“Hold the line,” Haller said. “They’ll pay.”
“Hope so,” Aronson said. “How’d it go at the airport?”
“He got the full Monty. The judge probably never even looked at the childhood-trauma stuff. I tried to bring it up but he shut it down. And it didn’t help that my guy pleaded for mercy by telling the judge he hadn’t really meant to defraud all those people. So off he goes. He’ll probably do seven years if he doesn’t act out.”
“Anybody there for him except you?”
“Only me.”
“What about the guy’s kid? I thought you had him queued up.”
“Didn’t show. Anyway, moving on, I’m going to sit down with Lorna in about thirty to look at the calendar. You want to sit in?”
“I can’t. I just came home to grab something to eat. I promised my sister I’d go up to Sylmar to see Anthony today.”
“Right. Well, good luck with that. Let me know if I can help.”
“Thanks. Are you with Harry Bosch?”
“Sittin’ right next to him.”
Haller looked at Bosch and nodded as if he were making up for jumping in the back seat earlier.
“Are we on speaker?” Aronson said. “Can I talk to him?”
“Sure can,” Haller said. “Go.”
He pointed to Bosch.
“You’re on,” he said.
“Harry, I know you’ve drawn a line about not doing defense work per se,” Aronson said.
Bosch nodded his head but then realized she couldn’t see this.
“Right,” he said.
“Well, I could really use you to just look at a case,” Aronson said. “No investigatory work. Just look at what I’ve got so far from the DA.”
Bosch knew that the main juvenile detention center for the north county was in Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley.
“It’s a juvie case?” he asked.
“Yes, my sister’s son,” Aronson said. “Anthony Marcus. He’s sixteen but they’re going to move to try him as an adult. There’s a hearing next week and I’m desperate, Harry. I need to help him.”
“What’s the charge?”
“They say he shot a cop but there’s just nothing in this boy’s character that says he would do something like this.”
“Where? What agency?”
“LAPD. It’s a West Valley case. It happened in Woodland Hills.”
“Is he alive or dead? The cop.”
“He’s alive. He only got shot in the leg or something. But Anthony wouldn’t have done this and he told me he didn’t. He said there had to be another shooter because it wasn’t him.”
Bosch reached up to the dashboard screen and punched the mute button. He looked over at Haller.
“Are you kidding?” Bosch said. “You want me to work for a kid who shot an LAPD cop? I’m already looking at this case from Chino where the woman shot a LEO. You know what this could do to me out there?”
“Hello?” Aronson said. “Did I lose you?”
“I’m not asking you to work the case,” Haller said. “She is, and all she wants is for you to look at the file she has. That’s it. Just read the reports and tell her what you think. Then you’re done with it. You won’t be attached to it and nobody will ever know.”
“But I’ll know,” Bosch said.
“Hello?” Aronson repeated.
Bosch shook his head and unmuted the call.
“Sorry,” he said. “Lost you for a few seconds there. What kind of documents do you have?”
“Well, there’s an investigator’s chronology,” Aronson said. “And there’s an incident report and the medical report on the officer. There’s an evidence report but there’s really nothing on it. I was going to call the assigned prosecutor today and see when the next discovery drop will be. But bottom line is I just think there’s something wrong here. I’ve known this kid all his life and he is not violent. He’s gentle. He’s—”
“Are there any witness reports?” Bosch asked.
“Uh, no, no witnesses,” Aronson said. “It’s basically his word against what the police say.”
Bosch was silent. It sounded like a case he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near. Haller broke into the silence.
“Tell you what, Jennifer,” he said. “Email what you’ve got to Lorna and tell her to print it. Harry will have eyes on it in thirty minutes. We are headed to her place now.”
Haller looked at Bosch.
“Unless you’re saying no,” he said.
Bosch slowly shook his head. This was not what he had signed up for. He didn’t want the last act of his professional life to be helping criminals. The haystack work, as Haller called it, was one thing. Finding innocence among the many convicted felt to Bosch like a check on a system he knew firsthand was imperfect. But assisting in the defense of someone accused was something else in his mind.
“I’ll take a look,” he said grudgingly. “But if there’s any follow-up work needed, you have to go to Cisco for that.”
Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski was Haller and Associates’ longtime investigator — and Lorna Taylor’s husband.
“Thank you, Harry,” Aronson said. “Please call me as soon as you’ve had a chance to look it over.”
“Sure,” Bosch said. “Why does your sister want you to go up there to see the kid?”
“Because she says he’s not doing well,” Aronson said. “He’s getting bullied by other kids there. I figure if I can sit with him for an hour, that’s an hour he doesn’t have to be afraid.”
“Okay, well, I’ll look at the stuff from the file as soon as I get it,” Bosch said.
“Thank you, Harry,” Aronson said again. “I really, really appreciate it.”
“Anything else on your end, Jennifer?” Haller asked.
“No, just what I said,” she said.
“When’s the next meet with the city attorney’s office?” Haller asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” Aronson said.
“Good,” Haller said. “Keep the pressure on. Let’s talk after that.”
Haller disconnected and they drove in silence for a bit. Bosch was not happy and wasn’t trying to hide it.
“Harry, just look at the file and tell her you got nothing,” Haller said. “She’s too emotionally invested in the case. She’s got to learn to—”
“I know she’s invested,” Bosch said. “I don’t blame her. But what is happening now is exactly what I told you I didn’t want to happen. One more time and I’m out. You understand?”
“I understand,” Haller said.
They made good time to West Hollywood, which was a relief to Bosch since there was a steely silence in the car after the phone call with Aronson. Bosch turned off Santa Monica Boulevard onto Kings Road and cruised two blocks south. Haller had texted Lorna about their imminent arrival and she was standing at a red curb waiting, file in hand. The windows on the Navigator were smoked. When Bosch pulled to a stop, Lorna stepped off the curb, walked around the back of the SUV, and got in the passenger seat behind Bosch.
“Oh,” she said to Haller. “I thought you’d be in your usual spot.”
“Not when Harry’s driving,” Haller said. “Did you print out the stuff from Jennifer?”
“Got it right here.”
“Pass that up to Harry so he can take a look while I jump in the back with you.”
Bosch was handed a file. He opened it and tried to tune out the conversation from the back as Haller started going over his court calendar and other case-related matters with Lorna. Bosch’s starting point was the incident report.
The kid’s name was Anthony Marcus. He was about to spend his seventeenth birthday in the juvenile detention center in Sylmar. He was accused of shooting a patrol cop named Kyle Dexter with the officer’s own gun. According to the report, Dexter and his partner Yvonne Garrity had responded to a burglary-in-progress call at a home on Califa Street in Woodland Hills. Upon arrival they searched the exterior of the house and found a sliding door on a rear pool deck open. They called for backup, but before other officers arrived,