The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connelly [37]
“But we have to say something to defend him,” Dobbs said.
“No, we don’t have to say anything. Talking about the case legitimizes it. If you get into a game of talking to the media, you keep the story alive. Information is oxygen. Without it they die. As far as I am concerned, let ’em die. Or at least wait until there is no avoiding them. If that happens, only one person speaks for Louis. That’s me.”
Dobbs reluctantly nodded his agreement. I pointed a finger at Roulet.
“Under no circumstances do you talk to a reporter, even to deny the charges. If they contact you, you send them to me. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“Good.”
I decided that we had said enough for a first meeting. I stood up.
“Louis, I’ll take you home now.”
But Dobbs wasn’t going to release his grasp on his client so quickly.
“Actually, I’ve been invited to dinner by Louis’s mother,” he said. “I could take him, since I am going there.”
I nodded my approval. The criminal defense attorney never seemed to get invited to dinner.
“Fine,” I said. “But we’ll meet you there. I want Raul to see his place and Louis needs to give me that check we spoke about earlier.”
If they thought I had forgotten about the money, they had a lot to learn about me. Dobbs looked at Roulet and got an approving nod. Dobbs then nodded to me.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “We’ll meet again there.”
Fifteen minutes later I was riding in the back of the Lincoln with Levin. We were following a silver Mercedes carrying Dobbs and Roulet. I was checking with Lorna on the phone. The only message of importance had come from Gloria Dayton’s prosecutor, Leslie Faire. The message was we had a deal.
“So,” Levin said when I closed the phone. “What do you really think?”
“I think there is a lot of money to be made on this case and we’re about to go get the first installment. Sorry I’m dragging you over there. I didn’t want it to seem like it was all about the check.”
Levin nodded but didn’t say anything. After a few moments I continued.
“I’m not sure what to think yet,” I said. “Whatever happened in that apartment happened quick. That’s a break for us. No actual rape, no DNA. That gives us a glimmer of hope.”
“It sort of reminds me of Jesus Menendez, only without DNA. Remember him?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to.”
I tried not to think about clients who were in prison without appellate hopes or anything else left but years of time in front of them to nut out. I do what I can with each case but sometimes there is nothing that can be done. Jesus Menendez’s case was one of those.
“How’s your time on this?” I asked, putting us back on course.
“I’ve got a few things but I can move them around.”
“You are going to have to work nights on this. I need you to go into those bars. I want to know everything about him and everything about her. This case looks simple at this point. We knock her down and we knock the case down.”
Levin nodded. He had his briefcase on his lap.
“You got your camera in there?”
“Always.”
“When we get to the house take some pictures of Roulet. I don’t want you showing his mug shot in the bars. It’ll taint things. Can you get a picture of the woman without her face being all messed up?”
“I got her driver’s license photo. It’s recent.”
“Good. Run them down. If we find a witness who saw her come over to him at the bar in Morgan’s last night, then we’re gold.”
“That’s where I was thinking I’d start. Give me a week or so. I’ll come back to you before the arraignment.”
I nodded. We drove in silence for a few minutes, thinking about the case. We were moving through the flats of Beverly Hills, heading up into the neighborhoods where the real money was hidden and waiting.
“And you know what else I think?” I said. “Money and everything aside, I think there’s a chance he isn’t lying. His story is just quirky enough to be true.”
Levin whistled softly between his teeth.
“You think you might have found the innocent man?” he said.
“That would be a first,” I said. “If I had only known it this morning, I would have charged him the innocent man premium. If you