“And this was while he supposedly was holding a knife to your throat.”
“I wanted to live. You can do some amazing things when your life is in danger.”
She used her last defense. She started crying, as if my question had reawakened the horror of coming so close to death.
“You can sit down, Mr. Roulet. I have nothing else for Ms. Campo at this time, Your Honor.”
I took my seat next to Roulet. I felt the cross had gone well. My razor work had opened up a lot of wounds. The state’s case was bleeding. Roulet leaned over and whispered one word to me.“Brilliant!”
Minton went back in for a redirect but he was just a gnat flitting around an open wound. There was no going back on some of the answers his star witness had given, and there was no way to change some of the images I had planted in the jurors’ minds.
In ten minutes he was through and I waived off a recross, feeling that Minton had accomplished little during his second effort and I could leave well enough alone. The judge asked the prosecutor if he had any further witnesses and Minton said he would like to think about it through lunch before deciding whether to rest the state’s case.
Normally, I would have objected to this because I would want to know if I had to put a witness on the stand directly after lunch. But I let it go. I believed that Minton was feeling the pressure and was wavering. I wanted to push him toward a decision and thought maybe giving him the lunch hour would help.
The judge excused the jury to lunch, giving them only an hour instead of the usual ninety minutes. She was going to keep things moving. She said court would recess until 1:30 and then abruptly left the bench. She probably needed a cigarette, I guessed.
I asked Roulet if his mother could join us for lunch so that we could talk about her testimony, which I thought would come in the afternoon if not directly after lunch. He said he would arrange it and suggested we meet at a French restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. I told him we had less than an hour and that his mother should meet us at Four Green Fields. I didn’t like the idea of bringing them into my sanctuary but I knew we could eat there quickly and be back to court on time. The food probably wasn’t up to the standards of the French bistro on Ventura but I wasn’t worried about that.
When I got up and turned from the defense table, I saw the rows of the gallery were empty. Everybody had hustled out to lunch. Only Minton was waiting by the rail for me.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
“Sure.”
We waited until Roulet had gone through the gate and left the courtroom before either one of us spoke. I knew what was coming. It was customary for the prosecutor to throw out a low-ball disposition at the first sign of trouble. Minton knew he had trouble. The main-event witness was a draw at best.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I was thinking about what you said about the thousand razors.”
“And?”
“And, well, I want to make you an offer.”
“You’re new at this, kid. Don’t you need somebody in charge to approve a plea agreement?”
“I have some authority.”
“Okay, then give me what you are authorized to offer.”
“I’ll drop it all down to an aggravated assault with GBI.”
“And?”
“I’ll go down to four.”
The offer was a substantial reduction but Roulet, if he took it, would still be sentenced to four years in prison. The main concession was that it knocked the case out of sex crime status. Roulet would not have to register with local authorities as a sex offender after he got out of prison.
I looked at him as if he had just insulted my mother’s memory.
“I think that’s a little strong, Ted, considering how your ace just held up on the stand. Did you see the juror who is always carrying the Bible? He looked like he was about to shit the Good Book when she was testifying.”
Minton didn’t respond. I could tell he hadn’t even noticed a juror carrying a Bible.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s my duty to bring your offer to my client and I will do that. But I’m also going to tell him he’d be a fool to take it.”
“Okay, then, what do you want?”
