The Reversal

“Okay, Sarah, I want to draw your attention to the paragraph I have outlined in yellow in the evaluation section of the intake form. Can you please read it out loud to the jury?”

“Candidate reports PTSD in regard to the murder of her younger sister three years ago. Suffers unresolved guilt associated with murder and also evinces behavior typical of sexual abuse. Full psych and physical evaluation is recommended.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Do you know what PTSD means?”

“Posttraumatic stress disorder.”

“Did you undergo these recommended evaluations at the Pines?”

“Yes.”

“Did discussion of your stepfather’s sexual abuse come up?”

“No, because I lied.”

“How so?”

“By then I’d had sex with other men, so I never mentioned my stepfather.”

“Before revealing what you have today in court, did you ever talk about your stepfather and his having sex with you with anyone?”

“Just you and Detective Bosch. Nobody else.”

“Have you been married?”

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t even tell your husbands about this?”

“No. It’s not the kind of thing you want to tell anybody. You keep it to yourself.”

“Thank you, Sarah. I have no further questions.”

McPherson took her pad and returned to her seat, where she was greeted with a squeeze on the arm by Haller. It was a gesture designed for the jury to see but by then all eyes were on Royce. It was his turn and Bosch’s measure of the room was that Sarah Gleason had everybody riding with her. Any effort by Royce to destroy her ran the strong risk of backfiring against his client.

Royce did the smart thing. He decided to let emotions cool for a night. He stood and told the judge that he reserved the right to recall Gleason as a witness during the defense phase of the trial. In effect he put off her cross-examination. He then retook his seat.

Bosch checked his watch. It was four-fifteen. The judge told Haller to call his next witness but Bosch knew there were no more witnesses. Haller looked at McPherson and in unison they nodded. Haller then stood up.

“Your Honor,” he said. “The People rest.”

Thirty-five

Wednesday, April 7, 7:20 P.M.

The prosecution team convened for dinner at Casa Haller. I made a thick Bolognese using a store-bought sauce for a base and boiled a box of bow tie pasta. Maggie chipped in with her own recipe for Caesar salad that I had always loved when we were married but hadn’t had in years. Bosch and his daughter were the last to arrive, as Harry first took Sarah Ann Gleason back to her hotel room following court and made sure she was secure for the night.

Our daughters were shy upon meeting and embarrassed by how obvious their parents were about watching the long-awaited moment. They instinctively knew to move away from us and convened in the back office, ostensibly to do their homework. Pretty soon after, we started to hear laughter from down the hall.

I put the pasta and sauce into a big bowl and mixed it all together. I then called the girls out first to serve themselves and take their dishes back to the office.

“How’s it going back there, anyway?” I asked them while they were making their plates. “Any homework getting done?”

“Dad,” Hayley said dismissively, as if my question were a great invasion of privacy.

So I tried the cousin.

“Maddie?”

“Um, I’m almost finished with mine.”

Both girls looked at each other and laughed, as if either the question or its answer were cause for great glee. They scurried out of the kitchen then and back to the office.

I put everything out on the table, where the adults were sitting. The last thing I did was make sure the door to the office was closed so the girls would not hear our conversation and we would not hear theirs.

“Well,” I said as I passed the pasta to Bosch. “We’re finished with our part. Now comes the hard part.”

“The defense,” Maggie said. “What do we think they have in store for Sarah?”

I thought for a moment before answering and tried my first bow tie. It was good. I was proud of my dish.

“We know they’ll throw everything they can at her,” I finally said. “She’s the case.”

Bosch reached inside his jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper. He opened it on the table. I could see that it was the defense’s witness list.

“At the end of court today Royce told the judge he would complete the defense’s case in one day,” he said. “He said he’s calling only four witnesses but he’s got twenty-three listed on here.”

“Well, we knew all along that most of that list was subterfuge,” Maggie said. “He was hiding his case.”

“Okay, so we have Sarah coming back,” I said, holding up one finger. “Then we have Jessup himself. My guess is that Royce knows he has to put him on. That’s two. Who else?”

Maggie waited until she finished a mouthful of food before speaking.

“Hey, this is good, Haller. When did you learn to make this?”

“It’s a little thing I like to call Newman’s Own.”

“No, you added to it. You made it better. How come you never cooked like this when we were married?”