BALLARD AND BOSCH 6 страница

“All right if we take her down now?” one of the coroner’s investigators said.

Ballard nodded.

“Are you calling it?” she asked.

“Yes,” the same man said. “We don’t see any indication of a setup. Do you confirm?”

“Did you find a note?”

“No note. But her cell phone’s on the dresser. Looks like she made a call to her dad about nine last night. That was it.”

“I want a full tox screen, fingernail scrapings, and a rape kit, just to cover the bases.”

“I’ll put it in. You confirming suicide?”

Ballard paused. Her hesitation was that the mother didn’t cut her down. She found her daughter hanging and didn’t hold her up and cut her down just in case.

“I confirm. For now. Send me those reports, okay? Detective Ballard, Hollywood third watch. And nobody talks to the mother and father about that.”

“You got it.”

Ballard and Dautre stepped back as one of the coroner’s men opened a stepladder while the other unfolded a body wrap on the floor. Then one man climbed up to cut the upper tie at the beam so as to have the entire ligature in one piece. The other man stood behind the body, spread his feet to brace himself, and then wrapped his arms around the dead girl. The ligature was cut and the man on the floor held the body until his partner came off the ladder and helped lower it onto the body wrap. They did the burrito wrap and then moved the body into a yellow bag that was zipped up around the package. Because of the unwieldiness of the house’s stairs they had not brought in a stretcher. The two men lifted the yellow bag at either end and took it out of the room.

Ballard stepped over to the dresser and searched for a note. She gloved up and started opening drawers and a jewelry box. No note.

“You need me here, Renée?” Dautre asked.

“You can go downstairs,” Ballard said. “But don’t clear the scene just yet. Tell Willard and Hoskins they’re clear.”

“Roger that.”

That left Ballard and Potter in the room.

“You want the full workup?” Potter asked.

“I think so,” Ballard said. “Just in case.”

“You see something?”

“No, not yet.”

Ballard spent another twenty minutes in the room looking for a note or anything else that would explain why the eleven-year-old girl would take her life. She checked the girl’s phone, which was not password protected—probably a parental rule—and found nothing of note in it other than the record of a twelve-minute call to a contact labeled DAD.

She finally went downstairs and entered the living room. Robards stood up immediately, obviously eager to pass this nightmare call on to Ballard.

“This is Mrs. Winter,” she said.

Robards stepped around a coffee table to get out of the way so Ballard could move in and sit on the couch in her stead.

“Mrs. Winter, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Ballard began. “Can you tell us where your husband is right now? Have you tried to reach him?”

“He’s in Chicago on business. I haven’t tried to talk to him. I don’t even know what to say or how to tell him this.”

“Do you have any family in the area, someplace you can stay tonight?”

“No, I don’t want to leave. I want to be close.”

“I think it’s better for you to leave. I can call out a counselor to help you too. Our department has a crisis—”

“No, I don’t want any of that. I just want to be left alone. I’m staying here.”

Ballard had seen the child’s name on the jewelry box and schoolbooks she had looked through upstairs.

“Tell me about Cecilia. Was she having trouble at school or in the neighborhood?”

“No, she was fine. She was good. She would have told me if there was a problem.”

“Do you have any other children, Mrs. Winter?”

“No, only her.”

This brought a fresh burst of tears and a wrenching moan. Ballard let her slide into it while addressing Robards.

“You have any pamphlets on counseling we could give her? Numbers to call to talk to somebody?”

“Yes, in the car. I’ll be right back.”

Ballard turned her attention back to Mrs. Winter. She noticed that she was barefoot but the bottom edges of the one exposed foot were dirty.

“Are you sure your daughter didn’t leave a note or send a text about what she was planning to do?”

“Of course not! I would have stopped it. What kind of horrible mother do you think I am? This is the nightmare of my life.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to imply that. I’ll be right back.”

Ballard got up and signaled Dautre to follow her. They went through the front door and stopped on the porch, just as Robards was coming up the steps with a pamphlet. Ballard spoke in a low voice.

“Look around the neighborhood and check the trash cans for a note. Start with this house and do it quietly.”

“You got it,” Dautre said.

The two cops headed down the porch steps together and Ballard went back inside and returned to the couch. Mrs. Winter spoke before she could sit down.

“I don’t think she killed herself.”

The statement didn’t surprise Ballard. Denial was part of the mourning process.

“Why is that?”

“She wouldn’t have killed herself. I think it was an accident. She made a mistake. She was playing around and things went wrong.”

“How was she playing around?”

“You know, the way kids do in their rooms. When they are alone. She probably was waiting for me to come home and catch her in the act. You know, to get attention. I would catch her and rescue her just in time and then it would be all about her.”

“She was an only child and she didn’t think she got enough attention?”

“No child thinks she gets enough attention. I didn’t.”

Ballard knew that people beset by trauma and loss processed grief in myriad ways. She always tried to reserve judgment on what people said in the throes of a life catastrophe.

“Mrs. Winter, here is a pamphlet that outlines all the services available to you at this difficult time.”

“I told you. I don’t want that. I just want to be left alone.”

“I’ll leave it on the table in case you change your mind. They can be very helpful.”

“Please leave now. I want to be alone.”

“I’m concerned about leaving you by yourself.”

“Don’t be. Let me grieve for my daughter.”

Ballard didn’t respond or move. Soon the woman looked up from her hands and fixed her with red and watery eyes.

“Leave! What do I have to do to make you leave?”

Ballard nodded.

“Okay. I’ll leave. But I think it would be good to know why Cecilia did what she did.”

“You can’t ever know why a child decides to do something.”

Ballard walked through the living room to the entranceway. She looked back at the woman in the chair. Her face was again cradled in her hands.

Ballard left the house and joined Robards and Dautre at their car.

“Nothing,” Dautre said.

“We checked her cans and the neighbors on all sides,” Robards said. “You want us to do more?”

Ballard looked back at the house. She saw the light behind the living room curtains go out. She knew that some mysteries never get solved.

“No,” she said. “You’re clear.”

The officers moved quickly to their patrol car as though they couldn’t wait to get away from the scene. Ballard didn’t blame them. She got in her own car and sat there for a long moment watching the now-dark house. Finally, she pulled her phone and called the number Cecilia had labeled DAD in her contact list. Ballard had written it down. A man answered the call right away but still seemed startled from sleep.

“Mr. Winter?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Detective Ballard, Los Angeles Police De—”

“Oh god, oh god, what happened?”

“I’m sorry to tell you, sir, but your daughter, Cecilia, is dead.” There was a long silence, broken only by sounds of the man on the other end of the line beginning to cry.

“Sir, can you tell me where you are? Is there someone you can be with?”

“I told her. I told her this time it felt real.”

“Told Cecilia? What did you tell her?”

“No, my wife. My daughter—our daughter is … was … troubled. She killed herself, didn’t she? Oh my god I just can’t…”

“Yes, I’m afraid she did. You spoke to her earlier tonight?”

“She called me. She said she was going to do it. She’s said it before but this time it felt … is my wife there?”

“She’s at the house. She asked us to leave. Is there a family member or friend I can call to be with her? That’s really why I’m calling. We had to respect her wishes for us to leave but I don’t think she should be alone.”

“I’ll get somebody. I’ll call her sister.”

“Okay, sir.”

There was more whimpering and Ballard let it go for a while before interrupting.

“Where are you, Mr. Winter?”

“Naperville. The company I work for is based here.”

“Where is that, sir?”

“Outside Chicago.”

“I think you need to come home and be with your wife.”

“I am. I’ll book the first flight out.”

“Can you tell me what your daughter said on the phone call?”

“She said she was tired of having no friends and being overweight. We tried different things with her. To help her. But nothing worked. It felt different this time. She seemed so sad. I told Ivy to watch her because I had never heard her so sad before.”

His last few words came out in bursts as he started to cry loudly. “Mr. Winter, you need to be with your wife. I know that won’t happen until tomorrow, but you should call her. Call Ivy. I’ll hang up now and you can call.”

“Okay … I’ll call.”

“This is your cell, right?”

“Uh, yes.”

“So you should have my number on your call log. Call me if there are any questions or there is something I can do.”

“Where is she? Where is my baby?”

“They took her to the coroner’s office. And they will be in touch with you. Good night now, Mr. Winter. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Ballard disconnected and sat unmoving in her car for a long moment. She was torn between accepting that an eleven-year-old girl would take her own life and being suspicious because the mother left her hanging and the father never asked how she had killed herself.

She pulled her phone and hit redial. Winter answered immediately.

“Mr. Winter, I’m sorry to call back,” she said. “Were you talking to your wife?”

“No,” Winter said. “I couldn’t bring myself to call her yet.”

“Is this an iPhone you are on, sir?”

“Uh, yes. Why would you ask that?”

“Because for the report I’m going to have to write, I need to confirm your location. This means I need to contact the Naperville police and have an officer come to your hotel, or you could just text me your contact info and share your location with me. It would save time and you wouldn’t be intruded on by the police up there.”

There was silence for a long beat.

“You really have to do that?” Winter finally asked. “Yes, sir, we do,” Ballard said. “Part of the protocol. All deaths are investigated. If you don’t want to share your location on the phone, just tell me where you are and I’ll have a local officer run by as soon as possible.”

Another silence went by and when Winter spoke, his voice had a coldness to it that was unmistakable.

“I’ll text my contact info and share my location with you,” he said. “Are we done now?”

“Yes, sir,” Ballard said. “Thank you once again for your cooperation and I’m sorry for your loss.”

On the way back to the station Ballard detoured down Cahuenga and then over to Cole. She drove slowly by the line of tents, lean-to tarp constructions, and occupied sleeping bags that ran the fence line of the public park. She saw that the spot previously used by the man who had been immolated the night before was already taken by someone with an orange-and-blue tent. She stopped in the street—there was no traffic to worry about impeding—and looked at the blue tarp where she knew the girl named Mandy slept. All seemed quiet. A slight gust of wind flapped the dirty tarp for a moment but soon the scene returned to a still life.

Ballard thought about Mandy and the prospects of her life. She then thought about Cecilia and wondered how she had lost any sort of prospect for happiness. Then Ballard thought about her own desperate beginnings. How did one child retain hope in the darkness and another come to believe it was gone forever?

Her phone buzzed and she answered. It was Lieutenant Washington and she immediately looked at the radio charger to see if she had left her rover behind somewhere. But it was there in its holder. Washington had chosen to call her rather than use the radio.

“L-T?”

“Ballard, where are you?”

“Headed to the house. About three blocks out. What’s up?”

“Dautre and Roberts were just in here. They told me about the girl.”

He had managed to mispronounce Dautre, making it sound more like doubter than daughter, and had missed Robards’s name altogether.

“What about her?” she said.

“I heard it was bad,” Washington said. “You confirm it was suicide?”

“I signed off on it. The parents were kind of hinky. The father is out of town. But I confirmed that. He’s where he said he was. I’ll turn it all over to West Bureau homicide for follow-up.”

“All right, well, I want to get you back here and get BSU out to talk to you three.”

Behavioral Science Unit. It meant psychological counseling. It was the last thing Ballard would want from the department. Half the department already thought she had fabricated sexual harassment allegations against a supervisor. That “unsubstantiated” investigation had resulted in her being forced into BSU sessions for a year. Adding another shrink sheet to her file would bring the other half in line with the popular belief. And that was before you even got to the double standard involving female cops. A male officer asking for counseling was courageous and strong; a female doing the same was just plain weak.

“Fuck that,” Ballard said. “I don’t want it.”

“Ballard, it was a bad scene,” Washington insisted. “I just got the details and it’s a fucking horror show. You gotta talk to somebody.”

“L-T, I don’t want to talk to anybody, I don’t need to talk to anybody. I’ve seen worse, okay? And I have work to do.”

The tone of her voice gave Washington pause. There was silence for several seconds. Ballard watched a man crawl out of a single tent, walk to the curb, and openly start to urinate in the gutter. He hadn’t noticed her or heard her idling car.

“All right, Ballard, but I made the offer,” Washington said.

“Yes, you did, L-T,” Ballard responded in a gentler tone. “And I appreciate it. I’m going to go back to the bureau and write this up, then I’ll be done for the day. I’ll hit the beach and all will be beautiful again. Salt water cures everything.”

“That’s a roger, Ballard.”

“Thank you.”

But Ballard knew she wouldn’t be going west to the beach at the end of her shift. It was Walk-In Wednesday at the ballistics unit and she planned to be first in line.

BOSCH

It was 9:05 a.m. in Department 106 and there was no sign of EMT Albert Morales. Bosch stood in the back of the courtroom so that he could step out and search the hallway, as he had been doing every five minutes. Haller was at the defense table, busying himself with paperwork and files to make it appear he was prepping for the day of court.

“Mr. Haller,” the clerk said. “The judge is ready.”

The clerk’s voice conveyed the impatience the judge had most likely imparted to her on the phone from his chambers.

“Yes, I know,” Haller said. “I’m just looking for a witness sheet and then I’ll be good to go.”

“Can we bring in your client?” the clerk asked.

Haller turned and glanced back at Bosch, giving him a you-fucked-me stare.

“Uh, not quite yet,” he said. “Let me confer with my investigator a moment.”

Haller got up from the table and charged through the gate, striding toward Bosch.

“I’m not your investigator,” Bosch whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Haller said. “That was for her, not you. Where the fuck is our witness?”

“I don’t know. The subpoena said nine and I told him nine and he’s not here. I have no way to contact him other than calling the firehouse and I know he’s not there because he’s off today.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“See if the judge will give you an hour. I’ll go out looking for—”

“The only thing the judge is going to give me is a citation of contempt. He’s probably in chambers writing it up right now. I can keep my finger in the dike maybe five more minutes. After that, I’ll have to bring in my DNA witness and do this in reverse—”

He stopped when the door opened. Bosch recognized Morales in street clothes, looking as put out as Haller. His forehead was peppered with sweat. He was carrying his med kit, which looked like a large fishing tackle box.

“That’s him.”

“Well, it’s about fucking time.”

Bosch left Haller and went to Morales.

“The subpoena said nine,” he said.

“I couldn’t find parking,” Morales said. “So I parked at the fire station and walked over, carrying this thing. It’s thirty pounds. Then the fucking elevators take forever.”

“All right, go back out in the hallway and take a seat on a bench. Don’t talk to anyone. Just cool down and don’t move till I come out and get you.”

“I’m sweating, man. I have to hit the head and towel off or something.”

“It’s down the hall past the elevators. Do what you have to do but do it quick and get back here. You want me to watch your kit?”

“Don’t do me any favors, man. I don’t want to be here.”

Morales left the courtroom and Bosch walked back to Haller. “He’ll be good to go in five minutes. He walked over from the station and is sweating, wants to clean up a little.”

“He’s got the gizmo in his box?”

“He should. I didn’t ask.”

“He’d fucking better.”

Haller turned and headed back through the gate. He waved to the clerk.

“You can bring my client out and you can get the judge,” he announced. “The defense is ready to proceed.”

Bosch noticed Saldano, the prosecutor, eyeing Haller suspiciously. She had no idea what was going on.

Ten minutes later court was in session, with Herstadt seated next to Haller. Judge Falcone was on the bench but the jury box was empty. Bosch was watching from the back row of the gallery, near the courtroom door.

The judge was angry. He had told the jurors to come in early and they had done so. But now they sat in the assembly room while the lawyers argued over the inclusion of the unexpected witness. Morales was not on the witness list provided by the defense to the court and the prosecution at the start of the trial. Saldano had now blindly objected to him testifying, on principle, without even knowing who he was or what he would say.

It all made for a bad start to the day.

“Mr. Haller, in granting you the subpoena late yesterday I was not guaranteeing you that this witness would testify,” the judge said. “I was anticipating the objection from the state and that you would supply solid grounds for his inclusion at this late moment in the trial.”

“Your Honor,” Haller said, “the court has granted the defense wide latitude and it is certainly appreciated. But as you told the jurors at the start of these proceedings, this trial is a search for truth. My investigator located a witness yesterday evening who could change the course of this search for truth. It is unfair not only to my client, but to the people of California to not let him be heard by the jury.”

Falcone glanced out at the gallery and his eyes found Bosch. For a split second Bosch thought he saw disappointment, and once again he wished Haller would stop calling him his investigator.

“But you see, Mr. Haller, you have created a circumstance with your investigator and this witness that is patently unfair to the prosecution,” the judge said. “Ms. Saldano has had no time to prepare for this testimony, to have her investigator vet and background this witness, or to question him on her own.”

“Well, welcome to my world, Your Honor,” Haller replied. “I have never met or spoken to this witness myself. As I said before, his importance was discovered late yesterday—I believe you signed the subpoena at five-fifteen. He is now here to testify. We will all learn what he has to say as he says it.”

“And what exactly will you be asking him?”

“I will ask him about the events he was involved in on the day of the murder. He is the emergency medical technician who treated my client when he went into seizure in the coffee shop a little more than an hour before the murder of Judge Montgomery.”

The judge turned his attention to the prosecutor.

“Ms. Saldano, do you want to respond?”

Saldano stood up. She was in her late thirties and a rising star in the D.A.’s Office, assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. Where she went, the media followed. Bosch had already noticed the reporters lining the front row of the gallery.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. “The state could simply object on the basis the court has already outlined: lack of notice, lack of inclusion of this witness on the defense’s witness list, lack of discovery in regard to his testimony. But since Mr. Haller has decided to throw the old search-for-the-truth trope into his plea for special dispensation, the state would argue that this witness has nothing to add to the testimony in this case that will in any way get us closer to the truth. We have already had testimony from Mr. Haller’s own expert witness on the seizure his client allegedly had in the coffee shop. The state did not object to that testimony. This new witness can only provide the same information.”

She paused for a breath before wrapping her argument up.

“So, clearly, Your Honor, this is some kind of a stall,” she said. “A waste of the court’s time. More smoke and mirrors from a courtroom magician who has nothing left in his bag of tricks.”

Bosch smiled and saw that Haller, who was leaning back in his chair and turned toward the prosecution’s table, had to hold back a smile himself.

As Saldano sat down, Haller stood up.

“Your Honor, may I?” he asked.

“Please make it brief, Mr. Haller,” Falcone said. “The jury has been waiting since nine.”

“‘Smoke and mirrors,’ Your Honor? A ‘bag of tricks’? A man’s life is at stake here and I object to the characterizations by the deputy district attorney. It goes to—”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Haller. I have heard you called worse in this courtroom alone. And let’s not kid ourselves: we both know Ms. Saldano has just given you the next slogan for the ads you place on buses and bus benches all over this city. I can just see them now: ‘“A courtroom magician,” says the District Attorney’s Office.’”

There was a murmur of laughter in the courtroom and Bosch saw Saldano lower her head as she realized what she had done.

“Thank you for the promotional advice, Judge,” Haller said. “I’ll get right on that after this trial is over. But what matters right here, right now, is that my client’s life and liberty are at stake, and there is a witness sitting on a bench in the hallway who wants to testify and who I believe will bring clarity to what happened—not only at the coffee shop but an hour later in Grand Park to your friend and colleague Judge Montgomery. The evidence the witness is expected to give is relevant and material to the central issue of whether the prosecution’s evidence is reliable. And finally, I would add that the existence of this witness and his testimony was or should have been known to the prosecution—my investigator got his name from the state’s own discovery materials. I ask the court’s indulgence in allowing me to bring this new witness into the courtroom to testify.”

Haller sat down and the judge looked at Saldano, who made no move to stand.

“Submitted,” she said.

Falcone nodded.

“Okay, let’s bring the jury in,” he said. “Mr. Haller, I am going to allow you to put your witness on the stand, but then I am going to allow Ms. Saldano whatever time she’ll need to prepare her cross-examination, if she indeed wishes to question the witness at all.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Haller said.

He turned and looked back at Bosch and nodded. Bosch got up to get Morales.

From the start, Albert Morales seemed like a man with a chip on his shoulder. He clearly did not want to be in court on his day off and showed this by acting uninterested and giving clipped answers to every question. This was a good thing, in Bosch’s eyes. He believed that the EMT’s obvious dislike of Haller would give more credence to anything the defense lawyer managed to extract from him that was beneficial to his client.

Bosch was again watching from the last row. This was not because he had to be near the exit, but because the last row gave him cover from the eyes of the courtroom deputy, who was posted at a desk in front of the door to the courthouse holding pens. The use of electronic devices was prohibited in all but the hallways of Superior Court. The deputies often cut law enforcement officers and prosecutors slack, but never the defense. And Bosch needed to be able to communicate with Haller as he conducted his examination of Morales without having previously questioned him. It was a high-wire act without a net and Haller wanted all the help he could get. He wore an electronic watch that received texts from his phone. As long as Bosch kept his messages short, Haller would be able to get them on the watch and check them as though he was checking the time.

After the preliminaries of name, occupation, and experience were out of the way, Haller got down to business, asking Morales if he had received a call regarding a man down at the Starbucks on First Street on the day of the Judge Montgomery murder.

“I did,” Morales said.

“And did you have a partner with you?” Haller asked.

“I did.”

“Who was that?”

“Gerard Cantor.”

“And you two treated the man who was on the floor of the Starbucks?”

“We did.”

“Do you recognize that man in the courtroom today?”

“Recognize? No.”

“But you know he is in the courtroom?”

“Yes.”

“And how is that?”

“It’s been all over the news. I know what this trial’s about.”

He said it in an exasperated tone that Haller ignored as he pressed on.

“So you know that the defendant in this case, Jeffrey Herstadt, is the man you treated on the floor of the Starbucks that day?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t recognize him?”

“I treat a lot of people. I can’t remember them all. Plus, he looks like he got cleaned up while in jail.”

“And because you can’t remember all the people you treat, you write reports detailing what you did on each call for help, correct?”

“Yes.”

Foundation laid, Haller asked the judge for permission to bring a copy of the Fire Department incident report that was filed by Morales after the incident with Herstadt. Once that was okayed, Haller put a copy down in front of Morales and returned to the lectern.

“What is that document, Mr. Morales?”

“The incident report I filled out.”

“After treating Jeffrey Herstadt at the Starbucks.”

“That’s right. It’s got his name on it.”

“Can you read the summary to the jury?”

“Yes. ‘Subject fell or seized on floor of business. All vitals good. Oxygen levels good. Refused treatment or transport for minor head laceration from fall. Subject walked away.’”

“Okay, what does that last part mean? ‘Subject walked away.’”

“It means exactly what it says: the subject refused any help from us and just got up and walked away. He went out the door and that was that. I don’t know why it’s so important.”

“Well, let’s try to make it clear to you. What does—”

Saldano stood up and objected.

“Your Honor, he’s badgering his own witness when the witness has legitimate concerns about what he is doing here. As do I.”

“Mr. Haller, you know better,” Falcone said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Haller said.

“And I join the witness and the prosecutor in questioning how we are advancing the search for truth with this witness,” the judge added.

Morales looked out into the gallery and found Bosch. He gave him a fuck-you look.

“Judge,” Haller said, “I think it will become clear to all concerned very quickly if I am allowed to proceed with my witness.”

“Then please do,” Falcone said.

Haller checked his watch as if noting the time and read Bosch’s first text:

Get to the gizmo.

“Mr. Morales, the summary on your incident report says ‘All vitals good. Oxygen levels good.’ What does that mean?”

“His pulse and blood pressure were measured and within acceptable levels. His blood was oxygenated. Nothing was wrong.”

“And how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“I measured his pulse and my partner took his blood pressure. One of us put an oximeter on his finger.”

“Is all of that routine?”

“Yes.”

⇐ Предыдущая 11 12 13 14 151617 18 19 20 Следующая ⇒