Speak of the Devil (6 page)

“There were also some of the worst internal injuries I’ve ever seen,” Kerry said softly.

Given the nurse’s experience, that was saying a lot. Anna turned to the next page, which had a diagram of female genitalia. Kerry pointed to the marks she’d made on it.

“Vaginal tearing at two o’clock, five o’clock, and ten o’clock. Significant tearing to the perineum. And multiple lacerations to the anus. But the
internal
tearing was the most concerning. Her rectum was ruptured. The surgeons had to go in and sew her up. She could have died.”

Anna clenched her jaw and examined the photos Kerry handed her.

“Is she okay to talk to us?” Anna asked.

“You can try,” Kerry said. “She doesn’t speak much English.”

Kerry led them down the hall to a small private room. Anna knocked on the doorframe. The young woman in the bed looked over. Anna maintained a neutral expression, but cringed inwardly. The woman’s lip was split, and there was a gash across her forehead. Anna also knew the injuries that lay under her hospital gown. Tierra Guerrero was probably quite pretty before her face was beaten. She had long, dark hair and light hazel eyes. Now she looked frightened and exhausted.

“May I come in?” Anna asked.

The woman tilted her head.

“Permiso para entrar?”
Anna tried. She’d retained enough high school Spanish to make a few moments of polite conversation.

The woman’s face relaxed and she nodded. Anna sat in a chair by her head, McGee by her feet.

“Me llamo Anna Curtis. Soy abogada para los Estados Unidos. Quiero ayudarla.”
This was the Spanish phrase she knew best: My name is Anna Curtis. I’m a lawyer for the United States. I want to help you.

The woman nodded. Anna explained in halting Spanish the self-evident point that her Spanish was not very good—but that an officer who spoke it was coming soon.

“Gracias,”
Tierra reached out her hand on the bed and Anna held it. Tierra leaned her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Anna sat holding her hand in silence for the next ten minutes.

When Officer Enrique Melendez came in, Anna introduced him and gently started the interview. She asked the officer to explain that they were investigating the crimes that took place in the Monroe Street brothel the night before. Tierra nodded, then said something in rapid Spanish to the officer.

He turned to Anna. “She’s worried about being deported.”

Anna nodded; this was a common enough concern. “As a crime victim, she’s eligible for a U-visa, which would allow her to stay in the country legally while the case is pending, for up to four years. I can help her obtain that visa.”

After Melendez translated, Tierra visibly relaxed. Anna started asking some easy basic questions, to get her in the rhythm of talking. Soon Tierra was speaking freely, or as freely as she could with the injuries on her face. McGee took notes as Melendez translated. Anna could understand a few Spanish phrases, but mostly had to rely on the officer’s translation.

Tierra was born nineteen years ago in Guatemala. When she was five, her parents immigrated without papers to the United States to find work. For the first ten years, Tierra continued to live in Guatemala with an aunt. Finally, when she was fifteen, her parents sent for her. She made the difficult journey and reunited with parents she barely remembered. They were now living in a one-bedroom apartment in Northern Virginia.

While Tierra had been in Guatemala, her parents had two more children. These younger children, American citizens, were the hope of the family. They had lived with their parents their whole lives, and their parents lavished attention on them. Tierra felt like an outsider from the moment she arrived.

When she was seventeen, she left her family’s one-bedroom apartment and moved in with a boyfriend. When that relationship ended, she started moving from friend to friend, couch to couch, trying to find a way to support herself.

At this point in her story, Tierra stopped talking and looked away.

“How have you been supporting yourself?” Anna asked, keeping her expression open and nonjudgmental. She knew the answer, but she needed the young woman to be able to say it. Tierra bit her lip. “Please, just tell me the truth. I can help you if you’re truthful. I don’t prosecute anyone for prostitution. I prosecute people for sexual assault. The only trouble you’ll ever have from me is if you lie.”

Tierra looked down at her hands. “I sold myself.”

Tierra said she’d begun working at brothels a few months ago. She didn’t need papers, and the wages were in cash. She didn’t have a pimp. She found work easily enough, but didn’t have a steady clientele. The men who went to these brothels wanted new girls—
carne fresca
—every week. She’d built connections in the brothel circuit, and was able to move to a new brothel each week, changing brothels every Sunday.

Anna knew the weekly movement was not just to satisfy johns’ desire for new faces—it also kept the women alienated, unable to build friends or allies in any location.

“When did you arrive at the brothel on Monroe Street?” Anna asked.

“Just yesterday morning,” the officer translated Tierra’s words. “Three more girls were supposed to come from New York, but their pimp called to say their car broke down. It was just the timekeeper, the doorman, and me. I handled as many dates as I could. Twenty-four. I was exhausted.” She was supposed to have made three hundred and sixty.

“The man tied up on the couch,” Anna said. “Who was he?”

“The timekeeper. His job is to kick out the johns after their fifteen minutes are up.”

“And the one whose head—” Anna tried to say it without being gruesome. “Who was killed?”

“The doorman.”

“Tell me what was happening when the men arrived.”

“Ricardo came, a little before closing time. The owner gets any girl he wants for free. I even took off my T-shirt for him. Normally, men have to pay five dollars extra for that. We were in the middle of it, when . . .” She trailed off.

Anna prompted, “What happened?”

“No.” Tierra began to shiver. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Habla del Diablo, y él aparecerá,”
Tierra whispered.

“Speak of the Devil and he shall appear,” Melendez translated.

Many witnesses were afraid that if they testified against their assailant, he would come after them. Anna leaned forward and met Tierra’s eyes.

“Speaking about the Devil is the
only
way to fight him,” Anna said. “A witness needs to talk about the crime for it to be brought to justice. We need you to tell us about the men who did this.”

Tierra shook her head. “Sometimes evil is not done by men. It’s controlled by something much more powerful.”

“Evil is a result of choices people make,” Anna said. “But people can fight it, too. You start by bearing witness against the person who hurt you.”

“You don’t understand,” Tierra said softly. “He’s not a person. He had scales and sharp teeth.”

“He was wearing a mask?”

“No.” Tierra shook her head. “It was his face. His skin was covered everywhere in black marks. His nose was just holes in his face, like a goat. And he had horns.”

“What do you mean, horns?”

Tierra pointed to her forehead.

“What were they made of? Steel, wood, plastic?”

“They were growing under his skin. Round bumps, each the size of a small plum.”

Anna glanced at Melendez, wondering if he was getting the translation right. “Am I missing something?” she asked him.

“I’m just telling you what she said.” Melendez shrugged. “I don’t know what she actually saw.”

“It was three men, three MS-13 members.” Tierra started crying. “And the Devil.”

“Okay, it’s okay. You’re safe now.” Anna handed her a box of tissues. “What happened when the men—and this ‘Devil’—came into your room?”

Tierra blew her nose. “The Devil was holding our doorman’s head. He threw the head to the man called Psycho. Then the Devil . . .”

“Tell me.”

“He raped me. Then he used the handle of his machete. He wanted to hear me scream; he liked it. And when he was done, the one they called Psycho started to rape me.”

Anna gently asked the details she needed to know for her case. They had violated Tierra vaginally and anally. They used condoms, throwing them in the same garbage can the johns used.

“They hurt me so much.” Tierra’s sobs were growing louder. “They didn’t just want sex. They wanted to tear me up. The Devil said it was to punish Ricardo. For what, I don’t know.”

“You’re safe now,” Anna repeated, putting a hand on Tierra’s arm. “You can rest and get better. This is a good place. The doctors will take care of you.”

“The doctors can’t protect me from the Devil.”

Tierra was heaving now, nose running, face red. Anna rubbed her arm, trying to calm her. A nurse came in and told Anna they needed to go, the patient had to rest. Anna and the officers stood.

“There are no devils in this world,” Anna told Tierra. “This was a man. We’ll do everything we can to find him and make him pay for what he did.”

“You are wrong, Miss Lawyer.” Tierra spoke between sobs. “You are kind, and you mean well. But the Devil is real. You can’t stop him. No person can.”

10

Anna was more concerned with mundane investigative challenges than demonic ones. She wanted to speak to the other two victims, but the timekeeper had been released from the hospital and would have to be tracked down. The brothel owner was both sedated and represented by counsel. Talking to him would be complicated, because he had criminal liability of his own. Anna would have to decide whether to immunize his testimony, and how much of a break to offer him for being a victim of a crime when he was also a perpetrator. For now, her best bet was talking to the officers who’d raided the place—if they would speak to her.

As McGee steered the Crown Vic out of the hospital parking lot, she sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through the contacts in her phone.

“You’re wasting your time,” McGee said.

“You never know till you try.” She dialed a number and put the phone to her ear.

“One of these days, experience is gonna beat that optimism right out of you.”

“Shh,” Anna said, as the phone rang.

“For the record, I’m not looking forward to that day.”

Anna smiled at him. McGee drove the rest of the way in silence as she made calls. Occasionally, he rolled his eyes in response to her end of the conversation.

Of the five officers who’d been at the brothel, three did not pick up. The other two told her she’d have to talk to their union rep first. When Anna called the union rep, he referred her to private defense attorneys whom the union had retained for the officers. And when Anna called the lawyers, they asserted their clients’ right to remain silent, until they’d been cleared in the Use of Force investigation. Anna understood where they were coming from, but wondered how she was going to prosecute a case without talking to the police witnesses.

Anna tapped her phone against her leg in frustration. McGee continued to steer the car down the city streets in silence. Anna appreciated that he didn’t say, “I told you so.”

She considered one more possibility. If she could get the FBI involved, she’d have a whole new world of resources. She called her friend FBI Agent Samantha Randazzo. Anna and Sam had worked together on the case involving the murder of an escort in a congressman’s office. They’d gotten off to a rocky start, but had grown to like and respect each other. Anna counted Sam as a friend now.

“Randazzo,” Sam answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Sam, it’s Anna. I just got an interesting new case. Thought the FBI might want to be involved.”

“Deets?”

Anna could hear shouts in the background. Sam worked in the Violent Crime unit, and was probably out with her squad right now. Anna quickly filled her in on what had happened at the brothel.

“So you caught one bad guy, but two more got away, your victims are all criminals, and your cops might be, too,” Sam said. “Great case!”

“There are some nice potential federal charges,” Anna said, trying to sell the case. “Human trafficking and gang activity, so maybe the seeds of a RICO case.”

“Some very tiny seeds,” Sam said. “The FBI’s not taking brothel cases these days unless they’re trafficking minors. And you need a pattern of racketeering activity for RICO. Maybe if you can get your friend Psycho to cooperate. Call me in a week, let me know what you’ve got, and I’ll see what I can do. And, stop by the restaurant sometime. My mom is always asking how you’re doing.”

“Will do,” Anna said.

Anna slid her phone into her purse with disappointment. Samantha wouldn’t take a dog of a case out of mere affection. It was a catch-22: If Anna wanted the FBI involved, she’d have to make this a stronger case—but it would be difficult to build her case without the FBI’s resources.

As they approached the U.S. Attorney’s Office, her phone rang, making her purse shimmy in her lap. It was Hector Ramos. She answered and spoke to him for a few minutes. When she hung up, she turned to McGee with a smile. “He’s not using the union’s lawyers. And he’s willing to talk to us, outside the office. I recommended Sergio’s.”

“Wonders never cease.”

McGee drove a few blocks away, to the Italian restaurant owned by Agent Randazzo’s family. It was four o’clock when they walked in, and the place was mostly empty, but it still smelled of fresh-baked garlic bread, spicy tomato sauce, and wood-fired pizza.

A young man came out from the kitchen. Tony Randazzo—Samantha’s brother—was Anna’s age, tall and dark-haired, with the boisterous charm of a man who ran a neighborhood institution.

“Anna!” He came over and kissed her cheek. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Hey, Tony. I’m just bringing a couple cops to try the city’s best eggplant patties.”

“You’re not here to see me? Then I don’t know if we can fit you in.” He looked around the empty restaurant and shook his head. “Do you have a reservation?”

Anna laughed as he led them to a four-top by the front window. Anna had loved the food at Sergio’s even before she started working with Sam. Now, when Anna came here, she felt like family. It was nice, since her own family—Jody—lived in Flint.