The Lincoln lawyer - By Michael Connelly Page 0,33

a statement to Detective Booker. In summary, she said she came home about eight-thirty Sunday night and was home alone when there was a knock at her door at about ten o’clock. Mr. Roulet represented himself as someone Ms. Campo knew and so she opened the door. Upon opening the door she was immediately struck by the intruder’s fist and driven backwards into the apartment. The intruder entered and closed and locked the door. Ms. Campo attempted to defend herself but was struck at least twice more and driven to the floor.”

“This is such bullshit!” Roulet yelled.

He slammed his fists down on the table and stood up, his seat rolling backwards and banging loudly into the glass window behind him.

“Hey, easy now!” Dobbs cautioned. “You break the window and it’s like a plane. We all get sucked out of here and go down.”

No one smiled at his attempt at levity.

“Louis, sit back down,” I said calmly. “These are police reports, nothing more or less. They are not supposed to be the truth. They are one person’s view of the truth. All we are doing here is getting a first look at the case, seeing what we are up against.”

Roulet rolled his chair back to the table and sat down without further protest. I nodded to Levin and he continued. I noted that Roulet had long stopped acting like the meek prey I had seen earlier in the day in lockup.

“Ms. Campo reported that the man who attacked her had his fist wrapped in a white cloth when he punched her.”

I looked across the table at Roulet’s hands and saw no swelling or bruising on the knuckles or fingers. Wrapping his fist could have allowed him to avoid such telltale injuries.

“Was it taken into evidence?” I asked.

“Yes,” Levin said. “In the evidence report it is described as a cloth dinner napkin with blood on it. The blood and the cloth are being analyzed.”

I nodded and looked at Roulet.

“Did the police look at or photograph your hands?”

Roulet nodded.

“The detective looked at my hands but nobody took pictures.”

I nodded and told Levin to continue.

“The intruder straddled Ms. Campo on the floor and grasped one hand around her neck,” he said. “The intruder told Ms. Campo that he was going to rape her and that it didn’t matter to him whether she was alive or dead when he did it. She could not respond because the suspect was choking her with his hand. When he released pressure she said she told him that she would cooperate.”

Levin slid another photocopy onto the table. It was a photo of a black-handled folding knife that was sharpened to a deadly point. It explained the earlier photo of the wound under the victim’s neck.

Roulet slid the photocopy over to look at it more closely. He slowly shook his head.

“This is not my knife,” he said.

I didn’t respond and Levin continued.

“The suspect and the victim stood up and he told her to lead the way to the bedroom. The suspect maintained a position behind the victim and pressed the point of the knife against the left side of her throat. As Ms. Campo entered a short hallway that led to the apartment’s two bedrooms she turned in the confined space and pushed her attacker backwards into a large floor vase. As he stumbled backwards over the vase, she made a break for the front door. Realizing that her attacker would recover and catch her at the front door, she ducked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of vodka off the counter. When the intruder passed by the kitchen on his way to the front door to catch her, Ms. Campo stepped out of the blind and struck him on the back of the head, knocking him to the floor. Ms. Campo then stepped over the fallen man and unlocked the front door. She ran out the door and called the police from the first-floor apartment shared by Turner and Atkins. Turner and Atkins returned to the apartment, where they found the intruder unconscious on the floor. They maintained control of him as he started to regain consciousness and remained in the apartment until police arrived.”

“This is incredible,” Roulet said. “To have to sit here and listen to this. I can’t believe what has happened to me. I DID NOT do this. This is like a dream. She is lying! She —”

“If it is all lies, then this will be the easiest case I ever had,” I said. “I