Law of Attraction

by Allison Leotta

  “I’m sorry, boys, I been running off at the mouth. You could use something to drink, coming out here on such a hot day. There’s lemonade in the fridge. Brad, you know where the cups at, right? Could you get four of them and the lemonade?”

  Green nodded and went to the kitchen, obviously relieved to have an assignment. Rose turned to Jack. “He’s a good officer. Always looking after us, stopping by to make sure everything all right.”

  Jack nodded. “Officer Green’s an excellent community policeman.”

  “He came up around here, right?” asked Rose.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say around here.” Jack smiled wryly; Anna recalled that Jack had grown up in this neighborhood himself. “I think Officer Green came up in the ’burbs—maybe Silver Spring? He played football for the University of Maryland for a year or so.”

  Rose leaned forward, interested. “For real?”

  “Yeah, he was the kicker during my senior year.”

  “I bet he was good.”

  “He was pretty good. I remember when he scored the winning field goal against Virginia Tech in the last few seconds. The team carried him off on their shoulders. He was something of a local celebrity after that. Till he got injured—tore his ACL, I think. That was the end of his football career.”

  “Mm,” Rose murmured, looking toward the kitchen, smiling. The idea of Green as a football hero clearly appealed to her.

  Anna followed Rose’s gaze and watched Green puttering around the kitchen. He didn’t look like a football hero now. Although he still had bright blue eyes and plenty of cropped light brown hair, he also had that little potbelly straining against his uniform shirt, and his pink face was getting puffy, cushioned under an expanding layer of fat. Time had taken its toll. Anna guessed how hard it must have been for Green to suddenly lose his star athlete status—and how being a cop had probably filled some of that void. The MPD uniform wouldn’t attract anything near the glory of a Terrapin football jersey, but it did get the attention and respect of many women, and garnered a lot of perks from the shops and businesses where an officer patrolled. Green had probably been an indifferent student, Anna thought, somewhat lost in the huge campus when he was no longer a football player—but as a police officer he could still be a local hero.

  Jack turned the conversation to the subject they’d come here for. “I’d like to talk to you about our investigation. Anna and I will be following all possible leads. As part of that, we’d like you to come to the Grand Jury next week.”

  “Whatever I can do to help.” Rose nodded nervously. “Do you think you’ll catch D’marco soon?”

  “The police are doing everything they can.”

  Hearing this, D’marco smiled, even as he crouched lower. He could hear the police officer opening the fridge on the other side of the brick wall. D’marco nudged the kids back to their toy cars. He didn’t want their silence to get Rose’s attention.

  “Go on and play,” he whispered. “I’ll watch.”

  Inside, Jack was explaining Rose’s role in the case. “We’ll need you to establish the time that Laprea left the house the night she was killed. And where she was going.”

  “She said she was going to D’marco’s house,” Rose answered quietly.

  Jack nodded and continued asking questions about that night. Despite her grief, Rose was clear and concise, easily remembering the details.

  “I know this is hard to talk about,” Jack said. “But you’re doing great. You’re going to be a fine witness.”

  “We might also have you talk about the previous times that D’marco hit Laprea,” Anna added. “There’s a good chance the prior assaults will be admitted at the trial.”

  “Plenty of those.” Rose shook her head. “I was always afraid this would happen. I don’t know why that girl couldn’t stay away from that man. Probably the same reason I couldn’t stay away from her father.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what was her father like?” Anna asked.

  “A lot like D’marco. In and out of jail. Charming when he wanted to be. Mean when he drank. He would smack me around, in front of Laprea sometimes. He’s in prison now, won’t get out till 2020 or something.”

  Anna nodded at the familiar story. Green came out of the kitchen with a carton of lemonade and four plastic tumblers filled with ice. He set them on the coffee table. Rose poured lemonade into the cups and handed Anna one. Anna took a sip, formulating her next question. There was no delicate way to get around it.

  “Ms. Johnson,” Anna asked, “do you know whether Laprea was dating anybody besides D’marco?”

  On the porch, D’marco sat up straighter and strained to hear. That was why he’d come here, to ask the twins that very question. This could be the jackpot.

  “No, I sure don’t,” Rose said as she handed cups to Jack and Green. On the porch, D’marco slumped back against the brick wall in frustration. “Not that she would’ve told me. Why do you ask?”

  Anna paused and looked at Jack. Someone had to tell Rose that Laprea had been pregnant. Anna dreaded doing it. Poor Rose! One blow after another. But she had to know. Jack nodded: Anna was the best person to break the news.

  “Laprea was sixteen weeks pregnant when she died,” Anna said gently. “The timing makes it impossible that D’marco was the father.”

  Rose’s eyes got wide and her hand froze with the juice carton in midair. “Oh, Lord,” she said at last, thumping the carton to the table. Her eyes brimmed over with tears. Anna squeezed Rose’s arm.

  On the porch, D’marco stared blankly ahead, in shock. The twins, who weren’t paying attention to what was being said inside, were playing with their cars. Finally, he turned to Dameka.

  “Baby girl,” D’marco said softly, “you know if Mommy had any friends? Man friends?”

  Dameka stopped moving her car along the track and looked at him nervously. She knew that talk of other men never led to anywhere but trouble in her house. She shook her head silently. D’Montrae mirrored her movement.

  Inside, Rose was wiping her eyes with a tissue. “Can you do a paternity test and find out who the father was?” she asked.

  “It’s not that simple,” Jack explained. “The scientists can’t just look at the fetus’s DNA and determine who the father was. They need to compare the child’s DNA to a suspected father’s DNA. We’ll have the FBI determine Laprea and the baby’s DNA profiles, and then run them through CODIS—that’s a national database of the DNA profiles of convicted felons. If the child’s father is in CODIS, we’ll be notified that there’s a match. But if he’s not, then DNA doesn’t tell us anything until we have a potential father to test.”

  “I see.”

  “How are the twins doing?” Anna asked, to direct the poor woman’s thoughts away from the grandchild she’d never meet.

  “They okay. I’m not sure they really understand she ain’t coming back.”

  “They’re so lucky to have you,” Anna said softly.

  “I’ll call them in.” Rose turned to the kitchen window. “Dameka! D’montrae! Babies, come inside!”

  On the porch, the twins stood still, looking at their father, wondering what to do. D’marco pushed the children toward the kitchen door. “Go on,” he whispered, trying not to panic. “Just don’t tell your gramma I’m here.” He held the screwdriver tightly beside his leg.

  The twins walked uncertainly into the house. D’marco closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his head back against the brick wall. A thin trickle of sweat dripped from his forehead into his eye. He should run, he knew it. But he wanted to hear what the police and prosecutors said.

  “Say hello to Miss Curtis, Mr. Bailey, and Officer Green,” Rose instructed the twins as they filed into the living room. Dameka and D’montrae obeyed, giving the visitors shy glances and quiet hellos as they hovered by Rose’s legs.

  “Hey, I have something for you,” Green told them. He pulled two colorful patches with the Metropolitan Police Department seal out of his pocket. He hel
d them out, and the twins ran over to him. “Here you go.”

  “Cool!” D’montrae exclaimed, grabbing his MPD patch.

  “Wow!” cried Dameka. She turned to the back of the house and ran toward the kitchen. “Daddy! Daddy!” she cried. “Look what I got!”

  Anna, Jack, Green, and Rose looked at each other for a stunned second. Daddy? Then Green was on his feet, running through the living room, knocking two cups of lemonade off the coffee table as he rushed past Dameka.

  As Green threw the kitchen door open, Anna could see D’marco running through Rose’s backyard, flying over the small lawn like an Olympic sprinter. By the time Green’s feet flew down the porch steps and hit the grass, D’marco was jumping over the fence into the alleyway. Anna and Jack followed Green through the porch.

  Green got to the fence as D’marco threw himself into the driver’s seat of the Corolla. D’marco jammed the screwdriver in the ignition, frantically trying to hit the sweet spot. The car roared to life. Green stopped a few feet in front of the car. He braced his feet wide apart, pulled out his Glock, and pointed the gun at the windshield.

  “Stop!” Green yelled. “Police! Get outta the car!”

  D’marco threw the car into gear, ducked his head down, and floored it. The Corolla hurtled toward the officer.

  Green held his ground and squeezed the trigger, firing several shots at the approaching car. Four percussive blasts echoed through the alleyway. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Anna and Jack, who had reached the lawn, dove to the ground. The shots cracked D’marco’s windshield in two places and blew out a tire, and the car started swerving. But no bullets hit D’marco. He kept the gas pedal pressed to the floorboard. Green leaped out of the way of the speeding car at the last minute.

  The car fishtailed as it passed Green. Anna raised her head from the ground and watched in horror as the car’s trunk swung toward the officer. A moment before the trunk slammed him into Rose’s fence, Green jumped back, avoiding the swerving vehicle. The screech of metal scraping metal pierced the air and the fence buckled into a crooked V. D’marco hit the gas even harder and managed to keep the car going, although now it was swerving wildly because of the blown-out tire. He accelerated the old car as fast as it would go down the alleyway.

  “Fuck!” Green cursed under his breath. He clambered back over the lopsided fence into Rose’s yard and sprinted back to the house. Jack and Anna ran after him. “Call 911!” Green shouted to Rose as the three of them ran up her porch and through her house. The officer slipped on the lemonade and ice cubes spilled on the wood floor of the living room, but Jack put out a hand to hold him up, and Green stayed upright.

  The three of them ran out of the front door to Green’s squad car, as Rose picked up her kitchen phone and punched in 911. The children stood leaning against each other in the kitchen looking back and forth between the front and back doors with astonished, wide-eyed stares.

  Green chirped the police cruiser open. His hand closed over the driver’s door handle a moment before Jack’s was on the passenger’s and Anna’s was on the back door. “Stay here!” Jack shouted to Anna, but she was already throwing herself into the backseat as Green started the car.

  Green screeched away from the curb, leaving black skid marks on the pavement and the smell of burning rubber in the air. Anna was thrown across the seat; she had to use the metal cage separating the backseat from the front to pull herself upright.

  The cruiser’s sirens blared, as Green yelled for backup on his radio. He careened the car around the corner onto Texas Avenue, toward the mouth of the alleyway that D’marco had been driving out of. As they rounded the corner, Anna could see D’marco’s car ahead on Texas Avenue, speeding down the street, swerving wildly between the four lanes as he struggled to keep the damaged vehicle under control.

  Green raced after him. D’marco’s car veered back and forth on the street, scraping a car parked on the right side of the road and then careening toward an SUV driving toward them on the left. The Corolla swerved in time to avoid the oncoming truck, but then bashed another car parked on the right. It looked like he was playing bumper cars.

  Anna caught a glimpse of Green’s face as he steered the police cruiser around the debris left in the Corolla’s wake. He wore a look of extreme concentration—and complete joy. The sirens blasting, the car barreling down the street, the radio squawking as other officers barked that they were on their way—he was loving it.

  The Corolla turned suddenly off the main artery onto a smaller street. Green spun the steering wheel around to follow him. D’marco blew through several stop signs, then turned again. He was trying to lose them in the labyrinth of small streets, but he wasn’t able to build up enough speed in his battered car.

  As another turn sent her skittering across the backseat, Anna went to buckle her seat belt, but remembered there weren’t any back here. She braced her hands against the cage in front of her and briefly wondered what the hell was she doing here. She was a lawyer, not a cop; she should be back at Rose’s house, calling 911 and waiting to make a police report. That thought evaporated when D’marco’s car seemed to pull farther away from them.

  “Faster!” Anna yelled to Green. “Go! Go!”

  They were coming up on an open yard near a public housing complex; a bunch of kids in white T-shirts were hanging out on either side of the street. When they heard the sirens, the younger kids yelled, “Po-po! Po-po!” A few boys threw ziplock baggies to the ground or walked quickly in the other direction. But when they saw that the police cruiser was chasing another car—that it wouldn’t stop for them—they gathered at the curb to watch.

  As they drove past the kids, Green slowed down, and Anna saw that the boys were screaming, waving their arms, cheering and booing. They seemed to be rooting for D’marco, she thought. That was confirmed when an aluminum can struck the cruiser’s windshield.

  “Fuck you, 5-0!” a kid yelled.

  Then a bunch of the kids were throwing stuff at the police car, rocks and glass bottles and trash. It was a small thunderstorm of garbage and curses. Anna ducked as a rock hit the side window near her face, spreading a web-shaped crack along the glass. Green kept driving, and then the kids were behind them.

  They tailed D’marco through a few more turns, then they were heading back in the direction they’d just come from, and the side street was about to end at the intersection of Texas Avenue. When D’marco reached the big street, he tried to turn left. Green yanked the wheel to follow him. But D’marco’s maimed car couldn’t handle the sharp turn, and it spun out in the middle of the intersection.

  Green hit the brakes, but couldn’t stop in time. The cruiser smashed squarely into the passenger side of the Corolla, T-boning it, plowing the car to the side of the road, where the concrete curb stopped it. There was a screeching crash of metal as the two vehicles crumpled into each other.

  Anna was thrown forward by the impact. Her chest and face hit the metal cage despite her braced arms, and she landed halfway between the seat and the floor. Then there was stillness.

  Anna sprawled, dazed and disoriented. The only sound was the hissing coming from the police cruiser’s engine. With effort, she pulled herself up. Her breath was knocked out, but she wasn’t hurt. She looked to the men in the front seat. No one had been wearing a seat belt. Green was lifting his head slowly from the steering wheel, and Jack had a bleeding cut over his left eye.

  “Are you okay?” Jack slowly turned back to ask her.

  “Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “You?”

  Jack nodded, then closed his eyes.

  Green shook his head to clear it, and looked at the Corolla ahead of them. As the officer tried to focus on the car, D’marco bailed out of it and started limping down Texas Avenue. Green cursed, climbed out of the police car, staggered for a moment, and then hobbled after the suspect.

  D’marco looked back and broke into a limping run. Jack groaned and climbed out of the car, heading to follow Green. Anna tried to
get out of the backseat, but she was locked in. She banged on the window and Jack turned back and opened her door.

  Anna climbed out of the police cruiser and looked down Texas Avenue. D’marco and Green had picked up speed and were jogging down the street. “Come on!” she yelled to Jack, and ran after Green. After a moment of surprise, Jack ran after her. D’marco Davis and Officer Green were already two blocks ahead of them.

  The street had small homes on the left and a wooded park on the right. As D’marco ran left onto Ridge Road, Jack grabbed Anna’s arm and steered her up the driveway of a house on their left. At the end of the drive was a dirt track through the trees behind the houses. Anna never would have noticed it herself.

  The track opened into the backyards of some single-family homes on Ridge Road. Anna and Jack ran to the side of a house, where Jack stopped and put out his arm for Anna to stop, too.

  Jack’s eyes darted around the side of the house until they landed on a couple of metal trash cans. He pulled the lid off one of the cans and gestured for Anna to press herself up against the brick wall so that D’marco, running up from the right, wouldn’t see her. Then Jack crept up the driveway of the house, using the cars parked in the driveway to shield him from D’marco’s view. Jack crouched behind a car that was parked by the sidewalk.

  Anna strained to hear anything, but only heard the shouts of some kids playing down the block. She wondered if D’marco had veered off in another direction. Then she heard the faint sound of irregular running footsteps crunching up the sidewalk from the right. The footsteps grew louder and more distinct until she could hear D’marco’s heavy breathing. Jack lifted the garbage lid to his shoulder, sprung onto the sidewalk, and braced himself.