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.