Learning to Stay (16 page)

“Jesus, Sabatto. What the hell?”

I tell him what I know: that Brad was sitting on seventy-nine-year-old Margie Valhalla’s couch while eating her homemade beef stew and watching daytime television; that he threatened her in Arabic and with a gun when she came in her own front door.

“That’s not attempted murder,” Zach says.

“I know. But Omar won’t drop the charges.”

“Would you if you were him?” Zach asks. “That guy from Marshall is all over him right now.”

Jason Omar, the prosecuting attorney, is up for reelection in the fall, and predictably, his opponent is accusing him of giving out too many wrist slaps and not enough maximum sentences. As a double whammy, Brad landed Judge Fletcher Smith, who is also up for reelection and who, coincidentally, set his bail at an astronomical fifty thousand dollars.

“It’s ridiculous,” I say. With every word, I’m starting to feel
better—lighter, freer. “At the most, it’s aggravated assault or assault with a deadly weapon. But Omar’s standing by this bogus charge. In addition to B and E.”

Zach is quiet. I can tell he’s thinking. Then his face lights up. He leans back in the chair and throws his feet up on my desk. “Sabatto, my dear, you’re going about this all wrong,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Get out of attorney mode. Think like a regular person for once. Like a human being.”

“I don’t know how,” I say. I mean to say that I don’t know how not to think like an attorney, not that I don’t know how to be a human being.

“Omar is disgracing a decorated veteran,” Zach says. “I assume Brad got a Purple Heart, given his injuries? Right?”

I nod, a little perplexed by how Zach knows this. I was shocked when I found the medal stuffed unceremoniously in Brad’s rucksack, the ribbon wrinkled and soggy. I always imagined Purple Hearts being awarded in grand ceremonies at the White House. Turns out it’s more common to have someone with a box of medals make bedside presentations in the hospital, which I guess is a step up from former wars, when they were given out on the spot, often in the heat of battle.

“Instead of going after hardened criminals, Omar’s targeting someone who almost died for this country. Leak that to the press. Play the political game. Play hardball.”

“I don’t know, Zach.”

“What’s there not to know? That’s the way he’s playing this. It’s his career, but it’s your life. You’re more than justified.”

I chew on my lip, considering. Zach is right. This isn’t just another case that’s landed on my desk.

“Wait,” Zach says, tipping his chair forward until it’s resting on all four legs again. “What did you say the woman’s name was?”

“Margie Valhalla. Why?”

Zach leans forward across my desk. “I don’t know. It sounds familiar. Like, really familiar. Have you done a search on her?”

“CCAP,” I say.

“No, Sabatto. She’s seventy-nine. What sort of sordid criminal history do you think she’s hiding—armed robbery with knitting needles? Jesus. Do a real search. A search engine search.”

I shake my head. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me.

Zach nods in the direction of my computer screen. “Google her,” he says. “I think you might find something interesting, if I remember correctly.”

“Like what?” I ask, typing in Margie’s name in quotation marks. The first item to appear is an obituary for a Vincent Valhalla, killed in action in Basrah, Iraq, in 2003. I read this information to Zach.

“By friendly fire, right?” he asks.

I nod.

Zach does a fist pump into the air, eminently pleased with himself. “I told you I remembered that name—it struck me as extra tragic because he was on his fourth tour or something, and that’s the way he goes,” Zach says. He shakes his head, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. The sound of it makes my skin itch. “Vinnie Valhalla. There’s your ticket.”

I am not making whatever mental leap Zach would like me to. I tell him as much.

“The woman your guy nearly caused to have a heart attack is a Gold Star Mother, Sabatto. Get to her. Chances are she won’t want to see another young soldier locked up. It’s worth a try, right?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” I say.

“I’ll leave you alone for the rest of today,” Zach says, getting up. “And I’ll run interference with Susan. But get this done—today. Tomorrow I need you back on my team, okay?”

“Absolutely,” I say.

Zach smiles at me—a genuine smile—and tiny starbursts of happiness and goodwill light up inside me.

People are good. Life is good. It’s going to be okay.

Zach swings my office door open, and I call to him: “Zach?”

He pauses and turns around.

“Thank you. So much.”

“Don’t mention it,” Zach says, and he leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

I spend the rest of the afternoon figuring out how to use the information Zach has led me to, trying not to think like an attorney. At my wits’ end and needing a break, I pick up a copy of
On
Wisconsin
magazine. I page absentmindedly through the articles. There’s one on a UW-Madison graduate making it big nationally as a mentalist, another featuring cutting-edge research happening at the university’s Center for Sleep Medicine and Research, and another on the unbelievable lengths that recent graduates have to go to in order to gain a toehold in the workplace that makes me both shudder and offer up a small modicum of thanks that I graduated from college back when jobs and graduate school slots were easier to come by. They’re all interesting articles, but none of them holds my attention.

Think,
a voice in my head implores.
C’mon, Sabatto. You have a few hours, tops.

Then I happen on a picture of a slump-shouldered woman in a sun hat walking through a barbed-wire-encased prison entrance under the headline,
OPENING THE DOOR TO FORGIVENESS
. The caption reads, “Jackie Millar brings an open mind and the capacity to forgive as she arrives at the Stanley Correctional Institution for her thirteenth annual meeting with one of the offenders who injured her while committing a violent crime.” The rest of the article goes on to
detail the UW-Madison law school’s Restorative Justice Project, and I want to palm my forehead for not thinking of this sooner.

From memory, I dial Jason Omar’s number. He answers on the first ring.

“Jason, it’s Elise Sabatto, from Early, Janssen.” Poor Bradenton. Everyone always leaves her off—too many syllables.

“Hey, Elise,” he says. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if I could swing by this afternoon.”

Across the phone lines, I can almost hear the gears working and then clicking into place in Jason’s head. “This is about your husband?”

“It is.”

“Sorry, Elise. I’m booked all week.”

“Come on, Prosecutor. Ten minutes. I’ll come to you.”

“Sorry. Call Janet, my assistant. She’ll get you a slot next week. Nice talking to you, though. You have a good one,” Jason Omar says, and hangs up.

Zach has given me one afternoon—which could be viewed as either one whole afternoon or only one afternoon—to slack on
Rowland
and take care of things with Brad. So I do the only thing I can in this situation: I gather my things and make a beeline for Jason Omar’s office on the opposite side of Capitol Square.

I wait for more than an hour before Jason sticks his head out of his office and sees me.

“Elise Sabatto,” he says in a singsong, but not altogether friendly voice.

I try out my sweetest smile on him.

He sighs. “You have ten minutes,” he says.

“I’ll take five.”

When Jason sits down, his head looks disembodied, floating above stacks of file folders that rise from his desk like miniature skyscrapers. I can’t imagine being him. Just the sight of all those files,
stacks of organized chaos, gives me heart palpitations. And they’re not even my responsibility.

I shake it off, though, and launch in: “Here’s the deal, Prosecutor. I get that you’re up against a tough primary challenge and you can’t exactly walk away from this one. But from the looks of it, you’re literally up to your neck in work, and this could be a tough sell—a decorated Iraq veteran who so far hasn’t been able to get the services he needs and has coming to him.”

Jason Omar nods along as I talk, seemingly not taking issue with anything I’ve said so far.

“So what’s your pitch?” he asks.

“Have you heard about the Restorative Justice Project at UW-Madison?”

“Somewhat,” he says. “Vaguely.”

“It brings assailants and victims together. It’s not perfect for every situation, but I think it might work here.”

“And why is that?”

“You have a veteran of the Iraq war and a Gold Star Mother whose son was killed by friendly fire. Instead of wreaking more havoc on both their lives, you bring them together to talk. As Brad’s counsel, I’ll agree to whatever charges Mrs. Valhalla feels are fair and appropriate after that meeting.”

“I don’t know,” Jason says. He leans back in his chair and taps a pen against his knuckles.

“The media would eat this up,” I say, then add for effect, “either way,” and wait for Jason to process what I’m saying. The good prosecutor’s eyes narrow and harden—and I know he understands.

“It’s a story that tugs at the heartstrings,” I continue. “Plus, you get to take a completely unnecessary case off your load and distinguish yourself from Mr. Tough on Crime—you get to be tough on crime
and
reasonable. A real outside-the-box thinker and leader.
Voters will eat that up, too.” I’m not sure I believe myself. Single voters are reflective and compassionate. But the electorate as a whole? Anything less than whole hog as far as sentencing goes tends to be completely unacceptable.

“I’m concerned with the law, Ms. Sabatto, not this race,” Jason says.

I stifle a laugh. Jason Omar is a good prosecutor, but he’s a born politician, a terrible liar, and from what I can tell, he could probably make a competition out of running the bathwater.

“Can’t hurt; might help,” I tell him. “I’ll put it in writing right here and now. Just say the word.”

He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest. “I’ll call Mrs. Valhalla,” he says. “And if she agrees—
if
—I’ll think about it.”

I know that this is as good an offer as I’m going to get. So I stand, thank Jason Omar for his time, and hope for the best.

The next morning, Jason Omar calls with the news that Margie Valhalla has agreed to a mediated meeting and will consider the charges afterward. The following Monday we all gather in a conference room at the Dane County Courthouse.

A uniformed officer escorts my husband in. Brad looks thin, but he’s freshly shaven and dressed in normal clothes. I pushed hard for that—no handcuffs, no jumpsuit. Details can make a world of difference. He sits next to me. Across the table are Margie and Jason Omar. Margie is five-foot-nothing and probably one hundred pounds soaking wet. She’s wearing black slacks and a red wool crepe jacket over a white turtleneck dotted with tiny red hearts. She has on glasses that take up three-quarters of her face and a red beaded necklace. She looks like everyone’s favorite grandmother.

The mediator, a sweater-set-wearing, nondescript woman in her mid-fifties, if I had to guess, sits at the head of the table. I feel as if we’ve all been summoned to the principal’s office in grade school, though with slightly higher stakes than having recess privileges revoked.

The mediator asks both Margie and Brad to introduce themselves
to each other. Then she explains how the session will work: First, Margie will give her version of events; then Brad will provide his. Afterward, there will be an opportunity for discussion and questions.

“Well,” Margie starts, her voice shaking, “I guess I was just surprised, is all, to find someone in my house.” She is still holding her purse on her lap and is currently clutching the bag to her like a treasured stuffed animal.

“Can you walk us through what you remember happened?” the mediator asks.

Margie nods vigorously. “I opened my front door, and he was on the couch.” She takes time to point at Brad. “Then he jumped up, and the bowl in his hands fell on the floor—it broke. It was one of my favorites. I ate my cream of wheat out of it every morning. But it broke, and then he started yelling some sort of nonsense at me.”

“Were you scared?” the mediator asks. “Can you tell us what was going through your mind? How you felt?”

“Well, of course I was scared!” Margie says. “He had a
gun
, you know.”

“Yes,” the mediator says. “So what did you do?”

“I hit the deck,” Margie says. “Stop and drop—no roll.”

“And what about now?” the mediator asks. “Do you feel safe in your home?”

“I don’t feel all that unsafe,” Margie says. “But I do make certain to lock my door now.”

“What questions do you have for Mr. Sabatto, Mrs. Valhalla?” the mediator asks.

Margie studies my husband, but her expression is not hard or angry. It’s contemplative, searching.

“Why were you in my house?” she asks Brad. She is calm and she radiates kindness. I half expect her to offer him a homemade chocolate chip cookie and warm milk.