See Me(33)

Colin said nothing. By then, they’d almost reached the spot where they’d entered the beach, a cacophony of music audible now above the sound of the waves. She gestured toward the dune. “Do you mind if we sit?”

“Not at all.”

Slipping off her purse and setting her sandals aside, she lowered herself to the sand. Colin made himself comfortable beside her.

“Cassie Manning,” Maria offered. “That was her name… I hardly ever talk about her. It’s not something that I like reliving.” Her voice was tight and controlled. “The case came to me maybe three or four months after I’d begun working at the DA’s office. On paper, it struck me as a fairly typical case. Cassie is dating a guy and they get into an argument, it escalates, and the guy ends up getting violent. Cassie ends up in the hospital with a black eye and a split lip, bruising, a cracked cheekbone. In other words, it wasn’t just one punch; it was a beating. His name was Gerald Laws.”

“Laws?”

“I’ve tried to find the irony, but I’ve never found any. And nothing about the case ended up being typical in the slightest. It turns out that they’d been dating for six months or so, and in the beginning of the relationship, Cassie found Laws utterly charming. He listened well, opened doors for her – a gentleman – but after a while, she began to notice aspects of his personality that concerned her. The longer they dated, the more jealous and possessive he started to become. Cassie told me that he began to get angry if she didn’t answer immediately when he called her; he started showing up at her office when she was getting off work – she was a nurse at a pediatric office – and once, when she was having lunch with her brother, she spotted Laws on the other side of the restaurant, all by himself, just watching her. She knew that he’d followed her there and it bothered her.

“The next time he called, Cassie told him that she wanted to take a break for a while. He agreed, but soon thereafter, she realized that he was stalking her. She’d see him at the post office or when she was leaving the doctor’s office or when she was jogging, and she’d get these calls where no one would talk on the other end. Then, one night, Laws showed up at her door saying that he wanted to apologize, and against her better judgment, she let him in. Once inside, he tried to convince her to go out with him again. When she said no, he grabbed her arm and she began to fight back, and she ended up hitting him with a vase. After that, he threw her to the floor and just… went at it. It happened that there was a police officer the next street over, and after the 911 call came in – the neighbors had heard screaming – he was at the house in minutes. Laws had her pinned to the floor and was punching her and there was blood everywhere. It turned out later that it was his blood from a cut over his ear where she’d hit him with the vase. The officer had to use a Taser on him. When they searched his car, they found duct tape, rope, a couple of knives, and videotaping equipment. Scary stuff. When I talked to Cassie, she told me that the guy was crazy and that she was afraid for her life. Her family was, too. Her mom and dad and her younger brother were adamant that Laws be put away for as long as possible.”

She burrowed her toes in the sand. “I thought so, too. In my mind, there was no question that the guy needed to be put away. It was also pretty open-and-shut as far as cases go. In North Carolina, Laws could have been charged with either a Class C felony, which means he had the intent to kill her, or a Class E felony, where he didn’t have the intent to kill her. The family, especially the father, wanted him to be charged with a Class C felony, which could have put him behind bars for anywhere between three and seven years. The arresting officer, too, believed that Laws was dangerous. But unfortunately, the district attorney didn’t think we could prove intent, since there was no proof that any of the things in the car had anything to do with her. Nor were her injuries truly life-threatening. Cassie also had a bit of a credibility problem… while most of what she’d said Laws had done in the past was true, she also said he’d done things that he clearly hadn’t. Then there was Laws: He looked like Mister Rogers, worked as a loan officer at a bank, and had no criminal record. He would have been a prosecutor’s nightmare on the stand. So we ended up allowing Laws to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault, with a year in prison, and that’s where I went wrong. Because Laws was extremely dangerous.”

She paused, willing herself to keep telling the story. “Laws ended up serving nine months, since he’d already served three months pending trial. He wrote Cassie letters every other day, apologizing for his actions and begging for another chance. She never answered them; after a while, she didn’t even open them, but she saved them all because she was still afraid of him. Afterwards, when we examined them more closely, we noticed the shift in tone over time. Laws was becoming more and more angry that she wouldn’t respond. Had she actually read them and brought them to the DA…”

She stared toward the sand. “As soon as he got out, Laws showed up at her door. She slammed the door on him and called the police. She had a restraining order filed against him, and when the police talked to him, he promised that he wouldn’t go anywhere near her again. All that did was make him more careful. He sent her flowers anonymously. Her cat was poisoned. She’d find bouquets of dead roses on her doorstep. Even her tires were slashed.”

Maria swallowed, visibly shaken. When she continued, her voice was hoarse. “And then, one night, while Cassie was heading to her boyfriend’s place – by then, she was dating someone else – Laws was waiting for her. Her boyfriend saw Laws grab her right off the sidewalk and force her into the car, and he wasn’t able to stop it. Two days later, the police found Cassie’s body in an old lakefront cabin the bank had foreclosed on. Laws tied her up and beat her extensively, set the cabin on fire, and then shot himself, but they couldn’t tell whether she’d been alive when the fire…” She closed her eyes. “They had to be identified through dental records.”