The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly Page B

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 will tear her apart and throw her entrails into the sea. But we have to know what she has put on the record before we can construct traps and go after her. And if you think this is hard to sit through, wait until we get to trial and it’s stretched out over days instead of minutes. You have to control yourself, Louis. You have to remember that you will get your turn. The defense always gets its turn.”
    Dobbs reached over and patted Roulet on the forearm, a nice fatherly gesture. Roulet pulled his arm away.
    “Damn right you are going to go after her,” Roulet said, pointing a finger across the table at my chest. “I want you to go after her with everything we’ve got.”
    “That’s what I am here for, and you have my promise I will. Now, let me ask my associate a few questions before we finish up here.”
    I waited to see if Roulet had anything else to say. He didn’t. He leaned back into his chair and clasped his hands together.
    “You finished, Raul?” I asked.
    “For now. I’m still working on all the reports. I should have a transcript of the nine-one-one call tomorrow morning and there will be more stuff coming in.”
    “Good. What about a rape kit?”
    “There wasn’t one. Booker’s report said she declined, since it never got to that.”
    “What’s a rape kit?” Roulet asked.
    “It’s a hospital procedure where bodily fluids, hair and fibers are collected from the body of a rape victim,” Levin said.
    “There was no rape!” Roulet exclaimed. “I never touched -”
    “We know that,” I said. “That’s not why I asked. I am looking for cracks in the state’s case. The victim said she was not raped but was reporting what was certainly a sex crime. Usually, the police insist on a rape kit, even when a victim claims there was no sexual assault. They do this just in case the victim actually has been raped and is just too humiliated to say so or might be trying to keep the full extent of the crime from a husband or family member. It’s standard procedure, and the fact that she was able to talk her way out of it might be significant to us.”
    “She didn’t want the first guy’s DNA showing up in her,” Dobbs said.
    “Maybe,” I said. “It might mean any number of things. But it might be a crack. Let’s move on. Raul, is there any mention anywhere about this guy who Louis saw her with?”
    “No, none. He’s not in the