict

  Fifty-four

  Bosch knocked on my door early Thursday morning. I hadn’t combed my hair yet but I was dressed. He, on the other hand, looked like he had pulled an all-nighter.

  “I wake you?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

 
; “I have to get my kid ready for school.”

  “That’s right. Wednesday nights and every other weekend.”

  “What’s up, Detective?”

  “I’ve got a couple of questions and I thought you might be interested in knowing where things stand on everything.”

  “Sure. Let’s sit out here. I don’t want her hearing this.”

  I patted down my hair as I walked toward the table.

  “I don’t want to sit,” Bosch said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  He turned to the railing and leaned his elbows down on it. I changed directions and did the same thing right next to him.

  “I don’t like to sit when I’m out here either.”

  “I have the same sort of view at my place,” he said. “Only it’s on the other side.”

  “I guess that makes us flip sides of the same mountain.”

  He turned his eyes from the view to me for a moment.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “So, what’s happening? I thought you’d be too angry with me to ever tell me what was going on.”

  “Truth is, I think the bureau moves too slowly myself. They didn’t like what you did very much but I didn’t mind. It got things rolling.”

  Bosch straightened up and leaned back on the railing, the view of the city behind him.

  “So then, what’s happening?” I asked.

  “The grand jury came back with indictments last night. Holder, Lester, Carlin, McSweeney, and a woman who’s a supervisor in the jury office and was the one who gave them access to the computers. We’re taking them all down simultaneously this morning. So keep it under your hat until we have everybody hooked up.”

  It was nice that he trusted me enough to tell me before the arrests. I thought it might be even nicer to go down to the CCB and watch them take Holder out of there in handcuffs.

  “Is it solid?” I asked. “Holder is a judge, you know. You better have it nailed down.”

  “It’s solid. McSweeney gave it all up. We’ve got phone records, money transfers. He even taped her husband during some of the conversations.”

  I nodded. It sounded like the typical federal package. One reason I never took on federal cases when I was practicing was that when the Big G made a case, it usually stayed made. Victories for the defense were rare. Most times you just got flattened like roadkill.

  “I didn’t know Carlin was hooked up in this,” I said.

  “He’s right at the center. He goes way back with the judge and she used him to approach Vincent in the first place. Vincent used him to deliver the money. Then when Vincent started getting cold feet because the FBI was sniffing around, Carlin got wind of it and told the judge. She thought the best thing to do was get rid of the weak link. She and her husband sent McSweeney to take care of Vincent.”

  “Got wind of it how? Wren Williams?”

  “Yeah, we think. He got close to her to keep tabs on Vincent. We don’t think she knew what was going on. She’s not smart enough.”

  I nodded and thought about how all the pieces fit together.

  “What about McSweeney? He just did what he was told? The judge tells him to hit a guy and he just does it?”

  “First of all, McSweeney was a con man before he was a killer. So I don’t for a minute think we’re getting the whole truth out of him. But he says the judge can be very persuasive. The way she explained it to him, either Vincent went down or they all went down. There was no choice. Besides, she also promised to increase his cut after he went through with the trial and tipped the case.”

  I nodded.

  “So what are the indictments?”

  “Conspiracy to commit murder, corruption. This is only the first wave. There will be more down the road. This wasn’t the first time. McSweeney told us he’d been on four juries in the last seven years. Two acquittals and two hangers. Three different courthouses.”

  I whistled as I thought of some of the big cases that had ended in shocking acquittals or hung juries in recent years.

  “Robert Blake?”

  Bosch smiled and shook his head.

  “I wish,” he said. “O.J., too. But they weren’t in business back then for that one. We just lost those cases on our own.”

  “Doesn’t matter. This is going to be huge.”

  “Biggest one I’ve ever had.”

  He folded his arms and glanced over his shoulder at the view.

  “You’ve got the Sunset Strip and I’ve got Universal,” he said.

  I heard the door open and looked back to see Hayley peeking out.

  “Dad?”

  “What’s up, Hay?”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Hayley, this is Detective Bosch. He’s a policeman.”

  “Hello, Hayley,” Bosch said.

  I think it was the only time I had ever seen him put a real smile on his face.

  “Hi,” my daughter said.

  “Hayley, did you eat your cereal?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then you can watch TV until it’s time to go.”

  She disappeared inside and closed the door. I checked my watch. She still had ten minutes before we had to leave.

  “She’s a cute kid,” Bosch said.

  I nodded.

  “I gotta ask you a question,” he said. “You started this whole thing tumbling, didn’t you? You sent that anonymous letter to the judge.”

  I thought for a moment before answering.

  “If I say yes, am I going to become a witness?”

  I had not been called to the federal grand jury after all. With McSweeney giving everything up, they apparently didn’t need me. And I didn’t want to change that now.

  “No, it’s just for me,” Bosch said. “I just want to know if you did the right thing.”

  I considered not telling him but ultimately I wanted him to know.

  “Yeah, that was me. I wanted to get McSweeney off the jury and then win the case fair and square. I didn’t expect Judge Stanton to take the letter and consult other judges about it.”

  “He called up the chief judge and asked her advice.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s gotta be what happened,” I said. “He calls her, not knowing she was behind the whole thing. She then tipped McSweeney and told him not to show up for court, then used him to try to clean up the mess.”

  Bosch nodded as though I was confirming things he already knew.

  “And you were part of the mess. She must’ve figured you sent the letter to Judge Stanton. You knew too much and had to go—just like Vincent. It wasn’t about the story we planted. It was about you tipping Judge Stanton.”

  I shook my head. My own actions had almost brought about my own demise in the form of a high dive off Mulholland.

  “I guess I was pretty stupid.”

  “I don’t know about that. You’re still standing. After today none of them will be.”

  “There’s that. What kind of deal did McSweeney cut?”

  “No death penalty and consideration. If everybody goes down, then he’ll probably get fifteen. In the federal system that means he’ll still do thirteen.”

  “Who’s his lawyer?”

  “He’s got two. Dan Daly and Roger Mills.”

  I nodded. He was in good hands. I thought about what Walter Elliot had told me, that the guiltier you were, the more lawyers you needed.

  “Pretty good deal for three murders,” I said.

  “One murder,” Bosch corrected.

  “What do you mean? Vincent, Elliot, and Albrecht.”

  “He didn’t kill Elliot and Albrecht. Those two didn’t match up.”

  “What are you talking about? He killed them and then he tried to kill me.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “He did try to kill you but he didn’t kill Elliot and Albrecht. It was a different weapon. On top of that, it didn’t make sense. Why would he ambush them and then try to make you look like a su
icide? It doesn’t connect. McSweeney is clean on Elliot and Albrecht.”

  I was stunned silent for a long moment. For the last three days I had believed that the man who killed Elliot and Albrecht was the same man who had tried to kill me and that he was safely locked in the hands of the authorities. Now Bosch was telling me there was a second killer somewhere out there.

  “Does Beverly Hills have any ideas?” I finally asked.

  “Oh, yeah, they’re pretty sure they know who did it. But they’ll never make a case.”

  The hits kept coming. One surprise after another.

  “Who?”

  “The family.”

  “You mean like the Family, with a capital F? Organized crime?”

  Bosch smiled and shook his head.

  “The family of Johan Rilz. They took care of it.”

  “How do they know that?”

  “Lands and grooves. The bullets they dug out of the two victims were nine-millimeter Parabellums. Brass jacket and casing and manufactured in Germany. BHPD took the bullet profile and matched them to a C-ninety-six Mauser, also manufactured in Germany.”

  He paused to see if I had any questions. When I didn’t, he continued.

  “Over at BHPD they’re thinking it’s almost like somebody was sending a message.”

  “A message from Germany.”

  “You got it.”

  I thought of Golantz telling the Rilz family how I was going to drag Johan through the mud for a week. They had left rather than witness that. And Elliot was killed before it could happen.

  “Parabellum,” I said. “You know your Latin, Detective?”

  “Didn’t go to law school. What’s it mean?”

  “Prepare for war. It’s part of a saying. ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ What will happen with the investigation now?”

  Bosch shrugged.

  “I know a couple of Beverly Hills detectives who’ll get a nice trip to Germany out of it. They fly their people business class with the seats that fold down into beds. They’ll go through the motions and the due diligence. But if the hit was done right, nothing will ever happen.”