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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 put it together without having to make a deal with anybody,” I said. “My investigator traced McSweeney. Nine years ago he was arrested for an ADW and who was his attorney? Mitch Lester, your husband. The next year he was popped again for fraud and once again it was Mitch Lester on the case. There’s the connection. It makes a nice little triangle, doesn’t it? You have access to and control of the jury pool and the selection process. You can get into the computers and it was you who planted the sleeper on my jury. Jerry Vincent paid you but then he changed his mind after the FBI came sniffing around. You couldn’t run the risk that Jerry might get jammed up with the FBI and try to deal a judge to them. So you sent McSweeney.

“Then, when it all turned to shit yesterday, you decided to clean house. You sent McSweeney — juror number seven — after Elliot and Albrecht, and then me. How am I doing, Judge? I miss anything so far?”

I said the word “judge” like it had the same meaning as garbage. She stood up.

“This is insane. You have no evidence connecting me to anyone but my husband. And making the leap from one of his clients to me is completely absurd.”

“You’re right, Judge. I don’t have evidence but we’re not in court here. This is just you and me. I just have my gut instincts and they tell me that this all comes back to you.”

“I want you to leave now.”

“But the feds on the other hand? They have McSweeney.”

I could see it strike fear in her eyes.

“Guess you haven’t heard from him, have you? Yeah, I don’t think they’re letting him make any calls while they debrief him. You better hope he doesn’t have any of that evidence. Because if he puts you in that triangle, then you’ll be trading your black robe for an orange jumpsuit.”

“Get out or I will call courthouse security and have you arrested!”

She pointed toward the door. I calmly and slowly stood up.

“Sure, I’ll go. And you know something? I may never practice law again in this courthouse. But I promise you that I’ll come back to watch you prosecuted. You and your husband. Count on it.”

The judge stared at me, her arm still extended toward the door, and I saw the anger in her eyes slowly change to fear. Her arm drooped a little and then she let it drop all the way. I left her standing there.

I took the stairs all the way down because I didn’t want to get on a crowded elevator. Eleven flights down. At the bottom I pushed through the glass doors and left the courthouse. I pulled my phone and called Patrick and told him to pull the car around. Then I called Bosch.