The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (34 page)

“Anything is possible,” he said.

“Anything is possible,” I repeated. “Well, is there any other possibility you can think of that would explain these injuries
as coming from anything other than direct left-handed punches?”

Metz shrugged again. He was not an impressive witness, especially following two cops and a dispatcher who had been very precise
in their testimony.

“What if Ms. Campo were to have hit her face with her own fist? Wouldn’t she have used her right—”

Minton jumped up immediately and objected.

“Your Honor, this is outrageous! To suggest that this victim did this to herself is not only an affront to this court but
to all victims of violent crime everywhere. Mr. Haller has sunk to—”

“The witness said anything is possible,” I argued, trying to knock Minton off the soapbox. “I am trying to explore what—”

“Sustained,” Fullbright said, ending it. “Mr. Haller, don’t go there unless you are making more than an exploratory swing
through the possibilities.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “No further questions.”

I sat down and glanced at the jurors and knew from their faces that I had made a mistake. I had turned a positive cross into
a negative. The point I had made about a left-handed attacker was
obscured by the point I had lost with the suggestion that the injuries to the victim’s face were self-inflicted. The three
women on the panel looked particularly annoyed with me.

Still, I tried to focus on a positive aspect. It was good to know the jury’s feelings on this now, before Campo was in the
witness box and I asked the same thing.

Roulet leaned toward me and whispered, “What the fuck was that?”

Without responding I turned my back to him and took a scan around the courtroom. It was almost empty. Lankford and Sobel had
not returned to the courtroom and the reporters were gone as well. That left only a few other onlookers. They appeared to
be a disparate collection of retirees, law students and lawyers resting their feet until their own hearings began in other
courtrooms. But I was counting on one of these onlookers being a plant from the DA’s office. Ted Minton might be flying solo
but my guess was that his boss would have a means of keeping tabs on him and the case. I knew I was playing as much to the
plant as I was to the jury. By the trial’s end I needed to send a note of panic down to the second floor that would then echo
back to Minton. I needed to push the young prosecutor toward taking a desperate measure.

The afternoon dragged on. Minton still had a lot to learn about pacing and jury management, knowledge that comes only with
courtroom experience. I kept my eyes on the jury box—where the real judges sat—and saw the jurors were growing bored as witness
after witness offered testimony that filled in small details in the prosecutor’s linear presentation of the events of March
6. I asked few questions on cross and tried to keep a look on my face that mirrored those I saw in the jury box.

Minton obviously wanted to save his most powerful stuff for day two. He would have the lead investigator, Detective Martin
Booker, to bring all the details together, and then the victim, Regina Campo, to bring it all home to the jury. It was a tried-and-true
formula—ending with muscle and emotion—and it worked ninety percent of the time, but it was making the first day move like
a glacier.

Things finally started to pop with the last witness of the day. Minton brought in Charles Talbot, the man who had picked up
Regina Campo at Morgan’s and gone with her to her apartment on the night of the sixth. What Talbot had to offer to the prosecution’s
case was negligible. He was basically hauled in to testify that Campo had been in good health and uninjured when he left her.
That was it. But what caused his arrival to rescue the trial from the pit of boredom was that Talbot was an honest-to-God
alternate lifestyle man and jurors always loved visiting the other side of the tracks.

Talbot was fifty-five years old with dyed blond hair that wasn’t fooling anyone. He had blurred Navy tattoos on both forearms.
He was twenty years divorced and owned a twenty-four-hour convenience store called Kwik Kwik. The business gave him a comfortable
living and lifestyle with an apartment in the Warner Center, a late-model Corvette and a nightlife that included a wide sampling
of the city’s professional sex providers.

Minton established all of this in the early stages of his direct examination. You could almost feel the air go still in the
courtroom as the jurors plugged into Talbot. The prosecutor then brought him quickly to the night of March 6, and Talbot described
hooking up with Reggie Campo at Morgan’s on Ventura Boulevard.

“Did you know Ms. Campo before you met her in the bar that night?”

“No, I did not.”

“How did it come about that you met her there?”

“I just called her up and said I wanted to get together with her and she suggested we meet at Morgan’s. I knew the place,
so I said sure.”

“And how did you call her up?”

“With the telephone.”

Several jurors laughed.

“I’m sorry. I understand that you used a telephone to call her. I meant how did you know
how
to contact her?”

“I saw her ad on the website and I liked what I saw and so I
went ahead and called her up and we made a date. It’s as simple as that. Her number is on her website ad.”

“And you met at Morgan’s.”

“Yes, that’s where she meets her dates, she told me. So I went there and we had a couple drinks and we talked and we liked
each other and that was that. I followed her back to her place.”

“When you went to her apartment did you engage in sexual relations?”

“Sure did. That’s what I was there for.”

“And you paid her?”

“Four hundred bucks. It was worth it.”

I saw a male juror’s face turning red and I knew I had pegged him perfectly during selection the week before. I had wanted
him because he had brought a Bible with him to read while other prospective jurors were being questioned. Minton had missed
it, focusing only on the candidates as they were being questioned. But I had seen the Bible and asked few questions of the
man when it was his turn. Minton accepted him on the jury and so did I. I figured he would be easy to turn against the victim
because of her occupation. His reddening face confirmed it.

“What time did you leave her apartment?” Minton asked.

“About five minutes before ten,” Talbot answered.

“Did she tell you she was expecting another date at the apartment?”

“No, she didn’t say anything about that. In fact, she was sort of acting like she was done for the night.”

I stood up and objected.

“I don’t think Mr. Talbot is qualified here to interpret what Ms. Campo was thinking or planning by her actions.”

“Sustained,” the judge said before Minton could offer an argument.

The prosecutor moved right along.

“Mr. Talbot, could you please describe the physical state Ms. Campo was in when you left her shortly before ten o’clock on
the night of March sixth?”

“Completely satisfied.”

There was a loud blast of laughter in the courtroom and Talbot beamed proudly. I checked the Bible man and it looked like
his jaw was tightly clenched.

“Mr. Talbot,” Minton said. “I mean her physical state. Was she hurt or bleeding when you left her?”

“No, she was fine. She was okay. When I left her she was fit as a fiddle and I know because I had just played her.”

He smiled, proud of his use of language. This time there was no laughter and the judge had finally had enough of his use of
the double entendre. She admonished him to keep his more off-color remarks to himself.

“Sorry, Judge,” he said.

“Mr. Talbot,” Minton said. “Ms. Campo was not injured in any way when you left her?”

“Nope. No way.”

“She wasn’t bleeding?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t strike her or physically abuse her in any way?”

“No again. What we did was consensual and pleasurable. No pain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Talbot.”

I looked at my notes for a few moments before standing up. I wanted a break of time to clearly mark the line between direct
and cross-examination.

“Mr. Haller?” the judge prompted. “Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?”

I stood up and moved to the lectern.

“Yes, Your Honor, I do.”

I put my pad down and looked directly at Talbot. He was smiling pleasantly at me but I knew he wouldn’t like me for very long.

“Mr. Talbot, are you right- or left-handed?”

“I’m left-handed.”

“Left-handed,” I echoed. “And isn’t it true that on the night of
the sixth, before leaving Regina Campo’s apartment, she asked you to strike her with your fist repeatedly in the face?”

Minton stood up.

“Your Honor, there is no basis for this sort of questioning. Mr. Haller is simply trying to muddy the waters by taking outrageous
statements and turning them into questions.”

The judge looked at me and waited for a response.

“Judge, it is part of the defense theory as outlined in my opening statement.”

“I am going to allow it. Just be quick about it, Mr. Haller.”

The question was read to Talbot and he smirked and shook his head.

“That is not true. I’ve never hurt a woman in my life.”

“You struck her with your fist three times, didn’t you, Mr. Talbot?”

“No, I did not. That is a lie.”

“You said you have never hurt a woman in your life.”

“That’s right. Never.”

“Do you know a prostitute named Shaquilla Barton?”

Talbot had to think before answering.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“On the website where she advertises her services she uses the name Shaquilla Shackles. Does that ring a bell now, Mr. Talbot?”

“Okay, yeah, I think so.”

“Have you ever engaged in acts of prostitution with her?”

“One time, yes.”

“When was that?”

“Would’ve been at least a year ago. Maybe longer.”

“And did you hurt her on that occasion?”

“No.”

“And if she were to come to this courtroom and say that you did hurt her by punching her with your left hand, would she be
lying?”

“She damn sure would be. I tried her out and didn’t like that rough stuff. I’m strictly a missionary man. I didn’t touch her.”

“You didn’t touch her?”

“I mean I didn’t punch her or hurt her in any way.”

“Thank you, Mr. Talbot.”

I sat down. Minton did not bother with a redirect. Talbot was excused and Minton told the judge that he had only two witnesses
remaining to present in the case but that their testimony would be lengthy. Judge Fullbright checked the time and recessed
court for the day.

Two witnesses left. I knew that had to be Detective Booker and Reggie Campo. It looked like Minton was going to go without
the testimony of the jailhouse snitch he had stashed in the PTI program at County-USC. Dwayne Corliss’s name had never appeared
on any witness list or any other discovery document associated with the prosecution of the case. I thought maybe Minton had
found out what Raul Levin had found out about Corliss before Raul was murdered. Either way, it seemed apparent that Corliss
had been dropped by the prosecution. And that was what I needed to change.

As I gathered my papers and documents in my briefcase, I also gathered the resolve to talk to Roulet. I glanced over at him.
He was sitting there waiting to be dismissed by me.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“I think you did very well. More than a few moments of reasonable doubt.”

I snapped the latches on the briefcase closed.

“Today I was just planting seeds. Tomorrow they’ll sprout and on Wednesday they’ll bloom. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

I stood up and lifted the briefcase off the table. It was heavy with all the case documents and my computer.

“See you tomorrow.”

I walked out through the gate. Cecil Dobbs and Mary Windsor were waiting for Roulet in the hallway near the courtroom door.
As I came out they turned to speak to me but I walked on by.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Dobbs called to my back.

I turned around.

“We’re stuck out here,” he said as he and Windsor walked to me. “How is it going in there?”

I shrugged.

“Right now it’s the prosecution’s case,” I answered. “All I’m doing is bobbing and weaving, trying to protect. I think tomorrow
will be our round. And Wednesday we go for the knockout. I’ve got to go prepare.”

As I headed to the elevator, I saw that a number of the jurors from the case had beaten me to it and were waiting to go down.
The scorekeeper was among them. I went into the restroom next to the bank of elevators so I didn’t have to ride down with
them. I put my briefcase on the counter between the sinks and washed my face and hands. As I stared at myself in the mirror
I looked for signs of stress from the case and everything associated with it. I looked reasonably sane and calm for a defense
pro who was playing both his client and the prosecution at the same time.

The cold water felt good and I felt refreshed as I came out of the restroom, hoping the jurors had cleared out.

The jurors were gone. But standing in the hallway by the elevator were Lankford and Sobel. Lankford was holding a folded sheaf
of documents in one hand.

“There you are,” he said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

T
he document Lankford handed me was a search warrant granting the police the authority to search my home, office and car for
a .22 caliber Colt Woodsman Sport Model pistol with the serial number 656300081-52. The authorization said the pistol was
believed to have been the murder weapon in the April 12 homicide of Raul A. Levin. Lankford had handed the warrant to me with
a proud smirk on his face. I did my best to act like it was business as usual, the kind of thing I handled every other day
and twice on Fridays. But the truth was, my knees almost buckled.