The Reversal (11 page)

From the beach the next stop was an In-N-Out franchise in Westwood for hamburgers and French fries with all the catsup he wanted. After lunch Jessup went to Clive Royce’s storefront office in downtown, where he attended a two-hour meeting with the battery of attorneys representing him in both criminal and civil matters. This meeting was not open to the
Times
.

Jessup rounded out the afternoon by watching a movie called
Shutter Island
at the Chinese theater in Hollywood. He bought a tub of buttered popcorn large enough to feed a family of four and ate every puffed kernel. He then returned to Venice, where he had a room in an apartment near the beach courtesy of a high-school surfing buddy. The day ended at a beach barbecue with a handful of supporters who had never wavered in their belief in his innocence.

I sat at my desk studying the color photos of Jessup that graced two inside pages of the A section. The paper was going all-out on the story, as it had all along, surely smelling the journalistic honors to be gathered at the end of Jessup’s journey to complete freedom. Springing an innocent man from prison was the ultimate newspaper story and the
Times
was desperately trying to take credit for Jessup’s release.

The largest photo showed Jessup’s unabashed delight at the red plastic tray sitting in front of him at a table at In-N-Out. The tray contained a fully loaded double-double with fries smothered in catsup and melted cheese. The caption said

Why Is This Man Smiling?
12:05—Jessup eats his first Double-Double in 24 years. “I’ve been thinking about this forever!”

The other photos carried similarly lighthearted captions below shots of Jessup at the movies with his bucket of popcorn, hoisting a beer at the barbecue and hugging his high-school pal, walking through a glass door that said
ROYCE AND ASSOCIATES, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
. There was no indication in the tone of the article or photos that Jason Jessup was a man who happened to still be accused of murdering a twelve-year-old girl.

The story was about Jessup relishing his freedom while being unable to plan his future until his “legal issues” were resolved. It was a nice turn of phrase, I thought, calling abduction and murder charges and a pending trial merely legal issues.

I had the paper spread wide on the desk Lorna had rented for me in my new office on Broadway. We were on the second floor of the Bradbury Building and only three blocks from the CCB.

“I think you need to put something up on the walls.”

I looked up. It was Clive Royce. He had walked through the reception room unannounced because I had sent Lorna over to Philippe’s to get us lunch. Royce gestured to the empty walls of the temporary office. I flipped the newspaper closed and held up the front page.

“I just ordered a twenty-by-twenty shot of Jesus on the surfboard here. I’m going to hang him on the wall.”

Royce stepped up to the desk and took the paper, studying the photo on the front as if for the first time, which we both knew was not the case. Royce had been deeply involved in the generation of the story, the payoff being the photo of the office door with his firm’s name on the glass.

“Yes, they did a good job with it, didn’t they?”

He handed it back.

“I guess so, if you like your killers happy-go-lucky.”

Royce didn’t respond, so I continued.

“I know what you’re doing, Clive, because I would do it, too. But as soon as we get a judge, I’m going to ask him to stop you. I’m not going to let you taint the jury pool.”

Royce frowned as if I had suggested something completely untoward.

“It’s a free press, Mick. You can’t control the media. The man just got out of prison, and like it or not, it’s a news story.”

“Right, and you can give exclusives in exchange for display. Display that might plant a seed in a potential juror’s mind. What do you have planned for today? Jessup co-hosting the morning show on Channel Five? Or is he judging the chili cook-off at the state fair?”

“As a matter of fact, NPR wanted to hang with him today but I showed restraint. I said no. Make sure you tell the judge that as well.”

“Wow, you actually said no to NPR? Was that because most people who listen to NPR are the kind of people who can get out of jury duty, or because you got something better lined up?”

Royce frowned again, looking as though I had impaled him with an integrity spear. He looked around, grabbed the chair from Maggie’s desk and pulled it over so he could sit in front of mine. Once he was seated with his legs crossed and had arranged his suit properly he spoke.

“Now, tell me, Mick, does your boss think that housing you in a separate building is really going to make people think you are acting independently of his direction? You’re having us on, right?”

I smiled at him. His effort to get under my skin was not going to work.

“Let me state once again for the record, Clive, that I have no boss in this matter. I am working independently of Gabriel Williams.”

I gestured to the room.

“I’m here, not in the courthouse, and all decisions on this case will be made from this desk. But at the moment my decisions aren’t that important. It’s you who has the decision, Clive.”

“And what would that be? A disposition, Mick?”

“That’s right. Today’s special, good until five o’clock only. Your boy pleads guilty, I’ll come down off the death penalty and we both roll the dice with the judge on sentencing. You never know, Jessup could walk away with time served.”

Royce smiled cordially and shook his head.

“I am sure that would make the powers that be in this town happy, but I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Mick. My client remains absolutely uninterested in a plea. And that is not going to change. I was actually hoping that by now you would have seen the uselessness of going to trial and would simply drop the charges. You can’t win this thing, Mick. The state has to bend over on this one and you unfortunately are the fool who volunteered to take it in the arse.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

“We will indeed.”

I opened the desk’s center drawer and removed a green plastic case containing a computer disc. I slid it across the desk to him.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come by for it yourself, Clive. Thought you’d send an investigator or a clerk. You gotta bunch of them working for you, don’t you? Along with that full-time publicist.”

Royce slowly collected the disc. The plastic case was marked
DEFENSE DISCOVERY 1
.

“Well, aren’t we snarky today? Seems that only two weeks ago you were one of us, Mick. A lowly member of the defense bar.”

I nodded my contrition. He had nailed me there.

“Sorry, Clive. Perhaps the power of the office is getting to me.”

“Apology accepted.”

“And sorry to waste your time coming over here. As I told you on the phone, that’s got everything we have up until this morning. Mostly the old files and reports. I won’t play discovery games with you, Clive. I’ve been on the wrong end of that too many times to count. So when I get it, you get it. But right now that’s all I’ve got.”

Royce tapped the disc case on the edge of the desk.

“No witness list?”

“There is but as of now it’s essentially the same list from the trial in ’eighty-six. I’ve added my investigator and subtracted a few names—the parents, other people no longer alive.”

“No doubt Felix Turner has been redacted.”

I smiled like the Cheshire cat.

“Thankfully you won’t get the chance to bring him up at trial.”

“Yes, a pity. I would have loved the opportunity to shove him up the state’s ass.”

I nodded, noting that Royce had come off the English colloquialisms and was hitting me with pure Americana now. It was a symptom of his frustration over Turner, and as a longtime counsel for the defense I certainly felt it. In the retrial, there would be no mention of any aspect of the first trial. The new jurors would have no knowledge of what had transpired before. And that meant the state’s use of the fraudulent jailhouse informant—no matter how grievous a prosecutorial sin—would not hurt the current prosecution.

I decided to move on.

“I should have another disc for you by the end of the week.”

“Yes, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

Sarcasm noted.

“Just remember one thing, Clive. Discovery is a two-way street. You go beyond thirty days and we’ll go see the judge.”

The rules of evidence required that each side complete its discovery exchange no later than thirty days before the start of trial. Missing this deadline could lead to sanctions and open the door to a trial delay as the judge would grant the offended party more time to prepare.

“Yes, well, as you can imagine, we weren’t expecting the turn of events that has transpired here,” Royce said. “Consequently, our defense is in its infancy. But I won’t play games with you either, Mick. A disc will be along to you in short order—provided that we have any discovery to give.”

I knew that as a practical matter the defense usually had little in the way of discovery to give unless the plan was to mount an extensive defense. But I sounded the warning because I was leery of Royce. In a case this old, he might try to dig up an alibi witness or something else out of left field. I wanted to know about it before it came up in court.

“I appreciate that,” I said.

Over his shoulder I saw Lorna enter the office. She was carrying two brown bags, one of which contained my French dip sandwich.

“Oh, I didn’t realize…”

Royce turned around in his seat.

“Ah, the lovely Lorna. How are you, my darling?”

“Hello, Clive. I see you got the disc.”

“Indeed. Thank you, Lorna.”

I had noticed that Royce’s English accent and formal parlance became more pronounced at times, especially in front of attractive women. I wondered if that was a conscious thing or not.

“I have two sandwiches here, Clive,” Lorna said. “Would you like one?”

It was the wrong time for Lorna to be magnanimous.

“I think he was just about to leave,” I said quickly.

“Yes, love, I must go. But thank you for the most gracious offer.”

“I’ll be out here if you need me, Mickey.”

Lorna went back to the reception room, closing the door behind her. Royce turned back to me and spoke in a low voice.

“You know you should never have let that one go, Mick. She was the keeper. And now, joining forces with the first Mrs. Haller to deprive an innocent man of his long-deserved freedom, there is something incestuous about the whole thing, isn’t there?”

I just looked at him for a long moment.

“Is there anything else, Clive?”

He held up the disc.

“I think this should do it for today.”

“Good. I have to get back to work.”

I walked him out through reception and closed the door after him. I turned and looked at Lorna.

“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” she said. “Being on this side of it—the prosecution side.”

“It does.”

She held up one of the sandwich bags.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Whose sandwich were you going to give him, yours or mine?”

She looked at me with a straight face, then a smile of guilt leaked out.

“I was being polite, okay? I thought you and I could share.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t be giving my French dip sandwich to anybody. Especially a defense lawyer.”

I snatched the bag from her hand.

“Thank you, love,” I said in my best British accent.

She laughed and I headed back into my office to eat.

Twelve

Thursday, February 18, 3:31
P.M
.

A
fter driving off the ferry at Port Townsend, Bosch and McPherson followed directions from the rental car’s GPS to the address on Sarah Ann Gleason’s driver’s license. The trail led them through the small Victorian sea village and then out into a more rural area of large and isolated properties. Gleason’s house was a small clapboard house that failed to keep the nearby town’s Victorian theme. The detective and the prosecutor stood on the porch and knocked but got no response.

“Maybe she’s at work or something,” McPherson said.

“Could be.”

“We could go back into town and get rooms, then come back after five.”

Bosch checked his watch. He realized that school was just over and Maddie was probably heading home with Sue Bambrough. He guessed that his daughter was giving the assistant principal the silent treatment.

He stepped off the porch and started walking toward the corner of the house.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the back. Hold on.”

But as soon as Bosch turned the corner he could see that a hundred yards beyond the house there was another structure. It was a windowless barn or garage. What stood out was that it had a chimney. He could see heat waves but no smoke rising from the two black pipes that extended over the roofline. There were two cars and a van parked in front of the closed garage doors.

Bosch stood there watching for so long that McPherson finally came around the corner as well.

“What’s taking—?”

Bosch held up his hand to silence her, then pointed toward the outbuilding.

“What is it?” McPherson whispered.

Before Bosch could answer, one of the garage doors slid open a few feet and a figure stepped out. It looked like a young man or a teenager. He was wearing a full-length black apron over his clothes. He took off heavy elbow-length gloves so he could light a cigarette.

“Shit,” McPherson whispered, answering her own question.

Bosch stepped back to the corner of the house to use it as a blind. He pulled McPherson with him.

“All her arrests—her drug of choice was meth,” he whispered.

“Great,” McPherson whispered back. “Our main witness is a meth cook.”

The young smoker turned when apparently called from within the barn. He threw down his cigarette, stepped on it, and went back inside. He yanked the door closed behind him but it slid to a stop six inches before closing.