Once the door to the jury assembly room was closed, the judge turned back to Royce. In the thirty seconds it had taken the jury to leave the courtroom, she had obviously calmed down.
“Mr. Royce, at the end of the trial we will be holding a contempt hearing during which your actions today will be examined and penalized. Until then, if I ever order you to sit down and you refuse that order, I will have the courtroom deputy forcibly place you in your seat. And it will not matter to me if the jury is present or not. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor. And I would like to apologize for allowing the emotions of the moment to get the best of me.”
“Very well, Mr. Royce. You will now sit down and we’ll bring the jury back in.”
They held each other’s eyes for a long moment until Royce finally and slowly sat down. The judge then told the courtroom deputy to retrieve the jury.
Bosch glanced at the jurors as they returned. They all had their eyes on Royce, and Harry could see the defense attorney’s gambit had worked. He saw sympathy in their eyes, as if they all knew that at any moment they might cross the judge and be similarly rebuked. They didn’t know what happened while they were behind the closed door, but Royce was like the kid who had been sent to the principal’s office and had returned to tell everyone about it at recess.
The judge addressed the jury before continuing the trial.
“I want the members of the jury to understand that in a trial of this nature emotions sometimes run high. Mr. Royce and I have discussed the issue and it is resolved. You are to pay it no mind. So, let’s proceed with the reading of prior sworn testimony. Mr. Haller?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Haller stood and went to the lectern with his printout of Doral Kloster’s testimony.
“Detective Bosch, you are still under oath. Do you have the transcript of sworn testimony provided by Detective Doral Kloster on October eighth, nineteen eighty-six?”
“Yes, I do.”
Bosch placed the transcript on the stand and took a pair of reading glasses out of his jacket’s inside pocket.
“Okay, then once again I will read the questions that were posed to Detective Kloster under oath by Deputy District Attorney Gary Lintz, and you will read the responses from the witness.”
After a series of questions used to elicit basic information about Kloster, the testimony moved quickly into the investigation of the murder of Melissa Landy.
“ ‘Now, Detective, you are assigned to the detective squad at Wilshire Division, correct?’ ”
“ ‘Yes, I am on the Homicide and Major Crimes table.’ ”
“ ‘And this case did not start out as a homicide.’ ”
“ ‘No, it did not. My partner and I were called in from home after patrol units were dispatched to the Landy house and a preliminary investigation determined that it appeared to be a stranger abduction. That made it a major crime and we were called out.’ ”
“ ‘What happened when you got to the Landy house?’ ”
“ ‘We initially separated the individuals there-the mother, father and Sarah, the sister-and conducted interviews. We then brought the family together and conducted a joint interview. It often works best that way and it did this time. In the joint interview we found our investigative direction.’ ”
“ ‘Tell us about that. How did you find this direction?’ ”
“ ‘In the individual interview, Sarah revealed that the girls had been playing a hide-and-seek game and that she was hiding behind some bushes at the front corner of her house. These bushes blocked her view of the street. She said she heard a trash truck and saw a trashman cross the yard and grab her sister. These events occurred on a Sunday, so we knew there was no city trash pickup. But when I had Sarah recount this story in front of her parents, her father quickly said that on Sunday mornings several tow trucks patrol the neighborhood and that the drivers wear overalls like the city sanitation workers do. And that became our first lead.’ ”
“ ‘And how did you follow that lead?’ ”
“ ‘We were able to obtain a list of city-licensed tow truck companies that operated in the Wilshire District. By this time I had called in more detectives and we split the list up. There were only three companies that were operating on that day. Each pair of detectives took one. My partner and I went to a tow yard on La Brea Boulevard that was operated by a business called Aardvark Towing.’ ”
“ ‘And what happened when you got there?’ ”
“ ‘We found that they were about to shut down for the day because they essentially worked no-parking zones around churches. By noon they were done. There were three drivers and they were securing things and about to head out when we got there. They all voluntarily agreed to identify themselves and answer our questions. While my partner asked preliminary questions I went back to our car and called their names into central dispatch so they could check them for criminal records.’ ”
“ ‘Who were these men, Detective Kloster?’ ”
“ ‘Their names were William Clinton, Jason Jessup and Derek Wilbern.’ ”
“ ‘And what was the result of your records search?’ ”
“ ‘Only Wilbern had an arrest record. It was an attempted rape with no conviction. The case, as I recall, was four years old.’ ”
“ ‘Did this make him a suspect in the Melissa Landy abduction?’ ”
“ ‘Yes, it did. He generally fit the description we had gotten from Sarah. He drove a large truck and wore overalls. And he had an arrest record involving a sex crime. That made him a strong suspect in my mind.’ ”
“ ‘What did you do next?’ ”
“ ‘I returned to my partner and he was still interviewing the men in a group setting. I knew that time was of the essence. This little girl was still missing. She was still out there somewhere and usually in a case like this, the longer the individual is missing, the less chance you have of a good ending.’ ”
“ ‘So you made some decisions, didn’t you?’ ”
“ ‘Yes, I decided that Sarah Landy ought to see Derek Wilbern to see if she could identify him as the abductor.’ ”
“ ‘So did you set up a lineup for her to view?’ ”
“ ‘No, I didn’t.’ ”
“ ‘No?’ ”
“ ‘No. I didn’t feel there was time. I had to keep things moving. We had to try to find that girl. So what I did was ask if the three men would agree to go to a separate location where we could continue the interview. They each said yes.’ ”
“ ‘No hesitation?’ ”
“ ‘No, none. They agreed.’ ”
“ ‘By the way, what happened when the other detectives visited the other towing companies that worked in the Wilshire District?’ ”
“ ‘They did not find or interview anyone who rose to the level of suspect.’ ”
“ ‘You mean no one with a criminal record?’ ”
“ ‘No criminal records and no flags came up during interviews.’ ”
“ ‘So you were concentrating on Derek Wilbern?’ ”
“ ‘That’s right.’ ”
“ ‘So when Wilbern and the other two men agreed to be interviewed at another location, what did you do?’ ”
“ ‘We called for a couple of patrol cruisers and we put Jessup and Clinton in the back of one car and Wilbern in the back of the other. We then closed and locked the Aardvark tow yard and drove ahead in our car.’ ”
“ ‘So you got back to the Landy house first?’ ”
“ ‘By design. We had told the patrol officers to take a circuitous route to the Landy house on Windsor so we could get there first. When we arrived back at the house I took Sarah upstairs to her bedroom, which was located at the front and was overlooking the front yard and street. I closed the blinds and had her look through just a crack so she would not be visibly exposed to the tow truck drivers.’ ”