Death on a High Floor (33 page)

Benitez started up again. “Did you say anything to Mr. Tarza after he told you that he was reporting a murder?”

“Yes. I asked him if he was sure the victim was dead.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘
Very
sure.’”

“Did you say anything else?”

“Yes, I asked him for the address, and he gave it to me.” She paused. “Well, initially he gave me the wrong floor. But then he corrected himself.”

“Did he say why he got it wrong to start with?”

“He said something about accidentally misspeaking.”

I heard Jenna say “shit” under her breath.

“Did you say anything else to him?”

“I asked him if he himself had any weapons, and he said no. Then I told him not to touch anything and to remain there until the police arrived.”

“What, if anything, did he say in response?”

“He said, ‘Sure.’”

“Did you take any action with regard to the call?”

“Yes, I routed the information to the LAPD dispatch center with an urgent tag on it.”

“Thank you. I have no further questions.”

Jenna got up and moved to the podium. As I watched her, I wondered if she looked too young to be my lawyer. Then I put the thought out of my mind and concentrated on the fact that Jenna had no notes. Unlike the note-bound Benitez. It hardly mattered in this hearing, though. Jurors sometimes liked lawyers who worked without a lot of notes. But there weren’t yet any jurors to impress.

“Good morning, Ms. Krepliak.” That was something I had taught Jenna in our first trial together. Always greet the witness, even if they’re hostile. Juries like polite lawyers.

“Good morning.”

“Ms. Krepliak, how long after the events of Monday, December 6, were you first questioned by the police about Mr. Tarza’s call?”

“Maybe four or five days later.”

“How many calls do you usually handle a day?”

“Maybe seventy or eighty when it’s busy.”

“So between the time you handled Mr. Tarza’s call and when the police interviewed you, you handled perhaps 300 other calls?”

“Yes.”

“How many of those calls involved reports of a death?”

Krepliak looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure. Maybe ten or twenty.”

“Sitting here today, do you remember the tone of voice of any particular one of those ten or twenty callers?”

Krepliak looked caught. I could see her struggling to find a way out of the trap if she answered yes. She decided to avoid that fate. “No, no I don’t.”

I realized that I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for Jenna to choose whether to go further and ask Krepliak whether she had any special reason to remember my call. Or just to let a good enough answer well enough alone. She decided on something in between.

“Ms. Krepliak, when you received Mr. Tarza’s call, did you have any reason, from the outset, to think it would be an unusual call?”

“No.”

Then Jenna apparently decided that Krepliak’s answers in that area were now good enough, and took out her knife.

“Ms. Krepliak, if I remember an earlier answer correctly, you said that in your experience
almost
all the people who called in a death sounded upset.”

“Yes.”

“So ‘almost’ means some people didn’t sound upset, isn’t that right?”

“Right.”

I could see it coming. I don’t know if Krepliak herself could. I noticed Benitez squirming. He could see it. Judge Gilmore had a beatific smile on her face. She could see it, too.

“Did you ever learn whether
any
of those people, those people who you say didn’t sound upset, had murdered somebody?”

Krepliak looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “Well . . . no.”

Then Jenna twisted the knife. “So, Ms. Krepliak, you don’t really have any basis at all, do you, for connecting up
your
perception
of a caller’s tone of voice with a guilty conscience, do you?”

“Objection. Irrelevant.” The mostly silent Benitez was suddenly alive. “I didn’t ask Ms. Krepliak to make that connection.”

“Overruled.”

Krepliak answered. “I’m not sure.”

Unlike in a TV drama, Jenna didn’t respond to the witness by saying, “Well,
I’m sure
,” or ask that Krepliak be ordered to answer the question yes or no. Instead, she just let the non-answer hang there, looked over at me, and raised her eyebrows. That was our private signal, developed over six trials together. It asked, Shall I take a wild stab? The supposed rule in cross-examination is never to ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer. But that rule can be violated, sometimes to spectacularly good effect. There was no downside here. I raised my eyebrows in response. Go for it.

“Ms. Krepliak, back on December 6, when you received Mr. Tarza’s call, were you under any personal stress?”

Benitez was up again. “Objection. This surely goes beyond the scope of direct.”

Judge Gilmore didn’t wait for Jenna to respond to Benitez, and she looked annoyed. “Counsel, the mental state of a percipient witness when she perceived something, a ‘something’ that
you
brought out on direct, is right at the heart of proper cross-examination. Overruled.” I had noticed long ago that when judges switch to calling lawyers whose names they know full well “Counsel,” it was not a good thing.

Krepliak sat there without answering.

“There is a question before you, Ms. Krepliak,” Jenna said.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“That afternoon, I was scheduled to go to a custody hearing in my divorce.”

“So you were under some stress?”

“You could say that.”

“And you were trying to stay . . .” Jenna stretched out the pause before uttering the next word. . . “calm?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, I have nothing further.”

I looked at the judge looking at Benitez. Normally, a lawyer with redirect to do would already be moving toward the podium. Benitez was just sitting there. Thinking about it.

“Any redirect Counsel?”

He sat for a second longer, staring at his papers. “No, Your Honor.”

Benitez could have tried to repair the damage Jenna had done. There were a number of ways to attempt it. But he had clearly decided not to risk making it worse. Krepliak wasn’t important to his case. All he had had to do with her, really, was put her on the stand for two minutes to start the timeline of his case. Get her to report receipt of the call, to identify the caller, to say what time he called, and what he said. Then out of there.

Gussying up her testimony with the “calm as flat water” stuff had been a gambit to hand a headline to the Blob. Something like,
Tarza Cold As Ice in 911 Call
. Now the gambit had, if it had not failed entirely, been at least blunted. So Benitez decided to cut his losses and move on. I could only hope the next witness would be as easy.

There was a moment of silence in the courtroom as Judge Gilmore looked down and made some notes. I assumed she was making a note about something Krepliak had said. Then she looked back up.

“Mr. Benitez,” Judge Gilmore said, “please call your next witness.”

“The People call Detective Lionel Spritz.”

Lionel? I had never heard Spritz’s first name before, or bothered to ask if he even had one. Certainly I knew that
Detective
wasn’t his first name, but somehow it had seemed to be. In any case, Detective Lionel Spritz did not promise to be easy.

Benitez did not go to the podium to start questioning Spritz or even stand up. He just continued to sit at the table and watched Spritz walk to the stand. You can do that if you want to in some courtrooms. With no jury present, it probably makes little difference whether you stand or sit. Spritz was sworn and Benitez, still sitting, began.

“Detective, what is your position?”

“I am a sworn officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, with the rank of Detective III.”

“Do you have a particular specialty or assignment within the Police Department?”

“Yes, I am assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division.”

“How long have you been with the LAPD?”

“More than thirty years.”

“Were you gainfully employed prior to joining the Police Department?”

“Yes. For two years prior to that I was a criminal investigator in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.”

“And before that?”

“I was a first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. Three years.”

“What was your specialty in the Marine Corps?”

“During my entire three years, I was in the Criminal Investigation Division working as a criminal investigator.”

“Did you serve overseas?”

“Yes, I saw service in Vietnam.”

“Could you describe in more detail your investigatory duties in Vietnam?”

“I investigated felony accusations against enlisted personnel.”

“During that time did you receive any merit decorations for particular investigations that you conducted?”

Before Spritz could answer, Judge Gilmore interrupted.

“Counsel,” Judge Gilmore said, “I’m sure Detective Spritz’s career in the Marines is fascinating and very distinguished. But since there’s no jury sitting over there in the jury box . . .” She paused and waved her hand toward the eighteen chairs to her right, all of them currently filled by the Blob’s courtroom cousins, then continued, “I think you can move along.”

I glanced over at the cousins and thought they looked uncomfortable at being pointed to, even in so collective a way. Because we all understood that Judge Gilmore’s wave in their direction was intended to remind everyone of a key fact—the Blob’s presence was the real reason Benitez was asking about Spritz’s medals or whatever kudos he had received.

“Alright, Your Honor,” Benitez said. “I can come back to Detective Spritz’s deeper background experience if it becomes relevant.”

“Yes,” Judge Gilmore said. “
If
. . . it becomes relevant.”

I was actually disappointed at the judge’s intervention. Spritz had lately become a looming presence in my life, but he was still something of a stick figure. I had been fascinated to watch Benitez ink clothing on the stick.

I was also amused at the small hole that Benitez had dug for himself. In the face of such a small loss, he should just have said “Thank you, Your Honor,” and moved on. Instead, he tried to cover his butt by carving out a reason to try again later. Which he could have done anyway. So all he had done in the end was to irritate the judge. If you do that kind of thing a lot, it can turn a judge against you. Fatally. Back when I taught trial practice, I used to warn young lawyers against it.

Benitez resumed. “Detective, did you investigate the murder of Simon Rafer?”

“Yes. I’m the lead detective on the investigation. Of course, we’re still investigating that murder.”

“When did you begin the investigation?”

“On the morning of the murder, shortly after 6:00 a.m. I received a call on my cell phone from an LAPD dispatcher informing me that a single homicide had taken place in a high-rise downtown office building. The dispatcher gave me the address, and I proceeded to the suspect building.”

“What time did you arrive there?”

“Approximately 6:15 a.m.”

“Did you have any difficulty gaining entrance to the building?”

“Not really. The lobby doors were already unlocked. A building receptionist had just arrived. After I showed him my badge, he told me the elevators were already unlocked and that I could go ahead and take Elevator 3 up to the eighty-fifth floor.”

“Did anyone go up with you?”

“Yes. Officers Wong and Apple had been patrolling nearby and had responded to a backup call. I had called for backup on my way there. They arrived at almost the same time I did and accompanied me up the elevator.”

“Did anyone else accompany you?”

“Well, Officer Hermann arrived just as we were about to enter the elevator. I told him the little I knew and instructed him to remain in the lobby to interview the building receptionist and monitor the perimeter while we went up.”

“What did you find when you stepped off the elevator on the eighty-fifth floor?”

“We went up first to the eighty-fourth floor. I wanted to use an internal stairway to go up to eighty-five. I judged it to be tactically imprudent to elevator directly to the suspect floor.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard
elevator
used as a verb. And rapt as I was on hearing these details for the first time, I was amused to hear first the building and then the floor referred to as suspects. Apparently I had not been the sole suspect.

“What happened when you arrived on the eighty-fourth floor?”

“We found the elevator lobby deserted. We then proceeded up a wide internal stairway that came out into the law firm’s main reception area on the eighty-fifth floor.”

“What did you observe there?”

“We observed a body, one that I later learned to be that of Mr. Simon Rafer.”

“Please describe the body.”

“The body was face-down in a large, carpeted reception area. It was lying halfway between a reception desk and a set of double doors that led from the reception area into the elevator lobby. A knife with an ornate handle was plunged up to the hilt in the victim’s back. The knife was approximately in the middle of his back, about halfway down. The body was surrounded by a very large pool of blood, mostly brown and congealed.”

“Did you also observe the defendant at that point?”

“Yes. He was standing between the body and the entry doors into the reception area, approximately three feet from the body. He was wearing a suit, had his arms folded, and appeared calm. He looked almost like he was guarding it.”

“What did you do next?”

“I instructed Officer Apple to frisk the defendant and conduct a brief interview. I also instructed him to determine if the defendant knew of anyone on the floor or elsewhere who was armed or otherwise a threat or who should be detained. Then I knelt down and touched two fingers to the victim’s neck to see if I could detect a pulse.”

“What did you find?”

“There was no pulse. I also noted that the neck was cold to the touch. Well below normal body temperature. The victim was clearly dead. This did not surprise me. There was a large volume of blood on the carpet. He might well have exsanguinated.”

Benitez was doing a nice job. Simple, direct questions. Letting the witness, not the questions, tell the story.

“What did you do next?”

“I spoke again with Officer Apple. He reported that the defendant told him that he had found the body when he arrived at work at about 6:00 a.m. and knew of no one nearby who was a threat.”

I waited to see if Jenna would make the hearsay objection. Coming out of Spritz’s mouth, what I told Apple, which Apple had in turn passed on to Spritz, seemed to me to be so-called
totem pole
hearsay—hearsay on hearsay—and inadmissible. Jenna could have objected.

As I expected, though, she sat silent. The hearsay didn’t matter this time because Spritz was repeating accurately what I had said to Apple. He had to, because Apple’s report of his interview with me was right there in the murder book. Also, Oscar had told me that there was an exception to the hearsay rule for police officers testifying at a preliminary hearing. Plus things I said, if related by a witness to whom I said them, would likely be subject to an exception to the hearsay rule. Maybe Jenna just didn’t want to get into all that.

Spritz had left out one thing in his answer, though. I assumed Jenna would get to it on cross if Benitez didn’t cover it on direct.

Benitez was continuing. “Where was Officer Wong at that time, Detective?”

“I had asked her to reconnaissance the floor to be sure there was no one else present. At the time Officer Apple reported to me, Officer Wong had not yet returned from that mission.”

I wondered to myself exactly what Officer Wong had seen on her tour of the floor. It was a tour I had never been able to take that day. But Officer Wong’s written report was silent on the matter, except to say that she had observed nothing significant. Apparently, she had not observed the blood stain on my office couch.

“What did you do next?”

“I ordered Officer Apple to immediately secure the crime scene with tape and to designate the entire floor as a crime scene. I also told him to ask the defendant to move into the elevator lobby and to remain there.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I called the coroner’s office and learned that a van had already been dispatched. Then I called my dispatcher to request a crime scene team. She told me it was already on its way.”

“While you were there, did you observe anything else of interest to you?”

“Yes, I observed a large, longish depression in the carpeting, in the shape of a body. It was located toward the left-rear corner of the reception area, just behind a large plant, its length parallel with the reception desk.”

“Did you observe anything else about the depression in the carpeting?”

“Yes. There were some blue-black fibers visible in it.”

“Did you draw any conclusions from the nature of the depression?”

Jenna was on her feet. “Objection. Detective Spritz has not been qualified as an expert on
anything
,
let alone carpet depressions, so he can’t proffer an expert conclusion. And I smell an expert conclusion coming.”

Judge Gilmore cocked her head. “Fe, fi, fo, fum,” she said. The courtroom burst into laughter.

As we waited for the laughter to subside, I made a bet with myself that the judge was thinking the same thing I was thinking. That it would be a waste of time to argue about all this before we had heard the conclusion Spritz actually wanted to utter. But Jenna’s objection was legitimate enough. Had there been a jury there, it would have been critical to make it. You can’t un-ring the bell once a jury’s heard it rung.

Judge Gilmore made her ruling. “Ms. James, you may be right. But since there’s no jury here, let’s hear the conclusion first. You can reserve your right to move to strike the answer if it’s improper.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jenna said.

Jenna had probably seen the ruling coming, too, but I understood her purpose. To remind the media that Spritz wasn’t necessarily an expert on anything. To get in the way of the smooth flow of testimony. And maybe to show, as Brendan Sullivan, a prominent defense lawyer, once famously said, that she wasn’t just a potted plant.

Benitez had not said anything in response. He could have nipped the whole thing in the bud by saying, “Let me rephrase,” and laying a proper foundation for Spritz’s expertise. But he no doubt knew the capabilities of his own witness, who had not exactly fallen off the turnip truck onto the witness stand. Spritz had probably been there a hundred times.

Judge Gilmore turned to Spritz. “You may answer.”

“Well,” Spritz said, “based on my many years of experience in the field, including literal fields in Vietnam, I have observed that murder crime scenes often feature body-shaped depressions which later turn out, when all the evidence is in, to be places where a perpetrator was lying in wait for a victim. In this case, I concluded that the depression in the plush carpet held a shape very similar to those which,
in my experience
, the bodies of perpetrators typically make when lying in wait on a soft surface.” He smirked.