Page 96 of Resurrection Walk

“I’ll see you in a little while,” I said. “And we’re going to go from this to another strong witness in Harry Bosch.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Marshal Nate released her from the ring under the table and then cuffed her wrists together for the short walk to the courtroom lockup, where she would spend the lunch hour. She walked toward the door, not needing to be led by Nate. I watched her go. Her head was down and I thought maybe more tears were coming.

Nate opened the steel door and then she was gone.

PART SEVEN

CASE KILLER

31

HALLER WAS BUOYANTas he and Arslanian climbed into the Navigator by the Spring Street exit from the federal courthouse.

“Harry, you should have seen it,” he said. “Shami nailed it. The judge couldn’t take her eyes off the screen the whole damn time.”

Bosch didn’t like hearing such talk. He knew anything could happen in a courtroom and didn’t want Haller to jinx what sounded like a good morning for the team.

“Where are we going?” Bosch asked.

“Someplace good,” Haller said. “We earned it. This woman is a giant slayer.”

“I’m not sure,” Arslanian said, “that we should celebrate until the judge rules on the petition.”

“I agree, but I think she’s going to walk,” Haller said. “You nailed it, and after lunch, Harry will deliver the knockout punch.”

“Don’t forget, Morris still gets to take his shot at me,” Arslanian said.

“There’s no way,” Haller said. “He just asked for the lunch break because he knows he’s fucked. And it’s only gonna get worse for him when Harry gets up on the stand with the cell data.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Bosch said.

“Oh, come on,” Haller said. “Grumpy old Harry. Let’s go over to Water Grill. We’ll get some good food for lunch and hold off on the celebration till this thing is over.”

“I’ll take you over there,” Bosch said. “But I’m going to wait in the car. I need to go over everything again before I testify. Maybe you should think about going through it with me, get our ducks in a row.”

“I’m not worried about it,” Haller said. “Your testimony will be the frosting on the cake that Shami baked for us. I’m telling you, Harry, she clearly demonstrated that Lucinda could not have fired those shots.”

“You give me too much credit,” Arslanian said. “And you still have to finish presenting your case. You need to be ready for anything. You told me that a long time ago.”

A few minutes later Bosch dropped them off in front of the restaurant on Grand Avenue. He then drove down the block until he found a parking space and pulled in. He reached back to the floor behind his seat and grabbed the file containing the printouts from AT&T that Haller would offer as exhibits to the court.

He started reviewing the printouts and checking the numbers against the map he’d unfolded on the passenger seat. He was rehearsing because he was nervous. He had taken new digital technology and reduced it to a distinctly analog presentation. He hoped it would be defining evidence in the case for Lucinda Sanz’s innocence.

32

BOSCH SAT INthe last row of the gallery, waiting to see whether Hayden Morris was going to cross-examine Shami Arslanian or if it would be his turn on the witness stand. When the assistant AG called Arslanian back, no one seemed to notice that Bosch was in the courtroom, so he stayed put. Haller had been so enamored with Arslanian’s direct examination that Bosch wanted to see how well she did under cross. As it turned out, he witnessed the case for Lucinda Sanz’s innocence begin to crumble like a sandcastle.

And it took Morris no more than five minutes to do it.

It began when Morris asked Arslanian to put her re-creation program’s table of contents back up on the big screen. She quickly complied with a few taps on her keyboard.

“Now, I want to draw your attention to the bottom right corner of the screen,” Morris said. “That’s a copyright protection notice, correct?”

“Yes,” she said. “Technically, it’s been applied for, but we are confident we will get it.”

“Project AImy is the name of the re-creation software?”

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