Chapter 35: Prosecution Strategy
She took all the evidence with her as she went back to the apartment she'd been sharing with Olivia since she'd come back from the Congo. At first it had been strange, sharing space with someone else—she had never had a roommate before-but over the last few months she'd grown used to hearing Olivia moving around in her room, got used to seeing her clothes tossed carelessly over the back of the couch when she came back in from a late night and all she could think about was to get some sleep. She'd even liked their friendly arguments over whatever the current case was; no matter what they argued about professionally, they never let it get in the way of their personal friendship.
But now Liv was at the Staten Island base awaiting Auggie's birth with Clayton, and for the moment, at least, the apartment was all hers. She fixed herself a quick dinner and then spread out her paperwork at the kitchen table to work on until Ettienne got back from dropping Cam and Charlie back off at base.
For a while she just sat and filled out forms and other minutia, trying to let her mind settle and clear of all the emotional turmoil of the last few days. The entire summer, in fact; with the New Year only a few days away, she could look back on the year in retrospect and admit that she wasn't the same person she'd been exactly a year ago. A year ago she'd been filing papers at the ICC offices, preparing for the trip out to the Congo at General Clancy's behest, and worrying so much she'd stopped having her period. Now here she was, one year later, and she had survived the Congo (and sworn she'd never go back) become part of a classified military project, had a lover who was also part of that project (and the most wonderful, lovable, exasperating man she could ever have imagined!) and a whole new circle of friends completely separate from the (admittedly boring) humdrum life at the New York District Attorney's office.
And she also had scars as a reminder of that year, scars that would never go away. Not only on her mind and memory, but also on her body as well. She'd given a little thought to having them removed, but some tentative research on methods and success rates had made her shy away from the idea. She didn't want to go through any more pain, God, she'd had enough for an entire lifetime, and really, it wasn't bothering her. It wasn't like most people ever saw that much of her skin, it wasn't that hard to avoid backless dresses, and as her tan, acquired under the African sun, faded, the scars faded to white on her arms became almost indistinguishable from her regular fair skin. Ettienne didn't care—in fact, if he was around after a shower he would have her stretch out on her bed face down and rub the scar-reducing lotion all over her back; the calluses on his hands provided a delightful contrast to the softness of her skin, and he enjoyed doing this for her as much as she enjoyed having him do it. And of course, those sessions usually turned into foreplay…
And as if her thoughts had conjured the man, she heard a key in the door lock and moments later the front door of the apartment opened as he slipped inside. She and Olivia had agreed a few months back to give the guys access into the apartment and had extra keys made. Now she looked up from the table and gave him a warm smile. "Hey. Dropped Cam and Charlie off?"
"Yes. Charlie got on her a little bit about losing her temper with you, that you were just trying to do your job and the whole situation was difficult. She asked me to tell you that she was sorry she lost her temper."
"I'm sorry for losing mine with her too." She lifted her face up to his for a kiss, then took a deep sniff. "Hey, is that…"
"I thought you might be hungry." He gave her a mischievous grin as he pulled the paper bag he'd been hiding behind his back. "I figured after I dropped you off you'd probably stick a frozen dinner in the microwave and eat that while working, but that's not a proper dinner for someone who works as hard as you do. Especially as you still need to gain some weight back after the Congo fiasco."
"'Tienne, my weight is fine. I'm supposed to gain it back gradually, and I have to put on muscle as I'm gaining the body fat too if I want to stay in shape enough to keep up with Shana's workouts…" her voice trailed off as they thought about their absent friend. "God, I miss her."
"We all do," Ettienne said firmly as he pushed aside some of the papers on the table and put two plates down, then grabbed silverware from the drawer. "Eat first. Work later."
Although the smell from her favorite restaurant was making her stomach growl despite the frozen dinner she'd had just an hour and a half earlier, she still felt it necessary to protest. "'Tienne, I'm in the middle of something here."
"Don't care." And he proved it by putting her plate in the middle of the form she was filling out. "Eat. If you don't stay healthy, Alex, the work won't get done."
"You know, you can be so annoyingly practical sometimes, you know that?" She slid her papers out from under her plate, then reached for a fork.
He grinned at her as he opened containers and dumped dirty rice, Cajun beans, and andouille on her plate. "That's why you love me."
"That's one of the reasons why I love you." She started to eat.
By unspoken agreement they didn't talk about the case. "I used to love this restaurant until I tasted you cook the same thing here at home. Now, even though it says it's the same thing, I think of your cooking as 'the way it's supposed to taste'."
Ettienne thought about that for a moment, then said, "Is that female for 'I like your cooking better'?"
Alex started to laugh, then nearly choked on a bit of rice and had to hastily take a sip of water. "Yes, that's what it means."
"Oh." He looked solemn as he returned his attention to his food, but his eyes twinkled. "In that case I'll take it as a compliment."
She threw a napkin at him, which he caught out of midair with a simpering smile. "Why thank you."
They finished their meal laughing.
She was still chuckling as she carried her dishes to the sink a couple minutes later, and with the physical hunger sated, suddenly another hunger awakened when she felt his hand brush the back of her arm, felt his hot breath on the nape of her neck as he kissed the top of her spine. Arching into his lips, she completely forgot about the dishes, the leftovers, and her paperwork as she followed him to the second bedroom. It had been the first time since they'd gotten back from the Congo that they'd been able to be alone, and they took full advantage of the privacy…
She left Ettienne in her bedroom watching TV and returned to the kitchen table and the paperwork spread out on it. Although she felt reluctant to come back, a part of her just wanting to stay in bed curled up with 'Tienne, another part of her knew she'd have to finish this first.
She sat down with a sigh, forcing herself to concentrate on the paperwork, and the evidence in front of her. I shouldn't have lost my temper with Cam. She's under enough stress as it is, what with Shana's disappearance, her offer, and the strain of having to deal with facing her trafficker in the interrogation room. Just looking at this ledger and seeing all these names and the dollar amounts paid to her aunt and uncle had to have been difficult. She picked up the ledger, thumbed through it again. I'll never look at fishing gear in a store in quite the same way. And hiking. She paused, the ledger sitting open on the last page. For procurement services. How sick is that. Like she were a prostitute, and he was a pimp, except she didn't do it willingly…
It hit her then like a ton of bricks, and she stared stupidly at the ledger page for a long time as her mind raced, then she grabbed a law book and started flipping through it, looking for the applicable statutes. Pimp. Prostitute. Child prostitute. That's it. He asked for federal immunity because he thinks if he's tried in Manhattan he can only be charged with possession of child porn; in order to get him on child molestation charges he would have had to 'engage in at least two acts of sexual conduct with a child under age 13 over a period of three months'. Cam's the only victim we have and she was 15 at the time she was whisked away to that mountain cabin. The penalty for possession of child porn in New York State court is four years!
In a federal court he would be looking at between 5-14 years for the child porn alone, plus another 10 years to life for sex trafficking of a minor, 15 years to life for sex trafficking by force for a total minimum penalty of 30 years and a maximum penalty of life. That's why he asked for federal immunity, because he thinks if the feds can't get their hands on him, he can only be convicted of child porn!
Unless…unless I change the charges. Unless I hit him with additional charges. Child porn, we have the child porn. The ledger—if we can prove that some of the names in here are clients that he handled and dealt with, we can prove chain of custody for responsibility; we can prove that he procured these clients for the purposes of raping Cam!
Ettienne strolled into the kitchen, gloriously naked; she definitely noticed but was too focused on finding the references she needed to comment on it. He noticed and came over to her, peering over her shoulder. "What's up? I see that look in your eye."
"I think I have him. I think we can do this." She was flipping through law books and paperwork, finally finding the one she was looking for. "Listen to this. 'A 2007 human trafficking law in New York State makes it a felony for someone to knowingly sell "travel-related services to facilitate prostitution"."
He frowned. "Cam wasn't a prostitute."
"No, but she was forced into it and the payments Yu received clearly were, in Cam's Aunt and Uncle's own handwriting, designated as 'payment for procurement services'. If the detectives can find some of the clients in this ledger in Yu's client files, we can prove chain of custody—from the client's contact with Yu to the cabin where Cam was molested to the money that was wired back to Yu for procuring that client. Facilitating the forcing of a young girl into prostitution would be included in that felony sex trafficking offense, and the penalty for that is 3-25 years."
"I guess I know how much time you'll ask for," he said wryly.
Alex flashed him a quick grin and continued reading from the document in her hand. "Now since she was under the age of 18 at the time she was forced into prostitution, I can also charge him with 'sex trafficking of a child by force', that has a minimum penalty of 15 years, a maximum penalty of life; I can also charge him with 'transportation of minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity', that has a minimum of a fine+10 years, a maximum penalty of life. And there's also 'travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct ' since he did engage in at least one sexual act with Cam before she burned the house down, and that's at minimum a fine, a maximum of thirty years."
Ettienne grinned. "So here he thinks he's ducked out of the possibility of life in federal prison, only to find that suddenly he's being charged with every last crime in the New York State law books that you can think of. What's the maximum penalty of all those charges combined?"
"Two life sentences plus thirty years."
"And I guess I don't have to ask whether you're going to go for the maximum here."
"No, you don't." Alex was scribbling notes on a legal pad. "However, I do have two questions to ask you."
"Anything." His breath was warm on the back of her neck.
"One. Please don't say anything about this to anyone. I know there are going to be some people who are going to be furious with me for agreeing to a deal that guarantees him federal immunity but I have to get a warrant for the detectives to pull Yu's client files from the travel agency. Once I match the names in his files with the names in this ledger it'll be a done deal. It actually pretty much is already because we all know that he's the reason these people even knew about Cam, but I want a rock-solid case. And I don't want him getting wind of this little strategy—I want him to think we're giving him exactly what he wants so we can get what we need. I'm not going to spring this little trap on him until we know if insertion is a success and his information was sound. I'm pretty sure that the detectives are going to figure it out when they see the names of the files I'm going to ask them to find, and when I ask them to start arresting every single one of those clients for rape and whatever else I can come up with."
"Can do. What's the second question?" He nuzzled the back of her neck, causing her breath to catch in her throat.
In response, she reached for the apron draped casually over the back of her chair and handed it to him. "Can you please put this on? Just for now. Just until I finish taking these notes. Then you can take it off. You are…rather distracting."
His roar of laughter filled the kitchen.