Witness

by Denise Gwen

  “We were thinking about it,” one of the women said.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Officer McGlone,” Jim said.

  “Thanks,” she said, and walked away.

  She wandered out to a loading dock and saw the produce being loaded onto the platform and raised up and rolled into the Casino. She walked on some more and saw a dark-skinned man shut the backdoor to a white-paneled van. He turned and looked at her with a truculent expression on his face.

  He stared at her for a moment, then thumped the back of the van, and the van driver backed out of the loading dock and drove away out of the parking lot. She stood there a moment longer, then went back inside and saw no more of Randy Randalls.

  14

  Friday, April 12, 9:00 a.m.

  “Sheriff, a dead body was found in Brian Bradley’s cornfield last night, and your office failed to reveal this information to the public,” said the reporter. “Care to comment?”

  Randy removed his bifocals, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. “Yes,” he said at last. “I was at the crime scene last night with the Coroner.”

  “It’s a crime scene for sure?” she asked. “Because I called the Coroner’s office and they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “A young woman of Hispanic descent and with no documentation was found with a broken neck in a cornfield. I doubt that this woman wandered into a random cornfield in Ohio and broke her neck on purpose, right?”

  “Sarcasm. That’s a new trait in you, Sheriff.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that those facts constitute a crime scene, young lady, what do you think?”

  “Sure, Sheriff,” she said evenly. “It’s just nice to get the confirmation straight from the man in charge.”

  “That’s what I like to see,” he said.

  He got off the phone pretty fast after that.

  He had things to do.

  A few minutes later.

  But Sheriff didn’t reach Rob.

  Rob was nowhere to be found.

  Rob did something that he used to do as a kid, and which gave him tremendous relief from stress.

  He went fishing.

  He drove down to the Miami River, lobbed a fishing line into the water, and just stood there and he thought.

  Things were getting bad. He knew by now, from listening to his cruiser’s radio, that the dead girl had been found. And he also knew Randy was looking for him.

  And he’d failed to make the latest transfer of girls, and from what he could tell, nothing bad had happened, nothing at all, so he’d lost out on a commission, but he realized he could afford to skip a drop or two.

  And he thought about the evening news.

  And he just knew Shelley must’ve seen the headlines on the news. Body of Woman Found in Farmer’s Cornfield. In a sleepy burg like Shelbyville, there was no way in the world anybody would fail to take note of something big like that. Why’d he been so sloppy about it all? Why’d he just kill her and leave her there?

  Why didn’t he haul her body away?

  Because now, the whole world knew something strange had happened in a farmer’s cornfield, and there was no way to explain it or rationalize it or talk anyone out of investigating this.

  And the next thing he knew, the attorney general’s office was going to be parked on Randy’s front doorstep, wanting to know why the Sheriff of Rowan County had no explanation at all for a dead Hispanic girl turning up in a cornfield, other than something hinky was going on in the town, and nobody was talking.

  Should he turn State’s evidence now, while there was still time, before the State Attorney General started breathing down their necks?

  Get immunity before Randy could turn on him?

  He licked his lips. Parched. Took a sip of the beer he’d brought with him.

  The line tightened.

  He’d snagged a fish.

  And then, just like that, he knew what he needed to do.

  But first, he needed to go home to Shelley.

  Six hours later.

  He was so distracted with his thoughts and his worries, that at first, when Rob walked in through the front door to his house, he failed to notice how empty and forlorn the place felt. It wasn’t until he walked into the kitchen and noticed how it looked like a hurricane had swept through it, terrorizing the contents of his home and throwing everything around, that he realized something was wrong.

  That was the first thing.

  “Shelley? Hon? You here?”

  He walked into the family room. The room looked pristine, as if prepared for a potential buyer to walk through. The sofa did not have any toys or books or PlayStation anywhere around; the coffee table was wiped down, spotless. He walked back into the kitchen, and the usual clutter of Shelley’s meals in preparation for dinner was not at all evident. No smells of dinner, either. No presence of Shelley or the kids. He walked down the hallway to the staircase and noticed photos missing from the walls, and the kitchen appliances missing, and the house just felt empty and lonely, as if it were ready to be sold.

  Where the hell was Shelley and the kids?

  He walked upstairs and into the children’s bedrooms, noticed an absence of everything his kids held dear, their merit badges, their little trophies from their sports, their toys, his daughter’s dolls; he opened the closet to each child’s bedroom and saw only empty hangers. Everything was gone. It wasn’t until he reached the master bedroom that he realized Shelley really had left him for good. She’d done exactly what she said she was going to do, she’d left him, and she was probably on her way to Nashville, Tennessee, on her way to her parents’ house in the blue hills of Tennessee. She’d heard or read or seen news coverage of the dead girl, and she’d figured, correctly, that he’d had something to do with it.

  He walked into the master bedroom and sat down on the bedspread. She’d not left behind any nice bedspreads, he realized; this had been the very same ugly bedspread which had been on the bed when they bought the house.

  She’d left him.

  And she may have also cleaned out a few of the safety deposit boxes. It wasn’t the money that bothered him. Shelley had probably taken some of the money with her, but she’d not taken all of it. That was Shelley’s way. She’d come back when she needed to, or if she felt like it, and get the rest of the money, but what really hurt was the realization that his wife and his kids were gone.

  She’d made her statement, taken a stand.

  She wasn’t putting up with any more of this bullshit from him.

  And the only question to be answered was this.

  What was he going to do about it?

  A few minutes later.

  “Hello, Mr. Robinson,” Rob croaked into the phone. “Is Shelley there?”

  A long pause, a silence as his father-in-law hesitated, wondering whether to let his daughter know her husband had called.

  Shelley would never tell her folks the real reason she’d left; she knew enough of what he’d done, and how it implicated her as well, for taking all the money he’d been handing her all these years, and she would’ve made something up for her parents, such as Rob was neglecting her, he wasn’t paying attention to her, he was getting all caught up in the politics of the Sheriff’s Office.

  No, she’d never betray him, but she would leave him.

  And she’d done just that.

  “Yeah, hold on a minute, Rob,” Mr. Robinson said, and he cupped his hand over the receiver of the land-line phone and called out, “Shelley? Hon, it’s Rob.”

  A few moments later, and she came on the phone. “Rob.”

  “Hi, Shell,” he said.

  “Rob, I saw something on the news that . . . troubled me.”

  The dead girl.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

  “You know why I’m down here, Rob. I told you things had to change.”

  “I know, babe.”

  “I love you,” she said, her voice cracking. “But I don’t like the pers
on you’ve become.”

  “I can change,” he said.

  “You keep saying that, but as long as you continue to work for that man—”

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “I promise, sweetheart.”

  “You, you are?”

  “I can’t live without you and the kids. When I walked into the house, I felt like I’d been sucker punched.”

  “I’m sorry, Rob, but I didn’t know any other way to get through to you.”

  “You got through to me, babe.”

  “I’ve already lined up a new nursing job at Vanderbilt.”

  “I can find a deputy sheriff job somewhere down there, can’t I?”

  “You can, sweetheart, you can,” she urged him. “And then we’ll sell the house.”

  “You’ve got it all ready to show,” he said with bemusement.

  “She laughed through her tears. “I had to really search to find that ugly old bedspread,” she said.

  “It’s still the most ugly-assed thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “But it’ll go along nicely with the faux chintz curtains,” she added.

  “Do we still have those?”

  “We do,” she said. “I thought I’d sell them at a yard sale, but I never quite got around to it.”

  “So, let’s put the house up for sale.”

  “I’ll call the realtor in the morning, and you can head over to his office and sign the papers.”

  “Sounds good, honey,” he said.

  “I love you, Rob.”

  “I love you, Shelley. Hey, I’ve got a long weekend coming. Why don’t I head down this weekend and see you and the kids?”

  “That would be great, sweetheart,” she said. “We could start looking at houses.” She hesitated a moment. “I didn’t bring all the money with me.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “It don’t matter. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice warbling.

  He hung up and he felt as if a huge weight had come off his shoulders. He was glad she’d left; he would never have taken her seriously if she hadn’t taken it upon herself to leave him. He knew now what really mattered to him, his wife, his children, his life with them. The money he’d made with the Sheriff had been great, but it was nothing compared to the life he’d given up in the past fifteen years with Shelley and his kids.

  He’d give Randy his notice in the morning.

  Well, correction.

  He’d give Randy his notice on Monday, after his weekend with Shelley and the kids in Tennessee.

  15

  Thursday, April 11, 4:05 p.m.

  Brian Bradley was in his barn, feeding the cattle, and after he finished checking the stalls, and ensuring the water trough was full and clean, and after taking a look at a pregnant cow, and assured himself she wasn’t going to deliver yet, he decided to head home to his beautiful wife Pam, and to a piping hot dinner, and so he walked out of the barn and pulled the barn door shut, and as he happened to glance out at his farm, he watched as the sun dipped down low beyond the tree line, and decided to take a stroll across the pasture, see how the ground looked, before he started his spring rotation of crops.

  It was something that he loved to do, walk out across the fields, take the measure of his farm, as it were. He locked the barn, headed out. His cell phone chirped and he plucked it out of his front bib overall pocket.

  “You ready for your dinner?” Pam asked.

  “Purt near, sweetheart. Gonna walk the field first, but I should be home in about thirty minutes, Ma . . .” he let his voice trail off, and listened to her soft chuckle. She remembered, their little joke.

  “I can keep supper waiting, Pa,” she said, deadpan. “Don’t be any longer than that, though, honey, okay?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  He put the phone away, shoved his hands into his pockets, and trudged off across the fields.

  Thirty minutes later.

  “Sheriff,” Margie said, “I just got a 911 call from dispatch.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “A local farmer found a dead Hispanic girl in a cornfield this evening and I thought I’d better call you, make sure you knew before the reporters started calling.”

  Sheriff sat in Josie’s cozy kitchen. He’d just finished a lovely, home-cooked meal of her special pot-roast, baked potatoes and home-grown peas from her very own garden, followed up by fresh blueberry cobbler, hot from the oven, and with a dollop of ice cream. He’d been just about to propose marriage to her, he was in that good a mood, and so, while this new came as an unwelcome surprise, at first, he did not fully register its implications.

  “Oh,” he said evenly. “Well, that’s . . . troubling.”

  Josie sat still, utterly silent, watching him.

  “I’ll text you the farmer’s address, Sheriff,” Margie said. “The Coroner’s on his way.”

  “Okay,” he said, coming back to life. “I appreciate it, Margie.”

  “Sure thing, Sheriff,” and she rang off.

  He clicked off his cell phone and stared at the detritus of the lovely meal, that should have been followed by lovemaking. But now he was headed out to a potential crime scene.

  A crime scene that involved him and his side business with Houser’s Farm, no doubt.

  “You don’t look so good,” Josie said.

  “I’ll bet I don’t,” he agreed. “It ain’t good news.”

  “What is it?”

  “The body of a Mexican girl was found in a farmer’s cornfield.”

  “That farmer oughta plant different crops,” Josie said with a sardonic smirk, then her look turned serious. “God-dammit, Randy, who the fuck did that?”

  He grunted. “If I wanted to hazard a guess, I’d say either Steve or Rob did it. Some gal got away, and Rob or Steve took care of it.”

  “I don’t call that taking care of anything,” Josie said, fuming. “Why didn’t the rat motherfucker haul the body away?” She was mad now, picking up the dirty dishes with a reckless disregard and crashing them together. He jumped as she clattered the cups and saucers and dishes into a stack and hauled it all off to the kitchen.

  “Ya got me,” Randy said reflectively, sipping his coffee.

  Josie stomped back into the dining area and looked at him, tears in her eyes, hands on her hips. “What are we gonna do, Randy? This is bad, this is very bad.”

  “I know, Hon. It is.”

  “So, what are we gonna do?”

  “Well,” he said, setting the coffee cup down and pushing away from the table. “I have to go to the crime scene, do my job, make an appearance.”

  “Keep me posted,” she said, returning to the table and collecting the remainder of the dirty dishes.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” he asked.

  She stopped and stared at him. “Are you crazy?”

  “No.”

  “Randy, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” he said dismissively. “The Coroner’s ruled Miranda’s death a suicide, everybody in town knows we’re seeing each other, what’s the big fucking deal? Why pussy foot around anymore? I’m tired of pretending.”

  “But this body . . . there’s gonna be a big investigation into how a Mexican girl ended up dead in some farmer’s cornfield, Randy. You’re not thinking straight, you’re not.”

  Randy considered, then nodded. “Maybe I’m not, but I’ve reached the point, Josie, I really don’t fucking care anymore.”

  “That worries me.”

  “I’m sure it does, but Josie, we knew the operation couldn’t last forever.” He patted his lap. “Come on, sit on my lap.” She did so, her brow furrowed. “Look,” he said. “Come with me to the scene. You’re a sharp girl, you can be my second set of eyes. Just listen to what the investigators say, and we can make our decisions based on that.”

  “Okay,” she said after a moment. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “Ya got me,” Randy said
reflectively, sipping his coffee.

  Josie stomped back into the dining area and looked at him, tears in her eyes, hands on her hips. “What are we gonna do, Randy? This is bad, this is very bad.”

  “I know, Hon. It is.”

  “So, what are we gonna do?”

  “Well,” he said, setting the coffee cup down and pushing away from the table. “I have to go to the crime scene, do my job, make an appearance.”

  “Keep me posted,” she said, returning to the table and collecting the remainder of the dirty dishes.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” he asked.

  She stopped and stared at him. “Are you crazy?”

  “No.”

  “Randy, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” he said dismissively. “The Coroner’s ruled Miranda’s death a suicide, everybody in town knows we’re seeing each other, what’s the big fucking deal. Why pussy foot around anymore? I’m tired of pretending.”

  “But this body . . . there’s gonna be a big investigation into how a Mexican girl ended up dead in some farmer’s cornfield, Randy. You’re not thinking straight, you’re not.”

  Randy considered, then nodded. “Maybe I’m not, but I’ve reached the point, Josie, I really don’t fucking care anymore.”

  “That worries me.”

  “I’m sure it does, but Josie, we knew the operation couldn’t last forever.” He patted his lap. “Come on, sit on my lap.” She did so, her brow furrowed. “Look,” he said. “Come with me to the scene. You’re a sharp girl, you can be my second set of eyes. Just listen to what the investigators say, and we can make our decisions based on that.”

  “Okay,” she said after a moment. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  A few minutes later.

  On the way down to the crime scene, Randy reached for the secret cell phone and dialed.

  “Who’re you calling?” Josie said.

  “Rob.”