There was a pause and then Ellis answered.
“Belize. There’s a beach there. And a place I can’t be traced to.”
Bosch knew then that he had a chance. Ellis wanted to talk, to gloat, even.
“Tell me about Alexandra Parks,” he said.
Ellis smirked. He knew Bosch’s play.
“I don’t think I want to give you that,” he said. “You need to take that one with you.”
Ellis calibrated the aim of his weapon, bringing the muzzle up in case Bosch was wearing a vest. From this close he couldn’t miss with a face shot.
Bosch looked over his killer’s shoulder once more into the living room and at the gun he had left behind. A fatal mistake.
Then he saw movement in the house. Mendenhall was in the living room, moving toward the open door of the deck. Between the music inside and the freeway outside, Ellis would not hear her. She was closing on him, gun raised in a two-handed grip and ready.
Bosch looked at Ellis.
“Then let me ask you something else,” he said. “You and Long watched me. You know about my daughter. What would have happened if she were here tonight when you came?”
Bosch could see a smile form in the shadows of his killer’s face.
“What would have happened is she would have been dead before you got here,” Ellis said. “I would’ve let you find her.”
Bosch held his eyes. He thought of the crime scene photos of Alexandra Parks. The brutality inflicted on her. He wanted to make a move toward Ellis, to go for his throat. But he would be expecting that.
Instead, he stood still. He saw that Mendenhall was on the threshold between the house and the deck. He knew that as soon as she stepped onto one of the wooden planks, Ellis would know she was there. Bosch slightly changed his stance to try to cover her advance.
“Why don’t you just do it now?” he said.
Mendenhall took the last two steps up behind Ellis and then, without pause, there was the sharp sound of a shot that seemed to echo right through Bosch’s chest.
Ellis dropped to the deck without firing a shot. Bosch felt a fine mist of blood hit him full in the face.
For a moment he and Mendenhall stood there facing each other. Then Mendenhall dropped to her knees next to Ellis and quickly cuffed his hands behind his back, following policy and procedure even though it was clear he was not a threat to anyone. She then took out her phone and hit a speed-dial number. While she waited for the call to go through, she looked up at Bosch, who had not moved more than an inch since Ellis had pointed the gun at him.
“You okay?” she asked. “I was worried about a through-and-through shot hitting you.”
Bosch bent over for a moment, putting his hands on his knees.
“I’m good,” Bosch said. “That was close. I was seeing the end of things, you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Mendenhall said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Uh, how about you go in and find a seat. Let’s keep the deck clear. I’m calling everybody out.”
Just then her call was answered and she identified herself and gave the house’s address. In a voice as calm as the one she’d use to order a pizza, she asked for a rescue ambulance and a supervisor. She stressed that the scene was secured and then disconnected. Bosch knew she had been talking to the communications center and had been circumspect in the details she offered because she didn’t want to draw the media. There were police scanners in every newsroom in the city.
Mendenhall next made a call to her boss, Ellington, and informed him in more detail of what had just occurred. When she was finished with that call she came inside the house to where Bosch was sitting on the couch in the living room.
“You turned off the music,” she said.
“Yeah, I thought I should,” he said.
“What was that?”
“Wynton Marsalis. ‘The Majesty of the Blues.’”
“It covered me, you know. Ellis didn’t hear me come up on him.”
“If I ever meet Wynton, I’ll thank him. That’s twice now, you know.”
“What’s twice?”
“That you’ve saved my life.”
She shrugged.
“To protect and serve—you know the deal.”
“It’s more than that. What made you come back?”
“Your tip about the burnt-orange Camaro. There’s one parked around the bend. I go by it on my way down the hill and think, That’s him, he’s waiting for Bosch. So I came back.”
“And the door? I’m pretty sure I locked it.”
“Internal Affairs one-oh-one. I’ve planted a lot of bugs in my time. I know my way around a lock with a pick.”
“Impressive, Mendenhall. But you know you’ll probably pay for this—in the department. Doesn’t matter that he was bent. You killed a cop.”
“I had no choice,” she said. “It was a good shooting and I’m not worried.”
“It was right as rain but there still will be blowback.”
Bosch knew that department policy held that deadly force was justified if it was used to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to an officer or a citizen. Mendenhall was not required to identify herself or give Ellis the opportunity to drop his weapon. Her coming up behind him and putting a round into his brain was within policy. She would be quickly cleared by the internal-shooting review board and then the District Attorney’s Office. It would be in the opinion of her peers and the innuendo and gossip that would follow her in the department that she might not fare so well.
Mendenhall looked out the open door at the body and Bosch saw her trying to control a momentary tremor within her own body. It was a response that often came after a shooting.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m good,” she said. “Just sort of…I just killed a man, you know?”
Bosch nodded.
“And you saved one,” he said. “Remember that.”
“I will,” she said. “What was he saying? At the end. I couldn’t hear anything when I was coming up behind him. The music covered that, too.”
Bosch paused before answering. He realized he had an opportunity here. Mendenhall had heard nothing. There was no witness to what Ellis said to him on the deck. What Bosch said now would be considered contemporaneous recall by the courts and given the weight of truth when repeated from the witness stand. He knew that he could guarantee Da’Quan Foster’s freedom by saying that Ellis had gloated that he and Long had murdered Alexandra Parks, that he had admitted everything.
Bosch thought about all the invisible lines he had crossed in the week he had worked the case. An image came to mind; a man with an umbrella struggling for balance on a tightrope. That man was Bosch.
He decided this was one line he couldn’t cross.
“He didn’t say much other than that he was going to Belize,” he said. “He just wanted to make sure I was dead before he split.”
Mendenhall nodded.
“Big mistake,” she said.
53
Bosch was soon haunted by his decision not to lie and say Ellis had admitted he and Long killed Alexandra Parks. In the days following the vice cop’s death, the charges in the Parks murder remained lodged against Da’Quan Foster as the Sheriff’s Department dragged its feet on the investigation. Long was charged with a variety of crimes, including the murder of Dr. George Schubert under the felony-murder law that held him responsible for his co-conspirator’s actions. But the official stand on the Parks case remained unchanged. The Sheriff’s Department refused to acknowledge that the murder charge against Foster was the result of a complex frame-up orchestrated by Ellis and Long.
Bureaucracy, politics, and the inability of public institutions to humbly acknowledge mistakes were all to blame. The two law enforcement agencies were biding their time, refusing comment on what they termed an ongoing joint investigation into the relationship between the murders of Alexandra Parks, James Allen, Peter and Paul Nguyen, and Geor
ge Schubert. The slayings of Deborah Stovall and Josette Leroux, professionally known on the porno circuit as Ashley Juggs and Annie Minx, were also folded in as part of the joint investigation. All the while, Foster remained in the L.A. County Jail on a no-bail hold.
The law enforcement agencies might have been engulfed by inertia, but Foster’s attorney was a blur of forward motion. When charges against his client were not immediately dropped in the aftermath of Ellis’s death and the charging of Long with murder, Mickey Haller filed an emergency 995 motion to overturn the findings of the preliminary hearing based on new evidence—a lot of new evidence. A week later, on a Thursday morning when the temperature in downtown had already ticked past 80 degrees by the 8 a.m. call to order, Mickey Haller stood before Judge Joseph Sackville in Department 114 of the Criminal Courts Building.
One thing that was different from the last time Bosch had seen Haller perform in court was that Bosch was now a participant rather than an observer. Haller would call Bosch as his only witness and use him to introduce the recording taken during the interview and then shoot-out in Schubert’s office. He would also ask him to detail the steps of his investigation of the Parks murder and its connection to the murder of James Allen.
Foster would not be called to the witness stand. It was too risky a move. Any misstep in his testimony could be used against him later at trial should Haller be unsuccessful in his bid to overturn the judge’s ruling at the preliminary hearing. The details of his alibi could be covered in Bosch’s summary of his investigation. Bosch’s experience testifying in trials for more than three decades made him the easy choice over Foster.
Bosch’s testimony had been carefully choreographed by Haller in a two-day run-up to the hearing. Haller made sure Bosch’s testimony thoroughly covered the defense theory that Foster was framed with his own DNA, obtained by Ellis and Long through James Allen. Ellis and Allen were dead and Long was not cooperating. The burden was all on Bosch.
A large audience filled the courtroom. The case had grown to involve seven murders plus the justifiable killing of LAPD Officer Don Ellis. Eight deaths in all made it the biggest thing going in the courthouse or anywhere else in the city, and it was drawing maximum exposure in the media. Local, national, and international reporters crowded the benches in the courtroom gallery. They were supplemented by lawyers and investigators with tangential parts of the case, and various other casual observers. Bosch’s daughter was in the front row behind the defense table, having taken off one of her last remaining days of high school to attend. She was sitting next to Mendenhall, who also had a vested interest in the outcome of the hearing. Noticeably absent from the courtroom was Foster’s own family. He had told Haller not to invite or tell his wife about the hearing for fear she would hear testimony about her husband’s lifestyle choices that would jeopardize their marriage. It would probably be impossible to keep it from her but at least she wouldn’t be on display in a crowded courtroom when the details were aired.
In the row behind the prosecution table sat the widower, Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Harrick, in full uniform. He sat between two other uniformed deputies, there to show support for their colleague and to triple down on the message to the judge that Harrick stood solidly behind the Sheriff’s Department investigation, which still pointed the finger at Da’Quan Foster.
At times as he watched from the witness stand, Bosch wondered whether Haller was playing to the judge or the media. It was his practice to ask a question and when the prosecutor objected, to look at the judge first and then at the gathered members of the media in the gallery.
The deputy district attorney assigned to handle the hearing was named Brad Landreth. He was replacing Ellen Tasker for the announced reason that the 995 hearing conflicted with a trial she was finishing. But the inside word was that the District Attorney’s Office viewed the case as a wounded duck that wasn’t going to fly. They took one of their top prosecutors off it to keep her trial record blemish-free. Landreth’s unenviable job was to try to keep the case on the rails while the Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD continued the glacier-like progress of their investigation. Bosch viewed Landreth as a talented and hardworking prosecutor but not one who would be a match for Mickey Haller.
With multiple objections from Landreth being routinely overruled, it took Haller almost two hours to lead Bosch through his testimony and the introduction of what was now called the Schubert recording. Since the hearing was only before a judge, Haller adopted an informal presentation and never stood during the examination. He remained sitting at the defense table next to Foster, who was clad in a blue jailhouse jumpsuit.
Haller and Bosch hit all the notes they had planned and rehearsed and then it was Landreth’s opportunity for cross-examination. He rose from his seat and went to the lectern, choosing the more formal and perhaps more intimidating stance to question the former police detective.
Rather than attack Bosch’s story on its merits, Landreth chose to potshot Bosch’s methods, his skirting of legalities and shading of truthfulness. He adopted the timeworn strategy of attacking the messenger if the message is unassailable. The exchange regarding each person encountered during Bosch’s investigation was repeated several times:
Landreth: “Did you tell this individual that you were a police officer?”
Bosch: “No, I did not.”
Landreth: “But isn’t it true that you did not dissuade him from his belief that he was indeed talking to a sworn law enforcement officer?”
Bosch: “No, not true. He didn’t think I was a police officer because I never told him I was. I had no badge, no gun, and I didn’t say I was a cop.”
The strategy grew tiresome for everyone in the courtroom, especially Judge Sackville, who had allotted only the morning’s hours for the hearing. He was soon ruling on objections before Haller could completely articulate them. He repeatedly ordered Landreth to move along and finally told the prosecutor that he was wasting the court’s valuable time.
Landreth finally ended his cross and Bosch was able to step down and take a seat at the defense table next to Haller. Sitting there gave Bosch an uneasy feeling. He felt like he was on the wrong side of the room, as though he were driving a car with the steering wheel on the right.
Haller didn’t notice his discomfort. He drummed his fingers on the table as he contemplated his next move. The judge finally prompted him.
“Mr. Haller, do you have another witness?”
Haller leaned toward Bosch and whispered in his ear.
“Let’s roll the dice here, see if we can’t get them to step into the bear trap.”
He then stood up and addressed the court.
“No other witnesses, Your Honor. The defense is ready to argue the matter.”
As Haller sat back down, Sackville turned his attention to Landreth.
“Does the state wish to call witnesses?” he asked.
Landreth stood.
“The state calls Sheriff’s Detective Lazlo Cornell.”
Cornell rose from his position at the prosecution table and walked to the witness stand. After being sworn in by the clerk, he began his testimony, with Landreth leading him through the steps of his own investigation of the Alexandra Parks murder.
Bosch leaned back at one point and glanced at his daughter. He nodded and she nodded back. He then glanced from Maddie to Mendenhall and they caught eyes. A small smile played on the Internal Affairs detective’s face. Earlier, in the hallway outside the courtroom, Bosch had introduced Mendenhall to his daughter as the woman who had saved his life twice. It had embarrassed Mendenhall and maybe Maddie, but Harry was happy that he had made the introduction in the way he had.
Landreth used Cornell to hammer down the horror of the murder of Alexandra Parks and the painstaking detail of the crime scene investigation and subsequent autopsy. This eventually led to specific testimony detailing the collection of semen from locations on and inside the body and Cornell’s professional opinion that the DNA material had been dep
osited during a brutal sexual assault and not planted.
Harrick remained in the courtroom through all of this testimony, his chin up and resolute, holding strong for his wife. His demeanor left no doubt that he believed he was sitting only twelve feet from his wife’s killer. The machinations of the defense were just that to him. An attempt to manipulate the truth. He remained in solidarity with the official line.
Landreth concluded Cornell’s testimony with a softball roundup question about his final conclusions.
“I believe at this time and based on my lengthy experience investigating rape-murders that Ms. Parks was indeed raped and that the semen found on her thigh, on the sheets, and in her vagina was deposited by her attacker during the assault. It was not planted. It was not brought to the scene. I find that to be preposterous.”
Landreth turned the questioning over to Haller.
“Detective Cornell, did any of the investigators or forensics people recover a condom at the crime scene?”
Cornell seemed to scoff at the question.
“No,” he said. “There was a substantial amount of semen collected and no indication that a condom was used in this crime. The semen collected from the body and the sheets was indicative of no condom. It was the killer’s mistake.”
“The killer’s mistake,” Haller repeated. “This is a killer who you say carefully stalked his victim, correct?”
“That is correct.”
“And carefully planned this murder, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Knew that the victim did not own a dog despite the sign at the front of her house, right?”
“We think so.”
“And broke in through a rear window while the victim slept, correct?”
“Correct.”
“So it’s your testimony based on your experience and knowledge of this case that the killer did all of these things, carefully selected and stalked this victim, then meticulously planned and carried out this murder, but then just forgot to bring a condom?”
“It’s possible that he brought a condom but didn’t use it. It is quite possible that in the frenzy of the attack, he forgot to use it.”