The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) (14 page)

“No.”

“Mr. Morales, do you know what DNA transfer is?”

Saldano jumped to her feet and objected. She argued that Morales was not a DNA expert and should not be allowed to give testimony regarding the transfer of DNA. Before the judge could respond, Haller did.

“I withdraw the question,” he said.

It was clear Haller knew the objection would come. He had just wanted to get the phrase
DNA transfer
into the record and the jury thinking about it. Haller’s next witness would close the deal on that.

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

“No, Your Honor,” Haller said. “I have nothing further.”

Haller returned to the defense table, glancing back at Bosch and giving a nod as he went. Bosch checked the row of reporters. They seemed frozen. There was a stillness to the courtroom that underlined what Haller had just done with his questioning of Morales.

“Ms. Saldano, do you wish to cross-examine the witness or take some prep time?” the judge asked.

Bosch expected the prosecutor to ask for a 402 hearing—to tell the judge without the jury present how much time she would need to prepare for her cross-examination of Morales. The judge had already said he would give her wide latitude.

But the prosecutor surprised Bosch and probably everybody in the courtroom by rising and going to the lectern.

“Briefly, Your Honor,” she said.

She put a legal pad on the lectern, checked a note on it, and then looked up at the witness.

“Mr. Morales, do you carry only one oximeter in your EMT kit?” she asked.

“No,” Morales said. “I carry a backup. You know, in case the battery dies on one of them.”

“No further questions,” the prosecutor said.

Now in the silence, it felt like the momentum had switched. With a single question, Saldano had been able to undo much of what Haller had accomplished.

“Mr. Haller, anything further?” the judge asked.

Haller hesitated and asked the judge for a moment. Bosch tried to think of a question he could text him. It seemed as though any question asked might offer another opening to the prosecutor. He typed quickly and didn’t bother to correct typos:

Tel him open the kit.

He watched Haller check his watch. The judge noticed as well.

“I’ll stop you before you ask, Mr. Haller,” he said. “We are not taking the morning break until we are finished with this witness.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Haller said before turning his attention back to the witness. “Mr. Morales, can you open your kit again for us and show us where you keep both oximeters?”

Morales did as requested. The oximeter he had displayed to the jury was in the top tray of his kit. He then lifted the tray up, moved his hands over the contents of the deeper box until he found the other oximeter, and held it up.

“Thank you, you can close that up now,” Haller said.

He waited while Morales closed up his kit. He glanced back at Bosch and gave a slight nod. The momentum was about to switch again.

“So, Mr. Morales, when you said you had a backup oximeter, you are talking about having an extra one stored in the bottom of your kit, to use if the device you currently have in the top tray of your kit happens to have a malfunction or the battery dies on you, is that correct?”

Morales clearly knew that he was providing pivotal information to the jury, and his loyalties were to the state. He hesitated and then tried to fashion an answer that would not give Haller what he wanted.

“You never know,” he said. “We can use either one, depending on the situation.”

“Then why is one on the top of your box and the other beneath the tray and in the bottom?” Haller responded.

“That just happens to be how I packed the kit.”

“Really. So let me ask you a hypothetical question, Mr. Morales: Rescue Three gets a call. A man has been hit by a car on First Street. You respond. He is on the street, bleeding, unconscious. He’s ‘circling the drain,’ if you will. You open your kit. Do you grab the oximeter on the top tray, or do you lift that tray out and dig the other oximeter out of the bottom?”

As if on cue, Saldano objected, saying that Haller was again badgering his own witness. Haller withdrew the question because he knew the jury didn’t need to hear the answer. Common sense dictated that Morales would grab the oximeter in the top tray, and that he had done the same when he treated the fatally wounded Judge Montgomery.

“I have no further questions,” Haller said.

Saldano demurred, not wanting to dwell on the oximeter any longer. The judge asked Haller if he had any more witnesses.

“Yes, Your Honor, one final witness,” Haller said. “The defense would like to call Dr. Christine Schmidt to the stand.”

“Very well,” Falcone said. “We will take the morning break now and come back to hear from your last witness. Jurors, now is the time to use the restroom, get a cup of coffee. But be back in the assembly room and ready to go in fifteen minutes. Thank you.”

The judge made no move to leave the bench as the jurors got up and filed through the door at the end of the jury box. This meant court was not adjourned and Falcone would have more to say to the lawyers once the jurors were gone.

He waited until the last one went through the assembly room door before speaking.

“Okay, the jury is no longer present and we’re still on the record,” he began. “I don’t want to tell the lawyers here what to do, but it does seem to me that it would be a prudent use of the break if Ms. Saldano and Mr. Haller joined me in chambers to discuss the viability of this case going forward. Any objection to that?”

“No, Your Honor,” Haller said immediately.

“No, Your Honor,” Saldano echoed hesitantly.

After the lawyers filed back into the judge’s chambers, Bosch went out into the hallway. Christine Schmidt was sitting on a bench there, waiting to be called to testify. Witnesses were not allowed to hear other testimony in a trial, and therefore she was unaware of the testimony Morales had just given or the seismic change it had brought to the case. Bosch crossed the hallway to speak to her and simply explained that the lawyers were meeting with the judge and she could expect to testify afterward.

He then walked back across the wide hallway to another bench where Ballard was waiting. He sat down and she put her backpack between them.

“So, what just happened in there?” she asked.

“I think Haller just got a directed verdict of acquittal,” Bosch said. “At least that’s what I bet they’re talking about in chambers.”

“That testimony. He knocked down the DNA?”

“More like he set up a way to explain how the defendant’s DNA got under the judge’s fingernail. It was transferred.”

He nodded across the hall to the bench where Dr. Schmidt sat.

“That’s his DNA expert,” Bosch said. “She comes in next to talk about touch DNA, DNA transfer. Herstadt’s DNA was found under Judge Montgomery’s fingernail. One fingernail. The oximeter could have transferred it. It’s reasonable doubt right there. It will hang up the jury if not get the outright acquittal.”

“But wait,” Ballard said. “What about the guy’s confession? He admitted to the crime.”

“Haller blew that up yesterday. Herstadt’s schizophrenic. His doctor was on the stand saying he’s got the kind of psychosis that would lead him to agree to anything while under stress, say yes to anything, including murdering a judge in the park. I think Haller’s got this won. I think the judge thinks so too. That’s gotta be what they’re in chambers talking about.”

“And you gave him all of this?”

She said it in a tone that Bosch heard as distrustful, as if what he had done was part of a contrived scheme by the defense. It offended him.

“I gave him facts,” he said. “No tricks. I think what he laid out in there is what happened. Herstadt didn’t do it.”

“Sorry,” Ballard said quickly. “I didn’t mean to suggest … I liked Judge Montgomery. I told you that.”

“I liked him, too. I just want to make sure the right guy goes down for killing him, that’s all.”

“Of course. Of course. We all do.”

Bosch didn’t respond further. He still felt the heat of being unjustly accused of something. He turned and looked down the hallway at people going in and out of courtrooms, waiting on benches, wandering aimlessly in the halls of justice. He saw some of the jurors from the Montgomery case coming back from the restrooms.

“So why are you here?” he finally asked. “You get something at ballistics this morning?”

“Actually, no,” Ballard said.

Her tone had shifted. Bosch thought she was probably happy to change the subject after stepping into the shit with him on the trial.

“There was nothing in the data bank that matched the projectile or shell from Hilton,” she continued. “But at least it’s in there now should anything come up down the line.”

“Too bad,” Bosch said. “But we knew it was a long shot. What’s next? Rialto?”

“The more I find out about Elvin Kidd, the more I think the answer is out there.”

“What did you find now?”

Ballard pulled her backpack over and removed her laptop. She opened it and drew up side-by-side mug shots of a black man facing front and turned to the right.

“These are mug shots of Kidd from Corcoran, taken in 1989, the year he and John Hilton were both there. Now look at this.”

She pulled Hilton’s sketchbook out of the backpack. She opened it to a specific page and handed it to Bosch. He compared the drawing on the page to the man in the mug shots.

“It’s a match,” he said.

“They knew each other up there,” Ballard said. “I think they were lovers. And then when they both paroled out and came back to L.A., that was a problem for Kidd. He was a Crip OG. Any gay vibe and that could be fatal.”

“That’s a big jump. You nail down that he was gay?”

“Not at the moment, it’s just a guess. There’s something about the drawings in the sketchbook … then the whole drug addiction thing, the coldness of the parents in their statement. I’m still working that. Why—what do you know?”

“I don’t know anything about that. But I do remember that John Jack and I worked a few gay murders, and John Jack never got too motivated about them. It was his one flaw. He could never get the fire burning if it was a gay victim. I remember this one case—a one-nighter gone bad. An old guy picked up a young guy in West Hollywood, took him back to his place in the hills off Outpost. The kid robbed him, then beat him to death with his belt. It had a big rodeo buckle and it was a bad scene. And I remember John Jack said something that bothered me. He said, ‘Sometimes people deserve what they get.’ I’m not saying that’s wrong all the time—I’ve had cases where I believed that. But in that case it was wrong.”

“Everybody counts or nobody counts.”

“You got it.”

“So again we come to why did John Jack take the murder book?

Was it because he hated gays and didn’t want it solved?”

“That seems extreme. I don’t think we’re there yet.”

“Maybe not.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. More jurors were returning to the assembly room. Bosch knew he had to get back into the courtroom. More out of curiosity about what was happening than any duty to be in there.

“Doesn’t matter what Thompson did or didn’t do with the case,” Bosch said. “Or Hunter and Talis.”

“We’re still going to solve it,” Ballard said.

Bosch nodded.

“We are,” he said.

He stood up and looked down at Ballard.

“I need to get back in there. Are you going to Rialto?”

“No. West Hollywood. To see Hilton’s old roommate, see if I can confirm some of this.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Bosch entered the courtroom as the last few jurors were returning to their places in the box and the judge turned in his high-backed chair so he could look directly at the panel when he spoke. Bosch slipped into his familiar spot in the last row of the gallery. He saw that both Haller and Saldano were in their seats and looking directly ahead, so Harry got no read from them on what was happening. Just as the judge was about to begin, the courtroom door opened and Jerry Gustafson, the lead LAPD detective on the case, hurried in and up the center aisle, then sat in the first row directly behind the prosecution table. Gustafson had been in and out of the courtroom during the days Bosch had attended trial sessions.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Falcone began. “First of all, I want to thank you for your public service on this case. Jury duty can be time consuming, difficult, and sometimes even traumatic. You all have been troupers these past ten days and I and the state of California commend you and thank you.

“However, there has been a change and this case has come to an end. The District Attorney’s office has elected to drop all charges against Mr. Herstadt and not proceed further with the case at this time.”

There was the required buzz of whispers in the courtroom as a scattering of observers and the row of reporters reacted to the news. Bosch watched Haller’s back. He did not move and he made no motion toward his client to clap him on the arm or shoulder, no visual indication of victory.

Bosch did see Gustafson, who was leaning forward, arms on the courtroom rail, drop his head like a man kneeling in church, beseeching his god for a miracle.

But what confused Bosch was the judge’s last three words:
at this time.
What did that mean? He knew, as assuredly as the judge did, that to drop all charges at this point was tantamount to an acquittal. There were no comebacks. In California a trial is considered engaged the moment a jury is selected. To go after Herstadt again after this would invoke his double-jeopardy protections. Bosch had no doubt: the case against Jeffrey Herstadt was over.

Following his unclear explanation the judge thanked the jurors one more time and asked them to return to the assembly room and wait. He said the prosecution team wanted to talk to them. Bosch guessed that Saldano wanted to survey them to see where they stood on a verdict. The conversation might tell her whether she had made a critical mistake in dropping the case. It could also confirm she had made the right decision.