The Fifth Witness Part 30

"A reliable witness. Based on one short interview with Margo Schafer she was deemed a reliable witness?"

I put the proper mix of outrage and confusion in my voice. Freeman objected, saying that I was simply badgering the witness because I was not getting the answers I wanted. The judge overruled but it was a good message for her to get to the jury-the idea that I wasn't getting what I wanted. Because, in fact, I was.

"The first interview with Margo Schafer was short," Kurlen said. "But she was reinterviewed several times by several investigators. Her observations on that day have not changed one iota. I believe she saw what she said she saw."

"Good for you, Detective," I said. "Let's go back to the coffee cup. Did there come a time that you came to a conclusion as to whose coffee was spilled and left at the crime scene?"

"Yes. We found a Joe's Joe receipt in the victim's pocket for a large cup of coffee purchased that morning at eight twenty-one. Once we found that, we believed that the coffee cup at the crime scene was his. This was later confirmed by fingerprint a.n.a.lysis. He got out of the car with it and dropped it when he was attacked from behind."

I nodded, making sure the jury understood that I was indeed getting the answers I wanted.

"What time was it when that receipt was found in the victim's pocket?"

Kurlen checked his notes and didn't find an answer.

"I am not sure because the receipt was found by the coroner's investigator who was in charge of checking the victim's pockets and securing all property that had been on the victim's person. This would have been done before the body was transported to the coroner's office."

"But it was well after you and your partner took off in pursuit of Lisa Trammel, correct?"

"We didn't take off in pursuit of Trammel, but the discovery of the receipt would have been after we left to talk to Trammel."

"Did the coroner's investigator call you and tell you about the receipt?"

"No."

"Did you find out about the receipt before or after you arrested Lisa Trammel for murder?"

"After. But there was other evidence in support of-"

"Thank you, Detective. Just answer the question I ask, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind telling the truth."

"Good. That's what we're here for. Now, wouldn't you agree that you arrested Lisa Trammel on the basis of inconsistent and contradictory statements that later turned out to be, in fact, consistent and not in contradiction with the evidence and the facts of the case?"

Kurlen answered as if by rote.

"We had the witness who placed her near the scene of the crime at the time of the crime."

"And that's all you had, correct?"

"There was other evidence tying her to the murder. We have her hammer and-"

"I'm talking about at the time of her arrest!" I yelled. "Please answer the question I ask you, Detective!"

"Hey!" the judge exclaimed. "There's only one person who's going to be allowed to raise their voice in my courtroom, and, Mr. Haller, you aren't that person."

"I'm sorry, Your Honor. Could you please instruct the witness to answer the questions he is asked and not those that are not asked?"

"Consider the witness so advised. Proceed, Mr. Haller."

I paused for a moment to collect myself and swept my eyes across the jury. I was looking for sympathetic reactions but I didn't see any. Not even from Furlong, who didn't meet my eyes with his. I looked back at Kurlen.

"You just mentioned the hammer. The defendant's hammer. This was evidence you didn't have at the time of the arrest, correct?"

"That's correct."

"Isn't it true that once you made the arrest and realized that the inconsistent statements you relied upon were not actually inconsistent, you began looking for evidence to fit your theory of the case?"

"Not true at all. We had the witness but we still kept a wide-open view of this thing. We weren't wearing blinders. I would've been happy to drop the charges against the defendant. But the investigation was ongoing and the evidence that we started acc.u.mulating and evaluating did not cut her way."

"Not only that but you had motive, too, didn't you?"

"The victim was foreclosing on the defendant's house. As far as motive went, that looked pretty strong to me."

"But you were not privy to the details of that foreclosure, only that there was a foreclosure in process, correct?"

"Yes, and that there was a temporary restraining order against her, too."

"You mean you are saying that the restraining order itself was a motive to kill Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying and not what I mean. I'm just saying it was part of the whole picture."

"The whole picture adding up at that point to a rush to judgment, correct, Detective?"

Freeman jumped up and objected and the judge sustained it. That was okay. I wasn't interested in Kurlen's answer to the question. I was only interested in putting the question in each juror's mind.

I checked the rear wall of the courtroom and saw that it was three thirty. I told the judge that I was going to move in a new direction with my cross-examination and that it might be a good time to take the afternoon break. The judge agreed and dismissed the jury for fifteen minutes.

I sat back down at the defense table and my client reached over and squeezed my forearm with a powerful grip.

"You're doing so good!" she whispered.

"We'll see. There's still a long way to go."

She pushed her chair back to get up.

"Are you going for coffee?" she asked.

"No, I need to make a call. You go. Just remember, no talking to the media. Don't talk to anybody."

"I know, Mickey. Loose lips sink ships."

"You got it."

She left the table then and I watched her head out of the courtroom. I didn't see her constant companion, Herb Dahl, anywhere.

I pulled my phone and called Cisco's cell number. He answered right away.

"I'm out of time, Cisco. I need the letter."

"You got it."

"What do you mean, it's confirmed?"

"Totally legit."

"We're lucky we're talking on the phone."

"Why's that, Boss?"

"Because I might have to kiss you for this."

"Uh, that won't be necessary."

Twenty-eight.

I used the last few minutes of the break to prepare the second part of my cross-examination of Kurlen. Cisco's news was going to send a wave through the whole trial. How I handled the new information with Kurlen would impact the rest of the trial. Soon everyone was back in the courtroom and I was at the lectern and ready to go. I had one last item on my list to hit before I got to the letter. used the last few minutes of the break to prepare the second part of my cross-examination of Kurlen. Cisco's news was going to send a wave through the whole trial. How I handled the new information with Kurlen would impact the rest of the trial. Soon everyone was back in the courtroom and I was at the lectern and ready to go. I had one last item on my list to hit before I got to the letter.

"Detective Kurlen, let's go back to the crime scene photo you see on the screen. Did you identify the ownership of the briefcase that was found open next to the victim's body?"

"Yes, it had the victim's property in it and his initials engraved on the bra.s.s locking plate. It was his."

"And when you arrived at the crime scene and saw the open briefcase next to the body, what were your initial impressions of it?"

"None. I try to keep an open mind about everything, especially when I first come into a case."

"Did you think the open briefcase could mean that robbery was a motive for the murder?"

"Among many possibilities, yes."

"Did you think, Here is a banker dead and an open briefcase next to him. I wonder what the killer was after?"

"I had to think of that as a possible scenario. But as I said it was-"

"Thank you, Detective."

Freeman objected, saying I was not giving the witness time to fully answer the question. The judge agreed and let Kurlen finish.

"I was just saying that the possibility of this being a robbery was just one scenario. Leaving the briefcase open could just as easily have been a move to make it look like a robbery when it wasn't."

I pushed on without losing a beat.

"Did you determine what was taken from the briefcase?"

"As far as we knew then and know now, nothing was taken from it. But there was no inventory as to what should have been in the briefcase. We had Mr. Bondurant's secretary look at his files and work product to see if she could determine if anything was missing, like a file or something. She found nothing missing."

"Then do you have any explanation for why it was left open?"

"As I said before, it could have been done as misdirection. But we also believe there is a good chance that the case sprung open when it was dropped on the concrete during the attack."

I put my incredulous look on.

"And how did you come to that determination, sir?"

"The briefcase has a faulty locking mechanism. Any sort of jarring of the case could lead to its release. We conducted experiments with the case and found that when it was dropped to a hard surface from a height of three feet or more, it sprung open about one out of every three times."

I nodded and acted like I was computing this information for the first time even though I already had it from one of the investigative reports received in discovery.

"So what you're saying is that there was a one in three chance that the briefcase came open on its own when Mr. Bondurant dropped it."

"That's correct."

"And you called that a good chance, correct?"

"A solid chance."

"And of course there was a greater chance that that was not how the briefcase came open, right?"

"You can look at it that way."

"There is a greater chance that someone opened the briefcase, correct?"

"Again, you can look at it that way. But we determined that nothing was missing from the briefcase so there was no apparent reason for it to have been opened except to create a misdirection of some kind. Our working theory was that it sprung open when it was dropped."

"Do you notice in the crime scene photograph, Detective, that none of the contents of the case have fallen out and onto the pavement?"

"That's correct."

"Do you have an inventory of the briefcase in your binder there that you can read to us?"

Kurlen took his time finding it and then read it to the jury. The briefcase contained six files, five pens, an iPad, a calculator, an address book and two blank notebooks.

"When you conducted your tests in which you dropped the briefcase to the ground to see about the possibility of it popping open, did the case have the same contents?"

"It had similar contents, yes."

"And on the times that the case popped open, how often did all the contents remain inside it?"

"Not every time but most of the time. It definitely could have happened."