Until Proven Innocent (28 page)

I can see that Tony is visualizing the entire process in his mind, counting off the number of seconds it might take.

“
Probably less than ten seconds.”

“
So in other words, what you’re telling us is that while you’re struggling to pull a tight garment over your head, your gun is out of your sight for up to twenty seconds, and someone could have performed the acts I questioned you about and still have ten seconds to spare. Is that correct?”

Bingo. I see some light bulbs going off over the heads of a couple of jurors. Turning around to return to my seat, I also see some serious scribbling going on in the gallery.

“
Sure, I guess that someone could do that without me noticing it.”

At this point I have no further questions to ask him, so I tell the judge I’m through with him for now, and let Myra have a shot at him. Now I’m amazed for the second time this afternoon. Myra passes. The prosecution has no questions for Tony.

This is unheard of. There isn’t a prosecutor in the world that doesn’t salivate at the chance of having a shot at the defendant in a criminal trial. It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. The only reason I can figure out for her passing up a chance like this is that she’s starting to get the idea that I might win this case, and she doesn’t want to come off too harsh against a police hero who might get acquitted. Smart move on her part. She wants to live to fight again another day.

By the time I get back to my seat, Tony is out of the witness seat and back to his chair next to me at the counsel table. I call my next witness.

“
The defense calls its investigator and technical expert, Miss Suzi Braunstien.”

She hears her name and jumps right up to her seat in the witness box, barely giving the bailiff a chance to bring the telephone directory over and slide it under her rear end before she plumps down and starts adjusting her microphone.

She gives a subtle smile to her new friend the judge. He returns it in kind, so I know that she’s still in control of the courtroom. I check over her list of questions and know what to ask, but I have no idea what the answers will be. This is not a comfortable situation for any lawyer to be in during a trial, but I have to trust her on this one. I start out by showing her the prosecution’s exhibit of that empty shell that they removed from Tony’s gun.

“
Suzi, you’ve seen this exhibit when you testified earlier today. Do you have any way to tell when it was fired?”

To the amazement of me and everyone else in the courtroom, she answers.

“
Yes.”

Another round of whispering goes on and this is a four-gavel-bang disturbance. I’ve already stuck my neck out by starting with this line of questioning, so I might as well go all the way. I ask the next question.

“
Would you please tell the court when you think this round was fired, and also explain the facts you base your opinion on?”

Myra is up and out of her chair making an objection on the ground that only an expert can offer an opinion as evidence. I don’t have to say a word, because the judge reminds Myra that both sides agreed in advance by stipulation to letting her testify as an expert. Now Myra finally realizes what the kid has done to her. With the objection discussion resolved, Suzi continues with her answer.

“
First of all, knowing that the empty shell casing was planted in Detective Tony’s gun while he was changing at the range, it must have been at the end of his shooting session, because I saw him return to the Marina before five PM that day. The shell must have been planted between three and four PM that afternoon.”

No whispering in the court, but plenty of scribbling and pressing of keys on the reporters’ laptops. Suzi hesitates for a second, as if to gather her thoughts, and then continues on with her answer.

“
I figured out the same things that Detective Tony testified to. About the only time someone could have changed the load in his cylinder, but wondered about where the empty round came from. Because his gun was taken away from him that same evening, we never bothered to unload the brass basket and do any re-loading, so I dumped out the contents of the basket and counted the spent shells. There were exactly one hundred of them. This means that if one of them was taken out and planted in his cylinder, whoever did it must have taken it out of the brass basket and tossed in another empty one to replace it.

“
Knowing that must have been what happened, I thought that out of the hundred empty casings in the basket, one of them came from the person who did the switch, and that person also must have the same kind of gun. I think that whoever did the switch did the killing.”

This time there’s more than a whispering in the courtroom. It’s loud conversation, and it seems like everyone there is talking to the people seated nearby, discussing the validity of what Suzi just testified to. Myra is talking to her trial deputy, and even the judge is having a brief discussion with one of the bailiffs. Everyone knows that the other shoe might drop pretty soon, so without any banging of the gavel, the room slowly comes back to order. When I hear the commotion die down, I look up at the judge, and he signals for me to continue. By this time, Suzi and I are on the same page.

“
Suzi, did you inspect all of the empty shell casings that were in the Defendant’s brass basket when he returned from the practice range that day?”

“
Yes I did. Whenever a bullet is fired in a gun, the same force that pushes the bullet head out of the front of the gun pushes the shell casing back to the rear of the gun at the same time. This causes what we call recoil, but at the same time it leaves distinguishing marks on the rear face of the shell casing. By carefully examining every one of the one hundred empty shells in the brass basket, I was able to separate out the only one that did not have the same firing pin indentation as the other ninety nine shells.”

At this time she reaches into her pocket and holds up a small plastic baggie that contains an empty shell casing.

Another outburst takes place in the courtroom. Myra tells one of the bailiffs to go over and take the shell from Suzi. The Bailiff refuses to make a move until the judge tells him to. When the noise subsides, I go on with my questioning.

“
Did you have any way to find out which, or whose weapon fired the questioned shell?

“
Yes, I did. I had Detective Sid and Detective Frank, two friends of mine, go out to the practice range in plain clothes. They spent several days out there firing, and with a brass basket full of Detective Tony’s empty shells. Every time they saw someone with the same kind of big pistol as Detective Tony’s, they managed to pick up a spent shell and replace it with one of Detective Tony’s old ones. This way, they were able to bring back a bunch of samples to compare with the one I found in the brass basket.”

This is the first time I’ve heard any of the things she’s done on this investigation, and I have to admit that she’s really done a great job. I don’t know what the rest of her answers are going to be, but I can’t wait to find out.

“
Suzi, were you able to make a match to any of the casings that your detective friends brought back from the firing range?”

“
Yes, I was. One of the weapons used at the range gave us an identical ballistics fingerprint match to the other shell.”

This is it. The other shoe is ready to drop. I can’t believe that this is actually happening, but I think that the kid is getting ready to identify the real killer. There is a flurry of scribbling and laptop usage. Looking back to the rear doors of the courtroom, I see that the bailiffs are having a hard time keeping more members of the press out. They have now allowed sitting room on the floors of the aisles, so another twenty reporters are now crowded in. I might as well go for it now.

“
Suzi, after you made the match you told us about, did you have any way to know what gun it came from or who fired it?”

“
Yes Peter, because I had the detectives provide me with a license plate to go along with each shell they brought back. I had them run all of the plates through DMV before giving me the shells to compare, so I know what car the shooter drove, but the detectives don’t know yet.”

This time the courtroom erupts into a cheering session, like one of those television dramas where they finally remove the puppy from the well, and everyone cries and hugs the person they’re standing next to. The judge doesn’t even try to quiet them down. We all just wait patiently, because we know that everyone realizes the sooner they quiet down, the sooner Suzi will finish her testimony and name the killer. Most embarrassed of all is Myra’s trial deputy, who now realizes what a fool she made out of herself when first trying to explain to this innocent little girl what a fingerprint is. With some order restored, I forge ahead.

“
Suzi, would you please tell the court who, in your opinion, is the real killer of Joseph Caulfield?”

Suzi doesn’t answer. Instead, she climbs up in the witness chair and motions for the judge to come close because she wants to communicate with him privately. Any other witness who tries a stunt like this is immediately dragged out of the courtroom by the bailiffs, but this is no ordinary witness, so the judge leans over to let her whisper in his ear. A dead silence falls over the courtroom, with everyone trying to hear what she’s saying. The judge nods an acknowledgement of her little secret and speaks to us. “I’d like both counsel to approach the bench, please.”

Myra and I both exchange shrugs with each other and walk into the well towards the bench. When we get there, the judge has a strange request that he whispers to us.

“
I know that both of you are sworn officers of the court, so I hope I’ll get some cooperation from you. The witness has made a special request that I can’t refuse. She tells me that she won’t name the shooting suspect in this case unless you both agree to her demand.”

Myra and I both look at each other. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were in this crowded courtroom with television covering our every move, there’s no doubt in my mind at all that we would be in a knocked-down dragged-out argument about whose fault this is. I try to quietly tell her that she should have never subpoenaed the kid, and she blames me for not knowing what the kid was planning on doing here today. This slightly heated discussion is being conducted in hoarse whispers, as we stand in front of the judge. He interrupts us with his own whisper.

“
Counsel, please. This is a criminal court, not divorce court. I can see a slight disagreement the two of you are having about child raising. If you would have stayed married, you could have had this discussion outside of the courtroom. However, you’re not still married, and this isn’t divorce or domestic relations court, so I’m going to have to stop you for a minute to give me a chance to tell you what this child wants.”

Myra and I take his advice and cool down for a second, to give the judge a chance to continue.

“
Suzi tells me that she’ll give you the name of the person who owns the car that the shooter was driving, if the two of you will take her out to dinner tonight at some Mexican restaurant you’ve all been to before. And, as an extra bonus, if the two of you will try to spend the entire evening together without fighting, she also promises to testify about some additional evidence she has that may even name the shooter for you.”

Myra and I both turn to glare at the witness, who is doing her best ‘little angel’ impression during this whole discussion. We tell the judge that we’ll agree to her terms and return to our respective seats at the counsel tables. I continue with my questioning.

“
Suzi, just before this last break, I asked if you have an opinion of who the real killer is. Will you please tell us your opinion now if you have one?”

“
Yes, I do have one. In addition to the license plates that my friends ran, they also checked gun sales throughout Southern California and background checks made for those purchases. They concentrated only on the same .50 caliber weapon like Detective Tony has. When all the results came back in, there was a match. We saw only one name that appeared as registered owner of a car at the practice range who also had a background check conducted for the purchase of a .50 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver like Detective Tony’s.”

A slight commotion is taking place, and a few reporters walk out of the courtroom, to be ready to get to their satellite vans in time to be first to broadcast the name of the killer. All of the other reporters in the courtroom are frantically dialing their cell phones, trying to get connected to their network or associate downstairs at the news van. When it gets quiet enough, Suzi continues.

“
The name that turned up as a match all over was David Miller, and I believe that he was the one who had the same gun as Tony, was at the practice range that day, made the ammunition switch, called Detective Tony and told him to meet the victim at the soundstage, and then drove over there to kill the victim knowing that Detective Tony would call it in and get arrested.”

Did I hear her right? David Miller is the name of the guy who manages the apartment building where April lives. Suzi isn’t through yet. She has another announcement to make.

“
Mister David Miller is now out in the hallway. He’s in handcuffs, waiting to be formally arrested by the District Attorney.”

Any semblance of order is now completely out of the question. People are shouting in the courtroom, trying to get their story told by cell phone. At the same time, the doors to the hallway are jammed with people trying to get out there to see the arrestee and get a picture of him on their new picture phones. When it seems like everyone who wants to get out of the courtroom has succeeded, the judge looks down at Myra and asks her only one question. “Will you be making a motion to dismiss?”