The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [111]
“Can I ask you one final thing about it?” Maggie asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t see the point in talking about it anymore but relented.
“Ask away.”
“How do you know for sure that Cisco and his associates let those two men go?”
I cut into my steak and blood oozed onto the plate. It was undercooked. I looked up at Maggie.
“I guess I don’t know for sure.”
I went back to my steak and in my peripheral vision I saw Maggie wave down the busboy.
“I’m going to take this to go and try to grab a cab out front. Can you bring it out to me?”
“Of course. Right away.”
He hustled off with the plate.
“Maggie,” I said.
“I just need some time to think about all of this.”
She slid out of the booth.
“I can drive you.”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
She stood next to the table, opening her purse.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it.”
“You sure?”
“If there’s no cab out there, look down the street at the Palm. There might be one there.”
“Okay, thanks.”
She left then to wait for her food outside. I pushed my plate a few inches back and contemplated the half-full glass of wine she left behind. Five minutes later I was still considering it when Maggie suddenly appeared, the to-go bag in her hand.
“They had to call a cab,” she said. “It should be here any minute.”
She picked up her glass and sipped from it.
“Let’s talk after your trial,” she said.
“Okay.”
She put the glass down, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then she left. I sat there for a while thinking about things. I thought maybe that last kiss had saved my life.
Thirty-two
This time in his chambers Judge Perry sat down. It was 9:05 Wednesday morning and I was there along with Andrea Freeman and the court reporter. Before resuming trial the judge had agreed with Freeman’s request for one more conference out of the public eye. Perry waited for us to settle in our seats, then checked that his reporter’s fingers were poised over the keys of her steno machine.
“Okay, we’re on the record here in California versus Trammel,” he said. “Ms. Freeman, you called for an in camera conference. I hope you’re not going to tell me you need more time to pursue the issue involving the federal target letter.”
Freeman moved to the front edge of her seat.
“Not at all, Your Honor. There is nothing worth pursuing. The issue has been thoroughly vetted but full knowledge of what is going on with the federal agencies involved does not comfort me. I believe it is clear from what I know now that Mr. Haller is going to attempt to push this trial off the rails with issues that are definitely irrelevant to the matter before the jury.”
I cleared my throat but the judge stepped in first.
“We handled the issue of third-party guilt in pretrial, Ms. Freeman. I am allowing the defense the leeway to pursue it to a point. But you have to give me something here. Just because you don’t want Mr. Haller to pursue this target letter doesn’t make it irrelevant.”
“I understand that, Judge. But what—”
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do I get a turn here? I’d like the chance to respond to the insinuation that I’m pushing—”
“Let Ms. Freeman finish and then you’ll get a good long tug, Mr. Haller. I promise you that. Ms. Freeman?”
“Thank you, Your Honor. What I’m trying to say is that a federal target letter essentially means almost nothing. It is a notice of a pending investigation. It is not a charge. It’s not even an allegation. It doesn’t mean that they have found something or will find something. It is simply a tool used by the feds to say, ‘Hey, we heard something and we’re going to look into it.’ But in Mr. Haller’s hands in front of the jury, he’s going to spin this into the harbinger of doom and attach it to someone not even on trial here. Lisa Trammel is the one on trial and this whole thing about federal target letters is not even remotely relevant to the material issues. I would ask that you disallow Mr. Haller from making any further inquiry of Detective Kurlen in this regard.”
The judge was leaning back with his hands in front of