Discretion (17 page)

Eva pulled off her pants, dropped them to the ground, and walked naked to the showers.

20

A
fter Anna left the locker room, she headed down to her own floor. Most of the offices were dark, a federal-government nod toward conserving energy; frequent e-mails reminded workers to turn off the lights when they left. She found Detective McGee sitting in one of the guest chairs in her office. He wore a black suit, a red shirt, and a tie that looked like a checkerboard. His black fedora sat on the guest chair. He was playing with the little plastic fishing game on the edge of her desk, having a hard time steering the tiny plastic fishing pole with his thick fingers.

“You could have a day care in here,” McGee said, waving at the collection of children’s toys on her desk.

“They’re for child victims,” Anna explained as she sat down. “Children don’t want to look right at you when they’re talking about what Uncle Vincent did to them. It helps them open up if they can focus on something else.”

“Man, I thought working Homicide was depressing.” McGee put down the little fishing pole and reached into the breast pocket of his suit. “I knew you’d still be working.”

He pulled out a plastic evidence bag and handed it to Anna. Inside was a white-gold diamond engagement ring—the ring he’d found on Congressman Lionel’s balcony. The round diamond looked to be between one and two carats. Anna shifted it in the light, noticing how much it sparkled, even through the plastic bag. She held the bag under her desk lamp and looked closely at the ring. The letters TJB were inscribed inside the band.

She showed the inscription to McGee. He put on a pair of reading glasses and squinted at it. “Huh,” he said. “You think those are the initials of the guy popping the question? Or the girl he was giving it to?”

“C’mon, McGee,” Anna said. “You lived in D.C. your whole life,
and you’ve been married twice, and you never went to the Tiny Jewel Box? No wonder those women left you.”

McGee laughed. “Now, wait a minute. Maybe a detective can’t afford your rich-lawyer jewelry stores, but I know how to treat a lady. A diamond from Zales—in a box from Tiffany’s!”

Anna laughed, too. “Maybe the store can tell us who bought it.” She studied the ring again. “Caroline’s family said she wasn’t engaged.”

“Her college friends said she didn’t even have a boyfriend, far as anyone knew,” McGee added. “I don’t think it was hers.”

“It’s not the sort of thing that gets misplaced. It must have something to do with her death.”

“Maybe the Congressman or one of the staffers is missing it.”

“Let’s ask tomorrow. But you should probably go to the Tiny Jewel Box. They might be able to identify the ring. If nothing else, maybe they’ll give you some empty boxes.”

“Now you’re talking.” McGee flipped through his little notepad and summarized the notes from his day of interviews. “Caroline was poli-sci at Georgetown, average grades, no extracurriculars. Only one thing in her disciplinary file—she and her roommate got kicked out of Darnall Hall freshman year for underage drinking.”

“Did she lose her scholarship?” Anna asked, remembering what Caroline’s mother had said.

“Never had a scholarship,” McGee said. “She paid for college by personal check. Forty thousand, nine hundred and twenty dollars a year.”

Anna wasn’t surprised that Caroline had lied to her mother about the scholarship. The young woman had found a way to take some of the financial pressure off her family without revealing the source of her newfound wealth.

“Since they got kicked out, Caroline and her roommate lived in—” McGee looked at his notebook. “Alban Towers, a fancy apartment building way too pricey for two college students. On Massachusetts Avenue, a stone’s throw from the Cathedral. The roommate’s name is Nicole Palowski, like the mother said.”

“Did you find her?”

McGee hesitated and looked down at his shoes, a sign that he was embarrassed about something. “The thing is, she might’ve left out right when we came in. I think somebody went down the stairwell as we came out the elevator.”

“Wouldn’t you be
trying
to talk to the police if your roommate got killed?” Anna asked. “What’s she hiding?”

“Yeah,” McGee agreed, looking relieved that Anna didn’t harp on the witness getting away. He pulled a folded copy of a PD-81 from his jacket pocket. “Here’s the inventory from the search of the apartment.”

She scanned the seizure inventory. “Photo albums could be useful. Empty zips found in the garbage with cocaine residue. That dovetails with what Caroline’s mother said about the roommate using drugs. The autopsy didn’t find any drugs in Caroline’s system, although cocaine metabolites would only last seventy-two hours.” Anna read the next line and looked up at McGee. “What’s this? You seized a, quote, drawer of lace underpants and sex toys, unquote?”

“We, uh, we figured it was an escort case, so, uh, maybe that was evidence.” He looked down at his shoes and shrugged his big shoulders. “My guys wanted to seize it.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, you’re right. Could be evidence of prostitution. I’ll look through the stuff later. What’d you learn about the roommate?”

“Apartment manager complained about her, said she was always bringing guys into the house. Multiple guys per night. It’s not that kinda building. He put a stop to it, then she started coming and going at crazy hours, leaving the house around three
A.M.
, coming home around seven in the morning.”

“Those are track hours, not escort hours. Let’s see if she has a record.”

Anna pulled up the RCIS database on her computer and ran a check on Nicole Palowski. There was one hit—but as a victim, not as a defendant. Three years earlier, when Nicole was eighteen, she’d walked into the Second District police substation and reported that her stepfather had molested her multiple times when she was a child. It fit a pattern Anna had seen over and over. More than 75 percent
of women working in prostitution had been sexually abused as children. In this case, MPD declined to investigate Nicole’s complaint because the incidents took place in Pennsylvania. They told her to call her hometown police department.

Nicole’s report was a fairly common one—a college student, away from home for the first time, finds the strength and independence to talk about an assault that happened long ago. But there was frustratingly little that the criminal justice system could do. There was no jurisdiction—no connection to D.C. that would allow local authorities to prosecute the crime. Even for D.C. crimes, it was hard to bring a one-witness case based on a decade-old claim. Without corroborating proof, the office would usually prosecute it as a misdemeanor, which carried a maximum of six months of jail time but could be tried before a seasoned D.C. judge instead of a skeptical D.C. jury. But misdemeanors were subject to a three-year statute of limitations, so old cases too weak to be tried as a felony were barred by the time limit. Anna hoped that MPD at least referred Nicole to a counselor. She might’ve just been shown the door.

“Between the hours and the coke,” Anna said, “you think we should look for Nicole Palowski at the track?”

“It’s possible. Even high-end escorts can fall low if they get into drugs.”

“I know you’re about to go off-duty,” Anna said, “but . . . do you think we could swing by the track now?”

McGee sighed mightily. “Only because I like you.”

She knew Jack would disapprove of her going to the track. He’d think it wasn’t safe enough. But McGee would be with her the whole time. She’d be fine.

Fifteen minutes later, Anna rode in McGee’s unmarked Crown Vic while he slowly steered the car up and down K Street, from 10th to 14th streets, Northwest. During the day, the strip of expensive office buildings was home to the prestigious law firms and lobbying shops that made the term “K Street” famous. Late at night, when the lawyers and lobbyists were tucked into their suburban homes in McLean and Bethesda, an older profession did its own billing by the hour along these streets. As McGee cruised, Anna watched
a man in an expensive suit step out of a revolving door and slide into a waiting Lincoln Town Car. The Town Car then drove past a woman standing on the corner wearing platform boots and a tube top stretched over massive breasts.

“You know the difference between a D.C. lawyer and a D.C. hooker?” McGee asked. “Five hundred dollars an hour!” He chuckled, then stopped and glanced at Anna. “No offense.”

Prostitution was illegal in D.C., but enforcement hardly made a dent. MPD would occasionally run undercover stings rounding up the prostitutes or the johns who hired them. They received a citation and were released, the equivalent of a very serious parking ticket. Johns used to be sent to “John School,” a program that taught about things like sexually transmitted diseases and child trafficking, and which had slashed recidivism. The prostitutes used to be eligible for a program called Project Power, which provided drug treatment, counseling, and job training. Both programs had been halted recently because of budget cuts. The occasional roundups sometimes shifted the track’s location but never eliminated it for long.

The Sex Crimes section didn’t prosecute prostitution; that was handled by another unit. Anna’s section saw these women when they were
victims
of sex crimes. Prostitutes were easy targets for violent men. They were unlikely to call the police if someone robbed, assaulted, or raped them. Most prostitutes didn’t trust the system, having been processed by it themselves. And many were runaways or throwaways—no one would look for them if they went missing. For that reason, many of the world’s most famous serial killers, like Jack the Ripper, preyed on prostitutes. Women involved in prostitution were eighteen times more likely to be murdered than other women of the same age and race.

When a prostitute did turn to law enforcement, she would often lie about what she’d been doing that night and the circumstances that led up to the crime. Anna had heard many variations on the story of a woman who left a club at two
A.M.
, accepted a ride from a friendly stranger, and was raped or robbed instead of being taken home. The story would change in the second or third telling, as the victim became more comfortable with the prosecutor and more
willing to say what she had been doing out that night. But the initial lies made the cases hard to prosecute. Juries were willing to accept that a victim worked as a prostitute and still convict a man who assaulted her—but they were reluctant to believe anyone who initially lied about an incident, regardless of her profession.

Tonight there were about twenty women in various stages of undress, loitering in two- or three-person clumps on the street corners. They spanned the full range of age, race, and attractiveness. Some looked sick and weak, others hale and hearty. The one thing they had in common was sky-high heels: stilettos, gladiator sandals, platform boots. They walked with a bumptious sway that lawyers, in their sensible pumps, never achieved.

McGee cruised the street, his eyes skimming the women. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He pointed his chin at a woman wearing a yellow bikini under a dress made of white wide-weave netting. “That lady was a witness in a homicide last year,” he said. “I couldn’t keep track of her till I arrested her for indecent exposure. She was wearing that same dress, but without the bikini. She got six months’ probation, but she had to check in regularly with her probation officer.”

McGee parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant, and they got out. The muggy night air smelled of auto exhaust and cheap perfume. The detective walked toward the woman in the net dress, who was posing for the passing traffic in front of a darkened Cosi restaurant.

“Hey, Capri,” McGee said.

The woman glanced over at them. She had a thick scar across her neck and kind brown eyes that narrowed when she saw the detective. “Come on, McGee, I ain’t done nothing yet.”

“I know. We need your help.”

Capri put her hands on her hips, cocked a knee, and regarded him skeptically.

“We need to find a girl,” McGee said.

“She in trouble?”

“Not with us,” Anna said. “But she might be in danger.”

“Ain’t we all.”

McGee showed Capri a DMV photo of Nicole. “Have you seen her?”

“Naw, baby. She don’t look familiar.”

McGee handed the prostitute his business card. “If you do see her, tell her we’d like to talk to her.”

“We can help her,” Anna said, scribbling on the back of her own business card and handing it to Capri.

“Okay,” Capri said. She tucked both cards into her cleavage and turned to go.

“You don’t have to do this,” Anna said quickly. She knew it was a futile exercise, but she couldn’t leave without offering assistance. “We can arrange job training, emergency shelter, whatever.”

Capri looked over her shoulder and gave Anna a broad grin. “Don’t have to do
what,
darlin’? I’m just waiting on the bus.” She sashayed away.

“C’mon, Mother Teresa.” McGee laughed, patting Anna on the shoulder. “We got a lot more women to talk to.”

Sam turned her
Durango onto Kalorama Circle and gawked at the stately old mansions dotting impeccably landscaped lawns. Although it was dark outside, most of the houses had spotlights hidden in the flower beds, illuminating the fabulous facades. The private homes looked like embassies. Just north of this cul-de-sac was Rock Creek Park; the houses on that side of the street had views of the parkland. Samantha murmured with appreciation. She’d grown up in her parents’ apartment over Sergio’s and now lived in a one-bedroom condo on H Street, two blocks from the restaurant. She spent a lot of time on HomesDatabase.com, fantasizing about big houses.

Sam glanced at Steve Quisenberry, the agent riding shotgun. “Madeleine Connor’s doing pretty well, huh?” she said.

“Yeah.” Quisenberry paged through some printouts. “According to ChoicePoint, she bought the place in 1996 for five hundred and nineteen grand. With the rates she’s charging, maybe she could still afford to buy it today.”