Page 71 of The Lincoln Lawyer

My second martini came and I took it right from the waitress’s hand and gulped half of it down. She asked if we were finished with our salads and we both waved them away untouched.

“Your steaks will be right out,” she said. “Or do you want me to just dump them in the garbage and save you the time?”

I looked up at her. She was smiling but I was so caught up in the story I was telling that I had missed what it was she had said.

“Never mind,” she said. “They’ll be right out.”

I got right back to the story. Levin said nothing.

“After she’s dead the killer cleans up. He takes his time, because what’s the hurry, she’s not going anywhere or calling anybody. He wipes the place down to take care of any fingerprints he might have left. And in the process he wipes away Menendez’s prints. This will look bad for Menendez when he later goes to the police to explain that he is the guy in the sketches but he didn’t kill Martha. They’ll look at him and say, ‘Then why’d you wear gloves when you were there?’”

Levin shook his head.

“Oh man, if this is true…”

“Don’t worry, it’s true. Menendez gets a lawyer who once did agood job for his brother but this lawyer wouldn’t know an innocent man if he kicked him in the nuts. This lawyer is all about the deal. He never even asks the kid if he did it. He just assumes he did it because they got his fucking DNA on the towel and the witnesses who saw him toss the knife. The lawyer goes to work and gets the best possible deal he could get. He actually feels pretty good about it because he’s going to keep Menendez off death row and get him a shot at parole someday. So he goes to Menendez and brings down the hammer. He makes him take the deal and stand up there in court and say ‘Guilty.’ Jesus then goes off to prison and everybody’s happy. The state’s happy because it saves money on a trial and Martha Renteria’s family is happy because they don’t have to face a trial with all those autopsy photos and stories about their daughter dancing naked and taking men home for money. And the lawyer’s happy because he got on TV with the case at least six times, plus he kept another client off death row.”

I gulped down the rest of the martini and looked around for our waitress. I wanted another.

“Jesus Menendez goes off to prison a young man. I just saw him and he’s twenty-six going on forty. He’s a small guy. You know what happens to the little ones up there.”

I was looking straight down at the empty space on the table in front of me when an egg-shaped platter with a sizzling steak and steaming potato was put down. I looked up at the waitress and told her to bring me another martini. I didn’t say please.

“You better take it easy,” Levin said after she was gone. “There probably isn’t a cop in this county who wouldn’t love to pull you over on a deuce, take you back to lockup and put the flashlight up your ass.”

“I know, I know. It will be my last. And if it’s too much I won’t drive. They always have a cab out front of this place.”

Deciding that food might help I cut into my steak and ate a piece. I then took a piece of cheese bread out of the napkin it was folded into a basket with, but it was no longer warm. I dropped it on my plate and put my fork down.

“Look, I know you’re beating yourself up over this but you are forgetting something,” Levin said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“His exposure. He was facing the needle, man, and the case was a dog. I didn’t work it for you because there was nothing to work. They had him and you saved him from the needle. That’s your job and you did it well. So now you think you know what really went down. You can’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t know then.”

I held my hand up in astop theregesture.

“The guy was innocent. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve done something about it. Instead, I just did my usual thing and went through the motions with my eyes closed.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, no bullshit.”

“Okay, go back to the story. Who was the second guy who came to her door?”

I opened my briefcase next to me and reached into it.

“I went up to San Quentin today and showed Menendez a six-pack. All mug shots of my clients. Mostly former clients. Menendez picked one out in less than ten seconds.”

I tossed the mug shot of Louis Roulet across the table. It landed facedown. Levin picked it up and looked at it for a few moments, then put it back facedown on the table.

“Let me show you something else,” I said.

My hand went back into the briefcase and pulled out the two folded photographs of Martha Renteria and Reggie Campo. I looked around to make sure the waitress wasn’t about to deliver my martini and then handed them across the table.

“It’s like a puzzle,” I said. “Put them together and see what you get.”

Levin put the one face together from the two and nodded as he understood the significance. The killer—Roulet—zeroed in on women that fit a model or profile he desired. I next showed him the weapon sketch drawn by the medical examiner on the Renteriaautopsy and read him the description of the two coercive wounds found on her neck.