The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (22 page)

Based on the prosecution’s case coming together and the threat of the death penalty, I decided the O.J. defense would be too
risky. Using Fernando Menendez as my translator, I went to the Van Nuys jail and told Jesus that his only hope was for a deal
the DA had floated by me. If Menendez would plead guilty to murder I could get him a life sentence with the possibility of
parole. I told him he’d be out in fifteen years. I told him it was the only way.

It was a tearful discussion. Both brothers cried and beseeched me to find another way. Jesus insisted that he did not kill
Martha Renteria. He said he had lied to the detectives to protect Fernando, who had given him the money after a good month
selling tar heroin. Jesus thought that revealing his brother’s generosity would lead to another investigation of Fernando
and his possible arrest.

The brothers urged me to investigate the case. Jesus told me Renteria had had other suitors that night in The Cobra Room.
The reason he had paid her so much money was because she had played him off another bidder for her services.

Lastly, Jesus told me it was true that he had thrown a knife into the river but it was because he was afraid. It wasn’t the
murder weapon. It was just a knife he used on day jobs he picked up in Pacoima. It looked like the knife they were describing
on the Spanish channel and he got rid of it before going to the police to straighten things out.

I listened and then told them that none of their explanations mattered. The only thing that mattered was the DNA. Jesus had
a choice. He could take the fifteen years or go to trial and risk getting the death penalty or life
without
the possibility of parole. I
reminded Jesus that he was a young man. He could be out by age forty. He could still have a life.

By the time I left the jailhouse meeting, I had Jesus Menendez’s consent to make the deal. I only saw him one more time after
that. At his plea-and-sentencing hearing when I stood next to him in front of the judge and coached him through the guilty
plea. He was shipped off to Pelican Bay initially and then down to San Quentin after that. I had heard through the courthouse
grapevine that his brother had gotten himself popped again—this time for using heroin. But he didn’t call me. He went with
a different lawyer and I didn’t have to wonder why.

On the warehouse floor I opened the report on the autopsy of Martha Renteria. I was looking for two specific things that had
probably not been looked at very closely by anyone else before. The case was closed. It was a dead file. Nobody cared anymore.

The first was the part of the report that dealt with the fifty-three stab wounds Renteria suffered during the attack on her
bed. Under the heading “Wound Profile” the unknown weapon was described as a blade no longer than five inches and no wider
than an inch. Its thickness was placed at one-eighth of an inch. Also noted in the report was the occurrence of jagged skin
tears at the top of the victim’s wounds, indicating that the top of the blade had an uneven line, to wit, it was designed
as a weapon that would inflict damage going in as well as coming out. The shortness of the blade suggested that the weapon
might be a folding knife.

There was a crude drawing in the report that depicted the outline of the blade without a handle. It looked familiar to me.
I pulled my briefcase across the floor from where I had put it down and opened it up. From the state’s discovery file I pulled
the photo of the open folding knife with Louis Roulet’s initials etched on the blade. I compared the blade to the outline
drawn on the page in the autopsy report. It wasn’t an exact match but it was damn close.

I then pulled out the recovered weapon analysis report and read the same paragraph I had read during the meeting in Roulet’s
office the day before. The knife was described as a custom-made
Black Ninja folding knife with a blade measuring five inches long, one inch wide and one-eighth of an inch thick—the same
measurements belonging to the unknown knife used to kill Martha Renteria. The knife Jesus Menendez supposedly threw into the
L.A. River.

I knew that a five-inch blade wasn’t unique. Nothing was conclusive but my instincts told me I was moving toward something.
I tried not to let the burn that was building in my chest and throat distract me. I tried to stay on point. I moved on. I
needed to check for a specific wound but I didn’t want to look at the photos contained in the back of the report, the photos
that coldly documented the horribly violated body of Martha Renteria. Instead I went to the page that had two side-by-side
generic body profiles, one for the front and one for the back. On these the medical examiner had marked the wounds and numbered
them. Only the front profile had been used. Dots and numbers 1 through 53. It looked like a macabre connect-the-dots puzzle
and I didn’t doubt that Kurlen or some detective looking for anything in the days before Menendez walked in had connected
them, hoping the killer had left his initials or some other bizarre clue behind.

I studied the front profile’s neck and saw two dots on either side of the neck. They were numbered 1 and 2. I turned the page
and looked at the list of individual wound descriptions.

The description for wound number 1 read:
Superficial puncture on the lower right neck with ante-mortem histamine levels, indicative of coercive wound.

The description for wound number 2 read:
Superficial puncture on the lower left neck with ante-mortem histamine levels, indicative of coercive wound. This puncture
measures 1 cm larger than wound No. 1.

The descriptions meant the wounds had been inflicted while Martha Renteria was still alive. And that was likely why they had
been the first wounds listed and described. The examiner had suggested it was likely that the wounds resulted from a knife
being held to the victim’s neck in a coercive manner. It was the killer’s method of controlling her.

I turned back to the state’s discovery file for the Campo case. I pulled the photographs of Reggie Campo and the report on
her physical examination at Holy Cross Medical Center. Campo had a small puncture wound on the lower left side of her neck
and no wounds on her right side. I next scanned through her statement to the police until I found the part in which she described
how she got the wound. She said that her attacker pulled her up off the floor of the living room and told her to lead him
toward the bedroom. He controlled her from behind by gripping the bra strap across her back with his right hand and holding
the knife point against the left side of her neck with his left hand. When she felt him momentarily rest his wrist on her
shoulder she made her move, suddenly pivoting and pushing backwards, knocking her attacker into a large floor vase, and then
breaking away.

I thought I understood now why Reggie Campo had only one wound on her neck, compared with the two Martha Renteria ended up
with. If Campo’s attacker had gotten her to the bedroom and put her down on the bed, he would have been facing her when he
climbed on top of her. If he kept his knife in the same hand—the left—the blade would shift to the other side of her neck.
When they found her dead in the bed, she’d have coercive punctures on both sides of her neck.

I put the files aside and sat cross-legged on the floor without moving for a long time. My thoughts were whispers in the darkness
inside. In my mind I held the image of Jesus Menendez’s tear-streaked face when he had told me that he was innocent—when he’d
begged me to believe him—and I had told him that he must plead guilty. It had been more than legal advice I was dispensing.
He had no money, no defense and no chance—in that order—and I told him he had no choice. And though ultimately it was his
decision and from his mouth that the word
guilty
was uttered in front of the judge, it felt to me now as though it had been me, his own attorney, holding the knife of the
system against his neck and forcing him to say it.

I
got out of the huge new rent-a-car facility at San Francisco International by one o’clock and headed north to the city. The
Lincoln they gave me smelled like it had last been used by a smoker, maybe the renter or maybe just the guy who cleaned it
up for me.

I don’t know how to get anywhere in San Francisco. I just know how to drive through it. Three or four times a year I need
to go to the prison by the bay, San Quentin, to talk to clients or witnesses. I could tell you how to get there, no sweat.
But ask me how to get to Coit Tower or Fisherman’s Wharf and we have a problem.

By the time I got through the city and over the Golden Gate it was almost two. I was in good shape. I knew from past experience
that attorney visiting hours ended at four.

San Quentin is over a century old and looks as though the soul of every prisoner who lived or died there is etched on its
dark walls. It was as foreboding a prison as I had ever visited, and at one time or another I had been to every one in California.

They searched my briefcase and made me go through a metal detector. After that they still passed a wand over me to make extra
sure. Even then I wasn’t allowed direct contact with Menendez because I had not formally scheduled the interview the required
five days in advance. So I was put in a no-contact room—a Plexiglas wall between us with dime-size holes to speak through.
I showed the guard the six-pack of photos I wanted to give Menendez and he told me I would have to show him the pictures through
the Plexi
glas. I sat down, put the photos away and didn’t have to wait long until they brought Menendez in on the other side of the
glass.

Two years ago, when he was shipped off to prison, Jesus Menendez had been a young man. Now he looked like he was already the
forty years old I told him he could beat if he pleaded guilty. He looked at me with eyes as dead as the gravel stones out
in the parking lot. He saw me and sat down reluctantly. He didn’t have much use for me anymore.

We didn’t bother with hellos and I got right into it.

“Look, Jesus, I don’t have to ask you how you’ve been. I know. But something’s come up and it could affect your case. I need
to ask you a few questions. You understand me?”

“Why questions now, man? You had no questions before.”

I nodded.

“You’re right. I should’ve asked you more questions back then and I didn’t. I didn’t know then what I know now. Or at least
what I think I know now. I am trying to make things right.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me about that night at The Cobra Room.”

He shrugged.

“The girl was there and I talked. She tol’ me to follow her home.”

He shrugged again.

“I went to her place, man, but I didn’t kill her like that.”

“Go back to the club. You told me that you had to impress the girl, that you had to show her the money and you spent more
than you wanted to. You remember?”

“Is right.”

“You said there was another guy trying to get with her. You remember that?”

“Si, he was there talking. She went to him but she came back to me.”

“You had to pay her more, right?”

“Like that.”

“Okay, do you remember that guy? If you saw a picture of him, would you remember him?”

“The guy who talked big? I think I ’member.”

“Okay.”

I opened my briefcase and took out the spread of mug shots. There were six photos and they included the booking photo of Louis
Ross Roulet and five other men whose mug shots I had culled out of my archive boxes. I stood up and one by one started holding
them up on the glass. I thought that by spreading my fingers I would be able to hold all six against the glass. Menendez stood
up to look closely at the photos.

Almost immediately a voice boomed from an overhead speaker.

“Step back from the glass. Both of you step back from the glass and remain seated or the interview will be terminated.”

I shook my head and cursed. I gathered the photos together and sat down. Menendez sat back down as well.

“Guard!” I said loudly.

I looked at Menendez and waited. The guard didn’t enter the room.

“Guard!” I called again, louder.

Finally, the door opened and the guard stepped into my side of the interview room.

“You done?”

“No. I need him to look at these photos.”

I held up the stack.

“Show him through the glass. He’s not allowed to receive anything from you.”

“But I’m going to take them right back.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can’t give him anything.”

“But if you don’t let him come to the glass, how is he going to see them?”

“It’s not my problem.”

I waved in surrender.

“All right, okay. Then can you stay here for a minute?”

“What for?”

“I want you to watch this. I’m going to show him the photos and if he makes an ID, I want you to witness it.”

“Don’t drag me into your bullshit.”

He walked to the door and left.

“Goddamn it,” I said.

I looked at Menendez.

“All right, Jesus, I’m going to show you, anyway. See if you recognize any of them from where you are sitting.”

One by one I held the photos up about a foot from the glass. Menendez leaned forward. As I showed each of the first five he
looked, thought about it and then shook his head no. But on the sixth photo I saw his eyes flare. It seemed as though there
was some life in them after all.

“That one,” he said. “Is him.”

I turned the photo toward me to be sure. It was Roulet.

“I ’member,” Menendez said. “He’s the one.”

“And you’re sure?”

Menendez nodded.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I know. In here I think on that night all of my time.”

I nodded.

“Who is the man?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you right now. Just know that I am trying to get you out of here.”

“What do I do?”

“What you have been doing. Sit tight, be careful and stay safe.”

“Safe?”

“I know. But as soon as I have something, you will know about it. I’m trying to get you out of here, Jesus, but it might take
a little while.”