“Ms. McPherson and I were married at one time,” Haller said.
Bosch turned to check the judge’s reaction. It was clear she had not known of the marital history of the two lawyers before her.
“Interesting,” Coelho said. “I was not aware of that. When were you two married?”
“It was quite a while ago, Your Honor,” Haller said. “But there is an adult daughter and ongoing connections as well as ongoing upset over the dissolution of the marriage and its consequences.”
“How so, Mr. Haller?” the judge said.
“Your Honor, I believe Ms. McPherson harbors resentment over her career as a prosecutor for Los Angeles County being... thwarted by her relationship with me. I would not want that to interfere with my client’s ability to get a fair and impartial hearing on the facts of this petition.”
The judge turned her attention to Morris.
“Mr. Morris, are you attempting to inject outside conflict into this proceeding?”
“Not at all, Your Honor,” Morris said. “As I already stated on the record, Ms. McPherson is the expert on cellular data in the California Attorney General’s Office. Last year, in fact, she was hired away from the Ventura County prosecutor’s office because of her expertise in this field. This is an area of the law that is fairly new and that comes up frequently as alleged ‘new evidence’ in appellate and habeas briefs. This material was sprung on us last week, and with the continuance the court granted, I took it to our expert, Ms. McPherson, who has been analyzing the material in preparing for this witness’s cross-examination. There is no conflict, Your Honor. My understanding is that the marriage has been over for more years than it existed. There are no custody disputes because their one child is an adult and lives independently of her parents. There are no disputes at all, Judge. In fact, two years ago Ms. McPherson took a leave from the Ventura prosecutor’s office to provide legal help to Mr. Haller when he was charged with a crime.”
“Is all that true, Mr. Haller?” Coelho asked.
“It is true there are no custody or other legal disputes, Judge,” Haller said. “But on more than one occasion, I was blamed for setbacks, demotions, and changes in Ms. McPherson’s career, and, as I said earlier, I don’t want any possible grudge to hinder Lucinda Sanz’s right to a fair and impartial hearing on the petition.”
The judge frowned and even Bosch knew why. It was the judge who needed to be fair and impartial. Haller’s argument was misdirected. But before the judge could speak, Maggie McFierce did.
“Your Honor, may I be heard?” she said. “Everyone is talking about me. I think I should be allowed to respond.”
“Go ahead, Ms. McPherson,” Coelho said. “But be brief. This is not family court and I don’t want to turn it into an examination of a broken marriage and what grievances may exist therein.”
“I’m happy to be brief,” McPherson said. “The fact is, I hold no grudge against my ex-husband. It was indeed a complicated union between a prosecutor and a defense attorney, but it ended a long time ago. I have moved on, he has moved on, and our daughter is a grown woman making her way in the world. Mr. Morris did not even know of my marital history when he came to me last week and asked me to take a look at the material turned over in discovery. It wasn’t until I started working on it that I noticed that it was my ex-husband’s case and that the witness was Mr. Bosch, whom I have met on occasion. I immediately informed Mr. Morris but told him, as I am telling the court, that Mr. Haller and I have no conflict of interest. Our relationship as the parents of a young woman is not conflicted in any way and I hold no grudge against him, his client, or his witness.”
“I am not sure that was brief, but the court appreciates counsel’s honesty,” Coelho said. “Anything else, Mr. Haller?”
“Submitted,” Haller said.
Haller said it in a tone that dripped with defeat. He knew how this was going to go.
“Very well,” the judge said. “It is this court’s responsibility to remain fair and impartial in hearing evidence and determining the truth of things. I intend to do that. The objection is overruled. Now, Mr. Haller, is there anything else you would like to bring up with the court before we proceed with the witness?”
“Not at this time, Judge,” Haller said.
Coelho paused and looked at Haller. Bosch knew she was expecting him to announce that he had new discovery material to give to the AG. But there were no results yet from the DNA analysis begun the week before. This meant that Haller wouldn’t know until he heard from Shami Arslanian, who was stationed at Applied Forensics monitoring the work, whether or not he had new evidence to help Lucinda Sanz’s case.
“Very well,” the judge said again. “Then let’s proceed.
Ms. McPherson, your witness.”
39
For Bosch, it was a reminder of how far he had gone off mission. Maggie McFierce was a true believer, a career prosecutor who had never been lured away from the pursuit of justice to join the high-paid private sector. She had stayed on mission, and though jobs and agencies changed, she’d never wavered from the cause. And here was Bosch, heretofore a true believer, about to be pounded on the witness stand the way he had seen so many witnesses for criminal defendants get pounded in the past.
McPherson would be out to prove that Bosch was a gun for hire who would also lie for hire, who would cut corners and look only for the thing that would obscure the truth or hide it completely. She had no doubt done her homework on Bosch and knew his vulnerabilities. She attempted to exploit them right out of the gate.
“Mr. Bosch, how long have you worked as a defense investigator?” she asked.
“Uh, actually, I never have,” Bosch said.
“You are working for Mr. Haller, are you not?”
“I am working on a specific project for him that doesn’t involve defense work.”
“Did you not work for Mr. Haller’s own defense when he was accused of a crime?”
“I was more of an adviser. Like you were. Do you believe you have never worked for the defense?”
“I’m not the one answering questions here.”
“Sorry.”
“So what you’re telling the court is that you don’t consider working for Lucinda Sanz, an admitted and convicted killer, defense work?”
“Mr. Haller hired me to go through cases involving convicted people who claimed they were innocent. He wanted me to review them to see if any seemed plausible or worth another look. Lucinda Sanz’s case was one of them and—”
“Thank you, Mr. Bosch, I didn’t ask for the whole history of the case. But you would say that working on the Lucinda Sanz case is not defense work.”
“Correct. It’s not defense work. It’s truth work.”
“That’s clever, Mr. Bosch. What happens in your so-called truth work if you come across evidence that someone is guilty of the crime they were convicted of?”
“I tell Mr. Haller that’s it’s a no-go and we move on. I look into the next case.”
“And has that scenario ever occurred as you just outlined?”
“Uh, yes. Happened just a couple months ago.”
“Tell the court about that.”
“Well, it was this guy named Coldwell who was convicted of hiring a killer to murder his partner in a business investment. He was convicted largely on the testimony of the contract killer, who was also charged but was cooperating with the prosecution. He testified that he was paid twenty-five thousand dollars in cash to do the hit. The other evidence included Coldwell’s bank records. The prosecution was able to show that exactly twenty-five thousand had been accumulated through ATM withdrawals and personal checks Coldwell wrote to friends who cashed them and gave him the money.”