Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online Page B

supposedly walking east on Ventura, away from the bank.”
    “Do we know anything about this Margo Schafer?”
    “Not now, but we will. I’m on it.”
    I nodded. It usually wasn’t necessary for me to tell Cisco what to investigate. He moved on to the second part of his report, the search of Lisa Trammel’s house. This time he referred to a document he pulled from a file.
    “Lisa Trammel volunteered—their word—to accompany detectives to Van Nuys Division about two hours after the murder. They’re claiming she was not placed under arrest until the conclusion of an interview at the station. Using statements made during that interview as well as the eyewitness account of Margo Schafer, the detectives obtained a search warrant for Trammel’s home. They spent about six hours there looking for evidence, including a possible murder weapon as well as digital and hard-copy documentation of a plan to kill Bondurant.”
    Search warrants designate a specific window of time during which the search must take place. Afterward, police must in a timely manner file a document with the court called a search-warrant return that lists exactly what was seized. It is then the judge’s responsibility to review the seizure to make sure that the police acted within the parameters of the warrant. Cisco said the detectives Kurlen and Longstreth had filed the return that morning and he had obtained a copy through the clerk’s office. It was a key part of the case at this point because the police and prosecution weren’t sharing information with the defense. Andrea Freeman had shut that down. But the search-warrant request and return were public records. Freeman could not stop their release. And they gave me the best look at how the state was building its case.
    “Give us the highlights,” I said. “But then I want a copy of the whole thing.”
    “This is your copy here,” Cisco said. “As far as—”
    “May I please get a copy, too?” Aronson asked.
    Cisco looked at me for permission. It was awkward. He was silently asking if she was truly a member of the team and not just a client hand-holder I had brought in from the department-store law school.
    “Absolutely,” I said.
    “You got it,” Cisco said. “Now, the highlights. As far as the weapon goes, it looks like the detectives went into the garage and took every handheld tool they could find off the workbench.”
    “So they don’t know what the murder weapon was,” I said.
    “No autopsy yet,” Cisco said. “They’ll have to make wound comparisons. That will take time but I’ve got the medical examiner’s office wired. When they know it, I’ll know it.”
    “Okay, what else?”
    “They took her laptop, a three-year-old MacBook Pro, and various and sundry documents relating to the foreclosure of the home on Melba. This is where they might piss the judge off. They do not specifically list the documents, probably because there were too many. They mention just three files. They are marked FLAG, FORECLOSURE ONE and FORECLOSURE TWO.”
    I assumed that any foreclosure documents Lisa had at home were documents I had given her. The FLAG file as well as the computer could hold names of the members of Lisa’s group, an indication that the police were possibly looking for co-conspirators.
    “Okay, what else?”
    “They took her cell phone, one pair of shoes from the garage and here’s the kicker. They seized a personal journal. They don’t describe it beyond that or say what was in it. But I’m thinking that if it’s got her ranting against the bank or the victim in particular, then we’ll have a problem.”
    “I’ll ask her about it when I visit her tomorrow,” I said. “Back up for a second. The cell phone. Was it specifically stated in the warrant application that they wanted her phone? Are they suggesting a conspiracy, that she had help killing Bondurant?”
    “No, nothing about co-conspirators in the application. They’re probably just making sure they cover