Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

pulling the plug on the marriage and disappearing. I wondered if Jeff Trammel would show up now that his wife was arrested for murder. Would he take custody of the son he had abandoned?
    “You want me to get Valenzuela over here?” Cisco asked. “He’s only a block away.”
    Fernando Valenzuela was a bail bondsman I used on Valley cases. But I knew he wouldn’t be needed this time.
    “I’d wait on that. If they’ve tagged her with murder she isn’t going to make bail.”
    “Right, yeah.”
    “Do you know if a DA’s been assigned yet?”
    I was thinking about my ex-wife who worked for the district attorney’s office in Van Nuys. She might be a useful source of back-channel information—unless she had been put on the case. Then there would be a conflict of interest. It had happened before. Maggie McPherson wouldn’t like that.
    “I’ve got nothing on that.”
    I considered what little we knew and what might be the best way to proceed. My feeling was that once the police understood what they had in this case—a murder that could draw wide attention to one of the great financial catastrophes of the time—they would quickly go to lockdown, putting a lid on all sources of information. The time to make moves was now.
    “Cisco, I changed my mind. Don’t wait for me. Go over to the scene and see what you can find out. Talk to people before they get locked down.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah. I’ll handle the PD and I’ll call if I need anything.”
    “Got it. Good luck.”
    “You too.”
    I closed the phone and looked at the back of my driver’s head.
    “Rojas, turn right at Delano and take me up Sylmar.”
    “No problem.”
    “I don’t know how long I’ll be. I want you to drop me and then go back up Van Nuys Boulevard and find a body shop. See if they can get the paint off the back of the car.”
    Rojas looked at me in the rearview mirror.
    “What paint?”

Three
    The Van Nuys police building is a four-story structure serving many purposes. It houses the Van Nuys police division as well as the Valley Bureau command offices and the main jail facility serving the northern part of the city. I had been here before on cases and knew that as with most LAPD stations large or small, there would be multiple obstacles standing between my client and me.
    I have always had the suspicion that officers assigned to front desk duty were chosen by cunning supervisors because of their skills in obfuscation and disinformation. If you doubt this, walk into any police station in the city and tell the desk officer who greets you that you wish to make a complaint against a police officer. See how long it takes him to find the proper form. Desk cops are usually young and dumb and unintentionally ignorant, or old and obdurate and completely deliberate in their actions.
    At the front desk at Van Nuys station I was met by an officer with the name CRIMMINS printed on his crisp uniform. He was a silver-haired veteran and therefore highly accomplished when it came to the dead-eyed stare. He showed this to me when I identified myself as a defense attorney with a client waiting to see me in the detective squad. His response consisted of pursing his lips and pointing to a row of plastic chairs where I was supposed to meekly go to wait until he deemed it time to call upstairs.
    Guys like Crimmins are used to a cowering public: people who do exactly as he says because they are too intimidated to do anything else. I wasn’t part of that public.
    “No, that’s not how this works,” I said.
    Crimmins squinted. He hadn’t been challenged by anybody all day, let alone a criminal defense attorney—emphasis on criminal. His first move was to fire up the sarcasm responders.
    “Is that right?”
    “Yes, that’s right. So pick up the phone and call upstairs to Detective Kurlen. Tell him Mickey Haller is on the way up and that if I don’t see my client in the next ten minutes I’ll just walk across the plaza to the courthouse and go see Judge Mills.”
    I paused to let the name register.
    “I’m sure you know of Judge Roger Mills. Lucky for me, he used to be a criminal defense attorney before he got elected to the bench. He didn’t like being jacked around by the police back then and doesn’t like it much when he hears about it now. He’ll drag both you and Kurlen into court and make you explain why you were playing this same old game of stopping a citizen from exercising her constitutional rights to consult an attorney.