Law of Attraction (15 page)

“Okay.” Jack would have assigned a paralegal to get the 911 calls, but if Anna wanted to pursue it, that would save him some time. “Go ahead and get the calls. We’ll have to argue about getting them in. The Supreme Court’s been cutting back on evidence like that.”

“I know, I read
Crawford
and
Giles.
But I think we may have a good argument here. I’m also going to call every hospital in the city, and see if Laprea was ever treated there. I’ll subpoena any medical records. I did some research on the rule against hearsay. There’s an exception for statements made during medical treatment. If she ever told doctors she was there because D’marco hit her, it will be admissible.”

Jack tried not to smile as the young prosecutor continued to elaborate the bullet points on her to-do list, describing legal tactics he had been using for ten years as if she were Columbus finding America. At least she was headed in the right direction.

“Basically, I want to get every piece of evidence that will give Laprea Johnson a voice,” Anna concluded. “She can’t speak anymore, she can’t tell the jury what happened the night she was killed. But we can
tell the story of D’marco’s abuse through the bits and pieces she left behind.”

“Great.” Her to-do list would free him up to talk to witnesses and put them in the Grand Jury. That was the meat of a homicide case. She could cook up all the side dishes she wanted.

“And I wanted to let you know I’m going to go to Laprea’s funeral on Friday.” Despite her deference to him, Anna said this as a statement, not a request.

“Are you sure you’ll be welcome there?” Jack asked quietly.

“No. But I have to go.”

Jack saw the determined set of her chin. “Okay,” he sighed. “But you can’t go alone. You know you can never speak to a witness on your own, right?”

A prosecutor always needed an officer or someone with her to observe any conversation with a witness, in case the conversation came into dispute and someone had to testify about it later. Otherwise, the prosecutor might become a witness in her own case, and would have to recuse herself from it.

“Actually, I hadn’t thought of the funeral like a witness conference,” Anna admitted. “I wasn’t planning on bringing anyone else. But I’ll find an officer to go with me.”

“Bring McGee. And I’ll come, too.” Jack wasn’t letting her talk to witnesses without him, even at the funeral. Especially at the funeral, where emotions would be running high, and excited words might be exchanged.

Jack noted Anna gulping nervously. She didn’t want him to go, Jack surmised. She understood that Laprea’s family might yell at her, and although she was prepared to take it, she didn’t want Jack to see it. At least she knew what she was getting herself into, Jack thought. It took a certain amount of courage to walk into that situation.

“You came by at a good time,” Jack said, deciding to share some information with Anna. “I was just looking at the preliminary autopsy results.”

He pushed the report across the desk. Anna scanned the papers blankly. Jack had felt the same way the first time he’d tried to read an autopsy report. To a layman, it was incomprehensible, full of medical jargon.

“It takes a while to understand those,” he told her. “Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull. Laprea Johnson died of a single blow
to the left side of her head with a hard object. Davis had to hit her with something harder than just his fists. Time of death is estimated at eleven thirty p.m. on Saturday, August sixteenth.”

Anna nodded. “But Ernie Jones saw Laprea and D’marco fighting around nine thirty that night.”

“The estimated time of death is just that—an estimate.” He wondered how often he would have to explain elementary things like this to the rookie prosecutor.

“Oh, okay.”

“They can tell from the blood pooling that the garbage dump behind D’marco’s building was not where she was actually murdered. Her body was placed there sometime after her death.”

Anna nodded. With the body wrapped in garbage bags, that had seemed obvious even before the autopsy report.

“The trace evidence unit vacuumed her body,” he continued. “There were a few hairs, but from an animal, nothing human. Probably a pet.”

“I don’t think the Johnson family has any pets. We didn’t see anything pet-related at D’marco’s place.”

Jack nodded noncomittally. “Maybe a wild animal or a stray, touching the corpse. There was one more thing,” he said. “Laprea Johnson was pregnant when she was murdered.”

Anna’s eyes got big, then closed in pain. “Oh no. Poor Laprea. Poor Rose.” Jack watched her with sympathy. The news had also hit him in the gut, compounding the scope of this tragedy. Anna finally opened her eyes and stared out the window. “Does D’marco know that he also killed his own baby?”

“Don’t know. They still haven’t caught him.”

“I see.” Anna blew out a breath and slumped back. She looked sick. “How pregnant was she?”

“Hm,” Jack said. He wasn’t sure. He flipped through the autopsy report. “Let’s see. Sixteen weeks.”

Anna looked down in concentration. “That would make the baby’s conception . . . in mid-April.” Surprised, she looked back up at Jack. “D’marco
Davis was in jail awaiting his trial for the Valentine’s Day assault then.”

Jack rocked back. He hadn’t caught that. The girl might be a rookie, but she was sharp.

“Someone else fathered that baby,” he murmured.

“Who?”

He shook his head.

15

A
s they drove through Anacostia, Jack and McGee took turns pointing out landmarks from their prior cases. Anna listened from her usual position in the backseat. Their stories were completely incongruous with the sunny summer afternoon.

“See that community center?” McGee nodded at a low concrete building. “I had a case where this lady got jumped in that parking lot. They stuffed her in the trunk of her car, took her to Fort Dupont Park. Gang-raped her, beat her, left her for dead. She managed to crawl to a house.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Jack said. “What’d the ringleader get? Thirty years?”

“Life,” McGee said proudly.

Jack pointed to a park next to the community center. “My first AWIK happened there,” he said, referring to his first assault with intent to kill. “Father of four was mugged and beaten with a tire iron. He was a vegetable after that.”

“Mm.” McGee conveyed a lot of sympathy in a single low grumble. “Remember the Clarence case?”

“Sure.”

McGee looked at Anna in the rearview mirror. “Guy killed his baby mama and cut her heart out of her chest.” He pointed to a dirty brick apartment building.

“Yikes,” she said. So many grim landmarks. Once you were a prosecutor, how could you ever look at the city the same way again?

McGee slowed the car as they crested the top of a hill. Jack pointed out the side window. “Look,” he said to Anna. Her gaze followed his index finger. He was pointing toward a bare dirt lot littered with broken glass, used condoms, and needles. Beyond the lot was a postcard view of downtown Washington, D.C. The Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial stood like white model buildings on the green lawn of the National Mall. Anna could see the
sprawling lawn of the White House, and the avenues of glittering office buildings surrounding it. It was an incredible view of the city where some of the most powerful people in America worked, where decisions that affected the entire world were made.

Then they were driving down the other side of the hill, and the view was blocked by boarded-up buildings again.

“I grew up a few blocks from here,” Jack said. “It hasn’t changed much.”

As they drove into the parking lot of Mt. Calvary First Baptist Church, Anna tugged uneasily at her skirt. She had managed to put aside her nervousness on the drive over, but now it hit her full-on. How badly would Rose lash out at Anna for her role in Laprea’s death? No matter how furious Rose was, Anna wouldn’t blame her. She felt that she deserved the full force of Rose’s wrath. But she also knew the only reason she was second chair on this case was because of her supposed relationship with the family. She wondered if Jack would use this as an excuse to get her kicked off the case.

As they walked into the church, they were surrounded by the thrum of hundreds of voices. The sanctuary was packed. People sat in the pews, stood in the aisles, jostled for space at the back. Men wore suits and ties; women mostly wore black dresses and black hats, although a few women were dressed in all white. Almost everyone was African-American; Anna’s was the only white face in the crowd. The sanctuary was large but simple, with a high ceiling, pure white walls, clear windows spaced at even intervals, and a big wooden cross at the front. Laprea’s shiny white casket was flanked by enormous bouquets of pink lilies at the front of the church.

“How do you want to do this?” Jack asked Anna loudly, raising his voice so he would be heard over the noise of the sanctuary.

“I want to find Rose.”

Jack and McGee exchanged a glance, but they followed Anna as she wended her way up the center aisle.

Rose was sitting in the front row, wearing a black dress and a hat with a black mesh veil. She was surrounded by women: standing in front of her, sitting beside her, crowded into the pew behind her. All the ladies were reaching out their arms to touch Rose while they murmured soothing words. Laprea’s mother was like the center of a flower, and her friends and relatives were the petals.

As Anna approached, one of the women noticed her and nudged the
other women. The women murmured and then parted, creating a passageway with a formidable wall of church ladies on either side. Anna stood looking at Rose, and Rose sat looking back at her. The rest of the church buzzed with conversation, but everyone around them was silent, watching the two women as they faced each other.

Anna thought she was ready for anything that Laprea’s mother could dish out. But Rose greeted her in a way Anna was not prepared for. She stood up, walked over to Anna, and stood in front of her. Then she raised her arms and pulled Anna into a tight, cushiony hug. Her arms were warm and soft. Anna felt a rush of sorrow—and relief. Her eyes stung with tears as Rose held her, just as Anna had held Laprea in the Papering Room only six months before. Rose started crying, too. Rose’s friends let out a collective sigh and closed in again, but now Anna felt their hands on her back, too, their voices soothing her as well as Rose. Jack and McGee stood awkwardly to the side, hands in their pockets, looking down at their feet as the women embraced in shared grief. Finally, Rose patted Anna’s shoulders and pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. She dabbed at Anna’s wet cheeks before wiping her own.

“Here, sugar, sit down.” Rose steered Anna to the pew, where they sat side by side.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Johnson,” Anna said, sniffling softly.

“Ain’t nothing for you to be sorry about.” Rose patted Anna’s hands. “This’s been building for years and years. You the only one ever came close to stopping it.”

“I wish I’d done a better job.”

“No use blaming yourself. Only one to blame’s D’marco Davis.”

“We’re going to get him, Ms. Johnson, I promise you.”

“Thank you,” Rose said simply. She smiled at Anna through her tears. “It means so much to me that you’re here.”

“Of course.” Anna introduced Rose to Jack and Detective McGee.

“I’m sorry I can’t really talk to you now,” Rose said. “But I do want to hear how the investigation’s going. Could you come to my house next week?”

“How about Monday afternoon?” Anna glanced at Jack. He nodded, and they chose a time. Rose gave her a final hug. As Anna walked away, the church ladies enfolded Rose again.

McGee pointed to some free seats and the three of them slid in.
After a few minutes, the service started with the choir launching into “I’ll Fly Away.”

The pastor stepped forward and raised his arms. “We’re here today to celebrate the homegoing of Laprea Keisha Johnson!” he proclaimed.

“Hallelujah!” the crowd roared back.

There was an inescapable grief underlying the entire service, but the gathering was not about grieving. The congregants were there to celebrate the life of the woman they loved, and to rejoice in their faith that she had gone home to join her Father and Creator.

Anna thought about her own mother’s funeral, so different in tone from this one. She closed her eyes. Feeling the wooden bench pressing against her shoulder blades, she mused that the bench in that church in Michigan had felt exactly the same. She had been in law school when she’d gotten the terrible phone call from Jody. Her mother had died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver who’d sped through a red light. The tragedy had knocked the breath out of Anna, but even as she’d sat crying in the corner of her dorm room, and then at her mother’s church, Anna knew that, in some ways, she had gotten more than she had a right to expect. Those last twelve years with her mother, away from her father and his raging violence. Twelve good years, free of fear and pain.

But what Anna had done to get those years was unthinkable. Unforgivable.

She opened her eyes as a woman in front of her stood up spontaneously, raised her arms, and called, “Amen, brother!”

Anna liked this service. Although her mother’s death had been the result of an accident rather than human malice, the funeral at her Lutheran church had been more somber than this one. Anna remembered the strained, tight faces of everyone who came to pay their respects, the prescripted call and response they intoned with gray, obligatory inflection. This felt better, she thought. It was a positive and personal affirmation that their loved one was now in a better place.

She wondered what Nick would think—and then realized that she wouldn’t be able to talk to him about it, not later tonight, probably not ever. She had experienced jolts like this over the last several days. As this one passed, Anna leaned back on the wooden bench and exhaled deeply. Despite missing Nick, she felt a small but real sense of peace for the first time since Laprea’s death. Rose’s forgiveness had given her
that. If they could just catch D’marco, she thought.