The Lincoln Lawyer Collection

by Connelly, Michael

  “Good thinking. Where’s he now?”

  “Still on Van Nuys.”

  I tried to build an image of Roulet driving. If he was going south on Van Nuys that meant he was heading directly toward Sherman Oaks and the neighborhood where Maggie and Hayley lived. But he could also be headed right through Sherman Oaks on his way south over the hill and to his home. I had to wait to be sure.

  “How up to the moment is the GPS on that thing?” I asked.

  “It’s real time, man. This is where he’s at. He just crossed under the one-oh-one. He might be just going home, Mick.”

  “I know, I know. Just wait till he crosses Ventura. The next street is Dickens. If he turns there, then he’s not going home.”

  I stood up and didn’t know what to do. I started pacing, the phone pressed tightly to my ear. I knew that even if Teddy Vogel had immediately put his men in motion they were still minutes away. They were no good to me now.

  “What about the rain? Does it affect the GPS?”

  “It’s not supposed to.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “He stopped.”

  “Where?”

  “Must be a light. I think that’s Moorpark Avenue there.”

  That was a block before Ventura and two before Dickens. I heard a beeping sound come over the phone.

  “What’s that?”

  “The ten-block alarm you asked me to set.”

  The beeping sound stopped.

  “I turned it off.”

  “I’ll call you right back.”

  I didn’t wait for a response. I hung up and called Maggie’s cell. She answered right away.

  “Where are you?”

  “You told me not to tell you.”

  “You’re out of the apartment?”

  “No, not yet. Hayley’s picking the crayons and coloring books she wants to take.”

  “Goddamn it, get out of there! Now!”

  “We’re going as fast as — ”

  “Just get out! I’ll call you back. Make sure you answer.”

  I hung up and called Valenzuela back.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s now at Ventura. Must’ve caught another light, because he’s not moving.”

  “You’re sure he’s on the road and not just parked there?”

  “No, I’m not sure. He could — never mind, he’s moving. Shit, he turned on Ventura.”

  “Which way?”

  I started pacing, the phone pressed so hard against my ear that it hurt.

  “Right — uh, west. He’s going west.”

  He was now driving parallel to Dickens, one block away, in the direction of my daughter’s apartment.

  “He just stopped again,” Valenzuela announced. “It’s not an intersection. It looks like he’s in the middle of the block. I think he parked it.”

  I ran my free hand through my hair like a desperate man.

  “Fuck it, I’ve gotta go. My cell’s dead. Call Maggie and tell her he’s heading her way. Tell her to just get in the car and get out of there!”

  I shouted Maggie’s number into the phone and dropped it as I headed out of the kitchen. I knew it would take me a minimum of twenty minutes to get to Dickens — and that was hitting the curves on Mulholland at sixty in the Lincoln — but I couldn’t stand around shouting orders on the phone while my family was in danger. I grabbed the gun off the table and went to the door. I was shoving it into the side pocket of my jacket as I opened the door.

  Mary Windsor was standing there, her hair wet from the rain.

  “Mary, what — ”

  She raised her hand. I looked down to see the metal glint of the gun in it just as she fired.

  FORTY-SIX

  The sound was loud and the flash as bright as a camera’s. The impact of the bullet tearing into me was like what I imagine a kick from a horse would feel like. In a split second I went from standing still to moving backwards. I hit the wood floor hard and was propelled into the wall next to the living room fireplace. I tried to reach both hands to the hole in my gut but my right hand was hung up in the pocket of my jacket. I held myself with the left and tried to sit up.

  Mary Windsor stepped forward and into the house. I had to look up at her. Through the open door behind her I could see the rain coming down. She raised the weapon and pointed it at my forehead. In a flash moment my daughter’s face came to me and I knew I wasn’t going to let her go.

  “You tried to take my son from me!” Windsor shouted. “Did you think I could allow you to do that and just walk away?”

  And then I knew. Everything crystallized. I knew she had said similar words to Raul Levin before she had killed him. And I knew that there had been no rape in an empty house in Bel-Air. She was a mother doing what she had to do. Roulet’s words came back to me then. You’re right about one thing. I am a son of a bitch.

  And I knew, too, that Raul Levin’s last gesture had not been to make the sign of the devil, but to make the letter M or W, depending on how you looked at it.

  Windsor took another step toward me.

  “You go to hell,” she said.

  She steadied her hand to fire. I raised my right hand, still wrapped in my jacket. She must have thought it was a defensive gesture because she didn’t hurry. She was savoring the moment. I could tell. Until I fired.

  Mary Windsor’s body jerked backwards with the impact and she landed on her back in the threshold of the door. Her gun clattered to the floor and I heard her make a high-pitched whining noise. Then I heard the sound of running feet on the steps up to the front deck.

  “Police!” a woman shouted. “Put your weapons down!”

  I looked through the door and didn’t see anyone.

  “Put your weapons down and come out with your hands in full view!”

  This time it was a man who had yelled and I recognized the voice.

  I pulled the gun out of my jacket pocket and put it on the floor. I slid it away from me.

  “The weapon’s down,” I called out, as loud as the hole in my stomach allowed me to. “But I’m shot. I can’t get up. We’re both shot.”

  I first saw the barrel of a pistol come into view in the doorway. Then a hand and then a wet black raincoat containing Detective Lankford. He moved into the house and was quickly followed by his partner, Detective Sobel. Lankford kicked the gun away from Windsor as he came in. He kept his own weapon pointed at me.

  “Anybody else in the house?” he asked loudly.

  “No,” I said. “Listen to me.”

  I tried to sit up but pain shot through my body and Lankford yelled.

  “Don’t move! Just stay there!”

  “Listen to me. My fam — ”

  Sobel yelled a command into a handheld radio, ordering paramedics and ambulance transport for two people with gunshot wounds.

  “One transport,” Lankford corrected. “She’s gone.”

  He pointed his gun at Windsor.

  Sobel shoved the radio into her raincoat pocket and came to me. She knelt down and pulled my hand away from my wound. She pulled my shirt out of my pants so she could lift it and see the damage. She then pressed my hand back down on the bullet hole.

  “Press down as hard as you can. It’s a bleeder. You hear me, hold your hand down tight.”

  “Listen to me,” I said again. “My family’s in danger. You have to — ”

  “Hold on.”

  She reached inside her raincoat and pulled a cell phone off her belt. She flipped it open and hit a speed-dial button. Whoever she called answered right away.

  “It’s Sobel. You better bring him back in. His mother just tried to hit the lawyer. He got her first.”

  She listened for a moment and asked, “Then, where is he?”

  She listened some more and then said good-bye. I stared at her as she closed her phone.

  “They’ll pick him up. Your daughter is safe.”

  “You’re watching him?”

  She nodded.

  �
�We piggy-backed on your plan, Haller. We have a lot on him but we were hoping for more. I told you, we want to clear Levin. We were hoping that if we kicked him loose he’d show us his trick, show us how he got to Levin. But the mother sort of just solved that mystery for us.”

  I understood. Even with the blood and life running out of the hole in my gut I was able to put it together. Releasing Roulet had been a play. They were hoping that he’d go after me, revealing the method he had used to defeat the GPS ankle bracelet when he had killed Raul Levin. Only he hadn’t killed Raul. His mother had done it for him.

  “Maggie?” I asked weakly.

  Sobel shook her head.

  “She’s fine. She had to play along because we didn’t know if Roulet had a tap on your line or not. She couldn’t tell you that she and Hayley were safe.”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t know whether just to be thankful that they were okay or to be angry that Maggie had used her daughter’s father as bait for a killer.

  I tried to sit up.

  “I want to call her. She — ”

  “Don’t move. Just stay still.”

  I leaned my head back on the floor. I was cold and on the verge of shaking, yet I also felt as though I were sweating. I could feel myself getting weaker as my breathing grew shallow.

  Sobel pulled the radio out of her pocket again and asked dispatch for an ETA on the paramedics. The dispatcher reported back that the medical help was still six minutes away.

  “Hang in there,” Sobel said to me. “You’ll be all right. Depending on what the bullet did inside, you should be all right.”

  “Gray . . .”

  I meant to say great with full sarcasm attached. But I was fading.

  Lankford came up next to Sobel and looked at me. In a gloved hand he held up the gun Mary Windsor had shot me with. I recognized the pearl grips. Mickey Cohen’s gun. My gun. The gun she shot Raul with.

  He nodded and I took it as some sort of signal. Maybe that in his eyes I had stepped up, that he knew I had done their work by drawing the killer out. Maybe it was even the offering of a truce and maybe he wouldn’t hate lawyers so much after this.

  Probably not. But I nodded back at him and the small movement made me cough. I tasted something in my mouth and knew it was blood.

  “Don’t flatline on us now,” Lankford ordered. “If we end up giving a defense lawyer mouth-to-mouth, we’ll never live it down.”

  He smiled and I smiled back. Or tried to. Then the blackness started crowding my vision. Pretty soon I was floating in it.

  PART THREE

  — POSTCARD FROM CUBA

  Tuesday, October 4

  FORTY-SEVEN

  It has been five months since I was in a courtroom. In that time I have had three surgeries to repair my body, been sued in civil court twice and been investigated by both the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Bar Association. My bank accounts have been bled dry by medical expenses, living expenses, child support and, yes, even my own kind — the lawyers.

  But I have survived it all and today will be the first day since I was shot by Mary Alice Windsor that I will walk without a cane or the numbing of painkillers. To me it is the first real step toward getting back. The cane is a sign of weakness. Nobody wants a defense attorney who looks weak. I must stand upright, stretch the muscles the surgeon cut through to get to the bullet, and walk on my own before I feel I can walk into a courtroom again.

  I have not been in a courtroom but that does not mean I am not the subject of legal proceedings. Jesus Menendez and Louis Roulet are both suing me and the cases will likely follow me for years. They are separate claims but both of my former clients charge me with malpractice and violation of legal ethics. For all the specific accusations in his lawsuit, Roulet has not been able to learn how I supposedly got to Dwayne Jeffery Corliss at County-USC and fed him privileged information. And it is unlikely he ever will. Gloria Dayton is long gone. She finished her program, took the $25,000 I gave her and moved to Hawaii to start life again. And Corliss, who probably knows better than anyone the value of keeping one’s mouth shut, has divulged nothing other than what he testified to in court — maintaining that while in custody Roulet told him about the murder of the snake dancer. He has avoided perjury charges because pursuing them would undermine the case against Roulet and be an act of self-flagellation by the DA’s office. My lawyer tells me Roulet’s lawsuit against me is a face-saving effort without merit and that it will eventually go away. Probably when I have no more money to pay my lawyer his fees.

  But Menendez will never go away. He is the one who gets to me at night when I sit on the deck and watch the million-dollar view from my house with the million-one mortgage. He was pardoned by the governor and released from San Quentin two days after Roulet was charged with Martha Renteria’s murder. But he only traded one life sentence for another. It was revealed that he contracted HIV in prison and the governor doesn’t have a pardon for that. Nobody does. Whatever happens to Jesus Menendez is on me. I know this. I live with it every day. My father was right. There is no client as scary as an innocent man. And no client as scarring.

  Menendez wants to spit on me and take my money as punishment for what I did and didn’t do. As far as I am concerned he is entitled. But no matter what my failings of judgment and ethical lapses were, I know that by the end, I bent things in order to do the right thing. I traded evil for innocence. Roulet is in because of me. Menendez is out because of me. Despite the efforts of his new attorneys — it has now taken the partnership of Dan Daly and Roger Mills to replace me — Roulet will not see freedom again. From what I have heard from Maggie McPherson, prosecutors have built an impenetrable case against him for the Renteria murder. They have also followed Raul Levin’s steps and connected Roulet to another killing: the follow-home rape and stabbing of a woman who tended bar in a Hollywood club. The forensic profile of his knife was matched to the fatal wounds inflicted on this other woman. For Roulet, the science will be the iceberg spotted too late. His ship will founder and go down. The battle for him now lies in just staying alive. His lawyers are engaged in plea negotiations to keep him from a lethal injection. They are hinting at other murders and rapes that he would be willing to clear up in exchange for his life. Whatever the outcome, alive or dead, he is surely gone from this world and I take my salvation in that. It is what has mended me better than any surgeon.

  Maggie McPherson and I are attempting to mend our wounds, too. She brings my daughter to visit me every weekend and often stays for the day. We sit on the deck and talk. We both know our daughter will be what saves us. I can no longer hold anger for being used as bait for a killer. I think Maggie no longer holds anger for the choices I have made.

  The California bar looked at all of my actions and sent me on a vacation to Cuba. That’s what defense pros call being suspended for conduct unbecoming an attorney. CUBA. I was shelved for ninety days. It was a bullshit finding. They could prove no specific ethical violations in regard to Corliss, so they hit me for borrowing a gun from my client Earl Briggs. I got lucky there. It was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl’s father, so my ethical infraction was minor.

  I didn’t bother contesting the bar reprimand or appealing the suspension. After taking a bullet in the gut, ninety days on the shelf didn’t look so bad to me. I served the suspension during my recovery, mostly in a bathrobe while watching Court TV.

  Neither the bar nor the police found ethical or criminal violation on my part in the killing of Mary Alice Windsor. She entered my home with a stolen weapon. She shot first and I shot last. From a block away Lankford and Sobel watched her take that first shot at my front door. Self-defense, cut and dried. But what has not been so clear-cut are the feelings I have for what I did. I wanted to avenge my friend Raul Levin, but I didn’t want to see it done in blood. I am a killer now. Being state sanctioned only tempers slightly the feelings that come with that.

  All investigations and official findings aside, I thin
k now that in the whole matter of Menendez and Roulet I was guilty of conduct unbecoming myself. And the penalty for that is harsher than anything the state or the bar could ever throw at me. No matter. I will carry all of it with me as I go back to work. My work. I know my place in this world and on the first day of court next year I will pull the Lincoln out of the garage, get back on the road and go looking for the underdog. I don’t know where I will go or what cases will be mine. I just know I will be healed and ready to stand once again in the world without truth.

  PERMISSIONS

  ‘To Live And Die In L.A.’ words and music by Quincy Jones,

  Tupac Shakur and Val Young

  © Copyright 1996 IQ Music Limited (25%)/

  Full Keel Music Company, USA (25%)/

  Music Corporation Of America Incorporated (12.5%)/

  Joshua’s Dream Music (12.5%)/Deep Technology Music (25%).

  Universal Music Publishing Limited (12.5%)/IQ Music Limited (25%)/

  Universal/MCA Music Limited (12.5%)/

  P and P Songs Limited (50%).

  Used by permission of Music Sales Limited.

  All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  Dedication

  In memory of Terry Hansen and Frank Morgan

  Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  PART ONE —Rope a Dope 1992

  One

  Two

  Three

  PART TWO —Suitcase City 2007

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight