The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [150]
“Sure.”
We were silent for a few moments. I had just come off one of my best days in court ever, yet I felt pierced by a growing sense of loss and sadness. I looked at my ex-wife.
“We’re never going to get back together, are we, Maggie?”
“What?”
“It just kind of hit me. You want it the way it is now. There when one of us really needs it, but never what it was. You won’t ever give me that.”
“Why do you want to talk about this now, Michael? You’re in the middle of a trial. You have—”
“I’m in the middle of my life, Mags. I just wish there was a way to make you and Hayley proud of me.”
She leaned forward and reached out. She put her hand against my cheek for a moment and then pulled it back.
“I think Hayley is proud of you.”
“Yeah? What about you?”
She smiled but it was sort of in a sad way.
“I think you should go home and not think about this or the trial or anything else just for tonight. Let your mind clear of the clutter. Relax.”
I shook my head.
“Can’t. I have a meeting at five with a snitch.”
“On the Trammel case? What snitch?”
“Never mind, and you’re just trying to change the subject. You’ll never completely forgive and forget, will you? It’s not in you and maybe it’s what makes you such a good prosecutor.”
“Oh, I’m so good all right. That’s why I’m stuck out here in Van Nuys filing armed robberies.”
“That’s politics. Has nothing to do with skills and dedication.”
“It doesn’t matter and I can’t have this conversation now. I’m still on the clock and you need to go see your snitch. Why don’t you call me tomorrow if you want to take Hayley to a movie. I’ll probably let you take her while I run errands or something.”
I stood up. I knew a losing cause when I saw one.
“Okay, I’m leaving. I’ll call you tomorrow. But I hope you’ll come with us to the movie.”
“We’ll see.”
“Right.”
I took the stairs down for a quick exit. I crossed the plaza and headed north on Sylmar toward Victory. I soon came to a motorcycle parked at the curb. I recognized it as Cisco’s. A prized ’63 H-D panhead with a black pearl tank and matching fenders. I chuckled. Lorna, my second ex-wife, had actually done what I had told her to do. It was a first.
She had left the bike unlocked, probably figuring it was safe in front of the courthouse and adjoining police station. I steered it away from the curb and walked it down Sylmar. I must’ve been quite a sight, a man in his nicest Corneliani suit pushing a Harley down the street, briefcase propped on the handlebars.
When I finally got back to the office it was only four thirty, a half hour before Herb Dahl was scheduled to come in for a briefing. I called for a staff meeting and tried plugging back into the case as a means of pushing out thoughts about the conversation with Maggie. I told Cisco where I had parked his bike and I asked for an update on the list of our client’s Facebook friends.
“First of all, why the hell didn’t I know about her Facebook account?” I asked.
“It’s my fault,” Aronson said quickly. “Like I told you earlier, I knew about it and even accepted her friend request. I just didn’t realize the significance of it.”
“I missed it, too,” Cisco said. “She friended me, too. I looked and didn’t see anything. I should’ve looked harder.”
“Me, too,” Lorna added.
I looked at their faces. It was a unified front.
“Great,” I said. “I guess all four of us missed it and our client didn’t bother to tell us. So the bunch of us, I guess we’re all fired.”
I paused for effect.
“Now, what about this name you came up with? This Don Driscoll, where did that come from and do we know anything more? Freeman could’ve unwittingly dropped the key to the whole case in our laps this morning, people. What’ve we got?”
Bullocks looked at Cisco, deferring.
“As you know,” he said, “ALOFT was sold in February to the LeMure Fund with Opparizio still in place to run it. Because LeMure is a publicly traded company, everything about the deal was monitored by the Federal Trade Commission and made public to shareholders. Including