Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

“Relevancy is coming, Your Honor,” I responded. “And Mr. Forsythe knows it.”

“Soon, Mr. Haller,” the judge responded.

I nodded my thanks.

“Agent Marco, did you just say you were unable to help Detective Lankford?”

“I don’t think I was. As far as I know, they never made a case against anyone.”

“Were you familiar with the victims in that case?”

“I knew who they were. They were on our radar but they weren’t the subjects of an active investigation.”

“What about in this case, Agent Marco? The Gloria Dayton case. Has Investigator Lankford consulted you on it?”

“No, he has not.”

“Have you consulted him on it?”

“No, I have not.”

“So, no communication between you two?”

“None.”

There was the crack. I knew I was in.

“Now this double murder you spoke of from ten years ago, was that the one on Salem Street in Glendale?”

“Uh…yes, I believe so.”

“Are you familiar with the name Stratton Sterghos?”

Forsythe objected and asked for a sidebar. The judge signaled us up to the bench, and then, as expected, the prosecutor complained that I was trying an end-run move to bring Sterghos in as a witness when the judge had already struck him from the witness list.

I shook my head.

“Judge, that is not what I am trying to do now, and I will go on record right here and say I will not be calling Dr. Sterghos as a witness. He’s not even in Los Angeles. All I want to do here is establish whether the witness knew that I had put Sterghos on the witness list. He said he’s had no contact with anyone associated with this case, but I will be introducing evidence to the contrary.”

Forsythe shook his head like he was exhausted by my antics.

“There is no evidence, Judge. This is just a sideshow. He’s trying to hijack the case while he chases after rainbows.”

I smiled and shook my head. I looked back at the courtroom and happened to see Lankford walking down the center aisle to the rear door.

“Where’s your investigator going?” I asked Forsythe. “I’m going to put him on the stand in a few minutes.”

The question to Forsythe alerted the judge. She raised her head to look over us.

“Mr. Lankford,” she called.

Lankford stopped five feet from the door and looked back.

“Where are you going?” the judge asked. “You are going to be called soon as a witness.”

Lankford held his hands out like he was not sure of an answer.

“Uh, the men’s room.”

“Be back soon, please. You will be needed shortly and we have already lost enough time this morning. I want no more delays.”

Lankford nodded and continued out of the courtroom.

“Excuse me a moment, gentlemen,” the judge said.

She rolled her chair to her left and leaned over the edge of the bench to converse with her clerk. I heard her ask the clerk to tell one of the courtroom deputies to make sure Lankford came back promptly to the courtroom.

That made me feel better about things.

The judge rolled back and returned her focus to the subject of the sidebar. She warned me that her patience had grown exceedingly thin and that I needed to draw the string on the net she had allowed me to cast.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

I went back to the lectern.

“Agent Marco, did anyone tell you that the name Stratton Sterghos had appeared on the defense’s amended witness list this week?”

Marco showed the first signs of discomfort, shaking his head wearily.

“No. I don’t know that name. I never heard of the man before you just brought him up.”

I nodded and made a notation on my legal pad. It read Got you, motherfucker.

“Can you tell the jury where you were on the night of November eleventh of last year?”

Forsythe stood.

“Your Honor!”

“Be seated, Mr. Forsythe.”

Marco shook his head casually.

“I can’t remember exactly what I was doing that far back.”

“It was a Sunday.”

He shrugged.

“Then I was probably watching Sunday Night Football. I don’t know for sure. Does that make me guilty of something?”

I waited, but nothing more came.

“The way it usually works is that I ask the questions,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “Ask away.”

“What about two nights ago on Monday? Do you remember where you were that night?”

Marco didn’t answer for a long moment. I think he realized that he might be standing in the middle of a minefield. In the silence, I heard the rear door of the courtroom open and turned to see Lankford returning, one of the courtroom deputies behind him.

“I was on a surveillance,” Marco finally said.

I turned back to the witness stand.

“A surveillance of whom?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“That’s a case. I’m not going to talk about it in open court.”

“Was that surveillance on Salem Street in Glendale?”

Again he shook his head.

“I’m not going to talk about open investigations in court.”

I stared at him for a long time, wondering how far I should push him.

I finally decided to wait and looked up at the judge.

“Your Honor, I have no further questions at this time but I request that the court hold Agent Marco as a witness so that I can recall him later today.”

The judge frowned.

“Why can’t you finish your direct now, Mr. Haller?”

“I need to take testimony from another witness this morning, and from that testimony I will draw the final questions I’ll have for Agent Marco. I appreciate the court’s ongoing indulgence of the defense’s presentation.”

Leggoe asked Forsythe if he had an issue with my plan.

“Judge, the people have grown very weary of defense counsel’s flights of fancy but once more we are willing to take the ride. I know this will be another crash-and-burn and forgive me but I just can’t look away.”

The judge asked Forsythe if he wanted the opportunity to cross-examine Marco before he stepped down. This would be in addition to the opportunity he would have after I brought the DEA agent back to the stand in the afternoon. Without much thought, he opted to wait to conduct one uninterrupted cross-examination. And as a safety measure, he reserved the right to call Marco back to the stand even if I didn’t.

The judge told Marco he could step down but ordered him to return to the court at one p.m. She then told me to call my next witness.

“The defense calls Lee Lankford.”

I turned to look at Lankford. He was slowly starting to stand.

“And, Your Honor, we’re going to need the audio-visual remote for a video demonstration.”

I made sure I requested it before Marco and his attorney got out of the courtroom. I wanted them thinking about the video I planned to play.

42

Lankford walked with a steady but slow pace to the witness stand, his eyes staring at a fixed point on the wall behind it. I watched him closely. He looked like a man who was running equations internally while running on autopilot externally. I thought this was a good sign, that he was realizing his one way out was through me. I decided I would know pretty quickly into his testimony which path he had chosen.

As the DA’s investigator assigned to the case, Lankford had been granted a standard exception that allowed him to remain in court even though he had been listed as a witness by the defense. This meant that going all the way back to jury selection he had been a familiar presence to the jurors as he sat each day against the railing behind Forsythe. But he had never been introduced before the moment I made him stand and be identified during Hensley’s testimony the day before. So I walked him through who he was and what he did, and I included his background as a former Glendale homicide detective, even though that information had been revealed earlier by Marco.