Chapters (64)
- PART ONE
- One
- Two
- Three
- PART TWO
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- PART THREE
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- PART FOUR
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- PART FIVE
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Fifty-two
- Fifty-three
- PART SIX
- Fifty-four
- Fifty-five
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
I expected Golantz to rush to the juror’s defense. As far as he was concerned, number seven was a blue juror.
I rushed to my own defense.
“He’s talking about this being a ploy by the defense and I object to the accusation.”
The judge quickly held his hands up in a calming gesture.
“Just hold your horses, both of you. I didn’t talk to number seven yet. I spent the weekend thinking about how to proceed with it when I came to court today. I conferred with a few other judges on the matter and I was fully prepared to bring it up with counsel present this morning. The only problem is, juror number seven didn’t show up today. He’s not here.”
That brought a pause to both Golantz and me.
“He’s not here?” Golantz said. “Did you send deputies to —?”
“Yes, I sent court deputies to his home, and his wife told them that he was at work but she didn’t know anything about court or a trial or anything like that. They went over to Lockheed and found the man and brought him here a few minutes ago. It wasn’t him. He was not juror number seven.”
“Judge, you’re losing me,” I said. “I thought you said they found him at work.”
The judge nodded.
“I know. I did. This is beginning to sound like Laurel and Hardy and that ‘Who’s on first?’ thing.”
“Abbott and Costello,” I said.
“What?”
“Abbott and Costello. They did the ‘Who’s on first?’ thing.”
“Whichever. The point is, juror number seven was not juror number seven.”
“I’m still not following you, Judge,” I said.
“We had number seven down in the computer as Rodney L. Banglund, engineer from Lockheed, resident of Palos Verdes. But the man who has been sitting for two weeks in seat number seven is not Rodney Banglund. We don’t know who he was and now he’s missing.”
“He took Banglund’s place but Banglund didn’t know about it,” Golantz said.
“Apparently,” the judge said. “Banglund — the real one — is being interviewed about it now, but when he was in here he didn’t seem to know anything about this. He said he never got a jury summons in the first place.”
“So his summons was sort of hijacked and used by this unknown person?” I said.
The judge nodded.
“So it appears. The question is why, and the sheriff’s department will hopefully get that answered.”
“What does this do to the trial?” I asked. “Do we have a mistrial?”