The Lincoln Lawyer

by Michael Connelly

  “So this is where you do your great legal work?” Roulet asked.

  “Some of it. What are you doing here, Louis?”

  “I came to see you. You didn’t return my call and so I wanted to make sure we were still a team, you know?”

  “I was out of town. I just got back.”

  “What about dinner with Raul? Isn’t that what you said to your caller?”

  “He’s a friend. I had dinner on my way in from Burbank Airport. How did you find out where I live, Louis?”

  He cleared his throat and smiled.

  “I work in real estate, Mick. I can find out where anybody lives. In fact, I used to be a source for the National Enquirer. Did you know that? I could tell them where any celebrity lived, no matter what fronts and corporations they hid their purchases behind. But I gave it up after a while. The money was good but it was so . . . tawdry. You know what I mean, Mick? Anyway, I stopped. But I can still find out where anyone lives. I can also find out whether they’ve maxed the mortgage value out and even if they’re making their payments on time.”

  He looked at me with a knowing smile. He was telling me he knew the house was a financial shell, that I had nothing in the place and usually ran a month behind on the two mortgages. Fernando Valenzuela probably wouldn’t even accept the place as collateral on a five-thousand-dollar bond.

  “How’d you get in?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s the funny thing about this. It turns out I had a key. Back when this place was for sale—what was that, about eighteen months ago? Anyway, I wanted to see it because I thought I had a client who might be interested because of the view. So I came and got the key out of the realtor’s combo box. I came in and looked around and knew immediately it wasn’t right for my client—he wanted something nicer—so I left. And I forgot to put the key back. I have a bad habit of doing that. Isn’t that strange that all this time later my lawyer would be living in this house? And by the way, I see you haven’t done a thing with it. You have the view, of course, but you really need to do some updating.”

  I knew then that he had been keeping tabs on me since the Menendez case. And that he probably knew I had just been up to San Quentin visiting him. I thought about the man on the car-rental train. Bad day? I had later seen him on the shuttle to Burbank. Had he been following me? Was he working for Roulet? Was he the investigator Cecil Dobbs had tried to push onto the case? I didn’t know all the answers but I knew that the only reason Roulet would be in my house waiting for me was because he knew what I knew.

  “What do you really want, Louis? Are you trying to scare me?”

  “No, no, I’m the one who should be scared. I assume you have a weapon of some sort behind your back there. What is it, a gun?”

  I gripped the knife tighter but did not display it.

  “What is it you want?” I repeated.

  “I want to make you an offer. Not on the house. On your services.”

  “You already have my services.”

  He swiveled back and forth in the chair before responding. My eyes scanned the desk, checking if anything was missing. I noticed he had used a little pottery dish my daughter had made for me as an ashtray. It was supposed to be for paperclips.

  “I was thinking about our fee arrangement and the difficulties the case presents,” he said. “Frankly, Mick, I think you are underpaid. So I want to set up a new fee schedule. You will be paid the amount already agreed upon and you will be paid in full before the trial begins. But I am now going to add a performance bonus. When I am found by a jury of my peers to be not guilty of this ugly crime, your fee automatically doubles. I will write the check in your Lincoln as we drive away from the courthouse.”

  “That’s nice, Louis, but the California bar refuses to allow defense attorneys to accept bonuses based on results. I couldn’t accept it. It’s more than generous but I can’t.”

  “But the California bar isn’t here, Mick. And we don’t have to treat it as a performance bonus. It’s just part of the fee schedule. Because, after all, you will be successful in defending me, won’t you?”

  He looked intently at me and I read the threat.

  “There are no guarantees in the courtroom. Things can always go badly. But I still think it looks good.”

  Roulet’s face slowly broke into a smile.

  “What can I do to make it look even better?”

  I thought about Reggie Campo. Still alive and ready to go to trial. She had no idea whom she would be testifying against.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “Just sit tight and wait it out. Don’t get any ideas. Don’t do anything. The case is coming together and we’ll be all right.”

  He didn’t respond. I wanted to get him away from thoughts about the threat Reggie Campo presented.

  “There is one thing that has come up, though,” I said.

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “I don’t have the details. What I know I only know from a source who can’t tell me any more. But it looks like the DA has a snitch from the jail. You didn’t talk to anybody about the case when you were in there, did you? Remember, I told you not to talk to anybody.”

  “And I didn’t. Whoever they have, he is a liar.”

  “Most of them are. I just wanted to be sure. I’ll deal with it if it comes up.”

  “Good.”

  “One other thing. Have you talked to your mother about testifying about the attack in the empty house? We need it to set up the defense of you carrying the knife.”

  Roulet pursed his lips but didn’t answer.

  “I need you to work on her,” I said. “It could be very important to establish that solidly with the jury. Besides that, it could swing sympathy toward you.”

  Roulet nodded. He saw the light.

  “Can you please ask her?” I asked.

  “I will. But she’ll be tough. She never reported it. She never told anyone but Cecil.”

  “We need her to testify and then we can get Cecil to testify and back her up. It’s not as good as a police report but it will work. We need her, Louis. I think if she testifies, she can convince them. Juries like old ladies.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did she ever tell you what the guy looked like or how old he was, anything like that?”

  He shook his head.

  “She couldn’t tell. He wore a ski mask and goggles. He jumped on her as soon as she came in the door. He had been hiding behind it. It was very quick and very brutal.”

  His voice quavered as he described it. I became puzzled.

  “I thought you said the attacker was a prospective buyer she was supposed to meet there,” I said. “He was already in the house?”

  He brought his eyes up to mine.

  “Yes. Somehow he had already gotten in and was waiting for her. It was terrible.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to go further with him at the moment. I wanted him out of my house.

  “Listen, thank you for your offer, Louis. Now if you would excuse me, I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

  I gestured with my free hand toward the hallway leading to the front of the house. Roulet got up from the desk chair and came toward me. I backed into the hallway and then into the open door of my bedroom. I kept the knife behind me and ready. But Roulet passed by without incident.

  “And tomorrow you have your daughter to entertain,” he said.

  That froze me. He had listened to the call from Maggie. I didn’t say anything. He did.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter, Mick. That must be nice.”

  He glanced back at me, smiling as he moved down the hall.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said.

  My inertia turned to momentum. I stepped into the hall and started following him, anger building with each step. I gripped the knife tightly.

  “How do you know what she looks like?” I demanded.

  He stopped and I stopped. He looked down at the knife in my hand and then at my face. He spoke calmly.

&nb
sp; “The picture of her on your desk.”

  I had forgotten about the photo. A small framed shot of her in a teacup at Disneyland.

  “Oh,” I said.

  He smiled, knowing what I had been thinking.

  “Good night, Mick. Enjoy your daughter tomorrow. You probably don’t get to see her enough.”

  He turned and crossed the living room and opened the front door. He looked back at me before stepping out.

  “What you need is a good lawyer,” he said. “One that will get you custody.”

  “No. She’s better off with her mother.”

  “Good night, Mick. Thanks for the conversation.”

  “Good night, Louis.”

  I stepped forward to close the door.

  “Nice view,” he said from out on the front porch.

  “Yeah,” I said as I closed and locked the door.

  I stood there with my hand on the knob, waiting to hear his steps going down the stairs to the street. But a few moments later he knocked on the door. I closed my eyes, held the knife at the ready and opened it. Roulet raised his hand out. I took a step back.

  “Your key,” he said. “I figured you should have it.”

  I took the key off his outstretched palm.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I closed the door and locked it once again.

  Tuesday, April 12

  TWENTY-TWO

  T he day started better than any defense attorney could ask for. I had no courtroom to be in, no client to meet. I slept late, spent the morning reading the newspaper cover to cover and had a box ticket to the home opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball season. It was a day game and a time-honored tradition among those on the defense side of the aisle to attend. My ticket had come from Raul Levin, who was taking five of the defense pros he did work for to the game as a gesture of thanks for their business. I was sure the others would grumble and complain at the game about how I was monopolizing Levin as I prepared for the Roulet trial. But I wasn’t going to let it bother me.

  We were in the outwardly slow time before trial, when the machine moves with a steady, quiet momentum. Louis Roulet’s trial was set to begin in a month. As it was growing nearer I was taking on fewer and fewer clients. I needed the time to prepare and strategize. Though the trial was weeks away it would likely be won or lost with the information gathered now. I needed to keep my schedule clear for this. I took cases from repeat customers only—and only if the money was right and it came up front.

  A trial was a slingshot. The key was in the preparation. Pretrial is when the sling is loaded with the proper stone and slowly the elastic is pulled back and stretched to its limit. Finally, at trial you let it go and the projectile shoots forward, unerringly at the target. The target is acquittal. Not guilty. You only hit that target if you have properly chosen the stone and pulled back carefully on the sling, stretching it as far as possible.

  Levin was doing most of the stretching. He had continued to dig into the lives of the players in both the Roulet and Menendez cases. We had hatched a strategy and plan we were calling a “double slingshot” because it had two intended targets. I had no doubt that when the trial began in May, we would be stretched back to the limit and ready to let go.

  The prosecution did its part to help us load the slingshot, as well. In the weeks since Roulet’s arraignment the state’s discovery file grew thicker as scientific reports filtered in, further police investigations were carried out and new developments occurred.

  Among the new developments of note was the identification of Mr. X, the left-handed man who had been with Reggie Campo at Morgan’s the night of the attack. LAPD detectives, using the video I had alerted the prosecution to, were able to identify him by showing a frame taken off the video to known prostitutes and escorts when they were arrested by the Administrative Vice section. Mr. X was identified as Charles Talbot. He was known to many of the sex providers as a regular. Some said that he owned or worked at a convenience store on Reseda Boulevard.

  The investigative reports forwarded to me through discovery requests revealed that detectives interviewed Talbot and learned that on the night of March 6 he left Reggie Campo’s apartment shortly before ten and went to the previously mentioned twenty-four-hour convenience store. Talbot owned the business. He went to the store so that he could check on things and open a cigarette storage cabinet that only he carried the key for. Tape from surveillance cameras in the store confirmed that he was there from 10:09 to 10:51 P.M. restocking the cigarette bins beneath the front counter. The investigator’s summary dismissed Talbot as having no bearing or part in the events that occurred after he left Campo’s apartment. He was just one of her customers.

  Nowhere in the state’s discovery was there mention of Dwayne Jeffery Corliss, the jailhouse snitch who had contacted the prosecution with a tale to tell about Louis Roulet. Minton had either decided not to use him as a witness or was keeping him under wraps for emergency use only. I tended to think it was the latter. Minton had sequestered him in the lockdown program. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble unless he wanted to keep Corliss offstage but ready. This was fine with me. What Minton didn’t know was that Corliss was the stone I was going to put into the slingshot.

  And while the state’s discovery contained little information on the victim of the crime, Raul Levin was vigorously pursuing Reggie Campo. He located a website called PinkMink.com on which she advertised her services. What was important about the discovery was not necessarily that it further established that she was engaged in prostitution but that the ad copy stated that she was “very open-minded and liked to get wild” and was “available for S&M role play—you spank me or I’ll spank you.” It was good ammunition to have. It was the kind of stuff that could help color a victim or witness in a jury’s eyes. And she was both.

  Levin also was digging deeper into the life and times of Louis Roulet and had learned that he had been a poor student who’d attended five different private schools in and around Beverly Hills as a youth. He did go on to attend and graduate from UCLA with a degree in English literature but Levin located fellow classmates who had said Roulet paid his way through by purchasing from other students completed class assignments, test answers and even a ninety-page senior thesis on the life and work of John Fante.

  A far darker profile emerged of Roulet as an adult. Levin found numerous female acquaintances who said Roulet had mistreated them, either physically or mentally, or both. Two women who had known Roulet while they were students at UCLA told Levin that they suspected that Roulet had spiked their drinks at a fraternity party with a date-rape drug and then took sexual advantage of them. Neither reported their suspicions to authorities but one woman had her blood tested the day after the party. She said traces of ketamine hydrochloride, a veterinary sedative, were found. Luckily for the defense, neither woman had so far been located by investigators for the prosecution.

  Levin took a look at the so-called Real Estate Rapist cases of five years before as well. Four women—all realtors—reported being overpowered and raped by a man who was waiting inside when they entered homes they believed had been vacated by their owners for a showing. The attacks went unsolved but stopped eleven months after the first one was reported. Levin spoke to an LAPD sex crimes expert who worked the cases. He said that his gut instinct had always been that the rapist wasn’t an outsider. The assailant seemed to know how to get into the houses and how to draw the female sales agents to them alone. The investigator was convinced the rapist was in the real estate community, but with no arrest ever made, he never proved his theory.

  Added to this branch of his investigation, Levin could find little to confirm that Mary Alice Windsor had been one of the unreported victims of the rapist. She had granted us an interview and agreed to testify about her secret tragedy but only if her testimony was vitally needed. The date of the attack she provided fell within the dates of the documented assaults attributed to the Real Estate Rap
ist, and Windsor provided an appointment book and other documentation showing she was indeed the realtor on record in regard to the sale of the Bel-Air home where she said she was attacked. But ultimately we only had her word for it. There were no medical or hospital records indicative of treatment for a sexual assault. And no police record.

  Still, when Mary Windsor recounted her story, it matched Roulet’s telling of it in almost all details. Afterward, it had struck both Levin and me as odd that Louis had known so much about the attack. If his mother had decided to keep it secret and unreported, then why would she share so many details of her harrowing ordeal with her son? That question led Levin to postulate a theory that was as repulsive as it was intriguing.

  “I think he knows all the details because he was there,” Levin had said after the interview and we were by ourselves.

  “You mean he watched it without doing anything to stop it?”

  “No, I mean I think he was the man in the ski mask and goggles.”

  I was silent. I think on a subliminal level I may have been thinking the same thing but the idea was too creepy to have broken through to the surface.

  “Oh, man . . . ,” I said.

  Levin, thinking I was disagreeing, pressed his case forward.

  “This is a very strong woman,” he said. “She built that company from nothing and real estate in this town is cutthroat. She’s a tough lady and I can’t see her not reporting this, not wanting the guy who did it to be caught. I view people two ways. They’re either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people. She’s definitely an eye-for-an-eye person and I can’t see her keeping it quiet unless she was protecting that guy. Unless that guy was our guy. I’m telling you, man, Roulet is evil. I don’t know where it comes from or how he got it, but the more I look at him, the more I see the devil.”

  All of this backgrounding was completely sub rosa. It obviously was not the kind of background that would in any way be brought forward as a means of defense. It had to be hidden from discovery, so little of what Levin or I found was put down on paper. But it was still information that I had to know as I made my decisions and set up the trial and the play within it.