The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [91]
“Don’t worry, I will. I have no further questions at this time.”
I checked the back wall as I returned to my seat. It was five minutes before five and I knew we were finished for the day. There was always so much that went into prepping for a trial. The end of the first day usually was accompanied by a wave of fatigue. I was just feeling it start to hit me.
The judge admonished the jurors to keep an open mind about what they had heard and seen during the day. He told them to avoid media reports on the trial and not to discuss the case among themselves or with others. He then sent them home.
My client went off with Herb Dahl, who had returned to the courthouse, and I followed Freeman through the gate.
“Nice start,” I said to her.
“Not bad yourself.”
“Well, we both know you get to pick off the low-hanging fruit at the beginning of a trial. Then it’s gone and it gets tough.”
“Yes, it’s going to get tough. Good luck, Haller.”
Once in the hallway we went our separate ways. Freeman down the stairs to the DA’s office and me to the elevator and then back to my office. It didn’t matter how tired I was. I still had work to do. Kurlen would likely be on the stand all day the next day. I was going to be ready.
Twenty-six
The People call Detective Howard Kurlen.”
Andrea Freeman turned from the prosecution table where she stood and smiled at the detective as he walked down the aisle, two impressively thick blue binders known as murder books under his arm. He came through the gate and headed toward the witness stand. He looked at ease. This was routine for him. He put the murder books down on the shelf in front of the witness chair and raised his hand to take the oath. He shot me a sideways look at that point. Outwardly, Kurlen looked cool, calm and collected, but we had done this dance before and he had to be wondering what I would be bringing this time.
Kurlen wore a sharply cut navy blue suit with a bright orange tie. Detectives always put on their best look to testify. Then I realized something. There was no gray in Kurlen’s hair. He was closing in on sixty and had no gray. He had dyed it for the TV cameras.
Vanity. I wondered if it was something I could use as an edge when it was my turn to ask him questions.
After Kurlen was sworn in, he took the witness seat and made himself comfortable. He’d probably be there the whole day and maybe longer. He poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher set up by the judge’s clerk, took a sip and looked at Freeman. He was ready to go.
“Good morning, Detective Kurlen. I would like to start this morning with you telling the jury a little bit about your experience and history.”
“I’d be glad to,” Kurlen said with a warm smile. “I am fifty-six years old and I joined the LAPD twenty-four years ago after spending ten years in the marines. I have been a homicide detective assigned to the Van Nuys Division for the past nine years. Before that I spent three years working homicides at the Foothill Division.”
“How many homicide investigations have you worked?”
“This case is my sixty-first homicide. I was a detective assigned to investigations of other crimes—robbery, burglary and auto theft—for six years before moving to homicide.”
Freeman was standing at the lectern. She flipped back a page on a legal pad, ready to move on to what mattered.
“Detective, let’s begin on the morning of the murder of Mitchell Bondurant. Can you walk us through the initial stages of the case?”
Smart move saying “us,” implying that the jury and prosecutor were part of the same team. I had no doubts about Freeman’s skills and she would be at her sharpest with her lead detective on the stand. She knew that if I could damage Kurlen, the whole thing might come tumbling down.
“I was at my desk at about nine fifteen when the detective lieutenant came to me and my partner, Detective Cynthia Longstreth, and said a homicide had occurred in the parking garage of the WestLand National headquarters on Ventura Boulevard. Detective Longstreth and I immediately rolled on it.