Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

“Did you ever give a copy of that video record to the LAPD investigators who were working on the case?”

“The detectives came by early in the investigation and reviewed our raw feeds—this was before we put together a single video that tracked the woman they were interested in through the hotel. We later put that together and made all the material available, but nobody came to pick it up until a couple months ago.”

“Was that Detective Whitten or his partner?”

“No, it was Mr. Lankford from the DA’s Office. They were prepping for the trial and he came around to collect what we had.”

I wanted to turn and look at Forsythe, to try to get a read on whether he ever saw the video—because it sure never showed up on any discovery list I had seen.

But I didn’t look at the prosecutor, because I didn’t want to give anything away. Not yet, at least.

“Do you see Mr. Lankford here in court today?” I asked Hensley.

“Yes, I do.”

I then asked the judge to tell Lankford to stand, and Hensley identified him. Lankford looked at me with eyes that were as cold and gray as a January dawn. After he was reseated, I turned to the judge and asked if the attorneys could approach. The judge waved us up and she knew exactly what I wanted to talk about.

“Don’t tell me, Mr. Haller. You didn’t get copied on the videos.”

“That’s right, Judge. The witness says the prosecution has had this material for two months and not a single frame of video was turned over in discovery to the defense. That’s a direct violation of—”

“Your Honor,” Forsythe broke in. “I have not even seen these videos myself so—”

“But your investigator took delivery of them,” the judge said in a tone of incredulity that told me she was going to come down on my side on this.

“Your Honor,” Forsythe sputtered, “I can’t explain this. If you wish to question my investigator in camera, I am sure there is an explanation. The bottom line is all parties are in agreement that the victim visited that hotel in the hours before her death. It’s not in dispute, so the trespass here is minimal. No harm, no foul, Judge. I make a motion we press on with the case.”

I shook my head wearily.

“Judge, there is no way of knowing whether there is no harm and no foul without looking at the videos.”

The judge nodded in agreement.

“How much time do you need, Mr. Haller?”

“I don’t know. There can’t be a lot of material. An hour?”

“Very well. One hour. You can use the conference room down the hall. My clerk has the key. Step back, gentlemen.”

As I walked back to the defense table, I raised my eyes to the railing and found Lankford staring back at me.

38

I borrowed Lorna’s iPad back from her after the judge broke for the hour. Since I had already studied the Beverly Wilshire videos at length, my purpose in complaining about the prosecution’s discovery violation was actually an effort to conceal my own violation in not providing the same videos to Forsythe. Either way, I didn’t need an hour to study them again. Instead, I used the time to watch the surveillance video from the Stratton Sterghos house once more and to strategize its best use in bringing down Marco and Lankford on the way to a not-guilty verdict for Andre La Cosse. The video was indeed the depth charge I had hoped for. It was waiting below the surface for the prosecution to sail over. When I detonated the charge, Forsythe’s ship would sink.

My case plan was to take things right up to the bell on Friday and rest my case just before the jury was discharged for the weekend. That would give them two full days to consider things before we moved to closing arguments. This meant I was most likely looking at Friday morning as the introduction point of the Sterghos video. I had plenty of witnesses to present between now and then.

At three twenty-five, there was a single knock on the door and Leggoe’s courtroom deputy looked in. It said HERNANDEZ on his name tag.

“You’re up,” he said.

When I got back to the defense table, the video remote and laser pointer were waiting for me at my place.

And my defendant was, too. I realized that Andre’s downward spiral could now be measured by the hours instead of days. He had actually deteriorated in the hour I had spent in the conference room and he had spent in the courthouse lockup.

I squeezed his arm. It felt as thin as a broomstick under his sleeve.

“We’re doing well, Andre. Hang in there.”

“Have you decided if I get to testify?”

This was an ongoing conversation we’d been having during the trial. He wanted to testify and tell the world he was innocent. He believed—not without some merit—that guilty men remain mute and the innocent speak out. They testify.

The problem was that, while Andre wasn’t a murderer, he was a man engaged in a criminal enterprise. Additionally, his deteriorated physical condition would likely not garner sympathy from the jury. I didn’t want him to testify and didn’t think he needed to. I had come to believe, contrary to my earlier instincts, that our best shot at a not-guilty verdict was to keep him in his seat.

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m hoping that it will be so obvious that you’re innocent that it won’t matter.”

He nodded, disappointed in my answer. I realized that he had lost so much weight in the two weeks since jury selection started that I needed to think about getting him a better fitting suit. There were only four or five court days left before the jurors began deliberations, but I thought it was the right thing to do.

I wrote a note about it on my legal pad, tore the page out, and then handed it back over the rail to Lorna just as the judge came out from chambers and took the bench.

Victor Hensley was recalled to the witness stand and Judge Leggoe gave me permission to position myself in the well while I showed the composite Beverly Wilshire security video and asked Hensley questions.

I first established through Hensley the date and time of the video that we would watch and had him explain how video from several different cameras was edited together so Gloria Dayton could be tracked in her movements through the hotel. I also had Hensley explain that there were no cameras on the guest-room floors because it was a privacy issue. The hotel management apparently thought it was bad for business to film who entered what rooms and when.

I handed Hensley the laser pointer so he could keep the red dot on Gloria as she made her way and he narrated. I realized that the video gave the jurors their first glimpse of Gloria in motion. During the prosecution phase they had seen autopsy photos, mug shots, and screen shots from her Giselle Dallinger websites. But the video was Gloria as a living person, and when I glanced at the jury, I saw that they were fully engaged in watching her.

That was what I wanted, because my next set of questions to Hensley would take them in a new direction. I retrieved the remote and the laser and stood back in the well. I started playing the video trail from the beginning and then froze the image when Gloria was passing through the lobby and in front of the man in the hat.

“Now, Mr. Hensley, can you look at the screen and tell the jury if you have any members of your staff there in the lobby?”

Hensley said the man standing at the elevator alcove was part of the security staff.

“Anyone else that you can see?”

“No, I don’t believe so.”

“What about this man here?”

I put the laser dot on the man in the hat, who was sitting on the divan and looking at his phone.

“Well,” Hensley said. “We can’t see his face in this frame. If you play it until we see his face…”

I hit the play button and the video advanced. I had drawn eyes toward the man in the hat. But he never changed the position of his head and his face was not seen. The video jumped when Gloria went into the alcove and then stepped onto an elevator. There was a black screen for a few seconds and then the video showed Gloria getting back on the elevator on the eighth floor and going down to the lobby.