The Reversal

moves. I would anticipate them. I would know them before Royce did. And I would be like a sniper in a tree, waiting to skillfully pick them off from a distance, one by one.
    This promise brought Maggie McFierce and me together in my new office for frequent strategy sessions. And on this afternoon the discussion was focused on what would be the centerpiece of our opponent’s pretrial defense. We knew Royce would be filing a motion to dismiss the case. That was a given. What we were discussing were the grounds on which he would make the motion. I wanted to be ready for each one. It is said that in war the sniper ambushes an enemy patrol by first taking out the commander, the radioman and the medic. If he accomplishes this, the remaining members of the patrol panic and scatter. This was what I hoped to quickly do when Royce filed his motion. I wanted to move swiftly and thoroughly with demoralizing arguments and answers that would put the defendant on strong notice that he was in trouble. If I panicked Jessup, I might not even have to go to trial. I might get a disposition. A plea. And a plea was a conviction. That was as good as a win on this side of the aisle.
    “I think one thing he’s going to argue is that the charges are no longer valid without a preliminary hearing,” Maggie said. “This will give him two bites out of the apple. He’ll first ask the judge to dismiss but at the very least to order a new prelim.”
    “But the verdict of the trial was what was reversed,” I said. “It goes back to the trial and we have a new trial. The prelim is not what was challenged.”
    “Well, that’s what we’ll argue.”
    “Good, you get to handle that one. What else?”
    “I’m not going to keep throwing out angles if you keep giving them back to me to be prepared for. That’s the third one you’ve given me and by my scorecard you’ve only taken one.”
    “Okay, I’ll take the next one sight unseen. What do you have?”
    Maggie smiled and I realized I had just walked into my own ambush. But before she could pull the trigger, the office door opened and Bosch entered without knocking.
    “Saved by the bell,” I said. “Harry, what’s up?”
    “I’ve got a witness I think you two should hear. I think he’s going to be good for us and they didn’t use him in the first trial.”
    “Who?” Maggie asked.
    “Bill Clinton,” Bosch said.
    I didn’t recognize the name as belonging to anyone associated with the case. But Maggie, with her command of case detail, brought it together.
    “One of the tow truck drivers who worked with Jessup.”
    Bosch pointed at her.
    “Right. He worked with Jessup back then at Aardvark Towing. Now he owns an auto repair shop on LaBrea near Olympic. It’s called Presidential Motors.”
    “Of course it is,” I said. “What does he do for us as a witness?”
    Bosch pointed toward the door.
    “I got him sitting out there with Lorna. Why don’t I bring him in and he can tell you himself?”
    I looked at Maggie, and seeing no objection, I told Bosch to bring Clinton in. Before stepping out Bosch lowered his voice and reported that he had run Clinton through the crime databases and he had come up clean. He had no criminal record.
    “Nothing,” Bosch said. “Not even an unpaid parking ticket.”
    “Good,” Maggie said. “Now let’s see what he has to say.”
    Bosch went out to the reception room and came back with a short man in his midfifties who was wearing blue work pants and a shirt with an oval patch above the breast pocket. It said Bill. His hair was neatly combed and he didn’t wear glasses. I saw grease under his fingernails but figured that could be remedied before he ever appeared in front of a jury.
    Bosch pulled a chair away from the wall and placed it in the middle of the room and facing my desk.
    “Why don’t you sit down here, Mr. Clinton, and we’ll ask you some questions,” he said.
    Bosch then nodded to me, passing the lead.
    “First of all, Mr. Clinton, thank you for agreeing to come in and talk to us today.”
    Clinton nodded.
    “That’s okay. Things are kind of slow at the shop right now.”
    “What kind of work do you do at the shop? Is there a specialty?”
    “Yeah, we do restoration. Mostly British cars. Triumphs, MGs, Jags, collectibles like that.”
    “I see. What’s a Triumph TR Two-Fifty go for these days?”
    Clinton looked up at me, surprised by my apparent knowledge of one of the cars he specialized in.
    “Depends on the