“The defense calls Louis Ross Roulet, Your Honor.”
THIRTY-SIX
Louis Roulet moved toward the witness box quickly, like a basketball player pulled off the bench and sent to the scorer’s table to check into the game. He looked like a man anxious for the opportunity to defend himself. He knew this posture would not be lost on the jury.
After dispensing with the preliminaries, I got right down to the issues of the case. Under my questioning Roulet freely admitted that he had gone to Morgan’s on the night of March 6 to seek female companionship. He said he wasn’t specifically looking to engage the services of a prostitute but was not against the possibility.
“I had been with women I had to pay before,” he said. “So I wouldn’t have been against it.”
He testified that he had no conscious eye contact with Regina Campo before she approached him at the bar. He said that she was the aggressor but at the time that didn’t bother him. He said the solicitation was open-ended. She said she would be free after ten and he could come by if he was not otherwise engaged.
Roulet described efforts made over the next hour at Morgan’s and then at the Lamplighter to find a woman he would not have to pay but said he was unsuccessful. He then drove to the address Campo had given him and knocked on the door.
“Who answered?”
“She did. She opened the door a crack and looked out at me.”
“ Regina Campo? The woman who testified this morning?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Could you see her whole face through the opening in the door?”
“No. She only opened up a crack and I couldn’t see her. Only her left eye and a little bit of that side of her face.”
“How did the door open? Was this crack through which you could see her on the right or left side?”
“As I was looking at the door the opening would have been on the right.”
“So let’s make sure we make this clear. The opening was on the right, correct?”
“Correct.”
“So if she were standing behind the door and looking through the opening, she would be looking at you with her left eye.”
“That is correct.”
“Did you see her right eye?”
“No.”
“So if she had a bruise or a cut or any damage on the right side of her face, could you have seen it?”
“No.”
“Okay. So what happened next?”
“She saw it was me and she said come in. She opened the door wider but still sort of stood behind it.”
“You couldn’t see her?”
“Not completely. She was using the edge of the door as sort of a block.”
“What happened next?”
“Well, it was kind of like an entry area, a vestibule, and she pointed through an archway to the living room. I went the way she pointed.”
“Did this mean that she was then behind you?”
“Yes, when I turned toward the living room she was behind me.”
“Did she close the door?”
“I think so. I heard it close.”
“And then what?”
“Something hit me on the back of my head and I went down. I blacked out.”
“Do you know how long you were out?”
“No. I think it was a while but none of the police or anybody ever told me.”
“What do you remember when you regained consciousness?”
“I remember having a hard time breathing and when I opened my eyes, there was somebody sitting on me. I was on my back and he was sitting on me. I tried to move and that was when I realized somebody was sitting on my legs, too.”
“What happened next?”
“They took turns telling me not to move and one of them told me they had my knife and if I tried to move or escape he would use it on me.”
“Did there come a time that the police came and you were arrested?”
“Yes, a few minutes later the police were there. They handcuffed me and made me stand up. That was when I saw I had blood on my jacket.”
“What about your hand?”
“I couldn’t see it because it was handcuffed behind my back. But I heard one of the men who had been sitting on me tell the police officer that there was blood on my hand and then the officer put a bag over it. I felt that.”
“How did the blood get on your hand and jacket?”
“All I know is that somebody put it on there because I didn’t.”
“Are you left-handed?”
“No, I am not.”
“You didn’t strike Ms. Campo with your left fist?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you threaten to rape her?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you tell her you were going to kill her if she didn’t cooperate with you?”
“No, I did not.”
I was hoping for some of the fire I had seen on that first day in C. C. Dobbs’s office but Roulet was calm and controlled. I decided that before I finished with him on direct I needed to push things a little to get some of that anger back. I had told him at lunch I wanted to see it and wasn’t sure what he was doing or where it had gone.
“Are you angry about being charged with attacking Ms. Campo?”
“Of course I am.”
“Why?”
He opened his mouth but didn’t speak. He seemed outraged that I would ask such a question. Finally, he responded.
“What do you mean, why? Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do and there’s nothing you can do about it but wait? Just wait for weeks and months until you finally get a chance to go to court and say you’ve been set up. But then you have to wait even longer while the prosecutor puts on a bunch of liars and you have to listen to their lies and just wait your chance. Of course it makes you angry. I am innocent! I did not do this!”
It was perfect. To the point and playing to anybody who had ever been falsely accused of anything. There was more I could ask but I reminded myself of the rule: get in and get out. Less is always more. I sat down. If I decided there was anything I had missed I would clean it up on redirect.
I looked at the judge.
“Nothing further, Your Honor.”
Minton was up and ready before I even got back to my seat. He moved to the lectern without breaking his steely glare away from Roulet. He was showing the jury what he thought of this man. His eyes were like lasers shooting across the room. He gripped the sides of the lectern so hard his knuckles were white. It was all a show for
