Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

order. The very things that made her a suspect to lazy investigators were what made her a perfect patsy. And we’re going to prove it to you.”
    All their eyes were on me. I’d captured their complete attention.
    “The state’s evidence won’t stand,” I said. “Piece by piece we’ll knock it down. The measure by which you are charged to make your decision here is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I urge you to pay close attention and to think for yourself. You do that and I guarantee that you’ll have more reasonable doubt than you’ll know what to do with. And you’ll be left with only one question. Why? Why was this woman charged with this crime? Why was she put through this?”
    One final pause and then I nodded and thanked them for their attention. I quickly moved back to my seat and sat down. Lisa reached over and put her hand on my arm as if to thank me for standing for her. It was one of our choreographed moves. I knew it was an act but it still felt good.
    The judge called for a fifteen-minute break before the start of testimony. As the courtroom emptied, I stayed in place at the defense table. My opener had continued my sense of momentum. The prosecution would hold sway over the next few days but Freeman was now on notice that I was coming after her.
    “Thank you, Mickey,” Lisa Trammel said as she got up to go out into the hall with Herb Dahl, who had come through the gate to collect her.
    I looked at him and then I looked at her.
    “Don’t thank me yet,” I said.

Twenty-two
    After the break, Andrea Freeman came out of the gate with what I called the prosecution’s scene-setter witnesses. Their testimony was often dramatic but did not get to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. They were merely called as part of the architecture of the state’s case, to set the stage for the evidence that would come later.
    The trial’s first witness was a bank receptionist named Riki Sanchez. She was the woman who found the victim’s body in the parking garage. Her value was in helping to set a time of death and in bringing the shock of murder to the everyday people on the jury.
    Sanchez commuted to work from the Santa Clarita Valley and therefore had a morning routine that she strictly adhered to. She testified that she regularly pulled into the bank garage at 8:45 A.M., which gave her ten minutes to park, get to the employee entrance and be at her desk by 8:55 to prepare for the bank’s doors to open to the public at 9.
    She testified that on the day of the murder she had followed her routine and found an unassigned parking slot approximately ten spaces from Mitchell Bondurant’s assigned space. After leaving and locking her car, she walked toward the bridge that connected the garage to the bank building. It was then that she discovered the body. She first saw the spilled coffee, then the open briefcase on the ground, and finally Mitchell Bondurant lying facedown and bloodied.
    Sanchez knelt next to the body and checked for signs of life, then pulled her cell phone out of her purse and called 911.
    It’s rare to score defense points off a scene-setter witness. Their testimony is usually very prescribed and rarely contributes to the question of guilt or innocence. Still, you never know. On cross-examination I stood and threw a few questions at Sanchez just to see what might pop loose.
    “Now, Ms. Sanchez, you described your very precise morning routine here but there really is no routine once you drive into the bank’s garage, correct?”
    “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “I mean that you do not have an assigned parking space so there is no routine when it comes to that. You get into the garage and have to start hunting for a space, right?”
    “Well, sort of. The bank isn’t open yet so there are always plenty of spaces. I usually go up to the second floor and park in the area where I did that day.”
    “All right. In the past, had you walked into work with Mr. Bondurant?”
    “No, he was usually in earlier than me.”
    “Now on the day that you found Mr. Bondurant’s body, where was it that you saw the defendant, Lisa Trammel, in the garage?”
    She paused as if it was a trick question. It was.
    “I don’t—I mean, I didn’t see her.”
    “Thank you, Ms. Sanchez.”
    Next up on the stand was the 911 operator who took the 8:52 A.M. emergency call from Sanchez. Her name was LeShonda Gaines and her testimony was used primarily to introduce the tape of the call from Sanchez.