Thirty

After I was finally alone in the office, I started the process the way I always do, with clean pages and sharp points. From the supply closet I retrieved two fresh legal pads and four Black Warrior pencils. I sharpened their points and got down to work.

Vincent had broken the Elliot case into two files. One file contained the state’s case, and the second, thinner file contained the defense case. The weight of the defense file was not of concern to me. The defense played by the same rules of discovery as the prosecution. Anything that went into the second file went to the prosecutor. A seasoned defense attorney knew to keep the file thin. Keep the rest in your head, or hidden on a microchip in your computer if it is safe. I had neither Vincent’s head nor his laptop. But I was sure the secrets Jerry Vincent kept were hidden somewhere in the hard copy. The magic bullet was there. I just had to find it.

I began with the thicker file, the prosecution’s case. I read straight through, every page and every word. I took notes on one legal pad and drew a time-and-action flowchart on the other. I studied the crime scene photographs with a magnifying glass I took from the desk drawer. I drew up a list of every single name I encountered in the file.

From there, I moved on to the defense file and again read every word on every page. The phone rang two different times but I didn’t even look up to see what name was on the screen. I didn’t care. I was in relentless pursuit and cared about only one thing. Finding the magic bullet.

When I was finished with the Elliot files, I opened the Wyms case and read every document and report it contained, a time-consuming process. Because Wyms was arrested following a public incident that had drawn several uniform and SWAT deputies, this file was thick with reports from the various units involved and personnel at the scene. It was stuffed with transcriptions of the conversations with Wyms, as well as weapons and ballistics reports, a lengthy evidence inventory, witness statements, dispatch records and patrol deployment reports.

There were a lot of names in the file and I checked every one of them against the list of names from the Elliot files. I also cross-referenced every address.

I had this client once. I don’t even know her name because I was sure that the name she was under in the system was not her own. She was in on a first offense but she knew the system too well to be a virgin. In fact, she knew everything too well. Whatever her name was, she had somehow rigged the system and it had her down as someone she wasn’t.

The charge was burglary of an occupied dwelling. But there was so much more than that behind the one charge. This woman liked to target hotel rooms where men with large amounts of money slept. She knew how to pick them, follow them, then finesse the door locks and the room safes while they slept. In one candid moment – probably the only one in our relationship – she told me of the white-hot adrenaline high she got every time the last digit fell into place and she heard the electronic gears of the hotel safe start to move and unlock. Opening the safe and finding what was inside was never as good as that magic moment when the gears began to grind and she felt the velocity of her blood moving in her veins. Nothing before or after was as good as that moment. The jobs weren’t about the money. They were about the velocity of blood.

I nodded when she told me all of this. I had never broken into a hotel room while some guy was snoring on the bed. But I knew about the moment when the gears began to grind. I knew about the velocity.

I found what I was looking for an hour into my second run at the files. It had been there in front of me the whole time. First in Elliot’s arrest report and then on the time-and-action chart I had drawn myself. I called the chart the Christmas tree. It always started basic and unadorned. Just the bare-bones facts of the case. Then, as I continued to study and make the case my own, I started hanging lights and ornaments on it. Details and witness statements, evidence and lab results. Soon the tree was lit up and bright. Everything about the case was there for me to see in the context of time and action.

I had paid particular attention to Walter Elliot as I had drawn the Christmas tree. He was the tree trunk and all branches came from him. I had his movements, statements and actions noted by time.

12:40 p.m. – WE arrives at beach house

12:50 p.m. – WE discovers bodies

1:05 p.m. – WE calls 911

1:24 p.m. – WE calls 911 again

1:28 p.m. – Deputies arrive on scene

1:30 p.m. – WE secured

2:15 p.m. – Homicide arrives

2:40 p.m. – WE taken to Malibu station

4:55 p.m. – WE interviewed, advised

5:40 p.m. – WE transported to Whittier

7:00 p.m. – GSR testing

8:00 p.m. – Second interview attempt, declined, arrested

8:40 p.m. – WE transported to Men’s Central

Some of the times I estimated but most came directly from the arrest report and other documents in the file. Law enforcement in this country is as much about the paperwork as anything else. I could always count on the prosecution file for reconstructing a time line.

On the second go-round I used both the pencil point and eraser and started adding decorations to the tree.

12:40 p.m. – WE arrives at beach house front door unlocked

12:50 p.m. – WE discovers bodies balcony door open

1:05 p.m. – WE calls 911 waits outside

1:24 p.m. – WE calls 911 again what’s the holdup?

1:28 p.m. – Deputies arrive on scene Murray (-4-alpha-1) and Harber (-4-alpha-2)

1:30 p.m. – WE secured placed in patrol car Murray/Harber search house

2:15 p.m. – Homicide arrives first team: Kinder (#14492) and Ericsson (#21101) second team: Joshua (#22234) and Toles (#15154)

2:30 p.m. – WE taken inside house, describes discovery

2:40 p.m. – WE taken to Malibu station Joshua and Toles transport

4:55 p.m. – WE interviewed, advised Kinder takes lead in interview

5:40 p.m. – WE transported to Whittier Joshua/Toles

7:00 p.m. – GSR testing F.T. Anita Sherman Lab Transport, Sherman

8:00 p.m. – Second interview, Ericsson in lead, WE declines got smart

8:40 p.m. – WE transported to Men’s Central Joshua/Toles

As I had constructed the Christmas tree, I kept a separate list on another page of every human being mentioned in the sheriff’s reports. I knew this would become the witness list I would turn over to the prosecution the following week. As a rule I blanket the case, subpoenaing anybody mentioned in the investigative record just to be safe. You can always cut down a witness list at trial. Sometimes adding to it can be a problem.

From the witness list and the Christmas tree, I would be able to infer how the prosecution would roll out its case. I would also be able to determine which witnesses the prosecution team was avoiding and possibly why. It was while I was studying my work and thinking in these terms that I felt the gears begin to grind and the cold finger of revelation went down my spine. Everything became clear and bright and I found Jerry Vincent’s magic bullet.

Walter Elliot had been taken from the crime scene to the Malibu station so that he would be out of the way and secured while the lead detectives continued their on-site investigation. One short interview was conducted at the station before Elliot ended it. He was then transported to sheriff’s headquarters in Whittier, where a gunshot residue test was conducted and his hands tested positive for nitrates associated with gunpowder. Afterward, Kinder and Ericsson took another stab at interviewing their suspect but he wisely declined. He was then formally placed under arrest and booked into county jail.

It was standard procedure and the arrest report documented the chain of Elliot’s custody. He was handled solely by the homicide detectives as he was moved from crime scene to substation to headquarters to jail. But it was how he was handled previous to their arrival that caught my eye. It was here that I saw something I had missed earlier. Something as simple as the designations of the uniform deputies who first responded to the call. According to the records, deputies Murray and Harber had the designations 4-alpha-1 and 4-alpha-2 after their names. And I had seen at least one of those designations in the Wyms file.