The Gods of Guilt (Mickey Haller 5)

23

 

 

After the late lunch, I was through for the day. My calendar was clear and I had no further appointments. I considered heading back downtown and seeing if I could line up a visit with Andre La Cosse to go over some things related to the upcoming trial. But the occurrences of the past few hours—from Legal Siegel’s lecture to the meet with Sly Jr. and the surprise visit from Marco—led me toward home. I’d had enough for the time being.

 

I had Earl drive to the loft so he could get his care where he had left it after coming in for the staff meeting. I then drove home, stopping only long enough to change into clothes more appropriate to hiking through the wilds of Fryman Canyon. It had been a long while since I’d seen my daughter in the goal at practice. I knew from the school’s online newsletter that there were only a few weeks left in the season and the team was getting ready for the state tournament. I decided to go over the hill to watch and maybe escape from thoughts on the La Cosse case for a while.

 

But escape was delayed—at least on the ride up Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Jennifer called me back and told me she had received my message and my direction to step back from the search on Marco.

 

“I’d asked for some court files on other ICE cases because the stuff on PACER seemed incomplete,” she explained. “I bet one of those counter clerks called him and told him.”

 

“Anything’s possible. So just stick with Moya for now.”

 

“Got it.”

 

“Can you get me whatever you’ve got by the end of the day? I’ve got a long drive up to the prison tomorrow and I could use the reading material.”

 

“Will do . . .”

 

There was a hesitancy about the way she said it. As though there was something else she wanted to say.

 

“Anything else?” I asked.

 

“I don’t know. I guess I am still wondering if we are going the right way with this. Moya is a better target for us than the DEA.”

 

I knew what she meant. Casting suspicion on Moya in the upcoming trial would be a lot easier and possibly more fruitful than throwing the light on a federal agent. Aronson was getting at the fine line between seeking the truth and seeking a verdict in your client’s favor. They weren’t always the same thing.

 

“I know what you mean,” I said. “But sometimes you gotta go with your instincts, and mine tell me this is the way to go. If I’m right, the truth shall set Andre free.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

I could tell she was not convinced or something else was bothering her.

 

“You okay with this?” I asked. “If not, I can handle it and you just deal with the other clients.”

 

“No, I’m fine. It’s just a little weird, you know? Things are upside down.”

 

“What things?”

 

“You know, the good guys might be the bad guys. And the bad guy up in prison might be our best hope.”

 

“Yeah, weird.”

 

I ended the call by reminding her to get the summaries of her research to me before I hit the road to Victorville the next morning. She promised she would and we said good-bye.

 

Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the parking lot at the top of Fryman Canyon. I grabbed the binoculars out of the glove box, locked the car, and made my way down the trail. I then left the beaten path to get to my observation spot. Only when I got there, the rock I had positioned had been moved, and it looked like someone had been using the spot, possibly to sleep at night. The tall grass was matted down in a pattern that would fit a sleeping bag. I looked carefully around to make sure I was alone and moved the rock back to the way I’d had it.

 

Down below, soccer practice was just getting under way. I put the binoculars to my eyes and started checking out the north net. The goalkeeper had red hair in a ponytail. It wasn’t Hayley. I checked the other net, and there was another goalkeeper but she wasn’t my daughter either. I wondered if she had switched positions and started scanning the field. I checked each player but still didn’t see her. No number 7.

 

I let the binoculars hang from my neck and pulled my phone out. I called my ex-wife’s work number at the Van Nuys Division of the District Attorney’s Office. The pool secretary put me on hold and then came back and told me Maggie McPherson was unavailable because she was in court. I knew this was not correct, because Maggie was a filing deputy. She was never in court anymore—one of the many things I was held responsible for in the relationship, if it could still be called a relationship.

 

I tried her cell next, even though she had instructed me never to call the cell during work hours unless it was an emergency. She did take this call.

 

“Michael?”

 

“Where’s Hayley?”

 

“What do you mean, she’s at home. I just talked to her.”

 

“Why isn’t she at soccer practice?”

 

“What?”

 

“Soccer practice. She’s not there. Is she hurt or sick?”

 

There was a pause, and in it I knew I was about to learn something that as a father I should have already known.

 

“She’s fine. She quit soccer more than a month ago.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Well, she was getting more into riding and she couldn’t do both and keep up with her schoolwork. So she quit. I thought I told you. I sent you an e-mail.”

 

Thanks to the multitude of legal associations I belonged to and the many incarcerated clients who had my e-mail address, I had more than ten thousand messages sitting in my e-mail file. The messages I had cleared earlier in the day while in the DA’s waiting room represented only the tip of the iceberg. So many were unread that I knew there could have been an e-mail about this, but I usually didn’t miss messages from Maggie or my daughter. Still, I wasn’t on firm enough ground to argue the point, so I moved on.

 

“You mean horse riding?”

 

“Yes, hunter-jumper. She goes to the L.A. Equestrian Center near Burbank.”

 

Now I had to pause. I was embarrassed that I knew so little about what was going on in my daughter’s life. It didn’t matter that it had not been my choice to be shut out. I was the father and it was my fault regardless.

 

“Michael, listen, I was going to tell you this at a better time but I might as well tell you now so I know you got the message. I’ve taken another job, and we’re going to move to Ventura County this summer.”

 

The second impact on a one-two punch combination is supposed to land harder. And this one did.

 

“When did this happen? What job?”

 

“I told them here yesterday. I’m giving a month’s notice, then I’ll take a month off to look for a place and get everything ready. Hayley’s going to finish the school year here. Then we’ll move.”

 

Ventura was the next county up the coast. Depending on where they moved to, Maggie and my daughter would be anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half away. There were some distances even within Los Angeles County that could take longer to travel because of traffic. But still, they might as well have been moving to Germany.

 

“What job are you taking?”

 

“It’s with the Ventura DA’s Office. I’m starting a Digital Crime Unit. And I’ll be back in court again.”

 

And of course it all came back on me. My losing the election had dismantled her career at the L.A. County DA’s Office. For an agency charged with the fair and equal enforcement of the laws of the state, the place was one of the most political bureaucracies in the county. Maggie McPherson had backed me in the election. When I lost, she lost, too. As soon as Damon Kennedy took the reins, she was transferred out of a courtroom and into the divisional office, where she filed cases other deputies would take to trial. In a way she got lucky. She could’ve gotten worse. One deputy who introduced me at an election rally when I was the front-runner ended up with a transfer out to the courtroom in the Antelope Valley jail.

 

Like Maggie, he quit. And I understood why Maggie would quit. I also understood that she would not be able to cross the aisle to defense work or take a slot in a corporate law firm. She was a dyed-in-the-wool prosecutor and there was no choice about what she would do—it was only where she would do it. In that regard I knew that I should be happy that she was merely moving to a neighboring county and not up to San Francisco or Oakland or down to San Diego.

 

“So where are you going to look out there?”

 

“Well, the job is in the City of Ventura, so either there or not too far from it. I’d like to look at Ojai but it might be too expensive. I’m thinking Hayley would fit in real well with the riding.”

 

Ojai was a crunchy, New Agey village in a mountain valley in the northern county. Years back, before we had our daughter, Maggie and I used to go there on weekends. There was even a chance our daughter was conceived there.

 

“So . . . this riding is not a passing thing?”

 

“It could be. You never know. But she’s fully engaged for now. We leased a horse for six months. With an option to buy.”

 

I shook my head. This was painful. Never mind my ex-wife, but Hayley had told me none of this.

 

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “I know this is tough on you. I want you to know that I don’t encourage it. No matter what is going on with us, I think she should have a relationship with her father. I really mean that and that’s what I tell her.”

 

“I appreciate that.”

 

I didn’t know what else to say. I stood up off the rock. I wanted to get out of there and go home.

 

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.

 

“What is it?”

 

I realized that I was improvising, running with a half-formed idea that had sprung from my grief and desire to somehow win my daughter back.

 

“There’s a trial coming up,” I said. “I want her to come.”

 

“You’re talking about this pimp you’re representing? Michael, no, I don’t want her to sit through that. Besides, she has school.”

 

“He’s innocent.”

 

“Really? Are you trying to play me like a jury now?”

 

“No, I mean it. Innocent. He didn’t do it, and I’m going to prove it. If Hay could be there, maybe—”

 

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it. There’s school, and I don’t want her taking time off. There’s also the move.”

 

“Come for the verdict. Both of you.”

 

“Look, I have to get going. The cops are stacking up around here.”

 

Cops waiting in the office to file their cases.

 

“Okay, but think about it.”

 

“All right, I will. I’ve got to go now.”

 

“Wait—one last thing. Can you e-mail me a picture of Hayley on the horse? I’d just like to see it.”

 

“Sure. I will.”

 

She disconnected after that and I stared down at the soccer field for a few moments, replaying the conversation and trying to compute all the news about my daughter. I thought about what Legal Siegel had told me about moving on past guilt. I realized that some things were easier said than done, and some things were impossible.