“I’m going to allow it,” she said. “Mr. Haller, you can ask your questions and we’ll see where it goes.”
“Your Honor, I have to object,” Morris said. “This is pure—”
“Mr. Morris, you already objected and I just overruled the objection,” Coelho said. “Is that not clear to you?”
“Yes, Judge,” he said weakly.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.
With her ruling, she was now redeemed in my eyes.
The judge stayed behind when we left her chambers. I followed Morris back to the courtroom. He was silent the whole way, walking fast, as if to get away from me.
“Cat got your tongue, Morris?” I said. “Or is it the weight of knowing you’re on the wrong side of this one?”
He didn’t respond other than to hold up a fist, the middle finger extended. He went through the door to the courtroom and didn’t bother to hold it open for me.
“Nice guy,” I said.
In the courtroom I saw that the spot where Bosch had been sitting was empty. I headed out to the hall, hoping to find him and Arslanian before the judge took the bench and convened the hearing again.
I found Shami on a bench next to the courtroom door but there was no sign of Bosch.
“The judge is going to allow Sanger’s DNA,” I said. “You will have to testify about the cigarette butt — the collection of it and everything else.”
“Mickey, that’s great,” Arslanian said. “I’m ready.”
“Where’s Harry? We may need him if the judge wants to see his photos of the cigarette.”
“When Sanger left the courtroom, he followed her out. He told me he wanted to keep an eye on her in case she made a run for it.”
“Seriously?”
“Cop instincts, I guess.”
I had never doubted Bosch’s cop instincts. Arslanian’s answer gave me pause as I thought about how I would continue the case if Sanger was in the wind.
Part Thirteen
The Man in Black
47
Bosch wanted to get closer so he could hear their conversation but he couldn’t risk it. He was obviously known to Sanger and he had seen the man in the back row of the courtroom. If either saw Bosch they would more than likely shut down what looked like a heated conversation. So Bosch watched from afar, using a bus-stop shelter in front of the courthouse on Spring Street as a blind.
Sanger and the man she was talking to were in the designated smoking area on the north side of the courthouse. She stood next to a concrete urn that served as a trash-can-size ashtray. Sanger was smoking but the man she was talking to was not. He appeared to Bosch to be Latino. He was short with brown skin, jet-black hair, and a mustache that extended beyond the corners of his mouth. Their conversation seemed confrontational. The man was dressed completely in black, like a priest, and he leaned slightly toward Sanger as he spoke. And Sanger leaned toward him, shaking her head emphatically as if she disagreed with whatever the man was saying.
Bosch checked his watch. The courtroom break was almost over and he needed at least five minutes to go back in through security and take an elevator. When he looked back at the smoking section, he saw the man lean in even closer to Sanger and grab the front of her uniform with one hand. It happened so quickly that there was almost no struggle from Sanger. With his free hand the man pulled Sanger’s weapon from her holster, pressed the muzzle to her side, and fired three quick shots, using her body to muffle the reports. He then pushed her into the urn and she toppled over it to the ground. A woman passing on the sidewalk screamed and started running away from the courthouse.
The man with the gun didn’t even look up. He stepped around the urn, extended his arm, and fired one more time, finishing Sanger with a head shot. He turned and walked calmly out of the smoking area. He crossed the front steps of the courthouse, moved quickly out to the sidewalk, and headed south on Spring Street. He carried the gun down at his side.
Bosch stepped out of the bus shelter and ran up the steps and into the smoking area. Sanger was dead, her eyes open and staring blankly at the sky. The final bullet had hit her in the exact center of her forehead. Blood soaked her uniform and the concrete next to her body.
Bosch turned. The killer was now a block away on Spring. A uniformed marshal had stepped through the heavy glass doors of the courthouse after hearing the shots and the pedestrian’s scream. Bosch moved toward him.
“A deputy’s been shot,” he said. “That guy walking down Spring is the shooter.”
Bosch pointed toward the man in black.
“Where’s the deputy?” the marshal asked.
“In the smoking area,” Bosch said. “She’s dead.”
The marshal ran off toward the smoking area as he pulled a radio from a holster on his belt and yelled in the call.
“Shots fired, officer down! North side smoking area! Repeat, shots fired, officer down.”
Bosch looked down Spring Street. The killer had passed City Hall and was almost to First Street. He was getting away.
Bosch started down Spring Street in pursuit. He pulled his phone and called 911. An operator answered immediately.
“This is 911, what is your emergency?”
“There’s been a shooting outside the federal courthouse. A man killed a sheriff’s deputy with her own gun. I’m following him south on Spring Street. I’m unarmed.”
“Okay, sir, slow down. Who got shot? You said a deputy?”
“Yes, a sheriff’s deputy. Sergeant Stephanie Sanger. The federal marshals are there and I’m following the shooter. I need backup to Spring and First Street. He’s literally walking by the PAB right now.”
The Police Administration Building was on the east side of Spring. As Bosch followed, he saw the killer cross over to the west side of the street and continue walking beside the old Los Angeles Times Building toward Second Street. As he’d crossed the street, he had glanced back up Spring as if looking for cars, but Bosch knew he was checking to see if he was being followed. Bosch was more than a block away and did not attract the gunman’s attention.
“I think he’s going to turn west on Second,” he said.
“Sir, are you law enforcement?” the operator asked.
“Retired LAPD.”
“Then you need to stop and wait for the police officers to arrive. They have been dispatched.”
“I can’t. He’s getting away.”
“Sir, you need—”
“I was wrong. He didn’t turn on Second. He’s still on Spring, heading south toward Third.”
“Sir, listen to me, you need to stop what you’re doing and—”
Bosch disconnected and put the phone in his pocket. He knew he needed to pick up speed if he was going to keep the gunman in sight. He got to the corner of Spring and Second just as the gunman reached Third Street and turned the corner out of sight. Bosch started to run and crossed to the west side when there was an opening in traffic.
At Third, Bosch turned right and saw the gunman halfway up the block to Broadway. He had crossed over to the south side of the street. Bosch stayed on the sidewalk on the north side, slowed his pace, and tried to regulate his breathing. Third Street ran slightly uphill and Bosch started huffing. The adrenaline flood that had hit his bloodstream when he saw Sanger murdered in broad daylight was starting to ebb.
The gunman crossed Broadway against the traffic light and turned left on the other side. By the time Bosch got to the corner, the light had changed and the walk signal was flashing. Bosch crossed and watched as the gunman ducked into the Grand Central Market.
Bosch could hear sirens now, but they weren’t close. His guess was that the officers he had asked for had responded to the shooting scene rather than to the location he had given the 911 operator.