The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,56
from the other side of the partition. “You moving in over there?”
“Writing a search warrant,” Ballard said. “I have to take it over to Judge Thornton before he starts court.”
“Wiretap?”
“Yeah. Two lines.”
Judge Billy Thornton was the Superior Court’s wiretap judge, meaning all search warrants for phone surveillance went through him for approval. He also ran a very busy courtroom that usually convened by ten each morning.
Following instructions from Dodd, Ballard went to a break area at the rear of the squad room to fish her document out of the printer. She then came back to her borrowed desk and pulled from her back-pack the same file folder she had produced during the War Room meeting with Olivas. She attached the signature page from the chain-of-custody document to the back of the search warrant application and was ready to go.
“I’m out of here,” she announced. “You ever want to get together after work, I’m here, Amy. At least until the late show starts.”
“Thanks,” Dodd said, seeming to pick up on Ballard’s worry. “I might take you up on that.”
Ballard took the elevator down and then crossed the front plaza toward her car. She checked the windshield and saw no ticket. She decided to double down on her luck and leave the car there. The courthouse was only a block away on Temple; if she was fast and Judge Thornton had not convened court, she could be back to the car in less than a half hour. She quickened her pace.
Judge Billy Thornton was a well-regarded mainstay in the local criminal justice system. He had served both as a public defender and as a deputy district attorney in his early years, before being elected to the bench and holding the position in Department 107 of the Los Angeles Superior Court for more than a quarter century. He had a folksy manner in the courtroom that concealed a sharp legal mind—one reason the presiding judge assigned wiretap search warrants to him. His full name was Clarence William Thornton but he preferred Billy, and his bailiff called it out every time he entered the courtroom: “The Honorable Billy Thornton presiding.”
Thanks to the inordinately long wait for an elevator in the fifty-year-old courthouse, Ballard did not get to Department 107 until ten minutes before ten a.m., and she saw that court was about to convene. A man in blue county jail scrubs was at the defense table with his suited attorney sitting next to him. A prosecutor Ballard recognized but could not remember by name was at the other table. They appeared ready to go and the only party missing was the judge on the bench. Ballard pulled back her jacket so the badge on her belt could be seen by the courtroom deputy and went through the gate. She moved around the attorney tables and went to the clerk’s station to the right of the judge’s bench. A man with a fraying shirt collar looked up at her. The nameplate on his desk said ADAM TRAINOR.
“Hi,” Ballard whispered, feigning breathlessness so Trainor would think she had run up the nine flights of steps and take pity. “Is there any chance I can get in to see the judge about a wiretap warrant before he starts court?”
“Oh, boy, we’re just waiting on the last juror to get here before starting,” Trainor said. “You might have to come back at the lunch break.”
“Can you please just ask him? The warrant’s only seven pages and most of it’s boilerplate stuff he’s read a million times. It won’t take him long.”
“Let me see. What’s your name and department?”
“Renée Ballard, LAPD. I’m working a cold case homicide. And there is a time element on this.”
Trainor picked up his phone, punched a button, and swiveled on his chair so his back was to Ballard and she would have difficulty hearing the phone call. It didn’t matter because it was over in twenty seconds and Ballard expected the answer was no as Trainor swiveled toward her.
But she was wrong.
“You can go back,” Trainor said. “He’s in his chambers. He’s got about ten minutes. The missing juror just called from the garage.”
“Not with those elevators,” Ballard said.
Trainor opened a half door in the cubicle that allowed Ballard access to the rear door of the courtroom. She walked through a file room and then into a hallway. She had been in judicial chambers on other cases before and knew that this hallway led to a line of offices assigned to the criminal-court judges.