“Where did you and your partner speak to her?”
“She walked us into the kitchen where there was a table and she invited us to sit down. She asked if we wanted water or coffee and we both said no.”
“And you started asking her questions then?”
“Yes, we started by asking if she had been in the house all morning. She said she had been except for when she drove her son to school in Sherman Oaks at eight. I asked if she had made any other stops on the way home and she said no.”
“And what did that mean to you?”
“Well, that somebody was lying. We had the witness who put her near the bank at close to nine. So somebody was wrong or somebody was lying.”
“What did you do at that point?”
“I asked if she would be willing to come with us to the police station where she would be interviewed and asked to look at some photographs. She said yes and we took her to Van Nuys.”
“Did you first apprise her of her constitutional rights not to speak to you without an attorney present?”
“Not at that time. She was not a suspect at this point. She was simply a person of interest whose name had come to the surface. I didn’t believe that we needed to give her the rights warning until we crossed that threshold. We weren’t close to being there yet. We had a discrepancy between what she told us and what a witness had told us. We needed to explore that further before anybody became a suspect.”
Freeman was at it again. Trying to patch holes before I could tear them open. It was frustrating but there was nothing I could do about it. I was busy writing down questions I would later ask Kurlen, ones that Freeman wouldn’t anticipate.
Skillfully Freeman led Kurlen back to Van Nuys station and the interview room where he had sat with my client. She used him to introduce the video of the session. It was played for the jury on two overhead screens. Aronson had ably argued against showing the interview but to no avail. Judge Perry had allowed it. We could appeal after conviction but success there was a long shot. I had to turn things now. I had to find a way to make the jury see it as an unfair process, a trap into which my innocent client had stumbled.
The video was shot from an overhead angle and the defense scored a minor point right off the bat because Howard Kurlen was a big man and Lisa Trammel was small. Sitting across a table from Trammel, Kurlen looked like he was crowding her, cornering her, even bullying her. This was good. This was part of a theme I planned to put into my cross-examination.
The audio was clear and the sound crisp. Over my objection, the jurors as well as the other players in the trial had been given transcripts with which to read along. I had objected because I didn’t want the jurors reading. I wanted them watching. I wanted them to see the big man bullying the little woman. There was sympathy to be gained there, but not in the words on the page.
Kurlen started casually, announcing the names of those in the room and asking Trammel if she was there voluntarily. My client said that she was but the starkness and angle of the video belied her words. She looked like she was being held in a prison.
“Why don’t we start with you telling us about your movements today?” Kurlen asked next.
“Starting when?” Trammel responded.
“How about with the moment you woke up?”
Trammel outlined her early morning routine of waking and preparing her son for school, then driving him there. The boy attended a private school and the drive usually ranged from twenty to forty minutes depending on traffic. She said she stopped after the drop-off to get coffee and then she went back home.
“You told us at your home you didn’t make any stops. Now you stopped for coffee?”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Where?”
“A place called Joe’s Joe on Ventura.”
A veteran interrogator, Kurlen abruptly went in a new direction, keeping his quarry off guard.
“Did you go by WestLand National this morning?”
“No. Is that what this is about?”
“So if someone said they saw you there, they would be lying?”
“Yes, who said that? I have not violated the order. You—”
“Do you know Mitchell Bondurant?”
“Know him? No. I know of him. I know who he is. But I don’t know him.”
“Did you see him today?”
Trammel paused here and this was detrimental to her cause. On the video, you could see the wheels working. She was considering whether to tell the truth. I glanced at the jury. I didn’t see one face that wasn’t turned up toward the screens.
“Yes, I saw him.”
“But you just said you didn’t go on WestLand property.”
“I didn’t. Look, I don’t know who told you they saw me at the bank. And if it was him then he’s a liar. I wasn’t there. I saw him, yes, but that was at the coffee shop, not the—”
“Why didn’t you tell us that this morning at your home?”
“Tell you what? You didn’t ask.”
“Have you changed clothes since this morning?”
“What?”
“Did you change clothes this morning after you got back home?”
“Look, what is this? You asked me to come down to talk and this is some sort of setup. I have not violated the order. I—”
“Did you attack Mitchell Bondurant?”
“What?”
Kurlen didn’t answer. He just stared at Trammel as her mouth came open in a perfect O. I checked the jury. All eyes were still on the screens. I hoped they saw what I saw. Genuine shock on my client’s face.
“Is that—Mitchell Bondurant was attacked? Is he all right?”
“No, actually, he’s dead. And at this point I want to advise you of your constitutional rights.”
Kurlen read Trammel the Miranda rights warning and Trammel said the magic words, the smartest four words to ever come out of her mouth.
“I want my attorney.”
That ended the interview and the video concluded with Kurlen placing Trammel under arrest for murder. And that was how Freeman ended Kurlen’s testimony. She surprised me by abruptly saying she was finished with the witness and then sitting down. She still had the search of my client’s house to cover with the jury. And the hammer. But it looked like she wouldn’t be using Kurlen for these.
It was 11:45 and the judge broke for an early lunch. That gave me an hour and fifteen minutes to make final preparations for Kurlen. Once more we were about to do the jury dance.
Twenty-seven
I stepped over to the lectern carrying two thick files and my trusty legal pad. The files were superfluous to my cross-examination but my hope was that they would make an impressive prop. I took my time organizing everything on top of the lectern. I wanted Kurlen to dangle. My plan was to treat him in the same manner he had treated my client. Bobbing and weaving, jabbing with the left when he was expecting the right, a hit-and-run mission.
Freeman had made the smart play, breaking up the testimony between the partners. I wouldn’t get the chance to make a cohesive attack on the case through just Kurlen. I would have to deal with him now and his partner Longstreth much later. Case choreography was one of Freeman’s strong points and she was showing it here.
“Anytime, Mr. Haller,” the judge prompted.
“Yes, Your Honor. Just getting my notes in order. Good afternoon, Detective Kurlen. I wonder if we could start by going back to the crime scene. Did you—”
“Whatever you want.”
“Yes, thank you. How long were you and your partner at the crime scene before you went off to chase down Lisa Trammel?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it chasing her down. We—”
“Is that because she wasn’t a suspect?”
“That’s one of the reasons.”
“She was just a person of interest, is that what you call it?”
“That’s right.”
“So then how long were you at the crime scene before you left to find this woman who w
as not a suspect but only a person of interest?”
Kurlen referred to his notes.
“My partner and I arrived at the crime scene at nine twenty-seven and one or both of us were there until we left together at ten thirty-nine.”
“That’s… an hour and twelve minutes. You spent only seventy-two minutes at the crime scene before feeling the need to leave to pick up a woman who was not even a suspect. Do I have that right?”
“It’s one way to look at it.”
“How did you look at it, Detective?”
“First of all, leaving the crime scene was not an issue because the crime scene was under the control and direction of the homicide squad coordinator. Several technicians from the Scientific Investigation Division were also on hand. Our job was not the crime scene. Our job was to follow the leads wherever they took us and they led us at that point to Lisa Trammel. She wasn’t a suspect when we went to see her but she became one when she started giving inconsistent and contradictory statements during the interview.”
“You’re talking about the interview back at Van Nuys Division, yes?”
“That’s correct.”
“Okay, then what were the inconsistent and contradictory statements you just mentioned?”
“At her house she said she made no stops after dropping the kid off. At the station she suddenly remembers getting coffee and seeing the victim there. She says she wasn’t near the bank but we had a witness who put her a half a block away. That was the big one right there.”
I smiled and shook my head like I was dealing with a simpleton.
“Detective, you’re kidding us, right?”
Kurlen gave me the first look of annoyance. It was just what I wanted. If it was perceived as arrogance it would be all the better when I humiliated him.
“No, I am not kidding,” Kurlen said. “I take my job very seriously.”
I asked the judge to allow me to replay a portion of the Trammel interview. Permission granted, I fast-forwarded the playback, keeping my eye on the time code at the bottom. I slowed it to normal play just in time for the jury to watch the exchange centering on Trammel’s denial of being near WestLand National.
“Did you go by WestLand National this morning?”
“No. Is that what this is about?”
“So if someone said they saw you there, they would be lying?”
“Yes, who said that? I have not violated the order. You—”
“Do you know Mitchell Bondurant?”
“Know him? No. I know of him. I know who he is. But I don’t know him.”
“Did you see him today?”
“Yes, I saw him.”
“But you just said you didn’t go on WestLand property.”
“I didn’t. Look, I don’t know who told you they saw me at the bank. And if it was him then he’s a liar. I wasn’t there. I saw him, yes, but that was at the coffee shop, not the—”
“Why didn’t you tell us that this morning at your home?”
“Tell you what? You didn’t ask.”
I stopped the video and looked at Kurlen.
“Detective, where is it that Lisa Trammel contradicts herself?”
“She says right there that she wasn’t near the bank and we have a witness who says she was.”
“So you have a contradiction between two statements by different people, but Lisa Trammel did not contradict herself, correct?”
“You are talking semantics.”
“Can you answer the question, Detective?”
“Yes, right, a contradiction between two statements.”
Kurlen didn’t consider the distinction important but I hoped the jury would.
“Isn’t it true, Detective, that Lisa Trammel has never contradicted her statement that she was not near the bank on the day of the murder?”
“I wouldn’t know. I am not privy to everything she has ever said since then.”
Now he was just being churlish, which was fine by me.
“Okay, then as far as you know, Detective, has she ever contradicted that very first statement to you that she was not near the bank?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
I asked the judge if I could replay another segment of the video and was granted permission. I moved the video back to a time spot early in the interview and froze it. I then asked the judge if I could put one of the prosecution’s crime scene photos on one of the overhead screens while leaving the video on the other. The judge gave me the go-ahead.
The crime scene photo I put up was a wide-angle shot that took in almost the entire crime scene. The tableau included Bondurant’s body as well as his car, the open briefcase and the spilled cup of coffee on the ground.
“Detective, let me draw your attention to the crime scene photo marked People’s Exhibit Three. Can you describe what you see in the foreground?”
“You mean the briefcase or the body?”
“What else, Detective?”
“You’ve got the spilled coffee, and the evidence marker on the left is where they found a tissue fragment later identified as coming from the victim’s scalp. You can’t really see that in the photo.”
I asked the judge to strike the part of the answer concerning the tissue fragment as nonresponsive. I had asked Kurlen to describe what he could see in the photo, not what he couldn’t see. The judge didn’t agree and let the whole answer stand. I shook it off and tried again.
“Detective, can you read what it says on the side of the coffee cup?”
“Yes, it says Joe’s Joe. It’s a gourmet coffee shop about four blocks from the bank.”
“Very good, Detective. Your eyes are better than mine.”
“Maybe because they look for the truth.”
I looked at the judge and spread my hands like a baseball manager who just saw a fastball down the pipe called a ball. Before I could verbally react the judge was all over Kurlen.
“Detective!” Perry barked. “You know better than that.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Kurlen said contritely, his eyes holding on mine. “Mr. Haller somehow always seems to bring out the worst in me.”
“That’s no excuse. Another one like that and you and I are going to have a serious problem.”
“It won’t happen again, Judge. I promise.”
“The jury will disregard the witness’s comment. Mr. Haller, proceed and take us away from this.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. I’ll do my best. Detective, when you were at the crime scene for seventy-two minutes before leaving to question Ms. Trammel, did you determine whose coffee cup that was?”
“Well, we later found out that—”
“No, no, no, I didn’t ask you what you later found out, Detective. I asked you about those first seventy-two minutes when you were at the crime scene. During that time, before you went to Lisa Trammel’s house in Woodland Hills, did you know whose coffee that was?”
“No, we had not determined that yet.”
“Okay, so you didn’t know who dropped that coffee at the crime scene, correct?”
“Objection, asked and answered,” Freeman said.
It was a useless objection but she had to do something to try to knock me out of rhythm.
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said before I could respond. “You can answer the question, Detective. Did you know who dropped that cup of coffee at the crime scene?”
“Not at that time.”
I went back to the video and played the segment I had cued and ready to go. It was from the early part of the interview, when Trammel was recounting her routine activities during the morning of the murder.
“You stopped for coffee?”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Where did you stop to get the coffee?”
“A place called Joe’s Joe. It’s on Van Nuys Boulevard right by the intersection with Ventura.”
“Do you remember, did you get a large or small cup?”
“Large. I drink a lot of coffe
e.”
I stopped the video.
“Tell me something now, Detective. Why did you ask what size coffee she got at Joe’s Joe?”
“You throw out a big net. You go for as many details as you can.”
“Was it not because you believed the coffee cup found at the scene of the murder might have been Lisa Trammel’s?”
“That was one possibility at that point.”
“Did you count this as one of those admissions from Lisa Trammel?”
“I thought it was significant at that point in the conversation. I wouldn’t call it an admission.”
“But then, under further questioning, she told you she saw the victim at the coffee shop, correct?”
“Correct.”
“So didn’t that change your thinking on the coffee cup at the scene?”
“It was just additional information to consider. It was very early in the investigation. We had no independent information that the victim had been in the coffee shop. We had this one person’s statement but it was inconsistent with the statement of a witness we had already spoken to. So we had Lisa Trammel saying she saw Mitchell Bondurant at the coffee shop but that didn’t make it a fact. We still needed to confirm that. And later we did.”
“But do you see where what you considered an inconsistency early in the interview turned out to be totally consistent with the facts later?”
“In this one instance.”
Kurlen would give no quarter. He knew I was trying to back him up to the edge of a cliff. His job was to keep from going over.
“In fact, Detective, wouldn’t you say that when all was said and done, the only thing inconsistent about the interview with Lisa Trammel was that she said she wasn’t near the bank and you had a witness who claimed she was?”
“It’s always easy to look back with twenty-twenty vision. But that one inconsistency was and is pretty important. A reliable witness put her close to the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. That hasn’t changed since day one.”
“A reliable witness. Based on one short interview with Margo Schafer she was deemed a reliable witness?”
I put the proper mix of outrage and confusion in my voice. Freeman objected, saying that I was simply badgering the witness because I was not getting the answers I wanted. The judge overruled but it was a good message for her to get to the jury—the idea that I wasn’t getting what I wanted. Because, in fact, I was.
The Fifth Witness: A Novel Page 23