Bosch looked at the judge as he answered, hoping to get a read on whether he was explaining himself clearly. The judge’s eyes were focused on the map and she gave no indication that she was confused. Bosch’s attention was drawn back to Haller with the next question.
“But couldn’t it have been a phone with a different carrier that wouldn’t show up in the data?” Haller asked.
“That was the risk,” Bosch said. “But I knew that AT and T gave discounts to military and law enforcement personnel, so I thought if he was meeting someone, there was a good chance it was a fellow LEO.”
“‘Leo’?”
“Law enforcement officer.”
“Got it. So what did you find when you searched for another phone that was at Flip’s?”
“I found the red phone and I concluded that Sanz was meeting with the holder of that phone. I assumed it was a car-to-car meeting in the parking lot.”
Morris made the same objection, calling Bosch’s conclusions speculation and not fact. Before Haller could counter, the judge overruled the objection, stating that Bosch’s decades of experience as an investigator made his assumptions more valid than blind speculation. She told Haller to continue with his examination.
“Were you able to identify the owner of the red phone?” Haller asked.
“Yes,” Bosch said.
“How?”
“I called it and a man answered with his name: MacIsaac. He basically hung up on me when I asked a question, but I already knew that name from my investigation of Roberto Sanz’s activity on the day of his death. I had learned that Sanz had a meeting with an Agent MacIsaac an hour or so before he was killed. From there it was not hard to confirm that there was an Agent Tom MacIsaac on the roster of the Los Angeles field office.”
“You’re talking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“Yes.”
“You said he hung up on you when you asked a question?”
“Yes. I identified myself, told him what I was doing, and asked if he’d had a meeting with Roberto Sanz on the day of Sanz’s death. At that point he ended the call. I called back but he didn’t answer. I then texted him but he didn’t respond. He still hasn’t.”
Haller looked down at his notes, letting that last answer float in the room.
“Okay,” Haller said. “Let’s talk about the blue line. Your chart shows that the holder of the blue phone was tracking along with the green phone, correct?”
“Yes and no,” Bosch said. “The data includes time stamps. It shows that while the blue phone followed the same path as the green phone, it lagged behind each geographic marker by twenty to forty seconds until the green phone stopped at Flip’s.”
“Does that indicate that the blue phone was following the green phone?”
“It does.”
Bosch got the answer out as Morris was standing to make the same objection, that it was speculation. But once more the judge overruled the objection, saying that Bosch’s conclusion was acceptable based on his experience and his expertise with the tower data.
“What happened when Roberto Sanz — the green phone — pulled into Flip’s to meet with Agent MacIsaac?” Haller asked.
This time Morris was quick with the objection.
“Assumes facts not in evidence,” Morris claimed.
“Again, I am allowing the answer,” the judge said. “Mr. Morris, I think you know where this is headed and I find your constant interruption of the flow of testimony to be disruptive to the court’s understanding of the case. Wait until you have a real objection, please. Objection overruled. Continue, Mr. Haller.”
Haller waited for Bosch to answer. But he didn’t.
“Do you need me to ask the question again?” Haller asked.
“If you don’t mind,” Bosch said.
“Not a problem. According to the data and your charting, what were the movements of the blue phone when Roberto Sanz pulled into Flip’s to meet with Agent MacIsaac?”
Bosch used his finger to trace the blue phone’s path as he answered.
“The blue phone drove by and stopped at the next corner at the ARCO gas station. It remained there for at least an hour.”
“What do you mean by ‘at least an hour’? Isn’t the data complete?”
“It is. But the blue phone stopped transmitting GPS coordinates to the cell tower at that point.”
“Just disappeared?”
“Correct.”
“Does that mean the phone was turned off?”
“Yes, or put on airplane mode so it no longer sent signals to the towers in the area.”
“Okay, let’s go back. How did you come upon this blue phone?”
“Yesterday at the end of the court session, the clerk gave you the cell phone number of Sergeant Sanger, which you asked for when she was testifying. I took that number and looked for it in the tower data received from AT and T. I found it and tracked it.”
Haller pointed to the map on the easel and spoke with exaggerated astonishment.
“That was Sanger’s phone?” he said. “She was following Sanz?”
“It appears so,” Bosch said.
“But at the ARCO, the phone suddenly went dark.”
“Correct.”
“And when did it come back online, according to the data?”
“That number, which is carried by AT and T, does not come up on any cell tower in the Antelope Valley from that point at the ARCO station until twenty-two minutes after Lucinda Sanz’s 911 call reporting gunshots. That indicates that during that time, the phone was either turned off, on airplane mode, or out of reach of the area’s towers.”
“And where is the phone located when it does come back up after the shooting?”
“It reappears in Palmdale at a restaurant called Brandy’s Café.”
“Did you track it from there?”
Bosch pointed again at the map.
“Yes, the second blue line on the map. It goes from the café to the scene of the shooting at Lucinda Sanz’s house.”
“All told, how many minutes was the blue phone offline?”
“Eighty-four minutes.”
“And Roberto Sanz was shot during those eighty-four minutes, correct?”
Morris leaped to his feet, shouting, “Objection! Your Honor, this is fantasy. I beg the court to stop this sheer speculation and innuendo when there is not an ounce of evidence that supports any conclusion other than Lucinda Sanz being the shooter of her ex-husband.”
“Your Honor,” Haller said, “the witness has worked three hundred murder cases. He knows what he is doing and knows what he’s saying. Mr. Morris, with his barrage of objections, is just trying to—”
“Enough!” Coelho cried. “The objection is overruled for reasons previously stated. Continue, Mr. Haller.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Haller said. “Mr. Bosch, other than Sergeant Sanger turning off her phone, putting it on airplane mode, or being out of reach of the towers, is there any other explanation as to why her phone dropped its connection to the cell towers in the Antelope Valley?”
“No, nothing that I can think of.”
Haller looked up at the judge from the lectern.
“Your Honor,” he said, “I have no further questions.”
Part Eight
Subpoena Duces Tecum
34
The rooftop lounge at the Conrad gave us a great view across downtown. It was the kind of view that made you love this city because it reminded you that anything was possible down there on the street.