“Well, we have a sliding rate for all such cases. We get a standard twenty-five percent of the first million, goes up to thirty-three on a prorated scale. Most lawyers have a flat rate of a third or higher all the way through. Me, my cut gets bigger only if the check gets bigger.”
“Not bad when it’s a slam dunk like that one looks to be.”
“It’s never as easy as it looks.”
“But with the haystack, you’re not doing it for that second-level payout, right?”
“It’s strictly pro bono on all the work we do up front. Now, if we get somebody out, I’m happy to represent them in a suit for damages and compensation at my usual rate. But that’s pie-in-the-sky money. In most cases compensation is limited by state caps. So could there be money down the line, yes. But this is not a moneymaking operation. Why do you think I was going over cases with Lorna? I need to put gas in the tank. I need paying cases so you can work the haystack.”
“I just wanted to be sure, that’s all.”
“Well, you can be. The deal I made with Ochoa was made before all the letters started coming in, and it was Hayley who suggested I create my own little innocence project. The only difference is the real Innocence Project takes donations to the cause. I don’t.”
“Got it.”
They dropped back into silence until Bosch started up the hill on Fareholm. He passed Haller’s house and turned around at the top, then came back down and parked at the curb by the stairs to Haller’s front door.
They both got out.
“Thank you, Harry,” Haller said.
“What are you going to do?” Bosch asked.
“Well, I haven’t had a half day off like this in months. I don’t want to waste it. I might go over to Wilshire and hit the range.”
“You play golf?”
“Taking lessons.”
“And you’re a member at Wilshire?”
“Joined a few months ago.”
“Good for you.”
“What’s that mean, that tone?”
“Nothing. Just means good for you that you’re in a club. You deserve it.”
“I got a friend in the public defender’s office who’s a member. He sponsored me.”
“Nice.”
“What are you going to do this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. Probably take a nap.”
“You should.”
Bosch handed him the keys to the Lincoln and started walking down the street to where he had parked his Cherokee. Haller called after him.
“How’s the new car?” he said.
“Like it,” Bosch said. “Still miss the old one.”
“That’s so Bosch.”
Bosch wasn’t sure what that meant. He had found and bought a 1994 Jeep Cherokee to replace the one he had lost in a crash during the investigation he’d been on with Ballard the year before. The “new” old car had fewer miles on it and a better suspension. It had come with new tires and a recent paint job. It didn’t have all the bells and whistles that the Navigator had, but it was good enough to get him home.
5
After waking from a lengthy afternoon nap, Bosch checked his phone and saw he’d slept through a series of texts; he read the messages from his daughter, Ballard, Aronson, and a bartender at the Catalina Bar and Grill. He got up, washed his face, and went out to the dining room, where the table had long ago become a desk. He stopped at the shelves by the turntable, flipped through his record collection, and pulled out an old one that had been one of his mother’s favorites. Released in 1960 — a year before her death — the album had been kept in pristine condition. Bosch’s care over the years had been motivated by respect for the recording artist as well as for his mother.
He carefully dropped the needle on the second track of Introducing Wayne Shorter. Stepping out from Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to record his first effort as a leader, Shorter soon after was playing the tenor saxophone alongside Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. Theo at the Catalina had left Bosch the message that Shorter had just passed on.
Bosch stood there in front of his speakers and listened to the moves made by Shorter on track two. His breath, his finger work, it was all there. It had been more than six decades since Bosch had first heard these notes, but the news of Shorter’s death had triggered the memory of this song that still meant so much to him. The track ended and Bosch carefully lifted the arm, drew it back, and started “Harry’s Last Stand” once more. He then moved to the table to go back to work.
Maddie’s message was short, her daily check on him. He would respond with a call to her later. Ballard had texted to say she’d sent him an email. He logged in and saw she’d forwarded links to two Los Angeles Times stories from five years earlier. Bosch started to read them in chronological order.
Ex-Wife Charged in Slaying of Hero Deputy By Scott Anderson, Times Staff Writer
The former wife of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy once lauded for his bravery in the face of fire has been charged with his death after a domestic confrontation in Quartz Hill.
Lucinda Sanz, 33, was charged Monday with first-degree murder for shooting her ex-husband, Roberto Sanz, in the back as he walked across the front lawn of the home the two once shared with their young son. Sheriff’s investigators said the former couple had been in a heated argument just moments before. Lucinda Sanz is being held on $5 million bail in the county jail.
Homicide investigators said the killing occurred around 8 p.m. Sunday in the 4500 block of Quartz Hill Road shortly after Roberto Sanz had returned his son to his ex-wife’s home after a weekend visitation that was part of the couple’s custody agreement. Sgt. Dallas Quinto said the two adults had argued in the house and Roberto Sanz left through the front door. Moments later he was shot twice in the back while he crossed the lawn to his pickup truck parked on the street. The couple’s young son did not witness the shooting, Quinto said.
Roberto Sanz was not wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of the shooting because he was not on duty.
“It’s just so sad that it came to this,” Quinto said. “Roberto was under constant threat when he worked on the streets, protecting the community. To have the ultimate threat come from inside his family is heartbreaking. He was much loved by his fellow deputies.”
Roberto Sanz, 35, was part of a gang-suppression team assigned to the sheriff’s Antelope Valley substation. Prior to that he was assigned to the jail division. A year ago, he was praised by Sheriff Tim Ashland and awarded the department’s medal of valor after a shoot-out with members of a Lancaster gang who ambushed Sanz when he stopped at the Flip’s hamburger stand. Sanz was unhurt in the shooting but one gang member was shot and killed and another was wounded. Two other gunmen got away and have never been identified.
Bosch read the story again. Quartz Hill was a suburb of a suburb called Palmdale, located in the vast northeastern expanse of the county. Once a small desert town, it had, like the nearby equally small town of Lancaster, experienced tremendous population growth since the turn of the century when housing prices in Los Angeles exploded, sending thousands of people into the far-flung areas of the county to find affordable homes. Palmdale and Lancaster grew into a single mini — desert metropolis with all the problems that came with urban life. That included gangs and drugs. The sheriff’s department had its hands full out there.
Quartz Hill was nestled next to Palmdale and Lancaster. Bosch had been out there on cases in the past and he remembered tumbleweeds and sand-swept streets. He expected all of that might be different now.