Hostile Witness (2 page)

Her head fell onto the steering wheel; the phone was still at her ear. She almost laughed. Some minimum wage idiot was worried about her.

“No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” she whispered and turned off the phone. Her arm fell to her side. The phone fell to the floor. A few minutes later she sat up and pushed back her hair. She’d been through tough times before. Everything would be fine if she just kept her wits about her and got where she was going. Taking a deep breath she put both hands back on the wheel.  She’d damn well finish what she started the way she always did. As long as Hannah was smart they’d all be okay.

Easing her foot off the brake she pulled the Lexus around until she was in the right lane and started to drive. She had the address, now all she had to do was to find  Hermosa Beach.

“For God’s sake, Josie, he’s a weenie-wagger and that’s all there is to it. I don’t know why you keep coming in here with the same old crap for a defense. Want some?”

Judge Crawford pushed the pizza box her way. It was almost nine o’clock and they had managed to work out the details on the judge’s sponsorship at the Surf Festival, discuss a moot court for which they had volunteered, polish off most of a large pizza, and now Josie was trying to take advantage of the situation by putting in a pitch for leniency for one of her clients.

She passed on the pizza offer. Judge Crawford took another piece.  He was a good guy, a casual guy, a local who never strayed from his beach town roots in his thirty-year legal career.  His robes were tossed on the couch behind them. His desk served as a workstation and dining table. In the corner was his first surfboard. New attorneys called to chambers endured forty-five minutes of the judge reliving his moments of glory as one of the best long boarders on the coast. Three years ago, when Josie landed in Hermosa Beach, she got the full two-hour treatment but only because she knew a thing or two about surfing from her days in Hawaii. She’d spent the extra hour with Judge Crawford because he knew a thing or two about volleyball.

Josie Baylor-Bates had been big at USC but when she hit the sand circuit she’d become legendary. Everyone wanted to best the woman who stood six feet if she was an inch, played like a professional, and won like a champion. Few did, but they started trying the minute the summer nets went up. Of course USC and Judge Crawford’s surfing days were both more than a few years ago, but still their beach history tied them together, made them friendly colleagues, and gave them license to be a little more informal about certain protocols – including the judge speaking his mind about Josie’s current client, Billy Zuni: the surfing-teenage-beach bum with a mischievous smile and penchant for relieving himself in city owned bushes.

“That’s a gross term,” Josie scoffed as if she’d never heard of a weenie-wagger before.  “And it is not appropriate in this instance. I’ve got documentation from their family doctor that Billy has a physical problem.  He’s tried to use the bathrooms in the shops off the Strand, but nobody will let him in.”

“That’s because Billy seems to forget he’s supposed to lower his cutoffs after he gets into the bathroom, not before,” the judge reminded her. “Nope, this time he’s got to stay in the pokey. Hey, it’s Hermosa Beach’s pokey. Five cells and they’re all empty. Billy will have the whole place to himself. It’s not going to kill him, and it may do him some good. I’m tired of that damn kid’s file coming across my desk every three months.”

“Your Honor, it’s obvious you are prejudiced against my client. . .” Josie objected, pushing aside the pizza box.

“Cool your jets, Josie. What are you going to do, bring me up on charges for name calling?”  Judge Crawford laughed heartily. His little belly shook. It was hard to imagine him on a long board or any other kind of board for that matter. “Listen. I understand that kid’s got problems. You’re in here like clockwork swearing he’ll be supervised. I know you check up on him. Everyone at the beach knows that, but you can’t do what his own mother can’t.”

“That’s exactly the point.  Jail time won’t mean a thing. What if I can find someone who’ll take him for a week? Will you consider house arrest?”

“With you?” The judge raised a brow.

“Archer,” Josie answered without reservation.

Judge Crawford chuckled. “Not a bad idea. Sort of like setting up boot camp in paradise. That would make Billy sit up and take notice. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t toe the line just to get Archer off their back.”

Josie touched her lips to hide a smile. Judge Crawford steered clear of Archer after a vigorous debate on the unfortunate constitutions of judges facing re-election. As Josie recalled, words such as wimps and sell-outs had been bandied about freely. It wasn’t that Archer was wrong, it was just that the opinion was coming from a retired cop who wasn’t afraid of anything, who got better looking with age, and could still sit a board while the judge. . . Well, suffice it to say the judge had been sitting the bench a little too long.

“Archer might do Billy some good,” Josie pushed for her plan.

“Or scar him for life.”  Crawford shook his head and pushed off the desk. “Sorry, Josie. It’s going to be forty-eight hours this time and community service. Best I can do.”

“I’ll appeal. There are a hundred surfers down on the beach changing from their wet suits into dry clothes every morning. Half of them don’t even bother to drape a towel over their butts.  The only reason you catch Billy is because he’s stupid. He thinks everybody ought to just kick back – including the cops.”

Crawford stood up, put the rest of the pizza in his little refrigerator, and plucked his windbreaker with the reflective patches off the door hook as he talked.

“That’s cute. You still think you’re playing with the big boys downtown? Josie, Josie,” he chuckled.  “What’s it been? Three years and you still can’t get it through your head that Billy Zuni and his little wooden monkey wouldn’t rate the paperwork for an appeal. Let him be. They’ll feed him good in Hermosa.”

 “Okay, so I can’t put the fear of God into you.” Josie shrugged and got to her feet.

“Only if you’re on the other side of volleyball net, Ms. Bates. Only then.” Judge Crawford ushered Josie outside with a quick gesture.  She waited on the wooden walkway as he locked up.

The Redondo Courts were made up of low-slung, whitewashed, Cape Cod style buildings with marine blue trim. All the beach cities did business here. It was a far cry from downtown’s imposing courthouses and city smells. Redondo Beach Court was perched on the outskirts of King Harbor Pier where the air smelled like salt and sun.  Downtown attorneys fought holy wars, and life and death battles, while standing on marble floors inside wood paneled courtrooms.  Here, court felt like hitting the town barbershop for a chaw with the mayor.  Sometimes Josie missed being a crusader. The thought of one more local problem, and one more local client, made her long for what she once had been: a headline grabber, a tough cookie, a lawyer whose ambition and future knew no bounds. But that was just sometimes. Mostly, Josie Baylor-Bates was grateful that she no longer spoke for anyone who had enough money to pay her fee.  She had learned that evil had the fattest wallet and most chaste face of all. Josie could not be seduced by either any more.

“You walking?” Judge Crawford called to her from the end of the walk. 

“No.” Josie ambled toward him.

“Want me to walk you to your car?” the judge offered.

“Don’t worry about it. This isn’t exactly a tough town, and if another Billy Zuni is hanging around I’ll sign him up as a client.”

“Okay. Let me know if you and Faye are in on that sponsorship for the Surf Festival.”

“Will do,” Josie answered and started to walk toward the parking lot. The judge stopped her.

“Hey, Josie, I forgot.  Congratulations are in order. It’s great that you’re signing on as Faye’s rainmaker.”

Josie laughed, “We’re going to be partners, Judge. I don’t think there’s a lot of rain to be made around here.”

“Well, glad to hear it anyway. Baxter & Bates has a nice ring, and Faye’s a good woman.”

“Don’t I know it,” Josie said. 

Faye Baxter was more than friend or peer; she was a champion, a confessor, a sweetheart who partnered with her husband until his death.  Josie was honored that now Faye wanted her, and Josie was going to be the best damn partner she could be.

Waving to the judge, Josie crossed the deserted plaza, took the steps down to the lower level parking and tossed her things in the back of the Jeep. She was about to swing in when she caught the scent of cooking crab, the cacophony of arcade noise, the Friday night frantic fun of Redondo’s King Harbor Pier and decided to take a minute. Wandering across the covered parking lot she exited onto the lower level of the two-storied pier complex.

The sun had been down for hours but it was still blister-hot.  To her right the picnic tables in the open-air restaurants were filled. People whacked crabs with little silver hammers, sucked the meat from the shells, and made monumental messes.  On the left, bells and whistles, and screams of laughter from the arcade. Out of nowhere three kids ran past, jabbering in Spanish, giggling in the universal language. Josie stepped forward but not far enough. A beehive of blue cotton candy caught her hip. She brushed it away and walked on, drawn, not to the noise, but to the boats below the pier.

These were working craft that took sightseers into the harbor, pulled up the fish late at night; they had seen better days and were named after women and wishes. The boats were tethered to slips that creaked with the water’s whim and bobbed above rocks puckered with barnacles.  Josie loved the sense of silence, the feeling that each vessel held secrets, the dignity of even the smallest of them. The ropes that held these boats tight could just as easily break in an unexpected storm.  They would drift away like people did if there was nothing to tie them down or hold them steady.  

Josie leaned on the weather worn railing and lost her thoughts to the heat and the sounds and the look of that cool, dark water.  At peace, she wasn’t ready when something kicked up – a breeze, a bump of a hull – something familiar that threw her back in time.  Emily Baylor-Bates was suddenly there.  A vision in the water.  The Lady of the Lake. Yet instead of the sacred sword, the image of Josie’s mother held out sharp-edged memories.  Josie should have walked away, but she never did when Emily came to call.

Even after all these years she could see her mother’s face clearly in that water. Emily’s eyes were like Josie’s but bluer, wider, and clearer. They shared the square-jaw and high cheekbones, but the whole of Emily’s face was breathtakingly beautiful, where her daughter’s was strikingly handsome.  Her mother’s hair was black-brown with streaks of red and gold.  Josie’s was chestnut. Her expression was determined like Josie’s but…but what?

What was her mother determined to do?  What had been more important than a husband and a daughter? A good daughter, damn it. What made her mother - even now after all these years she could barely think the word -
abandon
her? Why would a woman cast off a fourteen year old without a word, or a touch? There one night, gone the next morning.

Suddenly the water was disturbed. Emily Baylor-Bates’ face disappeared in the rings of ever widening concentric circles.  Startled, Josie stood up straight. Above her a group of teenagers hung over the railing dropping things into the water. They laughed cruelly thinking they had frightened Josie, unaware that she was grateful to them. The water was mesmerizing, the memories as dangerous as an undertow.  Emily had been gone for twenty-six years. Twenty-six years, Josie reminded herself as she strode to the parking lot, swung into her Jeep, turned the key, and backed out.  The wheels squealed on the slick concrete. She knew a hundred years wouldn’t make her care less. Time wouldn’t dull the pain or keep her from wanting to call her mother back. On her deathbed, Josie would still be wondering where her mother was, why she had gone, whether she was dead, or just didn’t give a shit about her daughter. But tonight, in the eleven minutes it took to drive from Redondo Beach to Hermosa Beach, Josie put those questions back into that box deep inside her mind. By the time she tossed her keys on the table and ruffled Max-The-Dog’s beautiful old face, that box was locked up tight.

The dog rewarded Josie with a sniff and a lick against her cheek. It took five minutes to finish the routine: working clothes gone, sweats and t-shirt on, and her mail checked. Faye had dropped off the partnership papers before leaving for San Diego and a visit with her new grandson. The tile man had piled a ton of Spanish pavers near the backdoor for Josie to lay at her leisure. The house of her dreams – a California bungalow on the Strand – was being renovated at a snail’s pace, but Josie was determined to do the work herself.  She would make her own home, a place where no one invited in would ever want to leave.