John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

“Thanks to this young man for bringing me.”

Hardy grinned. “I’ll see he gets a raise right away.”

“And did you say Dismas?” she asked. “Dismas? The good thief?”

“That’s him, though too few people seem to know it.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever actually known a Dismas.”

“Well, you do now. I hope it’s good for you.”

“You’re cute,” she said.

“So are you.” Hardy sat down next to her. “Has Craig here explained what we’d like to talk to you about in the courtroom?”

“What I saw, or heard, that morning.”

“You remember the date, don’t you?”

“Of course. October twenty-seventh, two thousand seven, to be exact.”

“Exact is good. We like exact.”

Her eyes brightened with the adventure. “And two shots. One at six oh eight or nine and one at six ten.”

“Very good.” He leaned in toward her. “I was hoping to call you to be a witness pretty much right away, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course it’s all right with me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Good. Now, I’ve already heard what you said in your talk with Mr. Hunt, and that will be the basis of your testimony, but if you don’t mind, maybe we could just take a minute here before we go inside and run over some details?”

“Sure, of course,” she said. “That would be fine.”

In spite of the glimmer of hope he’d begun to entertain about his motion to dismiss, Hardy wasn’t particularly shocked, nor even greatly disappointed, when Braun came back to the bench and ruled against him, denying his motion in its entirety.

Still, he was buoyed by his belief that Lori Bradford was going to be an important and powerful witness, offering a completely alternative version of the bare facts of the case. He had given some thought to the phraseology and tenor of his opening questions, wanting not only to get to this witness’s information but to alert the jury to the homicide inspectors’ wily and discreditable ways.

Now, already having established a solid rapport with her, one that he hoped the jury would recognize as between equals-as opposed to a young man condescending to a senile witness-he began his questioning. “Mrs. Bradford, where do you live?”

“I live in a second-story apartment on Ashbury Street here in the city, on the west side of the street, right up from Haight. It’s also,” she added, coached by Hardy, “right across the street from the alley that runs behind Bay Beans.”

“Can you see that alley from your apartment?”

“The first twenty or thirty feet of it, out the living room and dining room windows, yes.”

“Now, Mrs. Bradford, do you remember anything unusual and specific about the morning of Saturday, October twenty-seventh?”

“Yes.”

“And what was that?”

“At a few minutes after six o’clock I was in bed in the back of the apartment, but already awake for the day, when I heard a loud report, like a firecracker, although for some reason I remember thinking that it might be a gunshot. So I got up and was in the hallway going to the front windows and then- bang! -there was another one. About a minute later.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I got to the window and looked down into the street and across to the alley.”

“And did you see anything unusual down there?”

“No. Nothing. It was still pretty dark out.”

“Did you call nine one one?”

“Not then. No. There didn’t seem to be any emergency. It was just the two noises. Although, of course, when the police cars started getting there, I realized something must have happened. By then it was too late to call nine one one.”

“But you did eventually call the police, did you not?”

“Yes. A couple of days later.”

“And why was that? The delay, I mean?”

“Well, mostly because the news reports were all saying that there had only been one shot, and I thought they’d want to know that I’d heard two of them.”

“You heard two shots?”

“Yes.” Lori, God bless her, added the word Hardy had recommended. “Definitely.”

Raising his eyebrows for the jury’s benefit, he went on. “And so you called the police to tell them about this information?”

“Yes.”

“And did you speak to some inspectors?”

“Yes. Two of them came by the apartment and we talked about it.”

“You told them about the two shots, did you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was their comment about that, if any?”

“They thanked me and said that the information might be enough to change the entire theory of the case.”

“I see. And then did you hear from them soon after that?”

“No.”

“No?” A pause for the effect. “Not even back in November after they’d arrested the defendant, and they were preparing for the preliminary hearing?”

“No.”)

“And not as this case went to trial?”

“No.”

“Hmm. When the inspectors did speak to you at your home, did they tell you that they didn’t believe your testimony, or your eyewitness account?”

“Objection. Irrelevant.”

“Goes to the witness’s state of mind, Your Honor.” This didn’t make a lot of sense, but Hardy had learned from the testimony of Jansey Ticknor that Braun didn’t have a real good grasp of what this hearsay exception meant. He figured if Stier could use it to get stuff in, he might be able to as well.

It worked. “Overruled.”

Hardy asked permission of the judge and then repeated his question. “Mrs. Bradford, did the inspectors tell you that they didn’t believe your testimony, or your eyewitness account?”

“No. To the contrary, as I’ve said, they talked about it changing the theory of the case.”

“And yet they never called you back, or served you with a subpoena, or asked you to come down here and testify in court, correct?”

“Objection. Asked and answered.”

“Sustained.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bradford. I have no further questions.”

Stier was on his feet before Hardy was back at his counsel table. “Mrs. Bradford,” he began, “did the inspectors you spoke to ask you if you’d seen anything in the street on the morning of Mr. Vogler’s death?”

“Yes.”

“And did you in fact see anything down in the street, or in the alley?”

“No, as I’ve already said.”

“Now, as to the noises you heard. Are you familiar with the sound of gunfire?”

“No. Not particularly.”

“In your testimony with Mr. Hardy you said that while you were in bed, you heard a report, and this is a direct quote, ‘like a firecracker. ’ Unquote. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes, it is. I thought it might have been a firecracker. Or a backfire.”

“And yet you told Mr. Hardy that you definitely heard two gunshots, did you not?”

“I did.”

And here Stier, in his enthusiasm and lack of respect for this witness, made his big error. “So let me ask you this. How could you know they were gunshots?”

Hardy had asked Mrs. Bradford that very question in the hall and had fervently hoped Stier would be foolish enough to ask it in front of the jury.

“Well, they were identical sounds. And we know for sure that one of them was a gunshot from the alley across the street, don’t we? That’s when Mr. Vogler was killed, wasn’t it? Right when I heard the shots.”

Rule Number One, Hardy thought-you talk to every single witness yourself, every single time. Hardy saw Stier’s shoulders slump as some of the jurors came forward and the import of this testimony hit home. He turned hesitantly toward the panel, stopped, came back to the witness. He finally said, “But can you say for certain that the second sound was in fact a gunshot, and not a backfire, or even a firecracker?”