I smiled, hoping she would share my optimism.
“Dad, don’t jinx yourself,” she said instead.
“Is that what they teach you at USC Law?” I said. “How not to jinx a case?”
“No, that’s third year.”
“Funny girl.”
We went our separate ways outside the restaurant. I walked off but then stopped to watch her make her way through the plaza. It was dark now but the campus was well lit. She walked with confidence and a fast step. I watched until she disappeared between two buildings.
Bishop was waiting for me at the appointed spot. I got in the rear passenger door. He handed a cheap flip phone over the seat to me as well as change from my sixty.
“Did you get something to eat?” I asked.
“I went over to the Tam’s on Fig,” he said.
“I had a hamburger, too.”
“Hit the spot. So, where to?”
“Just hold right here a minute while I make a call.”
On my real phone I googled the number for the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and called it on the burner. It was answered by a male voice and a curt “FBI.”
“Yes, I need to get a message to an agent.”
“There’s nobody in right now. Everybody’s gone home.”
“I know. Can you please get a message to Agent Dawn Ruth?”
“You’ll have to do that tomorrow.”
“It’s an emergency call from a confidential informant. Tomorrow will be too late.”
There was a long pause and then he relented.
“Is this the number she needs to call?”
“Yes, and the name is Walter Lennon.”
“Walter Lennon. Got it.”
“Please call her now. Thank you.”
I closed the burner and looked over the seat at Bishop.
“Okay, drive. I want to be moving if she calls back. Harder to track us that way.”
“Anywhere?”
“Tell you what — head toward your place. I can drop you off tonight instead of you dropping me and taking an Uber.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, go. I want to be moving.”
Bishop pulled the Lincoln away from the curb and started driving. He was soon on the 110 freeway going south. I knew he would connect to the 105 and turn west toward Inglewood.
We were in the carpool lane and making good time. As we took the exit to the 105, the burner phone started to buzz with a call. Caller ID was blocked. I flipped it open but didn’t speak. Soon I heard a woman’s voice.
“Who is this?”
“Agent Ruth, thanks for calling. It’s Mick Haller.”
“Haller? What the hell are you doing?”
“Is this a private line? I don’t think you want this recorded.”
“Yes, it’s private. What exactly is this about?”
“Well, it’s about Walter Lennon. And the fact that you called me back so quick pretty much confirms you know exactly who he is. Make that, was.”
“Haller, you have about three seconds before I hang up. Why are you calling me?”
“I’m taking a gamble, Agent Ruth. The other night when your partner Aiello wanted to throw me off the deck, you pulled him back. I’ve seen a lot of tape in my time of the good cop — bad cop routine, and I don’t think that’s what was going on there. You didn’t like what he was doing.”
“I’m asking you one more time before hanging up: What do you want?”
“Well, for one thing, I want you to testify.”
I heard sarcastic laughter.
“And barring that,” I said, undaunted, “I want you to tell me what was going on with Sam Scales aka Walter Lennon and BioGreen.”
“You’re crazy, Haller,” Ruth said. “You expect me to just throw my job away?”
“I expect you to do the right thing, is all. Isn’t that why you became an FBI agent? I’m basing this on what happened the other night but I’m guessing that whatever is going on — this cover-up — you’re not down with it. Your partner may be all in, but you’re not. You know I didn’t kill Sam Scales and you can help me prove it.”
“I’ll say it again. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to throw away my career for you. And, no, I don’t know whether or not you killed Sam Scales.”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to throw away your career. Maybe you can do the right thing and still keep it. I know this: your partner isn’t keeping his.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He was going to throw me off the deck.”
“Please, you’re exaggerating. He was over the top, I’ll give you that, but you were pushing our buttons, Haller. And he wasn’t threatening to push you over. That’s totally insane.”
I didn’t respond, so she kept going.
“Besides, it would be your word against two agents’. Do the math on that.”
“Is that why you guys always travel in pairs?”
She didn’t respond. I pressed on.
“Look, Agent Ruth, for some reason I like you. It’s not been my experience with feds, but like I said, you pulled him off me. So I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to stop you from filing a false report on that incident when I make the complaint. It’ll probably save your job and then maybe you’ll do right by me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about now. This is—”
“Do you have a private email address? Give it to me and I’ll send you something tonight. You’ll know what I’m talking about then. I have a camera on the balcony, Agent Ruth. I caught the whole thing. It would be the word of two agents against a video. You would lose.”
There was a long silence and I looked out the window. I saw we were going by the new billion-dollar football stadium. Then I heard Ruth recite an email address. I snapped on the overhead light and wrote it down on a legal pad.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll send you the video as soon as I get home and get steady Wi-Fi. Probably be an hour. Hopefully I hear something back from you and this whole thing can be avoided — for you and your partner.”
She disconnected without a further word. I put the burner into my jacket pocket and snapped off the overhead light.
“That video must be pretty good, huh?” Bishop asked from the front seat.
I stared at him in the darkness, his face catching a dim glow from the dashboard lights. I once again wondered about Cisco having cleared him as a possible spy for the prosecution. Either way, he didn’t need to know my business.
“Nah,” I said. “I was just bluffing.”
28
Thursday, January 16
The next morning came quickly, thanks to a 7 a.m. hammering on the front door. Kendall jumped out of bed first and then I sat up so fast I thought I felt a muscle in my lower back twinge.
“What is it?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just get dressed.”
I pulled on the pants I had discarded on the floor the night before and grabbed a fresh shirt out of the closet. I buttoned it as I walked barefoot down the hall, the dread growing with each step that I might be going back to Twin Towers. Only the cops pounded on your door this early.
I opened the door, and sure enough, there was Drucker and another detective I didn’t recognize. Behind them stood two uniformed officers. Drucker was holding up a document I did recognize, a search warrant.
“Hello, sir, we have a warrant to search these premises,” Drucker said. “May we come in?”
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said.
I took the warrant, which was several pages stapled together. I knew to skip through all the preamble and the probable-cause statement to get to the meat of what they were looking for.