The Lincoln Lawyer Collection

by Connelly, Michael

  “Raul Levin’s last words. He said he found Jesus’s ticket out.”

  “Which means what?”

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Look, just tell me. Please.”

  She relented.

  “We traced Levin’s most recent movements. Before he was murdered he had made inquiries about Roulet’s parking tickets. He even pulled hard copies of them. We inventoried what he had in the office and eventually compared it with what’s on the computer. He was missing one ticket. One hard copy. We didn’t know if his killer took it that day or if he had just missed pulling it. So we went and pulled a copy ourselves. It was issued two years ago on the night of April eighth. It was a citation for parking in front of a hydrant in the sixty-seven-hundred block of Blythe Street in Panorama City.”

  It all came together for me, like the last bit of sand dropping through the middle of an hourglass. Raul Levin really had found Jesus Menendez’s salvation.

  “Martha Renteria was murdered two years ago on April eighth,” I said. “She lived on Blythe in Panorama City.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t know that. We didn’t see the connection. You told us that Levin was working separate cases for you. Jesus Menendez and Louis Roulet were separate investigations. Levin had them filed that way, too.”

  “It was a discovery issue. He kept the cases separate so I wouldn’t have to turn over anything on Roulet that he came up with on Menendez.”

  “One of your lawyer angles. Well, it stopped us from putting it together until that snitch in there mentioned the snake dancer. That connected everything.”

  I nodded.

  “So whoever killed Raul Levin took the hard copy?”

  “We think.”

  “Did you check Raul’s phones for a tap? Somehow somebody knew he found the ticket.”

  “We did. They were clear. Bugs could have been removed at the time of the murder. Or maybe it was someone else’s phone that was tapped.”

  Meaning mine. Meaning it might explain how Roulet knew so many of my moves and was even conveniently waiting for me in my home the night I had come home from seeing Jesus Menendez.

  “I will have them checked,” I said. “Does all of this mean I am clear on Raul’s murder?”

  “Not necessarily,” Sobel said. “We still want to see what comes back from ballistics. We’re hoping for something today.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know how to respond. Sobel lingered, looking like she wanted to tell me or ask me something.

  “What?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Really? In the courtroom it seemed like you were trying to tell us a lot.”

  I was silent a moment, trying to read between the lines.

  “What do you want from me, Detective Sobel?”

  “You know what I want. I want Raul Levin’s killer.”

  “Well, so do I. But I couldn’t give you Roulet on Levin even if I wanted to. I don’t know how he did it. And that’s off the record.”

  “So that still leaves you in the crosshairs.”

  She looked down the hall at the elevators, her implication clear. If the ballistics matched, I could still have a problem on Levin. They would use it as leverage. Give up how Roulet did it or go down for it myself. I changed the subject.

  “How long do you think before Jesus Menendez gets out?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Hard to say. Depends on the case they build against Roulet — if they have a case. But I know one thing. They can’t prosecute Roulet as long as another man is in prison for the same crime.”

  I turned and walked over to the glass wall. I put my free hand on the railing that ran along the glass. I felt a mixture of elation and dread and that moth still batting around in my chest.

  “That’s all I care about,” I said quietly. “Getting him out. That and Raul.”

  She came over and stood next to me.

  “I don’t know what you are doing,” she said. “But leave the rest for us.”

  “I do that and your partner will probably put me in jail for a murder I didn’t commit.”

  “You are playing a dangerous game,” she said. “Leave it alone.”

  I looked at her and then back down at the plaza.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll leave it alone now”

  Having heard what she needed to, she made a move to go.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  I looked at her again.

  “Same to you.”

  She left then and I stayed. I turned back to the window and looked down into the plaza. I saw Dobbs and Windsor crossing the concrete squares and heading toward the parking garage. Mary Windsor was leaning against her lawyer for support. I doubted they were still headed to lunch at Orso.

  FORTY-FIVE

  By that night the word had begun to spread. Not the secret details but the public story. The story that I had won the case, gotten a DA’s motion to dismiss with no comebacks, only to have my client arrested for a murder in the hallway outside the courtroom where I had just cleared him. I got calls from every other defense pro I knew. I got call after call until my cell phone finally died. My colleagues were all congratulating me. In their eyes, there was no downside. Roulet was the ultimate franchise. I got schedule A fees for one trial and then I would get schedule A fees for the next one. It was a double-dip most defense pros could only dream about. And, of course, when I told them I would not be handling the defense of the new case, each one of them asked if I could refer him to Roulet.

  It was the one call that came in on my home line that I wanted the most. It was from Maggie McPherson.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call all night,” I said.

  I was pacing in the kitchen, tethered by the phone cord. I had checked my phones when I had gotten home and found no evidence of bugging devices.

  “Sorry, I’ve been in the conference room,” she said.

  “I heard you were pulled in on Roulet.”

  “Yes, that’s why I’m calling. They’re going to cut him loose.”

  “What are you talking about? They’re letting him go?”

  “Yes. They’ve had him for nine hours in a room and he hasn’t broken. Maybe you taught him too well not to talk, because he’s a rock and they got nothing and that means they don’t have enough.”

  “You’re wrong. There is enough. They have the parking ticket and there have to be witnesses who can put him in The Cobra Room. Even Menendez can ID him there.”

  “You know as well as I do that Menendez is a scratch. He’d identify anybody to get out. And if there are other wits from The Cobra Room, then it’s going to take some time to run them down. The parking ticket puts him in the neighborhood but it doesn’t put him inside her apartment.”

  “What about the knife?”

  “They’re working on it but that’s going to take time, too. Look, we want to do this right. It was Smithson’s call and, believe me, he wanted to keep him, too. It would make that fiasco you created in court today a little more palatable. But it’s just not there. Not yet. They’re going to kick him loose and work the forensics and look for the witnesses. If Roulet’s good for this, then we will get him, and your other client will get out. You don’t have to worry. But we have to do it right.”

  I swung a fist impotently through the air.

  “They jumped the gun. Damn it, they shouldn’t have made the move today.”

  “I guess they thought nine hours in interrogation would do the trick.”

  “They were stupid.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  I was annoyed by her attitude but held my tongue on that. I needed her to keep me in the loop.

  “When exactly will they let him go?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. This all just went down. Kurlen and Booker came over here to present it and Smithson just sent them back to the PD. When they get ba
ck, I assume they’ll kick him loose.”

  “Listen to me, Maggie. Roulet knows about Hayley.”

  There was a horribly long moment of silence before she answered.

  “What are you saying, Haller? You let our daughter into — ”

  “I didn’t let anything happen. He broke into my house and saw her picture. It doesn’t mean he knows where she lives or even what her name is. But he knows about her and he wants to get back at me. So you have to go home right now. I want you to be with Hayley. Get her and get out of the apartment. Just play it safe.”

  Something made me hold back on telling her everything, that I felt that Roulet had specifically threatened my family in the courthouse. You can’t protect everybody. I would only use that if she refused to do what I wanted her to do with Hayley.

  “I’m leaving now,” she said. “And we’re coming to you.”

  I knew she would say that.

  “No, don’t come to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he might come to me.”

  “This is crazy. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Just go get Hayley and get somewhere safe. Then call me on your cell, but don’t tell me where you are. It will be better if I don’t even know.”

  “Haller, just call the police. They can — ”

  “And tell them what?”

  “I don’t know. Tell them you’ve been threatened.”

  “A defense lawyer telling the police he feels threatened . . . yeah, they’ll jump all over that. Probably send out a SWAT team.”

  “Well, you have to do something.”

  “I thought I did. I thought he was going to be in jail for the rest of his life. But you people moved too fast and now you have to let him go.”

  “I told you, it wasn’t enough. Even knowing now about the possible threat to Hayley, it’s still not enough.”

  “Then go to our daughter and take care of her. Leave the rest to me.”

  “I’m going.”

  But she didn’t hang up. It was like she was giving me the chance to say something more.

  “I love you, Mags,” I said. “Both of you. Be careful.”

  I closed the phone before she could respond. Almost immediately I opened it again and called Fernando Valenzuela’s cell phone number. After five rings he answered.

  “Val, it’s me, Mick.”

  “Shit. If I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have answered.”

  “Look, I need your help.”

  “My help? You’re asking for my help after what you asked me the other night? After you accused me?”

  “Look, Val, this is an emergency. What I said the other night was out of line and I apologize. I’ll pay for your TV, I’ll do whatever you want, but I need your help right now.”

  I waited. After a pause he responded.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Roulet still has the bracelet on his ankle, right?”

  “That’s right. I know what happened in court but I haven’t heard from the guy. One of my courthouse people said the cops picked him up again so I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “They picked him up but he’s about to be kicked loose. He’ll probably be calling you so he can get the bracelet taken off.”

  “I’m already home, man. He can find me in the morning.”

  “That’s what I want. Make him wait.”

  “That ain’t no favor, man.”

  “This is. I want you to open your laptop and watch him. When he leaves the PD, I want to know where he’s going. Can you do that for me?”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Yeah, right now. You got a problem with that?”

  “Sort of.”

  I got ready for another argument. But I was surprised.

  “I told you about the battery alarm on the bracelet, right?” Valenzuela said.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, I got the twenty percent alarm about an hour ago.”

  “So how much longer can you track him until the battery’s dead?”

  “Probably about six to eight hours’ active tracking before it goes on low pulse. Then he’ll come up every fifteen minutes for another five hours.”

  I thought about all of this. I just needed to make it through the night and to know that Maggie and Hayley were safe.

  “The thing is, when he is on low pulse he beeps,” Valenzuela said. “You’ll hear him coming. Or he’ll get tired of the noise and juice the battery.”

  Or maybe he’ll pull the Houdini act again, I thought.

  “Okay,” I said. “You told me that there were other alarms that you could build into the tracking program.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can you set it so you get an alarm if he comes near a specific target?”

  “Yeah, like if it’s on a child molester you can set an alarm if he gets close to a school. Stuff like that. It’s got to be a fixed target.”

  “Okay.”

  I gave him the address of the apartment on Dickens in Sherman Oaks where Maggie and my daughter lived.

  “If he comes within ten blocks of that place you call me. Doesn’t matter what time, call me. That’s the favor.”

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s where my daughter lives.”

  There was a long silence before Valenzuela responded.

  “With Maggie? You think this guy’s going to go there?”

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping that as long as he’s got the tracker on his ankle he won’t be stupid.”

  “Okay, Mick. You got it.”

  “Thanks, Val. And call my home number. My cell is dead.”

  I gave him the number and then was silent for a moment, wondering what else I could say to make up for my betrayal two nights earlier. Finally, I let it go. I had to focus on the current threat.

  I moved from the kitchen and down the hallway to my office. I rolled through the Rolodex on my desk until I found a number and then grabbed the desk phone.

  I dialed and waited. I looked out the window to the left of my desk and noticed for the first time that it was raining. It looked like it was going to come down hard and I wondered if the weather would affect the satellite tracking of Roulet. I dropped the thought when my call was answered by Teddy Vogel, the leader of the Road Saints.

  “Speak to me.”

  “Ted, Mickey Haller.”

  “Counselor, how are you?”

  “Not so good tonight.”

  “Then I am glad you called. What can I do for you?”

  I looked out the window at the rain before answering. I knew that if I continued I would be indebted to people I never wanted to be on the hook with.

  But there was no choice.

  “You happen to have anybody down my way tonight?” I asked.

  There was a hesitation before Vogel answered. I knew he had to be curious about his lawyer calling him for help. I was obviously asking about the kind of help that came with muscles and guns.

  “Got a few guys watching things at the club. What’s up?”

  The club was the strip bar on Sepulveda, not too far from Sherman Oaks. I was counting on that.

  “There’s a threat to my family, Ted. I need some warm bodies to put up a front, maybe grab a guy if needed.”

  “Armed and dangerous?”

  I hesitated but not too long.

  “Yeah, armed and dangerous.”

  “Sounds like our kind of move. Where do you want them?”

  He was immediately ready to act. He knew the value of having me under his thumb instead of on retainer. I gave him the address of the apartment on Dickens. I also gave him a description of Roulet and what he had been wearing in court that day.

  “If he shows up at that apartment, I want him stopped,” I said. “And I need your people to go now.”

  “Done,” Vogel said.

  “Thank you, Ted.”

  “No, thank you. We’re glad to help you out, seei
ng as how you’ve helped us out so much.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. I hung the phone up, knowing I had just crossed one of those lines you hope to never see let alone have to step across. I looked out the window again. Outside, the rain was now coming down hard off the roof. I had no gutter in the back and it was coming down in a translucent sheet that blurred the lights out there. Nothing but rain this year, I thought. Nothing but rain.

  I left the office and went back to the front of the house. On the table in the dining alcove was the gun Earl Briggs had given me. I contemplated the weapon and all the moves I had made. The bottom line was I had been flying blind and in the process had endangered more than just myself.

  Panic started to set in. I grabbed the phone off the kitchen wall and called Maggie’s cell. She answered right away. I could tell she was in her car.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m just getting home now. I’ll get some things together and we’ll get out.”

  “Good.”

  “What do I tell Hayley, that her father put her life in danger?”

  “It’s not like that, Maggie. It’s him. It’s Roulet. I couldn’t control him. One night I came home and he was sitting in my house. He’s a real estate guy. He knows how to find places. He saw her picture on my desk. What was I — ”

  “Can we talk about this later? I have to go in now and get my daughter.”

  Not our daughter. My daughter.

  “Sure. Call me when you’re in a new place.”

  She disconnected without further word and I slowly hung the phone back on the wall. My hand was still on the phone. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the wall. I was out of moves. I could only wait on Roulet to make the next one.

  The phone’s ring startled me and I jumped back. The phone fell to the floor and I pulled it up by the cord. It was Valenzuela.

  “You get my message? I just called.”

  “No, I’ve been on the phone. What?”

  “Glad I called back, then. He’s moving.”

  “Where?”

  I shouted it too loud into the phone. I was losing it.

  “He’s heading south on Van Nuys. He called me and said he wanted to lose the bracelet. I told him I was already home and that he could call me tomorrow. I told him he had better juice the battery so he wouldn’t start beeping in the middle of the night.”