“Sorry,” Ballard said quickly. “I didn’t mean to suggest... I liked Judge Montgomery. I told you that.”
“I liked him, too. I just want to make sure the right guy goes down for killing him, that’s all.”
“Of course. Of course. We all do.”
Bosch didn’t respond further. He still felt the heat of being unjustly accused of something. He turned and looked down the hallway at people going in and out of courtrooms, waiting on benches, wandering aimlessly in the halls of justice. He saw some of the jurors from the Montgomery case coming back from the restrooms.
“So why are you here?” he finally asked. “You get something at ballistics this morning?”
“Actually, no,” Ballard said.
Her tone had shifted. Bosch thought she was probably happy to change the subject after stepping into the shit with him on the trial.
“There was nothing in the data bank that matched the projectile or shell from Hilton,” she continued. “But at least it’s in there now should anything come up down the line.”
“Too bad,” Bosch said. “But we knew it was a long shot. What’s next? Rialto?”
“The more I find out about Elvin Kidd, the more I think the answer is out there.”
“What did you find now?”
Ballard pulled her backpack over and removed her laptop. She opened it and drew up side-by-side mug shots of a black man facing front and turned to the right.
“These are mug shots of Kidd from Corcoran, taken in 1989, the year he and John Hilton were both there. Now look at this.”
She pulled Hilton’s sketchbook out of the backpack. She opened it to a specific page and handed it to Bosch. He compared the drawing on the page to the man in the mug shots.
“It’s a match,” he said.
“They knew each other up there,” Ballard said. “I think they were lovers. And then when they both paroled out and came back to L.A., that was a problem for Kidd. He was a Crip OG. Any gay vibe and that could be fatal.”
“That’s a big jump. You nail down that he was gay?”
“Not at the moment, it’s just a guess. There’s something about the drawings in the sketchbook... then the whole drug addiction thing, the coldness of the parents in their statement. I’m still working that. Why — what do you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that. But I do remember that John Jack and I worked a few gay murders, and John Jack never got too motivated about them. It was his one flaw. He could never get the fire burning if it was a gay victim. I remember this one case — a one-nighter gone bad. An old guy picked up a young guy in West Hollywood, took him back to his place in the hills off Outpost. The kid robbed him, then beat him to death with his belt. It had a big rodeo buckle and it was a bad scene. And I remember John Jack said something that bothered me. He said, ‘Sometimes people deserve what they get.’ I’m not saying that’s wrong all the time — I’ve had cases where I believed that. But in that case it was wrong.”
“Everybody counts or nobody counts.”
“You got it.”
“So again we come to why did John Jack take the murder book?
Was it because he hated gays and didn’t want it solved?”
“That seems extreme. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“Maybe not.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. More jurors were returning to the assembly room. Bosch knew he had to get back into the courtroom. More out of curiosity about what was happening than any duty to be in there.
“Doesn’t matter what Thompson did or didn’t do with the case,” Bosch said. “Or Hunter and Talis.”
“We’re still going to solve it,” Ballard said.
Bosch nodded.
“We are,” he said.
He stood up and looked down at Ballard.
“I need to get back in there. Are you going to Rialto?”
“No. West Hollywood. To see Hilton’s old roommate, see if I can confirm some of this.”
“Let me know how it goes.”
20
Bosch entered the courtroom as the last few jurors were returning to their places in the box and the judge turned in his high-backed chair so he could look directly at the panel when he spoke. Bosch slipped into his familiar spot in the last row of the gallery. He saw that both Haller and Saldano were in their seats and looking directly ahead, so Harry got no read from them on what was happening. Just as the judge was about to begin, the courtroom door opened and Jerry Gustafson, the lead LAPD detective on the case, hurried in and up the center aisle, then sat in the first row directly behind the prosecution table. Gustafson had been in and out of the courtroom during the days Bosch had attended trial sessions.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Falcone began. “First of all, I want to thank you for your public service on this case. Jury duty can be time consuming, difficult, and sometimes even traumatic. You all have been troupers these past ten days and I and the state of California commend you and thank you.
“However, there has been a change and this case has come to an end. The District Attorney’s office has elected to drop all charges against Mr. Herstadt and not proceed further with the case at this time.”
There was the required buzz of whispers in the courtroom as a scattering of observers and the row of reporters reacted to the news. Bosch watched Haller’s back. He did not move and he made no motion toward his client to clap him on the arm or shoulder, no visual indication of victory.
Bosch did see Gustafson, who was leaning forward, arms on the courtroom rail, drop his head like a man kneeling in church, beseeching his god for a miracle.
But what confused Bosch was the judge’s last three words: at this time. What did that mean? He knew, as assuredly as the judge did, that to drop all charges at this point was tantamount to an acquittal. There were no comebacks. In California a trial is considered engaged the moment a jury is selected. To go after Herstadt again after this would invoke his double-jeopardy protections. Bosch had no doubt: the case against Jeffrey Herstadt was over.
Following his unclear explanation the judge thanked the jurors one more time and asked them to return to the assembly room and wait. He said the prosecution team wanted to talk to them. Bosch guessed that Saldano wanted to survey them to see where they stood on a verdict. The conversation might tell her whether she had made a critical mistake in dropping the case. It could also confirm she had made the right decision.
Falcone adjourned court and left the bench. Haller stood for the exit and finally looked around to see Bosch in the last row. He smiled and shot a finger at him, then blew on his finger as though it was the imaginary barrel of a gun. Finally, he reached down and squeezed his seated client’s shoulder. He bent down and started whispering in his ear.
Saldano and her second got up from the prosecution table and started making their way toward the jury assembly room door. Gustafson stood up and headed back down the aisle toward the courtroom exit. He stopped to look at Bosch. Years back they had worked together in the massive Robbery-Homicide Division squad room, but did not know each other well.
“Happy, Bosch?”
“What exactly happened?”
“Saldano dropped the case to keep her perfect record clean. Herstadt walks and whatever happens, that’s on you, asshole. I know you teed this up for Haller.”
“You still think he did it.”
“Fuck you, man. I know he did it and so do you.”
“What about the other five, Gustafson?”
“What five?”
“We got the murder book in discovery. You and your partner, you were chopping wood on five other people who would’ve been happy to have Montgomery dead, but you just dropped it when you got the DNA hit on Herstadt. You going to go back to them?”