The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connelly [164]
Menendez wants to spit on me and take my money as punishment for what I did and didn’t do. As far as I am concerned he is entitled. But no matter what my failings of judgment and ethical lapses were, I know that by the end, I bent things in order to do the right thing. I traded evil for innocence. Roulet is in because of me. Menendez is out because of me. Despite the efforts of his new attorneys—it has now taken the partnership of Dan Daly and Roger Mills to replace me—Roulet will not see freedom again. From what I have heard from Maggie McPherson, prosecutors have built an impenetrable case against him for the Renteria murder. They have also followed Raul Levin’s steps and connected Roulet to another killing: the follow-home rape and stabbing of a woman who tended bar in a Hollywood club. The forensic profile of his knife was matched to the fatal wounds inflicted on this other woman. For Roulet, the science will be the iceberg spotted too late. His ship will founder and go down. The battle for him now lies in just staying alive. His lawyers are engaged in plea negotiations to keep him from a lethal injection. They are hinting at other murders and rapes that he would be willing to clear up in exchange for his life. Whatever the outcome, alive or dead, he is surely gone from this world and I take my salvation in that. It is what has mended me better than any surgeon.
Maggie McPherson and I are attempting to mend our wounds, too. She brings my daughter to visit me every weekend and often stays for the day. We sit on the deck and talk. We both know our daughter will be what saves us. I can no longer hold anger for being used as bait for a killer. I think Maggie no longer holds anger for the choices I have made.
The California bar looked at all of my actions and sent me on a vacation to Cuba. That’s what defense pros call being suspended for conduct unbecoming an attorney. CUBA. I was shelved for ninety days. It was a bullshit finding. They could prove no specific ethical violations in regard to Corliss, so they hit me for borrowing a gun from my client Earl Briggs. I got lucky there. It was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl’s father, so my ethical infraction was minor.
I didn’t bother contesting the bar reprimand or appealing the suspension. After taking a bullet in the gut, ninety days on the shelf didn’t look so bad to me. I served the suspension during my recovery, mostly in a bathrobe while watching Court TV.
Neither the bar nor the police found ethical or criminal violation on my part in the killing of Mary Alice Windsor. She entered my home with a stolen weapon. She shot first and I shot last. From a block away Lankford and Sobel watched her take that first shot at my front door. Self-defense, cut and dried. But what has not been so clear-cut are the feelings I have for what I did. I wanted to avenge my friend Raul Levin, but I didn’t want to see it done in blood. I am a killer now. Being state sanctioned only tempers slightly the feelings that come with that.
All investigations and official findings aside, I think now that in the whole matter of Menendez and Roulet I was guilty of conduct unbecoming myself. And the penalty for that is harsher than anything the state or the bar could ever throw at me. No matter. I will carry all of it with me as I go back to work. My work. I know my place in this world and on the first day of court next year I will pull the Lincoln out of the garage, get back on the road and go looking for the underdog. I don’t know where I will go or what cases will be mine. I just know I will be healed and ready to stand once again in the world without truth.
Acknowledgments
This novel was inspired by a chance meeting and conversation with attorney David Ogden many years ago at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game. For that, the author will always be grateful. Though the character and exploits of Mickey Haller are fictitious and wholly of the author’s imagination, this story could not have been written