Law of Attraction

by Allison Leotta

  “True.”

  “Did anyone besides Witness One see or hear anything unusual that night?”

  “So far, we haven’t spoken to any other neighbors who admit they saw or heard anything.”

  “Fifty units, and not one person saw the alleged murder? How many of the residents have you spoken to?”

  “Objection,” Anna asserted as she stood up. Typically, she wouldn’t object to this line of questioning, and she was aware that Nick had sat through her entire direct examination without objecting. But now was not the time to do him any favors. Nick wasn’t entitled yet to details about who the government had spoken to or when they’d spoken to them. Later, she’d have to turn everything over. For now, she just needed to put forth enough evidence to show that D’marco Davis had committed the crime. “This doesn’t go to probable cause and it’s beyond the scope of the direct examination.”

  Nick glanced over, as if surprised to see her standing there. Her objection had broken the rhythm of his questioning. He almost looked hurt. Sorry, Nick, she thought, but this is how it’s gonna be.

  “Sustained.” The judge broke their tension without realizing it. Anna sat down.

  “Very well,” Nick said. He shuffled some papers, gaining a minute to get himself back on track.

  Anna listened carefully as Nick moved to his next question. She was on full alert now. She couldn’t let him get away with anything just because she still cared about him. Especially because she still cared about him. As soon as Nick asked another technically objectionable question, she was on her feet. She knew she was being unusually aggressive with her objections. Better to be too aggressive, she thought, than not aggressive enough.

  Finally, Nick was done. Anna sat back, satisfied. She had kept him to the bare minimum of information he was entitled to at this hearing.

  Nick sat down and shot Anna a look; she was surprised to see that it was a little grin. He knew that any other prosecutor would have been more relaxed, and her zealousness amused him. His smile was infectious, and she had to fight back her own grin. She imagined the teasing he would have given her tonight—if they were still talking.

  “I find there is probable cause to believe that the defendant committed the charged crime,” the judge was saying. “And because this crime was committed while he was on probation, there are no conditions I can impose that would guarantee the safety of the community. The defendant will be held in jail until his trial next spring.”

  As the marshal led D’marco back to the holding cell behind the courtroom, the reporters turned to wait for the lawyers in the hall. Anna caught a glimpse of one of the artists’ sketches. She’d been portrayed as Barbie-Goes-to-Court, with big melony breasts straining the buttons of her suit. She looked down at her chest with amusement, as if the sketch artists might have noticed something she’d missed all these years.

  When she looked up, Nick was standing at the prosecution’s table, addressing Jack. Nick wanted something, but he understood now that he would not get a sympathetic audience with Anna. He handed an envelope to Jack.

  “That’s my initial discovery request,” Nick said. “It’s the usual stuff. And I’m requesting that the fetus’s DNA profile be run through CODIS.”

  So, Anna thought, Nick had also realized that his client couldn’t be the father of the baby. Like the prosecutors, he wanted the baby’s DNA profile to be compared to those in CODIS, the database of convicted felons, to see if the father was in that group. If the father wasn’t in there, Nick would be in the same position the prosecutors were—having to use old-fashioned methods to find out who Laprea had been dating. Only then could anyone initiate DNA testing on a suspected father.

  “We’ve taken the steps to get that started,” Jack replied. “Of course, you’ll get the results as soon as we do.”

  “Good.” Nick nodded. “And I wanted to talk about a plea deal with you. What kind of offer would you be willing to make?”

  “If he takes a plea now,” Jack replied, “we could do manslaughter. If we have to indict this, we won’t offer anything lower than second-degree murder.”

  “Manslaughter would be fair, under the circumstances,” Nick replied slowly. “My client just needs to understand that. This might be a good case for one of your come-to-Jesus talks.”

  Jack nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for a defense lawyer to see that a plea was in the best interest of a client, even when the client initially refused to consider it. Sometimes it helped to have the prosecutor tell the defendant how strong the case was. The prosecutor could be a lot more aggressive than the defense attorney because he didn’t have to build a relationship with the defendant.

  “Okay,” Jack said, gesturing for McGee to come join them. Jack needed a witness in case the conversation ever came into dispute. The big detective followed Jack and Nick to the door that led to the holding cell. Anna trailed after them.

  The door led to a different world. Carpet became filthy linoleum, wood walls became scuffed white cinder block. The scent of urine stung Anna’s nose. The narrow hallway opened onto a small cell with a single bench lining the back wall. Metal bars coated with peeling orange paint separated the lawyers from three prisoners in the cell. Two of the prisoners slumped on the bench, but D’marco was pacing, agitated from the hearing he’d just left. He looked up, surprised, as the prosecutors lined up outside his cell.

  “Hey, D’marco,” Nick greeted his client softly. “The prosecutor wants to talk to you.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Davis.” Jack stepped forward and stood inches from the bars. D’marco crossed his arms and regarded Jack with open hostility. Jack ignored the enmity and spoke as if they were having a beer together. “I’m here to tell you why you should man up, and quickly. I can tell you’re angry, and I know I’m the last person you want to be talking to right now. But I want to tell you how this case looks from where I’m standing, and what I think the jury’s going to see. Your lawyer can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think he agrees that this is something you should listen to.”

  D’marco looked at Nick, who nodded. D’marco took a small step toward the Homicide chief.

  “There’s a long history of you fighting with Laprea. A lot of trips to the emergency room. And there’s nobody else who ever hurt her like that. The jury’s gonna hear all of that. Right out of the gate, they’re gonna want to convict you.”

  D’marco’s chin lowered a fraction as Jack’s point hit home.

  “First, Laprea’s mom will take the stand. She hates you. She’ll tell the jury about the times you beat her daughter before, and the last time she saw her daughter alive—when Laprea was going to visit you. She’s a strong lady, but she’ll be crying when she shows the jury the pictures of her two grandkids whose mother is dead. Then the jury looks at you. What do you think they’re thinking?

  “Next, an officer testifies that Laprea’s corpse was found in a garbage pile behind your house. The medical examiner testifies: blunt force trauma to the head. The cops raid your apartment—and they find her purse still there. They see you and you run, like you know you’re a guilty man. Christ, a few days later, you tried to run over Officer Green! By this point, the jury knows what you did. They can probably picture it in their minds.

  “But they don’t have to picture it. Because our last witness saw you beating her, moments before she was killed. You were in a rage. You backhand her across the face. He tries to calm you down, but you’re so enraged you slug the Good Samaritan. I’ve got a picture of him with a big welt on his face. He’s not in love with you, Mr. Davis. You can be sure he’s gonna testify against you.

  “You chase Laprea down the stairwell and the Samaritan calls 911. It’s a good call—you’ll hear the tape. But the cops get there too late.

  “Mr. Davis, I’ve been doing this a long time. After the jury hears this evidence, when I play that tape again in my closing argument, when they picture Laprea Johnson running down that stairwell, the mother of those two children running for her life,
running from you, and the police arriving moments too late—some jurors will be crying. The rest will want to kill you themselves.”

  D’marco let out a deep breath.

  “I’m willing to give you a plea of manslaughter now,” Jack responded. “Maybe you killed her by accident or in the heat of passion. You’d have to take the Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle charge for the stolen Corolla, but I’d be willing to drop the Assault with a Dangerous Weapon/Car—for trying to run over Officer Green—to an Assault on a Police Officer. With your record, the sentencing guidelines would call for six to twelve years on the manslaughter, and one to three years on the UUV and APO—so we’re talking about a range of eight to eighteen years with this plea.

  “Your lawyer will tell you that’s a generous deal. You’d likely be in your thirties when you got out, you could still have a life. I’ll tell you the truth: I’m not offering this for your sake. I’m doing it for Laprea’s family, to save them the grief of the investigation and the trial, of having this whole thing dragged out. I don’t want her kids—your kids—to have to go through that. I expect you don’t want that either.

  “But if you don’t take this deal, and I have to spend more of the government’s resources on this, my next offer is going to be worse for you. If we have to go to trial, you’ll be convicted of murder. That carries the possibility of a life sentence.”

  D’marco paused as the options sunk in, then shook his head and crossed his arms on his chest. “I ain’t pleadin’ to nothin’ I ain’t done.”

  “D’marco.” Nick’s voice rang a warning. “Don’t say anything. We’re still asserting your right to remain silent. Mr. Bailey is here to give us information, not to take it.”

  Jack nodded, then continued. “In ten years, I haven’t met a single defendant who admitted what he did—at first. Let me show you something.”

  Jack pulled some photos out of a folder and handed them through the bars to D’marco. The first few showed D’marco’s house the day of the search warrant—the whiskey bottle, Laprea’s purse, the bloodstains on his carpet. The next photo showed her body lying in the garbage pile behind his building. The final one was from the autopsy, a close-up of her face, her two bruised eyes, the crushed, bloody dent on the side of her head. Laprea’s eyes were closed and she seemed to be grimacing; she looked like she was having a nightmare. D’marco twitched, but managed to keep a neutral expression. Nick paled and looked away. Anna also turned her head from the photos. Jack hadn’t shown the worst ones, from the end of the autopsy, where Laprea’s stiff body had a gaping cavity in its torso, and glossy organs were laid out in full color on a table next to it. Anna had seen all of them before, but refused to look at them anymore. They’d given her nightmares.

  “Imagine what the jury is going to think when they see these pictures,” Jack said. “And the judge. I don’t think Judge Spiegel wants to do you any favors. If you plea now, I’ll agree to cap the sentence. You wouldn’t be at the mercy of a judge who wants to see you rot in prison for life.”

  Nick looked at D’marco, as if saying, Do you get it now? D’marco was scowling. “I think that’s enough,” Nick said to Jack. “D’marco and I will talk it over and get back to you.”

  But D’marco was agitated. He tossed the pictures back at Jack, scattering them on the floor outside his cell. “Man, I ain’t done it! I hit her, okay, but—”

  “Stop right there!” Nick spoke loudly. “Don’t tell them anything.”

  “I wanna tell ’em!”

  “I want to hear it,” Anna said, stepping forward and meeting D’marco’s eyes.

  The men all turned to her, surprised. D’marco was the most surprised, but he stepped forward eagerly and put his hands on the bars.

  “A’ight, so here’s the—”

  “Mr. Davis, listen to your lawyer.” Jack pulled Anna back and stepped between her and the prisoner. “Ms. Curtis is not in a position to advise you or elicit information from you.”

  “Fuck that, man! Fuck you!” D’marco shouted, hitting the orange bars with dull metallic thuds. The lawyers all stepped back, like tourists who had gotten too close to the lion’s cage. The door to the courtroom swung open and the marshal came striding in to see what the commotion was about. D’marco was pacing between the bars and the bench at the back of the cell, kicking the bench loudly when he got near it. The other prisoners scooched into the corner. “You all come back here tellin’ me what to do, talkin’, talkin’, but you ain’t gonna listen to what I got to say? That’s fucked up! Fuckin’ lawyers! Fuckin’ MPD! I got rights! I got—”

  The marshal herded the lawyers out of there, calling into his walkie-talkie for another marshal, warning that they might have to restrain D’marco or separate him from the other prisoners. Nick tried to stay back with his client, but the marshal wouldn’t let him.

  As the lawyers walked back into the courtroom, Anna could hear D’marco yelling curses at the marshals and banging around his cell. The people still left in the courtroom looked toward the door, wondering what was going on in the cellblock. Anna smiled weakly at them, hoping that if she looked calm enough, they wouldn’t realize that the commotion was her fault.

  • • •

  Anna and Jack walked quietly back to the office through the soupy-hot August morning. Anna didn’t know if it was the humidity making her sweat or the tension of unspoken issues between her and Jack. Jack had noticed Nick’s familiarity with her. What did he think? She didn’t want to talk about that, so she addressed her more obvious blunder instead.

  “Hey, Jack, I’m sorry I asked D’marco to talk to me. I shouldn’t have done that after Nick told him not to.”

  “Not unless you want to get disbarred,” he replied mildly. “It’s okay. He didn’t say anything of substance. Forget about it.”

  It was an error, but he knew she understood her mistake; there was no need to hammer away at it. She was grateful.

  Jack pointed to the Firehook Bakery on the corner. “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  They stepped inside the coffee shop, welcomed by the smell of brewing coffee and baking muffins. The barista greeted Jack by name. He ordered an iced coffee, and Anna held up two fingers. As she was pulling out her wallet, Jack paid for both drinks, so she just tucked a couple of dollars into the tip jar.

  She followed Jack back out into the late morning sunlight. He strolled to a waist-high flower planter and leaned back on it, sipping his coffee and gazing out toward the courthouse. After a moment’s hesitation, Anna perched next to him and looked out at the crowd. Judiciary Square swarmed with lawyers hurrying to court, homeless guys hawking shoeshines, and thugs lined up at hot-dog carts to buy half-smokes before their court hearings. One wild-eyed man was pacing and muttering about the radio transmitter the CIA had implanted in his teeth. A kid was playing an impromptu percussion set on some plastic buckets. Despite her worry that he would ask her about Nick, Anna was happy to be sitting here with the Homicide chief, who was treating her as an equal. Then Jack turned to her with a serious expression, and Anna tensed.

  “McGee lost his teeth in a foot chase,” Jack said.

  “Aha.” Anna smiled and relaxed. “Go on.”

  “It happened before my time, but the story’s legendary. Give any cop a few beers and he’ll tell you about it. When he was in his twenties, they had McGee doing undercover SLIP work. You know what that is?”

  “Solicitation for a Lewd and Immoral Purpose. He was posing as a john, propositioning prostitutes?”

  “Exactly. So one day, he’s out on the track—you know, the street where the prostitutes hang out to pick up their ‘dates’—when this guy comes running out of an alley, being chased by a hooker who’s yelling, ‘He just raped me!’ So McGee chases him, and—this is over twenty years ago—McGee is fast as lightning, and after a block or so, he tackles the guy onto the sidewalk.

  “But now all the prostitutes run up, and they’re furious. It’s a big hazard of their job—p
rostitutes get raped all the time, and sometimes worse. So they start beating on the guy.

  “McGee tries to stop them, and now they think he’s with the rapist or he is the rapist or something—he’s in civilian clothes and there’s a lot of confusion—and they start beating on McGee, tearing at him, kicking him with those big high-heeled platform boots. There’s, like, a dozen hookers, all in short-shorts and fishnets and wigs and what have you, and they just give McGee this epic beatdown. By the time his arrest team gets over there and breaks it up, McGee’s passed out, his shirt’s torn clean off his body, his wrist is broken, his lip is split, and his two front teeth are lying on the sidewalk next to him.”

  “Whoa.”

  “He spent a couple nights in the hospital. The guy he caught turned out to be a serial rapist who’d been terrorizing the city that summer, specializing in prostitutes and drunk college girls leaving bars. McGee got a medal of honor for it.”

  “That’s quite a story. But . . . why doesn’t he get his teeth fixed?”

  “I’ve never straight-out asked him. But I think he’s proud of them. Cops know the story, they see him, and they know it’s him. Plus, I suspect he thinks it’s just funny.”

  Anna nodded, smiling. That sounded like McGee. She leaned farther back on the edge of the planter, trying to picture a young, skinny McGee getting beaten by a mob of furious prostitutes.

  “So, how do you know Nick Wagner?” Jack asked casually.

  Anna took a sip of her coffee to hide her gulp. She’d known that the question was coming, but he’d still caught her off guard. She hadn’t decided how to answer it. The question raised so many issues: her duty to this case, her desire to have Jack think well of her, her reputation, her privacy, her obligation to Jack, to Rose, to Laprea.

  “We were in law school together,” she found herself saying. It was the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but their relationship was over, and it wouldn’t affect her work. She was just beginning to earn Jack’s respect—she couldn’t bring herself to tell him she had dated an OPD attorney. She didn’t think she had any duty to disclose it. Still, she felt a pang of guilt at her evasion.