THE LINCOLN LAWYER (2005)

by Michael Connelly

  "Quite badly? She's been turning tricks again all week. You -"

  "How do you know that?"

  I shook my head.

  "Man, I am trying to help you here, save you some embarrassment, and all you're worried about is whether I've crossed some line with the victim. Well, I've got news for you. She ain't the victim. Don't you see what you have here? If this thing gets to a jury and they see that disc, all the plates fall, Ted. Your case is over and you have to come back in here and explain to your boss Smithson why you didn't see it coming. I don't know Smithson all that well, but I do know one thing about him. He doesn't like to lose. And after what happened yesterday, I would say that he feels a little more urgent about that."

  "Prostitutes can be victims, too. Even amateurs."

  I shook my head. I decided to show my whole hand.

  "She set him up," I said. "She knew he had money and she laid a trap. She wants to sue him and cash in. She either hit herself or she had her boyfriend from the bar, the left-handed man, do it. No jury in the world is going to buy what you're selling. Blood on the hand or fingerprints on the knife-it was all staged after he was knocked out."

  Minton nodded as if he followed the logic but then came out with something from left field.

  "I'm concerned that you may be trying to intimidate my victim by following her and harassing her."

  "What?"

  "You know the rules of engagement. Leave the victim alone or we'll next talk about it with a judge."

  I shook my head and spread my hands wide.

  "Are you listening to anything I'm saying here?"

  "Yes, I have listened to it all and it doesn't change the course I am taking. I do have an offer for you, though, and it will be good only until Monday's arraignment. After that, all bets are off. Your client takes his chances with a judge and jury. And I'm not intimidated by you or the sixty days. I will be ready and waiting."

  I felt like I was underwater and everything that I said was trapped in bubbles that were drifting up and away. No one could hear me correctly. Then I realized that there was something I was missing. Something important. It didn't matter how green Minton was, he wasn't stupid and I had just mistakenly thought he was acting stupid. The L.A. County DA's office got some of the best of the best out of law school. He had already mentioned Southern Cal and I knew that was a law school that turned out top-notch lawyers. It was only a matter of experience. Minton might be short on experience but it didn't mean he was short on legal intelligence. I realized that I should be looking at myself, not Minton, for understanding.

  "What am I missing here?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Minton said. "You're the one with the high-powered defense. What could you be missing?"

  I stared at him for a moment and then knew. There was a glitch in the discovery. There was something in his thin file that was not in the thick one Levin had put together. Something that would get the prosecution past the fact that Reggie Campo was selling it. Minton had so much as told me already.Prostitutes can be victims, too .

  I wanted to stop everything and look through the state's discovery file to compare it with everything about the case that I knew. But I could not do it now in front of him.

  "Okay," I said. "What's your offer? He won't take it but I'll present it."

  "Well, he's got to do prison time. That's a given. We're willing to drop it all down to an ADW and attempted sexual battery. We'll go to the middle of the guidelines, which would put him at about seven years."

  I nodded. Assault with a deadly weapon and attempted sexual battery. A seven-year sentence would likely mean four years actual. It wasn't a bad offer but only from the standpoint of Roulet having committed the crime. If he was innocent, then no offer was acceptable.

  I shrugged.

  "I'll take it to him," I said.

  "Remember, only until the arraignment. So if he wants it you better call me Monday morning first thing."

  "Right."

  I closed my briefcase and stood up to go. I was thinking about how Roulet was probably waiting for a phone call from me, telling him the nightmare was over. Instead, I would be calling about a seven-year deal.

  Minton and I shook hands and I said I would call him, then I headed out. In the hallway leading to the reception area I ran into Maggie McPherson.

  "Hayley had a great time Saturday," she said about our daughter. "She's still talking about it. She said you were going to see her this weekend, too."

  "Yeah, if that's okay."

  "Are you all right? You look like you're in a daze."

  "It's turning into a long week. I'm glad I have an empty calendar tomorrow. Which works better for Hayley, Saturday or Sunday?"

  "Either's fine. Were you just meeting Ted on the Roulet thing?"

  "Yeah. I got his offer."

  I raised my briefcase to show I was taking the prosecution's plea offer with me.

  "Now I have to go try to sell it," I added. "That's going to be tough. Guy says he didn't do it."

  "I thought they all said that."

  "Not like this guy."

  "Well, good luck."

  "Thanks."

  We headed opposite ways in the hallway and then I remembered something and called back to her.

  "Hey, Happy St. Patrick's."

  "Oh."

  She turned and came back toward me.

  "Stacey's staying a couple hours late with Hayley and a bunch of us are going over to Four Green Fields after work. You feel like a pint of green beer?"

  Four Green Fields was an Irish pub not far from the civic center. It was frequented by lawyers from both sides of the bar. Animosities grew slack under the taste of room-temperature Guinness.

  "I don't know," I said. "I think I have to head over the hill to see my client but you never know, I might come back."

  "Well, I only have till eight and then I have to go relieve Stacey."

  "Okay."

  We parted again and I left the courthouse. The bench where I had sat with Roulet and then Kurlen was empty. I sat down, opened my case and pulled out the discovery file Minton had given me. I flipped through reports I already had gotten copies of through Levin. There seemed to be nothing new until I came to a comparative fingerprint analysis report that confirmed what we had thought all along; the bloody fingerprints on the knife belonged to my client, Louis Roulet.

  It still wasn't enough to justify Minton's demeanor. I kept looking and then I found it in the weapon analysis report. The report I had gotten from Levin was completely different, as if from another case and another weapon. As I quickly read it I felt perspiration popping in my hair. I had been set up. I had been embarrassed in the meeting with Minton and worse yet had tipped him early to my hole card. He had the video from Morgan's and had all the time he would need to prepare for it in court.

  Finally, I slapped the folder closed and pulled out my cell phone. Levin answered after two rings.

  "How'd it go?" he asked. "Bonuses for everybody?"

  "Not quite. Do you know where Roulet's office is?"

  "Yeah, on Canon in Beverly Hills. I've got the exact address in the file."

  "Meet me there."

  "Now?"

  "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

  I punched the button, ending the call without further discussion, and then called Earl on speed dial. He must have had his iPod plugs in his ears because he didn't answer until the seventh ring.

  "Come get me," I said. "We're going over the hill."

  I closed the phone and got off the bench. Walking toward the opening between the two courthouses and the place where Earl would pick me up, I felt angry. At Roulet, at Levin, and most of all at myself. But I also was aware of the positive side of this. The one thing that was certain now was that the franchise-and the big payday that came with it-was back in play. The case was going to go the distance to trial unless Roulet took the state's offer. And I thought the chances of that were about the same as the chances for snow in L.A. It could happen but
I wouldn't believe it until I saw it.

  FIFTEEN

  When the rich in Beverly Hills want to drop small fortunes on clothes and jewelry, they go to Rodeo Drive

  . When they want to drop larger fortunes on houses and condominiums, they walk a few blocks over to Canon Drive

  , where the high-line real estate companies roost, photographs of their multimillion-dollar offerings presented in showroom windows on ornate gold easels like Picassos and Van Goghs. This is where I found Windsor Residential Estates and Louis Roulet on Thursday afternoon.

  By the time I got there, Raul Levin was already waiting-and I mean waiting. He had been kept in the showroom with a fresh bottle of water while Louis worked the phone in his private office. The receptionist, an overly tanned blonde with a haircut that hung down one side of her face like a scythe, told me it would be just a few minutes more and then we both could go in. I nodded and stepped away from her desk.

  "You want to tell me what's going on?" Levin asked.

  "Yeah, when we get in there with him."

  The showroom was lined on both sides with steel wires that ran from ceiling to floor and on which were attached 8 ¥ 10 frames containing the photos and pedigrees of the estates offered for sale. Acting like I was studying the rows of houses I couldn't hope to afford in a hundred years, I moved toward the back hallway that led to the offices. When I got there I noticed an open door and heard Louis Roulet's voice. It sounded like he was setting up a showing of a Mulholland Drive

  mansion for a client he told the realtor on the other end of the phone wanted his name kept confidential. I looked back at Levin, who was still near the front of the showroom.

  "This is bullshit," I said and signaled him back.

  I walked down the hallway and into Roulet's plush office. There was the requisite desk stacked with paperwork and thick multiple-listing catalogs. But Roulet wasn't there. He was in a sitting area to the right of the desk, slouched on a sofa with a cigarette in one hand and the phone in the other. He looked shocked to see me and I thought maybe the receptionist hadn't even told him he had visitors.

  Levin came into the office behind me, followed by the receptionist, the hair scythe swinging back and forth as she hurried to catch up. I was worried that the blade might cut off her nose.

  "Mr. Roulet, I'm sorry, these men just came back here."

  "Lisa, I have to go," Roulet said into the phone. "I'll call you back."

  He put the phone down in its cradle on the glass coffee table.

  "It's okay, Robin," he said. "You can go now."

  He made a dismissive gesture with the back of his hand. Robin looked at me like I was wheat she wanted to cut down with that blond blade and then left the room. I closed the door and looked back at Roulet.

  "What happened?" he said. "Is it over?"

  "Not by a long shot," I said.

  I was carrying the state's discovery file. The weapon report was front and center. I stepped over and dropped it onto the coffee table.

  "I only succeeded in embarrassing myself in the DA's office. The case against you still stands and we'll probably be going to trial."

  Roulet's face dropped.

  "I don't understand," he said. "You said you were going to tear that guy a new asshole."

  "Turns out the only asshole in there was me. Because once again you didn't level with me."

  Then, turning to look at Levin, I said, "And because you got us set up."

  Roulet opened the file. On the top page was a color photograph of a knife with blood on its black handle and the tip of its blade. It was not the same knife that was photocopied in the records Levin got from his police sources and that he had showed us in the meeting in Dobbs's office the first day of the case.

  "What the hell is that?" said Levin, looking down at the photo.

  "That is a knife. The real one, the one Roulet had with him when he went to Reggie Campo's apartment. The one with her blood and hisinitials on it."

  Levin sat down on the couch on the opposite side from Roulet. I stayed standing and they both looked up at me. I started with Levin.

  "I went in to see the DA to kick his ass today and he ended up kicking mine with that. Who was your source, Raul? Because he gave you a marked deck."

  "Wait a minute, wait a minute. That's not -"

  "No, you wait a minute. The report you had on the knife being untraceable was bogus. It was put in there to fuck us up. To trick us and it worked perfectly, because I waltzed in there thinking I couldn't lose today and just gave him the Morgan's bar video. Just trotted it out like it was the hammer. Only it wasn't, goddamn it."

  "It was the runner," Levin said.

  "What?"

  "The runner. The guy who runs the reports between the police station and the DA's office. I tell him which cases I'm interested in and he makes extra copies for me."

  "Well, they're onto his ass and they worked it perfectly. You better call him and tell him if he needs a good criminal defense attorney I'm not available."

  I realized I was pacing in front of them on the couch but I didn't stop.

  "And you," I said to Roulet. "I now get the real weapon report and find out not only is the knife a custom-made job but it is traceable right back to you because it has your fucking initials on it! You lied to me again!"

  "I didn't lie," Roulet yelled back. "I tried to tell you. I said it wasn't my knife. I said it twice but nobody listened to me."

  "Then you should have clarified what you meant. Just saying it wasn't your knife was like saying you didn't do it. You should have said, 'Hey, Mick, there might be a problem with the knife because I did have a knife but this picture isn't it.' What did you think, that it was just going to go away?"

  "Please, can you keep it down," Roulet protested. "There might be customers out there."

  "I don't care! Fuck your customers. You're not going to need customers anymore where you're going. Don't you see that this knife trumps everything we've got? You took a murder weapon to a meeting with a prostitute. The knife was no plant. It was yours. And that means we no longer have the setup. How can we claim she set you up when the prosecutor can prove you had that knife with you when you walked through the door?"

  He didn't answer but I didn't give him a lot of time to.

  "You fucking did this thing and they've got you," I said, pointing at him. "No wonder they didn't bother with any follow-up investigation at the bar. No follow-up needed when they've gotyour knife andyour fingerprints in blood on it."

  "I didn't do it! It's a setup. I'm TELLING YOU! It was -"

  "Who's yelling now? Look, I don't care what you're telling me. I can't deal with a client who doesn't level, who doesn't see the percentage in telling his own attorney what is going on. So the DA has made an offer to you and I think you better take it."

  Roulet sat up straight and grabbed the pack of cigarettes off the table. He took one out and lit it off the one he already had going.

  "I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do," he said, his voice suddenly calm after a deep drag off the fresh smoke.

  "Seven years. You'll be out in four. You have till court time Monday and then it disappears. Think about it, then tell me you want to take it."

  "I won't take it. I didn't do this thing and if you won't take it to trial, then I will find somebody who will."

  Levin was holding the discovery file. I reached down and rudely grabbed it out of his hands so I could read directly from the weapon report.

  "You didn't do it?" I said to Roulet. "Okay, if you didn't do it, then would you mind telling me why you went to see this prostitute with a custom-made Black Ninja knife with a five-inch blade, complete with your initials engraved not once, but twice on both sides of the blade?"

  Finished reading from the report, I threw it back to Levin. It went through his hands and slapped against his chest.

  "Because I always carry it!"

  The force of Roulet's response quieted the room. I paced back and forth once, staring a
t him.

  "You always carry it," I said, not a question.

  "That's right. I'm a realtor. I drive expensive cars. I wear expensive jewelry. And I often meet strangers alone in empty houses."

  Again he gave me pause. As hyped up as I was, I still knew a glimmer when I saw one. Levin leaned forward and looked at Roulet and then at me. He saw it, too.

  "What are you talking about?" I said. "You sell homes to rich people."

  "How do you know they are rich when they call you up and say they want to see a place?"