“When?”
“Last night. I’m sorry.”
My eyes dropped and I looked at the nameplate on her desk. Honorable M. T. Holder was carved in script into a two-dimensional wooden display that held a ceremonial gavel and a fountain pen and inkwell.
“How close were you?” she asked.
It was a good question and I didn’t really know the answer. I kept my eyes down as I spoke.
“We had cases against each other when he was with the DA and I was at the PD. We both left for private practice around the same time and both of us had one-man shops. Over the years we worked some cases together, a couple of drug trials, and we sort of covered for each other when it was needed. He threw me a case occasionally when it was something he didn’t want to handle.”
I had had a professional relationship with Jerry Vincent. Every now and then we clicked glasses at Four Green Fields or saw each other at a ball game at Dodger Stadium. But for me to say we were close would have been an exaggeration. I knew little about him outside of the world of law. I had heard about a divorce a while back on the courthouse gossip line but had never even asked him about it. That was personal information and I didn’t need to know it.
“You seem to forget, Mr. Haller, but I was with the DA back when Mr. Vincent was a young up-and-comer. But then he lost a big case and his star faded. That was when he left for private practice.”
I looked at the judge but said nothing.
“And I seem to recall that you were the defense attorney on that case,” she added.
I nodded.
“Barnett Woodson. I got an acquittal on a double murder. He walked out of the courtroom and sarcastically apologized to the media for getting away with murder. He had to rub the DA’s face in it and that pretty much ended Jerry’s career as a prosecutor.”
“Then, why would he ever work with you or throw you cases?”
“Because, Judge, by ending his career as a prosecutor, I started his career as a defense attorney.”
I left it at that but it wasn’t enough for her.
“And?”
“And a couple of years later he was making about five times what he had made with the DA. He called me up one day and thanked me for showing him the light.”
The judge nodded knowingly.
“It came down to money. He wanted the money.”
I shrugged like I was uncomfortable answering for a dead man and didn’t respond.
“What happened to your client?” the judge asked. “What became of the man who got away with murder?”
“He would’ve been better off taking a conviction. Woodson got killed in a drive-by about two months after the acquittal.”
The judge nodded again, this time as if to say end of story, justice served. I tried to put the focus back on Jerry Vincent.
“I can’t believe this about Jerry. Do you know what happened?”
“That’s not clear. He was apparently found late last night in his car in the garage at his office. He had been shot to death. I am told that the police are still there at the crime scene and there have been no arrests. All of this comes from a Times reporter who called my chambers to make an inquiry about what will happen now with Mr. Vincent’s clients—especially Walter Elliot.”
I nodded. For the last twelve months I had been in a vacuum but it wasn’t so airtight that I hadn’t heard about the movie mogul murder case. It was just one in a string of big-time cases Vincent had scored over the years. Despite the Woodson fiasco, his pedigree as a high-profile prosecutor had set him up from the start as an upper-echelon criminal defense attorney. He didn’t have to go looking for clients; they came looking for him. And usually they were clients who could pay or had something to say, meaning they had at least one of three attributes: They could pay top dollar for legal representation, they were demonstrably innocent of the charges lodged against them, or they were clearly guilty but had public opinion and sentiment on their side. These were clients he could get behind and forthrightly defend no matter what they were accused of. Clients who didn’t make him feel greasy at the end of the day.
And Walter Elliot qualified for at least one of those attributes. He was the chairman/owner of Archway Pictures and a very powerful man in Hollywood. He had been charged with murdering his wife and her lover in a fit of rage after discovering them together in a Malibu beach house. The case had all sorts of connections to sex and celebrity and was drawing wide media attention. It had been a publicity machine for Vincent and now it would go up for grabs.
The judge broke through my reverie.
“Are you familiar with RPC two-three-hundred?” she asked.
I involuntarily gave myself away by squinting my eyes at the question.
“Uh… not exactly.”
“Let me refresh your memory. It is the section of the California bar’s rules of professional conduct referring to the transfer or sale of a law practice. We, of course, are talking about a transfer in this case. Mr. Vincent apparently named you as his second in his standard contract of representation. This allowed you to cover for him when he needed it and included you, if necessary, in the attorney-client relationship. Additionally, I have found that he filed a motion with the court ten years ago that allowed for the transfer of his practice to you should he become incapacitated or deceased. The motion has never been altered or updated, but it’s clear what his intentions were.”
I just stared at her. I knew about the clause in Vincent’s standard contract. I had the same in mine, naming him. But what I realized was that the judge was telling me that I now had Jerry’s cases. All of them, Walter Elliot included.
This, of course, did not mean I would keep all of the cases. Each client would be free to move on to another attorney of their choosing once apprised of Vincent’s demise. But it meant that I would have the first shot at them.
I started thinking about things. I hadn’t had a client in a year and the plan was to start back slow, not with a full caseload like the one I had apparently just inherited.
“However,” the judge said, “before you get too excited about this proposition, I must tell you that I would be remiss in my role as chief judge if I did not make every effort to ensure that Mr. Vincent’s clients were transferred to a replacement counsel of good standing and competent skill.”
Now I understood. She had called me in to explain why I would not be appointed to Vincent’s clients. She was going to go against the dead lawyer’s wishes and appoint somebody else, most likely one of the high-dollar contributors to her last reelection campaign. Last I had checked, I’d contributed exactly nothing to her coffers over the years.
But then the judge surprised me.
“I’ve checked with some of the judges,” she said, “and I am aware that you have not been practicing law for almost a year. I have found no explanation for this. Before I issue the order appointing you replacement counsel in this matter, I need to be assured that I am not turning Mr. Vincent’s clients over to the wrong man.”
I nodded in agreement, hoping it would buy me a little time before I had to respond.
“Judge, you’re right. I sort of took myself out of the game for a while. But I just started taking steps to get back in.”
“Why did you take yourself out?”
She asked it bluntly, her eyes holding mine and looking for anything that would indicate evasion of the truth in my answer. I spoke very carefully.
“Judge, I had a case a couple years ago. The client’s name was Louis Roulet. He was—”
“I remember the case, Mr. Haller. You got shot. But, as you say, that was a couple years ago. I seem to remember you practicing law for some time after that. I remember the news stories about you coming back to the job.”
“Well,” I said, “what happened is I came back too soon. I had been gut shot, Judge, and I should’ve taken my time. Instead, I hurried back and the next thing I knew I started having pain and the doctors said I had a hernia. So I had an operation for that and there we
re complications. They did it wrong. There was even more pain and another operation and, well, to make a long story short, it knocked me down for a while. I decided the second time not to come back until I was sure I was ready.”
The judge nodded sympathetically. I guessed I had been right to leave out the part about my addiction to pain pills and the stint in rehab.
“Money wasn’t an issue,” I said. “I had some savings and I also got a settlement from the insurance company. So I took my time coming back. But I’m ready. I was just about to take the back cover of the Yellow Pages.”
“Then, I guess inheriting an entire practice is quite convenient, isn’t it?” she said.
I didn’t know what to say to her question or the smarmy tone in which she said it.
“All I can tell you, Judge, is that I would take good care of Jerry Vincent’s clients.”
The judge nodded but she didn’t look at me as she did so. I knew the tell. She knew something. And it bothered her. Maybe she knew about the rehab.
“According to bar records, you’ve been disciplined several times,” she said.
Here we were again. She was back to throwing the cases to another lawyer. Probably some campaign contributor from Century City who couldn’t find his way around a criminal proceeding if his Riviera membership depended on it.
“All of it ancient history, Judge. All of it technicalities. I’m in good standing with the bar. If you called them today, then I’m sure you were told that.”
She stared at me for a long moment before dropping her eyes to the document in front of her on the desk.
“Very well, then,” she said.
She scribbled a signature on the last page of the document. I felt the flutter of excitement begin to build in my chest.
“Here is an order transferring the practice to you,” the judge said. “You might need it when you go to his office. And let me tell you this. I am going to be monitoring you. I want an updated inventory of cases by the beginning of next week. The status of every case on the client list. I want to know which clients will work with you and which will find other representation. After that, I want biweekly status updates on all cases in which you remain counsel. Am I being clear?”
“Perfectly clear, Judge. For how long?”
“What?”
“For how long do you want me to give you biweekly updates?”
She stared at me and her face hardened.
“Until I tell you to stop.”
She handed me the order.
“You can go now, Mr. Haller, and if I were you, I would get over there and protect my new clients from any unlawful search and seizure of their files by the police. If you have any problem, you can always call on me. I have put my after-hours number on the order.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.”
“Good luck, Mr. Haller.”
I stood up and headed out of the room. When I got to the doorway of her chambers I glanced back at her. She had her head down and was working on the next court order.
Out in the courthouse hallway, I read the two-page document the judge had given me, confirming that what had just happened was real.
It was. The document I held appointed me substitute counsel, at least temporarily, on all of Jerry Vincent’s cases. It granted me immediate access to the fallen attorney’s office, files, and bank accounts into which client advances had been deposited.
I pulled out my cell phone and called Lorna Taylor. I asked her to look up the address of Jerry Vincent’s office. She gave it to me and I told her to meet me there and to pick up two sandwiches on her way.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I haven’t had lunch.”
“No, why are we going to Jerry Vincent’s office?”
“Because we’re back in business.”
Six
I was in my Lincoln driving toward Jerry Vincent’s office, when I thought of something and called Lorna Taylor back. When she didn’t answer I called her cell and caught her in her car.
“I’m going to need an investigator. How would you feel if I called Cisco?”
There was a hesitation before she answered. Cisco was Dennis Wojciechowski, her significant other as of the past year. I was the one who had introduced them when I used him on a case. Last I heard, they were now living together.
“Well, I have no problem working with Cisco. But I wish you would tell me what this is all about.”
Lorna knew Jerry Vincent as a voice on the phone. It was she who would take his calls when he was checking to see if I could stand in on a sentence or babysit a client through an arraignment. I couldn’t remember if they had ever met in person. I had wanted to tell her the news in person but things were moving too quickly for that.
“Jerry Vincent is dead.”
“What?”
“He was murdered last night and I’m getting first shot at all of his cases. Including Walter Elliot.”
She was silent for a long moment before responding.
“My God.… How? He was such a nice man.”
“I couldn’t remember if you had ever met him.”
Lorna worked out of her condo in West Hollywood. All my calls and billing went through her. If there was a brick-and-mortar office for the law firm of Michael Haller and Associates, then her place was it. But there weren’t any associates and when I worked, my office was the backseat of my car. This left few occasions for Lorna to meet face-to-face with any of the people I represented or associated with.
“He came to our wedding, don’t you remember?”
“That’s right. I forgot.”
“I can’t believe this. What happened?”
“I don’t know. Holder said he was shot in the garage at his office. Maybe I’ll find out something when I get there.”
“Did he have a family?”
“I think he was divorced but I don’t know if there were kids or what. I don’t think so.”
Lorna didn’t say anything. We both had our own thoughts occupying us.
“Let me go so I can call Cisco,” I finally said. “Do you know what he’s doing today?”
“No, he didn’t say.”
“All right, I’ll see.”
“What kind of sandwich do you want?”
“Which way you coming?”
“Sunset.”
“Stop at Dusty’s and get me one of those turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. It’s been almost a year since I’ve had one of those.”
“You got it.”
“And get something for Cisco in case he’s hungry.”
“All right.”
I hung up and looked up the number for Dennis Wojciechowski in the address book I keep in the center console compartment. I had his cell phone. When he answered I heard a mixture of wind and exhaust blast in the phone. He was on his bike and even though I knew his helmet was set up with an earpiece and mike attached to his cell, I had to yell.
“It’s Mickey Haller. Pull over.”
I waited and heard him cut the engine on his ’sixty-three panhead.
“What’s up, Mick?” he asked when it finally got quiet. “Haven’t heard from you in a long time.”
“You gotta put the baffles back in your pipes, man. Or you’ll be deaf before you’re forty and then you won’t be hearing from anybody.”
“I’m already past forty and I hear you just fine. What’s going on?”
Wojciechowski was a freelance defense investigator I had used on a few cases. That was how he had met Lorna, collecting his pay. But I had known him for more than ten years before that because of his association with the Road Saints Motorcycle Club, a group for which I served as a de facto house counsel for several years. Dennis never flew RSMC colors but was considered an associate member. The group even bestowed a nickname on him, largely because there was already a Dennis in the membership—known, of course, as Dennis the Menace—and his last name, Wojciechowski, was intolerably difficult to pronounce. Riffing off his dark looks and mustache, the
y christened him the Cisco Kid. It didn’t matter that he was one hundred percent Polish out of the south side of Milwaukee.
Cisco was a big, imposing man but he kept his nose clean while riding with the Saints. He never caught an arrest record and that paid off when he later applied to the state for his private investigator’s license. Now, many years later, the long hair was gone and the mustache was trimmed and going gray. But the name Cisco and the penchant for riding classic Harleys built in his hometown had stuck for life.
Cisco was a thorough and thoughtful investigator. And he had another value as well. He was big and strong and could be physically intimidating when necessary. That attribute could be highly useful when tracking down and dealing with people who fluttered around the edges of a criminal case.
“First of all, where are you?” I asked.
“Burbank.”
“You on a case?”
“No, just a ride. Why, you got something for me? You taking on a case finally?”
“A lot of cases. And I’m going to need an investigator.”
I gave him the address of Vincent’s office and told him to meet me there as soon as he could. I knew that Vincent would have used either a stable of investigators or just one in particular, and that there might be a loss of time as Cisco got up to speed on the cases, but all of that was okay with me. I wanted an investigator I could trust and already had a working relationship with. I was also going to need Cisco to immediately start work by running down the locations of my new clients. My experience with criminal defendants is that they are not always found at the addresses they put down on the client info sheet when they first sign up for legal representation.
After closing the phone I realized I had driven right by the building where Vincent’s office was located. It was on Broadway near Third Street and there was too much traffic with cars and pedestrians for me to attempt a U-turn. I wasted ten minutes working my way back to it, catching red lights at every corner. By the time I got to the right place, I was so frustrated that I resolved to hire a driver again as soon as possible so that I could concentrate on cases instead of addresses.
Vincent’s office was in a six-story structure called simply the Legal Center. Being so close to the main downtown courthouses—both criminal and civil—meant it was a building full of trial lawyers. Just the kind of place most cops and doctors—lawyer haters—probably wished would implode every time there was an earthquake. I saw the opening for the parking garage next door and pulled in.