“Your Honor,” I said. “I will get there in two more questions.”
“You may answer, Mr. Johnson,” Breitman said.
“There is a fence,” Johnson said.
“So,” I said, “from the El Rey’s alley and the location of its trash bin, you can see into the adjoining parking lot, and anyone in the adjoining parking lot could see the trash bin, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And prior to the day you discovered the body, did you have occasion to be at work on a Sunday and to notice that the parking lot behind the theater was being used?”
“Yes, like a month previously, I came to work and in the back there were many cars and I saw tow trucks towing them in.”
I couldn’t help myself. I had to glance over at Royce and Jessup to see if they were squirming yet. I was about to draw the first blood of the trial. They thought Johnson was going to be a noncritical witness, meaning he would establish the murder and its location and nothing else.
They were wrong.
“Did you inquire as to what was going on?” I asked.
“Yes,” Johnson said. “I asked what they were doing and one of the drivers said that they were towing cars from the neighborhood down the street and holding them there so people could come and pay and get their cars.”
“So it was being used like a temporary holding lot, is that what you mean?”
“Yes.”
“And did you know what the name of the towing company was?”
“It was on the trucks. It was called Aardvark Towing.”
“You said trucks. You saw more than one truck there?”
“Yeah, there were two or three trucks when I saw them.”
“What did you tell them after you were informed what they were doing there?”
“I told my boss and he called City Park to see if they knew about it. He thought there could be an insurance concern, especially with people being mad about being towed and all. And it turned out Aardvark wasn’t supposed to be there. It wasn’t authorized.”
“What happened?”
“They had to stop using the lot and my boss told me to keep an eye out if I worked on weekends to see if they kept using it.”
“So they stopped using the lot behind the theater?”
“That’s right.”
“And this was the same lot from which you could see the trash bin in which you would later find the body of Melissa Landy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Mr. Royce asked you if you had ever seen the defendant before the day of the murder, you answered that you didn’t think so, correct?”
“Correct.”
“You don’t think so? Why are you not sure?”
“Because I think he could’ve been one of the Aardvark drivers I saw using that lot. So I can’t be sure I didn’t see him before.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I have no further questions.”
Twenty-six
Monday, April 5, 10:20 A.M.
For the first time since he had been brought into the case Bosch felt as though Melissa Landy was in good hands. He had just watched Mickey Haller score the first points of the trial. He had taken a small piece of the puzzle Bosch had come up with and used it to land the first punch. It wasn’t a knockout by any means but it had connected solidly. It was the first step down the path of proving Jason Jessup’s familiarity with the parking lot and trash bin behind the El Rey Theatre. Before the trial would end, its importance would be made clear to the jury. But what was even more significant to Bosch at the moment was the way Haller had used the information Harry had provided. He had hung it on the defense, made it look as though it had been their attempt to obfuscate the facts of the case that drew the information out. It was a smooth move and it gave Bosch a big boost in his confidence in Haller as a prosecutor.
He met Johnson at the gate and walked him out of the courtroom to the hallway, where he shook his hand.
“You did real good in there, Mr. Johnson. We can’t thank you enough.”
“You already have. Convicting that man of killing that little girl.”
“Well, we’re not quite there yet but that’s the plan. Except most people who read the paper think we’re going after an innocent man.”
“No, you got the right man. I can tell.”
Bosch nodded and felt awkward.
“You take care, Mr. Johnson.”
“Detective, your music is jazz, right?”
Bosch had already turned to go back to the courtroom. Now he looked back at Johnson.
“How’d you know that?”
“Just a guess. We got jazz acts that come through. New Orleans jazz. You ever want tickets to a show at the El Rey, you look me up.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”
Bosch pushed through the doors leading back into the courtroom. He was smiling, thinking about Johnson’s guess about his music. If he was right about that, then maybe he would be right about the jury convicting Jessup. As he moved down the aisle, he heard the judge telling Haller to call his next witness.
“The state calls Regina Landy.”
Bosch knew he was on. This part had been choreographed a week earlier by the judge and over the objection of the defense. Regina Landy was unavailable to testify because she was dead, but she had testified in the first trial and the judge had ruled that her testimony could be read to the current jurors.
Breitman now turned to the jurors to offer the explanation, guarding against revealing any hint that there had been an earlier trial.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the state has called a witness who is no longer available to testify. However, previously she gave sworn testimony that we will read to you today. You are not to consider why this witness is unable to testify or where this previous sworn testimony is from. Your concern is the testimony itself. I should add that I have decided to allow this over the objection of the defense. The U.S. Constitution holds that the accused is entitled to question his accusers. However, as you will see, this witness was indeed questioned by an attorney who previously represented Mr. Jessup.”
She turned back to the court.
“You may proceed, Mr. Haller.”
Haller called Bosch to the stand. He was sworn in and then took the seat, pulling the microphone into position. He opened the blue binder he had carried with him and Haller began.
“Detective Bosch, can you tell us a little bit about your experience as a law enforcement officer?”
Bosch turned toward the jury box and moved his eyes over the faces of the jurors as he answered. He did not leave the alternates out.
“I have been a sworn officer for thirty-six years. I have spent more than twenty-five of those years working homicides. I have been the lead investigator in more than two hundred murder investigations in that time.”
“And you are the lead investigator on this case?”
“Yes, I am now. I did not take part in the original investigation, however. I came into this case in February of this year.”
“Thank you, Detective. We will be talking about your investigation later in the trial. Are you prepared to read the sworn testimony of Regina Landy taken on October seventh, nineteen eighty-six?”
“I am.”
“Okay, I will read the questions that were posed at the time by Deputy District Attorney Gary Lintz and defense counsel Charles Barnard and you will read the responses from the witness. We start with direct examination from Mr. Lintz.”
Haller paused and studied the transcript in front of him. Bosch wondered if there would be any confusion from his reading the responses of a woman. In deciding to allow the testimony the week before, the judge had disallowed any reference to emotions described as having been exhibited by Regina Landy. Bosch knew from the transcript that she was crying throughout her testimony. But he would not be able to communicate that to the present jurors.
“Here we go,” Haller said. “ ‘Mrs. Landy, can you please describe your relationship with the victim, Me
lissa Landy.’ ”
“ ‘I am her mother,’ ” Bosch read. “ ‘She was my daughter… until she was taken away from me.’ ”
Twenty-seven
Monday, April 5, 1:45 P.M.
The reading of Regina Landy’s testimony from the first trial took us right up to lunch. The testimony was needed to establish who the victim was and who had identified her. But without the incumbent emotion of a parent’s testimony, the reading by Bosch was largely procedural, and while the first witness of the day brought reason to be hopeful, the second witness was about as anticlimactic as a voice from the grave could possibly be. I imagined that Bosch’s reading of Regina Landy’s words was confusing to the jurors when they were not provided with any explanation for her absence from the trial of her daughter’s alleged killer.
The prosecution team had lunch at Duffy’s, which was close enough to the CCB to be convenient but far enough away that we wouldn’t have to worry about jurors finding the same place to eat. Nobody was ecstatic about the start of the trial but that was to be expected. I had planned the presentation of evidence like the unfolding of Scheherazade, the symphonic suite that starts slow and quiet and builds to an all-encompassing crescendo of sound and music and emotion.
The first day was about the proof of facts. I had to bring forward the body. I had to establish that there was a victim, that she had been taken from her home and later found dead and that she had been murdered. I had hit two of those facts with the first witnesses, and now the afternoon witness, the medical examiner, would complete the proof. The prosecution’s case would then shift toward the accused and the evidence that tied him to the crime. That would be when my case would really come to life.
Only Bosch and I came back from lunch. Maggie had gone over to the Checkers Hotel to spend the afternoon with our star witness, Sarah Ann Gleason. Bosch had gone up to Washington on Saturday and flown down with her Sunday morning. She wasn’t scheduled to testify until Wednesday morning but I had wanted her close and I had wanted Maggie to spend as much time as possible prepping her for her part in the trial. Maggie had already been up to Washington twice to spend time with her but I believed that any time they could spend together would continue to promote the bond I wanted them to have and the jury to see.
Maggie left us reluctantly. She was concerned that I would make a misstep in court without her there watching over me as my second. I assured her that I could handle the direct examination of a medical examiner and would call her if I ran into trouble. Little did I know how important this witness’s testimony would come to be.
The afternoon session got off to a late start while we waited ten minutes for a juror who did not return from lunch on time. Once the panel was assembled and returned to court, Judge Breitman lectured the jurors again on timeliness and ordered them to eat as a group for the remainder of the trial. She also ordered the courtroom deputy to escort them to lunch. This way no one would stray from the pack and no one would be late.
Finished with the lunch business, the judge gruffly ordered me to call my next witness. I nodded to Bosch and he headed to the witness room to retrieve David Eisenbach.
The judge grew impatient as we waited but it took Eisenbach a few minutes longer than most witnesses to make his way into the courtroom and to the witness stand. Eisenbach was seventy-nine years old and walked with a cane. He also carried a pillow with a handle on it, as if he were going to a USC football game at the Coliseum. After being sworn in he placed the pillow on the hard wood of the witness chair and then sat down.
“Dr. Eisenbach,” I began, “can you tell the jury what you do for a living?”
“Currently I am semiretired and derive an income from being an autopsy consultant. A gun for hire, you lawyers like to call it. I review autopsies for a living and then tell lawyers and juries what the medical examiner did right and did wrong.”
“And before you were semiretired, what did you do?”
“I was assistant medical examiner for the county of Los Angeles. Had that job for thirty years.”
“As such you conducted autopsies?”
“Yes, sir, I did. In thirty years I conducted over twenty thousand autopsies. That’s a lot of dead people.”
“That is a lot, Dr. Eisenbach. Do you remember them all?”
“Of course not. I remember a handful off the top of my head. The rest of them I would need my notes to remember.”
After receiving permission from the judge I approached the witness stand and put down a forty-page document.
“I draw your attention to the document I have placed before you. Can you identify it?”
“Yes, it’s an autopsy protocol dated February eighteenth, nineteen eighty-six. The deceased is listed as Melissa Theresa Landy. My name is also on it. It is one of mine.”
“Meaning you conducted the autopsy?”
“Yes, that is what I said.”
I followed this with a series of questions that established the autopsy procedures and the general health of the victim prior to death. Royce objected several times to what he termed leading questions. Few of these were sustained by the judge but that was not the point. Royce had adopted the tactic of attempting to get me out of rhythm by incessantly interrupting, whether such interruptions were valid or not.
Working around these interruptions, Eisenbach was able to testify that Melissa Landy was in perfect health until the moment of her violent death. He said she had not been sexually attacked in any determinable way. He said there was no indication of prior sexual activity—she was a virgin. He said the cause of her death was asphyxiation. He said the evidence of crushed bones in her neck and throat indicated she had been choked by a powerful force—a man’s single hand.
Using a laser pointer to mark locations on photographs of the body taken at autopsy, Eisenbach identified a bruise pattern on the victim’s neck that was indicative of a one-handed choke hold. With the laser point he delineated a thumb mark on the right side of the girl’s neck and the larger, four-finger mark on the left side.
“Doctor, did you make a determination of which hand the killer used to choke the victim to death?”
“Yes, it was quite simple to determine the killer had used the right hand to choke this girl to death.”
“Just one hand?”
“That is correct.”
“Was there any determination of how this was done? Had the girl been suspended while she was choked?”
“No, the injuries, particularly the crushed bones, indicated that the killer put his hand on her neck and pressed her against a surface that offered resistance.”
“Could that have been the seat of a vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“How about a man’s leg?”
Royce objected, saying the question called for pure speculation. The judge agreed and told me to move on.
“Doctor, you mentioned twenty thousand autopsies. I assume that many of these were homicides involving asphyxiation. Was it unusual to come across a case where only one hand was used to choke a victim to death?”
Royce objected again, this time saying the question asked for an answer outside the witness’s expertise. But the judge went my way.
“The man has conducted twenty thousand autopsies,” she said. “I’m inclined to think that gives him a lot of expertise. I’m going to allow the question.”
“You can answer, Doctor,” I said. “Was this unusual?”
“Not necessarily. Many homicides occur during struggles and other circumstances. I’ve seen it before. If one hand is otherwise occupied, the other must suffice. We are talking about a twelve-year-old girl who weighed ninety-one pounds. She could have been subdued with one hand if the killer needed the left hand for something else.”
“Would driving a vehicle fall into that category?”
“Objection,” Royce said. “Same argument.”
“And same ruling,” Breitman said. “You may answer, Doctor.”
“Yes,” Eisenbach said. “If one hand was
being used to maintain control of a vehicle the other hand could be used to choke the victim. That is one possibility.”
At this point I believed I had gotten all that there was to get from Eisenbach. I ended direct examination and handed the witness over to Royce. Unfortunately for me, Eisenbach was a witness who had something for everybody. And Royce went after it.
“ ‘One possibility,’ is that what you called it, Dr. Eisenbach?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said the scenario Mr. Haller described—one hand on the wheel, one hand on the neck—was one possibility. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is a possibility.”
“But you weren’t there, so you can’t know for sure. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
“Yes, that is right.”
“You said one possibility. What are some of the other possibilities?”
“Well… I wouldn’t know. I was responding to the question from the prosecutor.”
“How about a cigarette?”
“What?”
“Could the killer have been holding a cigarette in his left hand while he choked the girl with his right?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Yes.”
“And how about his penis?”
“His…”
“His penis, Doctor. Could the killer have choked this girl with his right hand while holding his penis with his left?”
“I would have to… yes, that is a possibility, too.”
“He could have been masturbating with one hand while he choked her with the other, correct, Doctor?”
“Anything is possible but there is no indication in the autopsy report that supports this.”
“What about what is not in the file, Doctor?”
“I’m not aware of anything.”
“Is this what you meant about being a hired gun, Doctor? You take the prosecution’s side no matter what the facts are?”
“I don’t always work for prosecutors.”
“I’m happy for you.”
I stood up.
“Your Honor, he’s badgering the witness with—”
“Mr. Royce,” the judge said. “Please keep it civil. And on point.”
The Lincoln Lawyer Collection Page 98
