you stopped into Book Soup and made a phone call you obviously didn’t want your driver to hear.”
I was impressed.
“Okay, then, never mind that. I get it. They’re out there. What do you want, Bosch? What’s going on?”
Bosch stood up and approached me.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said. “What was Walter Elliot so hot and bothered about tonight at dinner? And who’d you call in the back of the bookstore?”
“First of all, Elliot’s my client and I’m not telling you what we talked about. I’m not crossing that line with you. And as far as the call in the bookstore goes, I was ordering pizza because, as you and your colleagues might have noticed, I didn’t eat my dinner tonight. Stick around if you want a slice.”
Bosch looked at me with that half smile of his, the knowing look with his flat dead eyes.
“So that’s how you want to play it, Counselor?”
“For now.”
We didn’t speak for a long moment. We just sort of stood there, waiting for the next clever line. It didn’t come and I decided I really was tired and hungry.
“Good night, Detective Bosch.”
I went in and closed the door, leaving Bosch out there on the deck.
Forty-four
My turn at Detective Kinder did not come until late on Tuesday, after the prosecutor had spent several more hours drawing the details of the investigation out on direct examination. This worked in my favor. I thought the jury – and Julie Favreau confirmed this by text message – was getting bored by the minutiae of the testimony and would welcome a new line of questions.
The direct testimony primarily regarded the investigative efforts that took place after Walter Elliot’s arrest. Kinder described at length his delving into the defendant’s marriage, the discovery of a recently vested prenuptial agreement, and the efforts Elliot made in the weeks before the murders to determine how much money and control of Archway Studios he would lose in a divorce. With a time chart he was also able to establish through Elliot’s statements and documented movements that the defendant had no credible alibi for the estimated time of the murders.
Golantz also took the time to question Kinder about all the dead ends and offshoots of the investigation that proved to be ancillary. Kinder described the many unfounded leads that were called in and dutifully checked out, the investigation of Johan Rilz in an effort to determine if he had been the main target of the killer, and the comparison of the double murder to other cases that were similar and unsolved.
In all, Golantz and Kinder appeared to have done a thorough job of nailing my client to the murders in Malibu, and by midafternoon the young prosecutor was satisfied enough to say, “No more questions, Your Honor.”
It was now finally my turn and I had decided to go after Kinder in a cross-examination that would stay tightly focused on just three areas of his direct testimony, and then surprise him with an unexpected punch to the gut. I moved to the lectern to conduct the questioning.
“Detective Kinder, I know we will be hearing from the medical examiner later in the trial, but you testified that you were informed after the autopsy that the time of death of Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Rilz was estimated to be between eleven a.m. and noon on the day of the murders.”
“That is correct.”
“Was it closer to eleven or closer to noon?”
“It’s impossible to tell for sure. That is just the time frame in which it happened.”
“Okay, and once you had that frame, you then proceeded to make sure that the man you had already arrested had no alibi, correct?”
“I would not put it that way, no.”
“Then, how would you put it?”
“I would say that it was my obligation to continue to investigate the case and prepare it for trial. Part of that due diligence would be to keep an open mind to the possibility that the suspect had an alibi for the murders. In carrying out that obligation, I determined according to multiple interviews as well as records kept at the gate at Archway Studios that Mr. Elliot left the studio, driving by himself, at ten forty that morning. This gave him plenty of time to-”
“Thank you, Detective. You’ve answered the question.”
“I haven’t finished my answer.”
Golantz stood and asked the judge if the witness could finish his answer, and Stanton allowed it. Kinder continued in his Homicide 101 tone.
“As I was saying, this gave Mr. Elliot