Anna looked down at her clothes. She was wearing the standard female prosecutor’s uniform: a sleek black pantsuit and comfortable pumps.
“You’re more likely to get mugged wearing a suit than yoga pants,” Eva said. She called out to someone behind Anna. “Barry—one more!”
Suddenly, strong arms grabbed Anna’s waist from behind in a tight bear hug. She heard a masculine grunt as he practically lifted her off the ground, dragging her backward.
Anna twisted, thrashed, and battered her fists back against him, but the guy was wearing some sort of thick padding, and his grip was strong. She only managed to scrape up her own knuckles. His arms squeezed tighter, making it hard for her to breathe. Mock fight or not, Anna’s heart started racing. She remembered her father punching her mother, then dragging her across the kitchen by her shirt.
“Stop!” Anna yelled. She hated the note of fear she heard in her voice.
Eva blew the whistle, and the arms released their grip. Anna pulled away and turned to see her attacker. He looked like a sci-fi cousin to one of the huge-headed mascots at a Nationals game. The man wore an enormous foam helmet wrapped in silver duct tape. The helmet’s big eyeholes were covered in red mesh netting, giving the impression of an evil space alien. He wore loose blue overalls over massive body padding.
Anna put her hands on her hips as she tried to get her breath back. Eva’s surprise assaults were getting on her nerves.
“I wasn’t ready,” Anna said.
“You won’t be ready when it happens for real, either. Watch how it’s done.”
Eva nodded at the mock attacker. He grabbed the instructor from behind in the same bear hug.
“You plant your feet wide to get a strong stance,” Eva explained as she demonstrated. “Use your hands to push his hands down. Then you pivot from your torso, and—” Eva twisted from her waist, thrusting her elbows backward into the mock attacker’s head: right, left, right. Even with the foam helmet, the mock attacker was forced to pull back a bit. But he kept his grip around her waist. “Now watch this.” Eva stomped down on the guy’s padded foot. He reacted as if in real pain. Eva then slammed an arm backward, grabbed his groin cup, and yanked.
“Ow!” The attacker bent over and loosened his hold on Eva. She spun around, hitting him in the head with her elbow again. She was free. She faced the attacker, who appeared to be in Oscar contention for his performance of “injured man.”
Eva wasn’t through. “If you run away, he’ll chase you. You always have to go through your attacker.” She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him so close, his chest was pressed against hers. She kneed him in the groin, then followed with a swift kick to the same place. He went down on all fours, and Eva finished the exercise with a running knee to the head.
“Now you try,” she said to Anna.
They practiced that for ten minutes. Then Eva demonstrated how to get out of a headlock before passing out. “It only takes six seconds for the blood flow to your head to be cut off. And once you’re unconscious, it’s over.”
By the end of the session, Anna felt as tired and bruised as the armored attacker pretended to be. He took off his giant helmet, revealing a medium-sized man with a blue handkerchief tied over red hair. Even with all the padding, he looked exhausted. It must be a tough job. So many blows to the head. Anna wondered what kind of man would voluntarily endure that on a nightly basis. He must have his own issues to work out.
She thanked him as he walked off to the men’s locker room. Despite the surprise attack, she was glad to have learned the techniques.
“Thank you, too.” Anna turned to Eva. “For staying so late for me.”
Eva started to walk toward the locker room. Anna grabbed her gym bag and fell into step.
“You’re welcome,” Eva said. “Being able to work late is one of the advantages of not having kids. One of the very few.”
Anna looked at her instructor curiously. The note of melancholy was surprising. Eva seemed to have the perfect marriage, the perfect life. Anna had seen so many glamorous pictures of Eva in the society pages. Wearing fabulous gowns, standing next to her handsome husband. Traveling to Europe on a trade delegation, smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower. Anna had always wanted to travel and see the world. Maybe once she paid off her ninety thousand dollars in law-school loans.
“Do you have any children?” Eva asked.
Kinda, Anna thought, picturing Olivia. “Not yet,” she said. “I’m not married. Someday. I have to make sure I’m ready for that kind of commitment.”
“Don’t wait too long. I always imagined I’d have a big family. But I put it off, and now—too late.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. She wondered whether she should ask more but decided against delving into such a personal issue.
“It’s not your fault.” Eva seemed to shake herself out of the moment. “Anyway, you didn’t come to hear my family-planning troubles. What did you want to ask me about?”
“A class you held at your studio about two months ago.” Anna pulled out a copy of Caroline’s DMV photo and handed it to Eva. It was only a matter of time before the photo began circulating in the press. “Do you remember this woman?”
Eva took the picture as they walked into the locker room. “Yes. I don’t remember her name. She took a one-day Women’s Basics. Beautiful girl.” Eva handed the picture back to Anna and unlocked her locker.
“Did you ask everyone why they took that class?”
“Sure. Every class is tailored to the students’ needs.” Eva kicked off her shoes.
“Do you remember what Caroline said?” Anna asked.
“Those are personal stories, not gossip.”
“She’s the woman who was killed falling from Congressman Lionel’s balcony. That’s what I’m investigating.”
Eva sank down onto the bench. “Oh God. That’s awful.” She suddenly seemed small and fragile. Anna remembered how terrible she herself had felt two years ago, when she lost a trial against a domestic abuser and the battered woman was killed a few months later. Anna had blamed herself for the death—if she’d won that first trial, everything might have been different. She wondered whether Eva was having similar regrets.
“Do you remember whether Caroline said why she was taking the class?” Anna asked again.
Eva nodded slowly. “She had a stalker. Somebody she met at work who wouldn’t leave her alone. I don’t think she said where she worked. She didn’t mention Lionel. I would have remembered that.”
“Did she say anything else about who was stalking her?”
“No. It was just a one-day class—you don’t get to know the students very well. But I liked her. There was something about the way she spoke, the way she carried herself. I saw a lot of myself in her. I can look up her name in my records, get her address and phone number if that would be helpful.”
“Sure, whatever you have, I’d appreciate,” Anna said, although she doubted Eva would provide anything Anna didn’t already have. “Do you remember anything else she said?”
“I remember she was scared. There might’ve been more to the story, but I can’t recall. I see so many students. I only remember her at all because her story resonated with me. When I was in grad school, I had some bad experiences with men. It’s why I started studying self-defense.”
Eva stood up and pulled off her tank top. She wore nothing underneath but seemed comfortable with her partial nudity.
“I know Congressman Lionel is innocent until proven guilty,” Eva continued. “But I wouldn’t put this past him. Let me tell you, people like that, in politics—once they’ve got that power, they’ll do anything to keep it. That’s why we’re running against him. I hope you’ll come to our fund-raiser on Friday.”
Eva pulled off her pants, dropped them to the ground, and walked naked to the showers.
20
After Anna left the locker room, she headed down to her own floor. Most of the offices were dark, a federal-government nod toward conserving en
ergy; frequent e-mails reminded workers to turn off the lights when they left. She found Detective McGee sitting in one of the guest chairs in her office. He wore a black suit, a red shirt, and a tie that looked like a checkerboard. His black fedora sat on the guest chair. He was playing with the little plastic fishing game on the edge of her desk, having a hard time steering the tiny plastic fishing pole with his thick fingers.
“You could have a day care in here,” McGee said, waving at the collection of children’s toys on her desk.
“They’re for child victims,” Anna explained as she sat down. “Children don’t want to look right at you when they’re talking about what Uncle Vincent did to them. It helps them open up if they can focus on something else.”
“Man, I thought working Homicide was depressing.” McGee put down the little fishing pole and reached into the breast pocket of his suit. “I knew you’d still be working.”
He pulled out a plastic evidence bag and handed it to Anna. Inside was a white-gold diamond engagement ring—the ring he’d found on Congressman Lionel’s balcony. The round diamond looked to be between one and two carats. Anna shifted it in the light, noticing how much it sparkled, even through the plastic bag. She held the bag under her desk lamp and looked closely at the ring. The letters TJB were inscribed inside the band.
She showed the inscription to McGee. He put on a pair of reading glasses and squinted at it. “Huh,” he said. “You think those are the initials of the guy popping the question? Or the girl he was giving it to?”
“C’mon, McGee,” Anna said. “You lived in D.C. your whole life, and you’ve been married twice, and you never went to the Tiny Jewel Box? No wonder those women left you.”
McGee laughed. “Now, wait a minute. Maybe a detective can’t afford your rich-lawyer jewelry stores, but I know how to treat a lady. A diamond from Zales—in a box from Tiffany’s!”
Anna laughed, too. “Maybe the store can tell us who bought it.” She studied the ring again. “Caroline’s family said she wasn’t engaged.”
“Her college friends said she didn’t even have a boyfriend, far as anyone knew,” McGee added. “I don’t think it was hers.”
“It’s not the sort of thing that gets misplaced. It must have something to do with her death.”
“Maybe the Congressman or one of the staffers is missing it.”
“Let’s ask tomorrow. But you should probably go to the Tiny Jewel Box. They might be able to identify the ring. If nothing else, maybe they’ll give you some empty boxes.”
“Now you’re talking.” McGee flipped through his little notepad and summarized the notes from his day of interviews. “Caroline was poli-sci at Georgetown, average grades, no extracurriculars. Only one thing in her disciplinary file—she and her roommate got kicked out of Darnall Hall freshman year for underage drinking.”
“Did she lose her scholarship?” Anna asked, remembering what Caroline’s mother had said.
“Never had a scholarship,” McGee said. “She paid for college by personal check. Forty thousand, nine hundred and twenty dollars a year.”
Anna wasn’t surprised that Caroline had lied to her mother about the scholarship. The young woman had found a way to take some of the financial pressure off her family without revealing the source of her newfound wealth.
“Since they got kicked out, Caroline and her roommate lived in—” McGee looked at his notebook. “Alban Towers, a fancy apartment building way too pricey for two college students. On Massachusetts Avenue, a stone’s throw from the Cathedral. The roommate’s name is Nicole Palowski, like the mother said.”
“Did you find her?”
McGee hesitated and looked down at his shoes, a sign that he was embarrassed about something. “The thing is, she might’ve left out right when we came in. I think somebody went down the stairwell as we came out the elevator.”
“Wouldn’t you be trying to talk to the police if your roommate got killed?” Anna asked. “What’s she hiding?”
“Yeah,” McGee agreed, looking relieved that Anna didn’t harp on the witness getting away. He pulled a folded copy of a PD-81 from his jacket pocket. “Here’s the inventory from the search of the apartment.”
She scanned the seizure inventory. “Photo albums could be useful. Empty zips found in the garbage with cocaine residue. That dovetails with what Caroline’s mother said about the roommate using drugs. The autopsy didn’t find any drugs in Caroline’s system, although cocaine metabolites would only last seventy-two hours.” Anna read the next line and looked up at McGee. “What’s this? You seized a, quote, drawer of lace underpants and sex toys, unquote?”
“We, uh, we figured it was an escort case, so, uh, maybe that was evidence.” He looked down at his shoes and shrugged his big shoulders. “My guys wanted to seize it.”
“Don’t be embarrassed, you’re right. Could be evidence of prostitution. I’ll look through the stuff later. What’d you learn about the roommate?”
“Apartment manager complained about her, said she was always bringing guys into the house. Multiple guys per night. It’s not that kinda building. He put a stop to it, then she started coming and going at crazy hours, leaving the house around three A.M., coming home around seven in the morning.”
“Those are track hours, not escort hours. Let’s see if she has a record.”
Anna pulled up the RCIS database on her computer and ran a check on Nicole Palowski. There was one hit—but as a victim, not as a defendant. Three years earlier, when Nicole was eighteen, she’d walked into the Second District police substation and reported that her stepfather had molested her multiple times when she was a child. It fit a pattern Anna had seen over and over. More than 75 percent of women working in prostitution had been sexually abused as children. In this case, MPD declined to investigate Nicole’s complaint because the incidents took place in Pennsylvania. They told her to call her hometown police department.
Nicole’s report was a fairly common one—a college student, away from home for the first time, finds the strength and independence to talk about an assault that happened long ago. But there was frustratingly little that the criminal justice system could do. There was no jurisdiction—no connection to D.C. that would allow local authorities to prosecute the crime. Even for D.C. crimes, it was hard to bring a one-witness case based on a decade-old claim. Without corroborating proof, the office would usually prosecute it as a misdemeanor, which carried a maximum of six months of jail time but could be tried before a seasoned D.C. judge instead of a skeptical D.C. jury. But misdemeanors were subject to a three-year statute of limitations, so old cases too weak to be tried as a felony were barred by the time limit. Anna hoped that MPD at least referred Nicole to a counselor. She might’ve just been shown the door.
“Between the hours and the coke,” Anna said, “you think we should look for Nicole Palowski at the track?”
“It’s possible. Even high-end escorts can fall low if they get into drugs.”
“I know you’re about to go off-duty,” Anna said, “but . . . do you think we could swing by the track now?”
McGee sighed mightily. “Only because I like you.”
She knew Jack would disapprove of her going to the track. He’d think it wasn’t safe enough. But McGee would be with her the whole time. She’d be fine.
Fifteen minutes later, Anna rode in McGee’s unmarked Crown Vic while he slowly steered the car up and down K Street, from 10th to 14th streets, Northwest. During the day, the strip of expensive office buildings was home to the prestigious law firms and lobbying shops that made the term “K Street” famous. Late at night, when the lawyers and lobbyists were tucked into their suburban homes in McLean and Bethesda, an older profession did its own billing by the hour along these streets. As McGee cruised, Anna watched a man in an expensive suit step out of a revolving door and slide into a waiting Lincoln Town Car. The Town Car then drove past a woman standing on the corner wearing platform boots and a tube top stretched over massive breasts.
Prostitution was illegal in D.C., but enforcement hardly made a dent. MPD would occasionally run undercover stings rounding up the prostitutes or the johns who hired them. They received a citation and were released, the equivalent of a very serious parking ticket. Johns used to be sent to “John School,” a program that taught about things like sexually transmitted diseases and child trafficking, and which had slashed recidivism. The prostitutes used to be eligible for a program called Project Power, which provided drug treatment, counseling, and job training. Both programs had been halted recently because of budget cuts. The occasional roundups sometimes shifted the track’s location but never eliminated it for long.
The Sex Crimes section didn’t prosecute prostitution; that was handled by another unit. Anna’s section saw these women when they were victims of sex crimes. Prostitutes were easy targets for violent men. They were unlikely to call the police if someone robbed, assaulted, or raped them. Most prostitutes didn’t trust the system, having been processed by it themselves. And many were runaways or throwaways—no one would look for them if they went missing. For that reason, many of the world’s most famous serial killers, like Jack the Ripper, preyed on prostitutes. Women involved in prostitution were eighteen times more likely to be murdered than other women of the same age and race.
When a prostitute did turn to law enforcement, she would often lie about what she’d been doing that night and the circumstances that led up to the crime. Anna had heard many variations on the story of a woman who left a club at two A.M., accepted a ride from a friendly stranger, and was raped or robbed instead of being taken home. The story would change in the second or third telling, as the victim became more comfortable with the prosecutor and more willing to say what she had been doing out that night. But the initial lies made the cases hard to prosecute. Juries were willing to accept that a victim worked as a prostitute and still convict a man who assaulted her—but they were reluctant to believe anyone who initially lied about an incident, regardless of her profession.
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