Law of Attraction

by Allison Leotta

  “Mm,” Ray-Ray replied, not entirely convinced. “You gonna get D’marco a good plea, right?”

  “Yeah, but the case against him is strong. No matter what, he’s gonna have to serve some serious time. He needs to start coming to terms with that.”

  Nick stood up, pulled a business card out of his suit jacket, and handed it to Ray-Ray. “Let me know if you hear anything else.”

  “Okay, I will. Good luck, man.”

  “Thanks.” The lawyer walked out into the main hall and merged with the crowds of people.

  Ray-Ray carried the tub of dirty dishes back to the kitchen and set them down by the slop sink. He lifted a dirty plate and held the sprayer to it while he thought. He rinsed the same plate for five minutes, thinking about what the lawyer had just said, and what a tough spot D’marco was in. Ray-Ray wondered if Laprea might still be alive, and D’marco out of jail, if he’d just kept his mouth shut. In a way, Ray-Ray knew, D’marco’s troubles were Ray-Ray’s fault.

  He would get the gun tonight, Ray-Ray decided. And he would throw it to D’marco tomorrow, along with the usual three-thirty package of heroin. He owed his friend that much.

  • • •

  “Are there any further questions for this witness?” Anna asked.

  She looked at the blank faces of the grand jurors. The jurors stared back, bored. A few hadn’t looked up from their newspapers during the whole presentation.

  “Shall we excuse the witness then?” she asked.

  The jurors murmured their acquiescence. Anna opened the waist-high door to the witness box to help D’marco Davis’s cousin step down.

  “With our thanks,” Anna said, as the man walked out of the room with a scowl. Anna glanced at Jack, who nodded at her. She’d done just fine.

  When Jack first invited her to assist him in the grand jury, she had been intrigued. Misdemeanor cases didn’t go through the grand jury, and Anna had never been inside one. The whole grand jury process was filled with an air of mystery.

  Everything that happened in the grand jury was secret. The jurors and the prosecutors weren’t allowed to talk about what happened inside the grand jury to anyone outside of it. That was designed to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations. A witness could bring their own lawyer, but the lawyer had to wait outside the grand jury door while the witness testified inside. There was no judge and no defense attorney. It was just the prosecutor questioning the witnesses, with the occasional question from a juror. If, after hearing all the evidence, the grand jury found that there was probable cause to believe that someone committed a crime, it would return an indictment, an official charging document that sent the defendant to trial. It was a tremendous power, and unlike almost every other part of the criminal justice system, it was a power exercised entirely behind closed doors.

  Anna had almost expected the grand jury to look like the all-white Krypton courtroom from the opening scene of Superman.

  She had been slightly disappointed the first time Jack had allowed her into the grand jury room. Instead of a whirring crystal fortress, the grand jury room looked like a college seminar room, but with the rows of Formica tables and plastic chairs curving around a witness stand instead of a chalkboard. A tired-looking court reporter sat to the side of the witness stand, typing on her stenographic machine and periodically opening an old tape recorder to flip the tape. The jurors themselves were random civilians who had been mailed letters instructing them to report for jury service. Many of them didn’t want to be there. And in cases like this one, they were quickly bored.

  It was November—three months after Laprea’s murder—and Jack and Anna had called more than fifty people to testify before this grand jury so far. Most of those witnesses didn’t know, or at least claimed not to know, anything relevant to D’marco’s case. But because so many people wouldn’t talk to them voluntarily, Jack and Anna used their subpoena power to get people to talk to them in the grand jury. They had put dozens of D’marco’s neighbors on the witness stand, each of whom claimed not to have seen or heard anything unusual on the night of the murder.

  The prosecutors had also begun to subpoena D’marco’s friends and family, to see if D’marco had confessed anything to them or had any kind of alibi. So far, Anna had learned nothing. At least her questions nailed down their stories about what they were doing on the night of the murder. D’marco’s buddies wouldn’t be able to provide a false alibi for him later.

  The jurors were getting tired of the parade of irrelevant witnesses. Anna was sorry to bore the jurors, but the job had to be done. And she was grateful to be getting this experience. Under Jack’s watchful eye, Anna had examined a few minor witnesses, like the cousin she’d just excused. She was glad that Jack’s faith in her abilities was growing.

  And she thought the jurors might be more interested in their next witness. Anna opened the grand jury door and peered out to the waiting area.

  “Ms. Davis, we’re ready for you,” Anna said.

  The big woman sitting next to Detective McGee looked up from her magazine. She wore a gray security guard uniform and a gravity-defying salt-and-pepper beehive. She frowned at Anna, but followed her into the grand jury room. Anna showed the woman to the witness stand, then sat in a free chair. This witness could be too challenging for a rookie to handle. Jack would be asking the questions.

  The foreman swore the woman in. She glared at Jack as she answered the usual introductory questions. Her name was Jeanne Davis; she was fifty-three years old. She lived in Southeast D.C. and worked as a guard in an office building in Northwest. Yes, she knew a man named D’marco Davis. He was her grandson.

  The jurors sat up straighter and murmured to each other. Newspapers were lowered. The defendant’s grandmother? This might be interesting.

  “What was your role in bringing up D’marco Davis?” Jack asked.

  “I raised him up since he’s seven.” Jeanne crossed her sizable arms and glared at Jack with open hostility.

  “How did he come to live with you?” Jack ignored the attitude and spoke mildly.

  “They took him away from my daughter.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Tawanna Davis.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Did Tawanna care for D’marco until he went to live with you?”

  “Kinda.” Jeanne didn’t want to be there, and she didn’t want to give them anything they could use against her grandson.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She got issues.”

  “What issues?”

  “Crack.” A few of the grand jurors hummed in understanding. Some of them had similar issues in their own families. Jeanne looked over at them and seemed to soften a bit. She spoke toward an elderly woman in the front row. “Stealing to pay for the crack. Selling herself to pay for the crack.”

  “How old was D’marco when he was removed from Tawanna’s care?”

  “He was six.”

  “Did he come to live with you right away?”

  “I couldn’t take him at first. I had three other grandkids in my house.”

  “Where did D’marco go then?”

  “Foster homes. Then a group home. I don’t even wanna know what happened to him there.” The elderly juror nodded sympathetically. “The social worker came and said he had no place to go. So I took him in.”

  “Was that difficult?”

  “You do what you gotta do. I raised up my kids best I could. Now I’m raising their kids. By myself.”

  “How long did D’marco live with you?”

  “Till he was twenty.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He caught a drug charge. He been arrested before, but it was all bullshit. ’Scuse my language. This time he got locked up for a while.”

  “When he was released last December, did he return to your house?”

  “Nah, I was full up. He took a place on Alabama Avenue.”

  “Which is where he w
as living on August sixteenth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know where D’marco’s parents are living?”

  “We ain’t seen his father since he was a baby.”

  “What about his mother?”

  “She took to the streets. I ain’t heard from her in years.” Jeanne tried to keep a poker face, but Anna could see how much this pained her.

  Jack asked about other friends and relatives, and he jotted down Jeanne’s answers. Those folks would also be receiving grand jury subpoenas.

  “Did you ever meet a woman named Laprea Johnson?”

  “Yeah, I knew Laprea.” Jeanne wrinkled her nose as if the name left a bad taste in her mouth. “She was his baby mama.”

  “What was she like?” Jack wanted to see if Jeanne would insult Laprea. It would give them evidence of bias if she later tried to testify at trial on D’marco’s behalf.

  “She okay. She let me see the kids.”

  Jack tried to get her to elaborate on her relationship with Laprea, but Jeanne knew this was the important part. She gave one-word answers wherever possible.

  “Did you ever see your grandson and Ms. Johnson fighting with each other?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever see him strike her?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear about any fights between them from anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever see Ms. Johnson with injuries?”

  “No.”

  She’s lying, Anna thought. But Anna understood that. Jeanne was trying to protect her family. Anna noticed Jack was treating her gently—more gently than other witnesses who had obviously lied. Few people would blame a grandmother for trying to protect a grandson she’d raised.

  “Have you spoken to Mr. Davis since August sixteenth?”

  “A few times, on the phone, since he been in jail.”

  “Have you talked with him about the death of Laprea Johnson?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  Jack glanced ruefully at Anna. They were getting nowhere. The only thing left to do was to lock her out of lying for her grandson at trial.

  “Ms. Davis, what were you doing the night of August sixteenth?”

  “I was at home,” she answered. After a pause, she continued. “With D’marco. All night.”

  Jack looked up, surprised, but only for a moment. If anyone was going to provide the defendant with a false alibi, it was this woman. Even criminals without a friend in the world could usually cough up a mother or grandmother willing to perjure herself to protect him.

  “What do you mean by ‘all night’?”

  “He came over for dinner. He didn’t leave till the next morning.”

  “When you say he came over for dinner: What time did he arrive?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I’d say around six p.m.”

  “Was it still light outside?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  Jeanne was making up a story to protect D’marco, but she didn’t know the evidence they already had against him. She didn’t know that her story was totally incompatible with what Ernie Jones saw in the hallway of D’marco’s building.

  “And you say he didn’t leave until the next morning. When was that?”

  “I’d say around eight a.m. Right before I went to work.”

  “What were you two doing all that time?”

  “We watched TV after dinner. And he played some video games.”

  “He has his own apartment, right?”

  “Right.”

  “With his own bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did he stay over at your house that night?”

  “It just got late. He didn’t feel like walking home. He just went to sleep on the couch; he does that sometimes. I woke him up there the next morning. He didn’t go out all night. I know that for sure.”

  The jurors were openly glaring at her. They’d initially had sympathy for Gramma—but no one likes to be lied to. They’d already heard testimony from Ernie Jones, and they’d also heard Ernie’s hysterical 911 call saying D’marco had just hit him and Laprea. The jurors knew that D’marco had been at his own house, beating up Laprea, around 9:30 p.m. They knew Jeanne Davis was lying.

  “Ma’am, what shows did you watch on TV that night?”

  She paused. “I don’t remember.”

  “What video games did Mr. Davis play?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t play those things,” she replied haughtily, as if Jack had personally invented the scourge of computerized games.

  “Have you spoken to your grandson about what you would say concerning where he was that night?”

  “No, sir.” She arranged her face into a look of outrage, as if Jack had shocked her with the suggestion that she collaborated with her grandson about his alibi.

  “Have you spoken to his attorney, Nicholas Wagner, or a defense investigator about where your grandson was that night?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “No, ma’am. Mr. Wagner is not your lawyer. Your discussions with him are not protected by the attorney-client privilege. I’m instructing you to answer the question.” Jeanne’s eyes radiated pure hatred. “Or risk being held in contempt.”

  “The lawyer came to my house. He wanted to know if Laprea been seeing anyone besides D’marco. I told him I don’t know, just like I told you.”

  “Did you also tell Mr. Wagner that D’marco had been with you on the night of Laprea Johnson’s death?”

  “I told him exactly what I just told you.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Anna tensed up. It was strange to hear Nick discussed this way. She no longer spoke to him directly, but they were still inescapably tied to each other: both of them circling this case, tracking down the same witnesses, trying to find out what the other knew and to anticipate the other’s strategy, all in preparation for a final showdown against each other.

  “He thanked me for telling him,” Jeanne replied. “But he said he didn’t think it would be something they could use at trial.”

  Anna felt her shoulders relax. If Nick had considered using this obviously false alibi, her opinion of him would have plummeted. But he had done the right thing, Anna saw, with a relief she wouldn’t have admitted to feeling.

  “You love your grandson, right?” Jack was asking. He would lock in Jeanne’s bias.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t want to see him go to jail, right?”

  “Course.”

  “Nothing further. Are there any questions for this witness?”

  A few jurors raised their hands, and Jack allowed them to ask their questions. Most of the queries went something along the lines of “Do you seriously expect us to believe your ridiculous alibi story?” Jeanne answered as best she could, but by the end, she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  When the jurors ran out of questions, Jack excused the witness. He looked at the clock. It was 4:45.

  “All right, you’re all excused for the day,” he announced.

  A small cheer went up, and the jurors streamed out of the grand jury room, bidding the prosecutors good night as they fled to their own lives.

  Anna and Jack rode the elevator to their offices. “Well, that’s one person who believes D’marco did it,” Jack said, after the elevator doors slid shut and they were alone.

  “Yep,” Anna replied. “Gramma doesn’t know where D’marco was that night, but she knows her grandson well enough to understand that he needs an alibi.”

  • • •

  As Jack was questioning Jeanne Davis in the grand jury, D’marco was walking casually around the prison yard, holding a gun concealed in the pocket of his denim jacket. He didn’t know that his grandmother had been summoned to speak in the grand jury that day, and if he had, he wouldn’t have thought about it much. He knew she couldn’t save him. He knew that if he wanted to get out of jail, he had to take matters into his own hands. Which was what he was doing now.


  D’marco shoved his hands deeper into his jacket’s pockets, comforted by the weight of the gun in his hand. He glanced at the other prisoners in the yard. There was the usual hubbub of men talking, smoking, playing basketball. No one paid him particular mind. No one suspected what was about to happen.

  21

  D’marco walked past a group of prisoners standing in a clump, arguing about last Sunday’s Redskins game. It was a chilly gray November day, and the men huddled into their thin prison uniforms. They were all wearing the same orange jumpsuits and prison-issue denim jackets as D’marco. A few called hello to him, but D’marco just nodded and kept walking toward the basketball court.

  An intense game of two-on-two was going on, and a crowd had gathered around the court to watch and bet. D’marco made his way to the back, so the crowd blocked him from the view of the guards.

  D’marco was patient. He stood with his hand in his pocket, feeling the weight of the Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol hidden in there. Ray-Ray had picked a good gun. D’marco liked the fact that he was using the same firearm that the police did. He rested the grip in his palm and let his thumb play over the serrations on the rear strap. He didn’t worry about leaving fingerprints, knowing that, contrary to popular belief, the police were rarely able to lift usable prints from guns. His index finger rested lightly on the side of the trigger. The safeties were off. He was just waiting for the right moment now.

  Finally it came: a big move on the basketball court. The guy with the ball charged past a defender, knocking him down, then flew up to the basket for a loud slam dunk. The crowd erupted, men shouting in appreciation or yelling foul, depending on which way they’d bet.

  D’marco discreetly pulled the gun out of his pocket, then slid it into the front of his jacket. Holding the weapon flush against his chest, with the fabric of his jacket covering it from view, he laid the muzzle carefully against the edge of his left bicep. Then he fired a single shot into his own arm.

  The reaction from the other prisoners was immediate. These were men who recognized the sound of gunshots. The basketball dropped to the blacktop as the players fled the court. The spectators dissolved in a riotous mass, shouting, shoving and running in all directions.