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“But didn’t your position put you in a blind? The L.A. Times Building would block any view of the civic center, would it not?”

“Like I said, we had spotters inside—observers on the ground in the civic center. I was containment. I was placed in a position where I could react to anyone leaving the civic center on Broadway. Or I could come into the box if needed.”

Step-by-step she walked him through the pull-over and the discussion with me at the rear of my car. He described my reticence to open the trunk to see if the license plate was there, then his spotting the substance dripping from the car.

“I thought it was blood,” Milton said. “At that point I believed there were exigent circumstances and that I needed to open the trunk to see if someone was hurt inside.”

“Thank you, Officer Milton,” Berg said. “I have nothing further.”

The witness was turned over to me. My goal was to build a record I hoped would be useful at trial. Berg had not bothered to show any video during her questioning, because all she needed to do was establish exigent circumstances.

But we had received the extended versions of both his body-cam and the car-cam video from the prosecution the day before and had studied them during our three o’clock at Twin Towers. Jennifer had the body-cam tape cued up on her laptop and ready to go now if needed.

As I walked to the lectern, I took the rubber band off a rolled printout of an aerial shot of the downtown civic center. I asked permission of the judge to approach the witness, then unrolled the photo in front of him.

“Officer Milton, I see you have a pen in your pocket,” I said.

“Would you mark this photograph with the position you had taken on the night in question?”

Milton did as I requested, and I asked him to add his initials. I then took the photo back, rolled and banded it, and asked the judge to enter it as defense exhibit A. Milton, Berg, and the judge all looked a bit bewildered by what I had just done, but that was okay. I wanted Berg to be puzzled about what the defense was up to.

I returned to the lectern and asked the court’s permission to play both videos turned over to me in discovery. The judge gave her approval and I used Milton to authenticate and introduce the videos. I played them back-to-back without stopping to ask any questions. When they were finished, I asked only two.

“Officer Milton, do you believe those videos were an accurate accounting of your actions during the traffic stop?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s all there on tape,” Milton said.

“You see no indication that the tapes have been altered or edited in any way?”

“No, it’s all there.”

I asked the judge to accept the videos as defense exhibits B and C and Warfield complied.

I moved on, once again leaving the prosecutor and judge puzzled by the record I was building.

“Officer Milton, at what point did you decide to initiate a traffic stop on my car?”

“When you made the turn, I noticed there was no license plate on the vehicle. It’s a common capering move, so I followed and initiated the traffic stop when we were in the Second Street tunnel.”

“ ‘Capering,’ Officer Milton?”

“Sometimes when people are engaged in committing crimes, they take the plates off their car so witnesses can’t get the plate number.”

“I see. But it appeared from the video we just watched that the car in question still had a front plate, did it not?”

“It did.”

“Doesn’t that contradict your capering theory?”

“Not really. Getaway cars are usually seen driving away. It’s the rear plate that would be important to remove.”

“Okay. Did you see me walk down the street from the Redwood and turn right onto Broadway?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Was I doing anything suspicious?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Did you think I was drunk?”

“No.”

“And you saw me walk into the parking lot?”

“I did.”

“Was that suspicious to you?”

“Not really. You were dressed in a suit and I thought you probably had parked a car in the lot.”

“Were you aware that the Redwood is a bar frequented by defense lawyers?”

“I was not.”

“Who was it who told you to pull me over after I drove out of the lot?”

“Uh, no one. I saw the missing plate when you made the turn from Broadway onto Second, and I left my position and initiated the stop.”

“By that, you mean you followed me into the tunnel and then turned your lights on, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have advance knowledge that I would be leaving that lot without a rear plate on my car?”

“No.”

“You weren’t there in that spot specifically to pull me over?”

“No, I was not.”

Berg stood and objected, saying I was badgering Milton by asking him the same question in different ways. The judge agreed and told me to move on.

I looked down at the lectern at the notes I had written in red ink.

“No further questions, Your Honor,” I said.

The judge looked slightly confused by my examination and its abrupt end.

“Are you sure, Mr. Haller?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Does the state have recross?”

Berg also seemed confused by my questioning of Milton. Thinking I had done no damage, she told the judge she had no further questions. The judge shifted her focus back to me.

“Do you have another witness, Mr. Haller?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Arguments?”

“Judge, my argument is submitted.”

“Nothing further? You don’t want to at least connect the dots for us after your examination of the witness?”

“Submitted, Your Honor.”

“Does the state wish to argue?”

Berg stood at her table and raised her hands as if to ask what there was to argue, then said she would go with her written response to my motion.

“Then the court is prepared to rule,” Warfield said. “The motion is denied and this court is in recess.”

The judge had spoken matter-of-factly. And I could hear whispers and sense the letdown of those in the courtroom. It was as though there was a collective What? from those in the gallery.

But I was pleased. I didn’t want to win the motion. I wanted to cut down the prosecution’s tree at trial and win the case. And I had just made the first swing of the ax.

We came into the three o’clock meeting with good spirits, despite the surroundings. Not only had we accomplished what we wanted to get done and on the record in the court hearing that morning, but both Jennifer and Cisco said they had good news to share. I told Jennifer to go first.

“Okay, you remember Andre La Cosse?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” I said. “My finest hour.”

It was true. The State of California versus Andre La Cosse might as well be etched on my tombstone at the end of my days. It was the case I was proudest of. An innocent man with the entire weight of the justice system against him charged with murder, and I walked him. And it wasn’t just an NG. It was the rarest of all birds in the justice system. It was the Big I. My work in trial had proved him innocent. So much so that the state paid damages for their malfeasance in charging him in the first place.

“What about him?” I asked.

“Well, he saw something about your case online and he wants to help,” Jennifer said.

“Help how?”

“Mickey, don’t you get it? You got him a seven-figure settlement for wrongful prosecution. He wants to return the favor. He called up Lorna and said he could go up to two hundred on bail.”

I was a bit stunned. Andre had barely survived the case while being held in this same place—Twin Towers—while we were in trial, and I had negotiated a settlement for him in compensation. I had taken a third, but that was seven years ago and it was long gone. He had apparently done better with his money and was now willing to chip off some of what he had in order to spring me.

“He knows he doesn’t get it back, right?” I said. “Two hundred out the window. That’s a big chunk of the money I got him.”

“He knows,” Jennifer said. “And he hasn’t just been sitting on that money. He invested it. Lorna said he’s into the whole crypto-currency thing and he says the settlement was only seed money. It has grown. A lot. He’s offering the two hundred, no strings attached. I want to go in and set up a bail hearing. We get Warfield to knock it down to two and a half or three million—where it should be—and you walk out of here.”

I nodded. Andre’s money could go for a 10 percent bond against the set bail. But there was a problem.

“That’s very generous of Andre, but I don’t think that’ll get it done,” I said. “Berg’s not going to roll over and play dead on a sixty percent reduction on bail. I don’t think Warfield will either. If Andre really wants to kick in, maybe we talk about using his money for expert witnesses, exhibits, and everybody on staff getting paid for the overtime they’re putting in.”

“No, boss,” Cisco said.

“We thought about that,” Jennifer said. “And there’s somebody else who wants to help. Another donor.”

“Who?” I said.

“Harry Bosch,” she said.

“No way,” I said. “He’s a retired cop, for god’s sake. He can’t—”

“Mickey, you got him a million-dollar settlement from the city last year and didn’t even take a cut. He wants—”

“I didn’t take a cut, because he might need that money. He’s going to max out his insurance and then he’ll need it. Besides, I set up a trust and he put it in there.”

“Look, Mickey, he can tap it or borrow against it,” Jennifer insisted. “The point is, you have to get out of here. Not only is it dangerous in this place, but you’re losing weight, you don’t look good, and your health is at risk. Remember what Legal Siegel used to say? ‘Look like a winner and you’ll become a winner’? You don’t look like a winner, Mickey. You can tailor your suits but you still look pale and sick. You need to get out of here and get yourself in shape for trial.”

“He actually said, ‘Act like a winner and you’ll be a winner.’ ”

“Doesn’t matter. Same thing. This is your chance. These people came to us. We didn’t go to them. In fact, Andre said he came because he saw you on TV from that last hearing and it reminded him of himself when he was in here.”

I nodded. I knew she was right. But I hated taking the money, especially from Bosch, my half brother, who I knew needed it for other things.

“Not only that, but you need to get home for Christmas and see your daughter,” Jennifer said. “This no-visitation thing is hurting her as much as it must hurt you.”

She nailed me with her final argument. I missed my daughter, missed her voice.

“Okay, I hear you,” I said.

“Good,” Jennifer said.

“I think we might be able to knock the bail down to three million,” I said. “But that’s probably it.”

“We can cover three million,” Jennifer said.

“Okay, set it up,” I said. “Don’t give any hint that we can go up to three million. I want Berg to think we’re coming in hat in hand. She’ll think dropping bail a couple million will still probably keep me in stir. We ask for one million and she compromises at two or three.”

“Right,” Jennifer said.

“And one last thing,” I said. “Are you sure Harry and Andre came in voluntarily with this? It wasn’t the other way around?”

Jennifer shrugged and looked at Cisco.

“Scout’s honor, boss,” he said. “That’s straight up from Lorna.”

I looked for any sign of deception and didn’t see any. But I could tell something was bothering Jennifer.

“Jennifer, what?” I asked.

“On bail, what if the judge makes a monitor part of the deal?” she asked. “An ankle bracelet. Can you live with that?”

I thought about it for a moment. It would be the ultimate invasion, having the state monitoring my every move while I was building my defense. But I recalled what Jennifer had said about spending time with my daughter.

“Don’t offer it,” I finally said. “But if it comes up as part of the deal, I’ll accept it.”

“Good,” Jennifer said. “I’ll file the motion as soon as we get out of here. If we’re lucky, we’ll get before the judge tomorrow and you’ll be home for the weekend.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

“There’s one other thing from Harry Bosch,” Jennifer said.

“What’s that?”

“He said he also wants to help with the defense, if we want him.” This was cause for hesitation. There had always been a low-level friction between Cisco and Bosch that stemmed from their origins as investigators. Bosch was retired now, but from law enforcement. Cisco was from the defense side from the start. Bringing Bosch on could be extremely useful because of his experience and connections. It could also throw off the chemistry of my team. I didn’t have to ponder the offer long before Cisco ended my uncertainty.

“We need him,” Cisco said.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Bring him on,” he said.

I knew what he was doing. He was casting all friction or animosity aside for me. If it had been any other case, he would have said we didn’t need Bosch, and that was probably true. But with my life and freedom on the line, Cisco wanted any possible advantage we could get.

I nodded my thanks to him and looked at Jennifer.

“Get me out of here first,” I said. “Then we meet with Bosch. Make sure he gets everything from the discovery file, especially all the crime scene photos. He’s good with that stuff.”

“I’m on it,” she said. “Is he on your visitors list here?”

“No, but I can add him,” I said. “He may have already tried to see me.”

I shifted my focus back to Cisco.

“Okay, Big Man, what’ve you got?” I asked.

“I got the full autopsy from a guy at the coroner’s,” he said. “You’re going to like the tox report.”

“Tell me.”

“Sam Scales had flunitrazepam in his blood. That’s what’s on the report. You look that up on Google and you get Rohypnol.”

“The date-rape drug,” Jennifer said.

“Okay,” I said. “How much was in his blood?”

“Enough to knock him out,” Cisco said. “He wasn’t conscious when they shot him.”

I liked that Cisco had said they. It told me he was all in on the theory that I had been framed and most likely by more than one person.

“So what does this tell us in terms of when he got dosed?” I asked.

“Not sure yet,” Cisco said.

“Jennifer, we’re going to need an expert for trial,” I said. “A good one. Can you work on that?”

“On it,” she said.

I thought about things for a few moments before continuing.

“I’m not sure it really helps us,” I said. “The state’s position will be that I dosed him, then abducted him and took him to the house. We still need to get into Sam Scales and where he was and what he was doing.”

“I’m on it,” Cisco said.

“Good,” I said. “Let’s talk about the garage next. Did Lorna get Wesley out to look at it?”

Wesley Brower was the installer I’d used to replace the emergency release on my garage door. This happened seven months earlier during fire season when a rolling brownout left my house without power. I could not open the garage door and was due in court on a sentencing. I had long misplaced the key to the emergency release. I called out Brower to get the garage open and he found that the keyed handle of the release pull was seized with rust. He still managed to get the door open, and I got to court—late. The next day Brower came back and installed a new emergency release system.

If my defense was going to claim that I was framed, then it would be my job at trial to explain to the jury exactly how that frame came together. And that would start with how the true killer or killers got into my garage to put Sam Scales in the trunk of my car and then shoot him. I had told my team to have Wesley Brower check the emergency release to see if it had been recently engaged or tampered with.

Jennifer answered my question by raising a hand and wagging it side to side to say she had good and bad news.

“Lorna got Brower out to the garage and he checked the emergency release,” she said. “He determined that it had been pulled, but he can’t say when. You put the new one in back in July, so all he can say is that it has been pulled since then.”

“How does he know?” I asked.

“Whoever pulled it put it back together after they got the door open. But they didn’t do it the way he left it back in July. So he knows it was pulled—he just won’t be able to testify when. It’s a wash, Mickey.”

“Damn.”

“I know, but it was a long shot.”

The good feelings that we had started the meeting with were dissipating.

“Okay, where are we on the suspects list?” I asked.

“Lorna is still working on it,” Jennifer said. “You’ve had a ton of cases in the past ten years. There’s still a lot to go through. I told her I’d work with her this weekend, and with any luck you’ll be out of this place and able to be there too.”

I nodded.

“Speaking of which, you should probably go if you’re going to file something today,” I said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Jennifer said. “Anything else?”

I leaned across the table to talk in a low voice to Jennifer—in case the overhead camera had grown ears.

“I’m going to call you when I can get to a phone in the module,” I said. “I want to talk about Baja and I want you to record it. Can you do that?”

“Not a problem. I’ve got an app.”

“Good. Then we’ll talk later.”

It was almost an hour before they moved me back to the module. I found Bishop at one of the tables playing Mexican dominoes with a custody named Filbin. He gave me his customary greeting.

“Counselor,” he said.

“Bishop, I thought you had court today,” I said.

“Thought I did too until my lawyer put it over. Motherfucker mus’ think I’m stayin’ at the Ritz over here.”

I sat down, put my documents on the table, and looked around. A lot of guys were out of their cells and moving around the dayroom. The module had two phones mounted on the wall below the mirrored windows of the hack tower. You could either make a collect call on them or use a phone card purchased from the jail canteen. At the moment, both phones were being used and each one had a line of three men waiting. The calls cut off after fifteen minutes. That meant if I got in line now I would get a phone in roughly an hour.

I didn’t see Quesada on my survey of the dayroom. Then I saw that the door to his cell was closed. Every man in the module was on keep-away status, but being locked up in a cell in a keep-away module was reserved for those inmates who were either in imminent danger or highly valuable to a prosecution.

“Quesada’s on lockdown?” I said.

“Happened this morning,” Bishop said.

“Snitch,” Filbin said.

I almost smiled. Calling someone in the keep-away module a snitch was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. The most common reason for segregating people in the module in the first place was that they were informants. For all I knew, Filbin was one. I didn’t make it a practice of asking fellow inmates what they were being held for or why they were on keep-away status. I had no idea why Bishop was in the module and would never ask him. Sticking your nose in other people’s business could have consequences in a place like Twin Towers.

I watched them play until Bishop won the game and Filbin got up and walked off toward the stairs leading to the second tier of cells.

“You want to play, Counselor?” Bishop asked. “A dime a point?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t gamble.”

“Now, that’s some bullshit right there. You gambling with your own life right now bein’ in here with us criminals.”

“Speaking of that, I might be getting out soon.”

“Yeah? You sure you want to leave this wonderful place?”

“I need to. Gotta prep my case, and in here it’s not going to happen. Anyway, I’m only telling you because I want you to know that I’ll make good on our deal. I’ll pay till the end of my trial.”

“That’s mighty white of you.”

“I mean it. You’ve made me feel safe, Bishop, and I appreciate it. When you get out, you should look me up. I might have something for you. Something legitimate.”

“Like what?”

“Like driving. You have a driver’s license?”

“I could get one.”

“A real one?”

“As real as they get, Counselor. Driving what? Who?”

“Me. I work out of my car and I need a driver. It’s a Lincoln.”

My previous driver had been working off her son’s debt for my representation and was a week away from completing that when I was arrested. If I got out, I would need a new driver, and I wasn’t blind to what Bishop could bring in terms of intimidation and security in addition to the driving chores.

I checked the phone bank again. The line was down to two each. I knew I should get over there before it built up to three again. I leaned in close to Bishop and violated my own rule about getting into other people’s business.

“Bishop, say you were going to break into a garage at somebody’s house. How would you do it?”

“Whose house?”

“It’s a hypothetical. Any house. How would you do it?”

“What makes you think I would break into a house?”

“I don’t think that. It’s a hypothetical and I’m picking your brain. And it’s breaking into a garage, not the house.” “Any windows or a side door?”

“No, just a double-wide garage door.”

“It got one of those pop-out handles in case of emergency?”

“Yeah, but you need a key.”

“No, you don’t. Those handles you can pop with a flathead.”

“A screwdriver? You sure?”

“I’m sure. I knew a guy, that was his specialty. He’d drive around and hit g’rages all day long. Got cars, tools, lawn mowers … all kinds of good shit to sell.”

I nodded and checked the phone bank. One phone had only one man waiting. I stood up.

“I have to hit the phone line, Bishop,” I said. “Thanks for the intel.”

“I got you, man.”

I walked over to the phones and got behind the single just as the man on the phone in front of him hung up angrily and said, “Fuck you, bitch!”

He walked away and the next man stepped up to the phone. My wait ended up being less than two minutes, as the man in front of me called collect and the call either went unanswered or the recipient declined to accept the charges. He walked away and I stepped up and put my paperwork down on top of the phone box. I entered Jennifer’s cell phone number for a collect call. While I waited for the electronic voice to tell her that she was receiving a collect call from the county jail, I studied the sign on the wall: all calls monitored.

Jennifer accepted.

“Mickey,” she said.

“Jennifer,” I said. “Hold on while I make this announcement. This is Michael Haller, pro se defendant, talking to his co-counsel, Jennifer Aronson, under privilege. This call should not be monitored.”

I waited a beat, presumably for the monitor to move on to another inmate’s call.

“Okay,” I said. “Just checking in. Did you file?”

“I did. Notifications went out. Hopefully we get a hearing tomorrow.”

“Did you and Cisco get that Baja thing set up?”

“Uh, yes … we did.”

“The whole package? Travel, everything?”

“Yep, everything.”

“Good. And the money is ready?”

“Yes.”

“What about the guy, you trust him?”

There was a pause. I assumed Jennifer was realizing what I was doing with the call.

“Absolutely,” she finally said. “He has it down to a science.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll only get one shot at this.”

“What if they make you wear a bracelet?”

Jennifer had caught on fast. Her mention of the bracelet was pure gold.

“Won’t be a problem,” I said. “We can use that guy Cisco used on that other thing that time. He’ll know what to do.”

“Right,” Jennifer said. “I forgot about him.”

There was another pause while I thought about how to wrap it up.

“So, you’ll have to come down, go fishing with me,” I said.

“I’ll have to brush up on my Spanish,” she said.

“Anything else to talk about?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, then. I guess all I can do is wait on the hearing. See you then.”

I hung up the phone and stepped aside for the man who had lined up behind me. Bishop was no longer at the table where we had talked. I went up the stairs to the second tier and was halfway to my cell when I remembered my paperwork. When I got back to the phone bank, the documents were gone.

I tapped the guy who was on the phone on the shoulder. He turned to me.

“My paperwork,” I said. “Where is it?”

“What?” he said. “I don’t have your fucking paperwork.”

He started to turn back toward the phone box.

“Who took it?” I said.

I hit him on the back again and he turned angrily toward me.

“I don’t know who took it, motherfucker. Get the fuck away from me.”

I turned and scanned the dayroom. There were several inmates moving about the room or sitting in front of an overhead television screen. I looked at their hands or what was beneath their chairs. I didn’t see my paperwork anywhere.

My eyes went to the cells, the bottom tier first and then the second level. I saw no one and nothing suspicious.

I moved to a spot below the mirrored glass of the hack tower. I waved my hands over my head to get attention. Eventually a voice came from the speaker below the glass.

“What is it?”

“Somebody took my legal papers.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I left them on the phone box and then two minutes later they were gone.”

“You’re supposed to take care of your property.”

“I know that but somebody took it. I’m pro se and I need the documents. You have to search the module.”

“First of all, you don’t tell me what we have to do. And second, that’s not going to happen.”

“I’m going to report this to the judge. She’s not going to be happy.”

“You can’t see me but I’m shaking.”

“Look, I need to find those documents. They’re important to my case.”

“Then I guess you should have taken better care of them.”

I just stared up at the mirror for a long moment before turning away and heading to my cell. I knew at that moment that it didn’t matter how much money it cost, I needed to get out of this place.

Tuesday, December 10

Dana Berg claimed she needed time to prepare her opposition to Jennifer Aronson’s motion to reduce bail. That meant I got to spend another weekend and then some in my cell at Twin Towers. I waited for Tuesday like a man in shark-infested waters waiting for the rope that will finally pull him to safety.

I ate what I hoped would be my last jail baloney sandwich and apple on the bus to the CCB, then began my slow ascent through the courthouse’s vertical jail to the holding cell on the ninth floor beside Judge Warfield’s courtroom. I was delivered there shortly before my 10 a.m. hearing was due to begin, so there was no chance to convene ahead of time with Jennifer. My suit was brought in and I changed. Already tailored once, it was loose in the waist again, and it was mostly by this that I measured what incarceration had done to me. I was clipping on my tie when the courtroom deputy told me it was time for court.

The gallery was more crowded than usual. The reporters were in the same row they always took, and I also saw my daughter and Kendall Roberts as well as my would-be benefactors, Harry Bosch and Andre La Cosse—two men who could not have been more different but were seated there together and ready to shell out their savings for me. Next to them sat Fernando Valenzuela, the bail bondsman ready to make the transaction if the judge could be swayed in my favor. I had worked with Valenzuela on and off for two decades and had at times sworn I would never use him again, just as he had sworn on occasion never to bail out another of my clients. But here he was, apparently willing to let past grievances go and accept the risks of posting a bond for me.

I smiled at my daughter, winked at Kendall. Just as I was about to turn to the defense table, I saw the courtroom door open and Maggie McPherson enter. She scanned the gallery, saw our daughter, and slid in next to her. Hayley was now sitting between Maggie and Kendall, who had never met. She was making introductions when I took my seat next to Jennifer at the defense table.

“Did you ask Maggie McFierce to be here?” I whispered.

“Yes, I did,” Jennifer said.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because she’s a prosecutor and if she says you won’t flee, then that will carry a lot of weight with the judge.”

“Also a lot of weight with her bosses. You shouldn’t have put that kind of pressure on—”

“Mickey, my job today is to get you out of jail. I’ll use every tool I can get my hands on—and you would too.”

Before I could respond, Deputy Chan called the courtroom to order. A second later Judge Warfield stepped through the door behind the clerk’s station and moved quickly up the steps to the bench.

“Back on the record in California versus Haller,” she began. “We have a motion to reduce bail. Who will be arguing for the defense?”

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