Law of Attraction (18 page)

The war room started out as a convenient place to have the guys from Closed Files deliver the boxes containing D’marco’s old cases. Over the past week, Anna and Jack had also started to pile on the conference table the police and autopsy reports, medical records, photographs, phone records, and stacks of legal research. Recently, both prosecutors had spent as much time in the war room as in their offices.

Now Jack was sitting at the table reading an outline she’d left on his chair the previous night. He looked up as she entered.

“Hey, this isn’t half bad,” Jack greeted her, holding up the document. She had drafted an outline of a direct examination of Detective McGee for the preliminary hearing today. Jack would be asking the questions, but she’d wanted to help.

“Hey, don’t go crazy with the praise. It’ll go to my head.” She smiled at him—but something was wrong. “Is everything okay?” Anna asked. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “It’s just, uh—did you do something different with your hair? I mean, it looks nice.”

“No, well, kind of, I guess—” She touched her unusually sleek hair
and cursed herself for being so transparent.

Jack quickly changed the subject. “You put the
Jencks
package together, you prepared the questions—why don’t you handle the prelim today?”

“Really?” She had hoped for his approval, but hadn’t expected this vote of confidence.

“Sure. It’s the same procedure as the misdemeanors you’ve handled. Don’t be nervous just because the case caption has the letters FEL instead of MSD. You’re supposed to be learning from this case, right? So, learn. If you screw up, I’ll just have to fire you.”

She smiled at Jack. His words were gruff, but this was the first time he’d asked her to do anything important on the case. She hoped it meant he was starting to trust her.

“And if I do well?”

“I’ll tell you how McGee lost his two front teeth.”

“Oh, the stakes are high.”

An hour later, as they walked into the courtroom, her good mood was replaced by jitters. Her eyes skimmed the courtroom as she walked to the prosecutors’ table. Nick wasn’t here yet. That was both a relief and an extension of the torture. Seeing him was going to be hard, but waiting might be harder.

This courtroom was laid out the same as the misdemeanor courtrooms where Anna had tried so many cases, but the details told her that she was practicing law at a different level. There was no foam poking from under the fabric of the jury box. The prosecutors’ desk had one case file on it—hers—instead of dozens. And the people in the audience actually seemed to be sitting up straight, paying attention, knowing that this was important.

She wasn’t sure who all these people were, however. Some were D’marco’s friends and family, some were Laprea’s, but a handful looked like lawyers wearing suits, except that they were toting backpacks instead of briefcases.

“Who are these people?” Anna whispered to Jack.

“Press,” Jack replied. “Don’t say anything to them.” He motioned for Anna to sit in the chair closest to the jury box, where two sketch artists were already drawing the layout of the courtroom on big creamy tablets. “This way, you’ll be in the picture.”

This was Anna’s first official appearance in this case, the first time
she would say
anything
in a felony courtroom, and she suddenly realized she would be doing it in front of a bunch of journalists. She hoped they couldn’t see the sweat beading at her hairline.

McGee sat behind the journalists, reading a newspaper, which he would hastily put away when the judge took the bench. He was wearing a blue seersucker suit and a tie with enormous yellow sunflowers. He was ready.

There had been one previous hearing in the case of the
United States v. D’marco Davis,
the initial appearance, three days earlier. Jack had handled that minor hearing alone; she’d been stuck in a misdemeanor courtroom. D’marco had been temporarily detained based on the arrest warrant, but if the government wanted to keep D’marco in jail until the trial, they needed to present live testimony now to prove that they had sufficient evidence that he committed the murder.

The courtroom’s door swung open behind her, the reporters shifted and murmured, and Anna stopped breathing for a moment. She knew who it had to be. She turned around to see Nick striding up the aisle, smiling and nodding at the reporters. As he entered the well of the courtroom, his eyes met Anna’s.

Against her will, Anna felt happy, feathery, and warm at Nick’s gaze. The sight of him still sent happy signals to the pleasure centers of her brain. She had to consciously remind herself that he wasn’t walking in to kiss her hello, but to fight her to get a murderer off—for a murder he allowed to happen. She should hate him. She looked at Nick, wondering if he felt as conflicted as she did. His mouth curved into a smile. He looked good.

Suddenly, she remembered Jack and the packed courtroom. She turned away from Nick, but it was too late. Nick walked right up to her.

“Hello, Anna.” He paused, then reached out to shake her hand.

“Hi, Nick.” She swallowed and lifted her hand to meet his. She felt his warm palm press against her own, like it had many times before, under such different circumstances. They were standing so close, she could practically feel the heat emanating from his body.

“You look nice,” he said softly.

His hazel eyes were tired but sincere. She gazed at them, feeling something like homesickness. Then she realized he was still holding her hand—and she jerked it away. She held that hand a few inches away from her thigh, fingers splayed, as if she had been burned.

“Thank you.” She strained to keep her voice light and casual. Had the crowded courtroom noticed their nanosecond of intimacy or her scandalized reaction? Her eyes darted around. If the sketch artists had perceived it, at least they weren’t drawing it.

Then she turned to Jack. He had noticed. He was looking coolly at Nick.

“Don’t you think I look nice, too?” Jack asked Nick sarcastically. “I wore this tie special.”

“Sure, Jack.” Nick’s eyes cut to the Homicide chief. “You always look . . . the same.”

The click of the judge’s door interrupted their greeting. “All rise!” called the clerk. Nick nodded and walked to the defense table as Judge Nancy Spiegel came in. As the judge took the bench, Jack glanced at Anna quizzically. He wanted to know what was going on between her and the defense attorney. Anna looked down at her papers, hoping he couldn’t read what she was feeling. Her heart was thumping.

“Good morning, everyone,” Judge Spiegel said, banging her gavel lightly. “Please be seated.” The judge seemed to have lost some of her usual snap, and the vertical crease between her eyes appeared particularly deep today. Anna wondered if the judge also felt bad for the part she had played in letting D’marco go a few months ago.

In the three months since D’marco’s misdemeanor trial, the courthouse had done its annual judges’ rotation, and Judge Spiegel had landed a coveted Felony 1 docket, where she now presided over the most serious cases: sex offenses and homicides. There were three other Felony 1 judges; Judge Spiegel had been chosen by lottery to preside over this case. It was not unusual to have a jurist sit on a case where she had seen the defendant before. Anna thought this judge was a good draw for the prosecution—maybe the judge would give them some breaks out of regret for her earlier ruling letting D’marco go. Anna wondered if Nick would ask the judge to recuse herself. On the other hand, maybe he liked a judge who had previously declared his client not guilty.

A deputy U.S. marshal led D’marco out of a side door. Anna was glad to see him back in an orange jumpsuit, and clinking with each step. His hands were manacled in front of him, his feet were chained together, and a chain connected the restraints at his hands and feet. In front of a jury, he would be unshackled and allowed to wear civilian clothes; for everything else they would keep him visibly declawed. The
marshal brought D’marco to stand next to Nick.

“I’m sorry to see you again, Mr. Davis, under these circumstances,” said the judge sternly. “Very sorry indeed.”

Anna heard the scratching of pencils as the reporters scribbled the judge’s words in their notebooks. Judge Spiegel paused to let them get their quote. Then she turned to the lawyers.

“Identify yourself for the record, please.”

Anna glanced at Jack. This is your show, his look said. She cleared her throat.

“Anna Curtis for the United States of America.”

“Nicholas Wagner for the defendant, D’marco Davis.”

Anna felt proud every time she introduced herself in court. She represented the interests of the entire country. That usually meant putting the bad guys away—but not always. She had a duty to be fair. If she thought the police had violated the Constitution, it was her job not to use the tainted evidence—and to train the police not to do it again. If she thought a defendant hadn’t committed the charged crime, her job was to drop the case. Her duty wasn’t just to win, it was to do justice. And this time her role had a more personal meaning to her.

She thought about Nick in his narrower, opposing role. His duty was to his client alone. He had no obligation to seek justice or serve the community’s needs. If he knew his client was guilty, he still had to defend him as best he could. The criminal justice system needed defense attorneys, but Anna felt bitter that Nick had chosen that role over hers.

Anna didn’t look at Nick as he addressed the court, but he hovered at the edge of her peripheral vision. Standing a few feet away from him like this, separated by impassable circumstances, felt wrong to her. They’d once been as close as two people could be. Now they had competing goals, and only one of them could win.

“Ms. Curtis, you may call your first witness,” the judge intoned.

“The government calls Detective Tavon McGee.”

As McGee took the stand, Anna picked up her outline of questions, not to read it, but to have something to do with her trembling hands. She steadied herself with the usual introductory questions.

“Good morning, sir. Could you please state and spell your name for the record.”

“Detective Tavon McGee. T-A-V-O-N M-C-capital-G-E-E.”

“What is your current rank, station, and duty assignment?”

As Anna talked McGee through his background and experience, she
felt herself relaxing. She had learned in law school how to build a case in court, and she was good at it. She put up with all the dreck—herding uncooperative witnesses, xeroxing police reports, two-hole-punching intake forms—to have the opportunity to try cases. And Detective McGee was an ideal witness—he was smart, he would tell the truth, and he was on her side.

As she led him through the story of D’marco and Laprea’s violent relationship, she found herself forgetting Nick’s presence at the table next to hers and the reporters scribbling behind her. She focused on telling the story through her questions and McGee’s answers. McGee’s testimony was all hearsay, but hearsay was admissible at this pretrial hearing. Once she had set the stage, Anna directed McGee to the night of Laprea’s murder. McGee described Rose’s last conversation with her daughter, and how Laprea was headed to D’marco’s house.

“Without telling us the person’s name,” Anna said, “is there a neighbor at D’marco’s building who saw the defendant with the victim on the night of her death?” They would keep Ernie Jones’s identity secret for as long as possible to protect the witness, but today McGee could relate hearsay about what the janitor had seen.

“Yes. I’ll call that person Witness One.” McGee described how the witness had seen D’marco hit Laprea and how D’marco even assaulted the witness. They moved on to how the body was discovered by a nine-year-old boy the next day. The reporters’ pens scratched away.

Anna had McGee recite D’marco’s home address, and then she asked him, “What was the address of the building where Laprea Johnson’s body was found?”

McGee paused for dramatic effect. “The same.”

“Can you describe the injuries to the body?”

“Ma’am, there were so many, I’m not sure where to start.”

The detective was playing it up for the reporters. “Let’s start with her head, detective.” McGee nodded and launched into a detailed recital of Laprea’s injuries.

“Did the medical examiner have a conclusion regarding the cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head.”

“And did the ME have a conclusion regarding the manner of death?”

This was a standard question, but McGee milked the moment, pausing before answering in a low, ominous voice.

“Homicide.”

Anna continued asking questions until the whole story was out. This case sounds pretty strong, Anna thought as she finished up. “Nothing further.” She sat down with relief and satisfaction.

But she was only half done. Now she had to watch her ex-boyfriend cross-examine the detective.

Nick walked to the podium between their two tables. He didn’t waste any breath on polite niceties but began straightaway trying to destroy her case.

“Detective, you don’t have a single eyewitness to how Laprea Johnson actually died, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” McGee conceded.

“Or to how her body came to be in the lot behind the fifty-unit apartment building where my client lives, true?”

“True.”

“Did anyone besides Witness One see or hear anything unusual that night?”

“So far, we haven’t spoken to any other neighbors who admit they saw or heard anything.”

“Fifty units, and not one person saw the alleged murder? How many of the residents have you spoken to?”

“Objection,” Anna asserted as she stood up. Typically, she wouldn’t object to this line of questioning, and she was aware that Nick had sat through her entire direct examination without objecting. But now was not the time to do him any favors. Nick wasn’t entitled yet to details about who the government had spoken to or when they’d spoken to them. Later, she’d have to turn everything over. For now, she just needed to put forth enough evidence to show that D’marco Davis had committed the crime. “This doesn’t go to probable cause and it’s beyond the scope of the direct examination.”