Page 132 of The Lincoln Lawyer

“Yes. The first was October one, two thousand, and the last one was July thirtieth of two thousand and one.”

“So June ninth of two thousand and one was well within the span of this rapist’s attacks on women in the real estate business, correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

“In the course of your investigation of this case, did you come to a conclusion or belief that there were more than five rapes committed by this individual?”

Minton objected, saying the question called for speculation. The judge sustained the objection but it didn’t matter. The question waswhat was important and the jury seeing the prosecutor keeping the answer from them was the payoff.

Minton surprised me on cross. He recovered enough from the misstep with Windsor to hit Lambkin with three solid questions with answers favorable to the prosecution.

“Detective Lambkin, did the task force investigating these rapes issue any kind of warning to women working in the real estate business?”

“Yes, we did. We sent out fliers on two occasions. The first went to all licensed real estate businesses in the area and the next mail-out went to all licensed real estate brokers individually, male and female.”

“Did these mail-outs contain information about the rapist’s description and methods?”

“Yes, they did.”

“So if someone wished to concoct a story about being attacked by this rapist, the mail-outs would have provided all the information needed, correct?”

“That is a possibility, yes.”

“Nothing further, Your Honor.”

Minton proudly sat down and Lambkin was excused when I had nothing further. I asked the judge for a few minutes to confer with my client and then leaned in close to Roulet.

“Okay, this is it,” I said. “You’re all we have left. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me, you’re clean and there isn’t much Minton can come back at you with. You should be safe up there unless you let him get to you. Are you still cool with this?”

Roulet had said all along that he would testify and deny the charges. He had reiterated his desire again at lunch. He demanded it. I always viewed the risks of letting a client testify as evenly split. Anything he said could come back to haunt him if the prosecution could bend it to the state’s favor. But I also knew that no matter what admonishments were given to a jury about a defendant’s right to remain silent, the jury always wanted to hear the defendant sayhe didn’t do it. You take that away from the jury and they might hold a grudge.

“I want to do it,” Roulet whispered. “I can handle the prosecutor.”

I pushed my chair back and stood up.

“The defense calls Louis Ross Roulet, Your Honor.”

Thirty-six

Louis Roulet moved toward the witness box quickly, like a basketball player pulled off the bench and sent to the scorer’s table to check into the game. He looked like a man anxious for the opportunity to defend himself. He knew this posture would not be lost on the jury.

After dispensing with the preliminaries, I got right down to the issues of the case. Under my questioning Roulet freely admitted that he had gone to Morgan’s on the night of March 6 to seek female companionship. He said he wasn’t specifically looking to engage the services of a prostitute but was not against the possibility.

“I had been with women I had to pay before,” he said. “So I wouldn’t have been against it.”

He testified that he had no conscious eye contact with Regina Campo before she approached him at the bar. He said that she was the aggressor but at the time that didn’t bother him. He said the solicitation was open-ended. She said she would be free after ten and he could come by if he was not otherwise engaged.

Roulet described efforts made over the next hour at Morgan’s and then at the Lamplighter to find a woman he would not have to pay but said he was unsuccessful. He then drove to the address Campo had given him and knocked on the door.

“Who answered?”

“She did. She opened the door a crack and looked out at me.”

“Regina Campo? The woman who testified this morning?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Could you see her whole face through the opening in the door?”