Write to die, p.31
Write to Die, page 31
“Sustained,” Judge Gilmore said, and gave Rory a look that he interpreted as saying, You’re being a bad boy, asking the witness to speculate about an unknown person’s state of mind, but I get the point.
“Did you test the receipt for the presence of DNA?” Rory asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That would take more time than I had before coming here to testify.”
“Are you going to test it for DNA later?”
“I will have to discuss that with Mr. Trucker.”
“I have no further questions for this witness,” Rory said.
“Redirect, Mr. Trucker?”
Trucker stood and said, “Ms. Chen, in your experience, have you come upon people whose skin is so dry that when they touch things, they leave no latent prints?”
“Yes.”
Rory could almost feel Trucker deciding whether to ask Chen if such people were common but then, not knowing the answer, shy away from asking it.
“Ms. Chen, is it possible that the chemical from hair spray came from you?”
“No. I don’t use hair spray.”
“From someone else in your lab?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you test the receipt for DNA, do you think you’re likely to find any detectable DNA?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s easier to detect DNA on a nonporous surface like glass or plastic than on a porous surface like paper. And it’s particularly difficult to detect DNA on paper that’s been only briefly handled by someone. Unless they were sweating profusely at the time.”
“Any other reasons it might be difficult on paper?”
“Yes. This receipt seemed printed on recycled paper, so it appears to present a very rough, porous surface.”
“I have no further redirect,” Trucker said.
“Mr. Calburton, do you have any recross?” the judge asked.
“One moment please, Your Honor, I need to consult with my client.” He leaned down and whispered to Hal, “Do you ever use hair spray?” Hal shook his head.
“Just one question, Your Honor. Ms. Chen, did you request that one of the detectives working on this case find out if Mr. Harold uses hair spray?”
“No. Whether to ask about that is a decision for the detectives.”
Rory did have some other things he wanted to know but, satisfied with Chen’s last answer, decided that they could wait to be asked at trial. Which would be after their own experts had gotten their hands on the receipt and used DNA testing to see if there was any third-party DNA on the receipt or if there was any way to tell if the receipt had been wiped off.
“That’s all I have, Your Honor,” Rory said. “But I renew my objection to the receipt being received in evidence at this point.”
“Mr. Trucker, do you plan any other witnesses who will address the receipt in any way?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Well, I’m going to overrule the objection and admit the receipt into evidence. Although I certainly understand the possibility, given all of the evidence adduced about it so far, that it was planted.”
Bingo! Rory looked to the side and saw Hal, Sarah and Otto all smiling, while Trucker, across the way at his own table, looked like his favorite dog had just died.
“Mr. Trucker, do you have additional witnesses?” Judge Gilmore asked.
“No, Your Honor, I don’t. The prosecution rests its case in this preliminary hearing.”
“Mr. Calburton, are you planning to call any witnesses?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I am.”
“This would be a good time to take a break, then. Please be back here in fifteen.”
Rory turned to Sarah and said, “You might as well go and visit Gladys and see what she wants. I’m going to come back and beg the judge for the afternoon off so I can line up an expert to examine the receipt. I think she’ll give it to me.”
Chapter 50
Within minutes of the judge calling a break, Rory had left Hal and Otto behind and was outside the courthouse, heading for an empty bench on a patch of lawn devoid of people. He wanted to avoid being overheard if he lost his temper. He dialed the number as he walked, and it was answered on the second ring.
“Lester, what the hell are you guys doing?”
“I figured I might hear from you, Rory.”
“And you are hearing from me. Where the hell did that receipt come from?”
“A tip line.”
“Someone called you up and specifically tipped you to go look in Hal Harold’s suit and sport jacket pockets?”
“Exactly.”
“They didn’t suggest you also look in his pants pockets or his shirt pockets, too? Or in his desk drawers? Or a thousand other places someone might leave a receipt?”
“Sometimes people know very specific things that other people don’t.”
“That is total crap. You and I both know this is a total setup.”
“I don’t know any such thing.”
“Who called you with this supposed tip?”
“The tip line is anonymous, Rory.”
“Oh, of course. Forgive me. I forgot. Well, when did the tip come in? You want me to believe it was this morning?”
“No, of course not. It came in two days after the murder, but it somehow got lost, and someone finally noticed it early this morning.”
“Got lost? How the hell do you lose a tip?”
“The tips get logged in, and then each tip is written down on a piece of paper and given to everyone working on the team. Somehow the one about checking his pockets never got to the team.”
“I should take you up to the top of the X2 and throw you off, Lester.”
“You shouldn’t threaten a police officer.”
“I’m threatening you as a friend.”
“I see.”
“Seriously, I am enraged. First of all, I don’t believe for one moment that that receipt was just found based on a lost tip.”
“And second of all?”
“It’s a plant, Lester. I mean, how does a receipt from a store, shoved into someone’s pocket, end up with zero fingerprints on it, but hair spray chemicals instead?”
“Dry hands sometimes leave no prints, patent or latent. And I assume that’s the case here.”
“We’re going to hire an expert to look for DNA on that piece of paper.”
“What will you do if your expert finds Hal Harold’s DNA there?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Well, that’s for the trial, Rory. Because you are going to lose this prelim.”
“We’ll see,” Rory said.
“Before you go, my friend, I need to let you know that you owe me a dinner.”
“I don’t know if I want to go to dinner with you ever again, Lester. But why?”
“Sylvie is dead.”
He was taken aback. “Really? How do you know that?”
“We wanted to talk to her, and we called the number we had for her. In Chantilly, Virginia. A police officer answered, but wouldn’t tell us anything. Later, through department-to-department official channels, we learned she’d been found dead.”
“Cause of death?”
“They told us, but maybe I shouldn’t tell you because it will get your lawyer brain working overtime.”
“Tell me. I’m going to learn it eventually anyway.”
“Okay. She was hit over the head with a blunt instrument and strangled with some sort of ligature. As for which was the actual cause of death, we’ll have to wait for the coroner to tell us.”
“Lester, do you think my brain really needs to work overtime to process that information and to conclude that the wrong person is in jail here in Los Angeles for Joe Stanton’s murder?”
“I would but for the fact that Hal Harold’s blood is in Joe Stanton’s office, I’ve got a very nice film of him leaving in a hurry, and the receipt for a rope was in his pocket.”
“What was his motive?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”
Rory was getting nowhere with Lester, but persuading the judge or the DA might be a different matter. There was also, of course, the identical-twin issue, but he decided to approach it indirectly. “Lester, how did they ID her?”
“I assume from a driver’s license or whatever other ID they found on her. In fact, they asked if we could locate any fingerprints for her, because they couldn’t find a match in the national fingerprint database or what they’ve got locally in Virginia. But the LAPD doesn’t have any prints on her, either. Nor does the state.”
“I’ve been out of law enforcement for a while, but I thought that by this time, with all the security concerns since 9/11, almost everyone has been fingerprinted.”
“It’s not much different from when you were a deputy DA. If you’ve never worked for the government, been in the military, been a teacher or health worker or worked for a corporation that requires prints, you’re not likely to have been printed unless you’ve been arrested.”
“Then how do you really know that Sylvie is dead if you can’t match her prints?”
“I suppose we don’t, but why would her ID be near the body if she’s not Sylvie?”
Rory decided not to respond to that question. Instead, he said, “Will you try to find a relative and match her DNA?”
“We might do that if there’s any doubt, but I don’t see why there would be. And anyway, we sent them a photo of her we got from the studio, and they say it’s her. But you keep pushing this. Is there something you know that I don’t?”
Before Lester had screwed him about the receipt, Rory would have told him about Sylvie’s identical twin sister. But he didn’t think he was under any legal or ethical obligation to do so. If Lester already knew about Clara, great. If not, great.
“No,” Rory said.
“Okay.”
“Well, Lester, when you’re one hundred percent sure it’s Sylvie, let me know, and we’ll settle up on the bet,” Rory said. “As I recall, you will owe me five grand, and I’ll owe you dinner.”
“Will do,” he said, and signed off.
Rory needed to find Sarah. He dialed her, and she picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?” he asked.
“In an Uber on the way to Gladys’s house in Palos Verdes.”
“Can the driver overhear you?”
“I assume so.”
“Okay, well just say yes or no when I ask you some questions. Or say something that won’t connect you to this trial. I’m calling because my friend on the police force, Lester Lovejoy, just told me that the local police in Chantilly found Sylvie Virtin dead at her house today.”
“If it is really her.”
“Exactly.”
“Sarah, you can tell them apart, right?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“How do you do it?”
“To tell you that, Rory, I’d need to say something well beyond yes or no.”
“Okay, tell me later then.”
“I can say this right now,” she said. “I will need a picture.” And then, in a whisper, “One that shows teeth.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“Hey, Rory, isn’t the cop friend you just talked to the guy who was mentioned today in connection with that piece of paper?”
“The very one.”
“And he’s the guy you lunch with sometimes, right?”
“Also the very one.”
“I guess he’s just doing his job.”
“That’s one way to look at it, but not the only way. But hey, call me after you’ve spoken to the widow woman.”
“Yes, boss. I should be there very soon.”
Rory sat on the bench for a while and thought it through. If the dead woman was Sylvie, that might speak to a dispute with Clara, who had called Sylvie a bitch. But even if Sylvie were dead, it might or might not have anything to do with the death of Joe Stanton. Joe had known both women, but Rory’d found no evidence that either one had killed him. But then again, if the dead woman was Clara, that could well mean that whoever killed Clara also killed Joe, given the use of garroting in both cases. And who had easy physical access to both Joe and Clara without being labeled an intruder? Sylvie.
He concluded it was worth getting over his pique with Lester to find out exactly who was dead. Maybe that would allow him to puzzle it out better.
He called Lester and explained about Clara and Sylvie being identical twins and the need for a photo. When he was done, Lester said, “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”
“You promised to give me a heads-up about this kind of stuff. So can you blame me?”
“Maybe not. But, you know, I’ve got my own internal LAPD problems to think about before I disclose stuff to you on a back channel.”
“Okay. That issue’s not over for me, Lester, but what about a photo?”
“I will get it to you if I can. With teeth.”
Rory sat on the bench for a few moments more, thinking, then headed back to the courtroom. When he got there, Judge Gilmore was standing to the side of the bench, chatting with her clerk. When she saw that everyone had returned, and that the sheriff’s deputies had led Hal in, she climbed the steps to the bench and waited for the clerk to call the session to order.
Once that was done, Rory rose, intending to ask for the delay he needed to look for an expert to examine the receipt. “Your Honor—” he began, but the judge cut him off.
“Counsel, unfortunately a personal matter has arisen, which necessitates my delaying further testimony until tomorrow. We’ll resume at ten a.m. tomorrow, Friday. Is there anything further we need to take up now before we adjourn for the day?”
“No, Your Honor,” Trucker said.
“I’d like to arrange to talk with my client now,” Rory said, “if the deputies could arrange that, please.”
“Of course,” Judge Gilmore said. “They’ll find a secure room for you before they transport him back to the jail.”
In the secure room, with two sheriff’s deputies outside the door and Hal sitting across the table from him, handcuffed, Rory said, “Obviously, this doesn’t look good.”
“Obviously not. But that receipt was planted. I can’t remember the last time I bought any rope. And I’ve never heard of AtoZHardware, let alone gone to Riverside to buy something there.”
Rory handed him the copy of the receipt that Trucker had given him. “Have you got an alibi for the date and time this receipt says the rope was bought?”
Hal studied it. “Two weeks ago today, huh?” He paused. “I recall that day. I took it off because I wasn’t feeling well. I stayed home and watched TV. Didn’t even go out. I don’t know how I can prove that, though, unless I show people my various canceled meetings for the day.”
“That won’t help a lot,” Rory said. He thought for a moment. “You still live alone in a house, right? Not in an apartment building?”
“Right, no concierge or valet to say I didn’t go out that day.”
Rory pursed his lips. “I think we’ll leave the alibi alone for now.”
“Not credible?”
“More not provable, and I don’t want you pinned down on it right now.”
“Makes sense.”
“Maybe later we can go in a different direction.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll check out whether anyone at the hardware store recalls someone else buying the rope. Or maybe there’s security video showing it. But, to be frank, it’s not likely we’ll find either. A customer buying a hank of rope isn’t exactly a memorable sale, and most stores don’t keep their video that long.”
Hal looked at him. “You do believe me, Rory, don’t you?”
It was the first time Rory had ever seen Hal with a hangdog look. “Yes, Hal, I do. The problem we’ve got is that the rope receipt fits with the two other pieces of evidence they’ve got—the blood on the rug of the victim’s office and your looking panicked when you drove off the lot that day.”
“There are perfectly good explanations for those things.”
“Yes, there are. But we’d have to find a way for those explanations to get admitted into evidence. The truly key one is how the blood got on the rug.”
“Three people know how it got there.”
“Right, but one, Peter Stanton, is prepared to lie about it. The second, Joe Stanton, is dead. And the third—you—are not going to testify.”
“If I did testify—and I understand that would be against your advice—I’d explain that Peter’s lying because he hates me.”
“Why?”
“Because I had a fling with Sylvie.”
Rory thought about telling him that Sylvie might be dead, too, but decided against it. Mostly because he wasn’t sure exactly who was dead in Chantilly. It was unethical to lie to clients, but silence in the face of uncertainty wasn’t exactly a lie. Or so he reasoned.
“Hal, that’s ridiculous. Did you leave your lawyer brain at home? We’d have to put Peter on the stand, get him to deny he saw you bleed, then have you testify he’s lying because he hates you and why. A long, detailed why, no doubt.”
“Something like that.”
“We’d be better off just putting you on the stand to say why you bled in Joe’s office, and then let them put Peter on the stand to deny it happened. Which they’ll do. And then I can cross-examine him and bring out his dislike for you.”
“That should work.”
“Not unless I can really tear Peter apart on the stand, and from my last experience with him, in the let’s-send-Hal-back-to-jail hearing, he’s a pretty cool customer.”
“We’ll still have to deal with why I looked the way I looked,” Hal said. “And there’s an explanation for that, too.”
“What? That you were at the studio that afternoon not to kill Joe Stanton, but to have an affair with Sylvie, Joe’s longtime paramour? And with Sylvie unavailable to back you up. Are you crazy?”
“I think it could work,” Hal said.
“Maybe on a long shot in front of a jury. Not in a prelim where all the judge is looking for is to be persuaded that you might well have killed him.”
“Again, I think it could work.”
“I’m not going to let you testify in a preliminary hearing, Hal. No way. Because everything you say—which may turn out in retrospect to have been bad things to say—can be used against you in the trial.”
