Law of Attraction (5 page)

The sound of a key rattling in the front door startled them both. Laprea stood quickly and looked around the living room as if she could find a place to hide the defense attorney. Rose walked into the house trailed by the twins, who were chattering about their Sunday school lessons. Rose stopped in her tracks when she saw Nick getting up from the couch.

“Get out.” Rose didn’t yell—probably didn’t want to frighten the children—but there was no mistaking the steel in her voice, and no questioning her authority.

Nick slipped past Rose, murmuring apologies.

“Come back here again,” Rose said, “I’ll call the police.”

As soon as he was gone, Rose turned toward Laprea. “What that man say to you?”

For just a moment, Laprea had been taken in by the lawyer’s smooth voice and pretty promises, but now that her mother demanded an explanation, she couldn’t fool herself.

“Slick talk and lies,” she said, going into the kitchen to fix lunch for the kids. “I don’t even know why I let him in.”

5

T
he morning of Laprea’s trial, Anna couldn’t find a single witness in her case. “Officer Green!” she shouted, trying to make her voice heard over the din of the witness room. Weary police officers stood gossiping with each other about last night’s foot chase through the Sursum Corda housing complex. At the counter, four snot-crusted children clung to a fat woman waving a subpoena at the bulletproof Plexiglas and demanding to speak to the Attorney General. Less assertive civilians waited in rows of plastic chairs for prosecutors to call their names. Prosecutors rushed to talk to as many people as they could before the nine thirty trial call, when they would have to tell a judge whether their witnesses were present and the government was ready for trial.

Anna finally found Brad Green in the hallway outside the witness room. He was absorbed in conversation with one of the newer DV attorneys, standing close to her and smiling deeply into her eyes.

“Officer Green, have you seen Laprea Johnson?” Anna didn’t have time for pleasantries.

He shook his head. From their guilty looks, Anna guessed the officer and lawyer hadn’t been talking about a case. She sighed. In the three months since they first met, Anna had learned that Green was something of a player, a cop who enjoyed the attention the uniform brought. Well, he could flirt all he wanted—on his own time.

Anna was heading to the desks behind the counter to call the Johnson household when she spotted Rose walking up the hallway. Relief turned to concern when she saw that Rose’s eyes were red and she clutched a tissue. Anna hurried down the hall to greet her.

“Hi. What’s wrong, Ms. Johnson?”

“Laprea’s not coming. I begged that girl. She say she won’t testify against her babies’ daddy. She don’t want to be responsible for him going to jail for five or six years.”

“It wouldn’t be anything
she
did that makes him go to jail. He’s the one that hit her.”

“
I
know that,” Rose snapped through her tears. “I’m here.”

Of course. It wasn’t Rose who needed convincing. Anna nodded.

“Can’t
I
just say what happened?” Rose asked. “Laprea told me. I can testify.”

“I wish it were that easy. But you didn’t see what happened yourself. Anything Laprea told you would be hearsay.” Anna turned to Green. “Officer, I need you to go to Laprea Johnson’s house and pick her up. If she’s not there, go to her job, the Department of Labor cafeteria. Remind her that she’s been subpoenaed. That’s a court order. She has to come to court, or else she’ll be arrested on a material witness warrant.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Green said happily. Some cops might have grumbled, but he appeared glad to get out of the courthouse on an official mission.

Anna looked at Rose. “I hate to threaten her with arrest like that, Ms. Johnson, but it may be the only way to get her in here today. If she doesn’t show up, the case will be dismissed.”

Rose took a deep breath, then nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Curtis.”

•  •  •

The seats were filling up as Anna and Grace walked into the courtroom. Anna couldn’t resist glancing around for Nick Wagner. Since their one dinner together, she’d studiously ignored him in the courthouse except for the bare minimum of polite contact necessary for doing business. She had thought about him regularly, though, and knew some of her nervousness this morning was in direct anticipation of facing him head-on today. But she didn’t see him in the crowded courtroom yet.

Friends and family of the various defendants eyed Anna and Grace hostilely or hopefully as the prosecutors wheeled their briefcases through the spectator section. The men wore baggy jeans and T-shirts. The women wore colorful acrylic fingernails, elaborate shellacked hairdos, and—fat or slim—skintight pants. Everyone showcased their tattoos. The days of wearing your Sunday best to court were gone. Every day in Superior Court was casual Friday.

A fleet of uniformed police officers sat scattered among the friends and family; there was no bride’s or groom’s side. A handful of probation officers and defense attorneys sat in the front rows, scanning their files before the judge took the bench.

Although D.C. Superior Court was the training ground for some of America’s most renowned litigators, this windowless courtroom had seen better days. Yellow foam poked out through tears in the scuffed beige fabric covering the jury box and judge’s bench. The thin brown carpeting had worn out in patches along the most trafficked areas. An irregular brown stain spread across several fluorescent light panels, where, according to legend, a rat had gotten trapped and died.

“All rise!” the courtroom clerk called.

There was a flurry of noise as everyone stood up. Judge Nancy Spiegel strode to the bench, her black robe flapping in her wake. She was an attractive woman in her midforties, with curly brown hair and a permanent vertical crease between her eyes. She appeared to be in no worse a mood than usual.

The judge began calling the cases that were up for trial that day. If the victim had shown up and was still cooperative—two big ifs—or if the prosecution could prove the case without the victim, Anna and Grace called “ready.” All the “ready” cases would be tried later in the day. If they didn’t have the necessary witnesses, they called “not ready,” and the judge dismissed the case. The defendants in those cases were immediately released.

On the domestic violence docket, the prosecutors were “ready” about half of the time, an impressive number by national standards. By the time of trial, the vast majority of DV victims had gotten back together with their assailants and refused to cooperate with the prosecution. Prosecutors expected this, and tried to build cases they could win even without a victim willing to testify—but it was often impossible.

Anna knew that without Laprea’s testimony, she couldn’t make the case against D’marco Davis.

Anna glanced back into the audience to see if Laprea had arrived. She saw that Nick had taken a seat in the front row with the other defense attorneys. He smiled as Anna glanced over him. She tried to ignore the way her stomach dipped as if she’d reached the top of a roller coaster. She wondered if Nick was smiling because he was happy to see her or because he knew his client was about to be released. She nodded at him but didn’t smile back.

“Calling the case of
United States versus D’marco Davis,
” the judge intoned. The deputy led the defendant out into the courtroom.

Anna took a hard look at D’marco. Although she’d been thinking about him for two months, this was the first time she was seeing him in
person; because of her office’s rotation system, other prosecutors had handled D’marco’s prior hearings. The guy was enormous. Tall as his lanky lawyer, D’marco filled out his orange jumpsuit like a linebacker. His arms emerged from the short sleeves in a ropy clump of muscles, and his hands were big as dinner plates at the Outback Steakhouse. He wore his hair in cornrows running from his forehead to the back of his skull, where they fell in skinny braids that brushed the top of his shoulders. D’marco greeted his lawyer, then scanned the faces in the audience. He smiled. He knew what it meant that Laprea wasn’t there. Then he turned to the judge, bowed his head respectfully, and said in a soft, polite voice, “Good morning, Your Honor.” The guy was a pro.

The judge asked Anna the question of the day. “Ms. Curtis, is the government ready to proceed with trial in this case?”

Without Laprea, Anna couldn’t call “ready” for trial. Her chest constricted at the idea that D’marco was going to walk away. She opened her mouth to say “no” when she felt someone tapping on her shoulder. Officer Green had returned. He whispered in Anna’s ear and pointed to the last row, where Laprea was taking a seat. Anna heaved a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” Anna whispered.

“Go get ’em,” Green replied.

“The government is ready for trial,” Anna announced. She looked to see D’marco’s reaction. He stared straight ahead, stone-faced.

As Green turned around to take a seat, Judge Spiegel looked up at the officer and smiled for the first time that day. “Ms. Curtis, I see you’ve called in the A team,” she said without looking at Anna. “Good morning, Officer Green,” she purred. If she didn’t know better, Anna would’ve sworn the judge was batting her eyes at him. The officer returned the greeting and the two bantered for a moment.

Anna looked at Nick. A smirk played on his lips. He wasn’t surprised by the camaraderie between judge and police; he was both amused and pissed off by it.

The judge finally turned back to her docket, noting that D’marco’s case would be the first trial of the day, beginning in about an hour. Grace covered the rest of the calendar call so Anna could speak to Laprea.

•  •  •

“I can’t do it, Ms. Curtis. Please don’t make me,” Laprea pleaded with
Anna. They were standing in the small meeting room off the entrance of the courtroom. Rose sat in one of the scuffed plastic chairs, her arms crossed on her chest, while Green hovered in a corner.

“Three months ago, you were begging me to get D’marco locked up,” Anna said. “Do you really want him to walk out of here today? He’ll just keep hurting you. And if he knows there are no consequences, the beatings will just get worse.”

Laprea looked at the ground. Part of her understood that this was true. But today she was filled with hope.

“It’s going to be different. He’s in anger management. He’s doing job training.”

“Didn’t he do that before?”

“I don’t expect you to understand. But he’s my babies’ father. What good is it for my kids to have their father in jail? He just want to be there to see D’montrae and Dameka grow up. They need him.”

“It’d be better for them to grow up without a father than to see him beating on their mother all the time,” Anna replied emphatically.

“All due respect, Ms. Curtis, but you don’t know my life.”

Anna paused. She realized what Laprea saw when she looked at Anna: a white woman buttoned up in a suit, someone from a completely different world. Anna wanted to tell her it was all a veneer.
The suit, the law degree, they don’t matter. Inside, we are more alike than you know.
But she couldn’t find the words, and the moment passed.

“It’s not all his fault,” Laprea said softly. “I’m partly to blame.”

“It is his fault!” Anna exclaimed in frustration. “No matter what you think you did, you don’t deserve this!”

Rose spoke up. “I ain’t never seen no bruises on D’marco.”

Laprea turned to her. “Mama, you know how hard it is. Some men just want to get in your pants and then that’s it, they done. D’marco want to be in my life. He want to take care of me and the kids. I am
not
gonna stop that.”

Anna was brimming with frustration. She had to excuse herself and step out of the little room to clear her head. She walked to the back door of the courthouse and stepped out onto the concrete patio. It was early May, and she inhaled the scent of damp earth as she paced, oblivious to the smokers standing under the eaves.

Sometimes, Anna let a case be dismissed if a victim asked her to drop the charges. She considered doing that here. Laprea wanted it. Some people argued that it was paternalistic to pursue a case against
the victim’s own wishes. Anna didn’t want to override Laprea’s decision; it was important for the woman to feel that she had some control over her own life.

A memory flashed, unwanted. Anna saw her mother’s face, the fear in her eyes when her father came home after another night at the bar. Alcohol seeped from his pores. Anna and Jody crouched under the table as their father held his belt, the one with the big pewter buckle, looped in a leather coil.

Anna shook off the image.

Laprea’s children were four years old. Soon they would start internalizing their father’s violence—and be more likely to replicate it. Dameka would be at risk of becoming an abused woman; D’montrae would be more likely to become an abuser. Anna wished someone had made her mother testify against her father back when Anna was four. Back when it could’ve made a difference.

She wasn’t dismissing this case. She needed to protect Laprea, even if Laprea didn’t want her protection at the moment. Anna believed she knew what was best for her, better than Laprea did herself.

Anna returned to the room where Laprea and her mother sat in stony silence. She crouched by Laprea’s chair.

“I’m sorry,” Anna told Laprea softly, “but I’m going to have to call you to the stand. I hate this part of my job, making someone do something they don’t want to. But I saw what he did to you. I can’t let this case be dismissed.”

Laprea nodded in resignation. They would both do what they believed was right. But it wouldn’t turn out as either of them intended.

6

M
s. Curtis, please call your first witness,” the judge said.

They had already gone through opening statements, which were always short in a bench trial. In misdemeanor cases, where a judge decided the defendant’s guilt, there was no place for the big speeches of a jury trial. Anna had just laid out the basic facts and charges: D’marco was charged with assault and threats for the post–Valentine’s Day attack, and contempt of court for telephoning Laprea from jail. Nick reserved his opening statement, choosing not to tip his hand yet.