The Reversal

“Right, while he was driving. He panicked when he heard the call on the police radio and killed her.”

“Right, that’s the prosecution theory. Well, Royce is already setting up a defense theory. On cross he asked whether it was possible that the killer was choking her with one hand while masturbating with the other.”

She was silent as she computed this.

“This is the old prosecution theory,” she said. “From the first trial. That it was murder in the commission of a sex act. Mickey and I sort of figured that once Royce got all the discovery material and learned that the DNA came from the stepfather, the defense would play it this way. They’re setting up the stepfather as the straw man. They’ll say he killed her and the DNA proves it.”

McPherson folded her arms as she worked it out further.

“It’s good but there are two things wrong with it. Sarah and the hair evidence. So we’re missing something. Royce has got to have something or someone who discredits Sarah’s ID.”

“That’s why I’m here. I brought Royce’s witness list. These people have been playing hide-and-seek with me and I haven’t run them all down. Sarah’s got to look at this list and tell me which one I need to focus on.”

“How the hell will she know?”

“She’s got to. These are her people. Boyfriends, husbands, fellow tweakers. All of them have records. They’re the people she hung out with before she got straight. Every address is a last-known and worthless. Royce has got to be hiding them.”

McPherson nodded.

“That’s why they call him Clever Clive. Okay, let’s talk to her. Let me try first, okay?”

She stood up.

“Wait a minute,” Bosch said.

She looked at him.

“What is it?”

“What if the defense theory is the right one?”

“Are you kidding me?”

He didn’t answer and she didn’t wait long. She headed back toward the elevator. He got up and followed.

They went back to the room. Bosch noticed that Gleason had sketched a tulip on her pad while they had been gone. He sat down on the couch across from her, and McPherson took the chair right next to her.

“Sarah,” McPherson said. “We need to talk. We think that somebody you used to know during those lost years we were talking about is going to try to help the defense. We need to figure out who it is and what they are going to say.”

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “But I was thirteen years old when this happened to us. What does it matter who my friends were after?”

“It matters because they can testify about things you might have done. Or said.”

“What things?”

McPherson shook her head.

“That’s what is so frustrating. We don’t really know. We only know that today in court the defense made it clear that they are going to try to put the blame for your sister’s death on your stepfather.”

Sarah raised her hands as if warding off a blow.

“That’s crazy. I was there. I saw that man take her!”

“We know that, Sarah. But it’s a matter of what is conveyed to the jury and what and who the jurors believe. Now, Detective Bosch has a list of the defense’s witnesses. I want you to take a look at it and tell us what the names mean to you.”

Bosch pulled the list from his briefcase. He handed it to McPherson, who handed it to Sarah.

“Sorry, all those notes are things I added,” Bosch said, “when I was trying to track them down. Just look at the names.”

Bosch watched her lips move slightly as she started to read. Then they stopped moving and she just stared at the paper. He saw tears in her eyes.

“Sarah?” McPherson prompted.

“These people,” Gleason said in a whisper. “I thought I’d never see them again.”

“You may never see them again,” McPherson said. “Just because they’re on that list, it doesn’t mean they’ll be called. They pull names out of the records and load up the list to confuse us, Sarah. It’s called haystacking. They hide the real witnesses, and our investigator-Detective Bosch-wastes his time checking out the wrong people. But there’s got to be at least one name on there that counts. Who is it, Sarah? Help us.”

She stared at the list without responding.

“Someone who will be able to say you two were close. Who you spent time with and told secrets to.”

“I thought a husband couldn’t testify against a wife.”

“One spouse can’t be forced to testify against the other. But what are you talking about, Sarah?”

“This one.”

She pointed to a name on the list. Bosch leaned over to read it. Edward Roman. Bosch had traced him to a lockdown rehab center in North Hollywood where Sarah had spent nine months after her last incarceration. The only thing Bosch had guessed was that they’d had contact in group therapy. The last known address provided by Royce was a motel in Van Nuys but Roman was long gone from there. Bosch had gotten no further with it and had dismissed the name as part of Royce’s haystack.

“Roman,” he said. “You were with him in rehab, right?”

“Yes,” Gleason said. “Then we got married.”

“When?” McPherson said. “We have no record of that marriage.”

“After we got out. He knew a minister. We got married on the beach. But it didn’t last very long.”