by Michael Nava
“With the reporter,” I added, making my way across the well of the court.
“You, too, Barry,” he said to the reporter.
The three of us arranged ourselves at the sidebar. Lanyon, his breath faintly alcoholic, said to Rossi, “How about an offer of proof, Mr. Rossi.”
“Your Honor,” he chirped, “this is foundational.”
“To what?” I asked.
“Let’s give him a chance to tell us,” Lanyon lectured.
“By showing that the defendant is a pedophile, the People will establish why he was at the victim’s room as well as why he may have had a motive to murder Mr. McKay.”
“What motive?” I demanded.
“The People will show that the defendant was being blackmailed by the victim.”
Lanyon looked at us, drowsily. To me, he said, “We could cut this short if you’d stipulate your client was previously arrested on child molest charges.”
“I still object to relevance.”
“That objection’s overruled,” he said, “and the question is whether you want the gruesome details to come out.”
“We will stipulate that Mr. Windsor was arrested, but not convicted, of those charges,” I said, carefully, “for the purposes of this hearing only.”
“Mr. Rossi?”
“Fine,” Rossi said.
“Okay, so stipulated,” Lanyon said, “now let’s get on with this.”
We went back to our respective places. Lanyon said, “For the record, counsel has stipulated to the matters which Detective Morrow had begun to testify to.”
“What matters?” Paul whispered fiercely.
I whispered back an explanation of what had just occurred.
“… assigned to investigate the murder of John McKay?” Rossi was asking.
“Yes,” Morrow replied.
“And in connection with this investigation, did you execute a search warrant on the defendant’s home and vehicle on the night of the July twenty-seventh?”
“I did.”
“What, if anything, did you recover in that search?”
“Well,” Morrow said, “in the defendant’s study I recovered a briefcase that contained cash.”
“And how much cash?”
“I later determined it to be twenty thousand dollars,” he said. “Also, there was a roll of film.”
“You recovered this film.”
“No,” Morrow said, “the film was given to me by Officer Vega, who found it in the defendant’s car.”
“Detective, what did you do with the money?”
“I booked it into evidence, sir.”
“Why did you do that, Detective?”
Morrow shifted slightly in his seat. “Well, based on the circumstances, I formed the belief that the large amount of cash might have been used for some illegal purpose.”
I got to my feet. “Your Honor, there’s no foundation to this testimony. I move to strike.”
Rossi said, “If I may ask a follow-up question.”
Lanyon nodded.
“What circumstances are you referring to, Detective?”
“Well, first the fact that the victim dealt in child pornography, and, second, the fact that the defendant is a known pedophile …”
“Objection. We stipulated precisely to avoid this characterization of my client.”
Lanyon’s look let me know that we’d reached the moment of settling scores. “Overruled. Go on, Detective.”
“Is a pedophile,” Morrow repeated, emphatically, “and he had been at the victim’s motel room, all this led me to believe that the money may have been to make some kind of payoff, or—”
“I renew my objection. This is the flimsiest foundation I’ve ever heard for the admission of this kind of evidence.”
Lanyon looked straight through me. “Overruled.”
“What did you do with the film, Detective?” Rossi asked.
“When I got back to the station, I booked it into the evidence locker where it remained until I took it to forensics for developing.”
“And when was that?”
“That was the next day.”
“And was the developed film returned to you at some point, Detective?”
“Yes, within the day.”
Rossi reached down to counsel table for the sealed envelope. “Your Honor,” he said, “I have in my hand an envelope sealed with an official seal of the Los Robles Police Department, and marked with an evidence number. May I approach the witness?”
“You may.”
He walked over to Morrow and handed him the envelope. “Do you recognize this, Detective?”
“Yes, it’s the evidence envelope that I used to put the pictures in.”
“Is it sealed in exactly the same way you sealed it?”
“Yes.”
“With the court’s permission,” Rossi said, “I’d like Detective Morrow to open the envelope.”
“Fine.” He threw me an acerbic look. “Mr. Rios, you may want to watch this.”
“Thank you,” I replied with equal sarcasm. I went over to the witness stand and watched Morrow tear open the envelope. He turned it upright, tapped the end, and a stack of pictures slid out. I caught a glimpse of the first one, which, as advertised, was a picture of a girl, no older than thirteen, lying nude on a bed. A man’s head and naked back lay between her spread legs.
Her eyes were wide open and absolutely vacant.
11
THE REMAINING DOZEN PHOTOGRAPHS were of the same girl in positions intended to be lascivious, but which, instead, ranged from the near comic to the terrifying. She was a little rag doll of a girl, neither exceptionally pretty nor homely; not exceptionally anything but young. Her eyes were glazed—drugs, terror, boredom, it was hard to tell which. In all the pictures she was on the same bed, a big, lumpy-looking thing covered by a deep blue comforter that showed off her pale, skinny body. On the wall above the bed was the bottom half of a painting of ocean waves, the kind of mass-produced art that decorated the walls of a million motel rooms. An edge of a nightstand was also visible, a part of a phone, a glass of something red, wine, maybe. And that was all there was by way of a setting. No pretense at fantasy. Just the stick figure of a girl who, in one picture, was being sodomized and in another performed fellatio.
The man in the pictures was carefully photographed so that only his profile showed once or twice. He was, like Paul, Caucasian, slender, fair-haired, without any distinguishing marks on his body. He could have been any youngish white man, Paul included; it was impossible to tell. All this I concluded in the couple of minutes it took Morrow to shuffle the pictures to Rossi, who handed them to me, who gave them to Lanyon. Lanyon glanced at them impassively and stacked them neatly on the corner of the bench.
“I want to move these into evidence,” Rossi said, his voice unsteady and faint.
“Where are the negatives?” I asked quietly.
“They’re in the envelope.”
“I want an order from the court requiring an independent lab to process the negatives.”
“Let me see them,” Lanyon replied.
Morrow tapped the envelope again, and a smaller envelope, also sealed, slid out. He unsealed it and handed it to the judge, who opened it and removed the negatives. One by one, he held them up to the light.
“They appear to be the same pictures, Mr. Rios. I don’t see the point of spending county money to put another set of these into circulation.” He slipped them back into the envelope. “Do you have any objections to my receiving these into evidence?”
“I want the criminalist back on the stand,” I said. “I want him to testify under oath that these were the pictures he developed.”
Lanyon glanced at Rossi. “Where is he, Dom?”
“In the hallway.”
Lanyon ordered his bailiff to bring the criminalist back into the courtroom, and he was escorted to the sidebar with the rest of us.
Handing him the pictures, Lanyon asked, “Are these the photo
graphs you developed from the roll of film that Detective Morrow gave you?”
He hurried through them. “Yes, sir.”
Lanyon inclined his head toward me. “Satisfied?”
“I renew my objection on other grounds,” I said quickly.
“State them,” the judge said.
“Your Honor, is this supposed to be my client in these pictures? That’s ridiculous. You never see his face. Any resemblance is too vague to put these into evidence.”
Lanyon looked at the top picture. “For the purpose of this hearing, Mr. Rios, I think the resemblance is sufficient. I will admit them.”
“Your Honor, I’d ask that you clear the courtroom before allowing any further testimony about these pictures,” I said, clutching at straws. “This could ruin whatever chances my client has of getting an impartial trial.”
Lanyon smiled grimly, his revenge complete. “This is a public proceeding, Counsel. Your request is denied.”
“I’d like to show them to my client,” I said.
Lanyon shrugged. “Okay. Let’s mark them and I’ll call a recess.”
Rossi said, “The People ask that these twelve photographs be marked in order, as People’s exhibits 1 through 12.”
“They will be so marked.”
“I would move them into evidence.”
“I object for the reason I stated at the bench.”
Lanyon said, “Objection noted and overruled. The photographs are received. We will take a fifteen-minute recess.”
He handed me the photographs and left the courtroom.
We’d been huddled around the bench, audible only to the reporter. I took the pictures and walked back to Paul. He looked angry and puzzled.
I sat down. “Do you recognize these?”
He went through them quickly, without expression. When he got to the last one, he turned it over on top of the others.
“No,” he said, quietly.
“Are these pictures of you?”
“No.”
“Did you get this film from McKay?”
“No,” he said, a third time, in the same level tone. “Is that what they say?”
“That’s what they’re leading up to.”
“It’s a lie.”
I turned to him and said, “You have to tell me the truth.”
“I didn’t take any film from McKay,” he replied. “These pictures were not developed from the film in my car. That’s not me in them. Is that plain enough?”
“Yes.”
He muttered, “This is a fucking nightmare.”
When court resumed, Morrow took the stand again and described the pictures. There was dead silence in the court as he droned on without emotion, describing each one until he reached the last, which was the first picture I’d seen: “This one is the same female child. Again, there is a nude white male in the picture and he’s uh—he appears to be committing an act of cunnilingus on the girl.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Rossi said. “I have nothing further.”
“Mr. Rios?”
“Good afternoon, Detective,” I said, picking up my legal pad and making my way to the podium.
He did not reply to my greeting.
“Detective, you were in charge of the search of Mr. Windsor’s house on the evening of July twenty-seventh, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“And, in fact, you were the officer who sought the warrant, is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“Now, Detective, isn’t it also true that you were the investigating officer when my client was charged with child molestation four years ago?”
Rossi said, “Objection. Relevance.”
I addressed Lanyon. “It goes to this witness’s bias.”
Lazily, Lanyon said, “Sustained.”
“You knew Mr. Windsor prior to being assigned to investigate these charges against him, didn’t you?”
I’d barely got the question out before Rossi objected.
“Sustained,” Lanyon said.
“Your Honor, I’d like to make an offer of proof,” I replied.
Gimlet-eyed, Lanyon looked at me. “I can’t conceive of any offer you could make that would change my mind. The objection’s sustained, Counsel. Ask your next question.”
“Detective, how long were you and your men at the Windsor residence the night you executed the warrant?”
Suspiciously, Morrow said, “About three hours.”
“Can you give the exact times?” I asked glancing up at him. “Do you need to look at your report?”
“I got a copy,” he said, and flipped through some pages. “We arrived at 5:13 P.M. and we left at 8:30.”
“And while you were there you searched the entire house?”
He set the report down on the ledge of the stand. “Every room.”
“Thoroughly?”
He cast a bemused looked at Rossi, and then answered. “I’d say so, yes.”
“And you didn’t find a weapon, did you?”
“No.”
“Now you heard the testimony of Officer Mitchell this morning describing the scene of the murder, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“And you heard him talk about the amount of blood that was present in the room, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Now Officer,” I said, leaning toward him across the top of the podium, “you didn’t find any traces of blood anywhere in the Windsor house, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, adding quickly, “He had two days to—”
I cut him off. “Excuse me, Detective. I’m sure Mr. Rossi will give you a chance to explain your answers. Now, did you obtain fiber samples from the carpet in Mr. Windsor’s car?”
He looked a little worried as he said, “We didn’t do that.”
“No? Well, would it have been useful to take such samples to have them analyzed for traces of blood?”
Grudgingly, he said, “Maybe.”
“Now, did you talk to the clerk who was working registration the night that Mr. McKay was murdered?”
“I sent someone out to interview him.”
“With pictures of Mr. Windsor and his car, correct?”
I could feel the tension rising between us. “That’s right, Counsel. It’s in the police report.”
“And it’s also in the report that the clerk failed to identify either Mr. Windsor or his car,” isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now was there someone, a guest, in the room adjacent to Mr. McKay’s room the night he was murdered?”
“Yeah, he lives in Oregon.”
“And you haven’t been able to contact him, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Even though you’ve had almost six weeks now to do it?”
Morrow scowled.
I scowled back. “Detective?”
“We haven’t contacted him.”
I paused, pretending to make a note. “What time did Vega give you the film?”
“I don’t remember. Not long after we got there.”
“More than an hour?”
“No. Half-hour maybe.”
“Half-hour,” I repeated. “So, before six?”
“Something like that,” he allowed tensely.
Carefully, I asked, “And what time did you book the film into evidence?”
He shot Rossi another look, this time of disbelief.
“I’m going to object,” Rossi said, struggling to his feet.
Quizzically, Lanyon asked, “On what basis?”
“It’s—” he cast about. “It’s irrelevant.”
“Overruled on that ground. Answer the question.”
“I booked it that night, when we got back to the station,” Morrow said. “I don’t remember when, exactly.”
I pressed him. “Then give me your best estimate.”
Morrow worked his brow for a moment. “I can’t tell you without looking at the log in the evidence locker
. It was before midnight.”
“Before midnight,” I repeated, this time actually jotting a note, to obtain a copy of that page of the log. “So you may have had the film in your possession for as long as six hours after it was given to you?”
I spoke quickly, anticipating an objection. I was not disappointed.
“Your Honor,” Rossi said, “this is improper cross-examination. We established chain of custody without objection. He can’t go into it now.”
Lanyon pretended to give the matter some thought. “Yes, I’ll sustain the objection.”
“I’d like to be heard,” I said.
“I’m listening,” Lanyon said.
“The detective testified in direct examination that he booked the film into evidence. Asking for details is well within the scope of cross-examination.”
“The objection is sustained,” he replied.
There’s an expression lawyers use, when they find themselves in out-of-town courts where everyone tends to close ranks against outsiders. They say they’ve “been hometowned.” I was being hometowned, but good.
“I have no further questions.”
“Mr. Rossi?”
Laboriously, Rossi set about rehabilitating Morrow’s testimony, trying to imply through his questions that Paul would have had two days during which to destroy any evidence that might link him with McKay’s murder. I spent another half-hour going through the various forensic techniques that the Los Robles Police Department had at its disposal for the analysis of physical evidence, few of which had been used in the McKay investigation. Rossi got another ten minutes worth of re-redirect, and then it was over. Morrow stepped down. The prosecution rested. The defense rested.
We didn’t waste much time on argument. Lanyon’s evidentiary rulings had made clear what the outcome would be.
“The court finds the evidence is sufficient to hold the defendant to answer. Trial is set in the superior court, Judge Phelan, in three weeks. The defendant is remanded into custody until then. Court is in recess.”
Phelan, the judge who had refused to dismiss the child molestation charges against Paul three years earlier. It was Lanyon’s parting shot.
“I’ll talk to you back at the jail,” I told my exhausted client as the bailiff led him out of the court. I scanned the room for Sara, but she’d already gone. As I was gathering up my papers, Rossi came over to me.