Invisible Boy (34 page)

God knows holding back a few details from my intrepid spouse to protect
that
wouldn’t be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

And then I jumped back out of bed and ran to the bathroom again.

Dry heaves, since I hadn’t touched a bite of dinner.

“You okay?” Pagan stood in the bathroom’s street-lit doorway.

“I’m fucking terrified.”

“It’s one more day. Skwarecki takes you to court, then you’re done, right?”

“I guess,” I said.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“It
is
worth it. What you’re doing.”

“That means a lot.”

“Nobody stood up for that kid when he was alive. Somebody has to now.”

“I know.”

“Don’t back down.”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

“Just don’t get us all fucking killed, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“That’s all we
can
do. Any of us.”

“Yeah.”

“You done puking?”

“Let’s hope.”

“So brush your teeth. Come back to bed.”

I
still felt like dog shit when I woke up the next morning, so queasy with nerves I didn’t even have coffee.

“You gotta eat something. Settle your stomach,” said Skwarecki.

“I’m not hungry,” I said. “Feels like I’d just puke if I tried food.”

“We could stop at a deli on the way, get you a bagel.”

I grabbed the Nutella out of the cupboard and ate three big spoonfuls. “Happy now?”

She shrugged. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” I said, surprised.

In fact I was kind of hungry now. Enough to scrape the jar empty with my spoon.

Skwarecki looked at her watch.

“Let’s hit it,” she said. “When you’re up first they always start on time.”

Skwarecki stayed with me right up to the door of the witness room back at the courthouse.

“You gonna be okay?” she asked.

“I guess.”

“Meet you right back here at lunch, okay? By that point you’re probably done with testifying.”

“What’ve you got planned for the morning?” I asked.

“Ah, the usual—couple hands of canasta, maybe run a few license plates. Then maybe drive around, see if I can find any gold
Lincolns.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For all of this.”

“Protect and serve, right?”

“Above and beyond. Staying over, making me eat something this morning?”

“Hey,” she said. “Who’s your buddy, who’s your pal?”

As soon as I sat back down in the box, I saw Kyle in the back row of the gallery right next to Cate.

The swearing-in from yesterday still counted, I guess, because Bost got right into the questions from where she’d left off.

I was more nervous, though. I kept looking at the sea of faces behind the two lawyers’ tables, trying to see if anyone looked
like they had an ax to grind. Literally.

We were quickly in new territory, though, Bost and I. Not just rehashing what I’d already told the grand jury. I had to give
up playing Spot the Boogeyman so I could concentrate on her questions.

Bost had led me up through when she asked us to find the second sneaker.

“So you and Detective Skwarecki agreed to return to the cemetery that same afternoon?” she asked.

“We
discussed
it that afternoon, but we planned to meet each other at Prospect the following morning.”

“And did you do so?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Detective Skwarecki was late,” I said, wondering if she’d discussed last night yet with Bost.

“Did you enter the cemetery grounds before she arrived at any time?” asked Bost.

“I did not,” I said. “I’d been told to wait for the detective—and told specifically
not
to undertake any sort of search without her being there.”

“Were you still there at the front gates when she arrived?”

“No. I’d moved to the corner of the larger street.”

“What happened then?”

“I got hit by a car. Right before she arrived, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“The car knocked me unconscious.”

“Did you return to Prospect Cemetery that day, Ms. Dare?”

“I had a broken arm, a black eye, and a bunch of stitches in my scalp. I don’t even remember most of the ride home from the
hospital.”

“Your arm hasn’t healed yet?” she asked.

“They rebroke it twice,” I said. “I’m really hoping the third time’s the charm.”

A couple of people laughed at that.

“I can imagine,” said Bost, smiling at me. “And have you returned to Prospect Cemetery since that morning?”

“I have not,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be much use clearing brush.”

“Thank you, Ms. Dare.”

Bost looked at the judge. “I have no further questions for the witness at this time, Your Honor.”

At the defense table Marty Hetzler stood up and shot his cuffs.

A
ngela Underhill crossed her arms above her massive belly as her attorney slipped around behind her.

He paused to button up his blazer before stepping forward toward me.

“Good morning, Ms. Dare.”

“Good morning, Mr. Hetzler.”

He gave me a little nod of approval for knowing who he was.

“I only have a few questions for you today,” he said. “I’m sure we’d all like to break for lunch as quickly as possible.”

He moved a couple of steps closer, which was a good thing as I was then no longer blinded by the gloss of his shoes. These
were black, buffed to such an acme of luster that they might have been patent leather, or smeared with shellac.

“My first question pertains to your professional background, all right?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“What is it that you do for a living?”

“I work for a book catalog at the moment.”

“What other kinds of job experience do you have?” he asked.

“I’ve worked as a teacher at a boarding school for disturbed kids, and as a journalist for a couple of small newspapers,”
I said.

“So you have no training or professional experience in pathology or law enforcement?”

“I do not.”

“Ms. Dare, I’m just asking about this to remind our jurors that your speculation yesterday about the condition of the remains
you discovered was exactly that,
speculation
—”

“As I said at the time, Mr. Hetzler, I have no professional background or expertise in the fields of forensic science and
criminal

justice. I just wanted to say that the bushes in which I discovered the child’s remains were thick and extremely low to the
ground.”

“I think we all understand that, thank you.”

“You’re most welcome,” I said.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve stumbled onto a crime scene, though, is it, Ms. Dare?”

“Unfortunately, it is not.”

He nodded, smiling at me and then at the jury. “In fact, over the last couple of years, you’ve been involved with two separate
murder investigations, haven’t you?”

“Not by choice,” I said.

“Really?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Hetzler looked at the jury. “It just seems to me that someone who stumbles across
three
suspicious deaths in as many years might be something of an aficionado.”

His body count was low, but why quibble?

He turned back to me. “So what are you, Ms. Dare, some sort of murder
groupie
?”

“No. And I’m appalled by the highly inappropriate flippancy of that characterization.”

“Just a habitual witness, then?”

“I worked as a journalist, Mr. Hetzler. As such, I was given information about an unsolved double homicide—which ultimately
led to the murderer’s apprehension.”

Hetzler raised a hand to his flashy tie. “But you then turned up even
more
crime, at a
boarding
school?”

“Objection—relevance?” Bost stood up. “Your Honor, could you please remind Mr. Hetzler to stick with the matter at hand? I
see no point in this line of questioning.”

His Honor backed her up on that.

Hetzler turned away from me, consulting some notes on the defense table.

When he faced me again his lips were pursed. “I’d like to return to your earlier statement, Ms. Dare.”

“Fine.”

“Since we can’t establish an accurate time frame for the number of months—or
years
—the child’s remains might have been at the cemetery,” he continued, “how could you have known that the damage to the rib
cage you saw was not inflicted
after
the remains had been placed inside the grounds?”

“Because of the bushes,” I said.

Hetzler smirked. “The
bushes
.”

“The space beneath them was about this high,” I said, holding my left hand less than two feet above my right, stationary in
its plaster.

“It’s
impossible
that anyone could have accidentally stepped on the child’s ribs while walking upright. Furthermore, I can’t imagine how someone
could have inflicted a blow of sufficient force to crack the bones given the restricted size of the space.”

“In your non-expert
opinion
,” said Hetzler.

“Yes sir, in my non-expert opinion. Not least because that foliage had been untouched since the mid-nineteen-fifties.”

“Despite the
considerable
homeless population known to camp inside the cemetery?”

“All I can tell you, Mr. Hetzler,” I said, “is that they seemed to have done a great deal more camping than gardening.”

Someone on the jury stifled a laugh.

“Nonetheless, you offer this opinion on the basis of your
own
expertise as—what, a volunteer gardener?” he shot back.

“Yes, and why not? My initial impression of the vegetation struck me as pertinent to bring up here because what it all looked
like originally might not have been apparent to the investigating police officers. It was greatly altered by the time they
arrived at the scene.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’d chopped the bushes up with a machete and hedge clippers. That foliage was six large lawn-and-leaf bags
less
overgrown by the time the police arrived. That was the whole point of the afternoon. We weren’t there for a tea party on
the lawn.”

Hetzler looked at the judge. “Your Honor, I have no more questions for this witness.”

Galloway passed as well.

I was instructed to step down, the judge dismissed us for lunch, and everyone who could bolted for the lobby.

I waited until the room had emptied out enough that I could glom onto Kyle and Cate before I would brave the exit doors myself.
Even then, my heart rate was manic until I saw Skwarecki waiting outside.

A
ny news?” I asked Skwarecki.

“Nothing yet on the car,” she said. “I’ve got a couple guys on it again.”

“What car?” asked Kyle.

I laid out the previous night’s events for Kyle and Cate as we headed once more to the restaurant across the road.

“You guys ever feel like you’ve been marooned on Gilligan’s Ziti Island?” I asked, shivering in the snow as we waited for
the light to change.

“Five days a week,” said Kyle, blowing into his cupped hands. “Right around now.”