The Reversal

He opened his badge wallet and held it up to her.

“What is this?”

“My name is Harry Bosch and this is Maggie McPherson. She is a prosecutor with the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office.”

“Why did you lie?” she said angrily. “You said you wanted a piece made.”

“No, actually we didn’t. Your assistant, the blocker, just assumed that. We never said why we were here.”

Her guard was clearly up and Bosch thought they had blown their approach and with that the opportunity to secure her as a witness. But then Gleason stepped forward and grabbed the badge wallet out of his hand. She studied it and the facing ID card. It was an unusual move, taking the badge from him. No more than the fifth time that had ever happened to Bosch in his long career as a cop. He saw her eyes hold on the ID card and he knew she had noticed the discrepancy between what he had said his name was and what was on the ID.

“You said Harry Bosch?”

“Harry for short.”

“Hieronymus Bosch. You’re named after the artist?”

Bosch nodded.

“My mother liked the paintings.”

“Well, I like them, too. I think he knew something about inner demons. Is that why your mother liked him?”

“I think so, yeah.”

She handed the badge wallet back to him and Bosch sensed a calmness come over her. The moment of anxiety and apprehension had passed, thanks to the painter whose name Bosch carried.

“What do you want with me? I haven’t been to L.A. in more than ten years.”

Bosch noted that if she was telling the truth, then she had not returned when her stepfather was ill and dying.

“We just want to talk,” he said. “Can we sit down?”

“Talk about what?”

“Your sister.”

“My sister? I don’t-look, you need to tell me what this is-”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Sit down and we’ll tell you.”

Finally, she moved to the lunch table and took a seat. She pulled a soft pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my one remaining addiction. And you two showing up like this-I need a smoke.”

For the next ten minutes Bosch and McPherson traded off the story and walked her through the short version of Jason Jessup’s journey to freedom. Gleason showed almost no reaction to the news. No tears, no outrage. And she didn’t ask questions about the DNA test that had sprung him from prison. She only explained that she had no contact with anyone in California, owned no television and never read newspapers. She said they were distractions from work as well as from her recovery from addiction.

“We’re going to retry him, Sarah,” McPherson said. “And we’re here because we’re going to need your help.”

Bosch could see Sarah turn inward, to start to measure the impact of what they were telling her.

“It was so long ago,” she finally responded. “Can’t you just use what I said from the first trial?”

McPherson shook her head.

“We can’t, Sarah. The new jury can’t even know there was an earlier trial because that could influence how they weigh the evidence. It would prejudice them against the defendant and a guilty verdict wouldn’t stand. So in situations where witnesses from the first trial are dead or mentally incompetent, we read their earlier testimony into the trial record without telling the jury where it’s from. But where that’s not the case, like with you, we need the person to come to court and testify.”

It wasn’t clear whether Gleason had even registered McPherson’s response. She sat staring at something far away. Even as she spoke, her eyes didn’t come off their distant focus.

“I’ve spent my whole life since then trying to forget about that day. I tried different things to make me forget. I used drugs to make a big bubble with me in the middle of it. I made… Never mind, the point is, I don’t think I’m going to be much help to you.”

Before McPherson could respond, Bosch stepped in.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let’s just talk here for a few minutes about what you can remember, okay? And if it’s not going to work, then it won’t work. You were a victim, Sarah, and we don’t want to victimize you all over again.”

He waited a moment for Gleason to respond but she sat mute, staring at the water bottle in front of her on the table.

“Let’s start with that day,” Bosch said. “I don’t need you at this point to go through the horrible moments of your sister’s abduction, but do you remember making the identification of Jason Jessup for the police?”

She slowly nodded.

“I remember looking through the window. Upstairs. They opened the blinds a little bit so I could look out. They weren’t supposed to be able to see me. The men. He was the one with the hat. They made him take it off and that’s when I saw it was him. I remember that.”

Bosch was encouraged by the detail of the hat. He didn’t recall seeing that in the case records or hearing it in McPherson’s summary but the fact that Gleason remembered it was a good sign.

“What kind of hat was he wearing?” he asked.

“A baseball cap,” Gleason said. “It was blue.”

“A Dodgers cap?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I knew back then either.”

Bosch nodded and moved in.