“This technology, Mr. Haller, will soon engulf our world like a tidal wave. It can’t be stopped. Not by a lawyer. Not by a jury.”
“I don’t doubt that. But I’m not trying to stop it. I’m just trying to make it safer.”
“What do you really want, Mr. Haller?”
“Your attorneys know what I want. What my client wants. She wants her child back, but you can’t give her that. So she wants public accountability and an apology.”
“She is standing in front of the wave. She has to get out of the way before it’s too late.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is a fact.”
“Is that what you would tell the jury if I called you as a witness?”
Wendt didn’t reply. He just stared at me with what looked like both surprise and disappointment in his eyes. He then brought the briefcase up and put it down on an uncluttered corner of the desk. He unsnapped the locks and opened it, then turned it so the contents were facing me. The case was lined with bundles of hundred-dollar bills. The paper wrap around each bundle said $25,000. There were two rows of eight, and my math was strong enough to know there was $400K showing. But it was a thick briefcase.
“The stacks go five deep,” Wendt said.
Two million. In cash.
“I’m sure your lawyers have told you that my client has turned down twenty-five times what you’ve got there,” I said.
“Of course they have,” Wendt said. “This is not for your client. This is for you. Get her to take the fifty.”
“So it’s a bribe. You realize I have a camera recording this whole meeting?”
I pointed to the camera in the corner of the ceiling behind him. Wendt didn’t turn to confirm its existence. Instead, he smiled like he was dealing with a child.
“Your cameras will show no record that I was ever here,” he said. “This is between you and me, Mr. Haller.”
“I don’t want your money until a judge and jury make you pay it,” I said.
“Are you sure about that? I understand your ex-wife underinsured her house in Altadena, and what little money is owed her for rebuilding may not come for quite some time. You could help her get things moving with this.”
He gestured to the money. I stared silently at him for a long moment, trying to contain my anger.
“Did you fly your G-five all the way down here just to bribe me?” I finally asked.
Wendt said nothing.
“Sorry to waste all that fuel,” I said. “But I need to get back to work, Mr. Wendt. Take your money and your lawyers and your bodyguards and get the fuck out of here.”
I saw a dark red flush come into his smooth, tan face. He was angry and embarrassed at his failure. My guess was that it didn’t happen to him too often. He closed the briefcase as he stood up. He walked to the door, then turned back to me.
“I’ll never pay her,” he said. “Even if we lose the case, I’ll hang it up in appeals forever. She’ll never get a dime from me and neither will you. I’m going to leave you high and dry, Mr. Haller.”
For some reason I nodded.
“We’ll just have to see about that,” I said.
He walked out, leaving the door open and me embarrassed by such a weak comeback. We’ll just have to see about that. It was a pitiful response. But quickly those thoughts were crowded out by outrage over the move that Wendt had just pulled — that he had come into my office with his bag of money, thinking he could buy his way out of the case. In that moment I made a vow that it was Wendt who would be left high and dry.
I could tell by the clicking of his heels on the polished concrete floor out in the garage that Wendt was walking fast, his entourage falling in behind him. I heard Mitchell Mason ask how it had gone in the office. He didn’t get a reply.
After they left, Lorna hurried back to see me.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “He offered me two million in cash to convince Brenda to settle.”
“And you told him no way?”
“Words to that effect. Will you reboot the cameras?”
“What’s wrong with the cameras?”
“I think he knocked them out before they got here.”
“Holy shit, they can do that?”
“They seem to be able to do anything... anything but stop me and this case.”
42
At ten a.m. Friday I was ushered in to see Ali Adebayo at the district attorney’s office. Adebayo’s title was chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit, but in reality he was the only prosecutor assigned to it. DA McPherson learned shortly after taking office that she did not have the personnel to properly set up the unit she had promised to institute. She had a CIU sign made and posted on the door to Adebayo’s office and tasked him with the job until the next budget could be squeezed for more staff.
Adebayo was a seasoned prosecutor whom I was familiar with from my days in criminal defense. When I entered the office I found he was not alone. His boss, my ex-wife and current roommate, was waiting with him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing this in today?” she asked.
“Uh, because you’re the DA and I thought it was best to go through proper channels,” I said. “I didn’t want any blowback to come to you or the case.”
I reached across the desk to shake hands with Adebayo.
“Ali,” I said. “It’s been a minute.”
“Yeah, I see you’re over in the fed now,” Adebayo said. “Tilting at tech windmills.”
“Something like that. But we’re off till Monday and this other case is time-sensitive.”
“Well, let’s hear it, then.”
I looked at Maggie and she nodded. She was staying.
“Well, I only brought one copy with me,” I began. “But I have a petition here and medical reports and statements from two different physicians who have examined the victim and reviewed her history.”
I handed the file I was carrying across the desk. Adebayo took it and opened it. While he took the petition, Maggie took the backup statements and X-ray copies. My phone buzzed. I pulled it and checked the screen. I recognized the number as belonging to Judge Ruhlin’s clerk. I sent the call to voicemail.
“What is this?” Maggie said. “These doctors made these statements based on these twenty-year-old photocopies?”
“Both doctors said the fractures were clear in the copies,” I said.
“Where are the originals?”
“Uh, it looks like they’re gone. The copies are from court archives. After the trial, the court allowed the lawyer who handled the appeal to take the originals.”
“Who was that?”
“Joel Firestone. I don’t know if you knew him. He died about ten years ago and somebody cleared out his office and got rid of the files from dead cases. The appeals had run their course.”
Maggie shook her head, then looked back down at the documents and started reading one of the physician’s statements. She seemed to be all business, as though I were any lawyer who had come in repping a convict. I knew it was the way it should be, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the coldness was residual upset from the night before, when I told her about how Victor Wendt had tried to bribe me and what he had said about her insurance and rebuilding situation. It infuriated her that my case had resulted in such an invasion of her private life.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it and saw that it was the clerk calling again.
“Look, I’m going to step out and take this,” I said. “I’ll be in the hallway. Why don’t you two keep reading.”
I answered the call as I went through the door.
“Mr. Haller, Judge Ruhlin wants to see you in chambers forthwith,” the clerk said.
“Uh, I’m in a meeting at the DA’s office,” I said. “Is this about the juror with COVID? Are more jurors sick?”