by Lis Wiehl
Judge Ortega took off her reading glasses and let them fall on their chain. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I propose to bring the jury out and briefly question them.” No one objected.
Wheeler leaned over and whispered in Leacham’s ear. Mia didn’t know what was said, but she could guess, as she watched his expression change so that now he looked serious, even contrite. While they waited for the jury to be brought in, the room quickly filled with reporters, as well as David Leacham’s friends and family. Somehow word had spread. Dandan was represented only by her mother.
Bo looked confused. Mia caught her eye, shook her head, and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” How could she explain it to her? She could barely understand it herself.
When the jurors filed in, they looked even more upset than they had yesterday. Several of the women were clutching sodden tissues.
“Will the foreperson of the jury please stand and state his name for the record?” Judge Ortega said.
Jim unfolded his lanky form. Even when he was on his feet his shoulders stayed bowed. “It’s Jim Fratelli.”
“Mr. Fratelli, has the jury been able to reach a verdict in this case?”
“No, Your Honor.” He sighed. “We have not.”
“If the court were to give you more time to deliberate, could the jury reach a unanimous verdict?”
It was obvious that Jim wished he could give a different answer. “No.”
The judge looked at each of the jurors in turn. “If any of you disagree with Mr. Fratelli’s answer, please tell me now.”
The jurors cut their eyes sideways, but no one raised their hands. Instead, they pressed their lips together, shook their heads, crossed their arms. Connor looked like he wanted to spit out something rotten. Naomi knuckled away tears. As Sandra looked from Mia to Bo, she started to cry in earnest.
And the one person they all looked at, or looked away from, was Warren. He sat with his head hanging, seemingly engrossed in worrying a tiny bit of skin next to his thumbnail.
Mia took a quick look behind her. Dandan’s mother still looked confused. She was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, turning her head to look at Mia, then the jurors, then the judge, then back to Mia.
“All right,” Judge Ortega said to Jim. “Please be seated.” She turned toward the jurors. “Ladies and gentleman, I want to thank you very much. Because you cannot reach a unanimous verdict, I’m going to declare there is a manifest necessity for the declaration of a mistrial. I realize this has been a long road. So I’m going to excuse you back into the jury room, where I’d like to step inside just to express my appreciation. And you are now excused.”
The clerk was saying, “All rise for the jury” when a woman’s scream tore through the room.
“No!” It was Bo. “What is happening? No! You killed her!” With bared teeth, she launched herself at Leacham, her hands outstretched as if to strangle him. “You’re a murderer! A murderer! You killed her! You killed my daughter. You must pay!”
The deputies were on either side of her in seconds as the crowd around her gasped and murmured and backed away. She sagged between the two burly men and would have fallen if it weren’t for their arms. Her cries turned to wordless screams while the judge banged her gavel.
Every shriek was like a dagger to Mia’s heart. If she had done a better job, would Dandan and her mother have justice by now?
CHAPTER 17
It was clear that Bo Yee would never rest. Kenny saw that now. It didn’t matter if David Leacham walked free. She would still haunt him. Hunt him.
In America and China both, they had the same saying: “An attack is the best defense.”
He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“I need to talk to you. I have a business proposition.”
He would wait until they were together to spell out the deal. As they said back home, on the other side of the wall, there are always ears.
CHAPTER 18
An hour later, Mia was sitting in Frank D’Amato’s office, fighting a headache. Fighting and losing. It felt as if someone were pushing a stainless steel knitting needle through her temple.
Everything that had happened after Bo went for Leacham and then collapsed was a blur. The poor woman had been taken to a hospital for evaluation. The only good news was that she had harmed no one and was not facing charges for her outburst.
After Bo had been escorted out, Judge Ortega had set a hearing in two weeks to discuss how to proceed. Leacham had walked out of the courtroom and into the arms of his supporters, all of them laughing and hugging and high-fiving as if he had been acquitted. Now Mia was meeting with Frank, her boss and the district attorney, to tell him about her plans to refile.
Years ago, when Mia had first started working at King County, Frank had been just another co-worker, albeit one with five more years’ experience. But Frank had always wanted to be more. When he ran for district attorney, to the surprise of everyone but himself he beat his more experienced opponent.
As the years passed, his external image caught up with his self-perception. He had traded in his Dockers for tailored suits, his passion for careful calibration. Now his thick black hair was touched with silver at the temples. When he wasn’t at the office, he was out in the community visiting victims of violence in the hospital, speaking to civic groups, and attending fund-raisers for various charitable causes. Was he doing it because he truly cared or because he knew it would eventually help him get reelected? Mia figured the answer to both questions was probably yes.
As the years had passed, Frank’s life had become his job, and vice versa. Although framed photos of his children were displayed on his credenza, rumor had it that was about as close as he ever actually got to them.
While he had been busy climbing the ladder, Mia had jumped off it. She had left the office after Brooke was born and only returned after Scott’s death.
A few weeks ago, Frank had narrowly won reelection. The closeness of the race seemed to have left him off balance. Instead of basking in his win, he often seemed irritated and impatient.
As he was now.
“There’s a certain energy, a certain momentum that went into this trial,” Frank said. “You can’t recreate that or put it back in the bottle. It’s gone. You and I both know that the second time is not the charm. Your case became immeasurably weaker without that girl testifying that Leacham had previously held a knife to her throat. A retrial without that Sydney—”
“Sindy,” Mia corrected.
Frank waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter what her name is if you don’t have her. Because without her, this case will just get worse. Wheeler will be going over the court transcripts like he’s cramming for a final exam. He’s going to know exactly what your witnesses are going to say. He’ll know what you’re going to ask on cross. He’s going to go through the witness testimony line by line, looking for any inconsistencies. He’ll have twenty-twenty hindsight that will let him use whatever weaknesses or flaws he didn’t exploit the first time. And knowing Wheeler, he’ll find them.”
Mia pressed her finger into her temple, trying to get the pain to stop or at least recede. “The same’s true for me.” She knew it wasn’t, not really, but she could not let this go. “I can learn from what Wheeler did. I can change things up.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible, Mia. The defense will know every word you’re going to say, but you won’t have anything new to add. The evidence is unchanged. Meanwhile, Wheeler will bring in even more people who will airbrush Leacham’s image, and this time he won’t put on the stand the ones you were able to pick apart. He’ll be sure that all the jury hears about is how devoted Leacham is to his family, how he gives to widows and orphans and helps the poor.” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
What had happened to the old Frank, the one who gathered with them around takeout pizza in the break room on late nights, the one who was part of the team instead of the man who had his secretary summon
her to his office? Mia was pressing her temple so hard she could feel her pulse under the pad of her finger.
“Leacham’s story is impossible to believe.”
“I will grant you that it is improbable.” Frank shrugged. “But it’s not impossible. Wheeler got at least one person to believe it. For all you know, he got eleven.”
“I’m almost positive it was just the one juror who hung it, Frank. One. One juror who was incompetent or stupid or crazy, and who was also stubborn. It was just bad luck that he ended up on our jury.”
Mia had walked into this meeting expecting Frank to be upset at the jury’s inexplicable inability to decide, but also certain he would agree with her about the next steps. Now she felt like she had been sucker-punched. Did he really think she could let David Leacham get away with murder?
Frank said, “You know the saying that defense attorneys have. ‘It only takes one.’ They don’t need twelve, like we do. All they have to do is convince one juror. And in this case they’ve done it once, and they could easily do it again. It’s nearly impossible to get twelve people to agree on anything.” He made a sour face. “Meanwhile, what are you going to do? You’ve got the same old witnesses, except you haven’t even got the most damning one, the one you promised this jury.”
“What if Sindy didn’t disappear on her own?” Mia blurted out.
“What?” Frank’s gaze sharpened. “Do you know something you haven’t shared with me?”
“No,” she said reluctantly. “It’s just a gut feeling.”
He blew air through pursed lips. “Right now I only want to hear about facts. And the fact is you’re not going to develop more evidence or better witnesses. You fought the good fight, Mia, but you lost.” He steepled his fingers, carefully matching fingertip to fingertip, then looked up at her. “I don’t see the point in refiling.”
A flash of anger jolted from her head to her heels. She took her finger away from her temple and jabbed it his direction. “The point is that a young woman died.”
“I’m not denying that. Unfortunately, she’s also not the most sympathetic of victims. An illegal immigrant? A prostitute?” He tilted his head.
“What?” Mia thought of Luciana. “Are you saying she should have known what she was getting into?”
“I’m just saying it’s hard to get jurors to identify with her.”
“Are you asking me to forget that she was also a teenager who died choking on her own blood? I want this conviction, Frank. I want justice for Dandan.”
“Everyone involved wants to bring this to a close,” Frank said, which wasn’t exactly Mia’s stance. “I say we go to Wheeler. Offer him a plea deal.”
Inside, Mia went cold and still. “For what?”
“Second-degree manslaughter. Two years.”
“Two years?” She wanted to scream. “A girl is dead, Frank. Dead.”
“And she’ll still be dead no matter what we do. At least this way there will be some recompense.”
“Leacham deserves at least twenty years. And we can get it. I know we can. Two years is a slap on the wrist. And a slap on the wrist is not closure. It is not justice.”
Frank had run on the office’s winning record. But key to that record was taking on cases you couldn’t lose and then pleading out the rest. And he clearly thought Dandan’s murder now fell into that territory.
“It may not be justice, Mia, but it might be the best we can do at this juncture. Just because the state is automatically entitled to re-try this case does not mean we are obligated to. You already put on your best case, and you still didn’t get a conviction.”
“I can’t let this go, Frank.” Why couldn’t he see this the way she did? What had happened to the old Frank, the one who saw that there were times when black was black, certainly not white, not even a shade of gray. Mia thought of an explanation for his behavior, shied away, and then circled back to it.
Frank tapped on his computer keyboard, obviously having already mentally dismissed her. “Then you have until the day before you’re due back in front of Judge Ortega to bring me something new. If not, then we offer the plea agreement.”
“Let me ask you something, Frank.” Even as Mia gave voice to her suspicions, another voice inside her was telling her to shut up. She ignored it. “Is it possible that one of the reasons you’re taking this tack is because David Leacham has deep pockets and lots of politically connected friends?”
Frank reared back as if she had slapped him. He stared at her with narrowed eyes, shaking his head slowly, his lips pursed. “You’re not the only one who can ask questions, Mia. How many years have we known each other? You know what I’m all about, or at least you should by now. But instead, you impugn me to my face. When I’m the one who offered you a position back here when you needed one. Offered it even when you hadn’t been in a courtroom for four years. And this is the thanks I get?”
Mia heard the subtext. Frank had given—and Frank could take it all away.
CHAPTER 19
Judy Rallison caught Mia’s eye as she closed Frank’s door behind her with a shaking hand. On paper, Judy was just the department’s secretary, but she was really the one who kept all the moving parts lubricated and in motion.
“Someone’s here to see you.” Judy cut her eyes sideways at the figure sitting slumped on the couch. At the sight of Bo Yee, a fresh wave of guilt washed over Mia. She had failed Bo and Dandan. And now she had put her job—and her chance to persuade Frank to refile—at risk by speaking with her gut and not her head.
She sank onto the cushions beside the other woman. “How are you doing?”
Bo lifted her head. Despite her shadowed eyes, you could see where Dandan had gotten her beauty from. “David Leacham bought my daughter.” Her voice was bitter. “And now he has bought his freedom.”
Mia kept her voice low. “That’s not exactly what happened.” How was she going to explain that Frank would probably not let her refile? “Here, let’s go into my office, where we can talk privately.” She helped the other woman to her feet. She thought they were about the same age, but today Bo moved like an old woman, with her head curled over her shuffling feet. In the hall they passed DeShauna and Jesse, who looked at them and looked away. Were they second-guessing how she had handled the trial?
When they reached her office, Mia wished it offered something as comfortable as the lobby’s couch, but all it held was her desk and a round conference table with three chairs, only two of which matched. Mia pulled one out for Bo, then grabbed the box of Kleenex she kept on her desk for victims and their families and plopped it in the middle of the table.
When Mia took her own seat, Bo raised her head. Her black eyes looked straight into Mia’s. “Do you know how I came to this country?”
“No.” Mia didn’t know where this was going, just that it was a relief not to be trying to explain the inexplicable. A brief reprieve before she had to tell Bo of Frank’s decision.
“It was because I got pregnant.”
Mia wasn’t following. “With Dandan?”
“No. I already had Dandan. This was my second pregnancy. You have heard what happens in China, right? One-child policy. At least for the poor.” Bo’s lips pressed together. “You can have a second child or even more—if you pay the fine. For us, it would have been one hundred thousand yuan. That is like thousands of US dollars. Only the rich can pay that.”
Mia nodded.
“But I became pregnant. And I wanted that child. So I tried to hide my belly. Someone must have told. We heard later that the officials wanted to make an example of me. When I was seven months along, they came for us. Many men. And they took me and my husband and Dandan to the city’s family planning bureau.”
Mia said nothing. She knew what must be coming, but that didn’t lessen the horror. If anything, sitting knee to knee with Bo, seeing her hands twist on the table, hearing her breath go shallow as she remembered, made it worse.
“They yelled at me,” Bo continued. “They beat
me. They hit my belly.” She laid her hands on either side of her flat abdomen. “I was on the floor, trying to curl up. They kicked out this tooth. Later, I tried to push it back in, but it didn’t work.” Pulling her lips back, she pointed at the hole where one of her bottom eye teeth was gone.
“My husband tried to protect me, but they beat him, too, and dragged him away. They took his camera. The guards were in the hall holding him. They hit him in the head and tore his shirt. They said they would call the police and have my husband put in jail for obstructing their official duties. I could hear my daughter crying. She was only three.”
Mia nodded, her eyes never leaving Bo’s face. Dandan had been only a little younger than Brooke. How terrified she must have been to see her mother and father beaten.
“I was worried that Dandan would have no parents, so I begged the officials to let my husband go. They said they would only do that if I took the shot to make the baby come.”
Mia felt a sudden jolt of nausea and tried to swallow it back down. This was it. The dark heart of Bo’s story.
“So I said yes.” Bo’s face twisted with pain. “I hoped that after they let my husband go I could somehow stop what they were going to do. But then they wanted me to sign that it was okay to do it, and I said no. So one of them, she signed for me. Then they said I had to put my thumbprint next to the signature. I still said I would not. They tried to pry my hands open, but I held them tight, like this.” She lifted her fists, the fingers curled over to hide the thumbs, and showed them to Mia. “One man held my wrist and one hit me in the head and one pulled my fingers apart until they could put my thumb on the ink and then on the paper.”
Bo was nearly panting now. It came to Mia that it was as if she were giving birth to the terrible story, laboring to bring forth a monster.
“After that they dragged me into the operating room. Four women held me down. The doctor came with a huge needle. When I felt it go in, I cried and cried.” Her words became so soft that even sitting next to her, Mia could barely hear them. “I could feel the baby dying inside me. It had been kicking, but the kicks got weaker and weaker.” Bo took a deep, shuddering breath. “And then they stopped.”