“Sure, I understand. I was just -”
“Leaving.”
“Sorry, man.”
“So am I.”
McCaleb opened the slider and Lockridge walked out like a dog with his tail between his legs. McCaleb had to hold himself back from kicking him in the rear. Instead he angrily slid the door closed and it banged loudly in its frame. He stood there looking out through the glass until he saw Lockridge make it all the way up the ramp and over to the facilities building where there was a coin laundry.
His eavesdropping had compromised the investigation. McCaleb knew he should page Winston immediately and tell her, see how she wanted to handle it. But he let it go. The truth was, he didn’t want to make any move that might take him out of the investigation.
Chapter 19
After putting his hand on the Bible and promising the whole truth, Harry Bosch took a seat in the witness chair and glanced up at the camera mounted on the wall above the jury box. The eye of the world was upon him, he knew. The trial was being broadcast live on Court TV and locally on Channel 9. He tried to give no appearance of nervousness. But the fact was that more than the jurors would be studying him and judging his performance and personality. It was the first time in many years of testifying in criminal trials that he did not feel totally at ease. Being on the side of the truth was not a comfort when he knew the truth had to run a treacherous obstacle course set before it by a wealthy, connected defendant and his wealthy, connected attorney.
He put the blue binder – the murder book – down on the front ledge of the witness box and pulled the microphone toward him, creating a high-pitched squeal that hurt every set of ears in the courtroom.
“Detective Bosch, please don’t touch the microphone,” Judge Houghton intoned.
“Sorry, Your Honor.”
A deputy sheriff who acted as the judge’s bailiff came over to the witness box, turned the microphone off and adjusted its location. When Bosch nodded at its new position, the bailiff turned it back on. The judge’s clerk then asked Bosch to state his full, formal name and spell it for the record.
“Very well,” the judge said after Bosch finished. “Ms. Langwiser?”
Deputy District Attorney Janis Langwiser got up from the prosecution table and went to the attorney’s lectern. She carried a yellow legal tablet with her questions on it. She was second seat at the prosecution table but had worked with the investigators since the start of the case. It had been decided that she would handle Bosch’s testimony.
Langwiser was a young up-and-coming lawyer in the DA’s office. In the span of a few short years she had risen from a position of filing cases for more experienced lawyers in the office to handle to taking them all the way to court herself. Bosch had worked with her before on a politically sensitive and treacherous case known as the Angels Flight murders. The experience resulted in his recommendation of her as second chair to Kretzler. Since working with her again, Bosch had found his earlier impressions were well founded. She had complete command and recall of the facts of the case. While most other lawyers would have to sift through evidence reports to locate a piece of information, she would have the information and its location in the reports memorized. But her skill was not confined to the minutiae of the case. She never took her eye off the big picture – the fact that all their efforts were focused on putting David Storey away for good.
“Good afternoon, Detective Bosch,” she began. “Could you please tell the jury a bit about your career as a police officer.”
Bosch cleared his throat.
“Yes. I’ve been with the Los Angeles Police Department twenty-eight years. I have spent more than half of that time investigating homicides. I am a detective three assigned to the homicide squad of the Hollywood Division.”
“What does ‘detective three’ mean?”
“It means detective third grade. It is the highest detective rank, equivalent to sergeant, but there are no detective sergeants in the LAPD. From detective three the next rank up would be detective lieutenant.”
“How many homicides would you say you have investigated in your career?”
“I don’t keep track. I would say at least a few hundred in fifteen years.”
“A few hundred.”
Langwiser looked over at the jury when she stressed the last word.
“Give or take a few.”
“And as a detective three you are currently a supervisor on the homicide squad?”
“I have some supervisory duties. I am also the lead officer on a three-person team that handles homicide investigations.”
“As such you were in charge of the team that was called to the scene of a homicide on October thirteenth of last year, correct?”
“That is correct.”
Bosch glanced over at the defense table. David Storey had his head down and was using his felt tip pen to draw on the sketch pad. He’d been doing it since jury selection began. Bosch’s eyes traveled to the defendant’s attorney and locked on those of J. Reason Fowkkes. Bosch held the stare until Langwiser asked her next question.
“This was the murder of Donatella Speers?”
Bosch looked back over at Langwiser.
“Correct. That was the name she used.”
“It was not her real name?”
“It was her stage name, I guess you would call it. She was an actress. She changed her name. Her real name was Jody Krementz.”
The judge interrupted and asked Bosch to spell the names for the court reporter, then Langwiser continued.
“Tell us the circumstances of the call out. Walk us through it, Detective Bosch. Where were you, what were you doing, how did this become your case?”
Bosch cleared his throat and had reached to the microphone to pull it closer when he remembered what happened the last time. He left the microphone where it was and leaned forward to it.
“My two partners and I were eating lunch at a restaurant called Musso and Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard. It was Friday and we usually eat there if we have the time. At eleven forty-eight my pager went off. I recognized the number as belonging to my supervisor, Lieutenant Grace Billets. While I was calling her, the pagers of my partners, Jerry Edgar and Kizmin Rider, also went off. At that point we knew we had probably drawn a case. I got ahold of Lieutenant Billets and she directed my team to one-thousand-one Nichols Canyon Road, where patrol officers had earlier responded along with paramedics to an emergency call at that location. They reported a young woman was found dead in her bed under suspicious circumstances.”
“You then went to the address?”
“No. I had driven all three of us to Musso’s. So I drove back to the Hollywood station, which is a few blocks away, and dropped off my partners so they could get their own vehicles. Then all three of us proceeded separately to the address. You never know where you might have to go from a crime scene. It’s good procedure for each detective to have his or her own car.”
“At this time did you know who the victim was or what the suspicious circumstances of her death were?”
“No, I did not.”
“What did you find when you got there?”
“It was a small two-bedroom house overlooking the canyon. Two patrol cars were on the scene. The paramedics had already left once it was determined the victim was dead. Inside the house were two patrol officers and a patrol sergeant. In the living room there was a woman seated on the couch. She was crying. She was introduced to me as Jane Gilley. She shared the house with Ms. Krementz.”
Bosch stopped there and waited for a question. Langwiser was bent over the prosecution table whispering to her co-prosecutor, Roger Kretzler.
“Ms. Langwiser, does that conclude your questioning of Detective Bosch?” Judge Houghton asked.
Langwiser jerked upright, not having noticed that Bosch had stopped.
“No, Your Honor.”