“Shit.”
“She was...”
Bosch turned his body casually as if he were reaching down with his left hand to adjust the cuff of his right pant leg. His back to his daughter, he continued.
“Tortured — to put it politely — and left in a Dumpster in an alley off of Cahuenga.”
Cisco shook his head.
“I guess if anybody ever had a reason...”
“Right.”
“Did they at least catch the bastard?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
Cisco laughed without humor.
“Not yet?” he said. “Like it’s going to get solved ten years later?”
Bosch looked at him for a long moment without replying.
“You never know,” he said.
Haller entered the courtroom then, saw his investigator and client sitting together, and pointed in the direction of the hallway outside. He hadn’t noticed Maddie because the two bigger men had eclipsed her from the doorway angle. Bosch whispered to Maddie to stay where she was, and started to get up. Maddie put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“Who were you just talking about?”
“Uh, a woman from a case. She needed help and I asked Cisco to get involved.”
“What kind of help? Who’s Daisy?”
“We can talk about it later. I need to go out and talk to my — your uncle — about the hearing. Stay here and I’ll be back.”
Bosch got up and followed Cisco out. Most people in the long hallway congregated down in the middle near the snack bar, restrooms, and elevators. Team Bosch found an open bench with some privacy by the door to Department 107 and sat down, Haller in the middle.
“Okay, boys, are we ready to rock?” the lawyer said. “How are my witnesses? Where are my witnesses?”
“Locked and loaded, I think,” Cisco said.
“Tell me about Spencer,” Haller said. “You guys stayed with him, right?”
“All night,” Cisco said. “As of twenty minutes ago, he was still at his new lawyer’s office in the Bradbury.”
Bosch knew that meant Spencer was only two blocks away. Haller turned on the bench and looked at him eye to eye.
“And you, I told you to get some sleep,” he said. “But you still look like shit, and there’s dust on the shoulders of that suit, man.”
Haller reached out and roughly slapped off the dust that had settled on the suit during the two or more years it had been on a hanger in Bosch’s closet.
“I don’t have to remind you, this is probably all going to come down to you,” Haller said. “Be sharp. Be forthright. These people are fucking with everything that is important to you.”
“I know that,” Bosch said.
As if on cue, the CIU team came out of the stairwell down the hall, having taken the steps down from the D.A.’s Office. It was Kennedy, Soto, and Tapscott. They were heading to Department 107. Another woman, who was carrying a cardboard file box with two hands, followed. She was most likely Kennedy’s assistant.
Further behind them, coming from the elevator alcove at the same time, walked Cronyn and Cronyn. Lance Cronyn wore steel-rimmed glasses and had slicked-back jet-black hair that was obviously dyed. His suit was black with pinstripes and his tie a loud aqua. He looked like he went to great lengths to appear young, and the reason was right next to him, matching him stride for stride. Katherine Cronyn was at least twenty years his junior. She had flowing red hair and a voluptuous figure clad in a blue calf-length skirt and matching jacket over a chiffon blouse.
“Here they all come,” Bosch said.
Haller looked up from a yellow legal pad he was referring to and saw the opposition approaching.
“Like lambs to slaughter,” he said, his voice brimming with bravado and confidence.
Team Bosch remained seated as the others made the turn toward the courtroom door. Kennedy kept his eyes averted, as though there was no one sitting on the bench fifteen feet away. But Soto locked eyes with Bosch and peeled off from her team to approach him. She was unhesitant about speaking in front of Haller and Wojciechowski.
“Harry, why didn’t you call me back?” she asked. “I left you several messages.”
“Because there was nothing to say, Lucia,” Bosch said. “You guys believe Borders over me and there’s nothing else to say.”
“I believe the forensic evidence, Harry. It doesn’t mean I believe you planted the other evidence. The stuff in the paper didn’t come from me.”
“Then how did the evidence I found get there, Lucia? How did Dani Skyler’s pendant get into the suspect’s apartment?”
“I don’t know, but you weren’t in there alone.”
“So you’re still willing to pass the buck to a dead guy.”
“I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is that I don’t need to know the answer to that.”
Bosch stood up so he could speak to her face-to-face.
“Yeah, well, see, that doesn’t work for me, Lucia. You can’t believe in the forensic evidence without believing that the other evidence was planted in the apartment. And that’s why I didn’t call you back.”
She shook her head sadly and then turned away. Tapscott was holding the courtroom door open for her. He gave Bosch the deadeye stare as Soto went by him. Bosch watched the door silently close behind them.
“Look at this,” Haller said.
Bosch looked down the hall and saw two women approaching. They were dressed for a night of clubbing, with black skirts cut to midthigh and patterned black stockings, one with skulls on them, the other crucifixes.
“Groupies,” Cisco said. “If Borders walks out of here today, he’ll probably be banging a different broad every night for a year.”
The first two were followed by three more, dressed similarly and with tattoos and piercings to the max. Then from the elevator alcove came a woman in a pale yellow dress appropriate for court. Her blond hair was tied back and she walked with a hesitancy that suggested she had not been in a courthouse since the first trial thirty years before.
“Is this Dina?” Haller asked.
“That’s her,” Bosch said.
When Bosch had visited her Monday night, he thought Dina Rousseau was beautiful and the image of what her sister might have grown to be. She had given up on acting when she got married to a studio executive and started a family. She told Bosch she had no doubt that Preston Borders had been her sister’s killer and would not hesitate to tell a judge so or to appear in court simply as moral support.
Haller and Cisco joined Bosch in standing as she approached, and Bosch introduced her.
“We certainly appreciate your willingness to come here today and to testify if necessary,” Haller said.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t,” she said.
“I don’t know if Detective Bosch told you this, Ms. Rousseau, but Borders will be in the courtroom today. He’s been transported down from San Quentin for the hearing. I hope that is not going to cause you any undue emotional distress.”
“Of course it will. But Harry told me that he would be here, and I’m ready. Just point me to where I need to go.”
“Cisco, why don’t you take Ms. Rousseau into the courtroom and sit with her. We still have a few minutes and we’re going to wait for our last witness.”
Cisco did as instructed, and that left Bosch and Haller standing in the hallway. Bosch pulled his phone and checked the time. They had ten minutes until the hearing was scheduled to start.
“Come on, Spencer, where are you?” Haller said.
They both stared down the long hallway. Because the top of the hour was approaching, the crowds were thinning as people went into the various courtrooms for the start of hearings and trials. It left the space outside of court wide open.