The Lincoln Lawyer

I am concerned, one mistake like you have made is enough. I don’t want this kicked back at me by the Second and that is surely what they will do. Then I am holding the bag for your miscon -”
    “I didn’t know Corliss’s background!” Minton said forcefully. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”
    The intensity of his words brought a momentary silence to the chambers. But soon I slipped into the void.
    “Just like you didn’t know about the knife, Ted?”
    Fullbright looked from Minton to me and then back at Minton.
    “What knife?” she asked.
    Minton said nothing.
    “Tell her,” I said.
    Minton shook his head.
    “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said.
    “Then you tell me,” the judge said to me.
    “Judge, if you wait on discovery from the DA, you might as well hang it up at the start,” I said. “Witnesses disappear, stories change, you can lose a case just sitting around waiting.”
    “All right, so what about the knife?”
    “I needed to move on this case. So I had my investigator go through the back door and get reports. It’s fair game. But they were waiting for him and they phonied up a report on the knife so I wouldn’t know about the initials. I didn’t know until I got the formal discovery packet.”
    The judge formed a hard line with her lips.
    “That was the police, not the DA’s office,” Minton said quickly.
    “Thirty seconds ago you said you didn’t know what he was talking about,” Fullbright said. “Now suddenly you do. I don’t care who did it. Are you telling me that this did in fact occur?”
    Minton reluctantly nodded.
    “Yes, Your Honor. But I swear, I didn’t -”
    “You know what this tells me?” the judge said, cutting him off. “It tells me that from start to finish the state has not played fair in this case. It doesn’t matter who did what or that Mr. Haller’s investigator may have been acting improperly. The state must be above that. And as evidenced today in my courtroom it has been anything but that.”
    “Your Honor, that’s not -”
    “No more, Mr. Minton. I think I’ve heard enough. I want you both to leave now. In half an hour I’ll take the bench and announce what we’ll do about this. I am not sure yet what that will be but no matter what I do, you aren’t going to like what I have to say, Mr. Minton. And I am directing you to have your boss, Mr. Smithson, in the courtroom with you to hear it.”
    I stood up. Minton didn’t move. He still seemed frozen to the seat.
    “I said you can go!” the judge barked.

FORTY-TWO
    I followed Minton through the court clerk’s station and into the courtroom. It was empty except for Meehan, who sat at the bailiff’s desk. I took my briefcase off the defense table and headed toward the gate.
    “Hey, Haller, wait a second,” Minton said, as he gathered files from the prosecution table.
    I stopped at the gate and looked back.
    “What?”
    Minton came to the gate and pointed to the rear door of the courtroom.
    “Let’s go out here.”
    “My client is going to be waiting out there for me.”
    “Just come here.”
    He headed to the door and I followed. In the vestibule where I had confronted Roulet two days earlier Minton stopped to confront me. But he didn’t say anything. He was putting words together. I decided to push him even further.
    “While you go get Smithson I think I’ll stop by the
Times
office on two and make sure the reporter down there knows there’ll be some fireworks up here in a half hour.”
    “Look,” Minton sputtered. “We have to work this out.”
    “We?”
    “Just hold off on the
Times,
okay? Give me your cell number and give me ten minutes.”
    “For what?”
    “Let me go down to my office and see what I can do.”
    “I don’t trust you, Minton.”
    “Well, if you want what’s best for your client instead of a cheap headline, you’re going to have to trust me for ten minutes.”
    I looked away from his face and acted like I was considering the offer. Finally, I looked back at him. Our faces were only two feet apart.
    “You know, Minton, I could’ve put up with all your bullshit. The knife and the arrogance and everything else. I’m a pro and I have to live with that shit from prosecutors every day of my life. But when you tried to put Corliss on Maggie McPherson in there, that’s when I decided not to show you any mercy.”
    “Look, I did nothing to intentionally -”
    “Minton, look around. There’s nobody here but us. No cameras, no