The Lincoln Lawyer

handled the first appearance. He was there in the pen. He thought the case was still mine.”
    Now I understood. Corliss was a
C.
Roulet was taken out of alphabetical order and called first. Corliss must have been in the group of inmates taken into the courtroom with him. He had seen Maggie and me argue over Roulet’s bail. He therefore thought Maggie still had the case. He must have made a snitch call to her.
    “When did he call you?” I asked.
    “I am telling you too much, Haller. I’m not -”
    “Just tell me when he called you. That hearing was on a Monday, so was it later that day?”
    The case did not make any notice in the newspapers or on TV. So I was curious as to where Corliss would have gotten the information he was trying to trade to prosecutors. I had to assume it didn’t come from Roulet. I was pretty sure I had scared him silent. Without a media information point, Corliss would have been left with the information gleaned in court when the charges were read and Maggie and I argued bail.
    It was enough, I realized. Maggie had been specific in detailing Regina Campo’s injuries as she was trying to impress the judge to hold Roulet without bail. If Corliss had been in court, he’d have been privy to all the details he would need to make up a jailhouse confession from my client. Add that to his proximity to Roulet and a jailhouse snitch is born.
    “Yes, he called me late Monday,” Maggie finally answered.
    “So why did you think he was full of shit? He’s done it before, hasn’t he? The guy’s a professional snitch, right?”
    I was fishing and she knew it. She shook her head.
    “I am sure you will find out all you need to know during discovery. Can we just have a friendly pint of Guinness here? I have to leave in about an hour.”
    I nodded but wanted to know more.
    “Tell you what,” I said. “You’ve probably had enough Guinness for one St. Patrick’s Day. How about we get out of here and get something to eat?”
    “Why, so you can keep asking me about your case?”
    “No, so we can talk about our daughter.”
    Her eyes narrowed.
    “Is something wrong?” she asked.
    “Not that I know of. But I want to talk to you about her.”
    “Where are you taking me to dinner?”
    I mentioned an expensive Italian restaurant on Ventura in Sherman Oaks and her eyes got warm. It had been a place we had gone to celebrate anniversaries and getting pregnant. Our apartment, which she still had, was a few blocks away on Dickens.
    “Think we can eat there in an hour?” she asked.
    “If we leave right now and order without looking.”
    “You’re on. Let me just say some quick good-byes.”
    “I’ll drive.”
    And it was a good thing I drove because she was unsteady on her feet. We had to walk hip to hip to the Lincoln and then I helped her get in.
    I took Van Nuys south to Ventura. After a few moments Maggie reached beneath her legs and pulled out a CD case she had been uncomfortably sitting on. It was Earl’s. One of the CDs he listened to on the car stereo when I was in court. It saved juice on his iPod. The CD was by a dirty south performer named Ludacris.
    “No wonder I was so uncomfortable,” she said. “Is this what you’re listening to while driving between courthouses?”
    “Actually, no. That’s Earl’s. He’s been doing the driving lately. Ludacris isn’t really to my liking. I’m more of an old school guy. Tupac and Dre and people like that.”
    She laughed because she thought I was kidding. A few minutes later we drove down the narrow alley that led to the door of the restaurant. A valet took the car and we went in. The hostess recognized us and acted like it had only been a couple weeks since the last time we had been in. The truth was, we had probably both been in there recently, but each with other partners.
    I asked for a bottle of Singe Shiraz and we ordered pasta dishes without looking at a menu. We skipped salads and appetizers and told the waiter not to delay bringing the food out. After he left I checked my watch and saw we still had forty-five minutes. Plenty of time.
    The Guinness was catching up with Maggie. She smiled in a fractured sort of way that told me she was drunk. Beautifully drunk. She never got mean under a buzz. She always got sweeter. It was probably how we’d ended up having a child together.
    “You should probably lay off the wine,” I told her. “Or you’ll have a headache tomorrow.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I’ll lay what I want