The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

hateful at times-but Bosch sensed that beyond that he was ultimately a fair man. And that’s all Bosch thought he needed to come out okay. A fair shot at the system. After all, he knew in his heart his actions at the apartment in Silverlake were correct. He had done the right thing.
    “It will be up to you,” the judge was saying to the jury, “to decide if what the lawyers say is proven during trial. Remember that. Now, Ms. Chandler, you go first.”
    Honey Chandler nodded at him and stood up. She moved to the lectern that stood between the plaintiff’s and the defense tables. Judge Keyes had set the strict guidelines earlier. In his courtroom, there was no moving about, no approaching the witness stand or jury box by lawyers. Anything said out loud by a lawyer was said from the lectern between the tables. Knowing the judge’s strict demand for compliance to his guidelines, Chandler even asked his permission before turning the heavy mahogany altar at an angle so she would face the jury while speaking. The judge sternly nodded his approval.
    “Good afternoon,” she began. “The judge is quite right when he tells you that this statement is nothing more than a road map.”
    Good strategy, Bosch thought from the cellar of cynicism from which he viewed this whole case. Pander to the judge with your first sentence. He watched Chandler as she referred to the yellow legal pad she had put down on the lectern. Bosch noticed that over the top button of her blouse was a large pin with a round black onyx stone set in it. It was flat and as dead as a shark’s eye. She had her hair pulled severely back and braided in a no-nonsense style behind her head. But one tress of hair had come loose and it helped affect the image of a woman not preoccupied with her looks but totally focused on the law, on the case, on the heinous miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the defendant. Bosch believed she probably pulled the hair loose on purpose.
    As he watched her start, Bosch remembered the thud he had felt in his chest when he heard she was the lawyer for Church’s wife. To him, it was far more disturbing than learning Judge Keyes had been assigned the trial. She was that good. That was why they called her Money.
    “I would like to take you down the road a piece,” Chandler said and Bosch wondered if she was even developing a southern accent now. “I just want to highlight what our case is about and what we believe the evidence will prove. It is a civil rights case. It involves the fatal shooting of a man named Norman Church at the hands of the police.”
    She paused here. Not to look at her yellow pad but for effect, to gather all attention to what she would say next. Bosch looked over at the jury. Five women and seven men. Three blacks, three Latinos, one Asian and five whites. They were looking at Chandler with rapt attention.
    “This case,” Chandler said, “is about a police officer who wasn’t satisfied with his job and the vast powers it gave him. This officer also wanted your job. And he wanted Judge Keyes’s job. And he wanted the state’s job of administering the verdicts and sentences set down by judges and juries. He wanted it all. This case is about Detective Harry Bosch, who you see sitting at the defendant’s table.”
    She pointed at Bosch while drawing out the word dee-fend-ant. Belk immediately stood up and objected.
    “Miss Chandler does not need to point my client out to the jury or make sarcastic vocalizations. Yes, we are at the defense table. That’s because this is a civil case and in this country anybody can sue anybody, even the family of a-”
    “Objection, Your Honor,” Chandler shouted. “He is using his objection to further try to destroy the reputation of Mr. Church, who was never convicted of anything because-”
    “Enough!” Judge Keyes thundered. “Objection sustained. Ms. Chandler, we don’t need to point. We all know who we are. We also do not need inflammatory accent being placed on any words. Words are beautiful and ugly, all on their own. Let them stand for themselves. As for Mr. Belk, I find it acutely annoying when opposing counsel interrupts opening statements or closing arguments. You will have your turn, sir. I would suggest that you not object during Ms. Chandler’s statement unless an egregious trespass on your client has occurred. I do not consider pointing at him worth the objection.”
    “Thank you, Your Honor,” Belk and Chandler said in unison.
    “Proceed,