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Back Brass Verdict Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. PART ONE
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. PART TWO
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. PART THREE
  37. Thirty-four
  38. Thirty-five
  39. PART FOUR
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. PART FIVE
  52. Forty-seven
  53. Forty-eight
  54. Forty-nine
  55. Fifty
  56. Fifty-one
  57. Fifty-two
  58. Fifty-three
  59. PART SIX
  60. Fifty-four
  61. Fifty-five
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY

I nodded. She was right. Sending a client to the psych ward at Camarillo wasn’t doing him any favors. The mystery case was getting more mysterious. Only, my client was in no condition to tell me why. His lawyer — Vincent — had kept him drugged up and locked away for three months.

“Okay, Joanne. Thanks. Let’s—”

I was interrupted by the clerk, who called court into session, and I looked up to see Judge Friedman taking the bench.

Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven

Angel Romero was one of those human interest stories you read in the paper every now and then. The story about the gangbanger who grew up hard on the streets of East L.A. but fought his way through to an education and even law school, then turned around and gave back to the community. Angel’s way to give back was to go into the Public Defenders Office and represent the underdogs of society. He was a lifer in the PD and had seen many young lawyers — myself included — come and go on their way to private practice and the supposed big bucks that came with it.

After the Wyms hearing — in which the judge granted the motion to continue in order to give Giorgetti and me time to work out a plea — I went down to the PD’s office on the tenth floor and asked for Romero. I knew he was a working lawyer, not a supervisor, and that most likely meant he was in a courtroom somewhere in the building. The receptionist typed something into her computer and looked at the screen.

“Department one-twenty-four,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

Department 124 was Judge Champagne’s courtroom on the thirteenth floor, the same floor I had just come from. But that was life in the CCB. It seemed to run in circles. I took the elevator back up and walked down the hall to 124, powering my phone down as I approached the double doors. Court was in session and Romero was in front of the judge, arguing a motion to reduce bail. I slid into the back row of the gallery and hoped for a quick ruling so I could get to Romero without a long wait.

My ears perked up when I heard Romero mention his client by name, calling him Mr. Scales. I slid further down the bench so I had a better visual angle on the defendant sitting next to Romero. He was a white guy in an orange jail jumpsuit. When I saw his profile, I knew it was Sam Scales, a con man and former client. The last I remembered of Scales, he had gone off to prison on a plea deal I’d obtained for him. That was three years ago. He obviously had gotten out and gotten right back into trouble — only this time he hadn’t called me.