He turned without breaking stride and saw me. He smiled when he recognized me and stopped.
“Mick, how are you, man? How’s the arm?”
“It’s good. You in a trial?”
“Yeah, in one eleven.”
“Hey, that’s the one stealing all the media from my trial.”
I said it mock protest and smiled.
“It’s a cold case from ’ninety-four. A guy named Patrick Sewell—one sick puppy. They brought him down from San Quentin where he was already doing life for another murder. They’re going for the death penalty this time.”
I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to say good luck. He was, after all, working for the other side.
“So anything new on your driver?” he asked. “They hook anybody up yet?”
I looked at him for a moment, wondering if he might have heard something about the investigation on the law enforcement circuit.
“Not yet,” I said.
“That’s too bad,” he said.
I nodded in agreement.
“Well, I gotta get back in. Good to see you, Harry.”
“You, too. We should try to get the girls together again.”
“Sure.”
We had daughters the same age. But his apparently still talked to him on a regular basis. After all, he put bad people in jail. I got them out.
I entered the court, privately chiding myself for the negative thoughts. I tried to remember Legal Siegel’s admonishment to let the guilt go so I could be at my best in defending La Cosse.
After the jury was reseated I called the first witness for the defense. Valenzuela walked to the witness stand, bouncing his palm along the top of the front rail of the jury box as he went. He acted as though testifying at a murder trial was as routine as buying smokes at the 7-Eleven.
He took the oath and spelled his name for the clerk. I took it from there, asking him first to tell the jury what he did for a living.
“Well,” he responded. “You might say I’m a man of many talents. I’m the oil that keeps the justice system moving smoothly.”
I almost corrected him by suggesting that he actually meant he was the grease that kept the system moving, but I held back. He was my witness, after all. Instead, I asked him to be more specific about his work.
“For one thing, I’m a state-licensed bail bondsman,” he said. “I also got my PI license and I use that for process. And if you go down to the second-floor coffee shop in this building, then I’m the leaseholder on that. I’m with my brother on that deal. So—”
“Let’s go back for a moment,” I interrupted. “What is a PI license?”
“Private investigator. You gotta have a state license if you want to do that kind of work.”
“Okay, and what do you mean when you say you use your license ‘for process’?”
“Uh, process. You know, process serving. Like when people get sued and stuff and the lawyer has to put out a subpoena if he wants to call somebody to come in to give a statement or a deposition or come to a trial so they can testify. Like what I’m doing right now.”
“So you deliver the subpoena to the witness?”
“Yes, like that. That’s what I do.”
For all his years spent being the oil in the machine, it was pretty clear that Valenzuela did not have much experience testifying. His answers were choppy and incomplete. Whereas I thought he would be one of the easier witnesses to question, I found myself having to work extra hard with him to get a complete answer to the jury. It was not the perfect way to start the defense case, but I pressed on, annoyed more with myself than with him for not conducting a practice run-through beforehand.
“Okay, now did your work as a process server bring you in contact with the victim in this case, Gloria Dayton?”
Valenzuela frowned. What I believed was a straightforward question had thrown him for a loop.
“Well . . . it did, but at the time I didn’t know it. What I mean is, her name wasn’t Gloria Dayton at the one and only time I came in contact with her, you see.”
“You mean she was using a different name?”
“Yes, she was. The name that was on the subpoena I delivered to her was Giselle Dallinger. That’s who I served paper on.”
“Okay, and when was that?”
“That was on Monday, November fifth at six oh six in the evening at the lobby entrance of the apartment building on Franklin, where she lived.”
“You seem pretty precise about the time and place you did this. How can you be so sure?”
“Because I document every service in case somebody doesn’t show up for court or for a depo. Then I will be able to tell the lawyer or the judge that, see, sure enough, the person was served and should’ve been there. I show them the record and I show them the picture which has the date and time stamp on it.”
“You take a photo?”
“Yep, That’s my policy.”
“So you took a photograph of Giselle Dallinger after you served her with a subpoena last November fifth?”
“That’s right.”
I then produced an eight-by-ten copy of the date-and time-stamped photo that Valenzuela had taken of Giselle née Gloria and asked the judge to accept it as the first defense exhibit. Forsythe objected to the inclusion of the photo and was willing to stipulate that Valenzuela had served a subpoena on Gloria Dayton. But I fought for the photo because I wanted the jurors to see it. The judge sided with me and I handed the photo to juror number one so it could be examined and then passed from juror to juror.
More than anything else, this was what I wanted to accomplish with Valenzuela on the stand. The image was key because it did more than bring validity to Valenzuela’s story. It also captured a look of fear in Gloria’s eyes that had to be seen and not testified to. The photo was taken at precisely the moment she looked up from having read the subpoena. She had seen the name Moya in the styling of the case—Hector Arrande Moya vs Arthur Rollins, warden, FCI Victorville—and in that instant she had been struck with fear. I wanted the jury to see that look and to surmise that it was fear without me or a witness having to tell them.
“Mr. Valenzuela, who were you delivering that subpoena for?” I asked.
“I was working for an attorney named Sylvester Fulgoni Jr.,” he responded.
I half expected Valenzuela to add to his answer the improvisation about Fulgoni being the attorney who put the F-U in litigation, but luckily he spared the jury that. Maybe he was finally getting the hang of being a witness.
“And what was the case the subpoena was attached to?”
“It was called Moya versus Rollins. A convicted drug dealer named Hector Moya was trying to—”
Forsythe objected and asked to approach the judge’s bench. He obviously didn’t want the jury hearing any part of what Valenzuela wanted to say. The judge waved us up and turned on the noise-canceling fan.
“Judge, where is this going?” Forsythe asked. “With his very first witness Mr. Haller is trying to hijack this murder case and take us into another, completely unrelated litigation. I’ve held back on my objections, but now . . . we have to stop this.”
I noted his use of we, as though he and the judge shared the responsibility of keeping me in check.
“Your Honor,” I said, “Mr. Forsythe wants to stop this because he knows exactly where I am going with it—and it’s a place that he knows is going to derail his whole case. The case Gloria Dayton was served on is exceedingly germane to this case and this trial, and the entire defense theory is built on it. I am asking you to let me proceed and soon enough you will understand why the state wants to block this.”
“‘Exceedingly,’ Mr. Haller?”
“Yes, Your Honor, exceedingly.”
She gave it a moment’s thought and then nodded.
“Overruled. You may proceed, Mr. Haller, but get there soon.”
We returned to our positions and I asked Valenzuela the question again.
“Like I said, Moya versus Rollins. Rollins is the warden of the prison in Victorville where Hector Moya’s been for, like, seven or eight years. He’s trying to get out on account that the DEA set him up by planting a—”
Forsythe objected again, which seemed to annoy the judge. He asked for a sidebar once more but the judge said no. He had to state his objection in open court.
“As far as I know, Judge, the witness is not an attorney, but he is giving a legal interpretation of a habeas case and about to offer as fact the allegations that are merely contained in a lawsuit. We all know that anybody can say anything in a lawsuit. Just because it is said doesn’t—”
“Okay, Mr. Forsythe,” the judge said. “I think you’ve made your objection clear to the jury.”
Now I wished he had gotten the sidebar. Forsythe had expertly used the objection to undercut Valenzuela’s testimony before he had even given it. He reminded the jury in real time that Moya vs. Rollins was just a lawsuit that contained allegations, not proven facts.
“I’m going to overrule the objection and let the witness finish his answer,” Leggoe said.
In a slightly deflated tone I told Valenzuela to give his answer again and he summarized the main charge of Moya’s habeas petition—that the gun that ended up putting him away for life had been planted by the DEA.
“Thank you,” I said when the answer was finally out and in the record. “What did you do after you served Giselle Dallinger with that subpoena?”
Valenzuela looked confused by the question.
“I, uh . . . I guess I told Mr. Fulgoni that it was done,” he said.
“Okay, and did you ever see Ms. Dallinger again?” I asked.
“No, not at all. That was it.”