The Reversal

“What I mean is, there were two dogs and they weren’t brought out in official vehicles and handled by people in uniforms. We tried to make it look like somebody walking their dog, but even that was a problem because the park doesn’t allow dogs on these trails. Anyway, we did the best we could and got in and got out. I checked with SIS to make sure Jessup wasn’t anywhere near Mulholland when we went in. He was surfing.”

“And?” McPherson asked impatiently.

“These dogs are the type that just lie down on the ground when they pick up the scent of human decay. Supposedly they can pick it up through the ground after even a hundred years. Anyway, at three of the four places Jessup’s gone in these parks, the dogs didn’t react. But at one spot one of the two dogs did.”

Bosch watched McPherson swivel in her seat and look at Haller. He looked back at her and there was some sort of silent communication there.

“It should also be noted that this particular dog has a history of being wrong-that is, giving a false positive-about a third of the time,” Bosch said. “The other dog didn’t react to the same spot.”

“Great,” Haller said. “So what does that tell us?”

“Well, that’s why I invited you over,” Bosch said. “We’ve reached the point where maybe we should start digging. At least in that one spot. But if we do, we run the risk that Jessup will find out and he’ll know we’ve been following him. And if we dig and we find human remains, do we have enough here to charge Jessup?”

McPherson leaned forward while Haller leaned back, clearly deferring to his second chair.

“Well, I see no legal embargo on digging,” she finally said. “It’s public property and there is nothing that would stop you legally. No need for a search warrant. But do you want to dig right now based on this one dog with what seems like a high false-positive rate, or do we wait until after the trial?”

“Or maybe even during the trial,” Haller said.

“The second question is the more difficult,” McPherson said. “For the sake of argument, let’s say there are remains buried in one or even all of those spots. Yes, Jessup’s activities seem to form an awareness of what is below the earth in the places he visits in the middle of the night. But does that prove he’s responsible? Hardly. We could charge him, yes, but he could mount a number of defenses based on what we know right now. You agree, Michael?”

Haller leaned forward and nodded.

“Suppose you dig and you find the remains of one of these girls. Even if you can confirm the ID-and that’s going to be a big if-you still don’t have any evidence connecting her death to Jessup. All you have is his guilty knowledge of the burial spot. That is very significant but is it enough to go into court with? I don’t know. I think I’d rather be defense counsel than prosecutor on that one. I think Maggie’s right, there are any number of defenses that he could employ to explain his knowledge of the burial sites. He could invent a straw man-somebody else who did the killings and told him about them or forced him to take part in the burials. Jessup’s spent twenty-four years in prison. How many other convicts has he been exposed to? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many of them were murderers? He could lay this whole thing on one of them, say that he heard in prison about these burial spots and he decided to come and pray for the souls of the victims. He could make up anything.”

He shook his head again.

“The bottom line is, there are a lot of ways to go with a defense like this. Without any sort of physical evidence connecting him or a witness, I think you would have a problem.”

“Maybe there is physical evidence in the graves that connects him,” Bosch offered.

“Maybe, but what if there isn’t?” Haller shot right back. “You never know, you could also pull a confession out of Jessup. But I doubt that, too.”

McPherson took it from there.

“Michael mentioned the big if, the remains. Can they be IDed? Will we be able to establish how long they were in the ground? Remember, Jessup has an ironclad alibi for the last twenty-four years. If you pull up a set of bones and we can’t say for sure that they’ve been down there since at least ’eighty-six, then Jessup would walk.”

Haller got up and went to the whiteboard, grabbing a marker off the ledge. In a clear spot he drew two circles side by side.

“Here’s what we’ve got so far. One is our case and one is this whole new thing you’ve come up with. They’re separate. We have the case with the trial about to go and then we have your new investigation. When they’re separate like this we’re fine. Your investigation has no bearing on our trial, so we can keep the two circles separate. Understand?”

“Sure,” Bosch said.

Haller grabbed the eraser off the ledge and wiped the two circles off the board. He then drew two new circles, but this time they overlapped.