The Lincoln Lawyer

“The killer could have dumped them here to confuse us. To hide what he was really looking for or taking. What about over here?”
    We stepped over to the table to the right of the computer. This one was not in as much disarray. There was a calendar blotter on which it was clear Levin kept a running account of his hours and which attorney he was working for at the time. I scanned the blocks and saw my name numerous times going back five weeks. It was as they had told me, he had practically been working full-time for me.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what to look for. I don’t see anything that could help.”
    “Well, most attorneys aren’t that helpful,” Lankford said from behind me.
    I didn’t bother to turn around to defend myself. He was by the body and I didn’t want to see what he was doing. I reached out to turn the Rolodex that was on the table just so I could look through the names on the cards.
    “Don’t touch that!” Sobel said instantly.
    I jerked my hand back.
    “Sorry. I was just going to look through the names. I don’t…”
    I didn’t finish. I was at sea here. I wanted to leave and get something to drink. I felt like the Dodger dog that had tasted so good back at the stadium was about to come up.
    “Hey, check it out,” Lankford said.
    I turned with Sobel and saw that the medical examiner’s people were slowly turning Levin’s body over. Blood had stained the front of the Dodgers shirt he was wearing. But Lankford was pointing to the dead man’s hands, which had not been visible beneath the body before. The two middle fingers of his left hand were folded down against the palm while the two outside fingers were fully extended.
    “Was this guy a Texas Longhorns fan or what?” Lankford asked.
    Nobody laughed.
    “What do you think?” Sobel said to me.
    I stared down at my friend’s last gesture and just shook my head.
    “Oh, I got it,” Lankford said. “It’s like a signal. A code. He’s telling us that the devil did it.”
    I thought of Raul calling Roulet the devil, of having the proof that he was evil. And I knew what my friend’s last message to me meant. As he died on the floor of his office, he tried to tell me. Tried to warn me.

TWENTY-FOUR
    I went to Four Green Fields and ordered a Guinness but quickly escalated to vodka over ice. I didn’t think there was any sense in delaying things. The Dodgers game was finishing up on the TV over the bar. The boys in blue were rallying, down now by just two with the bases loaded in the ninth. The bartender had his eyes glued to the screen but I didn’t care anymore about the start of new seasons. I didn’t care about ninth-inning rallies.
    After the second vodka assault, I brought the cell phone up onto the bar and started making calls. First I called the four other lawyers from the game. We had all left when I had gotten the word but they went home only knowing that Levin was dead, none of the details. Then I called Lorna and she cried on the phone. I talked her through it for a little while and then she asked the question I was hoping to avoid.
    “Is this because of your case? Because of Roulet?”
    “I don’t know,” I lied. “I told the cops about it but they seemed more interested in him being gay than anything else.”
    “He was gay?”
    I knew it would work as a deflection.
    “He didn’t advertise it.”
    “And you knew and didn’t tell me?”
    “There was nothing to tell. It was his life. If he wanted to tell people, he would have told people, I guess.”
    “The detectives said that’s what happened?”
    “What?”
    “You know, that his being gay is how he got murdered.”
    “I don’t know. They kept asking about it. I don’t know what they think. They’ll look at everything and hopefully it will lead to something.”
    There was silence. I looked up at the TV just as the winning run crossed the plate for the Dodgers and the stadium erupted in bedlam and joy. The bartender whooped and used a remote to turn up the broadcast. I looked away and put a hand over my free ear.
    “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Lorna said.
    “About what?”
    “About what we do. Mickey, when they catch the bastard who did this, he might call me to hire you.”
    I got the bartender’s attention by shaking the ice in my empty glass. I wanted a refill. What I didn’t want was to tell Lorna that I believed I was already working for the bastard who had killed Raul.
    “Lorna, take it easy. You’re