Resurrection Walk

“First of all, I wouldn’t bet,” I said. “It’s too close to call. It’s going to come down to whether she makes the legal call or the moral call. What does the law tell her to do? What does her gut tell her is the right thing to do?”

“Shit,” Cisco said. “Then you’ll have nothing to go after Sanger with. Game over.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “I had a visitor to my house last night, Agent MacIsaac. He was there to let me know that he would never testify in this case and the U.S. attorney was ready to back him on that and even defy a subpoena from a federal judge. But he didn’t come empty-handed. He told me why Roberto Sanz had gone to the Bureau and volunteered to wear a wire. It was about Sanger...”

I gave the intel that MacIsaac had given me and we spent the rest of the meal brainstorming ways of getting it into court. It was clear it would come down to my questioning of Sanger and finding the opportunity to confront her — easier said than done.

After our pasta, we bundled into the Navigator, and Bosch took us back to the courthouse. As we came out of the elevator and approached Coelho’s courtroom, I saw Sergeant Sanger waiting on a bench in the hall. She stared unflinchingly at me as we passed by, as if daring me to challenge her. I knew then that, one way or the other, I would do everything I could to take her down after the judge made her rulings.

I sat at the petitioner’s table and waited for Lucinda to be brought to the courtroom and for the judge to follow. I didn’t unpack my briefcase. I wanted to know which way I was going first. I looked up at the angry eagle, composed myself, and waited.

The questions came fast and furious from Lucinda once she was brought from lockup to the table.

“Mickey, what’s going on?” she asked. “I didn’t know what was happening and I was waiting so long in there.”

“I’m sorry about that, Cindi,” I said. “We’re going to get answers very soon. We went into the judge’s office and I presented evidence that showed that the gunshot-residue test was wrong. Was a setup, actually.”

“Who set me up?”

“Somebody in your ex-husband’s unit. Probably Sanger, since she’s the one who did the test on you.”

“Does that mean she killed Robbie?”

“I don’t know that, Cindi, but put it this way: If I need to convince the judge that it was somebody other than you, I’m going to point at her. She’s smack-dab in the middle of this, and if it wasn’t her, then she knows who it was.”

Lucinda’s face grew dark with anger. She had served five years for somebody else’s crime, and now she might have a name and face to focus that anger and blame on. I understood her.

“But listen,” I said. “There are complications with the evidence we uncovered, and we have to see if the judge is going to let it be part of what she considers. That’s why everything’s been delayed. The judge has been back there in chambers working on it.”

“Okay,” Lucinda said. “I hope she does the right thing.”

“Me too.”

I went quiet and thought about how I would react to each of the judge’s possible rulings. This led me to a plan I thought might help me salvage the case should the ruling not go my way. I quickly fired off a series of texts with instructions to Harry Bosch and Shami Arslanian. Bosch was in the hall watching Frank Silver in case he decided to hightail it before testifying. Arslanian was out there too, waiting to see if she would be called back to the witness stand.

Before Bosch responded to confirm that he understood my plan, the judge emerged from chambers and I had to turn off the phone. Coelho got right down to business.

“All right, back on the record with Sanz versus the State of California,” she said. “Continuing the habeas hearing. Gentlemen, is there any new business to discuss before I make rulings on the motions before the court?”

I half expected Morris to try to continue the arguments he’d made in chambers, though it was pretty clear the judge was past all that and ready to rule. But Morris declined to add anything to the record, and I had nothing to add either. I looked at Lucinda and gave her an encouraging smile, but she didn’t know how important the next few minutes would be.

“Very well,” the judge said. “In regard to the motions brought before the court this morning, let’s start with the State’s contention that the evidence is inadmissible because of contamination and mishandling by the lab that conducted analysis of the gunshot-residue pad submitted by the defense. The fact pattern shows that the contamination by a lab tech occurred several years ago when the evidence was submitted under different circumstances and protocols. The contamination did not occur during the most recent analysis conducted. It also should be noted that the tech’s DNA exemplar was available for comparison, as it is standard practice in certified DNA labs to check findings for contamination by lab personnel.”