The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [41]
Still, there was a value for the defense in the proceedings. I still got a peek at what was to come and an opportunity to raise questions about what witnesses and evidence were presented. And therein was the prep work. I needed to anticipate which cards Freeman would show and decide how I would play against them.
We were way past any notion of a plea agreement. Freeman still wasn’t giving on that end and my client still wasn’t taking. We were on a direct course toward a trial in April or May and I can’t say I was unhappy about it. We had a legitimate shot and if Lisa Trammel wanted to go for it I was going to be ready.
In recent weeks we had gotten some good news as well as bad on the evidence front. As expected, Judge Morales ruled against our motions to suppress the police interview and the search of Lisa’s home. This cleared the way for the prosecution to build its case around the pillars of motivation, opportunity and the single eyewitness account. They had the foreclosure action. They had Lisa’s history of protest against the bank. They had her incriminating admissions during her interview. And most of all, they had the eyewitness, Margo Schafer, who claimed to have seen Lisa just a block from the bank and only minutes after the killing.
But we were building a defense case that attacked these pillars and contained much evidence that was indeed exculpatory.
No murder weapon had been identified or found yet, and the state’s zeal to prove that a tiny blemish of blood found on a pipe wrench taken from the tool bench in Lisa’s garage had backfired when testing concluded it was not Mitchell Bondurant’s blood. Of course, the prosecution would not bring this up at the preliminary hearing or the trial, but I could and would. It is the defense’s job to take the miscues and mistakes of the investigation and ram them down the state’s throat. I would not hold back.
Additionally, my investigator had gathered information that would put into question the observations of the state’s key witness, even though we would not get that shot until trial. And we also had the hypothesis of innocence. The alternate theory was building nicely. We had served subpoenas on Louis Opparizio and his company ALOFT, the foreclosure mill at the center of the defense strategy.
I anticipated that no defense tactics or evidence would come up during the preliminary hearing. Freeman would put Detective Kurlen on the stand and he would walk the judge through the entire case, making sure to sidestep any weaknesses in the evidence. She would also put on the medical examiner and possibly a forensic analyst.
Schafer, the witness, was the only question. My first thought was that Freeman would hold her back. She could rely on Kurlen to present information from his interview with her, thereby bringing out what Schafer would eventually testify to at trial. No more was needed for a prelim. On the other hand, Freeman might put Schafer on the stand in a bid to see what I had. If I revealed during cross-examination how I planned to handle the witness, it would help Freeman prepare for what was ahead at trial.
It was all strategy and games at this point and I had to admit it was the best part of a trial. The moves made outside the courtroom were always more significant than those made inside. The inside moves were all prepped and choreographed. I preferred the improvisation done away from the courtroom.
I was underlining the name Schafer on my legal pad when I heard the phone ring in the reception area. I could have taken it on my set but didn’t bother. It was well after hours and I knew the number on the phone-book ad had been forwarded to the new office number. Anybody calling this late was probably looking for foreclosure advice. They could leave a message.
I pulled the blood analysis file to front and center on the desk. It contained the DNA comparison report that had been run on blood extracted from a crevice in the handle of the pipe wrench from Lisa’s tool bench. It had been a rush job, the prosecution popping for an expensive analysis from an outside firm