“Okay.” Carla was not entirely satisfied, but she was still pretty pleased.
Anna gaped at her boss and McFadden. “But—I’ve never tried a homicide.”
“You’ve got to learn sometime,” Carla said, “and Jack is an excellent teacher.”
Carla could be gracious now that she’d won.
Anna looked around the room. Should she tell these people about her relationship with the defense attorney? These were the highest-ranking prosecutors in her office, mostly stern silver-haired men. She couldn’t imagine telling them the intimate details of her love life. But she wasn’t sure she could accept the case and still stay with Nick.
She opened her mouth, but Jack protested before she could say a word.
“Listen, Joe,” Jack said. “This isn’t going to fly. Working a homicide case is a tremendous responsibility. It has to be earned. There are dozens of experienced attorneys who would love to handle this case. Besides, Detective McGee and I have already started it. SWAT’s gearing up, and we’re about to go execute warrants on the suspect’s home.”
“Good,” the U.S. Attorney replied, standing up. The meeting was over. “I hope you brought a bulletproof vest in a size small. Take your second chair with you.”
11
Anna trotted wretchedly after Jack as he walked out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and into the humid summer morning. He hadn’t said a word to her. He strode across the brick plaza and up to a navy blue Crown Victoria parked at the curb. A man built like Santa Claus, but with skin the color of espresso beans, was leaning against the trunk of the car. The big man stood up as he saw Jack approaching.
“Hey, Chief,” he called in a deep, gravelly voice. “What took so long?”
“We have an addition today.” Jack turned and addressed Anna for the first time. “Anna Curtis, this is Detective Tavon McGee. McGee, this is Anna Curtis . . . my second chair.”
“Second chair, huh?” McGee smirked at Jack. “They think you’re losing your edge?”
“Something like that,” Jack muttered.
“Nice to meet you, Counselor.” McGee gave Anna a meaty handshake and a warm smile. She was surprised to see that his two front teeth were missing. The gummy grin gave him an endearing, babyish look, although he was probably in his fifties. He wore a black six-button suit with lime green pinstripes, a lime green shirt, and a shiny tie with a swirling lime-on-lime pattern. A black fedora perched on his head. In that outfit, he could only be a homicide detective.
McGee opened the car’s front passenger door and ceremoniously gestured for Anna to take a seat. She shook her head quickly.
“No! Thanks, though.”
On top of everything she’d done to piss off the Homicide chief, she wasn’t about to claim shotgun. She climbed into the backseat. McGee made an even more elaborate Vanna White gesture for Jack to get into the front passenger seat. Jack sighed and climbed in.
As the unmarked police car careened onto the I-395 ramp, Anna tried to keep herself from sliding back and forth across the shiny faux leather seats. McGee started updating Jack on the Laprea Johnson investigation. From the backseat, the conversation was barely audible over the blaring sirens. Anna felt like a kid trying to listen in on her parents.
“Body turned up yesterday afternoon,” McGee shouted over the sirens. “Coupla kids going through a trash heap behind Davis’s building got the shock of their lives. Perp wrapped her body in black plastic garbage bags and dumped her in the heap.”
“Cause of death?” Jack asked.
“Looks like blunt force trauma to the head, but we’re still waiting on the ME’s report. No obvious gunshot or stab wounds. She was beat up bad. Bruises all over her chest and arms, face looks like a war zone.”
Anna felt sick.
“She didn’t have any ID on her, so it took a minute to connect the body to a missing person’s report from her mother.”
“Did you find the witness who called 911?” Jack said.
“Yeah, guy named Ernie Jones. Good citizen—steady job, no record. Cooperative.”
“Wonders never cease. How come there wasn’t a police report?”
“Busy night.” McGee swerved around a cluster of slower cars. “Uniform got there half an hour after the call. By that time, no one was around—turns out Jones went to work. There was nothing to report.”
“Jury’s gonna love that.”
“They want better service, they should hire more cops.”
“Positive ID on the body?”
“The mother, this morning.”
Anna cringed at the image of Rose at the morgue, seeing her battered daughter laid out on one of the cold steel tables.
She vividly remembered the first time she’d met Laprea and her mother, in the basement of the courthouse. Rose had said that it would be Anna’s fault if Laprea were killed. Anna agreed with that. The mantra that had been running through her head repeated itself: This is my fault.
She looked out the window as McGee drove. The drive from the sparkling downtown to the poorest section of the city always felt surprisingly short. As a matter of geography, the two neighborhoods were a few miles apart. As a matter of class, race, and economics, they were different worlds.
When the highway split, McGee veered onto I-295, leaving behind the wealthy Northwest quadrant of the city: the world of postcard-perfect white monuments, the centers of government power, the arrogant glass office buildings housing the country’s most influential law firms, media outlets, and think tanks. The Anacostia Freeway took them over the muddy brown Anacostia River and into the part of the city that tourists on bus tours didn’t see, the part that helped D.C. become “the murder capital of America” in the 1990s. Fancy condos became low brick apartment buildings, sagging public housing complexes, and modest row houses, some with plywood-covered windows, although they were occupied. Office buildings were replaced with pawnshops, check-cashing outlets, and liquor stores, or just boarded-up storefronts. The few working businesses covered their windows in metal bars and their counters in bulletproof glass. Children played in vacant dirt yards, alleyways, and between parked cars. These places were just as safe as the playgrounds, which were often controlled by drug dealers. Parts of Anacostia were like a slice of the Third World, steps away from the most powerful people and institutions in America.
As they pulled into a narrower street, McGee cut the sirens and turned off the police lights. The car sped silently through residential streets lined with squat brick apartment buildings. As the car rounded a corner onto Alabama Avenue, Anna’s cell phone rang. It was Nick. She saw Jack looking at her in the rearview mirror.
“You need to turn that off,” he said.
She quickly powered off the phone, glad the Homicide chief couldn’t see who’d been calling.
In that instant, she knew she’d made a decision. She was going to prosecute the case, regardless of Nick. There was no other way she could respond to the image of Laprea’s shattered body—of Rose identifying the remains of her only daughter—of the two motherless children. Anna couldn’t undo her mistakes, but she could make sure the killer was punished. She hoped Nick wouldn’t defend D’marco; she hoped he would have the decency to decline the homicide case. If he did take it, though, she’d face that dilemma then. She wasn’t going to tell anyone about their relationship—she wasn’t going to say anything that would jeopardize her position on the case. She owed it to Laprea’s family.
McGee pulled up behind two white vans. D’marco’s apartment building was ahead on their right. The structure was replicated throughout this neighborhood: a low brick box surrounded by a chain-link fence. It was a quiet summer morning and few people were out. Most of the windows had their blinds pulled. It seemed inappropriate that birds were chirping, under the circumstances.
“SWAT’s waiting on us.” McGee nodded toward the vans.
Jack rolled up his shirtsleeves. He still wore his tie, but had left his suit jacket back at the office. He turned back to address An
na. “We’ll be in the van during the police’s initial entry into Davis’s apartment. When SWAT gives us the all clear, we’ll go in. When we do that, don’t touch anything. Stay out of the officers’ way. And stay with me at all times. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Bailey.” She understood that he didn’t want her here.
Anna followed the men out of the car, half running to keep up with them. A van door slid open and they climbed in. The van smelled of sweat and metal. Anna found herself in a tiny space crowded with men dressed in black paramilitary uniforms, complete with high-top boots, bulletproof vests, and helmets with the visors pushed back on their heads. The weapons holstered at the officers’ sides and clamped onto the walls included the usual service revolvers, but also assault rifles and one shotgun. This was the Special Weapons and Tactics team—SWAT.
Someone handed Anna a black bulletproof vest with POLICE emblazoned in tall white letters across the chest and back. Anna watched how McGee and Jack fastened theirs and she did the same, pulling it over her black suit jacket. She tightened the Velcro straps as far as they would go, but it was still too loose on her.
Only then did it register what the officers were about to do—storm into D’marco’s house to arrest him. The vest was because they thought he might shoot at them. Anna’s head and neck suddenly felt very bare and exposed.
Jack showed his arrest and search warrants to the head of the SWAT team, a seasoned sergeant named John Ashton. Sergeant Ashton showed Jack the floor plans of the apartment. SWAT had done its homework. They knew which apartments were occupied and which residents had criminal records. They knew exactly where D’marco’s unit was and how it was laid out. The two men grumbled about the fact that it was already so late in the morning. They preferred to serve warrants before dawn, surprising their sleeping target. Still, they agreed, it was better to do the search now than to wait another twenty hours.
At a signal from Sergeant Ashton, the SWAT team started moving in silence. The officers pulled down their visors, and one picked up a large shield mounted on one of the van’s walls. They piled out of the vehicle, silently meeting a fleet of SWAT members pouring out of the second white van. Their movements choreographed, the men formed a snakelike column behind the man holding the shield. The man at the front of the line was peering through a narrow window in the middle of the shield, so he could see as he walked forward. The rest of the men walked crouching behind the leader. Anna stayed in the van with Jack and McGee as the SWAT team trooped into D’marco’s building.
• • •
Sergeant Ashton led his men to the stairwell, which echoed with a dozen boots clomping up. They trotted to the second floor and marched through the shabby hallway straight to D’marco’s apartment. Ashton knocked sharply on the door. “Police! We have a warrant!” There was no answer. “Police! Open up!” He waited several seconds. Then he tried the door—it was locked. He nodded to the two men holding a battering ram. They counted off quietly as they swung it at the door, gathering momentum with each swing. One . . . two . . . three! The officers slammed the ram into the door, breaking it down on the first hit, and then jumped back. Ashton threw a flash-bang grenade into the apartment and then pressed himself against the hallway wall.
Bam! An explosion shook the thin walls and a burst of light came from the doorway. The flash-bang didn’t blow anything up, but would temporarily stun and disorient anyone in its vicinity. The officer with the shield rushed into the apartment, followed closely by an officer with a shotgun. The man with the shield stopped and rested the bottom of the shield on the floor; the officer behind him propped the shotgun on top of the shield. The men were protected behind the shield, and if there were a problem, one blast from the shotgun would take out many people.
The rest of the SWAT team poured in behind the shield, ready to grab anyone inside while they were still dazed from the flash-bang. Pointing their guns ahead of them, the officers yelled, “Police, put your hands up!”
But there was no one inside to follow their command. The man with the shield stepped aside. The officers looked in every room and closet, under the bed, behind every curtain.
The apartment was empty.
• • •
Back in the van, Anna sat on a fold-out bench across from Jack and Detective McGee. There was nothing they could do until they got the all clear from the guys inside. She looked around the van. Jack was absentmindedly turning a knob on the SWAT radio. He appeared calm and unconcerned. In fact, he looked as tough as any lawyer she’d ever seen, with his shaved head and his broad chest filling out the police vest. Then Anna noticed a slight shimmer of sweat on his brown forehead. He must just be hot from sitting in the stuffy van, she decided. She couldn’t imagine that Jack Bailey was as nervous as she was.
Anna wondered whether Nick knew that the police were raiding his client’s apartment. Just then, Jack’s green eyes sliced to hers. Her heart skipped; she felt as if Jack had read her mind and caught her thinking about Nick. She blinked and looked at McGee, whose seat sagged under his weight. The detective was mopping sweat from his forehead with a lime green handkerchief. He winked and flashed her a grin. She nodded back, wondering what the story was behind those two missing front teeth.
The radio crackled to life. “All clear!” a voice yelled through the speaker.
Jack and McGee hopped out of the vehicle and strode toward the building. Anna wasn’t surprised to see Jack move fast, but McGee was unexpectedly nimble for such a big man, especially wearing the heavy bulletproof vest. Anna hesitated. Jack turned back and looked at the young woman still crouching in the van. “Come on, second chair,” he called, almost suppressing the note of amusement in his voice. Anna took a deep breath and hurried after them.
The SWAT team started searching the apartment as soon as McGee stepped into it. McGee was the point man; now that the apartment was cleared, his job was to coordinate the search and catalog every item the police seized. He pointed at an open box of documents in a corner, then to a woman’s purse, sitting next to the couch. An officer photographed the items as they were originally found, then brought the items to McGee. McGee settled his big body into a chair at a small kitchen table and started sorting through the items, listing on a police form where they had been found and what was inside them. While he wrote, other officers started bringing him items from the other rooms: women’s clothing from the bedroom, a bottle of Wild Turkey from the bathroom. McGee listed everything in neat round letters on the form, then he bagged the items in clear police evidence bags. He was meticulous and efficient, cataloging each item like a scientist on an archaeological dig. In between writing, he called out orders to the SWAT officers.
“Over there.” McGee pointed at the couch. A couple of officers looked under the cushions. Finding nothing, they tipped the couch over, exposing the carpet underneath it. There were just a few coins and potato chip crumbs.
McGee emptied the purse onto the table and ordered the crime-scene technician to photograph the contents. Then he started writing everything down. One lipstick, CoverGirl. One package of chewing gum, Trident. One cellular phone, Nextel. One wallet containing $47.32, one D.C. identification card in the name of Laprea Keisha Johnson, two credit cards in her name, one family photo, and three business cards: one from Officer Bradley Green, one from Ebonique Nail Salon, and one from AUSA Anna Curtis. McGee carefully described every item in his police inventory sheet.
Anna looked at the contents of the purse over McGee’s shoulder. She remembered when she gave Laprea her business card. She noticed Green’s card even had his personal cell number scribbled on the bottom. Neither card had done Laprea much good.
Anna picked up the family photo. It was a recent Sears photograph of Laprea and D’marco, sitting with the twins posed on their laps. Laprea smiled broadly at her from the photo; they looked like a happy family. Anna hoped no one saw her wiping the tears from her eyes.
Jack came out of the bedroom and saw Anna holding the picture. “Anna, p
lease don’t touch anything,” he said with barely concealed annoyance. She dropped the photo and backed miserably into a corner.
Jack walked toward the kitchen and stood watching the officers searching there. They were looking for black garbage bags, the kind Laprea’s body had been wrapped in. The SWAT team emptied the drawers and cabinets, pulling out silverware and dishes, cans of soup and takeout packages of soy sauce. A silk rose in a plastic container sat on the counter. No garbage bags, though. The trash can was lined with a paper grocery bag.
McGee finished cataloging the evidence that had been brought to him and started walking around the apartment. His eyes didn’t miss anything. When he got to the entranceway, he knelt down and looked at a pattern of rust-colored spots on the gray carpet. Bloodstains. “Crime Scene!” McGee bellowed. The crime-scene technician came over and nodded. The tech set a card with the number 1 next to the stain, and took photos of it from multiple angles before kneeling down to cut patches of the stained carpet and put them into a sterile brown paper bag.
McGee stepped outside the apartment, and looked for more stains in the hallway. A pattern of rusty spots was visible on the filthy carpet. McGee pointed it out to the crime-scene technician. The tech put down a card with the number 2 by the patches and repeated the process. They would test all of these swatches to determine if they held Laprea’s blood.
It was a small apartment, and after an hour, they’d found everything they were going to find. The search was done; now they just needed to execute the arrest warrant. Jack turned to Sergeant Ashton and they started talking about how to locate and arrest D’marco Davis.
“A few officers will stay here and stake out the building,” Ashton said. “A few will try his grandmother’s house.”
“Good,” Jack said. “I spoke to his probation officer. Davis has an appointment on Thursday. In the unlikely event that he shows up, he’ll be arrested there.”
Law of Attraction Page 9
