The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connelly [126]
Booker raised his hands in a quick gesture of surrender.
“She’s the victim! Of course she’s important because she told us what happened. We have to rely on her to set the course of the investigation.”
“You rely on her for quite a bit in this case, don’t you? Victim and chief witness against the defendant, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Who else saw the defendant attack Ms. Campo?”
“Nobody else.”
I nodded, to underline the answer for the jury. I looked over and exchanged eye contact with those in the front row.
“Okay, Detective,” I said. “I want to ask you about Charles Talbot now. How did you find out about this man?”
“Uh, the prosecutor, Mr. Minton, told me to find him.”
“And do you know how Mr. Minton came to know about his existence?”
“I believe you were the one who informed him. You had a videotape from a bar that showed him with the victim a couple hours before the attack.”
I knew this could be the point to introduce the video but I wanted to wait on that. I wanted the victim on the stand when I showed the tape to the jury.
“And up until that point you didn’t think it was important to find this man?”
“No, I just didn’t know about him.”
“So when you finally did know about Talbot and you located him, did you have his left hand examined to determine if he had any injuries that could have been sustained while punching someone repeatedly in the face?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Is that because you were confident in your choice of Mr. Roulet as the person who punched Regina Campo?”
“It wasn’t a choice. It was where the investigation led. I didn’t locate Charles Talbot until more than two weeks after the crime occurred.”
“So what you are saying is that if he’d had injuries, they would have been healed by then, correct?”
“I’m no expert on it but that was my thinking, yes.”
“So you never looked at his hand, did you?”
“Not specifically, no.”
“Did you question any coworkers of Mr. Talbot about whether they saw bruising or other injuries on his hand around the time of the crime?”
“No, I did not.”
“So you never really looked beyond Mr. Roulet, did you?”
“That is wrong. I come into every case with an open mind. But Roulet was there and in custody from the start. The victim identified him as her attacker. He was obviously a focus.”
“Was he a focus or the focus, Detective Booker?”
“He was both. At first he was a focus and later—after we found his initials on the weapon that had been held to Reggie Campo’s throat—he became the focus, you could say.”
“How do you know that knife was held to Ms. Campo’s throat?”
“Because she told us and she had the puncture wound to show for it.”
“Are you saying there was some sort of forensic analysis that matched the knife to the wound on her neck?”
“No, that was impossible.”
“So again we have Ms. Campo’s word that the knife was held to her throat by Mr. Roulet.”
“I had no reason to doubt her then. I have none now.”
“Now without any explanation for it, I guess you would consider the knife with the defendant’s initials on it to be a highly important piece of evidence of guilt, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. Even with explanation, I would say. He brought that knife in there with one purpose in mind.”
“You are a mind reader, are you, Detective?”
“No, I’m a detective. And I am just saying what I think.”
“Accent on think.”
“It’s what I know from the evidence in the case.”
“I’m glad you are so confident, sir. I have no further questions at this time. I reserve the right to recall Detective Booker as a witness for the defense.”
I had no intention of calling Booker back to the stand but I thought the threat might sound good to the jury.
I returned to my seat while Minton tried to bandage up Booker on redirect. The damage was in perceptions and there wasn’t a lot that he could do with that. Booker had only been a setup man for the defense. The real damage would come later.
After Booker stepped down, the judge called for the mid-morning break. She told the jurors to be