“That’s absurd,” Golantz said.

But the judge nodded.

“I understand your concern and I am putting Mr. Golantz on notice that if I find any indication of that, then I will become… shall we say, very agitated. I think we are done here, gentlemen.”

The judge rolled back into position and the lawyers returned to theirs. On my way back, I checked the clock on the back wall of the courtroom. It was ten minutes until five. I figured if I could stall for a few more minutes, the judge would recess for the day and the jurors would have the French connection to mull over for the night.

I stood at the lectern and asked the judge for a few moments. I then acted like I was studying my notepad, trying to decide if there was anything else I wanted to ask Kinder about.

“Mr. Haller, how are we doing?” the judge finally prompted.

“We’re doing fine, Judge. And I look forward to exploring Mr. Rilz’s activities in France more thoroughly during the defense phase of the trial. Until then, I have no further questions for Detective Kinder.”

I returned to the defense table and sat down. The judge then announced that court was recessed for the day.

I watched the jury file out of the courtroom and picked up no read from any of them. I then glanced behind Golantz to the gallery. All three of the Rilz men were staring at me with hardened, dead eyes.

Forty-six

Cisco called me at home at ten o’clock. He said he was nearby in Hollywood and that he could come right over. He said he already had some news about juror number seven.

After hanging up I told Patrick that I was going out on the deck to meet privately with Cisco. I put on a sweater because there was a chill in the air outside, grabbed the file I’d used in court earlier and went out to wait for my investigator.

The Sunset Strip glowed like a blast furnace fire over the shoulder of the hills. I’d bought the house in a flush year because of the deck and the view it offered of the city. It never ceased to entrance me, day or night. It never ceased to charge me and tell me the truth. That truth being that anything was possible, that anything could happen, good or bad.

“Hey, boss.”

I jumped and turned. Cisco had climbed the stairs and come up behind me without my even hearing him. He must’ve come up the hill on Fairfax and then killed the engine and freewheeled down to my house. He knew I’d be upset if his pipes woke up everybody in the neighborhood.

“Don’t scare me like that, man.”

“What are you so jumpy about?”

“I just don’t like people sneaking up on me. Sit down out here.”

I pointed him to the small table and chairs positioned under the roof’s eave and in front of the living room window. It was uncomfortable outdoor furniture I almost never used. I liked to contemplate the city from the deck and draw the charge. The only way to do that was standing.

The file I’d brought out was on the table. Cisco pulled out a chair and was about to sit down when he stopped and used a hand to sweep the smog dust and crud off the seat.

“Man, don’t you ever spray this stuff off?”

“You’re wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Cisco. Just sit down.”

He did and I did and I saw him look through the translucent window shade into the living room. The television was on and Patrick was in there watching the extreme-sports channel on cable. People were doing flips on snowmobiles.

“Is that a sport?” Cisco asked.

“To Patrick, I guess.”

“How’s it working out with him?”

“It’s working. He’s only staying a couple weeks. Tell me about number seven?”

“Down to business. Okay.”

He reached behind him and pulled a small journal out of his back pocket.

“You got any light out here?”

I got up, went to the front door and reached in to turn on the deck light. I glanced at the TV and saw the medical staff attending to a snowmobile driver who apparently had failed to complete his flip and had three hundred pounds of sled land on him.

I closed the door and sat back down across from Cisco. He was studying something in his journal.

“Okay,” he said. “Juror number seven. I haven’t had much time on this but I’ve got a few things I wanted to get right to you. His name is David McSweeney and I think almost everything he put on his J-sheet is false.”

The J-sheet was the single-page form each juror fills out as part of the voir dire process. The sheets carry the prospective juror’s name, profession and area of residence by zip code as well as a checklist of basic questions designed to help attorneys form opinions about whether they want the individual on their jury. In this case the name would’ve been excised but all the other information was on the sheet I had given Cisco to start with.

“Give me some examples.”

“Well, according to the zip on the sheet, he lives down in Palos Verdes. Not true. I followed him from the courthouse directly to an apartment off of Beverly over there behind CBS.”

Cisco pointed south in the general direction of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, where the CBS television studio was located.

“I had a friend run the plate on the pickup he drove home from court and it came back to David McSweeney on Beverly, same address I saw him go into. I then had my guy run his DL and shoot me over the photo. I looked at it on my phone and McSweeney is our guy.”

The information was intriguing but I was more concerned with how Cisco was conducting his investigation of juror number seven. We had already blown up one source on the Vincent investigation.

“Cisco, man, your prints are going to be all over this. I told you I can’t have any blowback on this.”

“Chill, man. There’s no fingerprints. My guy isn’t going to go volunteering that he did a search for me. It’s illegal for a cop to do an outside search. He’d lose his job. And if somebody comes looking, we still don’t need to worry, because he doesn’t use his terminal or user ID when he does these for me. He cadged an old lieutenant’s password. So there are no prints, okay? No trails. We’re safe on this.”

I reluctantly nodded. Cops stealing from cops. Why didn’t that surprise me?

“All right,” I said. “What else?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s got an arrest record and he checked the box on the sheet that said he’d never been popped before.”

“What was the arrest for?”

“Two arrests. ADW in ’ninety-seven and conspiracy to commit fraud in ’ninety-nine. No convictions but that is all I know for right now. When the court opens I can get more if you want.”

I wanted to know more, especially about how arrests for fraud and assault with a deadly weapon could result in no convictions, but if Cisco pulled records on the case, then he’d have to show ID and that would leave a trail.

“Not if you have to sign out the files. Let it go for now. You got anything else?”

“Yeah, I’m telling you, I think it’s all phony. On the sheet he says he’s an engineer with Lockheed. As far as I can tell, that’s not true. I called Lockheed and they don’t have a David McSweeney in the phone directory. So unless the guy’s got a job with no phone, then…”

He raised his hands palm up, as if to say there was no explanation but deception.

“I’ve only had t’night on this, but everything’s coming up phony and that probably includes the guy’s name.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t officially know his name, do we? It was blacked out on the J-sheet.”

“Right.”

“So I followed juror number seven and IDed him as David McSweeney, but who’s to say that’s the same name that was blacked out on the sheet. Know what I mean?”

I thought for a moment and then nodded.

“You’re saying that McSweeney could’ve hijacked a legitimate juror’s name and maybe even his jury summons and is masquerading as that person in the courthouse.”