Anna and Jack emerged from the courthouse into a damp, gray March afternoon. She walked next to him as he headed back to the office.
Anna broke the silence. “I can subpoena Green’s phone records. That way we can confirm or disprove the phone calls he claims he received on the night of Laprea’s murder.”
“Okay, thanks.” Jack was looking ahead as they walked.
“I could also pull his MPD duty records for that night.”
“Good idea.” Although he was apparently letting her work the case again, he still wasn’t looking at her.
“Hey, Jack, I’m sorry about how this all happened. This came at the worst possible moment.”
He exhaled slowly. “Don’t apologize. It turns out your instincts were better than mine. You were right about Green. I just didn’t see it coming.” He slowed and finally looked at her. His green eyes were tired. “I didn’t see a lot of this coming.”
“Jack.” She wanted to comfort him or find a way to carry some of his burden. The best she could come up with was “Let me buy you a drink or something.”
He paused and slowed his step more. For a hopeful moment, Anna thought he would say yes. Then he shook his head.
“Thanks for the offer. But I have too much work to do. Rain check, okay?”
“Sure.”
Looking at him here in the dull gray light, Anna knew there would be no rain check. Jack had forgiven her to some extent, he had graciously commended her “instincts.” But he didn’t want to be with her. After everything she had put him through, she could hardly blame him. She had lost something very good.
She slowed to a sad stop. They had different destinations.
“Good-bye, Jack.”
“Good-bye, Anna.”
She turned back to the Papering Room.
35
While Dan continued to cover for her in Papering, Anna typed Green’s cell phone number into an Internet database to find his service provider. Verizon. She quickly faxed a subpoena to Verizon’s subpoena compliance center. Verizon would pull the phone records and send them to her; the process usually took a few weeks. But maybe . . . Anna sent an office-wide e-mail asking if anyone had a contact at the phone company. A few minutes later, she was sweet-talking a live person at Verizon, who promised to get the information to her that afternoon. Anna thanked the man and gave him the fax number of the Papering Room.
When she hung up the phone, she heard a familiar voice saying her name. She looked up and saw a tall figure standing in the doorway.
“Nick.” Anna somehow wasn’t surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
“Hoping to find you.”
She glanced toward Dan and the new lawyer—and found them staring with open interest. She stood up and shooed Nick into the hallway.
“Defense attorneys aren’t allowed back here.”
“I know. I just need to talk to you for a second. Privately.”
“Okay, come on,” she said, and led Nick back into the public corridor. The hallway was busy, so she kept walking until they came to the back patio, where a portion of the basement was on street level. No one used this patio except the occasional probation officer on a smoke break. It was empty now.
The damp air smelled of spring; it brought Anna back to the day of Laprea’s first trial, when Anna had come out here to decide whether to make Laprea testify. The air had smelled just like this. It was hard to believe that was almost a year ago. She let the painful memory pass, and looked at Nick. She hadn’t seen him up close since she’d kicked him out of her apartment after his now infamous sleepover.
“What’s up?” Anna asked brusquely.
“I wanted to compliment you. You got those DNA tests done, you suspected Green when no one else did, even when it ended up helping the defense. It was the right thing to do.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know. Listen, I don’t want to start a fight. I want to apologize. I said some things when we broke up—I wish I could take them back. I know you were doing what you thought was right when you prosecuted D’marco the first time. What happened to Laprea—that wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that.” Anna found that she actually meant it. She no longer carried the guilt from that failure. She inhaled a deep breath, as if someone had unlaced a tight corset from her chest.
“Anna, I miss you,” Nick said quietly. He looked at the gray sky, then back at her. “I’m getting out of this business. I put my notice in with OPD after the plea went through. I quit.”
She blinked.
“Why?”
“Because of you. Why do you think? Seeing how all this hurt you—how it hurt us.”
Anna stared at him. She knew how much his position meant to him, how he defined himself by his work. He loved his job. And he’d given it up. For her. It was what she’d hoped for—so long ago.
“I—geez, I don’t know what to say, Nick.”
“Say you’ll have a drink with me. After work, tonight.”
“Um . . .”
“Please.”
She pictured Jack walking away from her this morning. He had no interest in being with her anymore. Meanwhile, Nick had given up his job for her. The least she could do was have a drink with him.
“Okay.”
“Okay then.” Nick smiled at her, his broad delight showcasing his perfect white teeth. “I’ll see you tonight.”
His smile was one of pure happiness, and she smiled reflexively back up at him. A current of electricity sparked between them as they grinned at each other. The chemistry was still there.
They went back into the courthouse and parted ways. As Anna walked back to the Papering Room, she played their conversation over in her head. It made her see Nick in a completely different light. She wondered if she’d been too hasty to write him off. Maybe there was more substance to him than she’d given him credit for. She wondered if it was possible that she and Nick might be able to have a happy ending after all. She still wore a small smile as she walked back into the Papering Room.
“Hey.” Dan handed her a few sheets of paper as she came through the door. “This came in over the fax while you were out.”
“Thanks.” She sat down at her desk to look at the papers, although part of her mind was still back on the patio with Nick.
The guy at Verizon had faxed over the list of every telephone call Green had made or received in the month of August. Anna ran her index finger down the numbers until she got to August 16. There was an incoming call from a pay phone at 10:38 p.m., just as Green said. The next incoming call was at 11:26 p.m. According to Green, that was the second call he had received from Laprea on the night of her murder. Anna looked at the telephone number—and stopped breathing.
She recognized the number. She knew it by heart.
36
Anna closed her eyes, hearing the busy afternoon in the Papering Room continue around her. The tapping of computer keys, the whoosh of the copier, the voices of cops explaining last night’s arrests. Eventually, the blood came back to her brain and the twinkling behind her eyelids dissipated. She opened her eyes.
Green had said Laprea called him twice the night she died, first from a pay phone and then from somewhere else. But he was hardly a reliable source; he hid the truth from them before. He could be lying now. His story just didn’t make sense.
Because the second call to Green’s cell phone came from Nick’s home phone.
Why would Laprea have been at Nick’s house that night? Did D’marco take her there? Nick and Laprea lived on opposite sides of town; Laprea and D’marco were seen in Anacostia the night she died; her body was found there. How could she have called Officer Green from Nick’s apartment?
Even if Green were lying, someone called his phone from Nick’s home that night. The telephone record didn’t lie. But why would Nick call Green?
Her first instinct was to call Nick. There had to be a simple explanation. She fished her phone out of her purse and scrolled
down to his name. She paused with her thumb poised over the Send button. This was a criminal investigation. She couldn’t just call and ask what was up. Nick had been D’marco’s defense attorney; now it appeared he was also a witness.
She hung up and stared at the Verizon printout again. It wasn’t going to give her any more insights. She needed more information, and she knew where to get it.
She stood up and grabbed her purse.
“Dan, I need to call on your goodwill again. I have to leave. I’m sorry.”
“No problem.” Dan looked concerned as she walked out of the Papering Room. “You okay, Anna?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Anna went up the escalator, rushed out the front doors, and caught a passing cab.
“Adams-Morgan,” she told the driver. “Eighteenth Street.”
As she rode to Adams-Morgan, more and more outlandish scenarios played out in her head. What if D’marco went to Nick’s apartment and Laprea followed him there? What if D’marco had kidnapped Laprea and taken her to Nick’s apartment? Could D’marco have killed Laprea at Nick’s building? Is that why Nick stayed on the case for so long—because he was a witness? Had he been trying to protect himself?
Anna pointed the cabbie to the newest, most expensive building on 18th Street. She handed him some bills, took a deep breath, and walked up to the front door.
The receptionist buzzed her in to Nick’s building. The lobby felt familiar and yet foreign, like when she’d visited her elementary school as an adult. She had forgotten how shining and modern the place was. The black granite floor, the towering steel sculpture, the floor-to-ceiling windows, all gleaming under carefully placed track lighting, were a contrast to her usual territory of basement apartment and basement government office.
Anna’s clicking heels echoed through the desolate lobby as she walked toward the reception desk. There was Tyler, looking as male-modelish as ever in his all-black outfit, sitting behind his stone and glass command center.
Anna assured herself that the young millionaires who lived here were at work. They wouldn’t start flooding back again until after five o’clock, and there was no way Nick would arrive before then. She had an hour. She hoped.
“Well, hello, Anna!” Tyler looked up from his Us Weekly magazine with delight. “Long time, no see! How’ve you been?”
“Okay, thanks. How are you?” She remembered that last time they spoke, Tyler had just moved in with his boyfriend. “How’s . . . Brandon?”
“Great! We just bought a condo in Logan Circle; we’re renovating.”
He held up a handful of colorful paint chips. Anna pointed at a wasabi green swatch.
“Nice,” she murmured.
“Thanks. For the kitchen, I think. Nick’s not back from work yet. Do you want to wait for him here?”
“Actually, I know he’s not here. I was hoping you could help me.”
Tyler looked at her quizzically.
“I don’t know how much Nick told you about why we broke up.” Anna waited for him to reply, but Tyler shook his head. She lowered her voice and looked at the ground. “There was another woman.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Men can be pigs.”
“I know. But we’re trying to work things out. Maybe we can. But I have to know. That’s why I need your help.”
Anna leaned farther over the counter and looked at the switches, lighted buttons, and bank of televisions showing footage from the security cameras set up around the building. She could see what was happening at the front door, the garden, and roof deck. She could see herself in the lobby leaning over Tyler’s desk. She glanced up at the receptionist.
“Tyler, are there tapes of what the security cameras are filming?”
“It’s all stored on the computer. This is the best security system money can buy.” He answered proudly before he understood what she was asking for. “Oh no, Anna, I can’t do that.”
She wished she’d thought to bring a subpoena with her.
“Please, Tyler,” she said. “You’re the only one who can help. I need to know if she came here.”
Tyler shook his head—but started typing into the computer. “I’m going to regret this. Do you know the dates when you want to look?”
“Saturday, August sixteenth. Evening.”
Tyler started scrolling through a page of files, oblivious to the sound of Anna’s heart hammering against her rib cage. “It’ll take a couple of minutes,” Tyler said, typing some more.
To calm herself, Anna walked to the back of the lobby, where a wall of glass looked out over the Japanese garden. She watched the water flow down the little waterfall into the quiet pool below. Orange, black, and white koi swam in lazy figure eights below the canopy of a Japanese maple. The peaceful scene was a sharp contrast to the sensation that her chest was being wrung out like a dishcloth.
“This stuff only stays on the system six or seven months,” Tyler warned. “It could have been overwritten by now. Whenever the memory gets full, the system recycles—wait.” He stopped. “I’ve got it. You’re lucky. Nine more days, and this’ll be gone.”
She hurried back to the desk and stood behind Tyler’s chair, where she could see the plasma screen over his shoulder. The big screen was split into quarters, each showing a different scene: lobby, garden, roof deck, and outside the front door. He hit Play, and the four pictures began moving simultaneously. The images were sharper than the grainy black-and-white screen shots police typically retrieved from convenience store cameras.
Anna watched a couple have a beer on the roof deck and people walk through the lobby—seven months ago. A time stamp in the bottom corner read 18:30. “Say when,” Tyler said, hitting Fast-forward. The action sped up, five times actual speed. People scurried in and out of the lobby with bags of takeout food, like lines of ants bringing home crumbs from a picnic. Anna watched the video of the lobby carefully; there was nothing remarkable for a while. Finally, Anna saw a familiar figure.
“Stop!” she cried. Tyler rewound the footage and hit Play again. The time stamp read 20:09 as Nick walked out of the elevator and exited through the front door, alone. Anna motioned for Tyler to fast-forward some more. At 20:38, Nick reappeared carrying a Chipotle takeout bag. Anna recalled that she was at her book club the night Laprea was killed. Nick had apparently stayed in with a burrito.
“There you go. He was flying solo.” Tyler smiled at Anna, hoping this would satisfy her.
“Can you keep going? I think there might be something later.”
Tyler frowned but hit Fast-forward again. The video moved through 21:00, 22:00, 23:00. Now the residents going in and out were dressed up for a Saturday night on the town: the women in high-heeled sandals and slinky tops, the men in carefully untucked Armani shirts.
Even though she’d been expecting it, it was still a shock to see the familiar figure walk up to the front door. The time stamp read 23:17.
“Stop,” Anna said shakily. “Rewind. There.” She pointed at the quadrant of the screen. “Is there sound? Can you play it?”
Tyler hit a few buttons and maximized the quadrant that showed the front door. The picture filled up the entire screen. He started the action again, now with muffled sound.
Anna watched in horror as Laprea Johnson stormed up to the front door of Nick’s building. Anna recognized the petite figure, the long, quivering braids, and the black pants and shiny shirt Laprea was wearing—the same clothes she had on when her body was found behind D’marco’s house.
Laprea was obviously upset. She tossed her hair back and forth in agitation, and was sniffling like a girl who’d been crying her heart out. She was hyped up on anger and pain, teetering on the brink of hysteria.
“Hey!” Laprea yelled, pulling on the lobby door. “Can somebody let me in? Hello?”
“Is there a receptionist working that late?” Anna asked without taking her eyes off the screen.
“No. There’s no one after ten p.m. Visitors have to call directly up to the resident’s unit.�
�
No one answered Laprea, and she turned around, leaned back against the door, and let out long choking sobs of pain and frustration. To Anna, the woman’s convulsions seemed to last for hours, but the time stamp showed just a few seconds. Finally, Laprea straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and looked around her. She walked toward the intercom and studied it. Now she was facing the camera, and Anna could see that Laprea had dark bruises around both eyes. One was swollen completely shut.
Laprea read the instructions engraved in the intercom system, then punched in a few numbers. The intercom rang several times.
Don’t, Anna thought, grinding her teeth so hard they made a dull squeaky sound. Oh God, Nick, don’t answer. Just let her walk away.
The line was picked up with a click.
“Hello?” Nick answered through the intercom.
“Mr. Wagner? It’s Laprea Johnson. I’m at your front door and I gotta talk to you.”
Nick’s response was staticky, something about making an appointment at his office. Laprea stared at the intercom in disbelief.
“Appointment?” Laprea raised her voice. “You never needed no appointment to come to my house!”
A few seconds went by before Nick’s voice responded. Anna could make out the words “very busy now” and “another time.”
“Hell no.” Laprea leaned down and spoke deliberately into the machine. Her voice dropped several decibels, and her softer speech was more ominous than her yelling. “D’marco just beat me up again, Mr. Wagner. I got black eyes and a split lip and I don’t know what else. But you know what? I don’t even blame him. I blame you.” Laprea’s voice started to rise again. “You said if I lied for him, this wouldn’t happen again. Now I find out I can’t even press charges, ’cause nobody’s gonna listen to me no more. So now you gonna listen to me, and you gonna do something about this.” She paused, then played her trump card. “Or I’m gonna report that you told me to lie for D’marco.”
Law of Attraction Page 29
