The Fifth Witness Part 21

I nodded.

"If we can't put Opparizio or one of his goons in that parking garage, then we are indeed screwed."

"The letter doesn't do it?" Cisco asked.

"Nope," I said. "There's no way. Freeman will kick my a.s.s if I say the letter opens the door. It gives Opparizio a motive, yes. But it doesn't link him directly to the crime."

"s.h.i.t."

"That's about right. Right now, we don't have it. So we don't have a defense. And the DNA and the hammer... well, that nails it all down nicely for the state. No pun intended."

"Our lab reports say there is no biological connection to Lisa," Aronson said. "I also have a Craftsman expert who will testify it is impossible to say that the hammer in evidence came from her specific set of tools. Plus, we know the garage door was unlocked. Even if it is her hammer, anyone could've taken it. And anyone could have planted the blood on the shoes."

"Yeah, yeah, I know all of that. It's not enough to say what could've happened. We're going to have to say this is is what happened and we're going to have to back it up. If we can't, we won't even get it in. Opparizio is the key. We need to be able to go at him without Freeman standing up on every question and saying, 'What's the relevance?' " what happened and we're going to have to back it up. If we can't, we won't even get it in. Opparizio is the key. We need to be able to go at him without Freeman standing up on every question and saying, 'What's the relevance?' "

Aronson wouldn't give it up.

"There must be something," she said.

"There's always something. We just haven't found it yet."

I swiveled on my chair until I was looking directly at Cisco. He frowned and nodded. He knew what was coming.

"On you, man," I said. "You've got to find me something. Freeman's going to take about a week to present the state's case. That's how much time you have. But if I stand up tomorrow and throw the dice, saying I'm going to prove somebody else did it, then I have to deliver."

"I'll start over," Cisco said. "Ground up. I'll find you something. You do what you have to do tomorrow."

I nodded, more in thanks than in faith that he would come through. I didn't really believe there was anything out there to get. I had a guilty client and justice was going to prevail. End of story.

I looked down at my desk. Spread across it were crime scene photos and reports. I held up the eight-by-ten of the victim's briefcase lying open on the garage's concrete floor. It was the thing that had stuck with me since the beginning, had given me hope that maybe my client didn't do it. That is, until the last two evidentiary rulings by the judge.

"So still no report on the briefcase contents and if anything was missing?" I asked.

"Not that we've gotten," Aronson said.

I had put her in charge of the first review of discovery materials as they had come in.

"So the guy's briefcase was left wide open and they never tried to see if there was anything missing?"

"They inventoried the contents. We have that. I just don't think they made a report on what was possibly not not in it. Kurlen's cagey. He wasn't going to create an opening for us." in it. Kurlen's cagey. He wasn't going to create an opening for us."

"Yeah, well, he might be walking around with that briefcase shoved up his a.s.s after I'm through with him on the stand."

Aronson blushed. I pointed at my investigator.

"Cisco, the briefcase. We've got the list of contents. Talk to Bondurant's secretary. Find out if anything was taken."

"I already tried. She wouldn't talk to me."

"Try again. Give her the gun show. Win her over."

He flexed his arms. Aronson continued to blush. I stood up.

"I'm going home to work on my opener."

"You sure you want to give it tomorrow?" Aronson asked. "If you defer until the defense phase you'll know what Cisco's been able to find."

I shook my head.

"I got the weekend because I told the judge I want to give it at the start of the trial. I go back on that and he's going to blame me for losing Friday. He's already a judge with a grudge because I lost it in chambers with him."

I moved around from behind the desk. I handed the photo of the briefcase to Cisco.

"Make sure you guys lock up."

No Rojas on Sundays. I drove the Lincoln home alone. There was light traffic and I got back quickly, even stopping to pick up a pizza at the little Italian joint under the market at the bottom of Laurel Canyon. When I got to the house I didn't bother edging the big Lincoln into the garage next to its fleet twin. I parked at the bottom of the steps, locked it and went on up to the front door. It wasn't until I got up to the deck that I saw that I had someone waiting for me.

Unfortunately, it wasn't Maggie McFierce. Rather, a man I had never seen before sat in one of the director's chairs at the far end of the deck. He was slightly built and disheveled, a week's worth of beard on his cheeks. His eyes were closed and his head tilted back. He was asleep.

I wasn't concerned for my safety. He was alone and he wasn't wearing black gloves. Still, I quietly put the key into the lock and opened the door without a sound. I stepped in, closed the door silently and put the pizza down on the kitchen counter. I then moved back to my bedroom and into the walk-in closet. Off the upper shelf-too high for my daughter to get to-I took down the wooden box that held the Colt Woodsman I'd inherited from my father. It had a tragic history and I hoped not to add to it now. I loaded a full magazine of ammunition into it, then headed back to the front door.

I took the other director's chair and moved it over until it faced the sleeping man. Only after I sat down, holding the gun casually in my lap, did I reach out with my foot and tap him on the knee.

He startled awake, his eyes wide and darting about until they finally landed on my face then dropped to the gun.

"Whoa, wait a minute, man!"

"No, you wait a minute. Who are you and what do you want?"

I didn't point the gun. I kept things casual. He raised his hands, palms out in surrender.

"Mr. Haller, right? I'm Jeff, man. Jeff Trammel. We talked on the phone, remember?"

I stared at him for a moment and realized I had not recognized him because I had never seen a photograph of him. During the times I had been in Lisa Trammel's home there were no framed photos of him. She had excised his presence from the house after he had chosen to hightail it.

Now here he was. Haunted eyes and hangdog look. I thought I knew just what he was looking for.

"How did you know where I live? Who told you to come here?"

"n.o.body told me. I just came. I looked your name up on the California Bar website. There was no office listed but this was the correspondence address. I came and saw it was a house and figured you live here. I didn't mean nothing by it. I need to talk to you."

"You could've called."

"That phone ran out of juice. I gotta buy another one."

I decided to run a little test on Jeff Trammel.

"That time you called me, where were you?"

He shrugged like it was no big deal to give up the information now.

"Down in Rosarito. I been staying down there."

That was a lie. Cisco had gotten the trace back on his call. I had the number of the phone and the originating cell tower. The call had come from Venice Beach, about two hundred miles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico.

"What did you want to talk to me about, Jeff?"

"I can help you, man."

"Help me? How?"

"I was talking to Lisa. She told me about the hammer they found. It's not hers-I mean, ours. I can tell you where ours is. Lead you right to it."

"Okay, then where is it?"

He nodded and looked off to the right and at the city down below. The never-ending hiss of traffic filtered up to us.

"That's the thing, Mr. Haller. I need some money. I want to go back to Mexico. You don't need a lot down there but you need a start, if you know what I mean."

"So how much of a start do you want?"

He turned and looked directly at me now because I was speaking his language.

"Just ten grand, man. You got all that movie money coming in and ten won't hurt you too bad. You give me that and I give you the hammer."

"And that's it?"

"Yeah, man, I'll be out of your hair."

"What about testifying on Lisa's behalf at the trial? Remember, we talked about that?"

He shook his head.

"No, I can't do that. I'm not the testifying type. But I can help you on the outside like this. You know, lead you to the hammer, stuff like that. Herb said the hammer is their biggest evidence and it's bulls.h.i.t because I know where the real one is."

"So you're talking to Herb Dahl, too."

I could tell by the grimace that he'd made a slip. He was supposed to keep Herb Dahl out of the conversation.

"Uh, no, no, it was what Lisa said he said. I don't even know him."

"Let me ask you something, Jeff. How am I going to know this is the real hammer and not some replacement you've cooked up with Lisa and Herb?"

"Because I'm telling you. I know. I was the one who left it where it is. Me!"

"But you're not going to testify, so all I'm left with is a hammer and no story. Do you know what 'fungible' means, Jeff?"

"Fun-uh, no."

"It means mutually interchangeable. An item is fungible in the law if it can be replaced by an identical item. And that's what we have here, Jeff. Your hammer is useless to me without the story attached. If it is your story then you have to testify to it. If you won't testify, then it doesn't matter."

"Huh..."

He seemed crestfallen.

"Where's the hammer, Jeff?"

"I'm not telling you. It's all I have."

"I'm not paying you a cent for it, Jeff. Even if I believed there was a hammer-the real hammer-I wouldn't pay you a cent. That's not how it works. So you think things over and you let me know, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now get off my porch."

I carried the gun down at my side and stepped back into the house, locking the door behind me. I grabbed the car keys off the pizza box and hurried through the house to the back door. I went through and then slipped along the side of the house to a wooden gate that opened onto the street. I opened it a crack and looked for Jeff Trammel.

I didn't see him but I heard a car engine roar to life. I waited and soon a car moved by. I went through the gate and tried to get a look at the plate but I was too late. The car coasted down the hill. It was a blue sedan but I was too consumed with the plate to identify the make and model. As soon as it took the first curve I hurried up the street to my own car.

If I was to follow him, I would have to get down the hill in time to see if he turned left or right on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Otherwise it was a fifty-fifty chance of losing him.

But I was too late. By the time the Lincoln negotiated the sharp turns and the intersection at Laurel Canyon came into sight, the blue sedan was gone. I pulled up to the stop sign and didn't hesitate. I turned right, heading north toward the Valley. Cisco had traced Jeff Trammel's call to Venice but everything else about the case was in the Valley. I headed that way.

It was a single lane on the northbound ascent of the roadway that cut over the Hollywood Hills. It then opened to two lanes on the down slope into the Valley. But I never caught up to Trammel and soon realized I had chosen the wrong way. Venice. I should've turned south.

Not being a fan of cold or reheated pizza I pulled off to eat at the Daily Grill at Laurel and Ventura. I parked in the underground garage and was halfway to the escalator when I realized I had the Woodsman tucked into the back of my pants. Not good. I returned to the car and put it under the seat, then double-checked to make sure the car was locked.

It was early but nonetheless crowded in the restaurant. I sat at the bar rather than wait for a table and ordered an iced tea and a chicken pot pie. I then opened my phone and called my client. She answered right away.

"Lisa, it's your attorney. Did you send your husband over to speak to me?"

"Well, I told him he should see you, yes."

"And was that your idea or Herb Dahl's?"

"No, mine. I mean Herb was here but it was my idea. Did you talk to him?"

"I did."

"Did he lead you to the hammer?"

"No, he didn't. He wanted ten thousand dollars to do that."

There was a pause but I waited.

"Mickey, it doesn't seem like a lot to ask for something that will destroy the state's evidence."

"You don't pay for evidence, Lisa. If you do, you lose. Where is your husband staying these days?"