Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

putting the boots to him, even a prosecution foreclosure expert to contradict Aronson’s assertions. But nothing. She folded the tent.
    She was going with the blood. Whether I had robbed her of her Boléro crescendo or not, she was going to make her stand on the one incontrovertible aspect of the entire trial: the blood.
    Judge Perry recessed court for the morning so the attorneys could work on their closing arguments and he could retreat to chambers to work on the jury charge—the final set of instructions jurors would take with them into deliberations.
    I called Rojas and had him pick me up on Delano. I didn’t want to go back to the office. Too many distractions. I told Rojas just to drive and I spread my files and notes out in the backseat of the Lincoln. This was where I did my best thinking, my best prep work.
    At one o’clock sharp, court reconvened. Like everything else in the criminal justice system, closing arguments were tipped toward the state. The prosecution got to speak first and last. The defense got the middle.
    It looked to me like Freeman was going with the standard prosecutorial format. Build the house with the facts on the first swing and then pull their emotional strings on the second.
    Block by block she outlined the evidence against Lisa Trammel, seemingly leaving out nothing presented since the start of the trial. The discourse was dry but cumulative. She covered means and motive, and she brought it all home with the blood. The hammer, the shoes, the uncontested DNA findings.
    “I told you at the beginning of this trial that blood would tell the tale,” she said. “And here we are. You can discount everything else, but the blood evidence alone warrants a vote of guilty as charged. I am sure you will follow your conscience and do just that.”
    She sat down and then it was my turn. I stood in the opening in front of the jury box and addressed the twelve directly. But I wasn’t alone in the well. As previously approved by the judge, I brought Manny out to stand with me. Dr. Shamiram Arslanian’s erstwhile companion stood upright, with the hammer attached to the crown of his head, his head snapped back at the unusual angle that would have been necessary if Lisa Trammel had struck the fatal blow.
    “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” I began, “I’ve got good news. We should all be out of here and back to our normal lives by the end of the day. I appreciate your patience and your attentiveness during this trial. I appreciate your consideration of the evidence. I am not going to take a lot of time up here because I want to get you home as soon as possible. Today should be easy. This is a quick one. This case comes down to what I call a five-minute verdict. A case where reasonable doubt is so pervasive that a unanimous verdict will undoubtedly be reached on your very first ballot.”
    From there I highlighted the evidence the defense had brought forth and the contradictions and deficiencies in the state’s case. I asked the unanswered questions. Why was the briefcase open? Why did the hammer go so long without being found? Why was Lisa Trammel’s garage found unlocked and why would someone who was clearly going to succeed in defending her foreclosure case lash out against Bondurant?
    It eventually brought me to the centerpiece of my closing—the mannequin.
    “The demonstration by Dr. Arslanian alone puts the lie to the state’s case. Without considering another single part of the defense case, Manny here gives you reasonable doubt. We know from the injuries to the knees of the victim that he was standing when struck with the fatal blow. And if he was standing, then this is the only position that he could have been in for Lisa Trammel to have been the killer. Head back, face to the ceiling. Is that possible, you must ask yourself. Is that likely? What would make Mitchell Bondurant look up? What was he looking up at?”
    I paused there, hand in one pocket, adopting a casual and confident pose. I checked their eyes. All twelve of them were locked in on the mannequin. I then reached up to the handle of the hammer and slowly pushed it up, until the plastic face came down to a normal level and the handle stood out at a ninety-degree angle, too high for Lisa Trammel to grasp.
    “The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is that he wasn’t looking up because Lisa Trammel didn’t do this. Lisa Trammel was driving home with her coffee while someone else carried out the plan to eliminate the