The Gods of Guilt (Mickey Haller 5) (29 page)

“Realistically, my job here is to sow the seeds of doubt in your mind. If you have reasonable doubt when it comes to Andre’s guilt or innocence, then it is your job to find the defendant not guilty. But over the next few days I will go beyond that, and you will come with me. You will come to know that Andre is completely innocent. And you will come to know who really committed this terrible crime.”

I paused here but kept my eyes moving across the faces of the jurors. I had them. I could tell.

“Now, before closing, let me just address something that I’m sure has bothered you throughout the presentation of the prosecution’s case. That is Mr. La Cosse’s means of making a living. To tell you the truth, it bothers me, too. Essentially, he’s a digital pimp. And, like many of you, I am a parent, and it disturbs me to think about someone profiting from the sexual exploitation of young women and men. But the verdict you will deliver in this case is not to be influenced by what Andre La Cosse does for a living. You cannot judge him guilty of murder simply because of what he is. I ask you to think of the victim in this case, Gloria Dayton, and ask yourself, did she deserve to be murdered because she was a prostitute? The answer of course is no, and so, too, is the answer to the question should Andre La Cosse be convicted of murder simply because he is a pimp?”

I paused, put my hands in my pocket, and looked down at the floor. It was time for the big finish. When I looked up, my eyes came directly to Mallory’s.

“In closing, I make you a promise that you can hold me to. If I do not make good on what I say here, then go ahead and find my client guilty. It’s a gamble I am willing to take, and that Andre is willing to take, because we know where the truth is. We have the righteousness of the innocent.”

I paused again, hoping Forsythe would throw out an objection. I wanted the jury to see him challenging me, trying to stop me from speaking the truth. But the prosecutor wasn’t off the first bus from law school. He knew what he was doing and he held back, not giving me what I wanted.

I moved on.

“The defense will put forth evidence and testimony that proves Mr. La Cosse is nothing more than a patsy. An innocent patsy in the worst kind of scheme. A scheme in which those we trust the most have conspired to frame an innocent man. This is a story about how a conspiracy to protect a hidden truth ultimately led to murder and cover-up. It is my hope”—I turned and used a hand gesture to indicate Andre La Cosse—“as it is Mr. La Cosse’s hope, that you will find the truth with us and return the appropriate verdict of not guilty. Thank you very much.”

I returned to my seat and immediately checked my notes to see if I had forgotten anything.

It looked like I had hit all the highlights, and that pleased me. Andre leaned over and whispered his thanks. I told him he hadn’t seen anything yet.

“I think we will now take the morning break,” the judge said. “When we come back in fifteen minutes we will begin the defense’s presentation.”

I stood as the jury got up, and watched them move single file through the door to the assembly room. I watched Mallory Gladwell move with her head down. Then, at the last moment, just as she was about to slip through the doorway and out of sight, she turned to look back into the courtroom. Her eyes landed on mine and held for the split second before she was gone.

As soon as the judge adjourned, I headed out to the courthouse hallway to check the status of my first witness.

T
he real reason I had fled the courtroom the moment the judge adjourned and the jury left was to get to the restroom. I had been up since four, thinking about the trial and readying myself for my opener. I had kept the fire stoked with copious amounts of coffee and now it was time to purge.

I saw Cisco sitting on a bench in the hallway next to Fernando Valenzuela.

“How we doing?” I asked as I walked by.

“We’re great,” Cisco replied.

“Yeah, sure,” Valenzuela said.

“I’ll be right back,” I said.

A few minutes later relief was flooding through me as I stood at the urinal. I even had my eyes closed as I replayed some of the opening statement in my mind. I didn’t hear the restroom door open and didn’t realize someone had come up behind me. Just as I was zipping up, I was pushed face-first into the tiled wall over the urinal. My arms were pinned and I couldn’t move.

“Where’s your cartel protection now?”

I recognized the voice as well as the breath of coffee and cigarettes.

“Lankford, get the fuck off me.”

“You want to fuck with me, Haller? You want to do the dance?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you ruin this suit, I’m going to see the judge about it. My investigator’s sitting out there. He saw you come in.”

He yanked me off the wall and twirled me into the swinging door on a toilet stall. I recovered quickly and looked down at my suit to check for damage and buckle my belt. I did it nonchalantly like I wasn’t concerned in the least about Lankford’s menacing me.

“Go back to court, Lankford.”

“Why am I on the list? Why do you want me on the stand?”

I walked over to the row of sinks and calmly washed my hands.

“Why do you think?” I asked.

“That day in the office,” he said. “You said you saw me wearing a hat. Why the fuck would you say that?”

I looked up from my hands to the mirror and looked at him.

“I mentioned a hat?”

I reached over and pulled down a handful of paper towels to dry my hands.

“Yeah, you mentioned a hat. Why?”

I threw the wet towels in the trash can, turned, and then hesitated as though I was recalling something from the distant past. Then I looked at him and shook my head as though confused.

“I don’t know about the hat. But I know if you touch me again like that, you’re going to have more trouble than you can handle.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, leaving Lankford behind. I could barely contain a smile as I approached Cisco, who was still on the bench with Valenzuela. The first rule of Marco Polo was to keep them guessing. Lankford would soon have more than his hat to worry about.

“Everything okay?” Cisco asked.

“Lankford try to grab your dick in there?” Valenzuela added.

“Yeah, something like that,” I said. “Let’s go in.”

I opened the door to the courtroom and held it for them. As they passed by me, I checked the hallway for Lankford and didn’t see him. But I did see my half brother walking down the hall, a thick blue binder under his arm.

“Harry.”

He turned without breaking stride and saw me. He smiled when he recognized me and stopped.

“Mick, how are you, man? How’s the arm?”

“It’s good. You in a trial?”

“Yeah, in one eleven.”

“Hey, that’s the one stealing all the media from my trial.”

I said it mock protest and smiled.

“It’s a cold case from ’ninety-four. A guy named Patrick Sewell—one sick puppy. They brought him down from San Quentin where he was already doing life for another murder. They’re going for the death penalty this time.”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to say good luck. He was, after all, working for the other side.

“So anything new on your driver?” he asked. “They hook anybody up yet?”

I looked at him for a moment, wondering if he might have heard something about the investigation on the law enforcement circuit.

“Not yet,” I said.

“That’s too bad,” he said.

I nodded in agreement.

“Well, I gotta get back in. Good to see you, Harry.”

“You, too. We should try to get the girls together again.”

“Sure.”

We had daughters the same age. But his apparently still talked to him on a regular basis. After all, he put bad people in jail. I got them out.

I entered the court, privately chiding myself for the negative thoughts. I tried to remember Legal Siegel’s admonishment to let the guilt go so I could be at my best in defending La Cosse.

After the jury was reseated I called the first witness for the defense. Valenzuela walked to the witness stand, bouncing his palm along the top of the front rail of the jury box as he went. He acted as though testifying at a murder trial was as routine as buying smokes at the 7-Eleven.

He took the oath and spelled his name for the clerk. I took it from there, asking him first to tell the jury what he did for a living.

“Well,” he responded. “You might say I’m a man of many talents. I’m the oil that keeps the justice system moving smoothly.”

I almost corrected him by suggesting that he actually meant he was the grease that kept the system moving, but I held back. He was my witness, after all. Instead, I asked him to be more specific about his work.

“For one thing, I’m a state-licensed bail bondsman,” he said. “I also got my PI license and I use that for process. And if you go down to the second-floor coffee shop in this building, then I’m the leaseholder on that. I’m with my brother on that deal. So—”

“Let’s go back for a moment,” I interrupted. “What is a PI license?”

“Private investigator. You gotta have a state license if you want to do that kind of work.”

“Okay, and what do you mean when you say you use your license ‘for process’?”

“Uh, process. You know, process serving. Like when people get sued and stuff and the lawyer has to put out a subpoena if he wants to call somebody to come in to give a statement or a deposition or come to a trial so they can testify. Like what I’m doing right now.”

“So you deliver the subpoena to the witness?”

“Yes, like that. That’s what I do.”

For all his years spent being the oil in the machine, it was pretty clear that Valenzuela did not have much experience testifying. His answers were choppy and incomplete. Whereas I thought he would be one of the easier witnesses to question, I found myself having to work extra hard with him to get a complete answer to the jury. It was not the perfect way to start the defense case, but I pressed on, annoyed more with myself than with him for not conducting a practice run-through beforehand.

“Okay, now did your work as a process server bring you in contact with the victim in this case, Gloria Dayton?”

Valenzuela frowned. What I believed was a straightforward question had thrown him for a loop.

“Well . . . it did, but at the time I didn’t know it. What I mean is, her name wasn’t Gloria Dayton at the one and only time I came in contact with her, you see.”

“You mean she was using a different name?”

“Yes, she was. The name that was on the subpoena I delivered to her was Giselle Dallinger. That’s who I served paper on.”

“Okay, and when was that?”

“That was on Monday, November fifth at six oh six in the evening at the lobby entrance of the apartment building on Franklin, where she lived.”

“You seem pretty precise about the time and place you did this. How can you be so sure?”

“Because I document every service in case somebody doesn’t show up for court or for a depo. Then I will be able to tell the lawyer or the judge that, see, sure enough, the person was served and should’ve been there. I show them the record and I show them the picture which has the date and time stamp on it.”

“You take a photo?”

“Yep, That’s my policy.”

“So you took a photograph of Giselle Dallinger after you served her with a subpoena last November fifth?”

“That’s right.”

I then produced an eight-by-ten copy of the date- and time-stamped photo that Valenzuela had taken of Giselle née Gloria and asked the judge to accept it as the first defense exhibit. Forsythe objected to the inclusion of the photo and was willing to stipulate that Valenzuela had served a subpoena on Gloria Dayton. But I fought for the photo because I wanted the jurors to see it. The judge sided with me and I handed the photo to juror number one so it could be examined and then passed from juror to juror.

More than anything else, this was what I wanted to accomplish with Valenzuela on the stand. The image was key because it did more than bring validity to Valenzuela’s story. It also captured a look of fear in Gloria’s eyes that had to be seen and not testified to. The photo was taken at precisely the moment she looked up from having read the subpoena. She had seen the name Moya in the styling of the case—
Hector Arrande Moya vs Arthur Rollins, warden, FCI Victorville
—and in that instant she had been struck with fear. I wanted the jury to see that look and to surmise that it was fear without me or a witness having to tell them.

“Mr. Valenzuela, who were you delivering that subpoena for?” I asked.

“I was working for an attorney named Sylvester Fulgoni Jr.,” he responded.

I half expected Valenzuela to add to his answer the improvisation about Fulgoni being the attorney who put the F-U in litigation, but luckily he spared the jury that. Maybe he was finally getting the hang of being a witness.

“And what was the case the subpoena was attached to?”

“It was called
Moya versus Rollins
. A convicted drug dealer named Hector Moya was trying to—”

Forsythe objected and asked to approach the judge’s bench. He obviously didn’t want the jury hearing any part of what Valenzuela wanted to say. The judge waved us up and turned on the noise-canceling fan.

“Judge, where is this going?” Forsythe asked. “With his very first witness Mr. Haller is trying to hijack this murder case and take us into another, completely unrelated litigation. I’ve held back on my objections, but now . . . we have to stop this.”

I noted his use of
we
, as though he and the judge shared the responsibility of keeping me in check.

“Your Honor,” I said, “Mr. Forsythe wants to stop this because he knows exactly where I am going with it—and it’s a place that he knows is going to derail his whole case. The case Gloria Dayton was served on is exceedingly germane to this case and this trial, and the entire defense theory is built on it. I am asking you to let me proceed and soon enough you will understand why the state wants to block this.”

“‘Exceedingly,’ Mr. Haller?”