The Fifth Witness Part 13

Cisco nodded.

"Got it."

"Good. You go now and call Maggie. Tell her to wake me up no matter what the nurses say, especially if she comes with Hayley."

"Will do, Boss. But, uh, there's one more thing."

"What?"

"Rojas is sitting out there in the waiting room. He wanted to visit but I told him to wait out there. He came yesterday, too, but you were sleeping."

I nodded. Rojas.

"Did you check the car's trunk?"

"I did. I didn't see any evidence of a pick. No scratches on the tumblers."

"Okay. When you go out, send him in."

"You want to see him alone?"

"Yeah. Alone."

"You got it."

He left then and I grabbed the bed's remote. I slowly and painfully raised the bed to about forty-five degrees so I was half sitting up for my next visitor. The adjustment ignited another run of searing pain that burned across my rib cage like an August brushfire.

Rojas tentatively entered the room, waving and nodding at me.

"Hey, Mr. Haller, how you doin'?"

"I've had better days, Rojas. How are you doing?"

"I'm good, I'm good. I just wanted to stop by and say h.e.l.lo and all."

He was as nervous as a feral cat. And I thought I knew why.

"It was nice of you to come by. Why don't you sit in that chair over there."

"Okay."

He took the chair in the corner. This allowed me a full view of him. I would be able to pick up all body movements as I tried to read him. He was already displaying some of the cla.s.sic tells of a dissembler-avoidance of eye contact, inappropriate smiling, constant hand movement.

"Did the doctors tell you how long you have to stay here?" he asked.

"A few more days, I think. At least until I stop p.i.s.sing blood."

"Man, that's bad s.h.i.+t! They going to catch who did it?"

"They don't seem to be working too hard on it."

Rojas nodded. I said nothing else. Silence is often a very useful interview tool. My driver then rubbed his palms up and down his thighs a few times and stood up.

"Well, I didn't want to interrupt you. You probably have to get your sleep or something."

"No, I'm up for the day, Rojas. It hurts too much to sleep. You can stay. What's the hurry? You're not driving somebody else now, are you?"

"Oh, no, no, nothing like that."

He reluctantly sat down again. Rojas had been a client before he was my driver. He'd been popped on a possession-of-stolen-property beef and had a prior conviction to go with it. The prosecution wanted jail time but I was able to get him probation. He owed me three grand for my efforts but had lost his job since his employer was also the victim of the theft. I told him he could work it off by driving and translating for me and he took the job. I started out paying him $500 a week and counted an additional $250 against the debt. After three months the debt was cleared but he stayed on, collecting the whole $750 now. I thought he was happy and on the straight and narrow path, but maybe once a thief, always a thief.

"I just want you to know, Mr. Haller, that once you get out of here, I'm on call for you twenty-four hours a day. I don't want you driving nowhere. If you even have to go down the hill to the Starbucks, I'll be there to take you."

"Thank you, Rojas. After all, I guess it's the least you can do, right?"

"Uh..."

He looked confused but not that confused. He knew where this was headed. I decided not to dance around it any longer.

"How much did he pay you?"

He fidgeted in the seat.

"Who? For what?"

"Come on, Rojas. Don't play it this way. It's embarra.s.sing."

"I really don't know what you're talking about. Maybe I should go after all."

He stood up.

"We don't have an agreement, Rojas. We don't have a contract, no verbal promises, nothing. You walk out of this room and I fire you and that's it. Is that what you want here?"

"Doesn't matter if there's an agreement. You can't just fire me for no reason."

"But I have the reason, Rojas. Herb Dahl told me all about it. You should know there's no honor among thieves. He said you called him up and told him you'd get him whatever he needs."

The bluff worked. I saw the rage explode in Rojas's eyes. I had my finger on the nurse-call b.u.t.ton just in case.

"That greasy little s.h.i.+t eater!"

I nodded.

"Good description. How-"

"I didn't call his a.s.s up. The f.u.c.ker came to me. He said he just wanted fifteen seconds in the trunk. I shoulda known this would blow up on me."

"I thought you were smarter than that, Rojas. How much did he pay you?"

"Four bills."

"Not even a week's pay and now you're not going to have any pay."

Rojas came close to the bedside. I held my finger on the call b.u.t.ton. I figured he was going to either attack me or ask me for a deal.

"Mr. Haller... I... need this job. My kids..."

"This is like last time, Rojas. Didn't you learn a lesson about ripping off your employer?"

"Yes, sir, I did. Dahl told me he just wanted to look at something but then he took it and when I tried to stop him he said, 'What are you going to do about it?' He had me. I couldn't stop him."

"You still have the four hundred?"

"Yes, I didn't spend a thing. Four hundred-dollar bills. And they looked real to me."

I pointed him back to the chair. I didn't want him so close.

"Okay, time to make a choice, Rojas. You can walk out that door with your four hundred and I'll never see you again. Or I can give you a second-"

"I want the second chance. Please, I'm sorry."

"Well, you're going to have to earn it. You're going to have to help me make right what you did. I am going to sue Dahl for taking that doc.u.ment and I am going to need you to be the witness who explains exactly what happened."

"I'll do it but who will believe me?"

"That's where your four hundred-dollar bills come in. I want you to go home or to wherever they are and-"

"I have them right here. In my wallet."

He jumped up from the seat and pulled his wallet.

"Take them out like this."

I held my finger and thumb close together.

"They can get fingerprints off money?"

"They sure can and if we can get Dahl's off those then it doesn't matter what he says about you. He's nailed."

I opened a drawer of the little table to the side of my bed. A plastic Ziploc bag containing my wallet and keys and loose change and currency was there. It had all been bagged by the paramedics who had been called to the garage of the Victory Building. Cisco had secured it and had only just given it back. I dumped the contents into the drawer and then handed the bag to Rojas.

"Okay, put the money in there and seal it."

He did as instructed and then I waved him over to give me the bag. The hundreds looked crisp and new. Less prior handling of the currency would mean a better shot at pulling prints.

"Cisco will take it from here. I'll call him and tell him to come back and pick these up. At some point he'll need your prints."

"Uh..."

Rojas's eyes were on the bag and the money.

"What?"

"Will I get that money back?"

I put the bag in the drawer and slammed it shut.

"Jesus Christ, Rojas, get out of here before I change my mind and fire your a.s.s."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, you know?"

"You're sorry you got caught and that's all. Just go! I can't believe I just gave you a second chance. I must be a f.u.c.king idiot."

Rojas retreated like a dog with its tail between its legs. After he was gone I slowly lowered the bed and tried not to think about his betrayal or who had sent the two men in black gloves or anything else to do with the case. I looked up at the bag of clear liquid hanging up there overhead and waited for the blessed boost that would make at least some of the pain go away.

Thirteen.

As expected, Lisa Trammel was held to answer and ordered to stand trial for murder by Judge Dario Morales at the end of a daylong preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Superior Court. Using Detective Howard Kurlen as her primary carrier of evidence, Prosecutor Andrea Freeman deftly presented a net of circ.u.mstantial evidence that quickly enclosed Lisa. Freeman took the case across the preponderance threshold like a hundred-meter sprinter and the judge was equally swift in rendering his ruling. It was routine. Matter-of-fact. Chop-chop and Lisa was held to answer.

My client was there at the defense table for the hearing but I was not. Jennifer Aronson held forth for the defense as best she could in a one-sided game. The judge had allowed the hearing to proceed only after questioning Lisa exhaustively to a.s.sure himself that her decision to go forward without me there was knowing, voluntary and strategic. Lisa acknowledged in open court that she was aware of Aronson's lack of courtroom experience and waived any claim to the argument of ineffective counsel as grounds for an appeal of the judge's eventual determination.

I watched most of it from the confines of my home where I was continuing to recover from my injuries. KTLA Channel 5 had carried the morning session live in lieu of other local programming before flipping back to the usual slate of insipid afternoon talk shows. This meant I missed only the last two hours of the hearing. But that was okay because by that point I knew how it would go. There were no surprises and the only disappointment was in not getting any sort of new read on how the prosecution would unfurl the flag at trial, when it all counted.

As decided during our prep sessions in my room at Holy Cross, Aronson presented no witnesses or any affirmative defense. We chose to reserve any indication of our hypothesis of innocence for trial, when the threshold of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt raised the game to almost an even match. Aronson used cross-examination of the state's witnesses sparingly. These were all seasoned veterans of courtroom testimony-Kurlen, a forensic expert and the medical examiner among them. Freeman chose not to put Margo Schafer on the stand, using Kurlen to recount his interview with the eyewitness who placed Lisa Trammel a block from the murder. There wasn't much to get from the state's lineup and so our strategy was to observe and wait. To bide our time. We would simply go at them at trial where we stood the best chance.

At the end of the hearing Lisa was ordered to stand trial before Judge Coleman Perry on the sixth floor of the courthouse. Perry was yet another judge I had never stood before. But since I knew his courtroom was one of four possible destinations for my client, I had done some checking with other members of the defense bar. The overall report I got was that Perry was a straight shooter with a short temper. He was fair until you crossed him and then he was p.r.o.ne to hold a grudge that might last an entire trial. It was good knowledge to have as the case progressed to its final stage.

Two days later, I finally felt ready to return to the fray. My broken fingers were bound tightly in a form-fitted plaster cast and my bruised torso was losing the shadings of deep blue and purple for a sickly tone of yellow. My scalp st.i.tches had been removed and I was able to delicately comb my hair back over the shaved wound as if I was hiding a bald spot. Best of all, my formerly twisted t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e, which the doctor had ultimately chosen not to remove, was improving a little bit every day, according to the doctor and his powers of observation and palpation. It was left to see whether it would resume normal activity and function, or die on the vine like an unpicked Roma tomato.

By previous arrangement, Rojas had the Lincoln at the bottom of the front steps at eleven o'clock sharp. I slowly made my way down, walking cane firmly in hand. Rojas was there to help me get into the back of the car. We moved carefully and soon I was in my usual place, ready to roll. Rojas jumped behind the wheel and we jerked forward and down the hill.

"Easy, Rojas. It hurts too much for me to wear a seat belt. So don't send me into the front seat."

"Sorry, Boss. I'll do better. Where are we going today? The office?"

He had gotten that Boss stuff from Cisco. I hated being called a boss, even though I knew that was what I was.

"The office is later. First we go to Archway Pictures on Melrose."

"You got it."