The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) (13 page)

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.”

“What does the oximeter do?”

“It measures the oxygen content in the blood. You get a good idea about how the heart is working in terms of circulating oxygenated blood.”

“Is that why it is clipped to the finger? You want the measurement from an extremity?”

“Exactly.”

“Now I noticed today that you brought your EMT kit with you, is that correct?”

“Yes, because the subpoena told me to.”

“This oximeter you just mentioned, is it in your kit?”

“Should be.”

“Can you open your kit and show the oximeter to the jury?”

Morales reached down to the floor next to the witness stand and unsnapped the latches on his kit. He flipped the top open and grabbed a small device out of a tray. He held it up to Haller, then turned and displayed it to the jury.

“How does that work, Mr. Morales?” Haller asked.

“Simple,” Morales said. “Turn it on, clip it to the finger, and it shoots infrared light through the finger. From that it can measure the oxygen saturation of the blood.”

“And you just clip it to any finger?”

“The index finger.”

“Either hand?”

“Either hand.”

“How long did you treat Jeffrey Herstadt that day?”

“Can I look at the report?”

“You may.”

Morales looked over the report and then answered. “From beginning to end, when he walked away, it was eleven minutes.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Well, first we realized he walked away with our oximeter still on his finger. I chased him down and grabbed that. Then we packed up, bought a couple lattes, and left.”

“You returned to the station?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that station?”

“On Fremont and First.”

“Quite close to here, correct?”

“Yes.”

“In fact you walked here from the station, with your kit, to testify today, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did you walk through Grand Park?”

“Yes.”

“Had you ever been in Grand Park before?”

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“Many times. It’s part of Station Three’s coverage area.”

“Going back to the day you treated Jeffrey Herstadt at Starbucks, did Rescue Three receive another emergency call soon after your return to the station that morning?”

“Yes.”

“What was the call?”

“It was a stabbing. It was this case. The judge that got stabbed.”

Bosch glanced away from Morales to Saldano. She had leaned toward the junior prosecutor, who was sitting next to her, and whispered in his ear. He then got up and went to a cardboard file box that was on a chair by the courtroom rail. He started going through documents.

“Do you remember how soon you got the call after returning from treating Mr. Herstadt and checking his vitals?” Haller asked.

“Not offhand,” Morales said.

Haller went through the same procedure of asking the judge’s permission to give Morales an incident report, this one from the Montgomery stabbing.

“Does that shed light on things, Mr. Morales?” Haller asked.

“If you say so,” Morales countered.

“If you compare it to the first incident report, does it not say that the calls were one hour and nine minutes apart?”

“Looks like it.”

“So let’s keep going with this. You said you were with Herstadt for eleven minutes, then got a latte. How long did that take?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember if there was a line?”

“It was a Starbucks. There was a line.”

“Okay, so at least a few minutes there. Did you and your partner sit down with your lattes or take them to go?”

“Took them to go.”

“And you returned directly to the station?”

“Yes, direct.”

“Is there some sort of protocol or procedure you follow after returning from a rescue call?”

“We replenish supplies, write the reports.”

“Finish your latte first?”

“I don’t remember.”

“But then you get this call, a stabbing in Grand Park, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you roll on it.”

“Yes.”

“How long did it take you and your partner to get there?”

Morales looked at the incident report.

“Four minutes,” he said.

“Was the victim, Judge Montgomery, alive when you got there?” Haller asked.

“He was circling the drain.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was dying. He’d lost too much blood and was unresponsive. No pulse. There was nothing we could really do for him.”

“You just said ‘no pulse.’ So you checked his vitals despite the fact that, as you say, ‘he was circling the drain’?”

There it was, Bosch knew. The trial came down to this question.

“We did. It’s protocol. No matter what, you do that.”

“With the oximeter?”

Morales didn’t answer. It looked to Bosch like he had finally tumbled to the importance of his testimony and realized that everything could shift on his answer.

“With the oximeter?” Haller asked again.

“Yes,” Morales finally said. “Part of the protocol.”

“Was that the same oximeter used less than an hour earlier to check the vitals of Jeffrey Herstadt?”

“It would have been.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“A moment, Your Honor.”

Haller let that last answer hang out there in front of the jury. Bosch knew that he was trying to make a decision about the next question. He fired off a quick text:

Ask the?

He saw Haller check his watch and read it.

“Mr. Haller?” Falcone prompted.

“Your Honor,” Haller said. “May I have another moment to confer with my investigator?”

“Make it fast,” Falcone said.

Bosch got up, slid his phone into his pocket, and walked up the aisle to the rail. Haller came over and they whispered.

“This is it,” Haller said. “I think I leave it here.”

“I thought you were rolling the dice,” Bosch said.

“I am. I did. But I go too far and I blow the whole thing.”

“If you don’t ask, the prosecutor will.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. Cuts both ways for her too. She might not ask him a thing.”

“It’s a search for truth. The judge said so; you said so. Ask the question. Or I’m not your investigator.”

Bosch turned to go back to where he had been sitting. For the first time he noticed Renée Ballard was in the courtroom, on the other side of the gallery. He had not seen her come in and had no idea how long she had been there.

Once seated, he turned his attention back to the front of the room. Haller was staring at Morales, still deciding whether to quit while he was ahead or ask the question that could win or lose the day—and the trial.

“Mr. Haller, do you have another question?” the judge prompted.

“Yes, Your Honor, I do,” Haller said.

“Then ask it.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Morales, between the two rescue calls you went out on, where was the oximeter?”

“In my kit.”

Bosch saw Haller ball his hand into a fist and bounce it lightly on the lectern like he was spiking a ball after a touchdown.

“You didn’t take it out?”

“No.”

“You didn’t clean or disinfect it?”

“No.”

“You didn’t sterilize it?”