A Darkness More Than Night

Chapter 23

Trial resumed twenty-five minutes after the scheduled nine o’clock start because of the prosecution’s unsuccessful bid to seek both sanctions against the defense for witness intimidation and a delay while the statements of Annabelle Crowe were fully investigated. Sitting behind his cherrywood desk in chambers, Judge Houghton encouraged the investigation but said the trial would not be delayed to accommodate it and no sanctions or other penalties would be issued unless evidence corroborating the witness’s statements could be found. He warned the prosecutors and Bosch, who had taken part in the closed-door meeting by recounting his interview with Crowe, not to leak word of the witness’s accusations to the media.

Five minutes later they were convened in the courtroom and the jurors were brought to their two rows of seats. Bosch returned to the witness stand and was reminded by the judge that he was still under oath. Janis Langwiser went back to the lectern with her legal pad.

“Now, Detective Bosch, we left off yesterday with your conclusion in regard to the death of Jody Krementz being determined to be a homicide. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And that conclusion was based not only on your investigation but on the investigation and autopsy conducted by the coroner’s office as well, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Could you please tell the jurors how the investigation proceeded once you had established the death as a homicide?”

Bosch turned in his seat so that he was looking directly at the jury box as he spoke. The movement was jarring. He had a pounding headache on the left side of his head that was so intense he wondered if people could actually see his temple throbbing.

“Well, my two partners – Jerry Edgar and Kizmin Rider – and I began to sit through – I mean, sift through the physical evidence we had accumulated. We also began conducting extensive interviews with those who knew the victim and were known to have been with her in the last twenty-four hours of her life.”

“You mentioned physical evidence. Please explain to the jury what physical evidence you had accumulated.”

“Actually, there was not a whole lot gathered. There were fingerprints throughout the house that we needed to run down. And there also was a quantity of fiber and hair evidence gathered from on and about the victim’s body.”

J. Reason Fowkkes quickly objected before Bosch could continue his answer.

“Objection to the phrase ‘on or about’ as being vague and misleading.”

“Your Honor,” Langwiser countered, “I think if Mr. Fowkkes gave Detective Bosch a chance to finish the answer to the question there would be nothing vague or misleading. But interrupting a witness in mid-answer to say the answer is vague or misleading is not appropriate.”

“Overruled,” Judge Houghton said, before Fowkkes could get in a rejoinder. “Let the witness complete his answer and then we’ll see how vague it is. Go ahead, Detective Bosch.”

Bosch cleared his throat.

“I was going to say that several samples of pubic hair not -”

“What is ‘several,’ Your Honor,” Fowkkes said. “My ongoing objection is to the lack of preciseness this witness is offering the jury.”

Bosch looked at Langwiser and saw how mad she was getting.

“Judge,” she said, “could we please have direction from the court as to when objections can be raised? Defense counsel is seeking to constantly interrupt the witness because he knows we are moving into an area that is particularly devastating to his -”

“Ms. Langwiser, this isn’t the time for closing arguments,” the judge said, cutting her off. “Mr. Fowkkes, unless you are seeing a dire miscarriage of justice, I want objections stated either before a witness speaks or after he has completed at least a sentence.”

“Your Honor, the consequences are dire here. The state is trying to take away my client’s life, simply because his moral views are -”

“Mr. Fowkkes!” the judge boomed. “That goes for you, too, on the closing arguments. Let’s continue the testimony, shall we?”

He turned to Bosch.

“Detective, continue – and try to be a little more precise in your answers.”

Bosch looked at Langwiser and saw her close her eyes momentarily. The judge’s offhanded direction to Bosch had been what Fowkkes was going for. A hint to the jurors that there might be vagueness, maybe even obfuscation in the prosecution’s case. Fowkkes had successfully goaded the judge into appearing to agree with his objections.

Bosch glanced over at Fowkkes and saw him sitting with arms folded and a satisfied, if not smug, look on his face. Bosch looked back down at the murder book in front of him.

“Can I refer to my notes?” he asked.

He was told he could. He opened the binder and turned to the evidence reports. Looking at the medical examiner’s evidence collection report, he began again.

“Prior to autopsy an evidence-collecting brush was passed through the victim’s pubic hair. The comb collected eight samples of pubic hair that subsequent laboratory testing showed to have come from someone other than the victim.”

He looked up at Langwiser.

“Were those pubic hairs from eight different people?”

“No, the lab tests identified them as coming from the same unknown person.”

“And what did this indicate to you?”

“That the victim likely had sexual relations with someone between the time of her last bathing and her death.”

Langwiser looked down at her notes.

“Was there any other hair evidence collected on the victim or at the scene of the crime, Detective?”

Bosch turned a page in the murder book.

“Yes, a single strand of hair measuring two and one half inches long was found entangled on the clasp of a gold necklace the victim wore around her neck. The clasp was located at the back of the victim’s neck. This, too, was identified during lab analysis as coming from someone other than the victim.”

“Going back for a moment to the pubic hair. Were there any other indications or evidence collected from the body or the crime scene indicating the victim had engaged in sexual relations in the time between bathing and her death?

“No, there wasn’t. No semen was collected from the vagina.”

“Is there a conflict between that and the finding of the pubic hair?”

“No conflict. It was simply an indication that a condom could have been used during the sex act.”

“Okay, moving on, Detective. Fingerprints. You mentioned fingerprints were found in the house. Please tell us about that area of the investigation.”

Bosch turned to the fingerprint report in the binder. “There were a total of sixty-eight exemplars of fingerprints gathered inside the house where the victim was found. The victim and her roommate accounted for fifty-two of these. It was determined that the remaining sixteen were left by a total of seven people.”

“And who were these people?”

Bosch read the list of names from the binder. Through questioning from Langwiser he explained who each person was and how the detectives traced down when and why they had been in the house. They were friends of the roommates as well as family members, a former boyfriend and a prior date. The prosecution team knew that the defense would attempt to go to town on the prints, using them as red herrings to bait the jury away from the facts of the case. So the testimony moved slowly as Bosch tediously explained the location and origin of each fingerprint found and identified in the house. He ended with testimony about a full set of fingerprints found on the headboard of the bed in which the victim was found. He and Langwiser knew that these were the prints that Fowkkes would get the most yardage out of, so Langwiser attempted to minimize the potential damage by having it revealed during her examination of the witness.

“How far from the victim’s body were these prints located?”

Bosch looked at the report in the binder.

“Two point three feet.”

“Exactly where on the headboard?”

“On the outside facing, between the headboard and the wall.”

“Was there a lot of space there?”

“About two inches.”

“How would someone get their fingerprints there?”

Fowkkes objected, saying it was outside Bosch’s realm of expertise to determine how a set of fingerprints got anywhere, but the judge allowed the question.

“Only two ways I can think of,” Bosch answered. “They got there when the bed was not pushed quite up to the wall. Or the person who left the prints had reached their fingers through the opening in the slats of the headboard and left them while holding onto that particular cross board.”

Langwiser introduced a photo taken by a fingerprint technician as an exhibit and it was shown to the jury.

“To accomplish the latter explanation you offered, the person would have to be lying in the bed, would he not?”

“It would seem that way.”

“Face down?”

“Yes.”

Fowkkes stood to object but the judge sustained it before the lawyer uttered a word.

“You are going too far afield with suppositions, Ms. Langwiser. Move on.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

She referred to her pad for a moment.

“This print on the victim’s bed, didn’t that make you think the person who left it should be considered a prime suspect?”

“Not initially. It is impossible to tell how long a print has been at a specific location. Plus we had the additional factor that we knew the victim had not been killed in her bed, but rather taken to the bed after being killed elsewhere. It appeared to us that the location of the print was not a place that would have been touched by the killer when he put the body in the bed.”

“Who did these prints belong to?”

“A man named Allan Wiess, who had dated Ms. Krementz on three prior occasions, the most recent date being three weeks before her death.”

“Did you interview Allan Wiess?”

“Yes, I did. Along with Detective Edgar.”

“Did he acknowledge ever being in the victim’s bed?” “Yes, he did. He said he slept with her on that last occasion that he saw her, three weeks prior to her death.”

“Did he say he touched the bed board in the location you have shown us where the fingerprints were located?”

“He said he could have done it but he did not specifically remember doing it.”

“Did you investigate Allan Weiss’s activities on the night of Jody Krementz’s death?”

“Yes, we did. He had a solid alibi.”

“And what was that?”

“He told us he was in Hawaii at a real estate seminar. We checked airline and hotel records as well as with the seminar’s producers. We confirmed he was there.”

Langwiser looked at Judge Houghton and said that it would be a good time to take the morning break. The judge said it was a little early but granted the request and ordered the jurors back in fifteen minutes.

Bosch knew she wanted the break now because she was about to move into questions about David Storey and wanted them clearly separated from all the other testimony. As he stepped off the witness stand and went back to the prosecution table, Langwiser was flipping through some files. She spoke to him without looking up.

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not crisp. Not like yesterday. Are you nervous about something?”

“No. Are you?”

“Yeah, the whole thing. We’ve got a lot riding on this.”

“I’ll be crisper.”

“I’m serious, Harry.”

“So am I, Janis.”

He then walked away from the prosecution table and out through the courtroom.

He decided he would get a cup of coffee at the second-floor cafeteria. But first he stepped into the restroom next to the elevators and went to one of the sinks to splash cold water on his face. He bent fully over the sink, careful not to get water on his suit. He heard a toilet flush and when he straightened up and looked in the mirror he saw Rudy Tafero pass behind him and go to the sink furthest away. Bosch bent down again and brought more water up and held it. Its chill felt good against his eyes and eased his headache.

“What’s it like, Rudy?” he asked without looking at the other man.

“What’s what like, Harry?”

“You know, doing the devil’s bidding. You get any sleep at night?”

Bosch walked over to the paper towel dispenser and tore off several sheets to dry his hands and face. Tafero came over and tore off a towel and began drying his hands.

“It’s funny,” Tafero said. “The only time in my life I had trouble sleeping was when I was a cop. I wonder why that was.”

He balled the towel in his hands and threw it into the wastebasket. He smiled at Bosch and then walked out. Bosch watched him go, still rubbing his hands on the towels.