Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

In fact, the P.D. was so nice to me I should’ve been warned. The D.A. introduced the gun and the pot and the P.D. stipulated to the chemical analysis of the marijuana, and the D.A. introduced the gun as people’s exhibit number one and the pot as people’s number two. The P.D. never objected to anything on direct examination and my halo grew and grew until I must’ve looked like a bluesuited monk, with my bald spot and all. The P.D. never opened his mouth until the judge said, “Cross,” and nodded toward him.

“Just a few questions, Officer Morgan,” he smiled. He looked about twenty-five years old. He had a very friendly smile.

“Do you recall the name on the hotel register?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” said the D.A. “What name, what are we…”

The judge waved the D.A. down, not bothering to sustain the objection as the P.D. said, “I’ll rephrase the question, Your Honor. Officer, when you chased this man up the stairs and then returned to the manager’s apartment did you look at the name on the register or did you ask Mr. Downey who lived there?”

“I asked for the register.”

“Did you read the name?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was the name?”

“As I’ve testified, sir, it was the defendant’s name, Timothy G. Landry.”

“Did you then ask Mr. Downey the name of the man in three-nineteen?”

“I don’t remember if I did or not. Probably not, since I read the name for myself.”

“What was the warrant for, Officer? What violation?”

“It was a vehicle code violation, counsel. Twenty-one four-fifty-three-A, and failure to appear on that traffic violation.”

“And it had his address on it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you make mention of the warrant number and the issuing court and the total bail and so forth on your police report?”

“Yes, sir, it’s there in the report,” I said, leaning forward just a little, just a hint. Leaning was a sincere gesture, I always felt.

Actually it was two hours after I arrested Landry that I discovered the traffic warrant. In fact, it was when I was getting ready to compose a plausible arrest report, and the discovery of a traffic warrant made me come up with this story.

“So you called into the office and found out that Timothy G. Landry of that address had a traffic warrant out for his arrest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you use Mr. Downey’s phone?”

“No, sir, I used the pay phone in the hall.”

“Why didn’t you use Mr. Downey’s phone? You could’ve saved a dime.” The P.D. smiled again.

“If you dial operator and ask for the police you get your dime back anyway, counsel. I didn’t want to bother Mr. Downey further, so I went out in the hall and used the pay phone.”

“I see. Then you went back upstairs with the key Mr. Downey gave you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You knocked and announced yourself and made sure the voice inside was Timothy Landry, for whom you had knowledge that a warrant existed?”

“Yes, sir. The male voice said he was Timothy Landry. Or rather he said yes when I asked if he was Timothy Landry.” I turned just a little toward the judge, nodding my head ever so slightly when I said this. Landry again rolled his eyeballs and slumped down in his seat at that one.

“Then when you heard the window opening and feared your traffic warrant suspect might escape down the fire escape, you forced entry?”

“I used the passkey.”

“Yes, and you saw Mr. Landry on the edge of the bed as though getting ready to go out the window?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And you saw a metal object protruding from under the mattress?”

“I saw a blue metal object that I was sure was a gun barrel, counsel,” I corrected him, gently.

“And you glanced to your right and there in plain view was the object marked people’s two, the sandwich bag containing several grams of marijuana?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have no further questions of this witness,” said the P.D., and now I was starting to worry a little, because he just went over everything as though he were the D.A. on direct examination. He just made our case stronger by giving me a chance to tell it again.

What the hell? I thought, as the judge said, “You may step down.”

I sat back at the counsel table and the D.A. shrugged at my questioning look.

“Call your next witness,” said the judge, taking a sip of water, as the bailiff got Homer Downey from the hall. Homer slouched up to the stand, so skinny the crotch of his pants was around his knees. He wore a dirty white shirt for the occasion and a frayed necktie and the dandruff all over his thin brown hair was even visible from the counsel table. His complexion was as yellow and bumpy as cheese pizza.

He gave his name, the address of the Orchid Hotel, and said he had been managing the place for three years. Then the D.A. asked him if I contacted him on the day of the arrest and looked at his register and borrowed his passkey, and if some ten minutes later did he come to the defendant’s room and see me with the defendant under arrest, and how long had the defendant lived there, and did he rent the room to the defendant and only the defendant, and did all the events testified to occur in the city and county of Los Angeles, and Homer was a fairly good talker and a good witness, also very sincere, and was finished in a few minutes.

When direct examination was finished the public defender stood up and started pacing like in the Perry Mason shows and the judge said, “Sit down, counsel,” and he apologized and sat down like in a real courtroom, where witnesses are only approached by lawyers when permission is given by the judge and where theatrical stuff is out of the question.

“Mister Downey, when Officer Morgan came to your door on the day in question, you’ve testified that he asked to see your register, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ask you who lived in three-nineteen?”

“Nope, just asked to see the register.”

“Do you remember whose name appeared on the register?”

“Sure. His.” Downey pointed at Landry, who stared back at him.

“By him, do you mean the defendant in this case? The man on my right?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Timothy C. Landowne.”

“Would you repeat that name, please, and spell it?”

My heart started beating hard then, and the sweat broke out and I said to myself, “Oh no, oh no!”

“Timothy C. Landowne. T-I-M…”

“Spell the last name please,” the P.D. smiled and I got sick.

“Landowne. L-A-N-D-O-W-N-E.”

“And the middle initial was C as in Charlie?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. He’s been staying at the hotel for four, five months now. And he even stayed a couple months last year.”

“Did you ever see the name Timothy G. Landry on any hotel records? That’s L-A-N-D-R-Y?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see the name anywhere?”

“No.”

I could feel the D.A. next to me stiffen as he finally started to catch on.

“Did you at any time tell Officer Morgan that the man in three-nineteen was named Timothy G. Landry?”

“No, because that’s not his name as far as I know, and I never heard that name before today.”

“Thank you, Mister Downey,” said the public defender, and I could feel Landry, grinning with his big shark teeth, and I was trying hard to come up with a story to get out of this. I knew at that moment, and admitted to myself finally and forever, that I should’ve been wearing my glasses years before this, and could no longer do police work or anything else without them, and if I hadn’t been so stupid and had my glasses on, I would’ve seen that the name on that register was a half-assed attempt at an alias on the part of Landry, and even though the traffic warrant was as good as gold and really belonged to him, I couldn’t possibly have got the right information from R and I by giving the computer the wrong name. And the judge would be sure of that in a minute because the judge would have the defendant’s make sheet. And even as I was thinking it she looked at me and whispered to the court clerk who handed her a copy of the make sheet and nowhere in his record did it show he used an alias of Landowne. So I was trapped, and then Homer nailed the coffin tight.