Майкл Коннелли - Law of Innocence

After missing the camera, Opparizio followed the momentum of his swinging arm and turned back toward Cisco. Opparizio took two steps toward him while Cisco calmly stood his ground. I saw his shoulders and arms tense. So did Opparizio. He thought better of his move and stopped in his tracks. He went with the finger instead of the fight, pointing it at Cisco’s face and yelling an empty threat at him. At no point did Opparizio say anything about the subpoena being invalid when served in another state. He clearly didn’t know.

Maggie cut the video as Chan announced that court was coming to order.

“That’s the end,” she whispered. “He runs back to his room after cussing Cisco out.”

She dropped the phone into her briefcase as Judge Warfield took the bench.

Before bringing the jury back in, the judge ruled on the objection I had made.

“Ms. Berg, you have accomplished what you set out to show,” she said. “Detective Drucker has testified to the experiments at the defendant’s house, but his opinions about what the experiments mean are irrelevant. You will move on to another area of inquiry.”

Another minor victory for the defense.

The jury was brought in and Detective Drucker returned to the stand. Berg completed eliciting his direct testimony an hour into the afternoon, ending with a line of questioning designed to outline the motive for my killing Sam Scales: money.

Through Drucker’s testimony about the search of my records at my warehouse, she introduced the letter I had sent Scales in a final effort to collect the money he owed me. The letter was entered into the record as a state’s exhibit without my objection. I didn’t want to keep it from the jury. It was my belief that it cut both ways, and that would become clear when I put on my defense.

Through her questioning, Berg tried to make it seem to the jury that the letter was a key piece of evidence that I had tried to conceal by burying it in records hidden in a massive warehouse full of other possessions and junk.

“Where exactly did you find this letter in Mr. Haller’s warehouse?”

“There was a small closet toward the back of this place. The door was kind of hidden behind a rack of clothes. But we found it, and inside we found some file cabinets. The drawers were full of files and didn’t really seem to be in any order. We found a file on Sam Scales and the letter was inside it.”

“And when you read the letter, did you recognize it as potential evidence in the case?”

“Yes, right away. It was a demand—a final demand—for money that Haller believed he was owed.”

“Did you perceive the letter as a threat to Sam Scales?”

Maggie hit my arm and nodded toward the witness stand. She wanted me to object before Drucker could answer—giving an opinion on what should be a jury decision. But I shook my head. I wanted Drucker’s answer so that I could turn it against him when it was my time.

“Yes, definitely a threat,” Drucker said. “It says right in the letter that this was the final request before serious action would follow.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Berg said. “Now the final thing I want to do is have you introduce a video in which you spoke to the defendant, but in his capacity as his own lawyer. Do you recall that conversation?”

“I do.”

“And it was video-recorded?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s play that for the jury.”

Maggie leaned in to me.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“His last try to get me to confess,” I whispered back. “I told him to fuck off.”

The video was played on the big wall screen over the clerk’s station. It was from an interview room at Twin Towers. I had already been jailed for a week or so when Drucker and his partner, Lopes, came to see me to tell me what they had and to see if I would roll over.

“We see you’re going to defend yourself on this thing,” Drucker said. “So, we’re here today to talk to you as a lawyer, not as the defendant, okay?”

“Whatever,” I said. “If you’re going to talk to me as a lawyer, you should have a prosecutor with you. But you’ve had your head up your ass on this from the beginning, Drucker. Why do I get the dumbest pair of detectives on the squad who can’t see what this is?”

“Sorry we’re so dumb. What is it we aren’t seeing?”

“It’s a setup. Somebody did this to me and you bought it hook, line, and sinker. You’re pathetic.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here. I know you said you won’t talk to us, and that’s your right. So we’re telling you, the attorney of record on this, what we’ve got and what the evidence shows. Maybe it changes your ‘client’s’ mind, maybe it doesn’t. But now is the time if you want to try to talk to us.”

“Go ahead, tell me what you got.”

“Well, we’ve got the body of Sam Scales in the trunk of your car. And we can prove through ballistics and other evidence that he was killed in your garage when you were supposedly upstairs twiddling your thumbs.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re trying to bluff me. You think I’m that stupid?”

“We’ve got blood on the floor and ballistics—we found the slug on the floor of your garage, Haller. You did this and we can prove it. And I gotta tell you, it looks like it was planned. That’s first-degree and that’s life without parole. You have—your client has—a kid. If he ever wants to see that kid again outside a prison, now is the time for him to come in and tell us exactly what happened. Was it heat of the moment, a fight, what? You see what I mean, Counselor? Your client is fucked. And there is a small window here where we can go see the D.A. to explain this and get you—uh, him—the best deal possible.”

There was a long beat of silence on the video as I just stared at Drucker. I realized that this was what Dana Berg wanted the jury to see. The hesitation looked like I was considering the offer from Drucker—and wouldn’t only a guilty man pause to weigh the choice? That, of course, was not what I was doing. I was trying to think of a way to elicit more information about the case. Drucker had just mentioned two key pieces of evidence that at the time were new to me. Blood and ballistics—a bullet slug found in my garage. I wanted to trick out more from him, and that was what the pause was all about. But the jury would not read it that way.

“You want me to make a deal?” I said on the video. “Fuck your deal. What else you got?”

Drucker clearly smiled on the video. He knew what I was doing. He had given up all he was going to.

“Okay,” he said. “Just remember this moment, when we gave you the chance.”

Drucker started to get up from the table. Berg ended the video.

“Your Honor,” she said. “At this time I have no more questions for Detective Drucker but I request leave to bring him back for further testimony as the state’s case progresses.”

“Very well,” Judge Warfield said. “It is a little too early to take the afternoon break. Mr. Haller, Ms. McPherson, do you have questions for this witness?”

I stood and moved to the lectern.

“Your Honor,” I began. “Detective Drucker will be a key witness during the defense phase of the trial and I’ll defer the bulk of my questions until then. But if I may, I will ask the witness a few questions now regarding the testimony he’s given since the lunch break. There were things said that were incomplete and inexcusable and I don’t want them to languish in the minds of the jurors for even a day.”

Berg stood up immediately.

“Judge, I object to the characterization of the witness and his testimony,” she said. “Counsel is trying to—”

“Sustained,” Warfield said. “You inquire, Mr. Haller. You do not argue. Keep your tone and opinions to yourself.”