“Of course, the business is a courier service. It is used regularly by ALOFT to deliver documents to WestLand National. But what was curious to me is why the car entered at eight oh-five and then left before the bank even opened at nine.”
I looked at Cisco for a long moment. My gut said I had gotten all I needed to get. There was still chicken on the bone but sometimes you just have to push the plate away. Sometimes leaving the jury with a question is the best way to go.
“I have nothing further,” I said.
My direct examination had been very precise in scope to include only testimony about the license plates. This left Freeman little to work with on cross. However, she did score one point when she elicited from Cisco a reminder to the jury that WestLand National occupied only three floors of a ten-story building. The courier from Wing Nuts could have been going somewhere other than the bank, thus explaining his early arrival in the garage.
I was sure that if there was a record of a courier delivery to an office in the building other than the bank, then she would produce it—or Opparizio’s people would magically produce it for her—by the time she could put on rebuttal witnesses.
After a half hour, Freeman threw in the towel and sat down. That was when the judge asked if I had another witness to call.
“No, Your Honor,” I said. “The defense rests.”
The judge dismissed the jury for the day and instructed them to be in the assembly room by nine the next morning. Once they were gone Perry set the stage for the end of the trial, asking the attorneys if they would have rebuttal witnesses. I said no. Freeman said she wanted to reserve the right to call rebuttal witnesses in the morning.
“Okay, then we will reserve the morning session for rebuttal, if there is any rebuttal,” Perry said. “Closing arguments will begin first thing after the lunch break and each side will be limited to one hour. With any luck and no more surprises, our jury will go into deliberations by this time tomorrow.”
Perry left the bench then and I was left at the defense table with Aronson and Trammel. Lisa reached over and put her hand on top of mine.
“That was brilliant,” she said. “The whole morning was brilliant. I think that the jurors finally get it as well. I was watching them. I think they know the truth.”
I looked back at Trammel and then at Aronson, two different expressions on their faces.
“Thank you, Lisa. I guess it won’t be long before we find out.”
Fifty-two
In the morning Andrea Freeman surprised me by not surprising me. She stood before the judge and said she had no rebuttal witnesses. She then rested the state’s case.
This gave me pause. I had come to court fully prepared to face at least one final tilt with her. Testimony explaining the Wing Nuts car in the bank garage, or maybe Driscoll’s supervisor putting the boots to him, even a prosecution foreclosure expert to contradict Aronson’s assertions. But nothing. She folded the tent.
She was going with the blood. Whether I had robbed her of her Boléro crescendo or not, she was going to make her stand on the one incontrovertible aspect of the entire trial: the blood.
Judge Perry recessed court for the morning so the attorneys could work on their closing arguments and he could retreat to chambers to work on the jury charge—the final set of instructions jurors would take with them into deliberations.
I called Rojas and had him pick me up on Delano. I didn’t want to go back to the office. Too many distractions. I told Rojas just to drive and I spread my files and notes out in the backseat of the Lincoln. This was where I did my best thinking, my best prep work.
At one o’clock sharp, court reconvened. Like everything else in the criminal justice system, closing arguments were tipped toward the state. The prosecution got to speak first and last. The defense got the middle.
It looked to me like Freeman was going with the standard prosecutorial format. Build the house with the facts on the first swing and then pull their emotional strings on the second.
Block by block she outlined the evidence against Lisa Trammel, seemingly leaving out nothing presented since the start of the trial. The discourse was dry but cumulative. She covered means and motive, and she brought it all home with the blood. The hammer, the shoes, the uncontested DNA findings.
“I told you at the beginning of this trial that blood would tell the tale,” she said. “And here we are. You can discount everything else, but the blood evidence alone warrants a vote of guilty as charged. I am sure you will follow your conscience and do just that.”
She sat down and then it was my turn. I stood in the opening in front of the jury box and addressed the twelve directly. But I wasn’t alone in the well. As previously approved by the judge, I brought Manny out to stand with me. Dr. Shamiram Arslanian’s erstwhile companion stood upright, with the hammer attached to the crown of his head, his head snapped back at the unusual angle that would have been necessary if Lisa Trammel had struck the fatal blow.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” I began, “I’ve got good news. We should all be out of here and back to our normal lives by the end of the day. I appreciate your patience and your attentiveness during this trial. I appreciate your consideration of the evidence. I am not going to take a lot of time up here because I want to get you home as soon as possible. Today should be easy. This is a quick one. This case comes down to what I call a five-minute verdict. A case where reasonable doubt is so pervasive that a unanimous verdict will undoubtedly be reached on your very first ballot.”
From there I highlighted the evidence the defense had brought forth and the contradictions and deficiencies in the state’s case. I asked the unanswered questions. Why was the briefcase open? Why did the hammer go so long without being found? Why was Lisa Trammel’s garage found unlocked and why would someone who was clearly going to succeed in defending her foreclosure case lash out against Bondurant?
It eventually brought me to the centerpiece of my closing—the mannequin.
“The demonstration by Dr. Arslanian alone puts the lie to the state’s case. Without considering another single part of the defense case, Manny here gives you reasonable doubt. We know from the injuries to the knees of the victim that he was standing when struck with the fatal blow. And if he was standing, then this is the only position that he could have been in for Lisa Trammel to have been the killer. Head back, face to the ceiling. Is that possible, you must ask yourself. Is that likely? What would make Mitchell Bondurant look up? What was he looking up at?”
I paused there, hand in one pocket, adopting a casual and confident pose. I checked their eyes. All twelve of them were locked in on the mannequin. I then reached up to the handle of the hammer and slowly pushed it up, until the plastic face came down to a normal level and the handle stood out at a ninety-degree angle, too high for Lisa Trammel to grasp.
“The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is that he wasn’t looking up because Lisa Trammel didn’t do this. Lisa Trammel was driving home with her coffee while someone else carried out the plan to eliminate the threat that Mitchell Bondurant had become.”
Another pause to let it sink in.
“Mitchell Bondurant had poked the sleeping tiger with his letter to Louis Opparizio. Whether intended or not, the letter was a threat to the two things that give the tiger its strength and fierceness. Money and power. It threatened a deal that was bigger than Louis Opparizio and Mitchell Bondurant. It threatened commerce and therefore it had to be dealt with.
“And it was. Lisa Trammel was chosen as the fall guy. She was known to the perpetrators of this crime, her movements had been monitored by them and she came with what appeared to be a credible motive. She was the perfect patsy. No one would believe her when she said, ‘I didn’t do this.’ No one would give it a second thought. A plan was set in motion and carried out brazenly and efficiently. Mitchell Bondurant was left dead on the concrete floor of a garage, his briefcase pilfered on the floor right next to him. And the police showed up and went right along for the ride.”
I shook my head in dismay, as though I carried the disgust of all society.
“The police had blinders on. Like those blinders put on horses so they stay on track. The police were on a track that led to Lisa Trammel and they would look at nothing else. Lisa Trammel, Lisa Trammel, Lisa Trammel… Well, what about ALOFT and the tens of millions of dollars that Mitchell Bondurant was threatening? Nope, not interested. Lisa Trammel, Lisa Trammel, Lisa Trammel. The train was on the track and they rode it home.”
I paused and paced in front of the jury. For the first time I looked about the courtroom. It was filled to capacity, with even some people standing in the back. I saw Maggie McPherson standing back there and next to her was my daughter. I froze in midstep but then quickly recovered. It made my heart feel good as I turned to the jury and brought my case to an end.
“But you see what they didn’t see or refused to see. You see that they got on the wrong track. You see that they were cleverly manipulated. You see the truth.”
I gestured to the mannequin.
“The physical evidence doesn’t work. The circumstantial evidence doesn’t work. The case doesn’t bear scrutiny in the light of day. The only thing this case adds up to is reasonable doubt. Common sense tells you this. Your instincts tell you this. I urge you to set Lisa Trammel free. Let her go. It is the right thing to do.”
I said thank you and returned to my seat, patting Manny on the shoulder as I passed. As we had previously planned, Lisa Trammel grabbed and squeezed my arm once I sat down. She mouthed the words Thank you for all on the jury to see.
I checked my watch under the defense table and saw I had taken only twenty-five minutes. I started to settle in for the second part of the state’s closer when Freeman asked the judge to have me remove the mannequin from the courtroom. The judge told me to do so and I got back up.
I carried the mannequin to the gate, where I was met by Cisco, who had been in the audience.
“I got it, Boss,” he whispered. “I’ll take him outside.”
“Thanks.”
“You did good.”
“Thanks.”
Freeman moved to the well to deliver the second part of her summation. She wasted no time in attacking the contentions of the defense.
“I don’t need any props to try to mislead you. I don’t need any conspiracies or unnamed or unknown killers. I have the facts and the evidence that prove well beyond any reasonable doubt that Lisa Trammel murdered Mitchell Bondurant.”
And it went from there. Freeman used her entire allotment of time hammering the defense case while bolstering the evidence the state had shown. It was a fairly routine Joe Friday closing. Just the facts, or the supposed facts, delivered like a steady drumbeat. Not bad but not all that good either. I saw the attention of some of the jurors wandering through parts of it, which could be taken two ways. One, they weren’t buying it, or two, they had already bought it and didn’t need to hear it again.
Freeman steadily amped it up until her big finish, a standard summing of the power and might of the state to cast judgment and exact justice.
“The facts of this case are unalterable. The facts do not lie. The evidence clearly shows that the defendant waited behind the pillar in the garage for Mitchell Bondurant. The evidence clearly shows that when he stepped out of his car, the defendant attacked. It was his blood on her hammer and his blood on her shoe. These are facts, ladies and gentlemen. These are undisputed facts. These are the building blocks of evidence. Evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Lisa Trammel killed Mitchell Bondurant. That she came up behind him and brutally struck him with her hammer. That she even hit him again and again after he was down and dead. We don’t know exactly what position he was in or she was in. She is the only one who knows that. But we do know that she did it. The evidence in this case points to one person.”
And of course Freeman had to point the finger at my client.
“Her. Lisa Trammel. She did it and now through the tricks of her attorney she asks you to let her go. Don’t do it. Give Mitchell Bondurant justice. Find his killer guilty of this crime. Thank you.”
Freeman took her seat. I gave her closing a B but I had already awarded myself an A—egotist that I am. Still, usually all it took was a C for the prosecution to triumph. It’s always a stacked deck for the state and often the defense attorney’s very best work is simply not good enough to overcome the power and the might.
Judge Perry moved directly into the jury charge, reading his final instructions to them. These were not only the rules of deliberations but also instructions specific to the case. He gave great attention to Louis Opparizio and warned again that his testimony was not to be considered during the deliberations.
The charge ended up being nearly as long as my closing but finally, just after three, the judge sent the twelve jurors back to the assembly room to begin their task. As I watched them file through the door I was at least relaxed, if not confident. I had put the best case forward that I could. I had certainly bent some rules and pushed some boundaries. I had even put myself at risk. At risk based on the law but also something more dangerous. I had risked myself by believing in the possibility of my client’s innocence.
I looked over at Lisa as the door to the deliberations room closed. I saw no fear in her eyes and once again I bought in. She was already sure of the verdict. There wasn’t a doubt on her face.
“What do you think?” Aronson whispered to me.
“I think we’ve got a fifty-fifty shot at this and that’s better than we usually get, especially on a murder. We’ll see.”
The judge recessed court after making sure the clerk had contact numbers for all parties and urging us to stay somewhere no more than fifteen minutes away, should a verdict come in. My office was in that range so we decided to head back there. Feeling optimistic and magnanimous, I even told Lisa she could invite Herb Dahl along. I felt it would be my obligation to eventually inform her of her guardian angel’s treachery, but that conversation would be saved for another day.
As the defense party walked out into the hallway the media started to gather around us, clamoring for a statement from Lisa or at least me. Behind the crowd I saw Maggie leaning against a wall, my daughter sitting on a bench next to her while texting away on her phone. I told Aronson to handle the reporters and I started to slip away.
“Me?” Aronson said.
“You know what to say. Just don’t let Lisa talk. Not till we have a verdict.”
I waved off a couple of trailing reporters and got to Maggie and Hayley. I made a quick feint one way and then went the other, kissing my daughter on the cheek before she could duck.
“Daaaaddd!”
I straightened up and looked at Maggie. She had a small smile on her face.
“You pulled her out of school for me?”
“I thought she should be here.”
It was a major concession.
“Thank you,” I said. “So what did you think?”
“I think you could sell ice in Antarctica,” she said.
I smiled.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re going to win,” she added.
I frowned.
“Thanks a lot.”
“Well, what do you want from me? I’m a prosecutor. I don’t like to see the guilty go free.”
“Well, that won’t be a problem in this case.”
“I guess you have to believe what you have to believe.”
I was back to smiling. I checked my daughter and saw she was back to texting, oblivious to our conversation as usual.
“Did Freeman talk to you yesterday?”
“You mean about you pulling the Fifth witness move? Yes. You don’t play fair, Haller.”
“It’s not a fair game. Did she tell you what she said to me after?”
“No, what did she say?”
“Never mind. She was wrong.”
She knitted her eyebrows. She was intrigued.
“I’ll tell you later,”
I said. “We’re all going to walk over to my office to wait. You two want to come?”
“No, I think I need to get Hayley home. She’s got homework.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it and took a look. The screen said
L.A. Superior Court
I took the call. It was Judge Perry’s clerk. I listened and then hung up. I looked around to make sure Lisa Trammel was still nearby.
“What is it?” Maggie asked.
I looked back at her.
“We already have a verdict. A five-minute verdict.”
PART FIVE
The Hypocrisy of Innocence
Fifty-three
They came in droves, pouring in from all over Southern California, all brought by the siren song of Facebook. Lisa Trammel had announced the party the morning after the verdict and now on Saturday afternoon they were ten deep at the cash bars. They waved the Stars and Stripes and wore red, white and blue. Fighting foreclosure with the nearly martyred leader of the cause was now more American than ever before. At every door to the house and spaced at intervals in the front and back yards were ten-gallon buckets for donations to defray Trammel’s expenses and keep the fight going. FLAG pins for a buck, cheap cotton T-shirts for ten. And posing with Lisa for a photo required a minimum twenty-dollar donation.
But nobody complained. Fired in the kiln of false accusation, Lisa Trammel had emerged unscathed and appeared to be about to make the jump from activist to icon. And she wasn’t unhappy about it. The rumor was that Julia Roberts was in talks to play the part in the movie.
My crew and I were stationed in the backyard at a picnic table with an umbrella. We had come early and gotten the spot. Cisco and Lorna were drinking canned beer and Aronson and I were on bottled water. There was a slight tension at the table and I picked up enough innuendo to understand that it had something to do with how late Cisco had stayed at Four Green Fields with Aronson back on Monday night after I’d left with Maggie McFierce.
The Fifth Witness: A Novel Page 42