Hostile Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  “Don’t tell me what I friggin’ need.” Linda whacked the coffee table with both hands. The sound cracked through the house. Max’s head came up. Linda’s face was white with rage.

  “Hey,” Josie warned, “Take it down some, or take it somewhere else.”

  Linda may be in trouble, but this was Josie’s turf. Maybe not the kind she used to claim, but nobody told her what to do here. Linda, though, didn’t give up so easily. She shoved aside the glass, the bottle, and the makeshift ashtray, as if she was clearing the field for battle.

  “Okay. Okay. Last I heard you were hot stuff. I mean you got that woman off a couple of years ago and she was guilty as sin. My kid is innocent and I need someone I can trust, damn it. You’re not too big to help an old friend who really needs it, are you, Josie?”

  “I’m not too big for anything, Linda. I just don’t handle the kind of case you’re talking about.”

  Josie looked away. Linda moved her head trying to retain eye contact, doing her best to cajole.

  “But you could, couldn’t you? I mean, there aren’t any rules about that sort of thing, right?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Then name your price, Josie. Money isn’t a problem. I’ve got enough to buy and sell you. I’ve got. . . .I’ve got. . .”

  That was as far as she went. Whatever truth or pity she saw in Josie’s eyes it was enough to make Linda stop. Her voice caught. When she spoke again she was begging.

  “Please. I’ve got no one else. My baby didn’t do it. I swear. She didn’t do it.”

  3

  Josie’s memories spiraled in snippets and snatches.

  Big case. Terrified defendant. Protestations of innocence. Josie as champion. Television cameras. Crime scene photos. Interviews. Points of law. Fearful testimony. Children waiting for their mother and the world waiting for the jury.

  Worst of all – victory.

  Back then Josie believed everyone deserved a defense. Then she met the one woman who didn’t. Kristin Davis played Josie like a fine fiddle until every string snapped. Josie who believed that a mother could do no wrong; Josie who looked at Kristin’s children and promised to send their mother back home. She should have seen through Kristin Davis. But that was past, and the present had its own set of compelling quick cuts and consequences.

  A sixteen-year-old kid in prison for murder. A desperate mother. An old friend. Innocence. Guilt. Who knew? Fire. Fame. Fortune. The eyes of a state – perhaps the country - focused on her through the lens of a television camera. Josie didn’t want to be evaluated, critiqued, or judged for standing center stage as crime became entertainment. She did not want to speak for someone who could have, might have, or maybe did the unthinkable. Josie had had enough of that to last a lifetime.

  “You’re Fritz Rayburn’s daughter-in-law, Linda. Call his firm. Talk to your friends. That’s the kind of power you need.”

  “I already did that.” She shook her head. “I spoke to Ian Frank, Fritz’s old partner. That firm is filled with civil attorneys. They deal in big money. And there are – problems – extenuating circumstances.”

  “What about Hannah’s father?” Josie dared Linda to cut off another avenue of opportunity.

  “What about him?”

  “He must know good criminal attorneys through his father,” Josie insisted.

  “Hannah’s father took off before I even got the word pregnant out of my mouth. I married Kip Rayburn two years ago. He’s Hannah’s stepfather. Even I know this isn’t the best time to ask him to run interference for Hannah.”

  Linda’s bottom lip disappeared under her top teeth. She put her hand against the wall near the window, looking out as if she was expecting someone. It wasn’t a person she was looking for but a decision she had to make. Finally she looked at Josie.

  “Okay, I’ll be honest. There are business considerations, careers to worry about and Hannah is a small cog in a very big wheel. When Fritz took the bench he had to put his partnership into trust so there wouldn’t be any conflict of interest. That didn’t keep the firm from trading on Fritz’s reputation. It meant high profile clients because an original partner was a California Supreme Court Justice.”

  Linda put both hands on the back of an overstuffed chair. Her nails poked into the fabric. Her voice dropped another octave.

  “Before the funeral we found out that the governor is going to appoint Kip to his father’s seat on the California Supreme Court. He was going to announce it in the next few days while emotions still ran high for Fritz. A legacy goes on kind of thing. The firm keeps trading on its association with the highest court in the state, money keeps rolling in, and power is consolidated in their little dynasty. So we go to the funeral. The governor is checking out how Kip handles himself. It goes well. Then Hannah gets arrested and it’s everybody for themselves.

  “When I asked for help they say they have to think. How is this going to affect Kip’s appointment, the firm’s bottom line? They distance themselves. Hannah and me are left swinging in the wind. I understand how business works and I love my husband, Josie. I respect the tough spot he’s in, but my daughter is a child and she needs help now. So I’m doing what I’ve got to do.”

  “And your husband doesn’t mind the firm is treating you this way?” Josie asked.

  Linda shook her head, exhausted. “Right now I don’t know what he thinks. Everything happened so fast. He just kept asking how they knew his father was murdered. How did they know? I mean, he thought the old guy died in an accident. It was like somebody put Kip on a roller coaster and didn’t strap him in. He’s mourning his father one minute, being tapped for the court the next, and then he finds out the cops think someone deliberately took his dad’s life. It’s a mess. Everyone’s out for themselves. I don’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how much a stranger will get behind my kid. You’re not a stranger. I want you to help her.”

  Josie got up and turned toward her bedroom.

  “Okay. I’ve got a couple of favors to call in. I’ll get my book.”

  Linda moved fast, crossing the living room, pulling Josie back.

  “No. I want you to do it. I know you. You wouldn’t let her suffer. You know what it’s like to be a kid who’s afraid. You know what it’s like to be alone.”

  “This isn’t the same, Linda. You’re helping your daughter, not running away from her. Besides, for all I know she could have done it.” Josie pulled away. Some part of her was flattered by Linda’s confidence, another was wary.

  “And what would it matter?” Linda threw her hands up in frustration. “She’s still entitled to a defense. That’s the law. Isn’t that right?”

  “It doesn’t say she’s entitled to me,” Josie answered flatly.

  “But she didn’t do it, Josie. Nobody did. It was an accident. Someone’s making a terrible mistake. Josie, you were never mean or cruel. Don’t be now. My whole family is in turmoil. Hannah’s my baby,” Linda cried. She babbled, trying to find the magic that would make Josie change her mind. “She was terrified getting on that bus, being taken away from me. I followed them all the way out to Sybil Brand and they wouldn’t let me in. She’s alone. Help her. Stop making excuses and help us, damn it.”

  Linda’s fingers dug into Josie’s arms again. Her long nails were sharp but the rest of her was losing ground. Linda’s deep voice caught. She whispered frantically, pleading as only a mother can do.

  “Do it just this once, Josie. Just go see Hannah. That’s all I’m asking. If you saw her, you’d help her. The last thing you’d want is for a kid to be alone and scared.”

  They stood eye to eye, both of them taller than most men, both of them fascinatingly attractive, and both locked in an emotional tug of war.

  “They took her to Sybil Brand?” Josie asked cautiously.

  Linda nodded slowly, her face a play of concern and questions.

  “They said she couldn’t be released until they had a bail hearing because of the charges. That’s not go
ing to be ‘till Monday. Josie, what is it?”

  “Juvenile offenders are taken to East Lake, Linda, not Sybil Brand. Your daughter is in the women’s jail. The DA is going to charge her as an adult.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means she’s looking at hard time if she’s convicted. Chowchilla prison, somewhere like that. No sealed records. No short-term juvenile facility.” Josie dug deep to find the courage to give Linda the worst-case scenario. “If the DA tacks on special circumstances he could conceivably ask for the death penalty.”

  Linda was gone by eleven, leaving behind her phone number, her address, and a retainer. Josie put the retainer check in the top drawer of her desk. It could be torn up as easily as cashed, but right now she didn’t want to see it. She just wanted to think.

  Leashing Max they walked to the Strand, crossing the bike path, wandering on to the sand. Josie headed north, wondering why she'd agreed to see Hannah Sheraton, and knowing it didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with the answer.

  Tomorrow a sixteen-year-old kid would wake up scared and stay that way until this thing played out. Hannah Sheraton may never get over what was happening to her, but Josie could at least make sure there was an end to the ordeal. If Linda had needed help Josie would have made that referral. This, though, was a child. This, Josie was drawn to.

  Wanting to root around a bit, Max pulled Josie left. The moon was high, the tide low, and the heat heavy. In the distance, party music mixed with the thin wail of sirens. The music belonged to Hermosa, the sirens to some bigger, more impersonal, more challenging place. Thank God she didn’t belong to the sirens anymore. Josie looked back at the place that was now her hometown. Hermosa meant beautiful beach. The place used to be a sweep of hills dotted with sheep and barley fields that stretched all the way to the Pacific. Now it was 1.3 miles of small hotels, houses, restaurants, and people who believed in letting everyone be. When it came to crime, Billie Zuni was as bad a dude as the place could come up with. In December there was a sand snowman contest, in August the Surf Festival. In the sixties, the city declared itself a wild bird sanctuary. Little did the founding fathers know that wild birds weren’t the only ones who would find sanctuary in this place.

  Josie kicked at the sand and gave Max’s ancient leash a tug. Hot pink, worn to shreds, it was still clipped to his collar when she found him half starved under the pier. Josie wouldn’t buy a new one. That leash might mean something to Max, the same way her mother’s hula-girl plates meant something to Josie. She tugged again. It was time to go, just not time to go home. Linda had kicked up a lot of dust, and Josie needed someone to help her clear it. There was only one person she knew who had twenty/twenty vision when it came to navigating the storms of indecision.

  She headed to Archer’s place.

  It took Linda Rayburn forty-seven minutes to get to the Malibu house. She parked the car, retrieved her shoes and purse from the passenger side floor, didn’t bother to lock the doors, and didn’t care if the hems of her very expensive slacks got dirty.

  She walked through the gate, ignoring the impressive entrance. It had grown ordinary like so many things Linda once found intimidating and fascinating about the Rayburn’s world. Not that she would trade it. Not that she disliked it. All this stuff was like air: essential and expected, missed only when taken away. She let herself in to the house. Every light was on and the damn thing was quiet as a mausoleum. The shoes and purse were left on the floor for the housekeeper to pick up in the morning.

  Linda looked in the kitchen, though she doubted that’s where Kip would be. She checked the living room. The glare of the lights made her feel like a walking corpse. She slipped the belt from her hips and tugged her blouse out of her slacks as she went.

  The pool lights were on and the floods, too. The dining room with its long glass table and twelve high backed stainless steel and silk chairs shivered with reflected light.

  Having searched downstairs there was nowhere to go but up. Resisting the desire to get in bed, close her eyes, and make everything go away, Linda climbed the stairs and walked down the long hall. The gigantic unframed oils that Fritz had been so fond of now looked crass and ridiculous. So much black cut by random slashes of red that looked like open wounds on the dark skin of the canvas. Fritz may have been smart about the law, but his taste in art sucked. What was he thinking hanging those things on the smooth white walls of the Malibu house? Hannah’s paintings would have been better. At least she used more than two colors. In fact, right now, Linda would burn all of Fritz’s big, ugly, high brow stuff herself, just to have a little bit of Hannah around.

  Linda was at the end of the hall just outside the room. That’s what they called it. Not Fritz’s room, not the library, just the room. It was where the chronicles of Fritz’s life were kept: pictures of Fritz with governors, senators, and even a president or two. Fritz with celebrity lawyers. Fritz with foster children. Fritz, Fritz. Fritz. Pens and plaques, embossed portfolios. Fritz, Fritz, Fritz’s place. Little sculptures of judges made of bronze and wood. Gavels sprouted off polished wood surfaces. He hadn’t used the room in years and yet it remained untouched. It was a shrine while he lived; God knew what it was suppose to be now that he was dead, now that Kip was in there.

  Linda composed herself. There was no door to the room, only a short hall that opened up onto a big space. Linda walked through and hovered at the end. The room was dim, only the desk light was on. Two of the four walls were made of glass. The half moon hung like a piece of artwork in the middle of one of them. Kip sat in Fritz’s chair looking as if he’d wandered out of a Norman Rockwell illustration and into a Dali landscape.

  Linda shivered. She liked neither Rockwell nor Dali. She liked Kip the way he used to be. Before all this he was his own blank canvas. She liked the Kip who relied on her or Fritz for definition. But Fritz wasn’t here anymore, the governor was holding out the things Kip wanted – power, attention, notoriety of his own - and she wasn’t the same woman who had left the house earlier that evening. For the first time, the next step in Linda’s life wasn’t clear.

  Kip didn’t look at her when she came in. He barely moved as he methodically picked up, looked at, and placed his father’s things in a box on the side of the desk. Linda felt him vibrating, radiating frustration and anger. It rolled around the room like a Dervish.

  “I don’t want to talk, Linda,” he said quietly, his voice trembling.

  “We have to talk.”

  “No,” Kip held up his hand, “we don’t”

  “Then what do you want to do? Just sit and wait until we know what ever it is that they know? You want to wait for other people to make their moves before we do? You want to pretend this isn’t happening?”

  Linda started toward the desk but stopped short. The usual ministrations wouldn’t work to soothe him. He didn’t want to be touched. She couldn’t coax him to bed. He had been changing ever since Fritz died. It hadn’t been unattractive or unwanted – until now. Linda backed off, holding herself in check. She would tread carefully until she had the lay of the land. She talked, thinking on her feet.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just can’t believe this is happening. Everything was going so well,” she held out her hands to stop him from interrupting. “But we can control this situation. I spoke to an attorney about Hannah. She’s an old friend. She’ll get Hannah out of jail. Once that happens we’ll send her away to school. Lot’s of people have problem kids. Everyone will forget about this. My attorney won’t bring you, or the firm, into this. She’ll deal with this discreetly.”

  “Discreetly?” In the blink of an eye Kip was up, standing behind the desk, his plain features contorted into disbelief and rage. He picked up a picture of his father and hurled it across the room. Not at her. Luckily, not at her. “How in the hell do you figure the murder of a California Supreme Court Justice can be handled discreetly? When they thought this was an accident nobody was discreet. We won’t be able to sne
eze without people trying to figure out what goes on in this house. They’re going to want a reason Hannah was arrested and if they can’t find one they’ll make it up. Hannah caused problems from the minute she walked through the door. For my father. For me. Even for you. But now she’s going to ruin my life.”

  “Okay. All right,” Linda screamed. She backed up. Afraid of her husband for the first time since she met him, Linda would never let him know. “You’ve always wanted her gone. Do you want me gone, too? You’re such a big man now you don’t need me? If that’s what you’re saying then I’m out of here. I’ll take care of myself and I sure as hell won’t care who gets taken down if they prosecute my kid.”

  Kip put his hands on one of Fritz’s awards. It was a heavy thing made of crystal and wood. Even in the dim light Linda could see his arms shaking with the tension of his pent up emotions. He fought with himself wanting to lift it, throw it, and cradle it to his breast.

  “It was supposed to be my time. I was making it my time. I was standing up. . .it was all for you and me.”

  Linda Rayburn watched her husband implode. Slowly he sank back into the chair, his hands still around the hunk of glass and wood. He lowered his head until it rested on the cool wedge of crystal. Linda bowed her own, her hair covering her face, her shoulders slumping. Maybe they were all lost. Finally, Linda raised her head. Her eyes narrowed. Inside there was a sliver of steel left. A little gift from her mother who made Linda what she was –a damn survivor. Linda was going to share that gift with Kip because the last thing she wanted to do was leave.

  Slowly she walked toward her husband and wrapped her arms around his head. She pulled him into her. His arms went around her waist as she buried her lips in his hair.

  “I know what you did for me. I know what it cost you,” she whispered.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, and I was proud. And now you’ve got to stay brave and see this through,” Linda said.