“Your journey?”
“Yes, the journey to finding myself in this cause. The movement. Helping people fight to save their homes.”
“Okay, so it was like a diary of the protests and things like that?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you remember if you ever put Mitchell Bondurant’s name in the journal?”
She looked down as she searched her memory.
“I don’t think so. But I may have mentioned him. You know, said that he was the man behind everything.”
“Nothing about hurting him?”
“No, nothing like that. And I didn’t hurt him! I didn’t do this!”
“I’m not asking you that, Lisa. I am trying to figure out what evidence they have against you. So you’re saying that this journal is not going to be a problem for us, correct?”
“That’s right. It will be no problem. There’s nothing bad in there.”
“Okay, good.”
I looked at the other members of my staff. The verbal sparring with Lisa had made me forget the next question. Cisco prompted me.
“The witness?”
“Right. Lisa, yesterday morning at the time of the murder, were you anywhere near the WestLand National building in Sherman Oaks?”
She didn’t answer right away, which told me we had a problem.
“Lisa?”
“My son goes to school in Sherman Oaks. I take him in the mornings and I drive right by that building.”
“That’s okay. So you drove by yesterday. What time would that have been?”
“Um, about seven forty-five.”
“That was taking him to school, right?”
“Right.”
“What about after you drop him off? Do you go back the same way?”
“Yes, most days.”
“What about yesterday? We’re talking about yesterday. Did you drive back by?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No, I did. I take Ventura to Van Nuys and then up to the freeway.”
“So did you go back by after dropping off Tyler or did you do something else?”
“I stopped to get coffee and then I went home. I drove by then.”
“What time?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t watching the clock. I think it was around eight thirty.”
“Did you ever get out of your car in the vicinity of WestLand National?”
“No, of course not.”
“You are sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I would remember that, don’t you think?”
“Okay. Where did you stop to get your coffee?”
“At the Joe’s Joe on Ventura by Woodman. I always go there.”
I paused. I looked at Cisco and then at Aronson. Cisco had previously reported that Mitchell Bondurant had been carrying a cup of Joe’s Joe when attacked. I decided not to ask the obvious question yet about whether Lisa had seen or interacted with Bondurant at the coffee shop. As Lisa’s defense attorney I would be bound by what I knew. I could never assist in perjury. If Lisa was to tell me that she had seen Bondurant and even exchanged words with him then I would not be allowed to have her spin a different story at trial if she was to testify.
I had to be careful about soliciting information that would constrain me this early in the case. I knew this was a contradiction. My mission was to know all I could and yet there were things I didn’t want to know right now. Sometimes knowing things limits you. Not knowing them gives you more latitude in crafting a defense.
Aronson was staring at me, obviously wondering why I wasn’t asking the follow-up question. I just gave her a quick head shake. I would explain my reasons to her later-one more lesson they didn’t teach her in law school.
I stood up.
“Lisa, I think that’s enough for today. You’ve given us a lot of information and we’ll go to work on it. I’ll have my driver take you home now.”
Seven
She was fourteen years old and still liked to eat pancakes for dinner. My daughter and I had a booth at the Du-par’s in Studio City. Our Wednesday night ritual. I picked her up from her mother’s and we stopped for pancakes on the way back to my place. She did her homework and I did my casework. It was my most treasured routine.
The official custody arrangement was that I had Hayley every Wednesday night and then every other weekend. We alternated Christmases and Thanksgivings and I also had her for two weeks in the summer. But that was just the official arrangement. Things had been going well over the past year and often the three of us did things together. On Christmas we had dinner as a family. Sometimes my ex-wife even joined us for pancakes. And that was worth treasuring, too.
But on this night it was just Hayley and me. My casework involved my review of the protocol from the autopsy of Mitchell Bondurant. It included photos of the procedure as well as the body where it was found in the bank’s garage. So I was leaning back in the booth and trying to make sure neither Hayley nor anybody else in the restaurant saw the gruesome images. They wouldn’t go well with pancakes.
Meantime, Hayley was doing her science homework, studying changes in matter and the elements of combustion.
Cisco had been right. The autopsy concluded that Bondurant had died from brain hemorrhaging caused by multiple points of blunt-force trauma to the head.
Three points exactly. The protocol contained a line drawing of the top of the victim’s head. Three points of impact were delineated on the crown in a grouping so tight that all three could have been covered with a teacup.
Seeing this drawing got me excited. I flipped to the front page of the protocol where the body being examined was described. Mitchell Bondurant was described as six foot one and 180 pounds. I did not have Lisa Trammel’s dimensions handy so I called the number of the cell phone Cisco had dropped off to her that morning-since her own phone had been seized by the police. It was always a priority to make sure a client could be contacted at any time.
“Lisa, it’s Mickey. Real quick, how tall are you?”
“What? Mickey, I’m in the middle of dinner with-”
“Just tell me how tall you are and I’ll let you go. Don’t lie. What’s it say on your driver’s license?”
“Um, five three, I think.”
“Is that accurate?”
“Yes. What is-”
“Okay, that’s all I needed. You can go back to dinner. Have a good night.”
“What-”
I hung up and wrote her height on the legal pad I had on the table. Next to it I wrote Bondurant’s height. The exciting point was that he had ten inches on his suspected killer and yet the impacts that punctured his skull and killed him were delivered to the crown of his head. This raised what I called a question of physics. The kind of question a jury can puzzle over and decide for themselves. The kind of question a good defense attorney can make something with. This was if-the-glove-doesn’t-fit-you-must-acquit stuff. The question here was, how did diminutive Lisa Trammel hit six-foot-one Mitchell Bondurant on the top of the head?
Of course, the answer depended on the dimensions of the weapon as well as a few other things, such as the victim’s position. If he was on the ground when attacked then none of this would matter. But it was something to grab on to at the moment. I quickly went to one of the files on the table and pulled out the search-warrant return.
“Who was that you called?” Hayley asked.
“My client. I had to find out how tall she was.”
“How come?”
“Because it might have something to do with whether she could do what they’re saying she did.”
I checked the list of items seized. As Cisco had reported, only one pair of shoes was on it and they were described as gardening shoes taken from the garage. No high heels, no platform sandals or any other footwear. Of course, the detectives conducted the search prior to the autopsy and before they knew its findings. I considered all of this and concluded that gardening shoes probably didn’t have much of a heel on them. If they were suggesting the shoes were worn during the killing then Bondurant still probably had ten inches on my client-if he was standing when attacked.