The Fifth Witness Part 22

"He wouldn't tell me."

"Did you talk to him in person?"

"Yes, he came here. He looked like something the cat dragged in."

"I need to find him so I can subpoena him. Do you have any-"

"He won't testify. He told me. No matter what. He just wants money and to see me in pain. He doesn't even care about his own son. He didn't even ask to see him when he came by."

My meal was placed down in front of me and the bartender topped off my tea. I sliced into the top crust with my fork, just to let some of the steam out. It would be a good ten minutes before the dish would be cool enough to eat.

"Lisa, listen to me, this is important. Do you have any idea where he could be living or staying?"

"No. He said he came up from Mexico."

"That's a lie. He's been here all the time."

She seemed taken aback.

"How do you know that?"

"Phone records. Look, it doesn't matter. If he calls you or comes by, find out where he is staying. Promise him there's money coming or whatever you need to do but get me a location. If we can get him into court he'll have to tell us about the hammer."

"I'll try."

"Don't try, Lisa. Do it. This is your life we're talking about here."

"Okay, okay."

"Now did he drop any hint about the hammer at all when he spoke to you?"

"Not really. He just said, 'Remember how I used to keep the hammer in my car when I was on repo duty?' When he was at the dealers.h.i.+p he had to repossess cars sometimes. They took turns. I think he kept the hammer for protection or in case they had to break into a car or something."

"So he was saying the original hammer from your garage tool set was kept in his car?"

"I guess so. The Beemer. But that car was taken away after he abandoned it and disappeared."

I nodded. I could put Cisco on it, have him try to confirm the story by seeing if a hammer was found in the trunk of the BMW left behind by Jeff Trammel.

"Okay, Lisa, who are Jeff's friends? Up here in the city."

"I don't know. He had friends at the dealers.h.i.+p but n.o.body that he brought around. We didn't really have friends."

"Do you have any names of those people from the dealers.h.i.+p?"

"Not really."

"Lisa, you're not helping me here."

"I'm sorry. I can't think. I didn't like his friends. I told him to keep them away."

I shook my head and then thought of myself. Who were my friends outside of work? Could Maggie answer these same questions about me?

"All right, Lisa, enough of this for now. I want you thinking about tomorrow. Remember what we talked about. How you act and react in front of the jury. A lot will ride on it."

"I know. I'm ready."

Good, I thought. I wish I was.

Twenty-one.

Judge Perry wanted to make up for some of the court time lost the Friday before, so on Monday morning he arbitrarily limited opening statements to the jury to thirty minutes apiece. This ruling came even though both the prosecution and the defense had ostensibly been laboring through the weekend on statements previously scheduled to be an hour long. The truth was, the edict was fine by me. I doubted I would even take ten minutes. The more you say on the defense side, the more the prosecution has to aim at in closing arguments. Less is always more when it comes to the defense. However, the capriciousness of the judge's ruling was something else to consider. It clearly sent a message. The judge was telling us mere lawyers that he was firmly in charge of the courtroom and the trial. We were just visitors.

Freeman went first and as is my usual practice, I never took my eyes off the jury as the prosecutor spoke. I listened closely, ready to object on a moment's notice, but I never once looked at her. I wanted to see how the jurors' eyes took Freeman in. I wanted to see if my hunches about them were going to pay off.

Freeman spoke clearly and eloquently. No histrionics, no flash. It was straightforward eyes-on-the-prize stuff.

"We're here today about one thing," she said, standing firmly in the center of the well, the open s.p.a.ce directly in front of the jury box. "We are here because of one person's anger. One person's need to lash out in frustration over her own failures and betrayals."

Of course, she spent most of her time warning the jurors off what she called the defense's smoke and mirrors. Confident in her own case, she sought to tear down mine.

"The defense is going to try to sell you a bill of goods. Big conspiracies and high drama. This murder is big but the story is simple. Don't be led astray. Watch closely. Listen closely. Make sure that whatever is said here today is backed during the trial with evidence. Real evidence.

"This was a well-planned crime. The killer knew Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant's routines. The killer stalked Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant. The killer was lying in wait for Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant and then attacked swiftly and with the ultimate malice. That killer is Lisa Trammel and during this trial she will be brought to justice."

Freeman pointed the accusatory finger at my client. Lisa, as previously instructed by me, stared back at her without blinking.

I zeroed in on juror number three who sat in the middle of the front row of the box. Leander Lee Furlong Jr. was my ace in the hole. He was my hanger, the one juror I was counting on to vote my way all the way. Even if it hung the jury.

About a half hour before the jury selection process had begun, the court clerk gave me the list of eighty names composing the first jury pool. I turned the list over to my investigator, who stepped out into the hallway, opened his laptop and went to work.

The Internet provides many avenues for researching the backgrounds of potential jurors, particularly when the trial will revolve around a financial transaction such as a foreclosure. Every person in the jury pool filled out a questionnaire, answering basic questions: Have you or anyone in your immediate family been involved in a foreclosure? Have you ever had a car repossessed? Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? These were weed-out questions. Anyone who answered yes to these questions would be dismissed by either the judge or the prosecutor. A person answering yes would be deemed biased and unable to fairly weigh evidence.

But the weed-outs were very general and there were gray areas and room between the lines. That's where Cisco came in. By the time the judge had sat the first panel of twelve prospective jurors and gone over their questionnaires, Cisco was back to me with background notes on seventeen of the eighty. I was looking for people with bad experiences with and maybe even grudges against banks or government inst.i.tutions. The seventeen ran the gamut from people who had outright lied on their questionnaires about bankruptcies or repossessions, to plaintiffs in civil claims against banks, to Leander Furlong.

Leander Lee Furlong Jr. was a twenty-nine-year-old a.s.sistant manager at the Ralph's supermarket in Chatsworth. He had answered no to the question about foreclosure. In Cisco's digital background search he went the extra mile and searched some national data sites. He came up with a reference to a 1994 foreclosure auction of property in Nashville, Tennessee, on which Leander Lee Furlong was listed as the owner. The pet.i.tioner in the action was the First National Bank of Tennessee.

The name seemed unique and the two instances had to be related. My prospective juror would have been thirteen at the time of the foreclosure. I a.s.sumed it was his father who lost the property to the bank. And Leander Lee Furlong Jr. had left mention of it off his questionnaire.

As jury selection progressed over two days, I nervously waited for Furlong to be randomly selected and moved into the box for questioning by the judge and attorneys. Along the way I pa.s.sed up a handful of good prospects, using my peremptory challenges to clear s.p.a.ces in the box.

Finally on the fourth morning Furlong's number came up and he was seated for questioning. When I heard him speak with a southern accent I knew I had my hanger. He had to carry a grudge against the bank that took away his parents' property. He was hiding it to get on the jury.

Furlong pa.s.sed the judge's and prosecutor's questions with flying colors, saying just the right things and presenting himself as a G.o.d-fearing, hardworking man who had conservative values and an open mind. When it was my turn I hung back and asked a few general questions, then hit him with a zinger. I needed him to appear acceptable to me. I asked him if he thought people in foreclosure should be looked down upon or if it was possible that there were legitimate reasons why people sometimes could not pay for their home. In his southern tw.a.n.g, Furlong said that each case was different and it would be wrong to generalize about all people in foreclosure.

A few minutes and few more questions later, Freeman punched his ticket and I concurred. He was on the jury. Now I just had to hope his family history wasn't discovered by the prosecution. If so he would be removed from the jury faster than a Crip from a Bloods holding cell.

Was I being unethical or breaking the rules by not reporting Furlong's secret to the court? It depends on your definition of immediate immediate-as in immediate family. The meaning of who and what const.i.tutes your immediate family changes as you move through life. Furlong's sheet said he was married and had a young son. His wife and child were his immediate family now. For all I knew, his father might not even be alive. The question asked was, "Have you or anyone in your immediate family been involved in a foreclosure?" The word ever ever was not in that sentence. was not in that sentence.

So it was a gray area and I felt I was under no obligation to help the prosecution by pointing out what was omitted from the question. Freeman had the same list of names and the power of the district attorney's office and the LAPD at her immediate disposal. There had to be someone in those two bureaucracies as smart as my investigator. Let them look and find for themselves. If not, it was their loss.

I watched Furlong as Freeman started listing the building blocks of her case: the murder weapon, the eyewitness, the blood on the defendant's shoe and her history of targeting the bank with her anger. He sat with both elbows on the armrests of his chair, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth. It was like he was hiding his face, peeking over his hands at her. It was a posture that told me I had read him right. He was my hanger, for sure.

Freeman began to lose steam as she hurried through a truncated recitation of how all the evidence fit together as guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This was where she had obviously chopped content out of her opener in deference to the judge's arbitrary time constraint. She knew she could tie it all up in closing arguments so she skipped a lot of it here and got to her conclusion.

"Ladies and gentlemen, blood will tell," she said. "Follow the evidence and it will lead you, without a doubt, to Lisa Trammel. She took Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant's life. She took everything he had. And now it's time to bring her to justice."

She thanked the jurors and returned to her seat. It was my turn now. I put my hand down below the table to check my zipper. You have to stand before a jury only once with your fly open and it will never happen again.

I got up and took the same spot in the well where Freeman had stood. I once again tried to show no sign of my still-healing injuries. And I began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I want to start with a couple of introductions. My name is Michael Haller. I am counsel for the defense. It is my job to defend Lisa Trammel against these very serious charges. Our Const.i.tution ensures that anyone accused of a crime in this country is ent.i.tled to a full and vigorous defense, and that is exactly what I intend to provide during the course of this trial. If I rub some of you the wrong way as I do this, then let me apologize up front. But please remember, my actions should not reflect on Lisa."

I turned to the defense table and raised my hand as if welcoming Trammel to the trial.

"Lisa, would you please stand for a moment?"

Trammel stood up and turned slightly to the jury, her eyes slowly scanning the twelve faces. She looked resolute, unbroken. Just the way I told her to be.

"And this is Lisa Trammel, the defendant. Ms. Freeman wants you to believe she committed this crime. She is five foot three in height, weighs a hundred nine pounds soaking wet and is a schoolteacher. Thank you, Lisa. You can sit down now."

Trammel took her seat and I turned back to the jury, keeping my eyes moving from face to face as I spoke.

"We agree with Ms. Freeman that this crime was brutal and violent and cold-blooded. No one should have taken Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant's life and whoever did should be brought to justice. But there should never be a rush to judgment. And that's what the evidence will prove happened here. The investigators on this case saw the little picture and the easy fit. They missed the big picture. They missed the real murderer."

From behind me I heard Freeman's voice.

"Your Honor, can we please approach for a sidebar?"

Perry frowned but then signaled us up. I followed Freeman to the side of the bench, already formulating my response to what I knew she was going to object to. The judge flipped on a sound distortion fan so the jurors wouldn't hear anything they shouldn't and we huddled at the side of the bench.

"Judge," Freeman began, "I hate interrupting an opening statement but this doesn't sound like an opening statement. Is defense counsel going to hit us with the facts his defense case will prove and the evidence he has, or is he just going to talk in generalities about some mysterious killer that everybody else missed?"

The judge looked at me for a response. I looked at my watch.

"Judge, I object to the objection. I am less than five minutes into a thirty-minute allotment and she's already objecting because I haven't put anything on the board? Come on, Judge, she's trying to show me up in front of the jury and I request that you take a continuing objection from her and not allow her to interrupt again."

"I think he's right, Ms. Freeman," the judge said. "Way too early to object. I'll carry it now as a running objection and will step in myself if I need to. You go back to the prosecution table and sit tight."

He flipped the fan off and rolled his chair back to the center of the bench. Freeman and I returned to our positions.

"As I was saying before being interrupted, there is a big picture to this case and the defense is going to show it to you. The prosecution would like you to believe that this is a simple case of vengeance. But murder is never simple and if you look for shortcuts in an investigation or a prosecution then you are going to miss things. Including a killer. Lisa Trammel did not even know Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant. Had never met him before. She had no motive to kill him because the motive the prosecution will tell you about was false. They'll say she killed Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant because he was going to take away her house. The truth was, he wasn't going to get the house and we will prove that. A motive is like a rudder on a boat. You take it away and the boat moves at the whim of the wind. And that's what the prosecution's case is. A lot of wind."

I put my hands in my pockets and looked down at my feet. I counted to three in my head and when I looked up I was staring directly at Furlong.

"What this case is really about is money. It's about the epidemic of foreclosure that has swept across our country. This was not a simple act of vengeance. This was the cold and calculated murder of a man who was threatening to expose the corruption of our banks and their agents of foreclosure. This is about money and those who have it and will not part with it at any cost-even murder."

I paused again, s.h.i.+fting my stance and moving my eyes across the whole panel. They came to a female juror named Esther Marks and held. I knew she was a single mother who worked as an office manager in the garment district. She probably made less than the men doing the same job and I had her pegged as someone who would be sympathetic to my client.

"Lisa Trammel was set up for a murder she did not commit. She was the patsy. The fall guy. She protested the bank's harsh and fraudulent foreclosure practices. She fought against them and for that she was kept away with a restraining order. The very things that made her a suspect to lazy investigators were what made her a perfect patsy. And we're going to prove it to you."

All their eyes were on me. I'd captured their complete attention.

"The state's evidence won't stand," I said. "Piece by piece we'll knock it down. The measure by which you are charged to make your decision here is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I urge you to pay close attention and to think for yourself. You do that and I guarantee that you'll have more reasonable doubt than you'll know what to do with. And you'll be left with only one question. Why? Why was this woman charged with this crime? Why was she put through this?"

One final pause and then I nodded and thanked them for their attention. I quickly moved back to my seat and sat down. Lisa reached over and put her hand on my arm as if to thank me for standing for her. It was one of our ch.o.r.eographed moves. I knew it was an act but it still felt good.

The judge called for a fifteen-minute break before the start of testimony. As the courtroom emptied, I stayed in place at the defense table. My opener had continued my sense of momentum. The prosecution would hold sway over the next few days but Freeman was now on notice that I was coming after her.

"Thank you, Mickey," Lisa Trammel said as she got up to go out into the hall with Herb Dahl, who had come through the gate to collect her.

I looked at him and then I looked at her.

"Don't thank me yet," I said.

Twenty-two.

After the break, Andrea Freeman came out of the gate with what I called the prosecution's scene-setter witnesses. Their testimony was often dramatic but did not get to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. They were merely called as part of the architecture of the state's case, to set the stage for the evidence that would come later.

The trial's first witness was a bank receptionist named Riki Sanchez. She was the woman who found the victim's body in the parking garage. Her value was in helping to set a time of death and in bringing the shock of murder to the everyday people on the jury.

Sanchez commuted to work from the Santa Clarita Valley and therefore had a morning routine that she strictly adhered to. She testified that she regularly pulled into the bank garage at 8:45 A.M., A.M., which gave her ten minutes to park, get to the employee entrance and be at her desk by 8:55 to prepare for the bank's doors to open to the public at 9. which gave her ten minutes to park, get to the employee entrance and be at her desk by 8:55 to prepare for the bank's doors to open to the public at 9.

She testified that on the day of the murder she had followed her routine and found an una.s.signed parking slot approximately ten s.p.a.ces from Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant's a.s.signed s.p.a.ce. After leaving and locking her car, she walked toward the bridge that connected the garage to the bank building. It was then that she discovered the body. She first saw the spilled coffee, then the open briefcase on the ground, and finally Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant lying facedown and bloodied.

Sanchez knelt next to the body and checked for signs of life, then pulled her cell phone out of her purse and called 911.

It's rare to score defense points off a scene-setter witness. Their testimony is usually very prescribed and rarely contributes to the question of guilt or innocence. Still, you never know. On cross-examination I stood and threw a few questions at Sanchez just to see what might pop loose.

"Now, Ms. Sanchez, you described your very precise morning routine here but there really is no routine once you drive into the bank's garage, correct?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."