Expert Witness

by Rebecca Forster

“And what time did you get back from the doctor?”

  “Six. Max was sitting by the front door. He needed to go out.” Hannah grabbed a couch cushion and hugged it.

  “Did you call her cell?”

  “No,” she drawled. Archer raised a brow. She raised one right back. “I called the cell like maybe a hundred times. It was turned off, or she wasn’t near it or something. All I get is her message.”

  “Could you have called me a little earlier?”

  “No.” Hannah did that Egyptian head thing home girls do when they are trying to be cool. It was an affectation that always amused Archer. He thought the gesture something akin to a mouse trying to intimidate a hawk by twitching its nose. “Sometimes people don’t come back when they say they will; sometimes you have to wait until people want to be found.”

  “Josie isn’t some people.” Archer’s voice dropped as his mind kicked into gear. Investigating was what he did, and it never helped to panic or rise to the bait of people who were on the verge of it. “What’ve you been doing all this time?”

  “My homework. I tried to paint,” Hannah answered. “I called Burt, but Josie wasn’t at his place. I looked out the window hoping I’d see her. I fed Max and I took him out for a walk, but we didn’t go too far. Mostly I waited. What?”

  Hannah stopped talking, aware that Archer’s line of vision had shifted to her arm. She was scratching it through her shirt.

  “You okay?” Archer asked.

  Hannah pulled up her sleeve up. The chocolate colored skin was crisscrossed with razor thin scars, none of them fresh.

  “Nothing up my sleeve,” she quipped.

  “Good. Josie would have my balls if. . .”

  Archer’s voice trailed off. That wasn’t the right thing to say to a teenager, but this girl had been abused and misused. There was no way she was going to dial back to high school sleepovers and waiting to be asked to the prom. Archer got up, retied his robe, walked out to the deck, and instantly felt clear-headed.

  He loved California fall: sizzling hot days that drove people to the beach, early sunsets that sent them home again, slow night cooling so the natives slept with their doors open and covers on. Right now it was late enough that early was making itself known. The black sea was dark grey, but in a couple of hours there would be a pink sunrise. Josie should have been there with him. The fact that she wasn’t by his side, or that none of the locals had heard from her, narrowed the field to possibilities that didn’t thrill him. Three came to mind: Josie was with another man, something had ticked her off royally and she was on cool down, or she was hurt. He discounted the first, couldn’t imagine what could cause the second, and it made him sick to even think about the third.

  He swung his head and looked over his shoulder half expecting to see Josie behind him, but it was only Hannah hanging near the doorway. He gave a little snort, not to laugh at her but to express his reluctant sympathy. Doors were her obsession the way honesty was his. Both things allowed them to know exactly where they stood. She needed to see who was coming into her life and who was taking a hike out of it; he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with so he could decide how to dodge, swerve or run headlong into trouble. Archer nodded her way; Hannah raised her chin. Truce for now. Not that they were enemies, they had just migrated to the same territory and were unsure of how much of it they could claim.

  “Did you two fight?” Archer asked.

  “Did you?”

  “Nope.” Archer laughed outright and shook his head. “And you gotta cut me some slack, Hannah. I would have asked you the same thing if you were Mother Theresa.”

  There was only a beat while she gathered her courage to tell him what really scared her.

  “Josie and I were supposed to go to court Wednesday.” Archer looked at her quizzically. “You know. Court? The guardianship. Josie was going to make it legal on Wednesday. We’re supposed to see the judge.” Hannah’s eyes were brighter, and if Archer didn’t know better he would have sworn she was going to cry. “Will you help me find her, Archer?”

  “No.” He pushed off the wall and walked past Hannah. “But I’ll find her for you.

  Before she could object, he disappeared into the bedroom. Five minutes later he was dressed: jeans, a Hawaiian shirt, and a windbreaker that covered the revolver at the small of his back. They left the apartment together, went down the empty Strand and turned onto the walk-street that led to an intersection with Hermosa Boulevard. Josie’s house was on the corner. Hannah had left every light burning like a beacon to help Josie find her way home.

  Archer held the gate for Hannah. Without a word they went inside the house: Hannah to the answering machine to check for messages, Archer locking up. Archer took off his jacket and didn’t object when Hannah made the rounds again: doors, windows, windows doors. Eventually she was satisfied, said goodnight and made Archer promise to wake her when Josie walked through the door. Archer promised knowing he’d damn well wake the whole neighborhood when she came home. That would be after he reamed her up one side and down the other for causing such worry.

  Turning the inside lights off, he left the one over the front porch burning, walked through the darkened house, through Josie’s bedroom and out to the adjacent patio. He pulled up a chair and settled in. Every inch of this place was as familiar to his eye as Josie’s body was to his touch. This house had been a tear down, but Josie saw a diamond in the rough. She rebuilt and refurbished it with her own two hands.

  The tiling was complete, and the low wall around the patio was built, raised planters were now pocked with succulents and flowers. Inside, the archway between the living room and dining room was waiting for plaster, and the hardwood floors needed refinishing.

  He rested his hair on the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Josie was a heck of a woman, a lawyer, and a friend. He and Hannah were lucky to share this nest with her even if they were so strangely cobbled together, a family without joints. They moved uneasily against one another.

  In the kitchen, the icemaker popped a few cubes. Somewhere an electrical circuit clicked. The silence from Hannah’s bedroom was heavy with her anxiety. Max the Dog ambled through the bedroom and across the patio, his nails clicking on the tile. He walked close to Archer’s chair, and the big man let his hand slide over the dog’s back. It bumped over the raised scar left after Max tried to save Josie from Linda Rayburn’s murderous attack. Archer took a handful of fur and pulled him close.

  “Where is she, Max?’

  In answer, the dog lay down beside him. Together they kept watch while, alone in her room, Hannah Sheraton counted the minutes until Josie’s return.

  It was three thirty in the morning.

  An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

  Things Josie heard:

  The creak of metal.

  A swish.

  A thump.

  A grunt.

  Something falling hard.

  Things Josie saw:

  Walls of grey. Waves of grey.

  Early morning light. Not much of it. Coming on slow.

  Someone. Hunched over. A man? A shadow of a man?

  Things Josie tried to do:

  Speak.

  Why couldn’t she speak?

  Reach for him.

  What happened to her arms? She couldn’t feel her hands.

  She must have made a noise, moved, done something to catch his attention. He turned his head toward her. Her eyes closed. A movie came to her muddled mind. What was the name?

  Think, dammit.

  The movie was. . .

  The Elephant Man.

  Yes, that was it! This person’s head looked too big for his body. It was fuzzy and featureless like the Elephant Man with a bag over his head. The shape came close, the fuzzy head tilted. He was looking at her. She swooned. Swoon was a silly word. Her eyelids fluttered. It was suddenly dark again, but the blackness came too fast for it to be dragged in on the tail of a sinking sun.

  Ah. Oh.

 
; Her eyes had closed. That was funny. Once more, through sheer force of will, she raised those eyelids as far as she could. He was so close now she could feel his breath.

  Yes. Yes. Help me.

  The shadow morphed and undulated and black became grey and grey became blue. Then blue took on form for a split second and no more. The man was once again made of blurs and shades and gradations of color that she took to be hair, a face, a shirt.

  Was she in a hospital? Restrained, drugged and a danger to herself? Was that why her arms hurt and her hands were numb? Was that why she couldn’t stay awake? It seemed so logical but that wasn’t what she remembered. The truth was, Josie remembered nothing.

  Hannah!

  The name was a flash-bang in her brain. Big letters. Everything fluttered: heart and head and eyes, mind winking in and out. Then she felt a hand under her head. Someone was lifting her up; caring for her.

  Thank you. Thank you.

  The man put water to her lips. It rushed into her mouth, bubbled and dribbled down the side of her face. The person shook her head. He wanted her to swallow. She tried. She coughed. He shook her head harder and it wasn’t nice. He shook her again, roughly this time. She was trying so hard to be good. She wanted to get better, and still he was angry. Water slid down her throat. There was so much of it that she gagged. Josie’s eyes closed once more.

  Sleep tight.

  That’s what she thought she heard him say, and he said it as if he didn’t mean it. Before she lost consciousness again, Josie Bates thought she heard something else.

  She thought she heard someone crying.

  CHAPTER THREE:

  Hermosa Beach Police Department

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Archer. Give it a rest. It’s not even seven. I haven’t had my coffee, I need to take a leak and traffic was a bitch.”

  Detective Liz Driscoll straight armed Archer. She couldn’t have pushed him out of the way if he stood his ground, but he knew fighting with her would hurt more than help. Archer raised his voice so it would follow her into the ladies room.

  “If you can’t hold it for an hour then maybe you should move closer to where you work.”

  Liz did an about face, ripped open the door and gave him a look that would stop an elephant in its tracks. Obviously, she could hold it long enough to give him a piece of her mind.

  “This from a guy who inherited his prime piece of real estate with the ocean view? Real sensitive, Archer.”

  He rolled his eyes. Those sharp little teeth of hers were embedded in her favorite two-course meal: those who have and those who don’t. She stepped back into the hallway, her bladder now completely forgotten.

  “I’m fifteen years younger than you, been on my own since I was sixteen, and didn’t have the good fortune to be born with a silver spoon in my mouth, so buying into this pricey little piece of heaven just isn’t in the stars, my friend. Oh, wait. You own that pretty pink building right there on the beach. Lower the rent on one of those primo units, bucko, and I can move in this weekend.”

  “I’ll give you the damn building if you’ll get serious.”

  Liz’s nostrils flared, her jaw set. She turned on her heel and was gone. Archer would have sat in the next stall to get her attention, but this lady wasn’t like other women or other cops. No amount of begging, pleading or rational discussion could sway her to dig into work before she was ready. Only immediate and present danger could do that, and according to her there wasn’t any.

  The door flew open again. He gave her props for being quick and a few more for being single-minded. Liz didn’t even drop a comma in the conversation as she burst out of the john and headed down the hall.

  “Josie is a big girl, Archer. Just because she didn’t spend the night with you doesn’t mean that she didn’t spend it with someone.”

  There were times when Liz should think before she spoke and this was one of them. A foot shorter than Archer and a hundred pounds lighter, he almost pulled her off her feet when he grabbed her arm. Her hair was so short she could be mistaken for a young man from the back. Head on she looked years younger than thirty-five unless you were up close and personal. Then you could see the set of her jaw, the creases on her forehead, and the history in her eyes. She glared at Archer, putting him on notice that he wasn’t going to put the fear of God into her. Someone else had tried to do that long ago, and that was when Liz learned if God couldn’t scare you nothing could.

  “That doesn’t feel too good, Archer.” Liz gave a nod toward his hand. He let her go and stepped back.

  Liz wasn’t exactly his cup of tea. She carried a chip on her shoulder and thought she knew a little more than she did. Still, he didn’t want to date her, he needed her help. Liz moved in tight, put her hand on Archer’s back and steered him into the partitioned area she called an office.

  “Little raw there, cowboy.” She pointed him toward a chair. Liz planted herself on the side of her desk. “I didn’t mean Josie was sleeping around on you. It’s just that she doesn’t exactly answer to you. How often has she gone hunting for Billy Zuni because his mom locked him out and he’s sleeping under the pier? That’s a lousy way for a teenager to live.” Liz shook her head like she couldn’t believe a mom could do that to her own child. “Anyway, Josie’s been out looking for him like a thousand times. Sittin’ with him on the beach ‘till the wee hours, talking just to keep him out of trouble. That kid’s like her own pet project, and she doesn’t call you every time she’s giving him some attention.” Liz waited a beat. “Well, does she?”

  “No.”

  Drained, Archer slumped in the chair. The last few hours had been a bear. He hadn’t slept. He’d headed out to the police station at six only to turn around and jog back when he remembered Hannah. He wrote three notes and taped them around the house so she would know that he hadn’t forgotten her; that he, at least, would be back.

  “And Josie has two kids to worry about now. She wouldn’t have hung all night with Billy without telling the girl who lives with her,” Archer muttered.

  “I didn’t know she’d made it permanent with that girl,” Liz mused. “Kind of weird, Josie getting all maternal like that. What’s her name? The kid, I mean.”

  “Hannah Sheraton. She’s waiting at Josie’s place in case she comes home.”

  “Maybe it’s meltdown time. Josie might have needed a break. It’s hard for someone as independent as her to change her stripes, if you know what I mean.”

  Liz hopped down from her perch and went to her own chair behind a desk littered with papers. There were nineteen thousand people in Hermosa Beach, thirty-seven cops on the force, five of them detectives. Liz crossed her arms and rested them on top of the papers. He had her attention because one of Hermosa’s own was the topic, and Archer was the one she was talking to.

  “So Josie’s just been gone since yesterday morning, far as you know,” Liz said.

  “Yes. Nothing disturbed. She went to work like any other day.”

  “No plans for the evening?”

  “None that I know of, and she didn’t mention anything to Hannah.”

  “You’re sure the girl is clean? As I recall, she was charged with assault with intent to kill, murder, and arson. Not nice stuff. Maybe she flipped and did something to Josie.”

  “No way,” Archer shook his head. “Hannah was willing to take a murder rap for her mother. If she were that loyal to someone who treated her like trash, she would be doubly loyal to Josie who picked her off the heap. If she had done something, she wouldn’t have come to me.”

  “But you’re such a teddy bear,” Liz drawled.

  “And she’s scared,” Archer snapped.

  Liz’s hands went palm up. “Okay, just trying a little levity here. Did you check with Billy Zuni?”

  Archer shook his head, “I saw him hanging at the pier. He was alone.”

  “Did you walk up and actually ask him if he’d seen Josie?”

  Archer was impatient with Liz’s long and winding road. “Josi
e wouldn’t have taken the car to go see Billy. She would have jogged, or she would have walked. Her car would be in the garage or parked on the street.”

  “Okay, cool your jets.”

  Liz sank back in her chair. She crossed her legs, foot over knee. Instead of girl- clothes, she wore biker boots, generic jeans and a too-big jacket. The pencil flipping lazily between two fingers suddenly took flight and landed in the middle of her desk. That’s when Archer knew it was a no-go on any official help. If she were engaged, that pencil would be filling out paperwork now.

  “I’ll ask around and see if anybody’s seen her, but you know as well as I do nobody is going to do a damn thing about this.”

  “But this is Josie we’re talking about,” Archer objected.

  “What? Like she’s the only upstanding citizen who’s ever taken a powder? Any force in the country is going to look the other way ‘cause ninety-nine percent of the time when an adult disappears they’re just off doing adult things. Unless you can tell me there’s been an overt threat, that someone’s been stalking her, or she’s bordering on suicidal my hands are tied. Can you imagine me going to Captain Hagarty and wanting an investigation because that girl is worried? He’d have me washing squad cars just so I could contemplate the error of my ways. Bottom line, Archer, I’m up to my boobs in work. I’m asking you to take a deep breath on this.”

  “Oh, come on.” Archer rolled his eyes. “This is Hermosa Beach. How much work can there be?”

  “Hey, hey.” Liz waggled a skinny little finger. Archer saw that she bit her nails. “Don’t give me that shit. I’ve got two assaults, major vandalism down on Twenty-Second Street, and an armed robbery two nights ago at The Mermaid. Oh, and a couple of domestic complaints that would make your head spin. And that’s just my case load.”

  “What hat have you been keeping this crime wave under?”

  “No publicity means those property values stay up. Be reasonable buddy. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Besides, Josie’s an Amazon. She can take care of herself.” Seeing he needed more convincing, Liz sat up straighter, a move that really didn’t add to her stature.