Hardy 13 - Plague of Secrets, A

by John Lescroart

  At the prosecution table, and since Debra Schiff had already given her witness testimony and it was allowed, Stier had brought her back in as moral support to sit next to him, and the two of them were head-to-head in conversation as Hardy, Maya, and the bailiff crossed in front of them. And then, after a few words of forbidden greeting to her family members in front of the starstruck and forbearing bailiff, Maya was at last in her seat and Hardy was arranging his papers when the clerk entered and, clearing his throat, spoke up loudly. “Ladies and gentlemen, Department Twenty-five of the Superior Court of California is now in session, Judge Marian Braun presiding. All rise!”

  Getting three new names approved onto his witness list had entailed another small battle with Braun and Stier this morning in the judge’s chambers, but in the end Hardy argued that he had discovered new evidence that, in the interests of justice, the jury would need to hear in order to reach the correct verdict.

  Of course, this announcement had aroused Stier’s deep suspicion and ire, and he’d demanded to know the substance of the prospective testimony. Hardy acknowledged that in the first case—Jessica Cunningham—it was fingerprint evidence; and in the second— Jennifer Foreman—Stier already had had access to everything she might know, since she was on his original witness list. Indeed, she was one of the three uncalled old college friends of Maya.

  Finally, Hardy said, “You know Chiurco. He’s one of my investigators. And here’s what he’s going to say.” And he handed the prosecutor Chiurco’s short signed statement. Stier grumbled for a moment that he should have gotten these witnesses at the beginning of the trial, but everybody knew that this was a nonissue. The witnesses would be permitted to testify. But, Braun warned him, Hardy had better be sure he was talking about introducing new evidence and not spending a lot of time rehashing.

  But—the bottom line—he was going to be able to get it all in. And now, his palms wet, his mouth dry, Hardy lifted his exhausted body from his chair. “The defense would call Jessica Cunningham.”

  The bailiff disappeared out through the back door of the courtroom and returned a moment later with a young woman in a police officer’s uniform. She made her way up the center aisle and into the bullpen, where she took the oath and then moved around to the witness seat.

  “Ms. Cunningham,” Hardy began, “will you tell the jury what you do for a living, please?”

  “Sure.” She turned to look at the panel. “I’m a technician in the police department’s lab here in the city.”

  “In that capacity, do you have a special expertise?”

  “I do. I do fingerprint analysis.”

  “Identifying people by their fingerprints, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long have you been doing that?”

  “About six years.”

  For a few more moments Hardy established Cunningham’s credentials as an expert in this field. Then he began to bring it closer to home. “Did you have occasion several months ago to analyze the fingerprints found in the home of one of the victims in this case, Levon Preslee?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Can you tell the jury what you found?”

  Of course, this testimony had already been cursorily addressed in the testimony of Debra Schiff, but now he had the lab technician herself on the stand, and a completely different approach. Cunningham, enthusiastic and professional, nodded and again spoke directly to the jury. “Well, as in most locations, we found many fingerprints.”

  “How many separate prints in all did you locate?”

  “Oh, maybe fifteen or so.”

  “Could you identify any of them?”

  “Yes. Six came back from the victim.”

  “Were you able to identify any of the other eight or nine?”

  “A few, yes.”

  “But not all?”

  “No.”

  “Is it unusual to find fingerprints at the scene of a crime that you cannot connect to any individual?”

  “No.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because, first, not everyone has their fingerprints on file. Secondly, sometimes, or really quite often, the fingerprints are not clear enough to match the computerized records. And finally, there are a limited number of databases we typically use to try to get our matches. Most of the time, for example, we’re trying to match a fingerprint to a known suspect, and in that case it’s a simple one-on-one cross-check.”

  “Did you compare the defendant’s fingerprints to the remaining unidentified fingerprints at Mr. Preslee’s?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Trying to see if any of those belonged to the defendant?”

  “Right.”

  “And, just to restate it for the jury, you did not find any of the defendant’s fingerprints at Mr. Preslee’s, did you?”

  “No.”

  Hardy threw a gratuitous look over his shoulder at Stier’s table, where he and Schiff sat in miserable proximity. “Now, Ms. Cunningham, as far as you knew, back in November when you ran these comparisons, did you compare the unknown prints to anyone’s besides the victim, Mr. Preslee, and the defendant, Maya Townshend?”

  “Yes. The other victim, Dylan Vogler, and Mr. Preslee’s friend, Brandon Lawrence.”

  “So two more people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you identify any of your unknown prints from the crime scene to any of those?”

  “Yes. Two of those fingerprints came back to Brandon Lawrence.”

  “Leaving you with seven unidentified prints. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Were you able to identify any of your remaining seven latents?”

  “Actually, we identified four of them because they were in the criminal database, which is our primary tool.”

  “So there were three that remained unidentifiable, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, Ms. Cunningham”—Hardy closing in on it—“have you had a recent opportunity to revisit the fingerprints you originally lifted at Mr. Preslee’s home?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Just this morning.”

  Hardy felt some sonic energy begin to shoot through the gallery, but he spoke over it. “And how did that come about?”

  “Lieutenant Glitsky of homicide reached me at home this morning and asked me if I would come in early and go back to the unidentified fingerprints and compare them to a specific other single set of fingerprints from another database to see if there was a match.”

  “And was there a match?”

  “Yes, there was.”

  “You mean there was a specific individual who had left his fingerprints in Mr. Preslee’s home and whom this investigation had not discovered until just this morning, is that right?”

  “That’s correct, yes.”

  Braun gaveled down the now nearly constant, if low-pitched, hum of the gallery. After silence had been restored, Hardy came back at the witness. “Ms. Cunningham, did Lieutenant Glitsky ask you to review any other fingerprint findings this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what were they?”

  “There was a partial fingerprint on the brass bullet casing that was picked up at the scene of the Vogler murder.”

  “A partial print? What does that mean?”

  “Actually, most prints are partial prints. It’s rare on a forensic sample to get an entire fingerprint from somebody. But this print was a smaller section even than most.”

  “And can that be useful for purposes of identity?”

  “Often not.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because it’s incomplete. Certainly a computer can’t read it, so you have to have the known prints of an individual, you have to do a manual comparison, and you have to find enough points of identification on the forensic sample to compare to your known prints.”

  “Now, Lieutenant Glitsky asked you to run a manual test ag
ainst the known fingerprint of a single individual whose prints were in Levon Preslee’s home, did he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find a match?”

  “I’m sorry. The testing is not completed. As I said, it’s a very small sample and I just haven’t had enough time yet.”

  Hardy would have given his left arm to know the final results of this test. But this was it. If he was going to spring this trap, it was going to happen right now before anyone got wind of what he was up to. He had to press ahead. “All right. So now, Ms. Cunningham, can you give us the name whose fingerprint you identified in Mr. Preslee’s home?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “And whose fingerprint was it?”

  “One of your investigators, Mr. Hardy. A Craig Chiurco.”

  While the bailiff went to get the next witness, Stier asked Braun if counsel could approach, and at her impatient bidding both attorneys got up and walked to the bench.

  “What do you want now, Mr. Stier?” Braun asked, clearly at the limit of her forbearance.

  “Your Honor,” Stier began, “I haven’t got a clue as to what Mr. Hardy is up to. This seems irrelevant, immaterial, and just plain a waste of time.”

  “I’m going to wrap this up, Your Honor, within the hour. Two more witnesses and I’m done.” Turning, and hoping to provoke an already rattled Stier, Hardy smiled sweetly. “I have to give you the discovery, Counselor. I don’t have to explain it to you.”

  “That’s enough, you two!” Braun snapped, nearly loud enough for the jury to hear. “I’m tired of this bickering. Mr. Hardy, you’re going to call your witnesses and we’re going to get this thing done. Return to your counsel tables.”

  Hardy wasted no time calling his second witness, and by now, as he approached the witness seat, his fatigue had dissipated. Jennifer Foreman had been another one of the USF cheerleaders—friends of Maya and Dylan back in the day—that Stier had originally put on his witness list and then elected not to call for direct testimony.

  Late last night Wyatt Hunt had worked his magic and, in spite of the hour, had persuaded her to talk to him. Now, on the stand, and obviously dealing with a serious case of nerves, she appeared not to have had a great deal of luck getting back to sleep in the intervening hours. Or maybe it was the fact that Hardy and Hunt had asked that she check in upstairs, then wait at Lou the Greek’s, accompanied by Gina Roake, so that she wouldn’t come into contact with any other witnesses until she was called to the stand.

  Still, she came across as poised, well dressed, competent and, always a plus, very attractive, as these ex-cheerleaders tended to be. A good, solid witness if Hardy could direct her where he needed to go. Hardy stood five feet in front of her and gave her a reassuring smile. “Mrs. Foreman,” he began, “you were a classmate of the defendant, Maya Townshend, at USF in the mid-nineties, were you not?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Were you in the same class?”

  “No, I was a couple of years ahead of her.”

  “But you were friends, were you not?”

  “Yes, I thought so. We were cheerleaders together.”

  “And during the time you were cheerleaders, did you also spend time with both of the victims in this case, Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you ever personally witness them smoking marijuana?”

  “Your Honor!” Stier was standing up. “Mr. Hardy has promised us that he has new evidence, but this is all old news and irrelevant.”

  But by now, after the previous witness, Braun was fully engaged and inclined to let Hardy go on, even without a strict evidentiary base. He’d already presented compelling fingerprint evidence that Stier hadn’t been able to supply, and even if the meaning of that was still questionable, there was no doubt about its possible relevance. “The objection is overruled, Counselor. Go ahead, Mr. Hardy.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Now, Mrs. Foreman, should I repeat the question?”

  “No. Did I ever witness Dylan and Levon smoking dope? Yes, of course.”

  “Many times?”

  Here Mrs. Foreman broke a small chuckle. “Pretty much all the time.”

  Hardy let the moment of levity run its short course. “Mrs. Foreman, how did you meet Dylan and Levon?”

  “We had a mutual friend in my class who everybody called Paco. He turned me on to them.” She shrugged and added to the jury, “If you’ll pardon the phrase. He was kind of the leader of the other, younger guys.”

  “And this Paco, to your personal knowledge, this friend and leader of Dylan and Levon, was also a regular user of marijuana, was he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Foreman, you’ve said that everybody called this person by the name of Paco. But was that his real name?”

  “No. It was just like a street name, something he thought was cool.”

  “And you also knew him by his real name, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what name was that?”

  “Craig Chiurco.”

  Again, Hardy let the considerable tumult recede before he filled his lungs with air, glanced one last time at the assembled crowd in the gallery, and threw a look over to Stier.

  Who looked as though the roof had fallen on him. Now he clearly knew what was going to happen, but didn’t know how to stop it, or even if he should try.

  Hardy turned to the bench. “The defense calls Craig Chiurco, Your Honor.”

  Braun scowled for a second, wondering about the decorum in her courtroom, but eventually raised her eyes to the back of the gallery. “Bailiff, call the witness,” she said to the officer standing just inside the closed back door, and she opened it and disappeared out into the hallway.

  After, to Hardy, an agonizing half minute, enough time for the gallery to begin to hum again, Chiurco entered in his trademark coat and tie, looking confident and, as opposed to his bosses Hardy and Hunt, well rested. He’d been waiting with Bracco upstairs in the homicide detail for the sign that it was almost time and he should move down to the corridor outside the courtroom. Now, passing up through the bar rail, by the defense table, he proffered a quick, silent greeting to Hardy, who was already standing in his spot before the witness chair.

  But Hardy, intent and self-absorbed, didn’t look up.

  The clerk swore him in.

  Craig looked expectantly at Hardy, who carefully walked him through the statement he’d prepared about their discussion two nights before. Upbeat, Chiurco gave every indication that he was glad to be testifying. “Now, Mr. Chiurco, to backtrack a bit. Just a moment ago you told the jury that you had been assigned by your employer, Wyatt Hunt, to locate Levon Preslee, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Up until that time, had you ever heard of Levon Preslee?”

  “No.”

  “To your knowledge, had you ever met him?”

  “No.”

  “And you did, in fact, locate Mr. Preslee, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “In a matter of hours?”

  “Right.”

  Hardy went back to his table and picked up a piece of paper. “I think you told us how you found Mr. Preslee. Didn’t you just say that you had done a Web search and found out that Mr. Vogler was convicted for robbery back in 1997, and that he had a partner in that crime named Levon Preslee? Does that sound about right?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words, your employer did not tell you that Mr. Vogler’s partner was Mr. Preslee?”

  “No.”

  “And why not, do you think?” This was technically objectionable, but as Hardy had hoped and predicted, Stier remained silent, certain that Braun was not going to interrupt.

  Chiurco’s expression wavered briefly, a moment of indecision. But Hardy exuded encouragement, and Chiurco gave him his answer. “He didn’t know it, not at that time.”

  “Mr. Hunt didn’t know Mr. Preslee’s name, that is?”

  “R
ight. We just knew that Vogler had a partner in the robbery he’d committed. We didn’t know who it was.”

  “So again, how did you find that this partner was Mr. Preslee?”

  “As I said,” Chiurco still cooperative, but some exasperation breaking through the veneer, “I did a Web search.”

  “You looked on Google or Yahoo?” Hardy asked. “That type of thing?”

  “Yes. I don’t remember precisely which one.”

  “Do you mean you don’t remember which search engine you used?”

  “Yes. There are a lot of them. Prison databases, city and county records, and so on.”

  “And looking on one of those databases, you found a site that somehow informed you about the crime that Mr. Vogler and Mr. Preslee had been convicted of, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you must have checked on Mr. Vogler’s name first?”

  “That was the only name I had, so yes.”

  “And then keying off Mr. Vogler, you found a related site for Mr. Preslee, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Nodding, Hardy again went back to his desk and picked up another couple of sheets of paper, then came back to the witness. “Now, Mr. Chiurco, I have here in my hand a copy of the cover page of the criminal proceeding that resulted in Mr. Vogler’s conviction and sentencing back in 1997.” Thanking his stars for Glitsky and his access, Hardy stepped closer to the witness box. “Would you please read for the jury the title of this case? Right there inside the bracketed area.”

  Now with a bit of reluctance, Chiurco came forward and accepted the paper. “The People of the State of California v. Dylan Vogler. Case number SC-137804.”

  “Thank you.” Hardy held out his hand, and Chiurco handed him back his copy. “And now, if you please, would you read the title of this other case, which for the jury’s benefit resulted in Mr. Preslee’s conviction and sentencing?”

  Working to regain a semblance of cordiality, Chiurco took the next sheet of paper. “The People of the State of California v. Levon Preslee. Case number SC-139504.”