The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

warrant allowing the LAPD to search my house with this case in the papers every day. Judges are political animals, Detective, nobody’s going to sign a warrant and then possibly come out on the wrong end of this.”
    “I was thinking more along the lines of your office. But thanks for at least telling me where it is.”
    The look came back into her face for a split second. She had slipped and maybe that was as big a shock to her as anything he had said. She put the cigarette into the sand after two puffs. Tommy Faraway would cherish it when he found it later.
    “We convene in one minute. Detective, I don’t know anything about a note. Understand? Nothing at all. There is no note. If you try to make any trouble over this, I will make even more for you.”
    “I haven’t told Belk and I’m not going to. I just want the note. It’s got nothing to do with the case at trial.”
    “That’s easy for...”
    “For me to say because I haven’t read it? You’re slipping, Counselor. Better be more careful than that.”
    She ignored that and went on to other business.
    “Another thing, if you think my... uh, arrangement with Edgar is grounds for a mistrial motion or a misconduct complaint, you will find that you are dead wrong. Edgar agreed to our relationship without any provocation. He suggested it, in fact. If you make any complaint I will sue you for slander and send out press releases when I do it.”
    He doubted anything that happened was at Edgar’s suggestion but let it go. She gave him her best dead-eyed, killer look, then opened the door and disappeared through it.
    Bosch finished his smoke, hoping his play might at least knock her off speed a little bit during her closing argument. But most of all he was pleased that he had gotten tacit confirmation of his theory. The follower had sent her a note.

    * * *

    The silence that descended over the courtroom as Chandler walked to the lectern was the kind of tension-filled quiet that accompanies the moment before a verdict is read. Bosch felt that this was because the verdict was a foregone conclusion in many of the minds in the courtroom and Chandler’s words here would serve as his coup de grace. The final, deadly blow.
    She began with the perfunctory thank-yous to the jury for their patience and close attention to the case. She said she was fully confident that they would fairly deliberate a verdict.
    In the trials Bosch had attended as an investigator, this was always stated by both lawyers to the jury, and he always thought it was a crock. Most juries have members who are there simply to avoid going to work at the factory or office. But once there, the issues are either too complicated or scary or boring and they spend their days in the box just trying to stay awake between the breaks, when they can fortify themselves with sugar, caffeine and nicotine.
    After that opening salutation, Chandler quickly got to the heart of the matter. She said, “You will recall that on Monday I stood before you and gave you the road map. I told you what I would set out to prove, what I needed to prove and now it is your job to decide if I have done that. I think when you consider the week’s testimony, you will have no doubt that I have.
    “And speaking of doubt, the judge will instruct you but I would like to take a moment to explain to you once again that this is a civil matter. It is not a criminal case. It is not like Perry Mason or like anything else you have seen on TV or at the movies. In a civil trial, in order for you to find for the plaintiff, it requires only that a preponderance of the evidence be in favor of the plaintiff’s case. A preponderance, what does that mean? It means the evidence for the plaintiff’s case outweighs the evidence against it. A majority. It can be a simple majority, just fifty percent, plus one.”
    She spent a lot of time on this subject because this would be where the case was won or lost. She had to take twelve legally inept people-this was guaranteed by the juror selection process-and relieve them of media-conditioned beliefs or perceptions that cases were decided by reasonable doubts or beyond the shadow of doubt. That was for criminal cases. This was civil. In civil, the defendant lost the edge he got in criminal.
    “Think of it as a set of scales. The scales of justice. And each piece of evidence or testimony introduced has a certain weight, depending on the validity you give it. One side of the scales is the plaintiff’s