“Mrs. Albrecht, I’d rather not talk about this at the front gate. As you can imagine, it’s quite a delicate ‘matter,’ to use your word. Can I come to the office and see Mr. Elliot?”

I turned in my seat and looked out the back window. There were two cars in the guardhouse queue behind my Lincoln. They must not have been producers. The writers had let them through unmolested.

“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Mr. Haller. Can I place you on hold while I call Mr. Vincent?”

“You won’t get through to him.”

“He’ll take a call from Mr. Elliot, I am sure.”

“I am sure he won’t, Mrs. Albrecht. Jerry Vincent’s dead. That’s why I’m here.”

I looked at Cisco’s reflection in the rearview mirror and shrugged as though to say I had no choice but to hit her with the news. The plan had been to finesse my way through the arch and then be the one to personally tell Elliot his lawyer was dead.

“Excuse me, Mr. Haller. Did you say Mr. Vincent is… dead?”

“That’s what I said. And I’m his court-appointed replacement. Can I come in now?”

“Yes, of course.”

I handed the phone back and soon the gate opened.

Thirteen

We were assigned to a prime parking space in the executive lot. I told Cisco to wait in the car and went in alone, carrying the two thick files Vincent had put together on the case. One contained discovery materials turned over so far by the prosecution, including the important investigative documents and interview transcripts, and the other contained documents and other work product generated by Vincent during the five months he had handled the case. Between the two files I was able to get a good handle on what the prosecution had and didn’t have, and the direction in which the prosecutor wanted to take the trial. There was still work to be done and pieces were missing from the defense’s case and strategy. Perhaps those pieces had been carried in Jerry Vincent’s head, or in his laptop or on the legal pad in his portfolio, but unless the cops arrested a suspect and recovered the stolen property, whatever was there would be of no help to me.

I followed a sidewalk across a beautifully manicured lawn on the way to Elliot’s office. My plan for the meeting was threefold. The first order of business was to secure Elliot as a client. That done, I would ask his approval in delaying the trial to give me time to get up to speed and prepare for it. The last part of the plan would be to see if Elliot had any of the pieces missing from the defense case. Parts two and three obviously didn’t matter if I was unsuccessful with part one.

Walter Elliot’s office was in Bungalow One on the far reaches of the Archway lot. “Bungalows” sounded small but they were big in Hollywood. A sign of status. It was like having your own private home on the lot. And as in any private home, activities inside could be kept secret.

A Spanish-tiled entranceway led to a step-down living room with a fireplace blowing gas flames on one wall and a mahogany wood bar set up in an opposite corner. I stepped into the middle of the room and looked around and waited. I looked at the painting over the fireplace. It depicted an armored knight on a white steed. The knight had reached up and flipped open the visor on his helmet and his eyes stared out intently. I took a few steps further into the room and realized the eyes had been painted so that they stared at the viewer of the painting from any angle in the room. They followed me.

“Mr. Haller?”

I turned as I recognized the voice from the guardhouse phone. Elliot’s gatekeeper, Mrs. Albrecht, had stepped into the room from some unseen entrance. Elegance was the word that came to mind. She was an aging beauty who appeared to take the process in stride. Gray streaked through her un-dyed hair and tiny wrinkles were working their way toward her eyes and mouth, seemingly unchecked by injection or incision. Mrs. Albrecht looked like a woman who liked her own skin. In my experience, this was a rare thing in Hollywood.

“Mr. Elliot will see you now.”

I followed her around a corner and down a short hallway to a reception office. She passed an empty desk – hers, I assumed – and pushed open a large door to Walter Elliot’s office.

Elliot was an overly tanned man with more gray hair sprouting from his open shirt collar than from the top of his head. He sat behind a large glass worktable. No drawers beneath it and no computer on top of it, though paperwork and scripts were spread across it. It didn’t matter that he was facing two counts of murder. He was staying busy. He was working and running Archway the way he always did. Maybe it was on the advice of some Hollywood self-help guru but it wasn’t an unusual behavior or philosophy for the accused. Act like you are innocent and you will be perceived as innocent. Finally, you will become innocent.

There was a sitting area to the right but he chose to remain behind the worktable. He had dark, piercing eyes that seemed familiar and then I realized I had just been looking at them – the knight on the steed out in the living room was Elliot.

“Mr. Elliot, this is Mr. Haller,” Mrs. Albrecht said.

She signaled me to the chair across the table from Elliot. After I sat down Elliot made a dismissive gesture without looking at Mrs. Albrecht and she left the room without another word. Over the years I had represented and been in the company of a couple dozen killers. The one rule is that there are no rules. They come in all sizes and shapes, rich and poor, humble and arrogant, regretful and cold to the bone. The percentages told me that it was most likely Elliot was a killer. That he had calmly dispatched his wife and her lover and arrogantly thought he could and would get away with it. But there was nothing about him on first meeting that told me one way or the other for sure. And that’s the way it always was.

“What happened to my lawyer?” he asked.

“Well, for a detailed explanation I would have to refer you to the police. The shorthand is that somebody killed him last night in his car.”

“And where does that leave me? I’m on trial for my life in a week!”

That was a slight exaggeration. Jury selection was scheduled in nine days and the DA’s office had not announced that it would seek the death penalty. But it didn’t hurt that he was thinking in such terms.

“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Elliot. At the moment you are left with me.”

“And who are you? I’ve never heard of you.”

“You haven’t heard of me because I make it a practice not to be heard of. Celebrity lawyers bring too much attention to their clients. They feed their own celebrity by offering up their clients. I don’t operate that way.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. I could tell I had just scored a point.

“And you’re taking over Vincent’s practice?” he asked.

“Let me explain it, Mr. Elliot. Jerry Vincent had a one-man shop. Just like I do. On occasion one of us would need help with a case or need another attorney to fill in here and there. We filled that role for each other. If you look at the contract of representation you signed with him, you will find my name in a paragraph with language that allowed Jerry to discuss your case with me and to include me within the bonds of the attorney-client relationship. In other words, Jerry trusted me with his cases. And now that he is gone, I am prepared to carry on in his stead. Earlier today the chief judge of the superior court issued an order placing me in custody of Jerry’s cases. Of course, you ultimately get to choose who represents you at trial. I am very familiar with your case and prepared to continue your legal representation without so much as a hiccup. But, as I said, you must make the choice. I’m only here to tell you your options.”

Elliot shook his head.

“I really can’t believe this. We were set for trial next week and I’m not pushing it back. I’ve been waiting five months to clear my name! Do you have any idea what it is like for an innocent man to have to wait and wait and wait for justice? To read all the innuendo and bullshit in the media? To have a prosecutor with his nose up my ass, waiting for me to make the move that gets my bail pulled? Look at this!”