The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,80

to decide. Save your argument for them. Mr. Belk, the problem is this is your witness. You called him and you've left him open to this line of questioning. I don't know what to tell you. I'm certainly not going to clear the media out of there. Off the record here, Miss Penny.”

The judge watched the court reporter lift her fingers from the keys.

“Mr. Belk, you're fucked—'scuse the language, ladies. He's gonna answer the question and the one after that and the one after that. Okay, we're back on.”

The reporter put her fingers back on the keys.

“Your Honor, this can't—”

“I've made my ruling, Mr. Belk. Anything else?”

Belk then surprised Bosch.

“We would like a continuance.”

“What?”

“Your Honor, plaintiff opposes,” Chandler said.

“I know you do,” the judge said. “What are you talking about, Mr. Belk?”

“Your Honor, you have to put the trial on hiatus. Until at least next week. It will give the investigation time to possibly come to some fruition.”

“Some fruition? Forget it, Belk. You're in the middle of a trial, my friend.”

Belk stood and leaned across the great wide desk.

“Your Honor, I request an emergency stay of these proceedings while we take the matter on appeal to the ninth district.”

“You can appeal anything you like, Mr. Belk, but there is no stay. We're in trial here.”

There was silence as everyone looked at Belk.

“What if I refuse to answer?” Bosch asked.

Judge Keyes looked at him a long moment and said, “Then I'll hold you in contempt. Then I'll ask you to answer again and if you refuse again I will put you in jail. Then when your attorney here asks for bail while he appeals, I will say no bail. All of this will take place out there in front of the jury and the media folks. And I will place no restrictions on what Ms. Chandler does or doesn't say to the reporters in the hallway. So, what I am saying is, you can try to be some kind of hero and not answer, but the story will get to the media anyway. It's like I said a few minutes ago to Mr. Belk when we were off the rec—”

“You can't do this,” Belk suddenly erupted. “It, it—it's not right. You have to protect this investigation. You—”

“Son, don't you ever tell me what I have to do,” the judge said very slowly and sternly. He seemed to grow in stature while Belk shrank back away from him. “Only thing I have to do is ensure there is a fair trial on this matter. You are asking me to sit on information that could be vital to the plaintiff's case. You are also trying to intimidate me and that is one thing I don't take to. I'm no county judge that needs your nod every time an election comes ‘round. I'm appointed for life. We're off here.”

Miss Penny stopped typing. Bosch almost didn't want to see Belk's slaughter. The deputy city attorney's head was bowed and he had assumed the posture of the doomed. The back of his neck was turned up and ready to receive the axe.

“So my advice here is that you get your fat ass out there and start working on how the hell you're going to salvage this on redirect. Because in five minutes Detective Bosch is going to answer that question or he's going to be handing his gun and his badge and his belt and shoelaces over to a marshal at the federal lockup. We're back on. Hearing adjourned.”

Judge Keyes brought his arm down and ground his cigarette into the ash[$$$ MS Page No. 245]ray. He never took his eyes off Belk.

As the procession made its way back into the courtroom, Bosch moved up closely behind Chandler. He glanced back to make sure the judge had turned to go to the bench and then said in a low voice, “If you're getting your information from inside the department, I'm going to burn your source down when I find him.”

She didn't miss a stride. She didn't even turn back when she said, “You mean, if you're not already ashes.”

Bosch took his place at the witness stand and the jury was brought back in. The judge told Chandler to continue.

“Rather than have the reporter find the last question, let me just rephrase it. After you killed Mr. Church, did the so called Dollmaker killings stop?”

Bosch hesitated, thinking. He looked out into the spectator section and saw that there were more reporters now—or at least people he thought were