A Good Killing (15 page)

Judge Lawrence P. Upperthwaite looked like he’d been plucked from a Norman Rockwell painting: he was old and white, with a patrician nose and an impressive head of silver hair. Anna had seen his face numerous times in campaign posters around town. Unlike federal judges and prosecutors, who were appointed, local judges in Holly Grove were elected. Upperthwaite had been the county DA throughout Anna’s childhood. Five years ago, he’d been elected to a position on the bench. It was a mark of how respected and influential he was that the courthouse was named after him while he was still alive. Usually, that honor was reserved for a long-serving jurist after he passed away.

His law clerk, a young man with a nervous smile, stood at the table to the side. “Hear ye, hear ye,” the clerk said. “All rise and come to order. Court is now in session, the Honorable Lawrence P. Upperthwaite presiding.” The clerk looked nervously to the judge, who nodded back with a reassuring smile. It was clear that the young man was not used to speaking in court. This was probably his first job out of law school.

The judge said, “Please be seated.”

“Calling the case of
Michigan versus Jody Curtis
,” said the clerk.

“Harold Elliott for the defendant.”

“Desiree Miller for the State.”

Anna sat up straighter. She was glad for a chance to see her sister, but she’d hoped to hear from DOJ before the case was called. An officer led Jody out from a side door. She still wore her jeans and the yellow T-shirt. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and her hair needed brushing. Anna raised her hand so Jody could see her. Jody met her eyes and nodded. She looked tired but unbroken. She stood next to the public defender.

“The defendant is charged with one count of first-degree homicide,” the judge read from a paper. “How do you plead?”

The defense attorney said, “She pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

“What is the government asking in terms of release?”

The prosecutor replied, “We ask that the defendant be held pending trial. She is charged with a crime that carries a life sentence. She has every reason to flee.”

A trial would be months away. If Jody was held pending trial, she would serve her pregnancy in jail. She might have her baby in jail.

“Defense?” said the judge.

“Julie Curtis is not a flight risk. She owns her own home, located at . . .” Elliott looked down at the file, trying to find the information. He flipped through the paperwork. “I’m sorry, court’s indulgence.”

He kept skimming the papers, apparently unable to find the address. He leaned over and whispered to Jody. Anna couldn’t take it. She stood. “Your Honor, may I please be heard?”

Heads swiveled. Judge Upperthwaite looked over his reading glasses at Anna. “Come forward, young lady,” he said. “Please identify yourself for the record.”

Anna walked through the little gate and stood next to her sister. “May it please the court, my name is Anna Curtis. I’m Jody Curtis’s
older sister. I live in Washington, D.C., where I’m an Assistant U.S. Attorney.”

“I take it you’re not here in your role as a prosecutor,” said the judge.

“No, Your Honor. Pursuant to the Code of Federal Regulations, a federal prosecutor may defend a family member if the Department of Justice approves it. I have asked for DOJ’s permission to represent my sister. I am awaiting word from them. But in the meantime, I would ask to be heard on the detention issue.”

“You may be heard.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. My sister—
Jody
Curtis—grew up in Holly Grove and now lives in neighboring Swartz Creek. She works full-time at the GM plant and has for nine years. She owns her own home and has never missed a mortgage payment. She has lifelong ties to the community and no criminal record. We would ask that she be released on her own recognizance, or that bail be set at a reasonable amount. We don’t have many assets, my sister and I, but between her house and my retirement fund, you could be assured that she will have plenty of incentive to appear for trial.”

Jody whispered, “I don’t want you to risk your retirement fund.”

“It’s only a risk if you flee the jurisdiction,” Anna whispered back. “Don’t go to Brazil.”

“And what will happen if the Department of Justice doesn’t approve your request to represent your sister?” the judge asked.

“I’m prepared to resign from the office and continue to represent her. ”

Jody stared at her. “Annie,” she whispered. “No.”

“Shh.”

“I will put the defendant on GPS monitoring and set bail at four hundred thousand dollars. Can you and your sister meet that, Ms. Curtis?”

They only had to come up with 10 percent of that, as collateral. Anna had almost $20,000 in her TSP retirement account. Jody had almost as much in her IRA. The other 90 percent they would get
loaned from a bail bondsman, who would attach Jody’s house and Anna’s future earnings as collateral.

“We can do that, Your Honor. Thank you.”

“I take it you are licensed to practice law in Michigan?” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir, I took the Michigan bar when I graduated from law school, then waived into D.C., where I practice. I’m current on all my Michigan CLE and pro bono hours.”

“Very well. You have the court’s permission to represent your sister. Good luck with DOJ’s. Please file the necessary paperwork if and when you get it. Make sure you read the local rules. I expect every lawyer in my courtroom to abide by them, even if you are from a federal practice in D.C.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Welcome home, Ms. Curtis. It is heartening to see one local girl who has made good.”

“Thank you.”

Anna turned to Jody, but the officer tugged her away and led her back to the holding cell. Jody wouldn’t be released until Anna secured the bail bond. It was a sharp reminder that, even though Anna had won her temporary release, Jody’s life was controlled by the system now and would be until the case was over, even in the best possible scenario. In the worst scenario . . . Anna didn’t want to think about that. She watched the heavy door close behind her sister.

The judge called the next case. Anna and Cooper walked out into the hallway. As they did, her phone buzzed. It was someone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the caller ID showing the office’s main number.

She answered. “Hello?”

“Sweetheart, hi.”

Her heart lurched. His voice was warm and familiar—in many ways, more familiar than her own hometown. She felt homesick.

“Hi, Jack.”

24

T
he morning after the coach attacked me, Mom could tell something was wrong. Over Cheerios, she asked me if I was okay. I said:
I’m fine
, in that voice teenagers use to communicate:
Nothing is fine, the world is crap, but I’m not telling you about it.
In fact, I was sore all over. But the physical pain was nothing compared to what was going on in my head. It was Sunday, so we went to church, where I was too numb to pray. When we got home, I locked myself in my room. Mom had worked the midnight shift at the hospital the night before and needed sleep. But she knocked on my door.

“What do you want?” I mumbled.

“What’s wrong, Jody?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever’s bothering you, you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

“I
said
, nothing’s wrong, Mom.”

She let out the long sigh of a single mother working two jobs who isn’t sure she has the energy also to handle her moody teen. “Fine.”

Her footsteps faded away from my door. She went to sleep. When the house was still, I lay on my bed and stared up at my ceiling. I did that all day long, wondering how things would be different if I’d just said yes.

Would I still be in love with Coach Fowler? How long would it take for me to realize he was a monster? Is that what happened to Wendy? Did she know what she’d married?

I was still in bed that afternoon when Mom woke up. I heard her padding around the house, jiggling my door, then giving up. I got some small satisfaction out of locking her out of my room. At least I had
that
power.

After some shuffling, the house became quiet again. I got out of bed, stepped around the clothes still piled on my floor, and peeked out of my bedroom. Our tiny living room was empty. The Cheerio bowls were washed and sitting in the drying rack. Mom must’ve gone to work.

The next wave of despair hit me. I didn’t want to be all alone again. I wished I’d let Mom in when she tried.

I saw a movement on the porch. She was sitting out there in one of those white plastic chairs, bundled in her winter jacket, smoking. She blew a stream of white-gray smoke into the white-gray sky. She was always trying to quit smoking but had to have “just one” whenever something particularly stressful went down. Which could be several times a day. I put on my coat over my pajamas and went out there.

She turned when she heard the door sliding along its track but didn’t say anything, which was good. I sat in the other white plastic chair. There was just enough room for us and a plastic cup filled with soil and cigarette butts. Not owning an ashtray was Mom’s way of pretending she wasn’t really a smoker.

We also pretended that
I
didn’t smoke, although she must’ve smelled it on me and known that I did what a lot of kids did: smoking at parties and occasionally on the south side of the school, where teachers couldn’t see from the classrooms. Not a habit, not yet anyway, but often enough that I had a taste for it. Especially when something particularly stressful went down.

I didn’t feel like pretending that day. I reached out for Mom’s cigarette. She looked at me for a few seconds, then handed it over. I took a long drag and let the bittersweet smoke burn down to my lungs. I looked out past our balcony at the parking lot, a culvert, a skinny stand of trees, and the highway beyond. Everything was gray. I blew out the smoke and handed the cigarette back to Mom.

Then I laid my head on her shoulder and cried. She put her arm around my back and patted me softly, the way she used to when we were kids and she was trying to get us to sleep. I cried, and cried, and
cried. I cried so much, I wondered if there was a limit to how many tears your eye ducts could produce, and when I would max out. She just stayed quiet and patted my back, and although I’d intended to never tell anyone, eventually it was all pouring out of me, between sobbing and hiccuping and wiping my nose. She listened quietly, until the whole story was out there. And then her first question was: “Why didn’t you call
me
to the party at Devin’s house?”

“Um. Well. I guess because I didn’t have a crush on you.”

We both laughed through our tears. But it was the truth, and because of that, I felt it was my fault. I had been jealous of Wendy and lusted after her husband. I had
dreamed
of him kissing me. I called him because I wanted him to rescue me, like I was some beautiful fucking princess and he was some handsome fucking knight. I was a dicktease.

“Jody, this is not your fault.” Mom stabbed her cigarette into the soil-filled cup, where it crumpled among its fellow butts. “You’re fifteen, he’s forty. Lots of girls have a crush on their teacher—but a teacher can’t do this. No matter what. But especially when you said no.”

She shepherded me inside, where she nuked a mug of water for hot cocoa, then sat me on the couch while she made some phone calls. We ended up driving to the hospital where she worked.

I learned some new phrases that day, stuff that must be familiar to you. I met a “sexual assault nurse examiner.” I learned that “stirrups” didn’t just relate to horses. I added the terms “rape kit” and “vaginal swab” to my vocabulary. The nurse asked me a lot of questions, most of which were embarrassing to answer. But she seemed to be evaluating things from a technical, rather than a moral, standpoint. She was disappointed that I had taken a shower, because that washed away a lot of evidence. But she said that since Coach hadn’t used a condom, his semen might still be found inside of me. She said it can stay inside a woman’s body for up to seventy-two hours.

She told Mom not to touch my clothes from the night before, that the police would come to our house to collect them. She gave me some white pills to prevent diseases and a yellow pill to prevent
pregnancy. The whole process took a couple hours. They let Mom stay with me. She held my hand the whole time. It wasn’t a day in the park, that hospital visit, but it wasn’t so terrible, either.

It wasn’t until Mom drove me to the Holly Grove police station that I had the experience so many rape survivors talk about: the feeling that I was raped all over again.

25

I
t’s so good to hear your voice,” Jack said.

“Yours, too,” Anna said, although she wasn’t ready to talk to him. Her reaction right now was why. Because now that she heard his voice, she wanted to drive straight to the airport and book the next flight back to D.C.

She looked at Cooper, who was still standing next to her in the courthouse hallway. There was no reason to feel strange, talking to Jack in front of Cooper. But she did. Cooper seemed to understand; he gave her a little wave and walked to the men’s room. She sat on a bench.

“Marty sent me your e-mail this morning,” Jack said. “We had a long talk, the result of which is: he’s going to give you the green light. You can represent your sister while keeping your job here, and you can work remotely from the Appellate section in the meantime. The approval is being written up now.”

She knew Jack had convinced Marty. The U.S. Attorney never would have allowed this without Jack’s prodding. Anna had spent an hour last night filling out forms to get temporary health insurance to cover her when she quit today. She started crying from relief.

“Shh, baby,” Jack said. “It’ll be okay. Do you want me to come out to Michigan and be there for you? I can take some time off work.”

“No, no. Don’t do that.” Anna fumbled around her purse looking for a tissue. “How’s Olivia?”

“She’s good. She misses you. Almost as much as I do.”