“Actually, I’d probably need to talk to the judge for an opinion on that, but I don’t need to bother. My case manager is one of the best accounts people I’ve ever run across. She’s been working with the books and she tells me they’re clean. Every penny Jerry took in is accounted for.”

Bosch didn’t respond, so I continued.

“Let me tell you something, Detective. When lawyers get into trouble, most of the time it’s because of the money. The books. It’s the one place where there are no gray areas. It’s the one place where the California bar loves to stick its nose in. I keep the cleanest books in the business because I don’t ever want to give them a reason to come after me. So I would know and Lorna, my case manager, would know if there was something in these books that didn’t add up. But there isn’t. I think Jerry probably paid himself a little too quickly but there is nothing technically wrong with that.”

I saw Bosch’s eyes light on something I had said.

“What?”

“What’s that mean, he ‘paid himself too quickly’?”

“It means — let me just start at the start. The way it works is you take on a client and you receive an advance. That money goes into the client trust account. It’s their money but you are holding it because you want to make sure you can get it when you earn it. You follow?”

“Yeah, you can’t trust your clients because they’re criminals. So you get the money up front and put it in a trust account. Then you pay yourself from it as you do the work.”

“More or less. Anyway, it’s in the trust and as you do the work, make appearances, prepare the case and so forth, you take your fees from the trust account. You move it into the operating account. Then, from the operating account you pay your own bills and salaries. Rent, secretary, investigator, car costs and so on and so forth. You also pay yourself.”

“Okay, so how did Vincent pay himself too quickly?”

“Well, I am not exactly saying he did. It’s a matter of custom and practice. But it looks from the books that he liked to keep a low balance in operating. He happened to have had a franchise client who paid a large advance up front and that money went through the trust and operating accounts pretty quickly. After costs, the rest went to Jerry Vincent in salary.”

Bosch’s body language indicated I was hitting on something that jibed with something else and was important to him. He had leaned slightly toward me and seemed to have tightened his shoulders and neck.

“Walter Elliot,” he said. “Was he the franchise?”

“I can’t give out that information but I think it’s an easy guess to make.”