The Brass Verdict

investigator.
    “Cisco, it’s me. Where are you?”
    “At home. What’s up?”
    “Lorna there?”
    “No, she went to a movie with her sister. She should be back in-”
    “That’s all right. I wanted to talk to you. I want you to do something and you may not want to do it. If you don’t, I understand. Either way, I don’t want you to talk about it with anybody. Including Lorna.”
    There was a hesitation before he answered.
    “Who do I kill?”
    We both started to laugh and it relieved some of the tension that had been building through the night.
    “We can talk about that later but this might be just as dicey. I want you to shadow somebody for me and find out everything you can about him. The catch is, if you get caught, we’ll both probably get our tickets pulled.”
    “Who is it?”
    “Juror number seven.”

Forty-three
    As soon as I got back in the Lincoln, I started to regret what I was doing. I was walking a fine gray line that could lead me into big trouble. On the one hand, it is perfectly reasonable for an attorney to investigate a report of jury misconduct and tampering. But on the other hand, that investigation could be viewed as tampering in itself. Judge Stanton had taken steps to ensure the anonymity of the jury. I had just asked my investigator to subvert that. If it blew up in our faces, Stanton would be more than upset and would do more than give me the squint. This wasn’t a Make-A-Wish infraction. Stanton would complain to the bar, the chief judge and all the way up the line to the Supreme Court if he could get them to listen. He would see to it that the Elliot trial was my last.
    Patrick drove up Fareholm and pulled the car into the garage below my house. We walked out and then up the stairs to the front deck. It was almost ten o’clock and I was beat after a fourteen-hour day. But my adrenaline kicked in when I saw a man sitting in one of the deck chairs, his face in silhouette with the lights of the city behind him. I put my arm out to stop Patrick from advancing, the way a parent would stop a child from stepping blindly into the street.
    “Hello, Counselor.”
    Bosch. I recognized the voice and the greeting. I relaxed and let Patrick continue. We stepped up onto the porch and I unlocked the door to let Patrick go in. I then closed the door and turned to Bosch.
    “Nice view,” he said. “Defending scumbags got you this place?”
    I was too tired to do the dance with him.
    “What are you doing here, Detective?”
    “I figured you might be heading home after the bookstore,” he said. “So I just went on ahead and waited for you up here.”
    “Well, I’m done for the night. You can give your team the word, if there really is a team.”
    “What makes you think there’s not?”
    “I don’t know. I just haven’t seen anybody. I hope you weren’t bullshitting me, Bosch. I’ve got my ass way out in the wind on this.”
    “After court you had dinner with your client at Water Grill. You both had the fillet of sole and both of you raised your voices at times. Your client drank liberally, which resulted in you driving him home in his car. On your way back from there you stopped into Book Soup and made a phone call you obviously didn’t want your driver to hear.”
    I was impressed.
    “Okay, then, never mind that. I get it. They’re out there. What do you want, Bosch? What’s going on?”
    Bosch stood up and approached me.
    “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said. “What was Walter Elliot so hot and bothered about tonight at dinner? And who’d you call in the back of the bookstore?”
    “First of all, Elliot’s my client and I’m not telling you what we talked about. I’m not crossing that line with you. And as far as the call in the bookstore goes, I was ordering pizza because, as you and your colleagues might have noticed, I didn’t eat my dinner tonight. Stick around if you want a slice.”
    Bosch looked at me with that half smile of his, the knowing look with his flat dead eyes.
    “So that’s how you want to play it, Counselor?”
    “For now.”
    We didn’t speak for a long moment. We just sort of stood there, waiting for the next clever line. It didn’t come and I decided I really was tired and hungry.
    “Good night, Detective Bosch.”
    I went in and closed the door, leaving Bosch out there on the deck.

Forty-four
    My turn at Detective Kinder did not come until late on Tuesday, after the prosecutor had spent several more hours drawing the