The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (52 page)

“Mr. Torrance, this is one of the words checked on the summary. Can you read this word?”

Vincent immediately stood but Torrance was already shaking his head and looking thoroughly humiliated. Vincent objected to
the demonstration without proper foundation and Companioni sustained. I expected him to. I was just laying the groundwork
for my next move with the jury and I was sure most of them had seen the witness shake his head.

“Okay, Mr. Torrance,” I said. “Let’s move to the other side of the file. Could you describe the bodies in the photos?”

“Um, two men. It looks like they opened up some chicken wire and some tarps and they’re laying there. A bunch a police is
there investigatin’ and takin’ pictures.”

“What race are the men on the tarps?”

“They’re black.”

“Have you ever seen those photographs before, Mr. Torrance?”

Vincent stood to object to my question as having previously been asked and answered. But it was like holding up a hand to
stop a bullet. The judge sternly told him he could take his seat. It was his way of telling the prosecutor he was going to
have to just sit back and take what was coming. You put the liar on the stand, you take the fall with him.

“You may answer the question, Mr. Torrance,” I said after Vincent sat down. “Have you ever seen those photographs before?”

“No, sir, not before right now.”

“Would you agree that the pictures portray what you described to us earlier? That being the bodies of two slain black men?”

“That’s what it looks like. But I ain’t seen the picture before, just what he tell me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Something like these I wouldn’t forget.”

“You’ve told us Mr. Woodson confessed to killing two black men, but he is on trial for killing two white men. Wouldn’t you
agree that it appears that he didn’t confess to you at all?”

“No, he confessed. He told me he killed those two.”

I looked up at the judge.

“Your Honor, the defense asks that the file in front of Mr. Torrance be admitted into evidence as defense exhibit one.”

Vincent made a lack-of-foundation objection but Companioni overruled.

“It will be admitted and we’ll let the jury decide whether Mr. Torrance has or hasn’t seen the photographs and contents of
the file.”

I was on a roll and decided to go all in.

“Thank you,” I said. “Your Honor, now might also be a good time for the prosecutor to reacquaint his witness with the penalties
for perjury.”

It was a dramatic move made for the benefit of the jury. I was expecting I would have to continue with Torrance and eviscerate
him with the blade of his own lie. But Vincent stood and asked the judge to recess the trial while he conferred with opposing
counsel.

This told me I had just saved Barnett Woodson’s life.

“The defense has no objection,” I told the judge.

Bonus Preview

Order
The Gods of Guilt
today
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Following is an excerpt from the opening pages of
The Gods of Guilt
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I approached the witness stand with a warm and welcoming smile. This, of course, belied my true intent, which was to destroy the woman who sat there with her eyes fixed on me. Claire Welton had just identified my client as the man who had forced her out of her Mercedes E60 at gunpoint on Christmas Eve last year. She said he was the one who then shoved her to the ground before taking off with the car, her purse, and all the shopping bags she had loaded into the backseat at the mall. As she had just told the prosecutor who questioned her, he had also made off with her sense of security and self-confidence, even though for these more personal thefts he had not been charged.

“Good morning, Mrs. Welton.”

“Good morning.”

She said the words like they were synonyms for
please don’t hurt me.
But everyone in the courtroom knew it was my job to hurt her today and thereby hurt the state’s case against my client, Leonard Watts. Welton was in her sixties and matronly. She didn’t look fragile but I had to hope she was.

Welton was a Beverly Hills housewife and one of three victims who were roughed up and robbed in a pre-Christmas crime spree resulting in the nine charges against Watts. The police had labeled him the “Bumper Car Bandit,” a strong-arm thief who followed targeted women from the malls, bumped into their cars at stop signs in residential neighborhoods, and then took their vehicles and belongings at gunpoint when they stepped out of their cars to check for damage. He then pawned or resold all the goods, kept any cash, and dropped the cars off at chop shops in the Valley.

But all of that was alleged and hinged on Leonard Watts’s being identified as the culprit in front of the jury. That was what made Claire Welton so special and the key witness of the trial. She was the only one of the three victims who pointed Watts out to the jury and unequivocally claimed that he was the one, that he did it. She was the seventh witness presented by the prosecution in two days but as far as I was concerned she was the only witness. She was the number one pin. And if I knocked her down at just the right angle, all the other pins would go down with her.

I needed to roll a strike here or the jurors who were watching would send Leonard Watts away for a very long time.

I carried a single sheet of paper with me to the witness stand. I identified it as the original crime report created by a patrol officer who was first to respond to the 911 call placed by Claire Welton from a borrowed cell phone after the carjacking occurred. It was already part of the state’s exhibits. After asking for and receiving approval from the judge, I put the document down on the ledge at the front of the witness stand. Welton leaned away from me as I did this. I was sure most members of the jury saw this as well.

I started asking my first question as I walked back to the lectern set between the prosecution and defense tables.

“Mrs. Welton, you have there the original crime report taken on the day of the unfortunate incident in which you were victimized. Do you remember talking with the officer who arrived to help you?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“You told him what happened, correct?”

“Yes. I was still shaken up at the—”

“But you did tell him what happened so he could put a report out about the man who robbed you and took your car, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“That was Officer Corbin, correct?”

“I guess. I don’t remember his name but it says it on the report.”

“Okay, can you go to the summary section at the bottom of that page and read out loud to the jury what Officer Corbin wrote down after talking with you?”

Welton hesitated as she studied the summary before reading it.

“Just go ahead and read it, please, Mrs. Welton.”

She finally complied.

“ ‘Victim stated that she stopped at the intersection of Camden and Elevado and soon after was struck from behind by a car that pulled up. When she opened her door to get out and check for damage, she was met by a black male thirty to thirty-five YOA—’ I don’t know what that means.”

“Years of age. Go on. Keep reading.”

“ ‘He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her the rest of the way out of the car and to the ground in the middle of the street. He pointed a black, short-barrel revolver at her face and told her he would shoot her if she moved or made any sound. The suspect then jumped into her car and drove off in a northerly direction, followed by the car that had rear-ended her vehicle. Victim could offer no…”

I waited but she didn’t finish.

“Your Honor, can you instruct the witness to read the entire statement as written on the day of the incident?”

“Mrs. Welton,” Judge Siebecker intoned. “Please continue to read the statement in its entirety.”

“But, Judge, this isn’t everything I said.”

“Mrs. Welton,” the judge said forcefully. “Read the
entire
statement, as the defense counselor asked you to.”

Welton relented and read the last sentence of the summary.

“ ‘Victim could offer no further description of the suspect at this time.’ ”

“Thank you, Mrs. Welton,” I said. “Now, while there wasn’t much in the way of a description of the suspect, you were from the start able to describe in detail the gun he used, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know about how much detail. He pointed it at my face, so I got a good look at it and was able to describe what I saw. The officer helped me by describing the difference between a revolver and the other kind of gun. I think an automatic, it’s called.”

“And you were able to describe the kind of gun it was, the color, and even the length of the barrel.”

“Aren’t all guns black?”

“How about if I ask the questions right now, Mrs. Welton?”

“Well, the officer asked a lot of questions about the gun.”

“But you weren’t able to describe the man who pointed the gun at you, and yet two hours later you pick his face out of a bunch of mug shots. Do I have that right, Mrs. Welton?”

“You have to understand something. I saw the man who robbed me and pointed the gun. Being able to describe him and recognize him are two different things. When I saw that picture, I knew it was him, just as sure as I know it’s him sitting at that table.”

I turned to the judge.

“Your Honor, I would like to strike that as nonresponsive.”

Judy Carlo, the prosecutor, stood up at her table.

“Judge, counsel is making broad statements in his so-called questions. He made a statement and the witness merely responded. The motion to strike has no foundation.”

“Motion to strike is denied,” the judge said quickly. “Ask your next question, Mr. Haller, and I do mean a question.”

I did and I tried. For the next twenty minutes, I hammered away at Claire Welton and her identification of my client. At no point was I able to shake her resolve or belief that Leonard Watts was the man who robbed her. Along the way she seemed to recover one of the things she said she had lost in the robbery. Her self-confidence. The more I worked her, the more she seemed to bear up under the verbal assault and send it right back at me. By the end she was a rock. Her identification of my client was still standing. And I had bowled a gutter ball.

I told the judge I had no further questions and returned to the defense table. Carlo told the judge she had a short redirect and I knew she would ask Welton a series of questions that would only reinforce her identification of Watts. As I slid into my seat next to Watts his eyes searched my face for any indication of hope.

“Well,” I whispered to him, “that’s it. We are done.”

He leaned back from me as if repelled by my breath or words or both.

“We?” he said.

He said it loud enough to interrupt Carlo, who turned and looked at the defense table. I put my hands out palms down in a calming gesture and mouthed the words
Cool it
to him.

“Cool it?” he said aloud. “I’m not going to cool it. You told me you had this, that she was no problem.”

“Mr. Haller!”
the judge barked. “Control your client, please, or I’ll have—”

Watts didn’t wait for whatever it was the judge was about to threaten to do. He launched his body into me, hitting me like a cornerback breaking up a pass play. My chair tipped over with me in it and we spilled onto the floor at Carlo’s feet. She jumped sideways to avoid getting hurt herself as Watts drew his right arm back. I was on my left side on the floor, my right arm pinned under Watts’s body. I managed to raise my left hand and caught his fist as it came down at me. It merely softened the blow. His fist took my own hand into my jaw.

I was peripherally aware of screams and motion around me. Watts pulled his fist back as he prepared for punch number two. But the courtroom deputies were on him before he could throw it. They gang-tackled him, their momentum taking him off me and onto the floor in the well in front of the counsel tables.

It all seemed to move in slow motion. The judge was barking commands no one was listening to. Carlo and the court reporter were backing away from the melee. The court clerk had stood up behind her corral and was watching in horror. Watts was chest down on the floor, a deputy’s hand on the side of his head, pressing it to the tile, an odd smile on his face as his hands were cuffed behind his back.

And in a moment it was over.

“Deputies, remove him from the courtroom!” Siebecker commanded.

Watts was dragged through the steel door at the side of the courtroom and into the holding cell used to house incarcerated defendants. I was left sitting on the floor, surveying the damage. I had blood on my mouth and teeth and down the crisp white shirt I was wearing. My tie was on the floor. It was the clip-on I wear on days I visit clients in holding cells and don’t want to get pulled through the bars.

I rubbed my jaw with my hand and ran my tongue along my rows of teeth. Everything seemed intact and in working order. I pulled a white handkerchief out of an inside jacket pocket and started wiping off my face as I used my free hand to grab the defense table and help myself up.