A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [85]
“You found nothing that indicated that Jody Krementz had been inside Mr. Storey’s house, as he had told you she had been?”
“Nothing.”
“This search took place how many days after the evening Mr. Storey told you he had taken Ms. Krementz to his house and engaged in sexual relations with her?”
“Five days from the night of the murder, two days from our interview with Mr. Storey.”
“You found nothing in support of Mr. Storey’s statement.”
“Nothing. The place was clean.”
Bosch knew she was trying to turn a negative into a positive, somehow trying to imply that the unsuccessful search was an indication of Storey’s guilt.
“Would you call this an unsuccessful search?”
“No. Success doesn’t enter into it. We were looking for evidence that would corroborate his statement as well as any evidence of possible foul play relating to Ms. Krementz. We found nothing in the house indicative of this. But sometimes it is not what you find, it’s what you don’t.”
“Can you explain that to the jury?”
“Well, it is true we didn’t take any evidence from the house. But we found something missing that would later become important to us.”
“And what was that?”
“A book. A missing book.”
“How did you know it was missing if it wasn’t there?”
“In the living room of the house there was a large built-in bookcase. Each shelf was full of books. On one shelf there was a space — a slot — where a book had been but was now gone. We could not find what book that might be. There were no books sitting out loose in the house. At the time it was just a small thing. Someone had obviously taken a book from the shelf and not replaced it. It was just kind of curious to us that we could not figure out where or what it was.”
Langwiser offered two still photographs of the bookcase taken during the search as exhibits. Houghton accepted them over a routine objection from Fowkkes. The photos showed the bookcase in its entirety and a close-up of the second shelf with the open space between a book called The Fifth Horizon and a biography of the film director John Ford called Print the Legend.
“Now, Detective,” Langwiser said, “you said that at the time you did not know if this missing book had any importance or bearing on the case, correct?”
“That is right.”
“Did you eventually determine what book had been taken from the shelf?”
“Yes, we did.”
Langwiser paused. Bosch knew what she was going to do. The dance had been choreographed. He thought of her as a good storyteller. She knew how to string it along, keep people hooked in, take them to the edge of the cliff and then pull them back.
“Well, let’s take things in order,” she said. “We’ll come back to the book. Now did you have occasion to talk to Mr. Storey on the day of the search?”
“He mostly kept to himself and was on the phone most of the time. But we spoke when we first knocked on the door and announced the search. And then at the end of the day when I told him we were leaving and that we were not taking anything with us.”
“Did you wake him up when you came at six in the morning?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Was he alone in the house?”
“Yes.”
“Did he invite you in?”
“Not at first. He objected to the search. I told him —”
“Excuse me, Detective, we might make this easier if we show it. You said there was a videographer with you. Was he running the camera when you knocked at six in the morning?”
“Yes, he was.”
Langwiser then made the appropriate motions to introduce the search video. It was accepted under objection from the defense. A large television was rolled into the courtroom and placed at center in front of the jury box. Bosch was asked to identify the tape. The lights in the courtroom were dimmed and it was played.
The tape began with a focus on Bosch and the others outside the red front door of a house. He identified himself and the address and the case number. He spoke quietly. He then turned and knocked sharply on the door. He announced it was the police and knocked sharply again. They waited. Bosch knocked on the door every fifteen seconds until it was finally opened about two