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
He said it grudgingly. It was a concession he didn’t want to make. No man wants to relinquish his power to another.
“Okay, Walter,” I said. “I think that puts us on the same page.”
I checked my watch again. There were a few more things on my list and I still had some time.
“Okay, let’s move on,” I said.
“Please.”
“I want to add a couple people to the defense team. They will be ex—”
“No. I told you, the more lawyers a defendant has, the guiltier he looks. Look at Barry Bonds. Tell me people don’t think he’s guilty. He’s got more lawyers than teammates.”
“Walter, you didn’t let me finish. These are not lawyers I’m talking about, and when we go to trial, I promise it is going to be just you and me sitting at the table.”
“Then, who do you want to add?”
“A jury-selection consultant and somebody to work with you on image and testimony, all of that.”
“No jury consultant. Makes it look like you’re trying to rig things.”
“Look, the person I want to hire will be sitting out in the gallery. No one will notice her. She plays poker for a living and just reads people’s faces and looks for tells — little giveaways. That’s it.”
“No, I won’t pay for that mumbo jumbo.”
“Are you sure, Walter?”
I spent five minutes trying to convince him, telling him that picking the jury might be the most important part of the trial. I stressed that in circumstantial cases the priority had to be in picking jurors with open minds, ones who didn’t believe that just because the police or prosecution say something, it’s automatically true. I told him that I prided myself on my skills in picking a jury but that I could use the help of an expert who knew how to read faces and gestures. At the end of my plea Elliot simply shook his head.
“Mumbo jumbo. I will trust your skills.”
I studied him for a moment and decided we’d talked enough for the day. I would bring up the rest with him the next time. I had come to realize that while he was paying lip service to the idea that I was the trial boss, there was no doubt that he was firmly in charge of things.
And I couldn’t help but believe it might lead him straight to prison.
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