I decided to risk it and try to control it.

“Detective, tell us how many of these test drives you broke off before reaching the house in Malibu.”

“There were two.”

“Which ones?”

“The second time and the last time – the seventh.”

I nodded.

“And you stopped these because you knew you would never make it to the house in Malibu within the murder window, correct?”

“No, that’s very incorrect.”

“Then, what was the reason you stopped the test drives?”

“One time, I was called back to the office to conduct an interview of somebody waiting there, and the other time, I was listening to the radio and I heard a deputy call for backup. I diverted to back him up.”

“Why didn’t you document these in your report on your driving time investigation?”

“I didn’t think they were germane, because they were incomplete tests.”

“So these incompletes were not documented anywhere in that thick file of yours?”

“No, they were not.”

“And so we have only your word about what caused you to stop them before reaching the Elliot house in Malibu, correct?”

“That would be correct.”

I nodded and decided I had flogged him enough on this front. I knew Golantz could rehabilitate Kinder on redirect, maybe even come up with documentation of the calls that pulled Kinder off the Malibu route. But I hoped that I had raised at least a question of trust in the minds of the jurors. I took my small victory and moved on.

I next hammered Kinder on the fact that there was no murder weapon recovered and that his six-month investigation of Walter Elliot had never linked him to a gun of any sort. I hit this from several angles so that Kinder had to repeatedly acknowledge that a key part of the investigation and prosecution was never located, even though if Elliot was the killer, he’d had little time to hide the weapon.

Finally, in frustration, Kinder said, “Well, it’s a big ocean out there, Mr. Haller.”

It was an opening I was waiting for.

“A big ocean, Detective? Are you suggesting that Mr. Elliot had a boat and dumped the gun out in the middle of the Pacific?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then, like what?”

“I am just saying the gun could have ended up in the water and the currents took it away before our divers got out there.”

“It could have ended up out there? You want to take Mr. Elliot’s life and livelihood away from him on a ‘could have,’ Detective Kinder?”

“No, that’s not what I am saying.”

“What you are saying is that you don’t have a gun, you can’t connect a gun to Mr. Elliot, but you have never wavered in believing he is your man, correct?”

“We had a gunshot residue examination that came back positive. In my mind that connected Mr. Elliot to a gun.”

“What gun was that?”

“We don’t have it.”

“Uh-huh, and can you sit there and say to a scientific certainty that Mr. Elliot fired a gun on the day his wife and Johan Rilz were murdered?”

“Well, not to a scientific certainty, but the test-”

“Thank you, Detective Kinder. I think that answers the question. Let’s move on.”

I flipped the page on my notepad and studied the next set of questions I had written the night before.

“Detective Kinder, in the course of your investigation, did you determine when Johan Rilz and Mitzi Elliot became acquainted?”

“I determined that she hired him for his interior decorating services in the fall of two thousand five. If she was acquainted with him before that, I do not know.”

“And when did they become lovers?”

“That was impossible for us to determine. I do know that Mr. Rilz’s appointment book showed regular appointments with Mrs. Elliot at one home or the other. The frequency increased about six months before her death.”

“Was he paid for each one of those appointments?”

“Mr. Rilz kept very incomplete books. It was hard to determine if he was paid for specific appointments. But in general, the payments to Mr. Rilz from Mrs. Elliot increased when the frequency of the appointments increased.”

I nodded like this answer fit with a larger picture I was seeing.

“Okay, and you have also testified that you learned that the murders occurred just thirty-two days after the prenuptial agreement between Walter and Mitzi Elliot vested, thereby giving Mrs. Elliot a full shot at the couple’s financial holdings in the event of a divorce.”

“That’s right.”

“And that is your motive for these killings.”

“In part, yes. I call it an aggravating factor.”

“Do you see any inconsistency in your theory of the crime, Detective Kinder?”

“No, I do not.”

“Was it not obvious to you from the financial records and the appointment frequency that there was some sort of romantic or at least a sexual relationship going on between Mr. Rilz and Mrs. Elliot?”

“I wouldn’t say it was obvious.”

“You wouldn’t?”

I said it with surprise. I had him in a little corner. If he said the affair was obvious, he would be giving me the answer he knew I wanted. If he said it was not obvious, then he came off as a fool because everyone else in the courtroom thought it was obvious.

“In retrospect it might look obvious but at the time I think it was hidden.”

“Then how did Walter Elliot find out about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t the fact that you were unable to find a murder weapon indicate that Walter Elliot planned these murders?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Then it’s easy to hide a weapon from the entire Sheriff’s Department?”

“No, but like I told you, it could have simply been thrown into the ocean off the back deck and the currents took over from there. That wouldn’t take a lot of planning.”

Kinder knew what I wanted and where I was trying to go. I couldn’t get him there so I decided to use a shove.

“Detective, didn’t it ever occur to you that if Walter Elliot knew about his wife’s affair, it would have made better sense just to divorce her before the prenuptial agreement vested?”

“There was no indication of when he learned of the affair. And your question does not take into account things like emotions and rage. It was possible that the money had nothing to do with it as a motivating factor. It could have just been betrayal and rage, pure and simple.”

I hadn’t gotten what I wanted. I was annoyed with myself and chalked it up to rust. I was prepared for the cross but it was the first time I had gone head-to-head with a seasoned and cagey witness in a year. I decided to back off here and to hit Kinder with the punch he wouldn’t see coming.

Forty-five

I asked the judge for a moment and then went to the defense table. I bent down to my client’s ear.

“Just nod like I am telling you something really important,” I whispered.

Elliot did as instructed and then I picked up a file and went back to the lectern. I opened the file and then looked at the witness stand.

“Detective Kinder, at what point in your investigation did you determine that Johan Rilz was the primary target of this double murder?”

Kinder opened his mouth to respond immediately, then closed it and sat back and thought for a moment. It was just the kind of body language I was hoping the jury would pick up on.

“At no point did I ever determine that,” Kinder finally responded.

“At no point was Johan Rilz front and center in your investigation?”

“Well, he was the victim of a homicide. That made him front and center the whole time in my book.”

Kinder seemed pretty proud of that answer but I didn’t give him much time to savor it.

“Then his being front and center explains why you went to Germany to investigate his background, correct?”

“I did not go to Germany.”

“What about France? His passport indicates he lived there before coming to the United States.”