“Please tell us what you learned.”
“On one of the nights I was tailing her, Candace Martin met with a man I believe to be a contract killer.”
A rumble came up from the gallery, and Hoffman shot to his feet with an objection.
“Your Honor, this is pure hearsay. How can this witness know that the man he says he saw is a contract killer? If he was so sure, why didn’t he call the police? Instead, the State is using this extremely dubious testimony to impugn the reputation of a heart surgeon. How does this make any sense?”
The judge quieted the room with two hard bangs of his gavel and said, “I’d like to hear this, Mr. Hoffman.”
When she could speak again, Yuki asked, “You have proof of this meeting, Mr. Podesta?”
“I followed Dr. Martin from her house in St. Francis Wood to Hunters Point. I followed her to Davidson Avenue. That’s a dead end. A late-model Toyota SUV was parked at the end of the street, where it butts up against the I-280 overpass. This is a bad neighborhood, but I was able to watch without being seen.”
“Go on, Mr. Podesta.”
“The meeting was clearly clandestine,” Podesta said. “I took photographs of Dr. Martin getting into this SUV. When I downloaded them onto my computer later, I thought I’d seen the man’s face before.”
“And what happened next?”
“Two weeks later Dennis Martin was murdered.”
“What did you do, Mr. Podesta?”
“I compared my picture of the man in the SUV to pictures on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. In my opinion, the man I saw talking to Dr. Martin was Gregor Guzman.”
“And why is Mr. Guzman on the FBI list?”
“Your Honor. Is this witness an FBI agent? What the —?”
“Sit down, Mr. Hoffman. The witness may answer to the best of his knowledge.”
“Gregor Guzman is wanted on suspicion of murder in California as well as a few other states and other countries. He’s never been arrested. I contacted the FBI three times, but no one ever got back to me.”
Yuki introduced the photograph of Candace Martin sitting in a dark sports ut
ility vehicle with a balding man with a shock of hair at the front of his scalp. It was a grainy photo, taken with a long lens at night, but it appeared as Podesta described it.
“Thank you,” Yuki said. “That’s all I have for you, Mr. Podesta.”
Chapter 20
“YOUR HONOR, SIDEBAR?” Hoffman said stiffly.
The judge waved the two attorneys in toward the bench and said, “Go ahead, Mr. Hoffman.”
“Your Honor, this witness is a private investigator. He’s not even a cop. His testimony is pure guesswork. Where is this so-called hit man? Why isn’t he on the witness list? How do we know why my client was seeing this man, or even if this person is who the witness says he is?”
“Ms. Castellano?”
“Mr. Podesta didn’t say he was an expert witness. He followed the defendant, who got into a car with a man who resembles Gregor Guzman. Mr. Podesta took pictures of a clandestine meeting between them. He compared the picture of the man in the SUV with photos of Gregor Guzman issued by the FBI. He made a match — in his opinion. That’s his testimony.”
“Mr. Hoffman, I’ve heard you. Now, please cross-examine the witness,” LaVan said.
Phil Hoffman addressed Joseph Podesta from his seat beside his client, trying to show the jury how little regard he had for the witness.
“Mr. Podesta, I don’t know which piece of fiction to begin with. Okay, I’ve got it,” he said before Yuki could object.
“First, have you ever worked for the FBI?”