Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

following day. But everybody in the room knew that his lawyers were not being altruistic. A closed hearing guarded against details about Opparizio leaking to the press and informing something much larger than the jury pool. Public opinion.
    I argued vigorously against closing the proceedings. I warned that such a move would cause public suspicion about the subsequent trial and this outweighed any possible taint of the jury pool. Elected to the bench, Perry was ever mindful of public perception. He agreed with me and declared the hearing open to the public. Score a big one for me. My prevailing on that one argument probably saved the entire case for the defense.
    Not a lot of the media was there but there was enough for what I needed. Reporters from the Los Angeles Business Journal and the L.A. Times were in the front row. A freelance video man who sold footage to all the networks was in the empty jury box with his camera. I had tipped him to the hearing and told him to be there. I figured that between the print media and the lone TV camera, there would be enough pressure on Opparizio to force the outcome I was looking for.
    After dispensing with the request to hide behind closed doors, the judge got down to business.
    “Mr. Zimmer, you have filed a motion to quash the subpoena of Louis Opparizio in the matter of California versus Trammel. Why don’t you state your case, sir?”
    Zimmer looked like a lawyer who had been around the block a few times and usually got to carry his enemies home in his briefcase. He stood to respond to the judge.
    “We would love to address the court on this matter, Your Honor. I am going to speak first to the facts of the service of the subpoena itself and then my colleague, Mr. Cross, will discuss the other issue for which we seek relief.”
    Zimmer then proceeded to claim that my office had engaged in mail fraud in laying the trap that resulted in Opparizio being served a subpoena. He said that the glossy brochure that had baited his client was an instrument of fraud and its placement in the U.S. mail constituted a felony that invalidated any action that followed, such as service of the subpoena. He further asked that the defense be penalized by being disallowed from any subsequent effort to subpoena Opparizio to testify.
    I didn’t even have to stand up for this one—which was a good thing because the simple acts of standing and sitting still set off flares of pain across my chest. The judge raised his hand in my direction to hold me in check and then tersely dismissed Zimmer’s argument, calling it novel but ridiculous and without merit.
    “Come on, Mr. Zimmer, this is the big league,” Perry said. “You have anything with some meat on the bone?”
    Properly cowed, Zimmer deferred to his colleague and sat down. Landon Cross stood up next to face the judge.
    “Your Honor,” he said, “Louis Opparizio is a man of means and standing in this community. He has had nothing to do with this crime or this trial and objects to his name and reputation being sullied by his inclusion in it. Let me emphatically repeat, he had nothing to do with this crime, is not a suspect and has no knowledge of it. He has no probative or exculpatory information to provide. He objects to defense counsel’s putting him on the witness stand to conduct a fishing expedition and he objects to counsel’s using him as a deflection from the case at hand. Let Mr. Haller fish for red herrings in a different pond.”
    Cross turned and gestured to Andrea Freeman.
    “I might add, Your Honor, that the prosecution joins me in this motion to quash for the same reasons mentioned.”
    The judge swiveled on his seat and looked at me.
    “Mr. Haller, you want to respond to all of that?”
    I stood up. Slowly. I was holding the foam gavel from my desk, working it with my fingers, which were newly freed from plaster but still stiff.
    “Yes, Your Honor. I would first like to say that Mr. Cross makes a good point about the fishing expedition. Mr. Opparizio’s testimony at trial, if allowed to proceed, would include a fair amount of fishing. Not all of it, mind you, but I would like to drop a line in the water. But this is only, Your Honor, because Mr. Opparizio and his defensive front have made it darn near impossible for the defense to conduct a thorough investigation of the murder of Mitchell Bondurant. Mr. Opparizio and his henchmen have thwarted all—”
    Zimmer was up on his feet objecting loudly.
    “Your Honor! I