“Lucinda, can you identify when and where those two photos were taken?” I asked.
“I don’t know the exact date,” Lucinda said. “But it was when Robbie taught me how to shoot. This was the range we would go to in Sand Canyon.”
“Sand Canyon — is that in the Antelope Valley?”
“I think it’s Santa Clarita Valley.”
“But nearby?”
“Yes, not too far.”
“Okay, in that second photo, who is that man next to you?”
“That’s Robbie.”
“Your husband at the time.”
“Yes.”
“Who took that photo?”
“It was one of his friends from the unit. He was teaching his wife how to shoot there too.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Keith Mitchell.”
“Okay, and in the pictures, the gun you are holding, where is that now?”
“I don’t know.”
“When you and your husband divorced, did he leave you any of the guns he possessed?”
“No, none. I didn’t want them in my house. Not with my son there.”
I nodded as if her answer were important and looked at my legal pad, where I had outlined my examination. I used a pen to check off the different avenues of questioning I had covered.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go back to the night of your ex-husband’s death. What happened after you opened the door for the deputy and saw Roberto’s body on the lawn? Was he facedown or face up?”
“Facedown,” Lucinda replied.
“And what happened next with you?”
“They took me and my son and made us sit in the back of a patrol car.”
“And how long were you there?”
“Um, it seemed like a long time. But then they took me and put me in a different car from my son. An unmarked car.”
“You were eventually driven to the Antelope Valley substation and questioned?”
“Yes.”
“Before that, were you asked to allow your hands and clothes to be tested for gunshot residue?”
“Yes. I was asked to step out of the car and they tested me.”
“You were swabbed with a foam disk?”
“Yes.”
“And who conducted this test?”
“A deputy. A woman.”
“Now, there came a time when my investigator Harry Bosch visited with you at the prison in Chino and asked if you would look at some photographs.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted to see if you could identify the female deputy who swabbed you, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He showed you six different photographs?”
“Yes.”
“And did you pick one of those photographs and identify the person who swabbed you?”
“Yes.”
I gave copies of the photo of Stephanie Sanger from Bosch’s photo lineup to Morris and the judge. Permission was quickly granted to enter the photo as plaintiff’s exhibit 2 and show it to the witness.
“Is that the woman you identified as the deputy who tested you for gunshot residue?”
“Yes, that’s her,” Lucinda said.
“Did you know her?”
“No.”
“You didn’t know she was in your husband’s unit with the sheriff’s department?”
“No, I didn’t know her but she told me she worked with Robbie.”
“Did she seem upset that Robbie was dead?”
“She was calm. Professional.”
I nodded. I had gotten everything I needed on the record. Most of it would pay dividends at later points in the hearing. I was pleased. I now had to hope that Lucinda would stand up to a cross-examination from Morris. If she survived that, I knew we had a solid chance.
“I have no further questions,” I said. “But I reserve the right to call the witness back to the stand.”
“Very well, Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “Mr. Morris, would you like to take a break before you begin your cross-examination?”
Morris stood.
“The State would welcome a short break, Your Honor,” he said. “But I have only two questions for this witness, and they require only yes-or-no answers. Perhaps the break could come after the witness is excused.”
“Very well, Mr. Morris,” the judge said. “Proceed.”
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Morris was either a lot smarter than I’d given him credit for or a lot dumber. It was hard to tell because I had never seen him in court before this day. The AG usually hired the best and brightest, and for most of them, habeas hearings were a walk in the park. But based on his previous motions and his habit of contesting what he called my “lack of good-faith discovery,” he hadn’t seemed to be mailing it in. So his letting the petitioner off the stand with just two questions gave me pause. Maybe he sensed that he could not shake Lucinda’s story because she was telling the truth.
I watched attentively as Morris went to the lectern to ask his two questions.
“Ms. Sanz, you reside at the state prison for women in Chino, correct?” Morris asked.
“Uh, yes,” Lucinda said. “Correct.”
“Do you know another inmate there named Isabella Moder?”
Lucinda looked over at me, a momentary flash of What do I do? panic entering her eyes. I hoped the judge didn’t see it. I simply nodded. There was nothing else I could do.
Lucinda looked back at Morris.
“Yes,” she said. “She was in my cell. Then she got transferred to another prison.”
With that answer, I knew exactly what the State’s strategy was and how Morris planned to play it.
26
I talked to Lucinda and then came out of the courtroom like an escaped prisoner. Moving fast, looking up and down the hall, I saw Stephanie Sanger sitting on a bench against the wall opposite the courtroom entrance. She smirked when she saw me, as if she knew what Morris had just done.
I didn’t have time to throw a smirk back at her. I kept scanning the hall until I saw Bosch standing by the elevator. He looked like he was chatting with the marshal who ran the metal detector. The courtrooms on this floor were used primarily for criminal cases, thus the security scan in addition to the metal detector on the first floor of the building.
Bosch glanced over, saw me, and held up an I’ll be right back finger to the marshal. I stopped and waited for him to join me halfway down the hall so we would be out of earshot of both Sanger and the deputy Bosch had been conversing with.
“How’d she do?” Bosch whispered.
“Fine on the direct,” I said. “But it took only two questions from the assistant AG to undo everything.”
“What? What happened?”
“He’s going to sandbag us with a prison informant. I need you to find out everything you can by tomorrow morning about an inmate named Isabella Moder — I think it’s M-o-d-e-r.”
“What about handling the witnesses?”
“I’ll have to do it. I need you on Moder. Now.”
“Okay. Is she at Chino? Who is she?”
“She was Lucinda’s old cellmate. But they moved her about six months ago — about the time I filed the habeas.”
“And her name didn’t come up in discovery? Isn’t that a vi—”
“Morris didn’t need to put her in if she was going to be used for rebuttal. So no violation. A good, clean sandbagging. I should have seen it coming.”
“So what’s the hurry if Morris isn’t going to call her until after your case?”
“Because the best defense is a good offense. I need to know if we’re going to be able to neutralize her whenever they put her on the stand.”
“Got it. Did Cindi tell you what she’d told Moder?”
“She didn’t tell her anything. Moder’s a jailhouse snitch. She’s going to lie. She’s going to say Lucinda admitted to killing her husband.”