The Lincoln lawyer - By Michael Connelly Page 0,132
it off.
“Mr. Minton, anything else?” the judge asked, a not so well disguised note of sarcasm in her voice.
“One moment, Your Honor,” Minton said.
Minton gathered himself, reviewed his notes and tried to salvage something.
“Mrs. Windsor, did you or your son call the police after he found you?”
“No, we didn’t. Louis wanted to but I did not. I thought that it would only further the trauma.”
“So we have no official police documentation of this crime, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
I knew that Minton wanted to carry it further and ask if she had sought medical treatment after the attack. But sensing another trap, he didn’t ask the question.
“So what you are saying here is that we only have your word that this attack even occurred? Your word and your son’s, if he chooses to testify.”
“It did occur. I live with it each and every day.”
“But we only have you who says so.”
She looked at the prosecutor with deadpan eyes.
“Is that a question?”
“Mrs. Windsor, you are here to help your son, correct?”
“If I can. I know him as a good man who would not have committed this despicable crime.”
“You would be willing to do anything and everything in your power to save your son from conviction and possible prison, wouldn’t you?”
“But I wouldn’t lie about something like this. Oath or no oath, I wouldn’t lie.”
“But you want to save your son, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And saving him means lying for him, doesn’t it?”
“No. It does not.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Windsor.”
Minton quickly returned to his seat. I had only one question on redirect.
“Mrs. Windsor, how old were you when this attack occurred?”
“I was fifty-four.”
I sat back down. Minton had nothing further and Windsor was excused. I asked the judge to allow her to sit in the gallery for the remainder of the trial, now that her testimony was concluded. Without an objection from Minton the request was granted.
My next witness was an LAPD detective named David Lambkin, who was a national expert on sex crimes and had worked on the Real Estate Rapist investigation. In brief questioning I established the facts of the case and the five reported cases of rape that were investigated. I quickly got to the five key questions I needed to bolster Mary Windsor’s testimony.
“Detective Lambkin, what was the age range of the known victims of the rapist?”
“These were all professional women who were pretty successful. They tended to be older than your average rape victim. I believe the youngest was twenty-nine and the oldest was fifty-nine.”
“So a woman who was fifty-four years old would have fallen within the rapist’s target profile, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell the jury when the first reported attack occurred and when the last reported attack occurred?”
“Yes. The first was October one, two thousand, and the last one was July thirtieth of two thousand and one.”
“So June ninth of two thousand and one was well within the span of this rapist’s attacks on women in the real estate business, correct?”
“Yes, correct.”
“In the course of your investigation of this case, did you come to a conclusion or belief that there were more than five rapes committed by this individual?”
Minton objected, saying the question called for speculation. The judge sustained the objection but it didn’t matter. The question was what was important and the jury seeing the prosecutor keeping the answer from them was the payoff.
Minton surprised me on cross. He recovered enough from the misstep with Windsor to hit Lambkin with three solid questions with answers favorable to the prosecution.
“Detective Lambkin, did the task force investigating these rapes issue any kind of warning to women working in the real estate business?”
“Yes, we did. We sent out fliers on two occasions. The first went to all licensed real estate businesses in the area and the next mail-out went to all licensed real estate brokers individually, male and female.”
“Did these mail-outs contain information about the rapist’s description and methods?”
“Yes, they did.”
“So if someone wished to concoct a story about being attacked by this rapist, the mail-outs would have provided all the information needed, correct?”
“That is a possibility, yes.”
“Nothing further, Your Honor.”
Minton proudly sat down and Lambkin was excused when I had nothing further. I asked the judge for a few minutes to confer with my client and then leaned in close to Roulet.
“Okay, this is it,” I said. “You’re all we have left. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me, you’re clean and there isn’t much Minton can come back at you with. You should be safe up there unless you let him get to