Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

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PART FOUR
    The Fifth Witness
    Unknown

Thirty-nine
    If the defense tactics during the latter stages of the prosecution’s case were surprising, the first step out of the corner during the defense phase did nothing to lessen some observers’ doubts as to the competence of counsel. Once everyone was back in place following the afternoon break, I went to the lectern and threw another What the hell? move into the trial.
    “The defense calls the defendant, Lisa Trammel.”
    The judge asked for quiet as my client stood and made her way to the stand. That she was called at all was shocking and caused a roll of whispers and chatter in the courtroom. As a general rule, defense attorneys don’t like to put a client on the witness stand. In a risk-to-reward ratio this tactic ranks quite low. You can never be sure what your client will say because you can never fully believe anything she has told you. And to be caught in a single lie while under oath and on the stand in front of the twelve people determining your guilt or innocence is devastating.
    But this time and this case were different. Lisa Trammel had never wavered in her claim to innocence. She had never once waffled in her response to the evidence against her. And she had never once been remotely interested in any sort of deal. Given this, and the developments regarding the Herb Dahl–Louis Opparizio connection, I was viewing her differently than I had at the start of the trial. She had insisted on having a chance to tell the jury she was innocent and it occurred to me the night before that she should be given the opportunity the very moment it became available. She would be the first witness.
    The defendant took the oath with a slight smile on her face. It may have seemed out of place to some. After she was seated and her name was in the record, I jumped right on it.
    “Lisa, I just saw you smiling a little bit when you were taking the oath to tell the truth. Why were you smiling?”
    “Oh, you know, nervousness. And relief.”
    “Relief?”
    “Yes, relief. I finally get the chance to tell my side. To tell the truth.”
    It started out well. From there I quickly took her through the standard list of basic questions about who she was, what she did for a living and the state of her marriage, as well as touching on the state of her home ownership.
    “Did you know the victim of this terrible crime, Mitchell Bondurant?”
    “Know him, no. Know of him, yes.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Well, over the past year or so, when I started to get in trouble with the mortgage, I had seen him. I went to the bank a couple times to plead my case to him. They never let me talk to him, but I saw him back there in his office. The wall of his office was completely made of glass, which was a joke. Like you could see him but not talk to him.”
    I checked the jury. I didn’t see any outright head nods, but I thought the answer and the image my client had conjured were perfect. The banker hiding behind a wall of glass while the downtrodden and disadvantaged are kept away.
    “Did you ever see him anywhere else?”
    “On the morning of the murder. I saw him at the coffee shop I stop at. He was two people behind me in line. That’s why I was confused when I was talking to the detectives. They were asking about Mr. Bondurant and I had just seen him that morning. I didn’t know he was dead. I didn’t realize they were investigating me for a murder I didn’t know had even been committed.”
    So far, so good. She was playing it as we had discussed and rehearsed, right down to always referring to the victim with complete respect if not sympathy.
    “Did you talk to Mr. Bondurant that morning?”
    “No, I didn’t. I was afraid he might think I was stalking him or something and take me to court. Also, I had been warned by you to avoid any encounter or confrontation with people from the bank. So I quickly got my coffee and left.”
    “Lisa, did you kill Mr. Bondurant?”
    “No! Of course not!”
    “Did you sneak up behind him with a hammer from your garage and hit him on the head so hard that he was dead before he hit the ground?”
    “No, I did not!”
    “Did you hit him two more times when he was on the ground?”
    “No!”
    I paused as if to study my notes. I wanted her denials to echo in the courtroom and in each juror’s mind.
    “Lisa, you made quite a name for yourself fighting the foreclosure of your home, didn’t you?”
    “It wasn’t my