Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

An alternate theory. We have that with Opparizio. We have it in spades. Where is the problem?”
    I looked over at Cisco Wojciechowski. It was just the three of us. I was in shorts and a T-shirt. Cisco was in his riding clothes, an army-green tank top over black jeans. And Aronson was dressed for a day in court. She hadn’t gotten the memo about it being Sunday.
    “The problem is, we’re not going to get Opparizio into the trial,” I said.
    “He withdrew the motion to quash,” Aronson protested.
    “That doesn’t matter. The trial is about the state’s evidence against Trammel. It’s not about who else might have committed the crime. Might’ves don’t count. I can put Opparizio on the stand as the expert on Trammel’s foreclosure and the foreclosure epidemic. But I’m not going to get near him as an alternate suspect. The judge won’t let me unless I can prove relevance. So we’ve come all this way and we still don’t have relevancy. We still don’t have that one thing that pulls Opparizio all the way in.”
    Aronson was determined not to give up.
    “The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees Trammel a ‘meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.’ An alternate theory is part of a complete defense.”
    So she could quote the Constitution. She was book smart but experience poor.
    “California versus Hall, nineteen eighty-six. Look it up.”
    I pointed to her laptop, which was open on the corner of my desk. She leaned over and started typing.
    “Do you know the citation?”
    “Try forty-one.”
    She typed it in, got the ruling on her screen and started scanning. I looked over at Cisco, who had no idea what I was doing.
    “Read it out loud,” I said. “The pertinent parts.”
    “Uh…‘Evidence that another person had motive or opportunity to commit the charged crime, or had some remote connection to the victim or crime scene, is insufficient to raise the requisite reasonable doubt… Evidence of alternate party culpability is relevant and admissible only if it links the alternate party to the actual perpetration of the crime…’ Okay, we’re screwed.”
    I nodded.
    “If we can’t put Opparizio or one of his goons in that parking garage, then we are indeed screwed.”
    “The letter doesn’t do it?” Cisco asked.
    “Nope,” I said. “There’s no way. Freeman will kick my ass if I say the letter opens the door. It gives Opparizio a motive, yes. But it doesn’t link him directly to the crime.”
    “Shit.”
    “That’s about right. Right now, we don’t have it. So we don’t have a defense. And the DNA and the hammer… well, that nails it all down nicely for the state. No pun intended.”
    “Our lab reports say there is no biological connection to Lisa,” Aronson said. “I also have a Craftsman expert who will testify it is impossible to say that the hammer in evidence came from her specific set of tools. Plus, we know the garage door was unlocked. Even if it is her hammer, anyone could’ve taken it. And anyone could have planted the blood on the shoes.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know all of that. It’s not enough to say what could’ve happened. We’re going to have to say this is what happened and we’re going to have to back it up. If we can’t, we won’t even get it in. Opparizio is the key. We need to be able to go at him without Freeman standing up on every question and saying, ‘What’s the relevance?’ ”
    Aronson wouldn’t give it up.
    “There must be something,” she said.
    “There’s always something. We just haven’t found it yet.”
    I swiveled on my chair until I was looking directly at Cisco. He frowned and nodded. He knew what was coming.
    “On you, man,” I said. “You’ve got to find me something. Freeman’s going to take about a week to present the state’s case. That’s how much time you have. But if I stand up tomorrow and throw the dice, saying I’m going to prove somebody else did it, then I have to deliver.”
    “I’ll start over,” Cisco said. “Ground up. I’ll find you something. You do what you have to do tomorrow.”
    I nodded, more in thanks than in faith that he would come through. I didn’t really believe there was anything out there to get. I had a guilty client and justice was going to prevail. End of story.
    I looked down at my desk. Spread across it were crime scene photos and reports. I held up the eight-by-ten of the victim’s briefcase lying open on the garage’s concrete floor. It was the thing that had