Elliot had adopted the pose of CEO of the defense. I did the work in front of the jury but he insisted that he be allowed to sign off on each of my preemptory challenges. It took extra time because I needed to explain to him why I wanted to dump a juror and he would always offer his opinion. But each time, he ultimately nodded his approval like the man in charge, and the juror was struck. It was an annoying process but one I could put up with, just as long as Elliot went along with what I wanted to do.

Shortly after noon, the judge broke for lunch. Even though the day was devoted to jury selection, technically it was the first day of my first trial in over a year. Lorna Taylor had come to court to watch and show her support. The plan was to go to lunch together and then she would go back to the office and start packing it up.

As we entered the hallway outside the courtroom, I asked Elliot if he wanted to join us but he said he had to make a quick run to the studio to check on things. I told him not to be late coming back. The judge had given us a very generous ninety minutes for the lunch break and he would not look kindly on any late returns.

Lorna and I hung back and let the prospective jurors crowd onto the elevators. I didn’t want to ride down with them. Inevitably when you do that, one of them opens their mouth and asks something that is improper and you then have to go through the motions of reporting it to the judge.

When one of the elevators opened, I saw the reporter Jack McEvoy push his way out past the jurors, scan the hallway and zero in on me.

“Great,” I said. “Here comes trouble.”

McEvoy came directly toward me.

“What do you want?” I said.

“To explain.”

“What, you mean explain why you’re a liar?”

“No, look, when I told you it was going to run Sunday, I meant it. That’s what I was told.”

“And here it is Thursday and no story in the paper, and when I’ve tried to call you about it, you don’t call me back. I’ve got other reporters interested, McEvoy. I don’t need the Times.”

“Look, I understand. But what happened was that they decided to hold it so it would run closer to the trial.”

“The trial started two hours ago.”

The reporter shook his head.

“You know, the real trial. Testimony and evidence. They’re running it out front this coming Sunday.”

“The front page on Sunday. Is that a promise?”

“Monday at the latest.”

“Oh, now it’s Monday.”

“Look, it’s the news business. Things change. It’s supposed to run out front on Sunday but if something big happens in the world, they might kick it over till Monday. It’s either-or.”

“Whatever. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I saw that the area around the elevators was clear. Lorna and I could go down now and not encounter any prospective jurors. I took Lorna by the arm and started leading her that way. I pushed past the reporter.

“So we’re okay?” McEvoy said. “You’ll hold off?”

“Hold off on what?”

“Talking to anyone else. On giving away the exclusive.”

“Whatever.”

I left him hanging and headed toward the elevators. When we got out of the building, we walked a block over to City Hall and I had Patrick pick us up there. I didn’t want any prospective jurors who might be hanging around the courthouse to see me getting into the back of a chauffeured Lincoln. It might not sit well with them. Among my pretrial instructions to Elliot had been a directive for him to eschew the studio limo and drive himself to court every day. You never know who might see what outside the courtroom and what the effect might be.

I told Patrick to take us over to the French Garden on Seventh Street. I then called Harry Bosch’s cell phone and he answered right away.

“I just talked to the reporter,” I said.

“And?”

“And it’s finally running Sunday or Monday. On the front page, he says, so be ready.”

“Finally.”

“Yeah. You going to be ready?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m ready.”

“I have to worry. It’s my – Hello?”

He was gone already. I closed the phone.

“What was that?” Lorna asked.

“Nothing.”

I realized that I had to change the subject.

“Listen, when you go back to the office today, I want you to call Julie Favreau and see if she can come to court tomorrow.”

“I thought Elliot didn’t want a jury consultant.”

“He doesn’t have to know we’re using her.”

“Then, how will you pay her?”

“Take it out of general operating. I don’t care. I’ll pay her out of my own pocket if I have to. But I’m going to need her and I don’t care what Elliot thinks. I already burned through two strikes and have a feeling that by tomorrow I’m going to have to make whatever I have left count. I’ll want her help on the final chart. Just tell her the bailiff will have her name and will make sure she gets a seat. Tell her to sit in the gallery and not to approach me when I’m with my client. Tell her she can text me on the cell when she has something important.”

“Okay, I’ll call her. Are you doing all right, Mick?”

I must’ve been talking too fast or sweating too much. Lorna had picked up on my agitation. I was feeling a little shaky and I didn’t know if it was because of the reporter’s bullshit or Bosch’s hanging up or the growing realization that what I had been working toward for a year would soon be upon me. Testimony and evidence.

“I’m fine,” I said sharply. “I’m just hungry. You know how I get when I’m hungry.”

“Sure,” she said. “I understand.”

The truth was, I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t even feel like eating. I was feeling the weight on me. The burden of a man’s future.

And it wasn’t my client’s future I was thinking of.

Thirty-five

By three o’clock on the second day of jury selection, Golantz and I had traded preemptory and cause challenges for more than ten hours of court time. It had been a battle. We had quietly savaged each other, identifying each other’s must-have jurors and striking them without care or conscience. We had gone through almost the entire venire, and my jury seating chart was covered in some spots with as many as five layers of Post-its. I had two preemptory challenges left. Golantz, at first judicious with his challenges, had caught up and then passed me and was down to his final preemptory. It was zero hour. The jury box was about to be complete.

In its current composition, the panel now included an attorney, a computer programmer, two new postal service employees and three new retirees, as well as a male nurse, a tree trimmer and an artist.

From the original twelve seated the morning before, there were still two prospective jurors remaining. The engineer in seat seven and one of the retirees, in seat twelve, had somehow gone the distance. Both were white males and both, in my estimation, leaning toward the state. Neither was overtly on the prosecution’s side, but on my chart I had written notes about each in blue ink – my code for a juror who I perceived as being cold to the defense. But their leanings were so slight that I had still not used a precious challenge on either.

I knew I could take them both out in my final flourish and use of preemptory strikes, but that was the risk of voir dire. You strike one juror because of blue ink and the replacement might end up being neon blue and a greater risk to your client than the original was. It was what made jury selection such an unpredictable proposition.

The latest addition to the box was the artist who took the opening in seat number eleven after Golantz had used his nineteenth preemptory to remove a city sanitation worker who I’d had down as a red juror. Under the general questioning of Judge Stanton, the artist revealed that she lived in Malibu and worked in a studio off the Pacific Coast Highway. Her medium was acrylic paint and she had studied at the Art Institute of Philadelphia before coming to California for the light. She said she didn’t own a television and didn’t regularly read any newspapers. She said she knew nothing about the murders that had taken place six months earlier in the beach house not far from where she lived and worked.