Resurrection Walk

“Then why do you need the number, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked.

I spread my arms in surprise in the same way Morris had just moments earlier.

“Your Honor, please,” I said. “Are you asking me to stand here and outline my case strategy for Mr. Morris?”

“Let’s just calm things down here,” the judge said.

She seemed to understand her misstep. She considered her ruling for a long moment before responding.

“Very well,” she finally said. “The court orders the witness to provide the clerk with the phone number requested, and it will be turned over to the plaintiff’s counsel.”

“Your Honor,” Morris said, “the State asks that the number be sealed.”

“Is that necessary, Mr. Morris?” Coelho asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Morris said. “To protect Deputy Sanger from harassment.”

“It’s Sergeant Sanger,” I said.

“Sergeant Sanger,” Morris corrected himself.

“Very well,” Coelho said. “There is to be no distribution or use of the number by the plaintiff. It is under court seal. To violate the seal, Mr. Haller, will be to incur the wrath of this court.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Morris said, his tone suggesting that he had just attained some sort of victory.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I echoed, because I knew that the victory was mine.

27

It was late when I got the text from Bosch. I was working at the kitchen table because my home office was still a shambles. I had been writing out questions for Shami Arslanian on a legal pad when my phone buzzed with the message. It was an address in Burbank. A third-floor apartment. Bosch told me to come quickly and provided the combo for the building security gate.

I left the legal pad on the table, took the Navigator down the hill, and cut through Laurel Canyon to get to the Valley. I reached the destination near the Burbank Airport in forty minutes. The gate combo Bosch had sent worked and I was knocking on the door of apartment 317 two minutes later. Cisco answered the door and brought me in. Bosch was in the tiny apartment’s living room, sitting on a garish green couch next to a man with unkempt red hair and pale white skin. He looked to be in his late twenties, but that was just a guess because the scabs on his face disguised his true age. He was an obvious tweaker and that meant he could have been fifty or twenty. I almost turned around and walked. Tweakers were bad witnesses.

“Mick, this is Max Moder,” Cisco said. “His sister is Isabella.”

Moder pointed at me with recognition in his eyes.

“Hey, you, you’re the guy on the billboards, right?” Moder said. “I seen you up there.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said. “What’ve you got for me?”

Moder turned to Bosch as if to get his approval. Bosch nodded, giving him the go-ahead.

“Well, about three or four months ago my sister called me from the prison where she is,” he said. “She asked me to go to the library where they keep the old newspaper archives. She told me to try to find stories about a murder case. A sheriff’s deputy that got killed up in Quartz Hill.”

“So did you do it?” I asked.

“Yeah, I went,” Moder said. “Had to go to the big library downtown.”

“And what did you find there?”

“I found the stories she wanted.”

“Okay. What did you do then?”

Moder glanced at Bosch and then up at Cisco.

“Is this guy going to take care of me?” he asked them.

Cisco and Bosch stayed silent. I answered the question.

“I need to know what you know first,” I said. “We can talk about what I can do for you after. What did you do when you found the newspaper stories?”

“I had to pay them to print them out for me,” Moder said. “Then when she called me back, I read them to her. Each one.”

“She called you collect from the prison? Or did she have a cell phone in there?”

“She borrowed a cell. I don’t know how she got it.”

“But she called you on your cell, right?”

“Yeah, my cell.”

“Where is that phone?”

“Uh, I don’t have it anymore. I sold it. I needed the money.”

“When?”

“When did I sell it, you mean?”

“Yes, when did you sell it?”

“A couple months ago. Thereabouts.”

“Where did you sell it?”

“Uh, actually I traded it to a guy.”

For drugs. He didn’t need to add that part. Everyone in the room knew it.

“Do you have any bills from the carrier?” I asked. “From the phone company?”

“Not really,” Moder said. “I wasn’t that good at paying the bill, to tell you the truth. They cut me off and then I traded it.”

“What about the number? Do you remember it?”

“I don’t really remember the number.”

“Then what about the printouts from the library? Where are they?”

“I think I left them at my last place. They’re gone.”

I nodded. Of course he didn’t have them — that would have been too easy. I thought about whether to pursue this further. Drug addicts were extremely unreliable witnesses who could hurt you more than help you on the stand. There appeared to be nothing I could use to back up his story.

“Are you going to pay me?” Moder asked. “I need to get well, man.”

“I don’t pay for testimony,” I said. “All I can give you is a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“What’s that mean?”