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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

“Mr. Haller,” Judge Stanton said. “Do you wish to use your last challenge or accept the jury as it is now composed? I remind you, it is getting late in the day and we still have to choose our alternate jurors.”

My phone was buzzing while the judge addressed me.

“Uh, one more moment, Your Honor.”

I turned back toward Elliot and leaned into him as if to whisper something. But what I really was doing was pulling my phone.

“Are you sure, Walter?” I whispered. “The guy’s an engineer. That could be trouble for us.”

“Look, I make my living reading people and rolling the dice,” Elliot whispered back. “I want that man on my jury.”

I nodded and looked down between my legs where I was holding the phone. It was a text from Favreau.

Favreau: Kick 10. I see deception. 7 fits prosecution profile but I see good eye contact and open face. He’s interested in your story. He likes your client.

Eye contact. That settled it. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and stood up. Elliot grabbed me by the sleeve of my jacket. I bent down to hear his urgent whisper.

“What are you doing?”

I shook off his grasp because I didn’t like his public display of attempting control over me. I straightened back up and looked up at the judge.

“Your Honor, the defense would like to thank and excuse juror ten at this time.”

While the judge dismissed the technical writer and called a new candidate to the tenth chair in the box, I sat down and turned to Elliot.

“Walter, don’t ever grab me like that in front of the jury. It makes you look like an asshole and I’m already going to have a tough enough time convincing them you’re not a killer.”

I turned so that my back was to him as I watched the latest and most likely the last juror take the open seat in the box.

PART FOUR

PART FOUR

—Fillet of Soul

Walking in a Dead Man’s Shoes

Attorney Takes Over for Murdered Colleague First Case; The Trial of the Decade

BY JACK McEVOY, Times Staff Writer

It wasn’t the 31 cases dropped in his lap that were the difficulty. It was the big one with the big client and highest stakes attached to it. Defense Attorney Michael Haller stepped into the shoes of the murdered Jerry Vincent two weeks ago and now finds himself at the center of this year’s so-called Trial of the Decade.

Today testimony is scheduled to begin in the trial of Walter Elliot, the 54-year-old chairman of Archway Studios, charged with murdering his wife and her alleged lover six months ago in Malibu. Haller stepped into the case after Vincent, 45, was found shot to death in his car in downtown Los Angeles.