“Were you ever charged with perjury in the Bentley case?” I asked him.
“No, I wasn’t,” he said forcefully, as if that fact exonerated him of wrongdoing.
“Was that because the police were complicit with you in setting up Mr. Bentley?”
Minton objected, saying, “I am sure Mr. Corliss would have no idea what went into the decision of whether or not to charge him with perjury.”
Fullbright sustained it but I didn’t care. I was so far ahead on this witness that there was no catching up. I just moved on to the next question.
“Did any prosecutor or police officer ask you to get close to Mr. Roulet and get him to confide in you?”
“No, it was just luck of the draw, I guess.”
“You were not told to get a confession from Mr. Roulet?”
“No, I was not.”
I stared at him for a long moment with disgust in my eyes.
“I have nothing further.”
I carried the pose of anger with me to my seat and dropped the tape box angrily down in front of me before sitting down.
“Mr. Minton?” the judge asked.
“I have nothing further,” he responded in a weak voice.
“Okay,” Fullbright said quickly. “I am going to excuse the jury for an early lunch. I would like you all back here at one o’clock sharp.”
She put on a strained smile and directed it at the jurors and kept it there until they had filed out of the courtroom. It dropped off her face the moment the door was closed.
“I want to see counsel in my chambers,” she said. “Immediately.”
She didn’t wait for any response. She left the bench so fast that her robe flowed up behind her like the black gown of the grim reaper.
FORTY-ONE
Judge Fullbright had already lit a cigarette by the time Minton and I got back to her chambers. After one long drag she put it out against a glass paperweight and then put the butt into a Ziploc bag she had taken out of her purse. She closed the bag, folded it and replaced it in the purse. She would leave no evidence of her transgression for the night cleaners or anyone else. She exhaled the smoke toward a ceiling intake vent and then brought her eyes down to Minton’s. Judging by the look in them I was glad I wasn’t him.
“Mr. Minton, what the fuck have you done to my trial?”
“Your — ”
“Shut up and sit down. Both of you.”
We did as we were told. The judge composed herself and leaned forward across her desk. She was still looking at Minton.
“Who did the due diligence on this witness of yours?” she asked calmly. “Who did the background?”
“Uh, that would have — actually, we only did a background on him in L.A. County. There were no cautions, no flags. I checked his name on the computer but I didn’t use the initials.”
“How many times had he been used in this county before today?”
“Only one previous time in court. But he had given information on three other cases I could find. Nothing about Arizona came up.”
“Nobody thought to check to see if this guy had been anywhere else or used variations of his name?”
“I guess not. He was passed on to me by the original prosecutor on the case. I just assumed she had checked him out.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
The judge turned her eyes to me. I could have sat back and watched Minton go down but I wasn’t going to let him try to take Maggie McPherson with him.
“The original prosecutor was Maggie McPherson,” I said. “She had the case all of about three hours. She’s my ex-wife and she knew as soon as she saw me at first apps that she was gone. And you got the case that same day, Minton. Where in there was she supposed to background your witnesses, especially this guy who didn’t come out from under his rock until after first appearance? She passed him on and that was it.”
Minton opened his mouth to say something but the judge cut him off.
“It doesn’t matter who should have done it. It wasn’t done properly and, either way, putting that man on the stand in my opinion was gross prosecutorial misconduct.”
“Your Honor,” Minton barked. “I did — ”
“Save it for your boss. He’s the one you’ll need to convince. What was the last offer the state made to Mr. Roulet?”
Minton seemed frozen and unable to respond. I answered for him.
“Simple assault, six months in county.”
The judge raised her eyebrows and looked at me.
“And you didn’t take it?”
I shook my head.
“My client won’t take a conviction. It will ruin him. He’ll gamble on a verdict.”
“You want a mistrial?” she asked.
I laughed and shook my head.
“No, I don’t want a mistrial. All that will do is give the prosecution time to clean up its mess, get it all right and then come back at us.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“What do I want? A directed verdict would be nice. Something with no comebacks from the state. Other than that, we’ll ride it out.”
The judge nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.
“A directed verdict would be ridiculous, Your Honor,” Minton said, finally finding his voice. “We’re at the end of trial, anyway. We might as well take it to a verdict. The jury deserves it. Just because one mistake was made by the state, there is no reason to subvert the whole process.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Minton,” the judge said dismissively. “It’s not about what the jury deserves. And as far as I am concerned, one mistake like you have made is enough. I don’t want this kicked back at me by the Second and that is surely what they will do. Then I am holding the bag for your miscon — ”
“I didn’t know Corliss’s background!” Minton said forcefully. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”
The intensity of his words brought a momentary silence to the chambers. But soon I slipped into the void.
‘Just like you didn’t know about the knife, Ted?”
Fullbright looked from Minton to me and then back at Minton.
“What knife?” she asked.
Minton said nothing.
“Tell her,” I said.
Minton shook his head.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said.
“Then you tell me,” the judge said to me.
“Judge, if you wait on discovery from the DA, you might as well hang it up at the start,” I said. “Witnesses disappear, stories change, you can lose a case just sitting around waiting.”
“All right, so what about the knife?”
“I needed to move on this case. So I had my investigator go through the back door and get reports. It’s fair game. But they were waiting for him and they phonied up a report on the knife so I wouldn’t know about the initials. I didn’t know until I got the formal discovery packet.”
The judge formed a hard line with her lips.
“That was the police, not the DA’s office,” Minton said quickly.
“Thirty seconds ago you said you didn’t know what he was talking about,” Fullbright said. “Now suddenly you do. I don’t care who did it. Are you telling me that this did in fact occur?”
Minton reluctantly nodded.
“Yes, Your Honor. But I swear, I didn’t — ”
“You know what this tells me?” the judge said, cutting him off. “It tells me that from start to finish the state has not played fair in this case. It doesn’t matter who did what or that Mr. Haller’s investigator may have been acting improperly. The state must be above that. And as evidenced today in my courtroom it has been anything but that.”
“Your Honor, that’s not — ”
“No more, Mr. Minton. I think I’ve heard enough. I want you both to leave now. In half an hour I’ll take the bench and announce what we’ll do about this. I am not sure yet what that will be but no matter what I do, you aren’t going to like what I have to say, M
r. Minton. And I am directing you to have your boss, Mr. Smithson, in the courtroom with you to hear it.”
I stood up. Minton didn’t move. He still seemed frozen to the seat.
“I said you can go!” the judge barked.
FORTY-TWO
I followed Minton through the court clerk’s station and into the courtroom. It was empty except for Meehan, who sat at the bailiff’s desk. I took my briefcase off the defense table and headed toward the gate.
“Hey, Haller, wait a second,” Minton said, as he gathered files from the prosecution table.
I stopped at the gate and looked back.
“What?”
Minton came to the gate and pointed to the rear door of the courtroom.
“Let’s go out here.”
“My client is going to be waiting out there for me.”
“Just come here.”
He headed to the door and I followed. In the vestibule where I had confronted Roulet two days earlier Minton stopped to confront me. But he didn’t say anything. He was putting words together. I decided to push him even further.
“While you go get Smithson I think I’ll stop by the Times office on two and make sure the reporter down there knows there’ll be some fireworks up here in a half hour.”
“Look,” Minton sputtered. “We have to work this out.”
“We?”
“Just hold off on the Times, okay? Give me your cell number and give me ten minutes.”
“For what?”
“Let me go down to my office and see what I can do.”
“I don’t trust you, Minton.”
“Well, if you want what’s best for your client instead of a cheap headline, you’re going to have to trust me for ten minutes.”
I looked away from his face and acted like I was considering the offer. Finally, I looked back at him. Our faces were only two feet apart.
“You know, Minton, I could’ve put up with all your bullshit. The knife and the arrogance and everything else. I’m a pro and I have to live with that shit from prosecutors every day of my life. But when you tried to put Corliss on Maggie McPherson in there, that’s when I decided not to show you any mercy.”
“Look, I did nothing to intentionally — ”
“Minton, look around. There’s nobody here but us. No cameras, no tape, no witnesses. Are you going to stand there and tell me you never heard of Corliss until a staff meeting yesterday?”
He responded by pointing an angry finger in my face.
“And you’re going to stand there and tell me you never heard of him until this morning?”
We stared at each other for a long moment.
“I may be green but I’m not stupid,” he said. “The strategy of your whole case was to push me toward using Corliss. You knew all along what you could do with him. And you probably got it from your ex.”
“If you can prove that, then prove it,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry, I could . . . if I had the time. But all I’ve got is a half hour.”
I slowly raised my arm and checked my watch.
“More like twenty-six minutes.”
“Give me your cell number.”
I did and then he was gone. I waited in the vestibule for fifteen seconds before stepping through the door. Roulet was standing close to the glass wall that looked down at the plaza below. His mother and C. C. Dobbs were sitting on a bench against the opposite wall. Further down the hallway I saw Detective Sobel lingering in the hallway.
Roulet noticed me and started walking quickly toward me. Soon his mother and Dobbs followed.
“What’s going on?” Roulet asked first.
I waited until they were all gathered close to me before answering.
“I think it’s all about to blow up.”
“What do you mean?” Dobbs asked.
“The judge is considering a directed verdict. We’ll know pretty soon.”
“What is a directed verdict?” Mary Windsor asked.
“It’s when the judge takes it out of the jury’s hands and issues a verdict of acquittal. She’s hot because she says Minton engaged in misconduct with Corliss and some other things.”
“Can she do that? Just acquit him.”
“She’s the judge. She can do what she wants.”
“Oh my God!”
Windsor brought one hand to her mouth and looked like she might burst into tears.
“I said she is considering it,” I cautioned. “It doesn’t mean it will happen. But she did offer me a mistrial already and I turned that down flat.”
“You turned it down?” Dobbs yelped. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because it’s meaningless. The state could come right back and try Louis again — this time with a better case because they’ll know our moves. Forget the mistrial. We’re not going to educate the prosecution. We want something with no comebacks or we ride with this jury to a verdict today. Even if it goes against us we have solid grounds for appeal.”
“Isn’t that a decision for Louis to make?” Dobbs asked. “After all, he’s — ”
“Cecil, shut up,” Windsor snapped. “Just shut up and stop second-guessing everything this man does for Louis. He’s right. We’re not going through this again!”
Dobbs looked like he had been slapped by her. He seemed to shrink back from the huddle. I looked at Mary Windsor and saw a different face. It was the face of the woman who had started a business from scratch and had taken it to the top. I also looked at Dobbs differently, realizing that he had probably been whispering sweet negatives about me in her ear all along.
I let it go and focused on what was at hand.
“There’s only one thing the DA’s office hates worse than losing a verdict,” I said. “That’s getting embarrassed by a judge with a directed verdict, especially after a finding of prosecutorial misconduct. Minton went down to talk to his boss and he’s a guy who is very political and always has his finger in the wind. We might know something in a few minutes.”
Roulet was directly in front of me. I looked over his shoulder to see that Sobel was still standing in the hallway. She was talking on a cell phone.
“Listen,” I said. “All of you just sit tight. If I don’t hear from the DA, then we go back into court in twenty minutes to see what the judge wants to do. So stay close. If you will excuse me, I’m going to go to the restroom.”
I stepped away from them and walked down the hallway toward Sobel. But Roulet broke away from his mother and her lawyer and caught up to me. He grabbed me by the arm to stop me.
“I still want to know how Corliss got that shit he was saying,” he demanded.
“What does it matter? It’s working for us. That’s what matters.”
Roulet brought his face in close to mine.
“The guy calls me a murderer on the stand. How is that working for us?”
“Because no one believed him. And that’s why the judge is so pissed, because they used a professional liar to get up there on the stand and say the worst things about you. To put that in front of the jury and then have the guy revealed as a liar, that’s the misconduct. Don’t you see? I had to heighten the stakes. It was the only way to push the judge into pushing the prosecution. I am doing exactly what you wanted me to do, Louis. I’m getting you off.”
I studied him as he computed this.
“So let it go,” I said. “Go back to your mother and Dobbs and let me go take a piss.”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m not going to let it go, Mick.”
He poked a finger into my chest.
“Something else is going on here, Mick, and I don’t like it. You have to remember something. I have your gun. And you have a daughter. You have to — ”
I closed my hand over his hand and finger and pushed it away from my chest.
“Don’t you ever threaten my family,” I said with a controlled but angry voice. “You want to come at me, fine, then come at me and let’s do it. But if you ever threaten
my daughter again, I will bury you so deep you will never be found. You understand me, Louis?”
He slowly nodded and a smile creased his face.
“Sure, Mick. Just so we understand each other.”
I released his hand and left him there. I started walking toward the end of the hallway where the restrooms were and where Sobel seemed to be waiting while talking on a cell. I was walking blind, my thoughts of the threat to my daughter crowding my vision. But as I got close to Sobel I shook it off. She ended her call when I got there.
“Detective Sobel,” I said.
“Mr. Haller,” she said.
“Can I ask why you are here? Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m here because you invited me, remember?”
“Uh, no, I don’t.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You told me I ought to check out your trial.”
I suddenly realized she was referring to the awkward conversation in my home office during the search of my house on Monday night.
“Oh, right, I forgot about that. Well, I’m glad you took me up on it. I saw your partner earlier. What happened to him?”
“Oh, he’s around.”
I tried to read something in that. She had not answered the question about whether she was going to arrest me. I gestured back up the hallway toward the courtroom.
“So what did you think?”
“Interesting. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the judge’s chambers.”
“Well, stick around. It ain’t over yet.”
“Maybe I will.”
My cell phone started to vibrate. I reached under my jacket and pulled it off my hip. The caller ID readout said the call was coming from the district attorney’s office.
“I have to take this,” I said.
“By all means,” Sobel said.
I opened the phone and started walking back up the hallway toward where Roulet was pacing.
“Hello?”
“Mickey Haller, this is Jack Smithson in the DA’s office. How’s your day going?”
“I’ve had better.”
“Not after you hear what I’m offering to do for you.”
“I’m listening.”
The Lincoln Lawyer Collection Page 36
