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

1991

Teuta smiled at her little girl who smiled back at her mother. Though she was but one year, she was old in her soul so it was nice to see her smile. She was a beautiful little thing with dark hair and full cheeks. But the man who was to take the picture of the little girl was not happy. No Shqiptare smiled for a picture, not even a little girl. This would be the first Teuta’s parents had seen of their grandchild, so it must be perfect.

Teuta
wagged a finger, and the little girl’s lips closed, and her big serious eyes looked even more somber. Pleased, the photographer took the picture and the little girl raised her hands to her mother. Teuta swooped in to pick her up. She and her handsome young husband had made a good girl who would grow beautiful and she would marry well. She would have beautiful children to be Teuta’s grandchildren. That is how life would go, Teuta was sure.

She paid the photographer but counted her lek carefully. Her husband had invested as everyone had and soon they would be rich. Until then, she must be cautious. That, the bankers and the government told them all, was how things worked when there was freedom.

2013

The detective walked into the room like a visiting relative reluctant to disturb the family but having no intention of leaving after making the effort to get there. He nodded to Josie and asked how she was holding up. She had barely answered when he turned his attention to Hannah. She was a beautiful and interesting girl, and it hadn’t escaped his notice that she had tracked him as if he was a hunter and she his prey.

“I’m Detective Montoya. I’m here to help Billy.”

Mike’s introduction was accompanied by a smile so genuine it usually disarmed victims and criminals alike. Hannah was neither, and she was cautious. She looked him square in the eye, considered the hand he offered, and decided to take it. Then Mike Montoya made a mistake. He put his other hand on top of hers. She snatched hers back and drew the blanket over her arms.

“I’m surprised you’re here.” Josie caught his attention before he could say anything more. He turned smoothly.

“My team is still working.” He looked over his shoulder at Billy. “I understand he dodged a bullet. No major internal injuries. A concussion, but so far no swelling on the brain.”

“Then you know more than we do.” Josie’s eyes flicked to Hannah. “This is Hannah Sheraton, my ward. She goes to school with Billy. She came with him in the ambulance."

"And I assume you just got here?” Mike asked.

Josie picked up on the prompt. "I did. Hannah and I haven’t had a chance to talk about what happened."

Mike nodded. He would let Josie Bates break the news of what happened in Billy’s house to Hannah. There were other things he wanted to know, but Hannah had her own agenda.

“Billy didn’t do anything. What happened was an accident.” She was spoiling for a fight. She snapped those big, green eyes of hers at Mike and then Josie. “I know how this goes. You think Billy did something wrong or else you wouldn’t be here. But sometimes shit just happens and it isn’t against the law. It happens because -”

“Hannah, that’s enough,” Josie
warned.

“That’s all right. I have three girls of my own.” Mike’s comment indicated that he could understand Hannah Sheraton because he had daughters, but his girls would never be as old as this one if they lived a hundred years. He tried again now that he had some idea of what he was up against. “I’m glad Billy has someone with him who cares. He must mean a lot for you to stay with him all this time.”

“He’s just my friend.” Hannah muttered.

“May I?” Before Hannah could object, Mike pulled a chair up and sat down.

“It’s been a very long night for all of us. Maybe this isn’t the best time.” Josie didn’t want him to get too comfortable, but there seemed to be no stopping him.

“Just a few questions.” He turned his face like a priest in the confessional and shut Josie out. This was between him and Hannah.

“Do you know what happened to Billy? Do you know why he was in the ocean last night?”

“None of us knows why,” Josie responded.

Montoya smiled slightly. Josie Bates’ concern for Hannah and what she might say was telling, indeed. Montoya knew that she was concerned about the girl, but he also knew Josie Bates, the lawyer, was trying to control the flow of information.

He had known who she was the minute she gave her name at the crime scene. She was a fearless advocate, a headline maker, a woman who might not seek the limelight but found herself in it nonetheless. Josie Bates could be a brick wall or a conduit to the people he needed to talk to. Mike had never been a fan of brick walls and was not fond of running headlong into one.

"Hannah was with him in the ambulance,” he reminded her. “She's been with him since he got into this room. Isn't that right, Hannah?"

“He almost drowned. You shouldn’t be coming here to harass him,” Hannah objected.

If there had been a confession in that ambulance, Hannah Sheraton gave no indication she heard it. That meant there hadn’t been one, or she was a darn good little actress. He said:

“I came because I want to help. The way I can do that is by understanding what kind of person Billy is.”

“He’s a good person. A happy person,” Hannah answered.

“It’s hard to be happy all the time. Was he happy at school?”

“He managed,” Hannah mumbled.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Mike nudged.

Josie moved into his peripheral vision. Hannah paid no attention to her.

“Sometimes people made fun of him, but that happens. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“And at home? How was that?” Mike pressed on.

“We all know about his mother - ” she began, but Josie interrupted.

“None of us ever met the woman, detective. Whatever Hannah might tell you would only be hearsay.” The tone of Josie’s voice told Mike this interview was going to be over sooner than later.

Mike swiveled toward Josie. “This isn’t an interrogation.”

“Billy and Hannah are minors,” Josie reminded him. “And this is a sick room. If you’d like to talk to us somewhere else, we can do that after I’ve had a chance to speak with Hannah.”

Mike’s bottom lip pulled up, his chin crinkled as if he was thinking about her suggestion. The fingers on his right hand drummed once on his knee. He considered Hannah, let his gaze linger on Billy, and then he stood up.

“No one needs protecting from me,” he assured them.

“Caution is ingrained,” Josie answered.

“Curiosity is my handicap,” he countered. "I find it more productive."

“I’ll walk you out.” Josie started for the door. Before Mike followed, he held out his card to Hannah.

“If you think of anything that might help, I hope you’ll call.”

Mike didn’t wait for an answer. This girl would never call him if Josie Bates had anything to say about it, and she made that clear in the hall.

“If you need to question Hannah, call me and we’ll make arrangements. She likes to think she’s tough, but she’s only sixteen.”

“She’s an old soul,” Mike noted.

“Let’s not dance around anything where these kids are concerned. You didn’t ask, but I can tell you that Hannah was home with me last night. She woke me up when she heard the man at the front door. She saw what happened on the beach and rode to the hospital with Billy. That’s it.”

“So noted,” Mike said.

“And set aside,” Josie suggested.

“Can’t do it, Ms. Bates. Those two young people might not even know what information would be helpful. You should encourage Hannah to talk to me now.”

“Billy is the one with information. It might be days before you can talk to him and days more before he can piece things together. ”

“Minutes concern me. Better that I rule out any involvement on his part."

"Isn't it a little early to finger Billy as your perp?” Josie scoffed.

Mike smiled. “Interesting that should be your first thought. I was thinking witness.”

“Since this discussion is moot until he’s coherent, let’s not assume either,” Josie answered, embarrassed by her amateur mistake.

“Agreed. I’d like to have your clothes made available to us so our lab can rule out any evidence you two left in the house. We already have what was left of Billy’s.”

“Sure. We’ll get it to you.”

“Thanks.” Mike lingered. “By the way, why didn’t you ride to the hospital with Billy? I would have thought you’d want to stay with him to make sure he was alright.”

“I wanted to talk to his mother,” Josie said.

“This was your own idea?” he pressed.

“Yes. Who else’s would it be?”

“I’m curious about the urgency. You let a sixteen-year-old girl accompany Billy to the hospital when you weren’t sure of his condition, when the hospital might have needed an adult to consult with. You could have talked to h
is mother after you knew more.”

“But I didn’t do that, did I?”

“No. I suppose the real question is, did Billy say anything on the beach that made you think you needed to go to that house immediately?” Mike asked.

“You mean like telling me he just killed two people and attempted to kill his mother?” Josie smiled. “No, detective. No seaside confession.”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“Have you talked to anyone about Billy?” she asked. “I mean have you notified child services?”

“We informed the district attorney,” Mike said.

“Who caught it?” Josie asked.

“Carl Newton.” Josie nodded as Mike went on. “He’ll confer with the county counsel regarding Billy’s placement unless there’s a clear alternative for the boy’s care."

“Billy is seventeen,” Josie said.

“The law says he’s a child until he’s eighteen,” Mike reminded her.

“I’ll see what I can do about finding his people,” Josie answered.

“I think that would be best under the circumstances. No matter what happens, that boy is going to need a lot of support.”

Mike didn’t have to say more. The standard no matter what happens implication spoke volumes. Josie had known from the minute she saw the carnage in that house that Billy would be the investigator’s top priority.

“True. Just remember, you only talk to him if I’m present,” Josie reiterated.

“Unless a relative is located,” Montoya responded.

“Or his mother is able to assign permissions,” Josie went on. “Did the doctors say when you will be able to talk with her?”

Josie turned back to look at Hannah who had not taken her eyes off Billy. Mike looked back at the teenagers, too.

“I doubt they would know, Ms. Bates.” He turned his gaze on her. “We’re not sure we’ve found Billy’s mother yet.”

1996

Teuta
pulled her shawl tighter and looked down at the little girl on one side of her and then the baby nestled in her arms. Her children had slept well given the cold and the bad roads and the hard seats of the wagon. Teuta hadn’t slept soundly since she learned her father was ill. She loved him, and as the years went by she was sad that her marriage had taken her so far away. Perhaps if she lived closer things would have been different. Yilli had become so reclusive that it was all her mother could do to get him to the hospital. Teuta finally knew why. It seemed everyone had known except for her. Such an old sin. But now Yilli was a sick old man who would soon die. Who would care about him except those who loved him? Besides, there were other things to worry about in these changing days. She worried about why they all still lived like peasants.

The wagon jolted. She held her children tighter. Riches, she thought. She wished she had not listened to such talk. She had not believed what the government or her husband said. She wanted him to get his money back from the bankers now. He had promised to try. Meanwhile, she still traveled in a wagon drawn by a horse and what little money they had was sewn into the hem of her skirt.

The wagon jolted again. Again she clutched her daughter who clutched right back. Teuta glanced harshly at the old man but he didn’t notice. He did not care if this was a hard road. If she complained he would have just told her to wait for a furgon, but the furgons did not run all the time and those that did often broke down. The cart was slow, but it was steady and it was what they could afford.

Teuta
sighed and looked off to the countryside. On the horizon was the concrete skeleton of what would someday be a home for many families. The stairs reached up three floors, but only the bottom level was finished with a door and windows and walls. When each son married, another floor would be finished. Teuta’s husband was a first son so they lived on the second floor of the family home. The second son, his brother, had died in prison before the government fell. Poor boy. At least she wouldn’t have to worry so much about her children being imprisoned for no good reason. Still, there were things to be afraid of. Her father would die afraid. Poor father.

“Here is where you want to go”

The old man’s voice startled her. Teuta was surprised to find that she had slept. Now she blinked as the cart stopped. She woke her older child. The old man lifted her down as if she were nothing more than air. He reached for Teuta and lifted her and the baby down, also.

“Faleminderit
.”

She thanked him but kept her eyes down. It was bad enough to travel alone with a man who was not her husband. She would not shame herself by looking him in the eye.

Teuta adjusted her skirts and gathered her children. She raised her eyes to the foreboding place that was her destination. Behind her the old man moved on. He had seen too much in his life to be worried about her one way or the other. If she needed courage, she would have to find it elsewhere.

He climbed back into his cart and took the reins in his hands. He was missing three fingers on the right one. Times had been hard for so many who were older. When the man and his cart were out of sight,
Teuta went into the hospital hoping she had arrived in time to bring some comfort to Yilli, her father, who had once herded goats.

2013

In the ICU the walls were glass so that the nurses and doctors could easily monitor the sickest of the sick. Inside the room that interested Josie was the woman they had found at Billy’s house, the one who had been attacked so ferociously that she hardly looked human, the one Josie and Archer assumed was Billy Zuni’s neglectful, selfish mother.

Thanks to Mike Montoya’s suggestion, Josie now had her own doubts.

The woman in the bed was all too human, petite, pale, and, above all, very young. It was her youth that had given Montoya pause and Josie had to agree it was a curious turn. Children gave birth to children all the time, but logic dictated that could not be so in this case.

This girl topped out at twenty-five. Even if she were twenty-seven or eight that would mean she would have had Billy when she was ten. She and Billy couldn’t have survived without the help of family or friends. She couldn’t have worked, rented a house, or driven a car. If she tried to do any of that, she would have come to the notice of social services at the very least. She hadn’t. When pressed, Montoya offered no hard facts for his conclusion and that made Josie all the more curious.

She checked out her surroundings: one nurse worked at the desk, another conferred with a doctor at a patient’s bedside, two rooms down a man slept in a chair next to a woman’s bed. The nurse at the desk got up; Josie Bates made her move and walked into the room.

Up close the woman in the bed looked younger still. Her eyes were wide set, her nose short and round. Her cheeks were full, and her lips beautifully bowed and pitifully slack. There was a tube down her throat that attached her to a machine that breathed for her and IVs that fed her cocktails of nourishment and medicine. Josie tried to see beyond the neat rows of stitches snaking across her throat and behind her ear, the dressings on her face, and the cast on her arm. Josie looked hard, trying to find a definitive resemblance to Billy. Was it there in her coloring? This girl’s hair was light like Billy’s but her lashes, roots, and brows were dark. Perhaps if she opened her eyes Josie would see it; maybe if she spoke Josie would hear it in the sound of her voice. But it would be a long time before those eyes opened or that voice sounded.

Her ears were pierced, and her nails were short and ill kept. There were no tattoos or birthmarks that Josie could see. Since there wasn’t much skin visible it was impossible to tell if there were any existing scars. That was about to change. The stitches that had sewn this woman’s throat closed seemed crude and hastily done but Josie knew better. The surgeon could not waste time on aesthetics when a head had nearly been severed from a body, when arteries and vocal chords and muscle had been butchered.

Josie closed her eyes and pushed against them with her fingertips as she tried to conjure up Billy’s face and match it to this woman’s. Sadly, Josie couldn’t remember what Billy Zuni looked like. In her mind’s eye she saw him blue with cold, his skin rubbery from immersion, his blond hair darkened by sand and grit.

Josie's hand dropped, her head fell back as she tried to take hold of other memories; a kid waving at her from the beach, a boy waiting for Hannah’s attention as he followed along behind her, a boy surprised that kid stuff he pulled was against the law, a boy who seemed as if he never really belonged where he was -

“What are you doing in here?”

Josie's shoulders slumped; the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding pushed out of her. She faced the very unhappy station nurse.

“I just came to find out if . . .” Josie waved a hand in the direction of the bed. She had no name to put with the woman. “How is she? Will she make it?"

“Who are you?” The woman put herself between Josie and the patient. It was obvious the personnel were on high alert. Who was to say that the person who wanted this woman dead wouldn’t try to finish the job? Who was to say that person wasn’t Josie?

“I found her,” Josie explained.

“That’s tough.” The woman’s attitude softened slightly. “It’s nice you wanted to check on her, but you can’t stay.”

“Sure. I'm sorry.” Josie bought time as she moved toward the bed. “I couldn’t sleep tonight unless I knew something.”

“Only the doctor can update. I am sorry.”

"Do you know who that would be?"

"I think it's going to be Doctor Stern. The best thing is to check with the hospital advocate. She'll be coordinating with the police."

The nurse tugged the blanket around the woman in the bed and then steered Josie to the door. With one last look over the nurse’s shoulder, Josie said:

“Thanks. I feel much better just having seen her.”

When Josie left the room, she was satisfied. She had seen the white board above the bed and had a name, height and weight for the woman.

“Let’s find out who you really are,” Josie mumbled as she put her phone to her ear and waited for Archer to pick up.

***

When Mike Montoya was sixteen and learning to drive his teacher opined that a speeding driver reached his destination only three minutes sooner than a law abiding one, yet a speeder was responsible for seventy percent more vehicular deaths than the good driver. Knowing that this statistic could have been an exaggeration employed to scare the living daylights out of pimply-faced kids, Mike checked it out. He found four statistical references corroborating what his teacher said. The exercise taught Mike two important lessons: first, question everything, and, secondly, more mistakes and little real progress were made when one rushed.

Still, there was more than some urgency to the matter at hand so Mike made it back to the station as quickly as possible, walked through the building, and made his way to his desk. He had barely taken off his jacket and sat down when someone put their hands on his shoulders and tipped his chair back. The scent of Chanel preceded a purr:

“Guess who caught the assist, you lucky dog.”

The perfume and the voice took the challenge out of the game. Mike dropped his head back and looked up to see Wendy Sterling’s blue eyes sparkling under impossibly long lashes. High cheekbones cut through a heart-shaped face, expressive lips balanced her delicate jaw, and her strawberry blond hair was long enough to fall over her shoulders if she let it loose. She belonged in Hollywood, she lived in Redondo Beach, and she had a thing for Mike Montoya. Mike, though, loved his wife, respected his work place, and was probably the only man in the world who did not lust after Wendy Sterling the second she entered his orbit.

“Got anything good for me?” he asked.

“You know I do.” She released his chair. It bounced like a good mattress as she planted herself in the one by his desk and crossed her bare legs.

“Keep it up, and I’ll have to report you for sexual harassment.” Mike gave no indication whether this was a warning or a joke.

“You can take it. Besides, what kind of settlement could you get off me? I probably make less than you do.”

Wendy sent a mega-watt smile his way. As always, he wondered what made some men so darn strong and others so ridiculously weak; some dumb and others too smart for their own good.

“Good point,” he muttered.

“Practicality is such a turn on,” she clucked, but Mike was done. He looked at his watch. It was time to work, but Wendy liked to finish up on her own terms. “Someday, I’m going to get you to crack. Come on. Give me a smile.”

Mike reached for his coffee. “How much time before we’re expected at Newton’s office?”

Wendy’s sigh and disappointment that playtime was over were both exaggerated.

“I told him between three and four.”

Mike checked his watch. “That doesn’t give us much time. Let’s see what you got.”

Wendy handed over the first sheet of paper for Mike to follow along.

“The guy in the living room was Jak Duka. Works for Fed Ex, but he's also a daily with local #927. Lives in San Pedro.”

Mike put a star on the employment information. Being a daily meant union, and you didn’t get to be a full-fledged brother unless you were pretty tight with someone. It wouldn’t be hard to track down his friends; getting them to talk would be another matter.

“You take Fed Ex, and I’ll follow up on the union,” Mike directed. “Anything else?”

“Duka was married. I caught the wife just as she was coming back from the grocery with her two little kids.” Wendy paused before adding. “I hate that.”

“I’m glad you were the one to break the news.”

“My specialty. Telling people that other people are dead.”

Wendy grimaced. Mike had seen her impart the news of a murder, an accident, an unexpected natural death and leave the survivor with a sense of peace and direction. Of all Wendy’s natural gifts, that was the one Mike most admired. Hers was a unique position. Though she was a senior criminal analyst, the department had recognized she was also valuable in the field as the first contact with victim’s families.

“Did the wife have anything to say about why he was in that house?” he asked.

“She figured he was making a delivery.”

“In the wee hours of the morning? Using his own car?” Mike’s brow beetled. “No one could be that gullible.”

“Sometimes you don’t see what’s in front of your nose. Wives are especially susceptible to that.” Wendy handed him another sheet of paper.

“Victim number two is Greg Oi. Quite the Barbie Doll all decked out in a satin dress and heels. I would expect that kind of thing in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but this is the first time I’ve seen it down in the South Bay.”

“Nothing surprises me,” Mike noted.

“Wouldn’t you like to be surprised just a little?” Wendy’s pretty eyes stayed on her report for a millisecond. When she raised them, her lashes threw shadows across the top of her cheeks.

Mike considered her longer than he should. When he couldn’t reconcile her professionalism with her audacity, he folded his arms and leaned on the desk.