Law of Attraction (36 page)

Jack handed copies of the paternity report to the judge and defense attorney. As Judge Spiegel read it, she pursed her lips so hard that they disappeared from her now ashen face. Anna remembered the close relationship the judge was reputed to have with Green.

Anna looked away from the judge and found Nick gazing at her with surprised wonder. D’marco was grinning at her like a kid seeing Santa Claus. It was not a look Anna had ever hoped to elicit from a defendant.

Finally, the judge looked up from the paperwork and peered over her reading glasses. “How do you want to proceed at this point?” Anna detected a tremor in the judge’s voice.

“I’d like to ask for a little more time, Your Honor,” Jack replied. “I
need a few days to investigate this issue and decide whether to go forward with the murder charge. I’m asking the Court to postpone the case until Monday.”

“No sir.” The judge shook her head. “You’ve had seven months to investigate this, and I’ve cleared my calendar,
this
week, for this trial. There’s a jury that came back to this courthouse at one o’clock to hear your first witness. I’ll give you until two p.m. Then you need to put on your first witness or dismiss the case.”

“Can I persuade the Court to at least break the case until tomorrow morning?”

“Two o’clock, Counselor.”

The slight downturn at the corner of Jack’s mouth was his only visible reaction to the dilemma this created for him. The trial had started, which in legal terms meant jeopardy had attached. If he dismissed the case now, the Double Jeopardy Clause would prevent the government from ever bringing these charges against D’marco again. It would be like a full acquittal. And yet going forward with the case in its present state was not an option.

“All right then, I’d like to offer the defendant a plea,” Jack said evenly. “The government will dismiss the murder charge if the defendant will plead guilty to the rest of the counts.”

“Not a chance,” Nick replied. “You know you’re not getting murder now, and you’ll be lucky if the taint of this doesn’t destroy all your other charges. Let’s go to trial with your star witness cop as the father of the victim’s baby. I’d love to see that jury’s verdict.”

“I can drop the APO,” Jack conceded. Green was the victim of the Assault on a Police Officer charge, from the day D’marco almost ran him over with the stolen Corolla behind Rose’s house. “But he’s gonna eat the UUV.” Not that it mattered. Every felon in D.C. had an Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle charge. “And he pleads to the Aggravated Assault on Laprea Johnson, and the Assault on Ernie Jones. I don’t need Green for either of those. Jones saw your client hitting Laprea, cracking her cheekbone, before he clocked Jones. Jones is squeaky clean, and he’s here today. I can make the Agg. Assault on his testimony alone.”

Jack didn’t mention the escape and assault on Anna. That was a separate case being handled by a different defense attorney.

“I’ll take it,” D’marco spoke up. “But only if it’s a C plea.”

Anna almost laughed. D’marco knew the system better than some attorneys. An agreement pursuant to Rule 11(e)(1)(C) was a type of plea deal that allowed the prosecution and defense to agree to the amount of prison time the defendant would serve, cutting the judge out of the sentencing process. D’marco suspected that Judge Spiegel would slam him if given a chance.

“Fine,” Jack said. “Eight years.”

“Two,” D’marco countered, enjoying speaking for himself.

“Six and a half, and that’s final.”

“Done.” D’marco smiled like a man who’d just won a round on
Deal or No Deal.

“If you do a C plea, I’ll accept it,” Judge Spiegel warned, “but I’m going to sentencing right now. I’m not sitting through the fiction of a presentencing report, briefing, and arguments in a case where my hands are tied.”

Nick leaned over and whispered briefly with D’marco. When they both sat back, Nick nodded to the judge.

“That’s agreeable to the defense,” Nick said.

“And to the government,” said Jack.

A few minutes later, they were walking back into the courtroom. The spectators stood up and quieted down when the judge’s door opened. Judge Spiegel strode up the few steps to her seat, while the lawyers filed over to their tables. Anna began to walk past the lawyers’ tables toward the audience, but Jack motioned for her to stand next to him.

She hesitated, wondering if Jack meant this as a conciliatory gesture or as punishment. Her fifteen minutes of infamy had finally died down. Making an appearance in this case now would be like climbing onto the
Titanic
a few seconds before it hit the iceberg. In fact, people would say that she
was
the iceberg. But if Jack wanted her next to him for this, she owed him that. She stood beside him at the prosecution table, and heard the scratch of charcoal on paper as the sketch artists started to draw a new figure on their tablets.

The judge launched into the usual script for taking a guilty plea, generating a buzz from the audience as the terms of the agreement were announced. While a midtrial plea wasn’t uncommon, dropping the murder charge at this point was a bombshell. The courtroom was buzzing with whispers by the time the judge reached the end of the colloquy and announced that she accepted the defendant’s guilty plea. Judge Spiegel then called in the jurors, told them the parties had
reached a resolution, and excused them from their jury service.

Anna looked back at the audience, where Rose sat in the first row. The advocate and a friend sat on either side of her, and both women were patting Rose’s arms. Rose accepted their touch and looked stoically ahead.

“All right, Mr. Davis.” The judge peered over her glasses at D’marco. “Do you want to make a statement before I sentence you?”

Nick leaned over and whispered some advice to his client. D’marco listened, then nodded and shuffled to his feet.

“I just want to say how sorry I am for everything I done,” D’marco said. “’Specially to Laprea’s mother.” D’marco turned his back to the judge and spoke directly to Rose. “I’m sorry, Miss Rose. For real. I ain’t never been good enough to Laprea. She deserved better, I know that. But I loved her, I swear to God I did. I want to make my kids’ lives better now. I want them to know their father ain’t killed their mother. I hope, Miss Rose, I hope you think about bringin’ them to visit me in jail.” His voice was cracking. “I know I don’t even deserve that, but I’m still askin’.”

Rose was sobbing softly. The advocate handed her a travel-sized package of Kleenex, and Rose dabbed her eyes. Her friends and cousins, sitting all around her, murmured and patted her, many of them crying themselves.

“Would you like to make a victim impact statement, Ms. Johnson?” the judge asked. “It’s your right.”

Rose shook her head no.

“All right. Then I’m ready to pronounce my sentence. The defendant will serve five years for the Aggravated Assault of Laprea Johnson. One hundred eighty days for the Simple Assault of Ernie Jones. One year for Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle. The sentences will run consecutively.”

Six and a half years total, with no chance of early probation. The marshal put his hand on D’marco’s elbow and escorted him out of the courtroom. For a man who’d just heard that he would spend the better part of a decade in jail, D’marco wore a peaceful, Buddha-like expression. He’d just gotten out of serving life in prison.

The judge banged her gavel and walked out of the courtroom, setting the press free to jump up and crowd to the bar.

“Mr. Bailey, why did you drop the homicide charges?”

“Is anyone else under investigation for the murder?”

“Why was Ms. Curtis at counsel table again today?”

Jack responded with “no comments” as he packed up his briefcases.

Anna squeezed past the reporters and approached Rose in the audience. Rose looked exhausted as she gathered her purse and coat.

“Ms. Johnson—” Anna started.

“No.” Rose held up her hand. “Not now.”

Rose turned and led her friends and family out of the courtroom. A line of reporters trailed behind her.

Anna swallowed hard on the lump at the back of her throat. She felt sick imagining what Rose must be feeling.

Jack was walking down the aisle, and Anna fell miserably into step next to him. As she pushed out of the courtroom doors, she glanced back at Nick. He was standing at the defense table, packing his briefcase. Their eyes met. It should have been a glorious moment for him. Murder charges against his client had been dropped; he was the victor in a highly publicized legal battle. Yet, as he watched her leave with Jack, Nick looked like a boy who’d just dropped a scoop of ice cream. Anna wondered what was going through his head. Despite the crowded courtroom, Nick looked very much alone.

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

W
hile 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.