Law of Attraction (12 page)

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, please 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.”

Deliberately not touching anything, Anna gazed out the window. A brawny man in a white T-shirt and baggy jean shorts was walking up the driveway. He was carrying an orange soda and a small plastic bag from the Circle B. Anna recognized him immediately. Her heart started racing.

“There he is!” she said excitedly, pointing out the window. “It’s D’marco Davis!”

Sergeant Ashton strode to the window and looked to where she was pointing, then made a quick hand gesture. The other officers instantly dropped to the floor or flattened themselves against the walls, pulling their guns up to their chests. Jack shot his arm across Anna’s chest, pushing her away from the window and pressing her against the wall. “Get down,” he whispered. They sank to crouching positions next to the window. Ashton gestured to his colleagues, and he and six other SWAT officers trotted silently from the apartment. The others started to fan out along the hallway.

Moments later, seven officers burst from the front door of D’marco’s
building, guns drawn. D’marco was about twenty yards from the building. “Police!” Ashton yelled, pointing his gun at D’marco. “Get down! You’re under arrest!” D’marco took one look at the men in black paramilitary uniforms—and sprinted in the other direction. The officers lowered their guns and ran after him; they couldn’t shoot at someone who hadn’t threatened them. They shouted commands without much hope that D’marco would obey.

“Hold up! Hold up! Hold up!”

“Stop! Police!”

“Get the fuck down!”

Up in the apartment, pressed against the wall, Anna heard the shouts and then the retreating thuds of running footsteps. Jack drew his hand off of Anna’s chest, looking embarrassed to find it there. Anna stood up and peered out the window. A dark swarm of SWAT officers was chasing D’marco down the street. She watched until they turned a corner, out of her sight. Jack stood next to her and looked out the window, the planes of his face drawn tight with tension.

“Will they get him, Mr. Bailey?” Anna asked.

“We’ll see.” The Homicide chief turned to her. He seemed to notice her, really notice her, for the first time today. “Good eye. You can call me Jack.”

12

S
ergeant Ashton sprinted after D’marco Davis, down the sidewalk of Alabama Avenue. The other officers were at various distances behind him. Ashton was running flat out, as hard as he could. D’marco had a clear advantage—unlike the SWAT officers, he wasn’t encumbered by twenty pounds of police gear—but Ashton was still gaining on him. It was his job to outrun criminals, and he was good at it.

A few citizens watched the chase from the windows of the apartment buildings, but no one came outside. They would come out after the suspect was apprehended, but they didn’t want to get in the way of any stray bullets now.

Ashton chased D’marco past several public housing complexes, and then the suspect turned onto a street lined with brick row houses. As he followed the suspect around the corner, Ashton was breathing hard, but feeling good. The distance between him and D’marco had closed to less than fifteen yards. His legs were a black blur, his arms fired like pistons. He was flying over the sidewalk, closing the distance. He felt a hard, relentless satisfaction. This was his favorite part of his job.

Then he saw D’marco cut into an alley between row houses. Shit, Ashton thought. Not this again. He raced into the alley, swerving to avoid crashing into a rusty Dumpster. Not the fire escape, he thought. Not the fucking fire escape.

In defiance of Ashton’s mental command, D’marco scurried up the ladder to the black metal fire escape bolted to the brick building. The ladders were supposed to be kept elevated to avoid people coming up from the ground like this, but they often didn’t follow that code. “Shit,” Ashton said aloud this time. All the thugs were doing this lately. He stopped at the foot of the ladder and pulled his radio off his belt. “Fan out!” he called into it. “Fan out! Target’s going on the roof!” He clipped the radio back onto his belt and followed D’marco up the ladder, which then became black metal steps. As Ashton ran up them, he
could hear the metal rat-a-tat-tat of people following him. He glanced down. Two of his officers were following him up; the other four must be spreading out around the block. Good.

When he got to the rooftop, Ashton stopped and looked around, pointing his gun across the roof as he looked for the suspect. The roof stretched out for half a block, the length of six row houses. It was covered in blacktop and there was a tall chimney in the center of each house’s roof, six chimneys in all. Piles of garbage dotted the roof, as well as scattered needles, empty bottles, used condoms, and one soggy mattress. D’marco wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Ashton waited until the two other officers made it up to the roof. Keeping his gun pointed ahead of him, he gestured with his chin to the first large chimney. It was four feet tall, big enough for a man to crouch behind. The other men nodded and pointed their guns ahead of them. Ashton went to the left of the chimney, the other two went to the right, quietly approaching it with their guns drawn.

Ashton’s movements were controlled, but he knew what danger he and his men were in. They didn’t know where the suspect was; they didn’t know whether he was armed. But the officer was used to this kind of risk. He was in the superalert state of someone experienced in harnessing his adrenaline rush. He heard every note of his feet crunching softly on the blacktop, he smelled the tar of the roof and the grass below, he heard a car starting several blocks away. And then he saw the shadow move on the other side of the chimney.

“Freeze!” he yelled, pivoting around the chimney. D’marco bounded up like a sprinter out of the blocks, running wildly across the rooftop. The officers grunted and ran after him. They passed chimney after chimney, until they were approaching the edge of the roof.