“Well, while we’re on the subject, I got a notice a week ago that your bus bench contract expires at the end of the month. I was just going to let it go because there was no money, but now you’re back and you’ve got money. Should we renew?”

For the past six years I had advertised on bus benches strategically located in high-crime andtraffic locations around the city. Although I had dropped out for the past year, the benches still spawned a steady stream of calls, all of which Lorna deferred or referred.

“That’s a two-year contract, right?”

“Yes.”

I made a quick decision.

“Okay, renew it. Anything else?”

“That’s it from here. Oh, wait. One other thing. The landlord for the building came in today. Called herself the leasing agent, which is just a fancy way of saying landlord. She wants to know if we’re going to keep the office. Jerry’s death is a lease breaker if we want it to be. I got the feeling there’s a waiting list on the building and this is an opportunity to jack the rent up for the next lawyer who comes in here.”

I looked out the window of the Lincoln as we cruised across the 101 overpass and back into the civic center area. I could see the newly built Catholic cathedral and past that, the waving steel skin of the Disney Concert Hall. It caught the sunlight and took on a warm orange glow.

“I don’t know, Lorna, I like working from the backseat here. It’s never boring. What do you think?”

“I’m not particularly fond of putting on makeup every morning.”

Meaning she liked working out of her condo more than she liked getting ready and driving downtown to an office each day. As usual, we were on the same page.

“Something to think about,” I said. “No makeup. No office overhead. No fighting for a spot in the parking garage.”

She didn’t respond. It was going to be my call. I looked ahead and saw we were a block from my drop-off point in front of the CCB.

“Let’s talk about it later,” I said. “I gotta jump out.”

“Okay, Mickey. Be safe.”

“You, too.”

Twenty-six

Eli Wyms was still doped up from the three months he’d spent in Camarillo. He’d been sent back to county with a prescription for a drug therapy that wasn’t going to help me defend him, let alone help him answer any questions about possible connections to the murders on the beach. It took me less than two minutes in courtside lockup to grasp the situation and to decide to submit a motion to Judge Friedman, requesting that all drug therapy be halted. I went back to the courtroom and found Joanne Giorgetti at her place at the prosecution table. The hearing was scheduled to start in five minutes.

She was writing something on the inside flap of a file when I walked up to the table. Without looking up she somehow knew it was me.

“You want a continuance, don’t you?”

“And a cease-and-desist on the drugs. The guy’s a zombie.”

She stopped writing and looked up at me.

“Considering he was potshotting my deputies, I’m not sure I object to his being in that condition.”

“But Joanne, I’ve got to be able to ask the guy basic questions in order to defend him.”

“Really?”

She said it with a smile but the point was taken. I shrugged and crouched down so we were on an even eye line.

“You’re right, I don’t think we’re talking about a trial here,” I said. “I’d be happy to listen to any offers.”

“Your client shot at an occupied sheriff’s car. The state is interested in sending a message on this one. We don’t like people doing that.”

She folded her arms to signal the state’s unwillingness to compromise on this. She was an attractive and athletically built woman. She drummed her fingers on one of her biceps and I couldn’t help but notice the red fingernail polish. As long as I could remember dealing with Joanne Giorgetti, her nails were always painted bloodred. She did more than represent the state. She represented cops who had been shot at, assaulted, ambushed and spit on. And she wanted the blood of every miscreant who had the bad luck to be prosecuted by her.

“I would argue that my client, panicked as he was by the coyotes, was shooting at the light on the car, not into the car. Your own documents say he was an expert marksman in the U.S. Army. If he wanted to shoot the deputy, he could have. But he didn’t.”

“He was discharged from the army fifteen years ago, Mickey.”

“Right, but some skills never go away. Like riding a bike.”

“Well, that’s an argument you could surely make to the jury.”

My knees were about to give out. I reached over to one of the chairs at the defense table, wheeled it over and sat down.

“Sure, I can make that argument but it is probably in the state’s best interest to bring this case to a close, get Mr. Wyms off the street and into some sort of therapy that will help prevent this from ever happening again. So what do you say? Should we go off into a corner someplace and work this out, or go at it in front of a jury?”

She thought for a moment before responding. It was the classic prosecutor’s dilemma. It was a case she could easily win. She had to decide whether to pad her stats or do what might be the right thing.

“As long as I get to pick the corner.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Okay, I won’t oppose a continuance if you make the motion.”

“Sounds good, Joanne. What about the drug therapy?”

“I don’t want this guy acting out again, even in Men’s Central.”

“Look, wait till they bring him out. You’ll see, he’s a zombie. You don’t want this to go down and then have him challenge the deal because the state made him incompetent to make a decision. Let’s get his head clear, do the deal and then you can have them pump him up with whatever you want.”

She thought about it, saw the logic and finally nodded.

“But if he acts out in jail one time, I’m going to blame you and take it out on him.”

I laughed. The idea of blaming me was absurd.

“Whatever.”

I got up and started to push the chair back to the defense table. But then I turned back to the prosecutor.

“Joanne, let me ask you something else. Why did Jerry Vincent take on this case?”

She shrugged and shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, did it surprise you?”

“Sure. It was kind of strange, him showing up. I knew him from way back when, you know?”

Meaning when he was a prosecutor.

“Yeah, so what happened?”

“One day – a few months ago – I got notice of a competency motion on Wyms, and Jerry’s name was on it. I called him up and said, ‘What the hell,’ you know? ‘You don’t even call to say, I’m taking over the case?’ And he just said he wanted to get some pro bono in and asked the PD for a case. But I know Angel Romero, the PD who had the case originally. A couple months back, I ran into him on one of the floors and he asked me what was happening on Wyms. And in the course of the conversation, he told me that Jerry didn’t just come in asking for a PB referral. He went to Wyms first in Men’s Central, signed him up and then came in and told Angel to turn over the file.”

“Why do you think he took the case?”

I’ve learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.

“I don’t know. I specifically asked him that and he didn’t really answer. He changed the subject to something else and it was all kind of awkward. I remember thinking there was something else here, like maybe he had a connection to Wyms. But then when he sent him off to Camarillo, I knew he wasn’t doing the guy any favors.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, you just spent a couple hours with the case and you know how it’s going to go. This is a plea. Jail time, counseling and supervision. That’s what it was before he was sent to Camarillo. So Wyms’s time there wasn’t really necessary. Jerry just prolonged the inevitable.”