Eyewitness (Thriller/Legal Thriller - #5 The Witness Series) (The Witness Series #5) (11 page)

“He was a very busy man,” Mike commented.

“He was quite hands off, actually. He knew everything that went on, but he only micromanaged one thing.”

“And that was?”

“The negotiations with the union.” Dan Jenkins jerked a thumb toward the closed door behind which Mr. Oi’s effigy sat. “They’re the ones that did that. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of the security guards let them in. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them killed Mr. Oi. He was a strong man, but they are thugs. You want to look at someone. Look at Mark Wolf. Or how about Sam Lumina? He’s a troublemaker. Swaggering bastard. I think he scared some people.”

“Even Oi?”

“No,” Dan said sadly. “Maybe that was Mr. Oi’s mistake.”

***

Josie paced back and forth in front of Billy’s bed, speaking quickly and quietly into her phone. She didn’t want to disturb Billy, but if he woke and had something to say she wanted to be there to hear it. When she walked one way, Josie looked into the hospital hall; when she walked the other way she could see out the window and onto the parking lot. Mike Montoya was on the other end of the line looking through the windshield of his car, waiting for a traffic light to change.

“We should have toxicology in the next two days,” he assured her when she told him about Trey and the bath salts.

“I’m not saying Billy did salts, I’m saying that guy who brought them might have flipped out. Maybe that’s why Billy was in the water - to get away from this guy.”

“Ms. Bates, if he just admitted to you that he was in the house and that bath salts were a factor-”

“He didn’t say he was using. He said he was in the house, but he said this guy brought the drugs,” Josie insisted. “What happened in that house could only be done by someone who was strung out.”

“And the motive would be?”

Traffic was moving forward, but not as fast as Josie Bates was moving. Mike was processing this information, but he couldn’t be as excited about it as she seemed to be. One guy strung out might have gone on a rampage, but he would not have come to Rosa Zuni’s house armed to the teeth. A hurt kid muttering something in the hospital had to be taken in context.

“Good grief,” Josie exclaimed. “Take the information and plug it in. You’ve got a mystery, Montoya. There’s got to be something that ties all this together and drugs is as good as any explanation.”

Josie paused. She pushed back her long bangs and rolled her eyes. She sounded like a fishwife. She knew it, but Montoya sloughed it off, and asked for the names of the people at the pier. Josie gave the information to him and added:

“The Hermosa cops will know who they are. I can give you a contact.” Josie paused. “Maybe this Trey guy was dealing for someone in that house. At least you can tell the lab what to look for. Oh, and Montoya?”

“Yes, Ms. Bates?”

“Hannah remembered that the man at our door was wearing a cheap blue jacket. The rain made the dye run, and the guy’s wrists were blue tinged. Knit cuffs, not elastic. It was zipped up and there was a logo and -”

Josie was about to tell him her impression of the logo but the phone fell away from her ear. She could hear Montoya calling to her. She raised the phone again.

“I’ll call you back.”

Josie snapped the phone shut and walked into the hall. She looked one way then the other trying to spot the man who had come into Billy’s room only to duck out again. He could have been an orderly, he could have been a visitor who made a wrong turn, he could have been a cop, but something told her he was none of the above.

Josie went down the hall, turning her head at every sound, following air that was prickly with something the man had left in his wake: nerves, concern, shame, confusion. She stopped in front of a room at the end of the hall. She could hear a nurse’s steady stream of conversation. Josie pushed the door open just far enough to see that this was a private room. Past the curtain, she saw flashes of a nurse tending to her patient.

“Can I help you?”

Startled, unaware that she had been standing and staring long enough to garner attention, Josie stepped back. A bald, clean-shaven man was seriously considering that she might be up to no good.

“No,” Josie said. “Thanks.”

She went back the way she came, feeling the man’s eyes on her. Everyone in this hospital was looking for an assassin. Not that she could blame them for being skittish. Evil recognized no boundaries: movie houses, churches, grade schools, so why not hospitals? She was almost back at Billy’s room when her phone rang.

Josie answered it, listened, promised she’d be on her way in minutes, and went back to Billy’s room to get her purse. He was asleep so she didn’t linger. He probably wouldn’t remember she had been there or what he had said to her. Just as well. There was another fire sparking and Josie was going to make sure she stomped it out.

***

The man inside the bathroom heard the nurse wash her hands at the sink in the room. He prayed she wouldn’t come into the bathroom, but if she did he was ready. He wouldn’t kill her, but he would make sure she didn’t remember him. He closed his eyes, leaned his head against the wall, and sweated. He heard the water shut off and the nurse tug on the towel dispenser.

Once again, things went quiet. He strained to hear anything that would let him know if she was still out there, but he heard nothing. He glanced at the toilet. He wanted to pee. No, he wanted to throw up. He was frightened, which was weird. He hadn’t been frightened before. Before he’d felt like a goddamn king of the world. Now he felt like a little kid hiding from the Boogie Man. And, like a little kid, all he wanted was to get away and run to someone who would protect him or find somewhere he could hide.

Opening the door a little further, he smashed his cheek against it and rotated to get a better look the other way. He could hear a laugh track on the television. His palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his pants and then again on his blue jacket. He stripped off the jacket and folded it over his arm. Knowing his escape had to be now or never, he chose now.

Half expecting to be confronted, he was relieved to find no one around. On the television the same group of people laughed the same laugh again. He moved swiftly toward the hall door, lay as flat as he could against the wall, and peered out. A second later, he left the room and started to walk. Long and wide, the hall seemed to undulate in front of his eyes as if he were walking on the pitching deck of a ship. He was almost to the end of the hall, hurrying on, head down, thinking of nothing more than getting out of the hospital when he ran into a man.

“Sorry.” Instinctively, he looked up as he spun away. Still moving as he held out his hands in apology. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“No problem,” the bald orderly said.

The man went on. Everything was good. His shoulders pulled back, his chest puffed out. He had not done what he’d come for, but he at least saw the kid. He turned into the lobby and ran for an elevator. He called ‘hold it’ and a hand shot out, stopping the doors just in time. He squeezed in.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem.”

Josie Bates reached for the button to close the doors, and that was when the man started to sweat again.

1998

Once again
Teuta traveled alone to the house where her parents had lived. Yilli was gone many years and now the old woman was dead. She had been dead a long while when she was found and that saddened Teuta. No one should be alone when they died.

Now the mother was buried and
Teuta sat in the light of the fading day in the house of her childhood, remembering when there had been goats, and work, and smells of good food cooking. Her father and mother had no understanding of investments, they had no money to give the government, so they had not suffered as the rest of the country did, as she, Teuta, and her family did.

Teuta
was sitting, starting to think of her own family - for what good was it to think of her parents now that they were dead? – when she heard the sound of a car bumping over the uneven ground. She looked out the window, curious but not curious enough to get up until the car stopped and a big man got out.

Teuta
narrowed her eyes to try to see him better. She touched her headscarf. She arranged her face not so much in a scowl but in an expression that said she was not afraid to be alone and have a visitor she might not want. But then a woman also got out of the car and then a child.

It was only the family who would live in the house, come to see if they liked the rooms.
Teuta welcomed this family and wished them happiness. She did not say that it had been a sad house for her father, Yilli.

When they had looked in all the rooms and went away saying they were pleased that they would live there,
Teuta slept in her childhood home one last time. In the morning she left the house and did not have a regret. In fact, a great weight was lifted off Teuta. She now lived far, far away. In her new home no one would know hers were the children of Yilli the goat herder’s child.

2013

Archer drove down Century Boulevard near LAX. Traffic was moving through a canyon created by the rise of nondescript airport hotels, unmemorable restaurants, and dated office buildings. Archer’s destination was somewhere between the legitimate airport businesses and downtown in a no man’s land of dollar stores and strip joints.

Before he left Hermosa, he talked with Adam over eggs and bacon at Burt’s. Adam confirmed that on the night in question Billy was in a good mood as always; Cher was suggestive and stoned, as always. The third guy, Trey, had come and gone with Billy. He and Cher left soon after Billy and Trey. It was late and Cher’s constant chatter got on Adam’s nerves. Not to mention it was cold and incredibly wet. The surf, though, was awesome.

Yes, they had all smoked a little weed; no, Adam hadn’t seen any bath salts. Adam didn’t know anything about Rosa Zuni. Luckily, Archer knew a little bit more than Adam. A quick call to the landlord after Josie gave him the woman’s full name landed him the name of her employer, but the management company wasn’t going to give some private cop information on the owner of the building. He could look it up in public records. Public real estate records weren’t going to tell Archer what he needed to know about Rosa Zuni so he headed to where she worked: Undies. He pulled the Hummer into a parking lot that needed to be repaved and took a look around.

It was ten in the morning, and the joint was open. Actually, the place never closed. The doors opened at 5:30 a.m. and closing time was 2:00 a.m. Archer always wondered what moral parameters three and a half sober hours satisfied. Of course, that assumed patrons were actually sober during those hours and not just drinking in their cars until Undies opened once again.

Archer set the emergency brake and yawned. The last thing he wanted to see in the morning were half-naked women holding onto poles while they pretended to dance. Strike that. He didn’t mind seeing Josie half-naked anytime of the morning. Right now all he wanted to see was the back of his eyelids, but there was work to be done. He needed to find a thread that would lead him to a relative of the Zuni’s, and if all went well, hook him up with Trey the mystery man.

Archer was considering his two chores when a Chevy drove into the lot. The car was old and on its last legs; not so the woman who got out of it. Archer draped his arm over the steering wheel, lowered his sunglasses and took in all her glory.

She wore purple leggings, a red tank top, a multi-colored scarf, and stiletto-heeled platform sandals. Her hair was long, curly and growing out brown from a magenta dye job. On Rodeo Drive she would have looked like a movie star, a fact that Archer lamented. Hollywood used to do glamor like nobody’s business but now it was all about looking like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, inking every appendage with faux Chinese poetry, and acting like you were pissed off all the time. The woman hefted a giant bag over her shoulder and when she turned around it was clear that the only films she might have starred in were X rated. It was amazing she could even stand given the massive boobs that had taken root on her top half. What made the sight so incredible was that the damn things looked real.

She pushed the door shut with a thrust of her hip, didn’t bother to lock the vehicle, pulled her bag close, strode across the lot, and opened the front door to the building. Archer got out of the Hummer, locked it, and followed her into Undies.

***

“Hannah broke two of Tiffany’s fingers, Ms. Bates. The girl’s mother is talking about suing.” Mrs. Crawford’s voice remained steady, but it was clear that she was shaken.

“I’ll take care of it. We’ll cover any medical expenses,” Josie said, barely able to contain her annoyance at being called away from the hospital for this. “Hannah will apologize and make amends in any manner Tiffany’s mother believes fit.”

Beside her, a sullen Hannah cut her eyes to her guardian. Josie ignored her. Her displeasure was nothing compared to Josie’s or Mrs. Crawford, Mira Costa High School’s principal.

“Tiffany’s mother isn’t just talking about suing you, Ms. Bates, but the school district and me personally. She claims that we knew Hannah was a danger and that she never should have been registered.”

Josie stiffened. Hannah rolled her eyes. In this school, Hannah’s arrest for murder translated into an assumption of guilt. It was ridiculous, unfair, and Josie thought they had moved beyond that. Hannah knew better. She dealt with the consequences of her notoriety every
day. Josie and Archer and Faye had made the hassle worth bearing. Now Josie was acting like any other parent - huffy, righteous, unwilling to hear Hannah’s side of the story - so Hannah sulked. Josie figured an eruption was about five minutes away, so she decided to use the next four as judiciously as possible.

“I think we can all agree that Hannah is no more dangerous than any other student,” Josie said.

“We have a no tolerance policy for bullying,” Mrs. Crawford said. “Tiffany has been sent home. She’s on probation for three days.”

“That’s like nothing,” Hannah muttered.

“Hannah.” Josie admonished her quickly with both a word and a touch. Hannah shook her off. There was no stopping Hannah when she had something to say.

“Give me a break. All Tiffany’s going to do is sit home and badmouth me and Billy on the Internet. She said we should both be dead and that we were too stupid to pull it off. That’s not teasing. That’s not even bullying. That’s evil.”

“I agree,” Mrs. Crawford said, “but there’s a difference between bloodletting and cutting words. She didn’t threaten you, Hannah.”

Hannah pushed herself up straighter, bent an elbow and rested her head against her fisted hand. She sparked with teenage anger, but her argument was all adult logic.

“I wasn’t worried about me. Billy hasn’t got anyone to stand up for him, so I did. I don’t think he’d be better off dead.” She dropped her hand and raised her head and asked, “Do you?”

If Hannah had been an archer her arrow couldn’t have hit a truer target. In fact, she’d taken out both Mrs. Crawford and Josie with that barb. For Josie the last two days had been spent listening to Hannah’s asides, her objectifying of why Josie and Archer needed to step up and take responsibility for Billy. Josie’s promise to reach out only so far seemed to Hannah stunning and unfathomable. Why, she wanted to know, was Billy different? It was hard for Josie to explain and almost impossible to put into words.

Josie assumed that Hannah understood the parallels that brought them together: their shared experience of abandonment, their fierce love of a parent who had done them wrong, and their connection as women. What Josie had not counted on was a teenage heart, a teenage mind, a teenage sensibility that dictated that outsiders - like Hannah, Josie, and now Billy - had each other’s backs no matter what.

Josie had not counted on Hannah’s faith in her, either. Josie was the guardian, the warrior, and the unbreakable lifeline that Hannah clung to. But most of all, Josie’s arms were now the mother’s arms encircling her. Hannah wanted her friend, Billy, embraced and protected, too.

“Not caring about what happened is the same as wishing he was dead,” Hannah pointed out.

“Hannah, nobody wishes Billy dead. Not even Tiffany.” Mrs. Crawford was firm. “And it isn’t my job to decide what will happen to Billy. I am principal of this school, and I will deal with the problems of this school. I’m not exonerating Tiffany, but I’m not letting you off the hook either. Because you were physically violent, you will be suspended from school for two weeks. I will not see you on these premises for any reason, is that clear?”

“Yes.” Hannah accepted her punishment, but wasn’t cowed by it.

“Good. Fine.” Mrs. Crawford unclasped the hands to check the schedule of Hannah’s classes that she had pulled before calling Josie. “You’re carrying a full load, Hannah. All of your teachers have the assignments posted online except for art.”

“I’m working on a painting for Ms. Trani. She’s letting me self-direct,” Hannah said.

“Is it due in the next two weeks?” Mrs. Crawford was clearly unimpressed.

Hannah shook her head. “No. End of the month.”

“Alright then.” She set aside the class schedule. “Ms. Bates, if Hannah needs anything from the school, I’ll expect you to come and get it. I’ll speak with each of her teachers. I will make it clear that they are to cooperate but not to go out of their way to accommodate her. I do expect Hannah, however, to go out of her way to accommodate them.”

“Her assignments will be in on time,” Josie agreed. “I’ll see that she writes a letter of apology to this girl-”

“I won’t.” Hannah nearly shot of out her chair, but Josie was fast and her hand clamped down on the girl’s arm. Mrs. Crawford didn’t miss a beat.

“Then we’re done. Hannah, go to your locker and get what you need.”

Hannah picked up her satchel and went to the door without so much as an apology to the principal. Josie was about to call her back when Mrs. Crawford beat her to it.

“Hannah? Just so you know, I am in no mood for a confrontation with anyone. You have five minutes. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Hannah answered.

When the door closed, Mrs. Crawford turned her attention to Josie.

“I’m glad you stayed.”

“I am sorry. I’ll talk to Tiffany’s mother. I’ll make sure there is no legal action,” Josie assured her.

“It’s not that. I doubt her mother is going to make good on those threats. Luckily, she isn’t blind to her daughter’s failings. And if you repeat that, I’ll deny it.”

“My lips are sealed,” Josie promised.

“Great. Look, I just wanted to give you this.” Mrs. Crawford handed over a piece of paper. Written on it were a local number and an international number. “I’m embarrassed to say that this is all we have on Billy. When his mother filled out the registration forms she didn’t even bother to put down names. We should have caught it, but we have over two thousand students. Registration day is a zoo. We’re bound to miss something. I’m just sorry we missed it with Billy. Some kids are just destined to fall through the cracks.”

“Hopefully, we can change that.” Josie took the paper and glanced at it. “I’ll run it down. Thanks.”

Josie put the number in her pocket, shook the woman’s hand and walked into the hall. Hannah was waiting near the double doors down the hall, her Louis Vuitton satchel bulging with books. There were more in her arms. Before Josie took another step, her phone rang. The caller identified herself, imparted her information, and asked Josie if she understood the instructions.

“Yes. I’ve got it. Ten o’clock tomorrow. Judge Healy. Chambers? Thank you.”

Josie input the information into her phone and said her goodbyes. At the end of the hall, Hannah was waiting and watching as Josie dialed Archer. He was going to have to step things up. The next day at ten in the morning she was going to have to face the judge who would decide what was going to happen to Billy Zuni.

When she passed Hannah, the girl turned precisely and followed her guardian across the campus. It wasn’t until Josie pulled the car out of the parking space that Hannah spoke.

“You won’t let the county take Billy, will you? He can’t survive in the system, Josie. I could, but not Billy.”

***

Archer pocketed his phone. The woman in the purple leggings hadn’t shown the slightest interest in his conversation. Instead, she filed her very long, very fake, French tipped nails. They looked like spades. It was a look Archer had never understood. Still, he didn’t want to hold hands with her, he just wanted her attention.