The Lincoln Lawyer

couldn’t see it because it was handcuffed behind my back. But I heard one of the men who had been sitting on me tell the police officer that there was blood on my hand and then the officer put a bag over it. I felt that.”
    “How did the blood get on your hand and jacket?”
    “All I know is that somebody put it on there because I didn’t.”
    “Are you left-handed?”
    “No, I am not.”
    “You didn’t strike Ms. Campo with your left fist?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “Did you threaten to rape her?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “Did you tell her you were going to kill her if she didn’t cooperate with you?”
    “No, I did not.”
    I was hoping for some of the fire I had seen on that first day in C. C. Dobbs’s office but Roulet was calm and controlled. I decided that before I finished with him on direct I needed to push things a little to get some of that anger back. I had told him at lunch I wanted to see it and wasn’t sure what he was doing or where it had gone.
    “Are you angry about being charged with attacking Ms. Campo?”
    “Of course I am.”
    “Why?”
    He opened his mouth but didn’t speak. He seemed outraged that I would ask such a question. Finally, he responded.
    “What do you mean, why? Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do and there’s nothing you can do about it but wait? Just wait for weeks and months until you finally get a chance to go to court and say you’ve been set up. But then you have to wait even longer while the prosecutor puts on a bunch of liars and you have to listen to their lies and just wait your chance. Of course it makes you angry. I am innocent! I did not do this!”
    It was perfect. To the point and playing to anybody who had ever been falsely accused of anything. There was more I could ask but I reminded myself of the rule: get in and get out. Less is always more. I sat down. If I decided there was anything I had missed I would clean it up on redirect.
    I looked at the judge.
    “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
    Minton was up and ready before I even got back to my seat. He moved to the lectern without breaking his steely glare away from Roulet. He was showing the jury what he thought of this man. His eyes were like lasers shooting across the room. He gripped the sides of the lectern so hard his knuckles were white. It was all a show for the jury.
    “You deny touching Ms. Campo,” he said.
    “That’s right,” Roulet retorted.
    “According to you she just punched herself or had a man she had never met before that night punch her lights out for her as part of this setup, is that correct?”
    “I don’t know who did it. All I know is that I didn’t.”
    “But what you are saying is that this woman, Regina Campo, is lying. She came into this courtroom today and flat out lied to the judge and the jury and the whole wide world.”
    Minton punctuated the sentence by shaking his head with disgust.
    “All I know is that I did not do the things she said I did. The only explanation is that one of us is lying. It’s not me.”
    “That will be for the jury to decide, won’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “And this knife you supposedly got for your own protection. Are you telling this jury that the victim in this case somehow knew you had a knife and used it as part of the setup?”
    “I don’t know what she knew. I had never shown the knife to her or in a bar where she would have been. So I don’t see how she could have known about it. I think that when she went into my pocket for the money she found the knife. I always keep my knife and money in the same pocket.”
    “Oh, so now you have her stealing money out of your pocket as well. When does this end with you, Mr. Roulet?”
    “I had four hundred dollars with me. When I was arrested it was gone. Someone took it.”
    Rather than try to pinpoint Roulet on the money, Minton was wise enough to know that no matter how he handled it, he would be facing a break-even proposition at best. If he tried to make a case that Roulet never had the money and that his plan was to attack and rape Campo rather than pay her, then he knew I would trot out Roulet’s tax returns, which would throw serious doubt on the idea that he couldn’t afford to pay a prostitute. It was an avenue of testimony commonly referred to by lawyers as a “cluster fuck” and he was staying away. He moved on to his finish.
    In dramatic style Minton held up the evidence photo of Regina Campo’s beaten and bruised face.
    “So Regina