Discretion (19 page)

Nicole arrived a little after two
A.M
., when the nightclubs let out and things got busy on weeknights. Although the day had been hot, the night air felt soft and pleasant. She staked out a spot on the corner of 14th and K, the track’s western edge. That was the best place for a girl who was here on her own, without the protection of a pimp. The first time she’d come here, she’d stood right in the middle of the action and gotten chased away by some nasty hookers with incredibly foul mouths.

She could see a few other girls a ways down the street, wearing tacky clothes and ridiculous shoes. She would stay a good distance away from them.

They
were hookers, of course—not her. This was
their
life. She was a Georgetown student. She would leave this all behind and go on to privilege and money, perhaps a colonial in McLean with a horse barn and a closet full of shoes. She was like a sex tourist, or perhaps a wild sociologist, briefly visiting this world and making interesting observations. The fact that she was getting paid for her work here was just a bonus.

A late-model Acura RL pulled up to the curb, and the driver rolled down the window. He was bald and paunchy, with an expensive tie hanging loosely around the collar of a rumpled white shirt. He appeared harmless. Nicole checked his hand: wedding ring, Breitling watch. Probably a lawyer heading home after a night in the strip clubs on M Street. He hadn’t found a stripper willing to take a ride with him, so he’d come here for a sure bet.

She leaned down to his window, giving him a glimpse of her Miracle-Bra’d breasts over the top of her dress. She propped her hands on her thighs, where they would remain hidden from view. The red polish on her nails was chipped in several places, and her cuticles were torn, conveying the aura of decay. “Hi, sweetheart,” she cooed. “You looking for a date?”

“Yeah.” His speech was slurred. “How much?”

“Are you law enforcement?” She’d heard that police officers had to answer this question truthfully. Maybe that was just a rumor, but she always asked just in case.

“No.” He laughed. “Are you?”

“No. A hundred.”

“Going rate’s fifty.”

“I’m better than that,” she said, playing with the long zipper that slashed diagonally across the front of the leather dress. “You’ll appreciate the difference.”

“That may be true, but all I’ve got is fifty.” The smell of pot wafted from his car.

“Fifty,” she said, “and some of what you’re smoking.”

He hit the button unlocking the doors, and she got in. He handed her a joint, and she took a long drag as he steered the car into an alley. She could see another car, half a block ahead of them, where the occupants were doing the same thing she was about to. It was a busy night on the track.

He parked, and she held out her hand. You always got the money up front. He pulled out his wallet and counted his cash. He had only forty-eight dollars.

“I’m sorry, baby.” He laughed again. “I told you I was light.”

He dug in his console for some coins.

“Stop it,” she hissed. “I’m not taking your fucking change.”

Furious, she considered getting out. But she’d already done all the real work—waggling herself at passing drivers, negotiating the deal, driving back here. The sex itself was a minor time commitment compared to what it took to set up the transaction. She snatched the bills and stuffed them in a pocket behind one of the zippers on the dress.

She handled him roughly at first, expressing her anger. But then
she had to concentrate on getting the job done. It wasn’t easy, with the steering wheel blocking her movement, the seats that didn’t fully recline, the low roof that made her scrunch down like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The stick shift jammed painfully into her leg. Nicole closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was at the Willard. But it was no good. Beneath the marijuana smoke, the guy smelled of sweat and bad cologne, and his car smelled of stale french fries.

She was flooded with shame. She wasn’t an avant-garde sociologist. She wasn’t on her way to a life of horseback riding and shoe shopping in McLean. She was a hooker, getting paid in crumpled one-dollar bills.

She didn’t even try to brush away the tears that streamed down her face.

At least there was some serious cash in her purse by five
A.M
., when the sky started to lighten and the clientele changed from home-bound clubbers to workbound construction workers. Nicole preferred the construction workers, although the negotiations in mixed English and Spanish could be challenging. They were generally cleaner and more respectful than the clubbers, and certainly more sober. Still, by this point, her feet throbbed in Belinda’s too-small stilettos, and she was exhausted.

As Nicole climbed out of a pickup truck, she was surprised to see a top-heavy woman approaching her. The woman wore a mesh dress over a yellow bikini. Nicole had seen her around here, but they’d never spoken.

“Hey, I’m Capri,” the woman said.

“Hey.” Nicole tried not to stare at the thick scar on the woman’s neck.

“You got a pimp, sugar?”

“I’m an independent contractor.”

“Mm-mm. You need protection out here. My man runs a good house. He wanna talk to you.”

Nicole glanced down the street. She could only see women, but she knew the pimps were hidden in the shadows, watching everything. “No, thanks. I’m good.”

Capri angled her body so the rest of K Street couldn’t see her face.
“Police looking for you,” she said quietly. She pulled two business cards out of her cleavage and held them out to Nicole.

How did they find her here? No one knew she was working the track. Nicole hesitated, reluctant to touch anything that had been squished between the hooker’s breasts, but she took the cards. The first was for MPD Detective Tavon McGee; the second was for Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Curtis. On the back of the prosecutor’s card was hurried female handwriting.

Nicole—

I can help you. Call me.

—Anna

Sure, help send her to jail. Nicole stuffed the cards into one of the zippered pockets of the dress. She had no intention of calling either number.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Nicole said.

“God bless.”

Nicole turned back to the corner of 14th and K and was surprised to see a lanky black man standing there. He wore shiny black pants, a black button-down shirt, a belt with a huge rectangular rhinestone buckle, and gold Gucci sunglasses, although the sun had yet to rise.

“Hey, ho.” The man leered. He had gold edging on his front teeth. She backed away from him—right into another man.

“Where you think you going, bitch?” the second man said.

As she turned, more men emerged from the shadows. Before she could run, she was surrounded.

“You can’t be out here on you own.”

“You ain’t about your business, ho!”

“We don’t tolerate no renegades out here.”

Nicole spun around, looking for a way out. She’d heard of a pimp circle, and she knew it was a risk she took, operating on her own out here. But she’d worked the track a handful of times and had come to believe they’d leave her alone.

“You gotta pick one of us.”

“That’s the rules of the game.”

“Choose up.”

The men closed in. She felt their hands on her hair, stroking her arms, tugging at her dress. “Please,” she said, her voice cracking as it came out of her throat. “Please, I just—”

“You just nothing, bitch.”

An open palm struck her across the cheek, knocking her head sideways. She gasped, then tried to run, but she was easily pushed back into the circle. More hands slapped her, grabbed her dress, pulled her hair. Terrified, she squatted on the ground, using her arms to protect her face. They kept hitting her. She wondered if she was going to die like this.

A voice boomed over the other men’s. “Step off!”

The pimps looked to the source of the command, then backed away. “Shit, man, we didn’t know,” one muttered. They rolled away, disappearing back into the shadows.

Crouched on the ground, Nicole gasped for breath hysterically. “Oh my God, thank you!”

Strong arms lifted her from behind. Before she could turn to see her savior, she felt the hard nub of a gun pressed into her lower back. The man shoved her toward a black Escalade idling at the curb.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch. You’re in a world of hurt.”

Rough hands threw her into the backseat, and the door slammed shut. Her head whipped back as the car screeched off.

Tuesday

23

A
s the sky lightened from black to gray, Anna sat at Jack’s kitchen table, typing on her laptop and drinking her second cup of strong coffee. She still wore her pajamas and glasses, and her hair was in a bed-mussed ponytail. Raffles lay curled on the table next to the computer, chin on his paws, watching her with sleepy orange eyes.

The message on her BlackBerry last night had been from Jane Thomasson, Madeleine Connor’s attorney. Madeleine was willing to identify the client who had made an appointment with Caroline at the Capitol—if she received immunity for running an escort service.

That was fine with Anna. She was far more interested in finding out who killed Caroline than prosecuting one of the hundreds of escort services operating in the D.C. area. Jack agreed. One luxury of being a prosecutor was the authority to decide which crimes to charge and which to overlook. That decision-making power, known as prosecutorial discretion, was unique to prosecutors, a luxury private lawyers didn’t enjoy. But it wasn’t just Jack’s call. They had to persuade a small army of DOJ managers to approve the immunity, too.

Before Anna had gone to sleep, she’d spoken to Thomasson, then e-mailed a DOJ form and memorandum to the acting U.S. Attorney, Marty Zinn. She’d gone to bed a little after midnight, then woken at five-thirty
A.M
. to the chime of an e-mail—from Marty, approving her immunity request. If Jack was on board, Marty said, so was he. Now that she had her office’s approval, she was typing up a memo to get authorization from the Department of Justice, which oversaw every U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Anna was sleep-deprived and weary of red tape but excited for the break in the case. By the time she finished the DOJ memo, the sun had risen and the birds were singing at full volume. She could hear Jack and Olivia puttering around upstairs. She e-mailed the memo,
lowered her forehead so Raffles could give her a fuzzy headbutt, and went upstairs to get ready for one of the biggest days of her legal career.

Jack was in Olivia’s room, sitting on the bed behind the little girl, combing her hair into two neat braids. Anna stood in the doorway and watched wistfully. Jack had learned to do this after his wife died. His big hands braiding Olivia’s hair was one of the most tender things Anna had ever seen. She tried to envision her own father doing her hair, but it was beyond the powers of her imagination.

She remembered a token she’d gotten for Olivia. She went to Jack’s bedroom, dug through her purse, found the CVS bag, and brought it back to Olivia’s bedroom.

“Hey, maybe you can use these.” Anna handed Olivia a package of
Princess and the Frog
barrettes.

Olivia’s face lit up with delight. Then she scowled. “They’re for babies.” She thrust them back at Anna.

“Olivia!” Jack scolded. “Say thank you.”

Olivia sighed dramatically. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Anna tried to smile. “I’ll leave them here in case you change your mind.”

She set the package on Olivia’s dresser and went to take a shower. As the hot water pounded her shoulders, she tried to attribute the knot in her chest to too much caffeine. But she knew it was from Olivia’s continued rejection.

Anna remembered the first man who’d tried to date her mother: an insurance salesman named Fred. It was two years after Anna’s mother had finally left her father; Anna had been twelve or thirteen. Fred seemed like a decent enough man, but Anna and her sister didn’t like the idea of a newcomer. A male presence upset the peaceful all-female equilibrium they’d finally achieved. Anna and Jody had mocked and undermined Fred at every opportunity. Eventually, he gave up. It was years before their mother tried dating again. At the time, it seemed like a victory. Now Anna wished she could tell her mother she was sorry.

She got out of the shower, dried off, and put on a sleeveless pink shell and a black skirt suit. She normally wore pants, but today was a
big day. She spent a few minutes primping in the mirror. There were soft blue circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. But with a little concealer and a touch of mascara, she looked presentable enough.

By the time she came downstairs, Jack and his daughter were out in the backyard, looking for the best sprigs of mint. Anna looked out the kitchen window at Jack’s garden. He was kneeling down, his arm around Olivia’s waist, pointing at something in the dirt. In addition to the mint, which grew like a weed, the garden brimmed with basil, oregano, lavender, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, and zucchini. Jack had grown up in Anacostia, a poor urban neighborhood. But his mother had always kept a vegetable garden. He often spoke warmly about digging in the soil with her. Veda Bailey had been a legal secretary, devoted to her only child. Jack’s father had never been in the picture, and Jack was determined to do a better job himself. After Veda died, he created this garden in his own backyard so he could share gardening with Olivia. The little girl loved it. Now Olivia reached down and picked up the thing Jack had been pointing at.

Anna turned and grabbed a granola bar from the cupboard. She wouldn’t attempt cooking breakfast today. Unwrapping the granola bar, she went to the kitchen table and clicked on her laptop. There was a new message. She sat down and opened it.

A DOJ attorney had already e-mailed her the immunity authorization. The speed of that turnaround might have set a record. That was one advantage of a high-profile case. People were paying attention; her requests jumped to the front of the line.