Page 105 of The Lincoln Lawyer

“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.”

Thirty

The 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.