Expert Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  Josie’s head fell back. Her arms and body shook with the effort. She didn’t know how long she could hold Erika, but the other woman didn’t notice. Josie’s head fell so that her brow rested against Erika’s calf. She leaned forward, and that helped to stabilize her a little.

  “Look at me.” Erika spoke to the darkness in a girlish and inviting voice. “You’re looking for me, aren’t you? Aren’t you looking for me? Come on. Show me your face.”

  Josie closed her eyes, anticipating the name that was to come.

  “I see you. Come closer, you sanctimonious. . .”

  Josie looked up, she whispered: “Hurry. I can’t hold you much longer.”

  Erika nodded as she clutched at the edges where the brick was missing. She glanced down and Josie thought she might be smiling. Then she raised her head again and Josie heard her say:

  “Shit.”

  As Erika fell backward instinct took over. Josie reached out hoping to catch her or at least break her fall. But Josie’s reflexes were slow and Erika’s body was heavy and awkward in the small space. Her arms flailed, but when her head crashed into the opposite wall and Josie heard the crack of her skull, she knew it was bad.

  “Erika! Erika!”

  Josie’s hands roamed over the other woman, touching Erika’s legs, her torso, her hair that was wet with blood. Then she touched something solid where Erika’s throat should have been. Before she could identify what it was, the interior of the hut was illuminated. Josie grunted and threw her hands up. The light hurt her eyes as much as it frightened her. Suddenly it started to strobe. Every movement she made became a fractured frame for the entertainment of the man outside. Josie’s eyes turned away from the light only to recoil at the sight of Erika Gardner dead, a knife sticking out of her throat.

  Sick with shock, Josie looked back trying to look past the light to the man outside as she asked:

  “Why?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:

  DAY 4:

  Josie Bates’ House, Hermosa Beach

  Max slept. Eventually, Hannah would, too, but first there were chores to do. Despite the late hour, Hannah watered the plants inside and outside the house. She remade Josie’s bed because it was still messed up from when Archer and Daniel Young sat on it. She put the dishes in the dishwasher away. When Josie came home, she wanted her to see that she had cared for the house as if it were her own.

  Finally, Hannah opened the plastic bag the nurse had given her. She took out Archer’s clothes and laundered them even though they would never be worn again. His pants had been cut off him in the emergency room, his shirt was missing buttons and was torn at the elbow, there was blood on his socks and there was only one shoe in the bag. Hannah could no more have left his clothes in that condition than she could have left Josie’s house without checking the lock on the door.

  When the laundry was started, Hannah dug back into the bag and laid the rest of his things on the dining room table: money, keys, ID, and cell phone. She counted Archer’s money. Ten dollars: a five and five ones. The I.D. wallet had his driver’s license on one side and his state investigator’s ID on the other. The investigator’s ID had a better picture than the driver’s license. She adjusted the license so that it was perfectly centered in the plastic sheath. Finally, Hannah reached for the phone. Under the table, the heel of her right foot started to bounce, and she counted silently. There were three messages, two of them from his clients who were upset that he was not on the job and one from Peter Siddon. The man was on a rant. Hannah shut it off. She couldn’t listen to another word spoken against Josie.

  Then Hannah stopped touching, stopped shaking her foot, and decided to go to bed. It was very late. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. As much as she would like to go to the hospital and sit with Archer, she would simply call for an update. There was no way of telling when Mrs. Crane would be coming for her, but there was no doubt she would come.

  After she finished packing her things, Hannah got into bed. Max rolled into her. She put her arm around him and fell asleep wishing she believed in God. If she did, she could pray for a miracle because that was the only hope left.

  Hermosa Beach PD, Hermosa Beach

  It was after midnight when Liz Driscoll walked into the office. It didn’t take long to realize exactly how pathetic she was. The desk officer greeted her like a mortician at a viewing, and Liz was the one in the casket. The night dispatcher studiously attended to his board even though there were no calls. Even the cleaning crew stepped aside to let her pass. They should have just screamed ‘dead man walking’ and be done with it.

  She tossed her jacket on the extra chair in her cubicle, plopped herself down and put her head in her hands. She cursed the burger and extra large order of fries she’d eaten because she thought it would make her feel better. It made her feel like a cow. The damn food was sitting right in the middle of her gut. Maybe it wasn’t the burger upsetting her stomach, maybe it was that gluttonous serving of crow she had with it.

  “Damn. Damn.” She whispered, her curses directed at no one but herself.

  Liz sat heavily in her chair, rolled up her sleeves and pulled three files to the middle of the desk. In the first was background on Bates. In the second were the trial transcripts Isaiah Wilson had given to Hannah and Archer had given to Liz when she picked him up to check out A-1 Storage. She opened the third and found her investigation notes from the interviews at the pier, discovery notes on the Jeep, phone calls to make and follow up on. She set it aside and rifled through her inbox, delighted to find the preliminary report on the Jeep.

  Sitting back, Liz put her feet on the desk and crossed them at the ankles. The report looked formidable, but it was just like reading a medical history. There were lots of little boxes to check off and then a few spaces for notes.

  Liz’s eyes trailed down the little boxes noting the ones that were checked. A partial fingerprint had been found and it might match to Hernandez. They were following up. Liz thought it was wishful thinking. No D.A. was going to bring cause based on a partial. Hair samples had been found. They were short and dark and came from a female.

  The only thing of interest was a piece of fiber. More than a couple of strands of thread, but less than an actual piece of fabric, had been found on the frame beneath the driver seat and was identified as black and white and blue. It had been sent to another lab for fiber content analysis. Liz would have those results the next day – which really was today – which didn’t matter because Liz wasn’t on this case anymore.

  Liz dropped the paper, swiveled and fired off an email to have the lab send results to Arnson with a copy to her at her personal email. Hagarty was going to have to deal with that if he found out.

  She opened the second file and did a quick scan of the transcripts from the Hernandez trial, then she settled back to read it in earnest. There were fifty pages and Isaiah Wilson hadn’t been kidding when he said Josie Bates was vile and relentless. She was also a damn good attorney.

  On the stand, Josie had reduced Isaiah Wilson to tears, confusing him in his grief about what he did and did not know about his own daughter, her sexuality and her sexual experiences. She did the same with Peter Rothskill, using his standing as a sex offender to paint Janey as a teenage harlot. The mitigating circumstances of Rothskill’s situation would have allowed for jury sympathy, so Bates blew him up under cross and left it to the prosecution to try and put him back together again. But it was Daniel Young’s testimony that was really interesting.

  Expert witnesses were usually grilled relentlessly in the hopes of tripping them up, discrediting them or simply making their testimony look foolish and irrelevant. Josie destroyed Daniel Young with a clean, surgical strike. She pointed out that Young, psychiatrist to the stars, expert witness extraordinaire, was a charlatan. With a few pointed questions, she puffed him up like a peacock spreading his tail feathers, and with a few more equally brilliant questions, slaughtered him when she revealed he had never finished his graduate work.
His board certification was a fluke, a lie, and a sham. He was no more an expert on the state of Xavier Hernandez’s mind than she was. In fact, everything out of his mouth should only be taken as seriously as the braying of a donkey.

  “Ouch,” Liz mumbled.

  She tossed the transcripts on the desk, and went back to her file. The latest paperwork was an update from Arnson on his contact with the prosecutor from the Hernandez trial. Arnson found the man happily retired after making a fortune in private practice and investing wisely. There had been no notes in his car, no strange phone calls and no one hanging around his house. He knew no more than anyone else about the people on the list or why Hernandez would target Erika Gardener – a lovely woman who had rejected his advances. She had been engaged. Josie Bates? He could understand anyone but Hernandez trying to take her out.

  There was a report on Isaiah Wilson’s activities during the last week. He had been absent from the church for two and half days. He lived alone, so there was no one to vouch for him in the evenings.

  Liz Driscoll closed the folder. She would send it over to Arnson just to make Hagarty happy. The one person who was still an enigma was Paul Rothskill. Out of curiosity, Liz turned to her computer and typed in the name. It was not unique and she pulled up an author in England, a lawyer in Oregon, and a podiatrist in California. She clicked on the lawyer, saw that he was a portly guy in his seventies and clicked out again. Scrolling once more, wasting time because she didn’t want to leave this place she considered home, Liz found a reference to Paul and the Hernandez trial.

  She clicked on that, and pulled up the same picture Archer had seen. Paul had been a handsome young man. Liz clicked out and was back to the Google listing. She was about to close out when the name Peter Siddon caught her eye. It was linked to Paul Rothskill and the link was to the High Desert News in Palmdale, California. Liz leaned closer to the screen.

  A local daycare had been shut down because of allegations that the owner was married to a registered sex offender. An anonymous tip led to the alert that Peter Siddon, once known as Paul Rothskill, was married to Laura Siddon, owner of A Child’s Place. Rothskill, notorious for his part in the events that led to the killing of Janey Wilson…

  She hit print, walked down the hall, took the copy out of the network printer and walked back to her office. There she made a note for Arnson:

  Check out ASAP. Called Bates’ office multiple times. No message. Angry. Will have message slips from her office forwarded.

  Then she made a second note, putting the Post It on the transcript:

  Bates refers to Young as braying donkey. Check for references to clown (See copy of list left in cars/avatars).

  She tucked the transcripts in the second folder, bundled it up, made out the routing information and then checked her phone. It was almost two in the morning. She hoped Burt had managed to get Hannah home to bed. Liz clicked over to her photo file and looked at the numbers she photographed in Hernandez’s book. She looked for messages, but Daniel Young had not called her back.

  Snapping her phone shut Liz got up, put on her jacket and walked down the hall to Hagarty’s office. She didn’t bother to turn on the lights when she walked in. Instead, she took the four steps she knew she had to take to reach his desk. Once there, she took her weapon out of her holster, discharged the clip, and put it on his desk. She unsnapped the badge from her belt and put that down, too.

  Then Liz Driscoll turned her back and left the office, happy she had not turned on a light. There were a few things she couldn’t bear and seeing her badge surrendered was one of them.

  An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

  Josie Bates could not stop trembling. Intellectually Josie knew she was in shock, but intellect was no help anymore. This nightmare had turned horrific. Josie had passed the night with a dead body, the memory of Erika Gardener’s face, and the knife stuck in her throat. The man who killed her had kept the strobe light shining inside so long that Josie couldn’t decide if he was enjoying his handiwork, or if he was as shocked as she to see what he had done. She had decided he was pleased, and that knowledge destroyed the last of Josie’s bravado.

  She curled into her corner, and kept her back to Erika. But out of sight was not out of mind. Josie thought of what would happen as soon as the sun rose. She would see Erika dead again. At noon the heat would work its ugly fingers beneath Erika’s skin. One full day, maybe two and the decomposing body would create a hell on earth. Whoever had done this to them would have been kinder to bury Josie alive. But kindness was not in the cards, nor was humanity or hope. Even faith was gone. She had believed Archer would find her. He had not. Josie was determined not to look at Erika again. She decided not to move from her corner. She decided to die as quickly as possible.

  Yet, when that first grey light came through the small opening in the wall, she turned her head and looked at the body, the dried blood, and the white film over the woman’s once blue eyes. And there was something else. The pictures Erika had been holding were now on the ground.

  Josie reached for the first one. It was a snapshot of a cat in a well-kept backyard. There was a stone statue of a grinning frog. She set it aside and reached for the second one, inadvertently touching Erika’s cold skin.

  Josie raised the picture, looked at it and, in the next instant, began to keen. Head thrown back, neck arched, she clutched the picture to her breast, the picture of Hannah standing next to the half-finished archway in Josie’s own house.

  CHAPTER FORTY:

  Torrance Memorial Hospital, Torrance

  “Hey there, cowboy,” Liz whispered.

  Archer blinked, disoriented by everything: the room, the drugs, pain and Liz Driscoll sitting by his side.

  “How about you wet your whistle.” She got up and took the pink plastic cup with the Sippy straw and held it for him. He took a drink without raising his head. That was as long as it took for him to remember.

  “Hernandez?” he rasped.

  “He’s breathing, but that’s about it. LAPD is going to put a guard on him as soon as he shows signs of coming around.” Liz offered him the water again. Again he sipped. “Oops,” Liz reached for a tissue and patted Archer’s chin dry when the water dribbled out. “How you feeling?”

  Archer closed his eyes and pulled his brows together.

  “Figured.” Liz sat down again and pulled her chair close to the bed. “Archer, listen.”

  “Find anything?”

  One side of Liz’s lips tipped. Even in this state he wanted to be on top of things. Not that it mattered. No matter what she told him, Archer wouldn’t remember two days from now. She told him the truth anyway.

  “Not much. Got some phone numbers that were printed in the front of a book we found in the unit. Same block printing. No car. No keys in Hernandez’s pockets; nothing in his pockets at all. Everybody’s focusing on figuring out who’s helping him. ”

  Archer raised his hand, the one with the IV in it, and motioned to the water. Liz was up again.

  “You want something to eat, too?”

  He shook his head.

  “Erika Gardener’s picture,” he said.

  “Yeah? What about it.” Liz sat again but stayed close to the bed. It was taking everything Archer had to talk.

  “Picture in Daniel’s office. Check,” Archer said. “Her house. Check pictures. Purple dress.”

  “Sure, I’ll take a look,” Liz answered.

  “Car in the lot?”

  Liz chuckled, she had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed important to him so she answered as best she could.

  “Not yet. They should have it this afternoon.”

  “Good. Good. Erika’s picture. Parking.”

  “I’ll stop by Daniel’s office. I promise. But I’m not. . .”

  Liz never finished her thought. Archer was drifting off again.

  “Okay, Archer. I’ll check.”

  Liz Driscoll stood up and looked at him. He was a really good man, she
decided. Taking a minute to rearrange Archer’s hospital gown so that it covered both his shoulders. She did that gently so he wouldn’t wake up. Liz didn’t really want to see Archer’s face when she told him that she’d been suspended. She also didn’t want to hear him suggest that she back off on this thing. He wouldn’t want her to jeopardize the chance of keeping her job, but Liz knew she couldn’t go back to the job unless she had done her best for Archer and Hannah and Josie. Liz had started this for all the wrong reasons; now she was going to finish it for the right ones.

  Liz gave Archer’s shoulder an extra pat, and then she did something that surprised the heck out of her. She kissed his forehead. Archer would never know she lingered, but she would carry the feeling of her lips against his skin to her grave.

  Christian Broadcast Complex, Orange County

  “There are three requests for interviews, Reverend. Good Morning America’s producer has been most insistent that she speak directly to you. I’ve done the best I can, but I’m afraid I’m not really very good at this.”

  The young girl with the very long hair and the very loose floral dress and the very, very sensible shoes, who only two days ago had stood guard against Archer, was now gatekeeper once again. This time she was charged with keeping the media at bay until Reverend Wilson was ready to deal with them. As devoted as she was to Reverend Wilson, she was not happy with her new role. She much preferred greeting the worshipers who came in the hopes of praying with the reverend, or to leave a card or flowers or drop off their checks so the ministry could flourish.

  Since that horrible incident with that devilish black girl, all hell (for thinking this she apologized to God with a quick prayer) had broken loose. Faith would have to take strength from Isaiah Wilson whose demeanor had not changed one bit. This only made her love him more – as her spiritual leader, of course.