“This guy’s killing us up there,” I said. “Just in case you’re wondering.”

A humorless smile bent his lips and Elliot whispered back.

“I think we’re doing fine. You’ve had a good day.”

I shook my head and turned back to watch the testimony. I had a client who wasn’t concerned by the reality of his situation. He was well aware of my trial strategy and that I had the magic bullet in my gun. But nothing is a sure thing when you go to trial. That’s why ninety percent of all cases are settled by disposition before trial. Nobody wants to roll the dice. The stakes are too high. And a murder trial is the biggest gamble of them all.

But from day one, Walter Elliot didn’t seem to get this. He just went about the business of making movies and working out foreign distribution and seemingly believed that there was no question that he would walk at the end of the trial. I felt my case was bulletproof but not even I had that kind of confidence.

After the basics of the crime scene investigation were thoroughly covered with Kinder, Golantz moved the testimony toward Elliot and the investigator’s interaction with him.

“Now, you have testified that the defendant remained in Deputy Murray’s patrol car while you initially surveyed the crime scene and sort of got the lay of the land, correct?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“When did you first speak with Walter Elliot?”

Kinder referred to a document in the binder open on the shelf at the front of the witness stand.

“At approximately two thirty, I came out of the house after completing my initial survey of the crime scene and I asked the deputies to take Mr. Elliot out of the car.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I told one of deputies to take the handcuffs off him because I didn’t think that was necessary any longer. There were several deputies and investigators on the scene by this point and the premises were very secure.”

“Well, was Mr. Elliot under arrest at that point?”

“No, he wasn’t and I explained that to him. I told him that the guys – the deputies – had been taking every precaution until they knew what they had. Mr. Elliot said he understood this. I asked if he wanted to continue to cooperate and show the members of my team around inside and he said, yes, he would do it.”

“So you took him back inside the house?”

“Yes. We had him put on booties first so as not to contaminate anything and then we went back inside. I had Mr. Elliot retrace the exact steps he said he had taken when he came in and found the bodies.”

I made a note about the booties being a bit late, since Elliot had already shown the first deputies around inside. I’d potshot Kinder with that on cross.

“Was there anything unusual about the steps he said he had taken or anything inconsistent in what he told you?”

I objected to the question, saying that it was too vague. The judge agreed. Score one inconsequential point for the defense. Golantz simply rephrased and got more specific.

“Where did Mr. Elliot lead you in the house, Detective Kinder?”

“He walked us in and we went straight up the stairs to the bedroom. He told us this was what he had done when he entered. He said he then found the bodies and called nine-one-one from the phone next to the bed. He said the dispatcher told him to leave the house and go out front to wait and that’s what he did. I asked him specifically if he had been anywhere else in the house and he said no.”

“Did that seem unusual or inconsistent to you?”

“Well, first of all, I thought it was odd if true that he’d gone inside and directly up to the bedroom without initially looking around the first level of the house. It also didn’t jibe with what he told us when we got back outside the house. He pointed at his wife’s car, which was parked in the circle out front, and said that was how he knew she had somebody with her in the house. I asked him what he meant and he said that she parked out front so that Johan Rilz, the other victim, could use the one space available in the garage. They had stored a bunch of furniture and stuff in there and that left only one space. He said the German had hidden his Porsche in there and his wife had to park outside.”

“And what was the significance of that to you?”

“Well, to me it showed deception. He’d told us that he hadn’t been anywhere in the house but the bedroom upstairs. But it was pretty clear to me he had looked in the garage and seen the second victim’s Porsche.”

Golantz nodded emphatically from the lectern, driving home the point about Elliot being deceptive. I knew I would be able to handle this point on cross but I wouldn’t get the chance until the next day, after it had percolated in the brains of the jury for almost twenty-four hours.

“What happened after that?” Golantz asked.

“Well, there was still a lot of work to do inside the house. So I had a couple members of my team take Mr. Elliot to the Malibu substation so he could wait there and be comfortable.”

“Was he arrested at this time?”

“No, once again I explained to him that we needed to talk to him and if he was still willing to be cooperative, we were going to take him to an interview room at the station, and I said that I would get there as soon as possible. Once again he agreed.”

“Who transported him?”

“Investigators Joshua and Toles took him in their car.”

“Why didn’t they go ahead and interview him once they got to the Malibu station?”

“Because I wanted to know more about him and the crime scene before we talked to him. Sometimes you get only one chance, even with a cooperating witness.”

“You used the word ‘witness.’ Wasn’t Mr. Elliot a suspect at this time?”

It was a cat-and-mouse game with the truth. It didn’t matter how Kinder answered, everybody in the courtroom knew that they had drawn a bead on Elliot.

“Well, to some extent anybody and everybody is a suspect,” Kinder answered. “You go into a situation like that and you suspect everybody. But at that point, I didn’t know a lot about the victims, I didn’t know a lot about Mr. Elliot and I didn’t know exactly what we had. So at that time, I was viewing him more as a very important witness. He found the bodies and he knew the victims. He could help us.”

“Okay, so you stashed him at the Malibu station while you went to work at the crime scene. What were you doing?”

“My job was to oversee the documentation of the crime scene and the gathering of any evidence in that house. We were also working the phones and the computers and confirming the identities and backgrounding the parties involved.”

“What did you learn?”

“We learned that neither of the Elliots had a criminal record or had any guns legally registered to them. We learned that the other victim, Johan Rilz, was a German national and appeared to have no criminal record or own any weapons. We learned that Mr. Elliot was the head of a studio and very successful in the movie business, things like that.”

“At some point did a member of your team draw up search warrants in the case?”

“Yes, we did. Proceeding with an abundance of caution, we drew up and had a judge sign off on a series of search warrants so we had the authority to continue the investigation and take it wherever it led.”

“Is it unusual to take such steps?”

“Perhaps. The courts have granted law enforcement wide leeway in the gathering of evidence. But we determined that because of the parties involved in this case, we would go the extra mile. We went for the search warrants even though we might not need them.”

“What specifically were the search warrants for?”

“We had warrants for the Elliot house and for the three cars, Mr. Elliot’s, his wife’s and the Porsche in the garage. We also had a search warrant granting us permission to conduct tests on Mr. Elliot and his clothing to determine if he had discharged a gun in recent hours.”