Resurrection Walk

I was pushed forward by Marshal Nate and bent over the table. My arms were roughly pulled behind my back and my wrists cuffed tightly. A hand gripped the back of my collar and I was pulled into a standing position. The marshal then turned me and shoved me toward the door to courtside lockup.

“Perhaps a night in jail will teach you to respect the court,” Coelho called after me.

“Lucinda Sanz is innocent!” I yelled as I was pushed through the door. “You know it, I know it, everybody in the courtroom knows it!”

The last thing I heard before the door was shut was Coelho adjourning court for the day.

It was just what I’d hoped would happen.

Part Eleven A Chorus of Horns

43

Bosch was driving the Navigator, Arslanian in the passenger seat next to him. They were moving in slow traffic on the northbound 101 freeway.

“Do you think she’ll hold him overnight?” Arslanian asked.

“Sounds like it,” Bosch said. “Sounds like he really made her blow a gasket. Sort of wish I’d been in the courtroom for it.”

“Do you think he’ll be in danger in there?”

“They’ll likely isolate him. The last thing the judge wants is for a lawyer she stuck in there to get hurt.”

“Well, will he be kept in the court holding cell all night?”

“No, they’ll take him to MDC.”

“What’s MDC?”

“Metropolitan Detention Center — it’s the federal jail. They don’t keep any overnighters in the courthouse jail. Everybody is bused back to MDC at the end of the day. He’s probably on a bus now, or the marshals might move him solo because of his VIP status.”

“I hope so.”

“He’ll be all right. I’m sure he factored it all in before he went nuts with the judge. When he got accused of murder a few years ago, he spent three months in county and managed to stay safe. You heard about that, right?”

“Oh, yes. I was ready to come out if needed but then you and the others on the team got it done.”

“Yeah, including Maggie McFierce, who tore me up pretty good on the stand today.”

“You know, I considered becoming a lawyer, maybe adding a law degree to the others. But then I thought, Nah, too many gray areas and shifting loyalties. I’ll stick with the science side of things.”

“Good plan.”

“Anyway, I just can’t believe the judge’s ruling on the science.”

Bosch didn’t reply. It had been as Haller had said at lunch. The judge chose to go by the book, not by what was right. No gray area there.

“She’s exiting,” he said.

Arslanian looked through the windshield. Bosch switched lanes so he could follow the car they were tailing.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Arslanian asked.

“No idea,” Bosch said. “I don’t think she lives this far from the AV.”

Sanger was driving a Rivian pickup truck. There were so few of these on the road that it was an easy follow, allowing Bosch to fall far back and not be noticed. But as he went down the Ventura Boulevard exit he realized he was going to end up only two cars behind her at the traffic light. If Sanger checked her mirrors, she might recognize the Navigator and the two people in it.

It was a two-lane turn. The Rivian was in the inside lane with another pickup truck behind it. Bosch stopped behind the second pickup and lowered his sun visor. The bed of the truck in front of him had a pipe rack and other air-conditioning maintenance equipment that worked well as a blind.

A homeless man stood on the shoulder with a sign asking for help in any form. When nothing came from the Rivian, he started walking down the shoulder, holding up his hand-lettered cardboard sign.

The light stayed red.

From his vantage point, Bosch could see the side of the truck in front of him as well as Sanger’s truck. He saw the driver’s-side window of the Rivian go down. He saw cigarette smoke escape as Sanger extended her hand and arm out the window and threw something onto the shoulder by the homeless man’s backpack and plastic milk crate.

“She just threw something out the window,” he said. “I think it was a cigarette butt. That’ll work, right?”

“Yes!” Arslanian said. “Definitely. Do you see it?”

“I think so.”

“Let’s get it.”

“We’ll probably lose her if we stop.”

“It’s okay. The cigarette is all we need. We go straight to the lab with it.”

The light turned green and the Rivian took off, went left across the overpass, and down to Ventura. Bosch checked his rearview and saw that he now had two cars behind him. He hit the emergency blinkers and pulled the Navigator onto the shoulder as far as he could, but there wasn’t enough room for him to get completely out of the traffic lane and still have space to open his door and get out.

A chorus of horns followed this move. Undaunted, Bosch put the vehicle in park, got out, and found the homeless man standing in the thin channel between the Navigator and the concrete retaining wall that lined the exit ramp.

“Hey, what the fuck?” the man said. “You almost hit me.”

“Sorry about that,” Bosch said.