monitored the search. We were never left alone in the house, if that is what you are asking.”
Langwiser flipped through the pages of the search warrant, coming to the end of it.
“Now, Detective, when you seize any items during a court-approved search, you are required by law to keep an inventory on the search warrant receipt, correct?”
“Yes.”
“This receipt is then filed with the court, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us then, why is this receipt blank?”
“We did not take any items from the house during the search.”
“You found nothing that indicated that Jody Krementz had been inside Mr. Storey’s house, as he had told you she had been?”
“Nothing.”
“This search took place how many days after the evening Mr. Storey told you he had taken Ms. Krementz to his house and engaged in sexual relations with her?”
“Five days from the night of the murder, two days from our interview with Mr. Storey.”
“You found nothing in support of Mr. Storey’s statement.”
“Nothing. The place was clean.”
Bosch knew she was trying to turn a negative into a positive, somehow trying to imply that the unsuccessful search was an indication of Storey’s guilt.
“Would you call this an unsuccessful search?”
“No. Success doesn’t enter into it. We were looking for evidence that would corroborate his statement as well as any evidence of possible foul play relating to Ms. Krementz. We found nothing in the house indicative of this. But sometimes it is not what you find, it’s what you don’t.”
“Can you explain that to the jury?”
“Well, it is true we didn’t take any evidence from the house. But we found something missing that would later become important to us.”
“And what was that?”
“A book. A missing book.”
“How did you know it was missing if it wasn’t there?”
“In the living room of the house there was a large built-in bookcase. Each shelf was full of books. On one shelf there was a space – a slot – where a book had been but was now gone. We could not find what book that might be. There were no books sitting out loose in the house. At the time it was just a small thing. Someone had obviously taken a book from the shelf and not replaced it. It was just kind of curious to us that we could not figure out where or what it was.”
Langwiser offered two still photographs of the bookcase taken during the search as exhibits. Houghton accepted them over a routine objection from Fowkkes. The photos showed the bookcase in its entirety and a close-up of the second shelf with the open space between a book called The Fifth Horizon and a biography of the film director John Ford called Print the Legend.
“Now, Detective,” Langwiser said, “you said that at the time you did not know if this missing book had any importance or bearing on the case, correct?”
“That is right.”
“Did you eventually determine what book had been taken from the shelf?”
“Yes, we did.”
Langwiser paused. Bosch knew what she was going to do. The dance had been choreographed. He thought of her as a good storyteller. She knew how to string it along, keep people hooked in, take them to the edge of the cliff and then pull them back.
“Well, let’s take things in order,” she said. “We’ll come back to the book. Now did you have occasion to talk to Mr. Storey on the day of the search?”
“He mostly kept to himself and was on the phone most of the time. But we spoke when we first knocked on the door and announced the search. And then at the end of the day when I told him we were leaving and that we were not taking anything with us.”
“Did you wake him up when you came at six in the morning?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Was he alone in the house?”
“Yes.”
“Did he invite you in?”
“Not at first. He objected to the search. I told him -”
“Excuse me, Detective, we might make this easier if we show it. You said there was a videographer with you. Was he running the camera when you knocked at six in the morning?”
“Yes, he was.”
Langwiser then made the appropriate motions to introduce the search video. It was accepted under objection from the defense. A large television was rolled into the courtroom and placed at center in front of the jury box. Bosch was asked to identify the tape. The lights in the courtroom were dimmed and it was played.
The tape began with a focus on Bosch and the others outside the red front door of a house. He identified himself and the address and the case number. He spoke quietly. He then turned and knocked sharply on the door. He announced it was the police and knocked sharply again. They waited. Bosch knocked on the door every fifteen seconds until it was finally opened about two minutes after the first pounding. David Storey looked out through the opening, his hair disheveled, his eyes showing exhaustion.
“What?” he asked.
“We have a search warrant here, Mr. Storey,” Bosch said. “It allows us to conduct a search of these premises.”
“You have to be fucking kidding.”
“No, we’re not, sir. Could you step back and let us in? The sooner we’re in the sooner we’re out.”
“I’m calling my lawyer.”
Storey closed and locked the door. Bosch immediately stepped up and put his face close to the jamb. He called out loudly.
“Mr. Storey, you have ten minutes. If this door is not opened by six-fifteen then we’re going to take it down. We have a court-ordered search warrant and we will execute it.”
He turned back to the camera and made the cut signal across his throat.
The video jumped to another focus on the door. The time readout in the bottom corner now showed it was 6:13 A.M. The door opened and Storey stepped back and signaled the search team in. His hair looked as though it had been combed with his hands. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. He was in bare feet.
“Do what you have to do and get out. My lawyer’s coming and he’s going to watch you people. You break one fucking thing in this house and I’m going to sue the shit out of you. This is a David Serrurier house. You so much as put a scratch on one of the walls and it’ll be your jobs. All of you.”
“We’ll be careful, Mr. Storey,” Bosch said as he walked in.
The cameraman was the last to enter the house. Storey looked into the lens as if seeing it for the first time.
“And get that shit off of me.”
He made a motion and the camera angle shot upward to the ceiling. It remained there while the voices of the videographer and Storey continued off camera.
“Hey! Don’t touch the camera!”
“Then get it out of my face!”
“Okay. Fine. Just don’t touch the camera.”
The screen went blank and the lights of the courtroom came back up. Langwiser continued the questioning.
“Detective Bosch, did you or members of the search team have further… conversation with Mr. Storey after that?”
“Not during the search. Once his lawyer got there Mr. Storey stayed in his office. When we searched his office
