The Night Fire Page 10

  “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

  17

  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.

  18

  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.”