The Reversal

“Judge, I cannot sit down when my client’s freedom is at stake. This is an egregious-”

Breitman angrily slammed her hand down, making a sound as loud as a shot.

“We’re not going to do this in front of the jury, Mr. Royce. Will the jurors please return to the assembly room.”

Wide-eyed and alert to the tension that had engulfed the courtroom, the jurors filed out, to a person glancing back over their shoulders to check the action behind them. The whole time, Royce held his glare on the judge. And Bosch knew it was mostly an act. This was exactly what Royce wanted, for the jury to see him being persecuted and prevented from bringing his case forward. It didn’t matter that they would be sequestered in the jury room. They all knew that Royce was about to get slapped down hard by the judge.

Once the door to the jury assembly room was closed, the judge turned back to Royce. In the thirty seconds it had taken the jury to leave the courtroom, she had obviously calmed down.

“Mr. Royce, at the end of the trial we will be holding a contempt hearing during which your actions today will be examined and penalized. Until then, if I ever order you to sit down and you refuse that order, I will have the courtroom deputy forcibly place you in your seat. And it will not matter to me if the jury is present or not. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honor. And I would like to apologize for allowing the emotions of the moment to get the best of me.”

“Very well, Mr. Royce. You will now sit down and we’ll bring the jury back in.”

They held each other’s eyes for a long moment until Royce finally and slowly sat down. The judge then told the courtroom deputy to retrieve the jury.

Bosch glanced at the jurors as they returned. They all had their eyes on Royce, and Harry could see the defense attorney’s gambit had worked. He saw sympathy in their eyes, as if they all knew that at any moment they might cross the judge and be similarly rebuked. They didn’t know what happened while they were behind the closed door, but Royce was like the kid who had been sent to the principal’s office and had returned to tell everyone about it at recess.

The judge addressed the jury before continuing the trial.

“I want the members of the jury to understand that in a trial of this nature emotions sometimes run high. Mr. Royce and I have discussed the issue and it is resolved. You are to pay it no mind. So, let’s proceed with the reading of prior sworn testimony. Mr. Haller?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Haller stood and went to the lectern with his printout of Doral Kloster’s testimony.

“Detective Bosch, you are still under oath. Do you have the transcript of sworn testimony provided by Detective Doral Kloster on October eighth, nineteen eighty-six?”

“Yes, I do.”

Bosch placed the transcript on the stand and took a pair of reading glasses out of his jacket’s inside pocket.

“Okay, then once again I will read the questions that were posed to Detective Kloster under oath by Deputy District Attorney Gary Lintz, and you will read the responses from the witness.”

After a series of questions used to elicit basic information about Kloster, the testimony moved quickly into the investigation of the murder of Melissa Landy.

“ ‘Now, Detective, you are assigned to the detective squad at Wilshire Division, correct?’ ”

“ ‘Yes, I am on the Homicide and Major Crimes table.’ ”

“ ‘And this case did not start out as a homicide.’ ”

“ ‘No, it did not. My partner and I were called in from home after patrol units were dispatched to the Landy house and a preliminary investigation determined that it appeared to be a stranger abduction. That made it a major crime and we were called out.’ ”

“ ‘What happened when you got to the Landy house?’ ”

“ ‘We initially separated the individuals there-the mother, father and Sarah, the sister-and conducted interviews. We then brought the family together and conducted a joint interview. It often works best that way and it did this time. In the joint interview we found our investigative direction.’ ”

“ ‘Tell us about that. How did you find this direction?’ ”

“ ‘In the individual interview, Sarah revealed that the girls had been playing a hide-and-seek game and that she was hiding behind some bushes at the front corner of her house. These bushes blocked her view of the street. She said she heard a trash truck and saw a trashman cross the yard and grab her sister. These events occurred on a Sunday, so we knew there was no city trash pickup. But when I had Sarah recount this story in front of her parents, her father quickly said that on Sunday mornings several tow trucks patrol the neighborhood and that the drivers wear overalls like the city sanitation workers do. And that became our first lead.’ ”

“ ‘And how did you follow that lead?’ ”