Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

You just be there. Now let’s go.”
    I started to slide out of the booth as Lisa arrived. I pulled my phone and called Rojas.
    “We’re ready,” I said. “Pick us up out front.”

Thirty-four
    After court reconvened the prosecution called Detective Cynthia Longstreth to the witness stand. By going with Kurlen’s partner as her next witness Freeman was confirming what had been my growing assumption: that her version of Boléro climaxed with the science. It was the smart play. Go with what can’t be questioned or denied. Lay out the investigation through Kurlen and Longstreth and then bring it all together with the forensics. She would finish out the case with the medical examiner and the DNA evidence. A nice tight package.
    Detective Longstreth did not look as tough and as severe as she did the first day of the case when I had met her at Van Nuys Division. First of all, she was wearing a dress that made her look more like a schoolteacher than a detective. I had seen this sort of transformation before and it always bothered me. Whether it was at the instruction of the prosecutor or by the detective’s own wiles, many a time I had been faced with a female police witness who had transformed herself to be softer and more pleasing to the jury. But if I dared point this out to the judge, or anybody for that matter, I ran the risk of being slapped down as a misogynist.
    So most times I just had to grin and eat it.
    Freeman was using Longstreth to outline the second half of the investigation. Her testimony would be primarily about the search of the Trammel house and its findings. I was expecting no surprises here. After Freeman got her witness’s bona fides on the record, she went right to it.
    “Did you obtain a search warrant from a judge granting you access to Lisa Trammel’s home?” Freeman asked.
    “Yes, I did.”
    “What is that process? How do you get a judge to issue such an order?”
    “You make a request that contains a probable cause statement, which lists the facts and evidence that have led you to the point of needing to search the premises. I did that here, using the statement of the witness who saw the suspect in the vicinity of the bank as well as the suspect’s own inconsistent statements during the interview. The warrant was signed and issued by Judge Companioni and we proceeded to the house in Woodland Hills.”
    “Who is ‘we,’ Detective?”
    “My partner, Detective Kurlen and I, and we decided to bring a videographer and a crime scene team with us to process anything we might find during the search.”
    “So the whole search was put on video?”
    “Well, I would not say it was the whole search. My partner and I split up to make things move faster. But there was only one cameraman and he couldn’t be with both of us at once. The way we worked it was that when we found something that looked like evidence or something we wanted to take into custody for examination, we would call for the camera.”
    “I see. And did you bring the video with you today?”
    “I did and it has been placed in the player and is ready to go.”
    “Perfect.”
    The jury was then treated to a ninety-minute video accompanied by Longstreth’s narration. The camera followed the police team as they arrived at the house and made a complete circuit around it before entering. While the view was in the backyard, Longstreth made sure to point out to jurors an herb garden stepped with railroad ties and freshly turned soil. It was what the great filmmakers would call foreshadowing. Its meaning would become apparent later, once the camera was inside the garage.
    I was having trouble concentrating on the testimony. Dahl had dropped a bomb when he revealed the connection to Opparizio. I kept thinking about the possible scenario and what it could mean to the case. I wanted court to be over and for it to be seven o’clock.
    On the video, a key taken from Lisa Trammel’s belongings following her arrest was used to gain entrance to the house without damaging the property. Once inside, the team began a systematic search of the premises that seemed to follow a protocol born of experience. The shower and bathtub drains were examined for blood evidence. The washer and dryer as well. The longest part of the search took place in the closets, where every shoe and piece of clothing was carefully examined and subjected to chemical and lighting treatments designed to draw attention to blood evidence.
    The camera eventually