The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [97]
Now he was just being churlish, which was fine by me.
“Okay, then as far as you know, Detective, has she ever contradicted that very first statement to you that she was not near the bank?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
I asked the judge if I could replay another segment of the video and was granted permission. I moved the video back to a time spot early in the interview and froze it. I then asked the judge if I could put one of the prosecution’s crime scene photos on one of the overhead screens while leaving the video on the other. The judge gave me the go-ahead.
The crime scene photo I put up was a wide-angle shot that took in almost the entire crime scene. The tableau included Bondurant’s body as well as his car, the open briefcase and the spilled cup of coffee on the ground.
“Detective, let me draw your attention to the crime scene photo marked People’s Exhibit Three. Can you describe what you see in the foreground?”
“You mean the briefcase or the body?”
“What else, Detective?”
“You’ve got the spilled coffee, and the evidence marker on the left is where they found a tissue fragment later identified as coming from the victim’s scalp. You can’t really see that in the photo.”
I asked the judge to strike the part of the answer concerning the tissue fragment as nonresponsive. I had asked Kurlen to describe what he could see in the photo, not what he couldn’t see. The judge didn’t agree and let the whole answer stand. I shook it off and tried again.
“Detective, can you read what it says on the side of the coffee cup?”
“Yes, it says Joe’s Joe. It’s a gourmet coffee shop about four blocks from the bank.”
“Very good, Detective. Your eyes are better than mine.”
“Maybe because they look for the truth.”
I looked at the judge and spread my hands like a baseball manager who just saw a fastball down the pipe called a ball. Before I could verbally react the judge was all over Kurlen.
“Detective!” Perry barked. “You know better than that.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Kurlen said contritely, his eyes holding on mine. “Mr. Haller somehow always seems to bring out the worst in me.”
“That’s no excuse. Another one like that and you and I are going to have a serious problem.”
“It won’t happen again, Judge. I promise.”
“The jury will disregard the witness’s comment. Mr. Haller, proceed and take us away from this.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. I’ll do my best. Detective, when you were at the crime scene for seventy-two minutes before leaving to question Ms. Trammel, did you determine whose coffee cup that was?”
“Well, we later found out that—”
“No, no, no, I didn’t ask you what you later found out, Detective. I asked you about those first seventy-two minutes when you were at the crime scene. During that time, before you went to Lisa Trammel’s house in Woodland Hills, did you know whose coffee that was?”
“No, we had not determined that yet.”
“Okay, so you didn’t know who dropped that coffee at the crime scene, correct?”
“Objection, asked and answered,” Freeman said.
It was a useless objection but she had to do something to try to knock me out of rhythm.
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said before I could respond. “You can answer the question, Detective. Did you know who dropped that cup of coffee at the crime scene?”
“Not at that time.”
I went back to the video and played the segment I had cued and ready to go. It was from the early part of the interview, when Trammel was recounting her routine activities during the morning of the murder.
“You stopped for coffee?”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Where did you stop to get the coffee?”
“A place called Joe’s Joe. It’s on Van Nuys Boulevard right by the intersection with Ventura.”
“Do you remember, did you get a large or small cup?”
“Large. I drink a lot of coffee.”
I stopped the video.
“Tell me something now, Detective. Why did you ask what size coffee she got at Joe’s Joe?”
“You throw out a big net. You go for as many details as you can.”
“Was it not because you believed the coffee cup found at the scene of the murder might have been Lisa