The Lincoln Lawyer

way.”
    “Where were you this morning?”
    “Me? I was here at the office. Why?”
    “Did anybody see you?”
    “Well, Robin came in at ten. Not before that.”
    I pictured the woman with the hair cut like a scythe. I didn’t know what to tell Roulet because I didn’t know what the time of death was. I didn’t want to mention anything about the tracking bracelet he supposedly had on his ankle.
    “Call me after Detective Sobel leaves. And remember, no matter what she or her partner says to you, do not talk to them. They can lie to you as much as they want. And they all do. Consider anything they tell you to be a lie. They’re just trying to trick you into talking to them. If they tell you I said it was okay to talk, that is a lie. Pick up the phone and call me, I will tell them to get lost.”
    “All right, Mick. That’s how I’ll play it. Thanks.”
    He ended the call. I closed my phone and dropped it on the bar like it was something dirty and discarded.
    “Yeah, don’t mention it,” I said.
    I drained a good quarter of my pint, then picked up the phone again. Using speed dial I called Fernando Valenzuela’s cell number. He was at home, having just gotten in from the Dodgers game. That meant that he had left early to beat the traffic. Typical L.A. fan.
    “Do you still have a tracking bracelet on Roulet?”
    “Yeah, he’s got it.”
    “How’s it work? Can you track where he’s been or only where he’s at?”
    “It’s global positioning. It sends up a signal. You can track it backwards to tell where somebody’s been.”
    “You got it there or is it at the office?”
    “It’s on my laptop, man. What’s up?”
    “I want to see where he’s been today.”
    “Well, let me boot it up. Hold on.”
    I held on, finished my Guinness and had the bartender start filling another before Valenzuela had his laptop fired up.
    “Where’re you at, Mick?”
    “Four Green Fields.”
    “Anything wrong?”
    “Yeah, something’s wrong. Do you have it up or what?”
    “Yeah, I’m looking at it right here. How far back do you want to check?”
    “Start at this morning.”
    “Okay. He, uh… he hasn’t done much today. I track it from his home to his office at eight. Looks like he took a little trip nearby-a couple blocks, probably for lunch-and then back to the office. He’s still there.”
    I thought about this for a few moments. The bartender delivered my next pint.
    “Val, how do you get that thing off your ankle?”
    “You mean if you were him? You don’t. You can’t. It bolts on and the little wrench you use is unique. It’s like a key. I got the only one.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “I’m sure. I got it right here on my key chain, man.”
    “No copies-like from the manufacturer?”
    “Not supposed to be. Besides, it doesn’t matter. If the ring is broken-like even if he did open it-I get an alarm on the system. It also has what’s called a ‘mass detector.’ Once I put that baby around his ankle, I get an alarm on the computer the moment it reads that there is nothing there. That didn’t happen, Mick. So you are talking about a saw being the only way. Cut off the leg, leave the bracelet on the ankle. That’s the only way.”
    I drank the top off my new beer. The bartender hadn’t bothered with any artwork this time.
    “What about the battery? What if the battery’s dead, you lose the signal?”
    “No, Mick. I got that covered, too. He’s got a charger and a receptacle on the bracelet. Every few days he’s got to plug it in for a couple hours to juice it. You know, while he’s at his desk or something or taking a nap. If the battery goes below twenty percent I get an alarm on my computer and I call him and say plug it in. If he doesn’t do it then, I get another alarm at fifteen percent, and then at ten percent
he
starts beeping and he’s got no way to take it off or turn it off. Doesn’t make for a good getaway. And that last ten percent still gives me five hours of tracking. I can find him in five hours, no sweat.”
    “Okay, okay.”
    I was convinced by the science.
    “What’s going on?”
    I told him about Levin and told him that the police would likely have to check out Roulet, and the ankle bracelet and tracking system would likely be our client’s alibi. Valenzuela was stunned by the news. He might not have been as close to Levin as I had been, but he had known him just as long.
    “What do you think happened, Mick?” he asked me.
    I knew that he