The Attorney (32 page)

"Nothing further of this witness, Your Honor."

RYAN is operating on the notion THAT Jonah sat in the driver's seat and methodically pumped two rounds into Suade.

This picture fits nicely with the theory that while Jonah may have been enraged, he took the time to go somewhere, get the gun, and then drive to Suade's, all the elements of premeditation and deliberation, malice aforethought.

Without evidence linking Ontaveroz, I am now being forced in midtrial to rethink the defense, not without risk.

Suade's gun is the key. I have considered the possibility of putting on my own medical expert, reconstructing the scene, the wounds, the powder residue, putting the weapon in Suade's hand.

The image of whoever killed her, fighting for his life.

My problem is, Jonah says he wasn't there. What happens if I build this defense, and put him on the stand? My client didn't do it, but whoever did was defending himself. It becomes an open-ended defense of the world: everyone except my own client.

The alternative is not to put Jonah on at all. But if self-defense is the theory, the jury is left to wonder why a man who defends himself to the point of taking another life declines to take the stand to defend himself at trial. You can forget the instruction that the jury is not to infer anything from his silence.

I planted the seed with Ryan's firearms expert.

Peltro has done everything in his power to dig it up, including a session in chambers where he warns me, one more attempt like that and I'll be spending time in the bucket when the trial is over, paying some hefty fines by way of sanctions.

Harry and I spend the lunch hour with Jonah in one of the holding cells, a stainless-steel toilet against the wall and a matching single bunk bolted to the floor.

We're going over Ryan's witness list trying to cull the wheat from the chaff, people he might actually call.

Jonah does not seem well, sitting on the bunk looking pale and withered.

The doctors are trying a different medication for his blood pressure, not having much success.

"The food is worse than in the army," he tells us. He's looking at my sandwich, wondering why he got Jell-o and chicken soup.

"They put you on a restricted diet," I tell him.

"Why don't they just kill me?"

"Give 'em time," says Harry. "They're trying." Jonah toys with the Jell-o, wiggling the little squares with the point of his spoon.

"Can you tell us about these people?" I ask him. "The former deckhand?

Your gardener? The dentist. It would help if we could narrow them down."

Ryan's put them all on the witness list. Every person the cops have questioned during their investigation. Without Murphy, Harry and I are now left to cull it down, split up the list and interview the ones we think might know something, that is, if they'll talk to us.

"Ed Condit and I fish together." Jonah's talking about his dentist.

Everybody he knows goes out on the boat. "He doesn't know anything.

What's to know?"

"You don't talk with him when he drills your teeth?" asks Harry.

"He's got his fingers in my mouth. How can I?"

"You never talked to him about Jessica? Never said anything about Suade?" I ask.

He shakes his head.

"So can we cross him off?"

"As far as I'm concerned."

"What about this guy Jeffers?"

"Floyd? I don't know why they put him down there." He's leaning over looking at the list in my hand as I sit on the cot next to him.

"I haven't seen him in two years," he says. "He used to work on the boat. Hung out on the docks. But I certainly never discussed anything personal with him."

"Any reason why they might put him on the list?" I ask.

"No. I think they're just putting down names." That's a big part of it.

Harry and I know it. Force us to waste resources preparing.

"You hired him as a deckhand?" says Harry.

"Right." He shovels a square of Jell-o with the little teaspoon.

"Why did he quit?" says Harry. "Did you have a falling out?" One of the things we would look for, disgruntled employee.

"No. No. Nothing like that. In fact, we had a drink the day he quit.

Went to a tavern at the marina. Several people with us," he says.

I'm sure Jonah was buying all the drinks.

"No, he was fine. Left for a better job," he says.

"Did you know he had a record?" Jonah looks at Harry as soon as he says this.

"No, I didn't."

"He does," says Harry. "Did eighteen months about ten years ago. Larceny rap," says Harry.

Jonah looks at him like this doesn't compute.

"Theft," I say "Ahh." This is something Ryan has to disclose, a convicted felon on the list. Jeffers could be subject to impeachment if he puts him on.

Still, Jonah says that's not likely. According to him, there's nothing Floyd Jeffers could tell them.

We go down the list, maybe four or five live ones, people who might have bad things to say, a neighbor with a fence line dispute in the subdivision where Jonah lives, a woman who once cleaned house and who Mary thinks stole something. They fired her. Ryan has been busy digging up all the dirt.

In the afternoon Ryan puts on Victor Koblinski," to anyone who's ever met him, like me, that night outside Suade's office as they swept the scene for evidence.

Unfortunately, Koblinski's got a good memory for faces. He recognizes mine. Tells the court under gentle prodding from Ryan that I was there that night. This confirms what they've already heard from Brower. Not that any crime has been committed. Ryan may be working toward that.

Dark hair, parted on the left, the beginnings of a bald landing zone on top, Koblinski has saddlebags under both eyes, a face that looks like a beagle's, an expression you can't quite figure out, whether it's sad or just half asleep.

"Sergeant Koblinski. The night you saw Mr. Madriani at the scene with Investigator Brower. Did you talk to him?"

"Not specifically."

"Were you introduced?"

"No."

"So you didn't know that he was a defense attorney working for Mr. Hale, the defendant."

"Objection. Mr. Hale wasn't a defendant at that time. No charges had been brought."

"Maybe I should rephrase the question," says Ryan. "You didn't know he was working for Mr. Hale at that time?"

"No."

"You were assigned to collect trace evidence at that scene, is that right?"

"Correct."

"Can you tell the jury what's involved in the collection of trace evidence? Just generally," he says.

"Its the gathering of very small items, sometimes hair or fibers, sometimes plant material, minerals, particles of sand, anything that can be examined by microscopy, put on a slide, viewed under a microscope, or analyzed in some other way."

"And you've been trained in this field? What kind of training?"

"I hold a degree in police science, criminology. Eleven years on the job. Courses in Washington and Quantico, Virginia, through the FBI Crime Lab. Seminars annually, sometimes twice a year with the California Association of Criminalists. I've also taught courses on the collection of trace evidence at local community colleges."

"Can you tell the jury what you observed when you arrived at the scene in Imperial City?"

"Ah. The victim was in a parking lot behind her office, lying upper torso on her back, lower torso twisted a little onto her left side. She was partially shielded from the street by the rear wheels and the back end of a large town car. We later came to learn that that particular vehicle belonged to the victim."

"Did you inspect or examine the area immediately around the victim?"

"I did."

"And what did you find?"

"There was a large pool of blood. Some footprints outside of it. We later determined that these matched the grid pattern on a sole of shoes worn by one of the paramedics first on the scene."

"So paramedics had tried to resuscitate the victim before you arrived?"

"Yeah. But from "what I heard she was already dead."

"So they pronounced her dead at the scene?"

"Right."

"What else did you find?"

"One spent cartridge casing. About eight feet from the body.

There was a smear of blood on the ground--from where the victim had been dragged."

"Dragged?" says Ryan. He turns to look at the jury as he says this.

"Yes. It looked like she was either pushed or pulled from a vehicle after she was shot."

"Then?"

"Then dragged on her back. One of the wounds was a bleeder.

Lot of blood."

"And this made a mark on the ground?"

"On the paving," says Koblinski. "Also we found little bits of gravel from the surface embedded in her clothing, and abrasion on the cloth that would lead us to conclude that she had been dragged."

"How far?" says Ryan.

"Maybe six, eight feet. No more. Just enough to allow the vehicle to pull away without hitting the body."

"What else did you find? Besides the cartridge casing and the pool of blood?" Then Ryan holds his hand up. Stops him. "Before we leave it," he says. "The cartridge casing, did you determine the caliber?"

"Three-eighty," says Koblinski.

"Thank you. What else did you find?"

"There was a cigar butt. Stubbed out." Ryan stops, shops at the evidence cart for a second, then hands one of the paper bags to the bailiff, who hands it to the witness.

Koblinski quickly identifies it as the one he found at the scene.

"Has my evidence tag on it," he says.

"Did you show this cigar to anybody at the scene?"

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"Him." Koblinski points to me. "And Brower." He says Brewer's name as if it's a four-letter word.

"Let the record reflect that the witness has identified the defense counsel, Mr. Madriani." Ryan makes a mark on the piece of paper in front of him with a pencil, no doubt checking off a point he wants to be sure to cover.

"Was there anything on this cigar when you found it?"

"Some blood," says Koblinski.

"Were you able to determine whose blood this was?"

"The victim's. Same type."

"Were you able to determine how this blood came to be on this cigar butt?"

"Wasn't clear whether maybe it was kicked in there. Into the pooled blood, or if whoever dropped it, dropped it there and the pool caught up with it."

"So you weren't able to do any DNA testing for saliva on the cigar?"

"No. Too much blood. We determined it would be contaminated."

A couple of the jurors are looking more critically toward Jonah, just as he gives Harry a look, shrug of the shoulders, like he can't help that.

Harry's expression is one to kill. A message to stop the body language.

"What else did you find at the scene?"

"Dusting of ash," he says. "Very fine. And two cigarette butts.

One of them on top of the body. Both of them with lipstick on them."

"Were you able to determine where these cigarettes came from?"

"They matched the brand we found in the victim's purse, which was also near the body. We analyzed the lipstick from the purse. It also matched what was on the cigarette butts."

"Do you have any theory as to how the cigarettes got there, on top of the body? And the dusting of ash?"

"Yes. We believe that whoever killed her dragged the body away from the vehicle, and then probably dumped the ashtray from the vehicle on top of her."

"What else did you find?"

"Fish scales," says Koblinski.

"Fish scales?" says Ryan.

"Right. And traces of dried blood on the seat of her pants, under her legs."

"So this would be blood from the victim's wounds?"

"No," says Koblinski. "What we found on the seat of her pants was not human blood. It was piscine."

"Excuse me?"

"Fish blood," says Koblinski. "Serology determined this by analysis."

"Laboratory blood analysis?"

"Right. It looked like some of this blood, partially coagulated, had adhered to the back of the upper right leg of the victims pants.

Upper thigh," says Koblinski. "She must have sat on it, not realizing it was blood, a small glob must have still been wet. Blood'll do that if it starts to coagulate. Then it smeared on her pants and dried there."

"On the back of her pants."

"Correct."

"Can you tell us what drew your attention to this blood on the back of the victim's pants? I mean, the way you describe the body at the scene there was a considerable amount of blood."

"That's true. But it was all on her upper torso, soaked into her clothes, this little bolero-type jacket and her blouse. There wasn't any blood on her pants except for this. We thought maybe we got lucky. That maybe there was some blood belonging to the assailant."

"But this wasn't the case?"

"No. At least not directly," says Koblinski.

"Now let's turn our attention to the fish scales. Were you able to analyze these?"

"We were."

"Were you able to determine the type of fish these came from?"

"A marlin. A large game fish," says Koblinski. "Neon blue color.

They're caught in the waters off the coast and south of here. A lot of people tag 'em, and let 'em go." But not Jonah. I know where he's going.

"In connection with your investigation, did you have occasion to inspect the defendant's boat, the Amanda?"

"I did"

"Before telling us what you found there, could you describe the boat in question?"

"It's a large sport fisher. Steel hull. Forty-two feet. Twin-engine diesels."

"An expensive boat?" says Ryan.

"I wish I had one," says Koblinski.

The jury laughs a little.

Jonah's smile is forced. He's not looking well.

"And what did you find on board?"

"Traces of blood. Lots of fish blood."

"Is there any way of knowing if it was the same as the blood found on the victim's clothing?"

"I couldn't. Probably too much cross contamination. Too many different kinds of fish."

"What else did you find?"

"Fish scales."

"This would be pretty common on a fishing boat?"