The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(39)

The reporters started shouting variations on the same questions.

“All right, all right, listen instead of talking and I shall enlighten you,” Haller said, his voice almost giddy from the courtroom win.

He waited for them to quiet before he continued.

“Okay, ready?” he said. “Faced with more than reasonable doubt about the evidence it presented to the jury, the state took the high road today and withdrew the flimsy case it had against my client. Mr. Herstadt is currently being processed out of holding and will be a free man shortly.”

“But this case started as a slam dunk,” said a reporter Bosch knew was from the Times. “They had a confession and a DNA match. What happened?”

Haller spread his arms and smiled.

“What can I tell you? Reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee,” he said. “What happened here was that they didn’t do their homework. The confession was bogus—it came from a man who would have confessed to killing the Black Dahlia if he had been asked. And there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the DNA match. The judge saw that, knew this case was a duck without wings, and called the prosecution on it. Ms. Saldano made a call to her boss and reasonable minds prevailed. She did what any prudent prosecutor would do: she folded her tent.”

“So the case was dismissed?” asked another reporter.

“It was withdrawn by the D.A.’s Office,” Haller said. “They dropped all charges.”

“So that means they could still refile,” said a third reporter.

“Nope,” Haller said. “This case already went to trial. To charge my client again would be to submit him to double jeopardy. This case is over, folks, and an innocent man was proved so today.”

“Who did Saldano call to get approval to drop the case?” the Times reporter asked.

“I don’t know,” Haller said. “She stepped out of chambers to make that call. You’ll have to ask her.”

“What happens to your client now?” the Times reporter asked.

“He’s a free man,” Haller said. “I am going to see if I can get him a place to stay and back into therapy. I’m thinking of starting a GoFundMe page to help with his expenses. He’s got no home and no money. They’ve held him in jail for seven months.”

“Are you going to ask the city and county for reparations?” a reporter asked.

“Maybe,” Haller said. “I think amends have to be made. But that’s a question for another day. Thank you all. Remember, that’s a double el in Haller. Get it right.”

Haller stepped back from the semicircle and raised his arm in the direction of the elevators, dismissing the journalists. As she walked by him, the Times reporter handed him a business card and said something in a low voice Bosch didn’t hear. Haller took her card and slid it into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, behind the red-white-and-blue pocket square. He then sauntered over to Bosch, the smile seemingly a permanent feature of his face.

“You don’t get many days like this one, Harry.”

“I don’t suppose you do. What really happened in chambers?”

“Pretty much what I just told them. I left out the part about the judge telling Saldano that it looked to him like there was no way a jury could return a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He did give her the option of continuing and hearing my DNA expert and then my very persuasive motion to dismiss. That was when she stepped out and made her call to the powers that be. The rest is just like I told it. Maybe now they’ll go out and get the right guy for this.”

“I doubt it. Gustafson still thinks your client did the deed. He stopped by on his way out to tell me.”

“Wounded pride, that’s all that is. I mean, what else is he going to say?”

“Yeah, but don’t you see? He’s not going to go after the real killer. He said it himself as he was leaving: ‘CBA’—the case is closed.”

“Meaning?”

“Cleared By Arrest. It means no further investigation. Meantime, whoever really did this is still out there.”

“But that’s not our problem, is it? We work for Herstadt and Herstadt is free.”

“Maybe it’s not your problem.”

Haller stared at Bosch for a long moment before responding.

“I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Bosch nodded.

“I’m going to hang on to the discovery files and the copy of the murder book.”

“Sure. Be my guest. I’ll be in touch soon about that other thing we talked about. The medical thing.”

“I’ll be around.”





BALLARD





21


Ballard woke with a deep soreness between her shoulder blades and pins and needles in her left foot. She sat up in the tent groaning and found that Lola had decided to sleep with all thirty-five pounds of her body across Ballard’s foot. She pulled her foot free, waking the dog, who looked at her with betrayal in her eyes.

“You crushed my foot,” Ballard said.

She began massaging and working her ankle until the burning feeling started to recede. Once she brought it back to life, she started rolling her shoulders, trying to loosen her back muscles. Before sleeping she had pushed herself on the board, paddling all the way down to the rock jetty at the inlet and then back up, the return being a battle against a strong wind coming down from Malibu.