Resurrection Walk

Book 7: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel

by Michael Connelly

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Defense attorney Mickey Haller is back, taking the long-shot cases where the chances of winning are one in a million. He agrees to represent a woman in prison for killing her ex-husband, a sheriff's deputy. Despite her conviction four years earlier, she still maintains her innocence. Haller enlists his half brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, as an investigator. Reviewing the case, Bosch sees something that doesn't add up, and a sheriff's department intent on bringing a quick search for justice in the killing of one of its own. The path to justice for both the lawyer and his investigator is fraught with danger from those who don't want the case reopened. And they will stop at nothing to keep the Haller-Bosch dream team from uncovering what the deputy's killing was really about.

Release date: November 7, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) terrific writing (1) unputdownable (1)

Sample

BOSCH HAD THE letter propped on the steering wheel. He noted that the printing was legible and the margins were clean. It was in English but not perfect English. There were misspellings and some words were misused. Homonyms, he thought. I din’t do this and want to higher you to clear me.

It was the last line of that paragraph that held his attention: The attorny said I had to plea guilty or I would get life for killing a law enforcement officer.

Bosch turned the page over to see if there was anything written on the back. There was a number stamped at the top, which meant someone in the intel unit at Chino had at least scanned the letter before it was approved and sent out.

Bosch carefully cleared his throat. It was raw from the latest treatment and he didn’t want to make things worse. He read the letter again. I didn’t like him but he was the father of my child. I would not kill him. Thats a lie.

He hesitated, unsure whether to put the letter in the possibles stack or the rejects stack. Before he could decide, the passenger door opened and Haller climbed in, grabbing the stack of unread letters off the seat and tossing them up on the dashboard.

“You didn’t get my text?” he asked.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear it,” Bosch said.

He put the letter on the dashboard and immediately started the Lincoln.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Airport courthouse,” Haller said. “And I’m late. I was hoping you would pick me up out front.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to the judge if I’m late for this hearing.”

Bosch dropped the transmission into drive and pulled away from the curb. He drove up to Broadway and turned into the entrance to the northbound 101. The rotary was lined with tents and cardboard shanties. The recent mayoral election had hinged on which candidate would do a better job with the city’s teeming homeless problem. So far, Bosch hadn’t noticed any changes.

Bosch immediately transitioned to the southbound 110, which would eventually get him to the Century Freeway and a straight shot to the airport.

“Any good ones?” Haller asked.

Bosch handed him the letter from Lucinda Sanz. Haller started reading it, then checked out the name of the inmate.

“A woman,” he said. “Interesting. What’s her story?”

“She killed her ex,” Bosch said. “Sounds like he was a cop. She pleaded nolo to manslaughter because they were holding life without over her head.”

“Man’s laughter…”

Haller continued to read and then tossed the letter on top of the stack of letters he had thrown onto the dashboard.

“That’s the best you got?” he asked.

“So far,” Bosch said. “Still have more to go.”

“Says she didn’t do it but doesn’t say who did. What can we do with that?”

“She doesn’t know. That’s why she wants your help.”

Bosch drove in silence while Haller checked his phone and then called his case manager, Lorna, to go over his calendar. When he was finished, Bosch asked how long they would be at the next stop.

“Depends on my client and his mitigation witness,” Haller said. “He wants to ignore my advice and tell the judge why he’s not really all that guilty. I’d rather have his son beg for mercy for him, but I’m not sure he’ll show, whether he’ll talk, or how that will go.”

“What’s the case?” Bosch asked.

“Fraud. Guy’s looking at eight to twelve. You want to come in and watch?”

“No, I’m thinking that while we’re over there, I might drop by and see Ballard — if she’s around. It’s not far from the courthouse. Text when you’re finished in court and I’ll swing back.”

“If you even hear the text.”

“Then call me. I’ll hear that.”

Ten minutes later he pulled to a stop in front of the courthouse on La Cienega.

“Later, gator,” Haller said as he got out. “Turn your phone up.”

After he shut the door, Bosch adjusted his phone as instructed. He had not been completely open with Haller about his hearing loss. The cancer treatments at UCLA had affected his hearing. So far, he had no issue with voices and conversation, but some electronic noises were at the limits of his range. He had been experimenting with various ringtones and text alerts but was still searching for the right setting. In the meantime, rather than listening for incoming messages or calls, he relied more on the accompanying vibration. But he had put his phone in the car’s cup holder earlier and therefore missed both the sound and vibration that came when Haller wanted to be picked up outside the downtown courthouse.

As he pulled away, Bosch called Renée Ballard’s cell. She picked up quickly.

“Harry?”

“Hey.”

“You all right?”

“Of course. You at Ahmanson?”

“I am. What’s up?”

“I’m in the neighborhood. Okay if I swing by in a few minutes?”

“I’ll be here.”

“On my way.”

THE AHMANSON CENTER was on Manchester ten minutes away. It was the Los Angeles Police Department’s main recruitment and training facility. But it also housed the department’s cold-case archive — six thousand unsolved murders going back to 1960. The Open-Unsolved Unit was located in an eight-person pod at the end of all the rows of shelving holding the murder books. Bosch had been there before and considered it sacred ground. Every row, every binder, was haunted by justice on hold.

At the reception desk Bosch was given a visitor’s tag to clip to his pocket and sent back to see Ballard. He declined an escort and said he knew the way. Once he went through the archive door, he walked along the row of shelves, noting the case years on index cards taped on the endcaps.

Ballard was at her desk at the back of the pod in the open area beyond the shelves. Only one of the other cubicles was occupied. In it sat Colleen Hatteras, the unit’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy expert and closet psychic. Colleen looked happy to see Bosch when she noticed his approach. The feeling wasn’t mutual. Bosch had served a short stint on the all-volunteer cold-case team the year before, and he had clashed with Hatteras over her supposed hyper-empathic abilities.

“Harry Bosch!” she exclaimed. “What a nice surprise.”

“Colleen,” Bosch said. “I didn’t think you could be surprised.”

Hatteras kept her smile as she registered Bosch’s crack.

“Still the same old Harry,” she said.

Ballard turned in her swivel chair and broke into the conversation before it could go from cordial to contentious.

“Harry,” she said. “What brings you by?”

Bosch approached Ballard and turned slightly to lean on the cubicle’s separation wall. This put his back to Hatteras. He lowered his voice so he could speak as privately to Ballard as possible.

“I just dropped Haller off at the airport courthouse,” he said. “Thought I might just come by to see how things are going over here.”

“Things are going well,” Ballard said. “We’ve closed nine cases so far this year. A lot of them through IGG and Colleen’s good work.”

“Great. Did you put some people in jail or were they cleared others?”

What occurred often in cold-case investigations was a DNA hit leading to a suspect who was long dead or already incarcerated for other crimes with a life sentence. This, of course, solved the case, but it was carried on the books as “cleared other” because no prosecution resulted.

“No, we’ve put some bodies in lockup,” Ballard said. “About half, I’d say. The main thing is the families, though. Just letting them know that it’s cleared whether the suspect’s alive or dead.”

“Right,” Bosch said. “Yeah.”

But telling members of a victim’s family that the case had been solved but the identified suspect was dead had always bothered Bosch when he’d worked cold cases. To Bosch, it was admitting that the killer had gotten away with it. And there was no justice in that.

“So that’s it?” Ballard asked. “You’re just dropping by to say hi and bust Colleen’s chops?”

“No, that wasn’t what…” Bosch mumbled. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Then ask.”

“I’ve got a couple names. People in prison. I wanted to get case numbers, maybe pull cases.”

“Well, if they’re in lockup, then you’re not talking about cold cases.”

“Right. I know.”

“Then, what… you want me to — Harry, are you kidding?”

“Uh, no, what do you mean?”

Ballard turned and sat up straight so she could glance over her privacy wall at Hatteras. Hatteras had her eyes on her computer screen, which meant she was probably trying to hear their conversation.

Ballard stood up and started walking toward the main aisle that ran in front of the archives.

“Let’s go up and get a coffee,” she said.

She didn’t wait for Bosch to answer. She kept going and he followed. When he glanced back at Hatteras, she was watching them go.

As soon as they got to the break room, Ballard turned and confronted him.

“Harry, are you kidding me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re working for a defense attorney. You want me to run names for a defense attorney?”

Bosch paused. He hadn’t seen it that way until this moment.

“No, I didn’t think that —”

“Yeah, you didn’t think. I can’t run names for you if you’re working for the Lincoln Lawyer. They could fire my ass without even a board of rights. And don’t think there aren’t people over at the PAB gunning for me. There are.”

“I know, I know. Sorry, I didn’t think it through. Forget I was even here. I’ll leave you alone.”

He turned toward the door, but Ballard stopped him.

“No, you’re here, we’re here. Let’s have that cup of coffee.”

“Uh, well, okay. You sure?”

“Just sit down. I’ll get it.”

There was one table in the break room. It was pushed up against the wall, with chairs on the three open sides. Bosch sat down and watched as Ballard filled to-go cups with coffee and brought them over. Like Ballard, Bosch took his coffee black, and she knew this.

“So,” she said after sitting down. “How are you, Harry?”

“Uh, good,” Bosch said. “No complaints.”

“I was over at Hollywood Division about a week ago and ran into your daughter.”

“Yeah, Maddie told me, said you had a guy in a holding cell.”

“A case from ’89. A rape-murder. We got the DNA hit but couldn’t find him. Put out a warrant and he got picked up over there on a traffic violation. He didn’t know we were even looking for him. Anyway, Maddie said you got into some kind of test program at UCLA?”

“Yeah, a clinical trial. Supposedly running a seventy percent extension rate for what I’ve got.”

“‘Extension’?”

“Extension of life. Remission if you’re lucky.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great. Is it getting results with you?”

“Too early to tell. And they don’t tell you if you’re getting the real shot or the placebo. So who knows.”

“That kinda sucks.”

“Yeah. But… I’ve had a few side effects, so I think I’m getting the real stuff.”

“Like what?”

“My throat is pretty rough and I’m getting tinnitus and hearing loss, which is kind of driving me crazy.”

“Well, are they doing something about it?”

“Trying to. But that’s what being in the test group is about. They monitor this stuff, try to deal with side effects.”

“Right. When Maddie told me, I was kind of surprised. Last time we talked, you said you were just going to let nature take its course.”

“I sort of changed my mind.”

“Maddie?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Anyway…”

Bosch leaned forward and picked up his cup. The coffee was still too hot to drink, especially with his ravaged throat, but he wanted to stop talking about his medical situation. Ballard was one of the few people he had told about it, so he felt she deserved an update, but his practice had been not to dwell on the situation and the various possibilities for his future.

“So tell me about Haller,” Ballard said. “How’s that going?”

“Uh, it’s going,” Bosch said. “Staying pretty busy with the stuff coming in.”

“And now you’re driving him?”

“Not always, but it gives us time to talk through the requests. They keep coming, you know?”

The year before, when Bosch worked as a volunteer with Ballard in the Open-Unsolved Unit, they broke open a case that identified a serial killer who had operated unknown in the city for several years. During the investigation, they’d also determined that the killer was responsible for a murder for which an innocent man named Jorge Ochoa had been imprisoned. When politics in the district attorney’s office prevented immediate action to free Ochoa, Ballard tipped Haller to the case. Haller went to work and in a highly publicized habeas hearing was granted a court order freeing Ochoa and declaring him innocent. The media attention garnered by the case resulted in a flood of letters and collect phone calls to Haller from inmates in prisons across California, Arizona, and Nevada. All of them professed their innocence and pleaded for his help. Haller set up what amounted to an in-house innocence project and installed Bosch to do the initial review of the claims. Haller wanted a gatekeeper with an experienced detective’s eye.

“These two names you wanted me to run — you think they’re innocent?” Ballard asked.

“It’s too early for that,” Bosch said. “All I have are their letters from prison. But since I started this, I’ve rejected everything except these two. Something about them tells me I should at least take a further look.”

“So based on a hunch, you’re going to run with them.”

“More than a hunch, I think. Their letters seem… desperate in a certain way. Hard to explain. I don’t mean like desperate to get out of prison but desperate… to be believed, if that makes sense. I just need to take a look at the cases. Maybe then I find their bullshit.”

Ballard pulled her phone out of her back pocket.

“What are the names?” she asked.

“No, I don’t want you to do anything,” Bosch said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Just give me the names. I’m not going to do anything right now with Colleen in the pod. I’m just going to send myself an email with the names. It’ll remind me to get back to you if I get something.”

“Colleen. She’s still sticking her nose into everything?”

“Not so much, but I don’t want her to know anything about this.”

“You sure? Maybe she can just get a feeling or a vibe and tell me whether they’re guilty or not. Save both of us a lot of time.”

“Harry, give it a rest, would you?”

“Sorry. Had to.”

“She does good work on the IGG stuff. That’s all I care about. It makes it worth putting up with her ‘vibes’ in the long run.”

“I’m sure.”

“I have to get back to the pod. Are you going to give me the names?”

“Lucinda Sanz. She’s in Chino. And Edward Dale Coldwell. He’s at Corcoran.”

“Caldwell?”

“No, Cold — Coldwell.”

She was typing with her thumbs on her phone. “DOBs?”

“They didn’t think to add those in their letters. I have inmate numbers if that helps.”

“Not really.”

She slid her phone back into her pocket.

“Okay, if I get anything, I’ll call you.”

“Thanks.”

“But let’s not make it a habit, okay?”

“It won’t be.”

Ballard took her coffee and headed toward the door. Bosch stopped her with a question.

“So who’s gunning for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Downstairs you said there are people gunning for you.”

“Oh, just the usual shit. People hoping I’ll fail. Your everyday woman-in-charge stuff.”

“Well, fuck them.”

“Yeah, fuck them. I’ll see you, Harry.”

“See you.”

BOSCH WAS ALREADY back on La Cienega by the courthouse when Haller texted that he was finished with the sentencing hearing. Bosch texted that he’d be out front. He pulled the Navigator up to the glass exit doors just as Haller was coming through. Bosch hit the button to unlock the doors, and Haller opened the back and jumped into the seat. He closed the door but Bosch didn’t move the SUV, just stared at him in the rearview.

Haller settled in and then realized they weren’t moving.

“Okay, Harry, we can —”

He realized his mistake, opened the door, and got out. The front door opened and he climbed into the passenger seat.

“Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit.”

They had a deal. On the occasions that Bosch drove the Lincoln, he insisted that Haller ride in the front seat so that they could converse side by side. Bosch had been adamant: he would not play chauffeur to a defense lawyer, even if that attorney happened to be his half brother who had hired him so that he could get private health insurance and be in the clinical trial at UCLA.

Satisfied he had made a proper stand, Bosch pulled away from the curb and said, “Where to?”

“West Hollywood,” Haller said. “Lorna’s apartment.”

Bosch moved into the left lane so he could make a U-turn and head north. He had already driven Haller to many meetings with Lorna, either at her place or at Hugo’s up the street if food was involved. Since the so-called Lincoln Lawyer worked out of his car instead of an office, Lorna managed things from her condo on Kings Road. It was the center of the practice.

“How’d things go back there?” Bosch asked.

“Uh, let’s just say that my client received the full measure of the law,” Haller said.

“Sorry to hear it.”

“The judge was an asshole. I don’t think he even read the PSR.”

It had been Bosch’s experience when he was a sworn officer that presentencing reports weren’t usually favorable to the offender, so he wasn’t sure why Haller thought a careful reading of the PSR by the judge in this case could have resulted in a lesser sentence. Before he could ask about it, Haller reached forward to the center screen on the dashboard, pulled up the favorites list from his contacts, and placed a call to Jennifer Aronson, the associate in the firm of Michael Haller and Associates. The Bluetooth system brought the call up on the vehicle’s speakers and Bosch heard both sides of it.

“Mickey?”

“Where you at, Jen?”

“My house. Just got back from the city attorney’s office.”

“How’d that go?”

“Just round one, really. Bit of a game of chicken. Nobody wants to say a number first.”

Bosch knew that Haller had trusted Aronson with the Jorge Ochoa negotiation. Haller and Associates had filed a lawsuit against the city and the LAPD for his wrongful conviction and incarceration. Though the city and police department were protected by state-mandated limits to financial settlements in such matters, there were aspects of the poor and possibly corrupt handling of the case that allowed Ochoa to seek other financial penalties. The city hoped to head that off with a negotiated settlement.

“Hold the line,” Haller said. “They’ll pay.”

“Hope so,” Aronson said. “How’d it go at the airport?”

“He got the full Monty. The judge probably never even looked at the childhood-trauma stuff. I tried to bring it up but he shut it down. And it didn’t help that my guy pleaded for mercy by telling the judge he hadn’t really meant to defraud all those people. So off he goes. He’ll probably do seven years if he doesn’t act out.”

“Anybody there for him except you?”

“Only me.”

“What about the guy’s kid? I thought you had him queued up.”

“Didn’t show. Anyway, moving on, I’m going to sit down with Lorna in about thirty to look at the calendar. You want to sit in?”

“I can’t. I just came home to grab something to eat. I promised my sister I’d go up to Sylmar to see Anthony today.”

“Right. Well, good luck with that. Let me know if I can help.”

“Thanks. Are you with Harry Bosch?”

“Sittin’ right next to him.”

Haller looked at Bosch and nodded as if he were making up for jumping in the back seat earlier.

“Are we on speaker?” Aronson said. “Can I talk to him?”

“Sure can,” Haller said. “Go.”

He pointed to Bosch.

“You’re on,” he said.

“Harry, I know you’ve drawn a line about not doing defense work per se,” Aronson said.

Bosch nodded his head but then realized she couldn’t see this.

“Right,” he said.

“Well, I could really use you to just look at a case,” Aronson said. “No investigatory work. Just look at what I’ve got so far from the DA.”

Bosch knew that the main juvenile detention center for the north county was in Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley.

“It’s a juvie case?” he asked.

“Yes, my sister’s son,” Aronson said. “Anthony Marcus. He’s sixteen but they’re going to move to try him as an adult. There’s a hearing next week and I’m desperate, Harry. I need to help him.”

“What’s the charge?”

“They say he shot a cop but there’s just nothing in this boy’s character that says he would do something like this.”

“Where? What agency?”

“LAPD. It’s a West Valley case. It happened in Woodland Hills.”

“Is he alive or dead? The cop.”

“He’s alive. He only got shot in the leg or something. But Anthony wouldn’t have done this and he told me he didn’t. He said there had to be another shooter because it wasn’t him.”

Bosch reached up to the dashboard screen and punched the mute button. He looked over at Haller.

“Are you kidding?” Bosch said. “You want me to work for a kid who shot an LAPD cop? I’m already looking at this case from Chino where the woman shot a LEO. You know what this could do to me out there?”

“Hello?” Aronson said. “Did I lose you?”

“I’m not asking you to work the case,” Haller said. “She is, and all she wants is for you to look at the file she has. That’s it. Just read the reports and tell her what you think. Then you’re done with it. You won’t be attached to it and nobody will ever know.”

“But I’ll know,” Bosch said.

“Hello?” Aronson repeated.

Bosch shook his head and unmuted the call.

“Sorry,” he said. “Lost you for a few seconds there. What kind of documents do you have?”

“Well, there’s an investigator’s chronology,” Aronson said. “And there’s an incident report and the medical report on the officer. There’s an evidence report but there’s really nothing on it. I was going to call the assigned prosecutor today and see when the next discovery drop will be. But bottom line is I just think there’s something wrong here. I’ve known this kid all his life and he is not violent. He’s gentle. He’s —”

“Are there any witness reports?” Bosch asked.

“Uh, no, no witnesses,” Aronson said. “It’s basically his word against what the police say.”

Bosch was silent. It sounded like a case he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near. Haller broke into the silence.

“Tell you what, Jennifer,” he said. “Email what you’ve got to Lorna and tell her to print it. Harry will have eyes on it in thirty minutes. We are headed to her place now.”

Haller looked at Bosch.

“Unless you’re saying no,” he said.

Bosch slowly shook his head. This was not what he had signed up for. He didn’t want the last act of his professional life to be helping criminals. The haystack work, as Haller called it, was one thing. Finding innocence among the many convicted felt to Bosch like a check on a system he knew firsthand was imperfect. But assisting in the defense of someone accused was something else in his mind.

“I’ll take a look,” he said grudgingly. “But if there’s any follow-up work needed, you have to go to Cisco for that.”

Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski was Haller and Associates’ longtime investigator — and Lorna Taylor’s husband.

“Thank you, Harry,” Aronson said. “Please call me as soon as you’ve had a chance to look it over.”

“Sure,” Bosch said. “Why does your sister want you to go up there to see the kid?”

“Because she says he’s not doing well,” Aronson said. “He’s getting bullied by other kids there. I figure if I can sit with him for an hour, that’s an hour he doesn’t have to be afraid.”

“Okay, well, I’ll look at the stuff from the file as soon as I get it,” Bosch said.

“Thank you, Harry,” Aronson said again. “I really, really appreciate it.”

“Anything else on your end, Jennifer?” Haller asked.

“No, just what I said,” she said.

“When’s the next meet with the city attorney’s office?” Haller asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Aronson said.

“Good,” Haller said. “Keep the pressure on. Let’s talk after that.”

Haller disconnected and they drove in silence for a bit. Bosch was not happy and wasn’t trying to hide it.

“Harry, just look at the file and tell her you got nothing,” Haller said. “She’s too emotionally invested in the case. She’s got to learn to —”

“I know she’s invested,” Bosch said. “I don’t blame her. But what is happening now is exactly what I told you I didn’t want to happen. One more time and I’m out. You understand?”

“I understand,” Haller said.

They made good time to West Hollywood, which was a relief to Bosch since there was a steely silence in the car after the phone call with Aronson. Bosch turned off Santa Monica Boulevard onto Kings Road and cruised two blocks south. Haller had texted Lorna about their imminent arrival and she was standing at a red curb waiting, file in hand. The windows on the Navigator were smoked. When Bosch pulled to a stop, Lorna stepped off the curb, walked around the back of the SUV, and got in the passenger seat behind Bosch.

“Oh,” she said to Haller. “I thought you’d be in your usual spot.”

“Not when Harry’s driving,” Haller said. “Did you print out the stuff from Jennifer?”

“Got it right here.”

“Pass that up to Harry so he can take a look while I jump in the back with you.”

Bosch was handed a file. He opened it and tried to tune out the conversation from the back as Haller started going over his court calendar and other case-related matters with Lorna. Bosch’s starting point was the incident report.

The kid’s name was Anthony Marcus. He was about to spend his seventeenth birthday in the juvenile detention center in Sylmar. He was accused of shooting a patrol cop named Kyle Dexter with the officer’s own gun. According to the report, Dexter and his partner Yvonne Garrity had responded to a burglary-in-progress call at a home on Califa Street in Woodland Hills. Upon arrival they searched the exterior of the house and found a sliding door on a rear pool deck open. They called for backup, but before other officers arrived,

Dexter saw a figure in dark clothing run from the house, climb over a wall behind the pool, and drop down to Valley Circle Boulevard, which ran parallel to Califa. He told Garrity to get the patrol car while he chased the fleeing figure. Dexter climbed the wall and pursued. The chase lasted several blocks and ended when Dexter followed the suspect around a corner at Valerie Avenue. The suspect had stopped, apparently thinking he had lost his pursuer, and Dexter turned the corner and came upon him. He drew his weapon and ordered the suspect to kneel and lace his fingers behind his head. The suspect complied and Dexter radioed his location to his partner and. . .