The Gods of Guilt(109)

I heard rustling as Forsythe decided I might be doing more than wasting the court’s time and turned the pages of his copy of the document.

“Area code two-one-three, six-two-one, sixty-seven hundred,” Whitten read.

“And when was that number dialed on Gloria Dayton’s iPhone?”

Whitten squinted as he read.

“At six forty-seven p.m. on November fifth.”

Forsythe now understood where I was going with this and stood up and objected.

“Relevancy, Your Honor,” he said with an urgent tone in his voice. “We’ve allowed defense counsel great latitude, but where does it end? He is going far off the reservation here, stringing out the details of one three-minute phone call. It has nothing to do with the case at hand or the charges against his client.”

I smiled and shook my head.

“Your Honor, Mr. Forsythe knows exactly where this is headed, and he does not want the jury to go there because he knows the house of cards that is the prosecution’s case is in great peril.”

The judge made a motion with her hands, bringing her fingers together.

“Connect it, Mr. Haller. Soon.”

“Right away, Your Honor.”

I looked back at my notes, got my bearings again, and pressed on. Forsythe’s objection was nothing more than an attempt to break my rhythm. He knew it didn’t stand a chance on its merits.

“So Detective Whitten, this call went out at six forty-seven on the evening of November fifth, just seven days before Ms. Dayton’s murder, correct?”

“Yes.”

“How long did the call last?”

Whitten checked the document.

“It says two minutes, fifty-seven seconds.”

“Thank you. Did you check that number out when you got this list? Did you call it?”

“I don’t recall if I did or not.”

“Do you have a cell phone, Detective?”

“Yes, but I don’t have it on me.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled my own phone. I asked the judge to allow me to give it to Whitten.

Forsythe objected, calling what I was about to do a stunt and accusing me of grandstanding.

I argued that what Forsythe called a stunt was merely a demonstration, not unlike the demonstration a week earlier when he asked the deputy medical examiner to demonstrate on Lankford how the victim’s hyoid bone was crushed during her strangulation. I added that having the detective make the call to the number in question was the easiest and quickest way to ascertain who Gloria Dayton had called at 6:47 p.m. on November 5.

The judge allowed me to proceed. I walked up and handed my phone to Whitten after turning on its speaker. I asked him to call 213-621-6700. He did so and placed the phone down on the flat railing that ran in front of the witness stand.

The call was answered by a woman’s voice after one ring.

“DEA, Los Angeles Division, how can I help you?”

I nodded and stepped forward, picking up the phone.

“Sorry, wrong number,” I said before disconnecting.

I stepped back to the lectern, savoring the pure silence that had followed the voice of the woman who had said DEA. I stole a quick glance at Mallory Gladwell, my alpha juror, and saw an expression that soothed my soul. Her mouth was slightly opened in what I took to be an Oh My God moment.

I looked back at Whitten as I pulled a photograph I’d had ready from beneath my legal pad. I asked permission to approach the witness with the defense’s first exhibit.

The judge allowed it, and I gave Whitten the eight-by-ten shot that Fernando Valenzuela had taken of Gloria Dayton when he served her with the subpoena in the Moya case.

“Detective, you have in your hand a photo that has been marked as defense exhibit one. It is a photo of the victim in this case in the moment she was served with a subpoena in a civil matter styled as Moya versus Rollins. Can I draw your attention to the time and date stamp on the photograph, and will you read that out to the jury?”

“It says six oh-six p.m., November fifth, twenty twelve.”

“Thank you, Detective. And so, is it correct to conclude from that photo and the victim’s phone records that exactly forty-one minutes after Gloria Dayton was served with the subpoena in the Moya case, she called the DEA’s Los Angeles Division on her personal cell phone?”

Whitten hesitated as he looked for a way out of his predicament.

“It is impossible for me to know if she made the call,” he finally said. “She could have loaned her phone to someone else.”

I loved it when cops dissembled on the stand. When they tried not to give the obvious answer and made themselves look bad in the process.

“So then it would be your opinion that forty-one minutes after being served as a witness in a case involving an incarcerated drug dealer, someone other than Ms. Dayton used her phone to call the DEA?”