Hostile Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  Rosa’s expression changed. Her features snapped tight, muscle-by-muscle, like shutters in a house closing against a big wind.

  “He was thinking real hard, like he was looking for something he couldn’t find. You know how something changes and you can’t put your finger on it? That’s what happened to him. He sort of melted. I don’t know how to explain it. His eyes weren’t nice anymore. They were dead. His face kind of lost all its muscles. His skin was hanging off his cheekbones. It was like some kind of horror movie. There was something wrong.”

  Rosa lapsed into silence. It lasted just long enough for her to be in that room again, looking up at Fritz Rayburn with her big, dark, innocent eyes. When she started again Rosa talked slow, her voice was sad.

  “So, anyway, he’s mad. He tells me he didn’t hurt me. So I figure I’m an ungrateful little slut and better get out because I don’t know how to take a favor nicely. But he grabs my arm when I try to leave. Rayburn says you have to finish what you start. You always have to do that. So I figure, okay. I mean, who am I to say no to him? I’m standing there in this big marble bathroom. I’m in all these mirrors and he’s in all these mirrors. I look like a rat and he’s dressed in a really nice gray suit and a shiny blue tie. His shirt was really white. My mother ironed those shirts. She starched the heck out of them and they could stand up by themselves when she was done. He looked perfect and I looked like what I was – a piece of shit.”

  Rosa breathed deep. She looked at Archer then spoke to Josie.

  “So I’m looking at him in the mirror. He walks around me, standing kind of in front of me but facing the mirror. I’m like this little soldier standing really straight with my arms down by my sides. I remember shaking but thinking I better not let him see that I’m shaking or he’ll get mad. He picks up the blow dryer and holds it near him. I remember thinking it looked like he was loading a gun. He held it down at his middle and checked it out, looked at the settings. Finally he turns around and points the thing at me. Not at my hair but at my face. He doesn’t turn it on, just points it at me then he walks real slow until he’s standing right behind me. The thing was always pointing at my head like he was holding me hostage.

  “He looks at us in the mirror. He put one hand on the side of my head, the hair dryer is pointing at the other side of my head. He pushes my hair to the side so that my neck is bare. It was cold there because my wet hair had been all stuck against my skin.

  “Rayburn puts the blow dryer in his other hand so the cord is around my neck.” Rosa’s hands were going through the motions. “I put my hands up, you know, to push the cord over my head. He told me to leave it. He said it real quiet, just like he’s telling me to go back to sleep. So I didn’t touch the cord even though I could feel it pulling against my throat. I was shaking, man. Nothing bad had ever happened to me before, but I knew something bad was happening right then.”

  Rosa smiled wryly as if having some sick appreciation for the moment now that she could look back on it.

  “But he was so smooth. It was so slow. Rayburn turned on the dryer. He turned it on hot. First he put it so that my hair blew out around my face. He ran his fingers through it. His fingers got caught in the tangles. He yanked through them and tears were coming to my eyes because it hurt so much. Once I could see that a whole bunch of hair came out when he pulled. I think he could feel me shaking because the side of his body was touching my back. He smiled a little. Just a little bit. Then he started drying the hair down here, at the neck. It was getting hot. I moved my head. It hurt so bad. He. . . .”

  Rosa put a hand over her mouth. Then she reached over and pushed her shot glass to the middle of the table. Archer poured. Rosa drank it fast, not bothering with the salt or the lime.

  “Shit, I haven’t thought about this for a long time,” she muttered. “So, okay. Rayburn takes his free hand and he holds my head and he puts that damned hair dryer on my neck. Right on it. Man, I could smell my skin burning and then I screamed. That bastard kept it on me like a second more and then he takes it away. It burned me bad. I’m telling you, it was like a hot iron”

  Rosa lifted the back of her hair and turned so that Archer and Josie could see the raised white scar just behind her ear.

  “That bastard branded me.”

  They sat in silence. Archer and Josie watching; Rosa with her head down, her lashes lowered. Finally she looked at them again, tears in her eyes. She wiped them hard; she was ashamed they were there.

  “Then?” Josie asked.

  “Then he was normal again. He told me that the burn looked bad. He knew I wouldn’t want to bother my mother so I should stop crying. Then he said didn’t I feel better now that I was all dry, and didn’t I love the rain.”

  “And that was it?” Josie pushed, wanting every damning detail.

  “No. He gave me a tube of something. Told me it would help with the pain where I accidentally got burned. Man, that was the weirdest part, you know. To do something like that and then pretend like it was an accident. I’ll never forget it. Never.”

  The afternoon came and went, the dark descending early now. Rosa got up a couple of times. She turned on the lights including the Coors sign hanging near the picture of the Virgin Mary. She told her stories as she put the frijoles over a low flame. Josie helped set out the silverware for the customers Rosa said would come after they got off work in the factories, and the airport, and made their way home to tiny houses and dilapidated apartments.

  Rosa talked about a reign of terror that lasted until she was fourteen.

  Rayburn came at her when she least expected it. She stayed at school as late as she could. She dodged her mother’s questions, endured her mother’s laments that she was going bad because she stayed away from home, because she stopped going to church. God was going to send Rosa’s mother to hell because she had failed the jobs of a woman – wife and mother.

  “I got so damned sick of hearing all that crap.”

  “But you never said anything.” Josie spoke quietly as she centered the fork and knife on a small table. Rosa leaned over to arrange the salt and pepper at the same time. They didn’t look at one another. Rosa said:

  “He would have sent my mother away. She would have been deported. You can deal with a lot when your mother’s there, you know? I was protecting her. I was brave for her. I wanted my mom to go to heaven.” Josie flinched. Rosa saw it. They had something in common after all, the lawyer and the woman who served beer and beans. Rosa whispered. “Yeah, you know.”

  Josie stood back. She said: “It didn’t go on forever. You survived. Did Rayburn lose interest?”

  Rosa shook her head. “He never lost interest. He hurt me wherever he found me alone. The principal told me I was a lucky girl that such a great man took an interest in me. Mostly he talked. He told me what he was planning. He whispered it because he liked the fear. Naw, he loved the fear. Then one day he did the worst.”

  Rosa was having trouble talking. She paled. Those black-rimmed eyes darkened until they looked like holes. Josie could almost reach through them and touch the pain that had left Rosa’s body and lived in her brain.

  “Rosa,” Josie said quietly. Archer picked up the bottle on the table. He lifted it her way. Rosa put out her hand as if to say it didn’t really help.

  “It was just before Christmas. The INS came. Rayburn told me later he had my mother deported. They didn’t take me because I was a citizen. Great country, huh?”

  “What happened to your mom?” Archer asked.

  “I don’t know.” Rosa smiled weakly, as though she had lost emotional blood and desperately needed a transfusion. “She never came back for me. Hell, she probably figured I was going to be well taken care of.”

  “What did you do then?”

  Archer was still leaning in the corner of the booth, one leg half up, one arm on the table. She gave Archer a small smile with her answer.

  “I went to a friend’s house that night. There weren’t many Latinas in Palisades High School
. We stuck together. When my friend’s parents tossed me out, I found myself some new friends on the street.

  “When the governor appointed Rayburn, I laughed so hard. I remember because I was in jail for assaulting a guy who tried to do me when I didn’t want it. I nearly killed the dude. I guess it was just a delayed reaction, you know. He hurt me. I hurt back this time. I get popped, and he walks. So when I see a guy like Rayburn getting in charge of the law I figure everyone’s screwed. I felt safe locked up and I was there long enough to get my GED. I had a teacher who cared. She made sure I knew how to talk right in case I wanted to get a real job when I got out.”

  Rosa filled the last saltshaker, screwed on the top and took care to center it just so with the pepper. Her fingers lingered on the cheap glass.

  “I think my mom’s dead. I just have that feeling. But you know what?” She didn’t bother to look at Archer or Josie. “I think she’s in heaven. She didn’t know about Rayburn. She did her best.”

  They didn’t have long to consider the state of Rosa’s mother’s soul. Rosa had unlocked the door and now it opened. A mean looking man came in holding a tiny baby in his arms. A woman with beautiful long black hair followed. They sat in the far corner, probably tagging Archer for a cop.

  Rosa did her thing. Salsa and chips slammed on the table, menus handed out. Water glasses filled. No ice. She made her rounds and ended up back with Josie and Archer. She swiped the bottle of tequila off the table.

  “Not like it hasn’t been fun, but it is rush hour,” she said flatly.

  Josie put her hand out. She took hold of Rosa’s sleeve.

  “Would you testify for us? My client is sixteen. Rayburn did her, too.”

  “Yeah, I know. I read the papers. I’ve got nothing to lose, but I don’t think it’s a good call. The prosecutor will pull my record.”

  “But you won’t say no?” Josie asked.

  Rosa shook her head, “Naw. I’ll even wear a dress if you want. You know, cover up.” She shook back her sleeves and showed her tattoos.

  “Thanks.” Josie held out her card. Rosa looked at it. Finally she took it.

  “If you think of anything else, you call me. Okay?”

  “I have a feeling I’ll be thinking of a lot about Rayburn.”

  Archer left a big tip. Josie shook Rosa’s hand. Archer had the door open; Rosa was taking the big man’s order. Josie was about to leave when she remembered something. When Rosa went back to the kitchen, Josie followed.

  Rosa was tossing peppers and onions into a hot pan. She looked over her shoulder. Josie stepped to the side. It was hot in the little kitchen.

  “Rosa, you never really talked about Kip Rayburn. He was living in the house, right?”

  She shrugged, “If you call it that. I doubt he’s ever lived.”

  “But he was in the house so didn’t he know what his father was doing to you?”

  She threw a handful of shredded chicken into the pan then reached for a huge jar of cumin.

  “He didn’t pay attention. I could have been the dog for all he knew. I stayed out of his way and he stayed out of his father’s way much as he could. Those two were a mess,” she said as she stirred the peppers. “If the old man liked it, Kip hated it. If Kip loved it, the old man hated it. It didn’t matter what it was. Me, a piece of meat, the color of the wallpaper,” she shrugged. “The only difference between those two was that Kip just hated what his father loved. The old man destroyed whatever his son loved.”

  Rosa heaped the chicken and peppers onto tortillas, folded them and doused them with green sauce. She looked at Josie and gave her a lopsided grin.

  “It’s a good thing Kip didn’t love me, huh?”

  28

  It was dark, not late, when Archer pulled up to Josie’s place. Josie’s head was back, her eyes closed. It looked like she was asleep, but she was thinking about Rayburn’s M.O. His preference was clear. Dependant girls. Women of color. Young. Each of them accepting Fritz as just a scummy part of life. All of them had a lot to lose: mothers, careers. All of them assumed they couldn’t fight back. All except Hannah who was just that much more flawed than the rest, and that made her even less believable.

  “We’re home, Jo.” Archer said.

  “Thanks, babe,” Josie whispered. “We did good today.”

  Archer took Josie’s duffle out of the back.

  “You coming in?” she asked.

  “Am I still on the clock?”

  Josie shrugged. “What if I said no?”

  “Then I’m coming in.”

  Archer carried her bag, one arm slung over her shoulder. Josie picked up the mail, opened the door, and flipped on a light. Max ambled out of the back room. Archer petted him and let him out into the backyard, leaving the French doors open.

  Josie filled his dish with food, replaced the dog’s water. It was good to be home. She put the coffee on. Archer had wandered into the dining room and was looking at her mother’s plates.

  “I like these.” He pointed to the wall.

  “You say that every time you look at them,” Josie laughed.

  Josie liked them, too. Her mother’s hula girl plates were her prized possession, two intact and one broken. Years ago Josie’s father had dropped the plate while packing away Emily’s things. When he was asleep, Josie opened the packing boxes and took the two plates. She retrieved the broken one from the trashcan and hid all three in her room. They were the first things Josie hung in her home. She could still see the crack that dissected one of the hula girls. Josie once thought she kept those kitschy plates because one day her mother would come back and be grateful. Now Josie knew she kept them to remind her that broken things can be mended, but there is always a scar.

  Archer moseyed toward the living room; Max wandered back in. All was right with the world for now. Josie poured two cups of coffee, handing one off as she passed Archer.

  “What are you going to do, Jo?” Archer asked.

  “I’m thinking about breaking this down into two phases. First one is the assault on Rayburn. I’d put Rosa on the stand in a heartbeat. She’s sympathetic. Rudy won’t break her down. I’d like to find someone else who would corroborate in court.” Josie took a drink, staring at the floor while she thought. “On the arson, I’m going to go with the doctors. Hannah couldn’t have burned her studio. The defense is clear, and understandable, if I break it down that way.”

  “That jury is going to want another option on the arson.”

  “Then we go after Kip. He’s the likely option. Something Rosa said puts me in the right frame of mind to look more closely at him. He’s not the passive fool I thought he was. He proved it in court. There’s a lot of anger there. I want to know what Kip and his father fought about. If it was Linda, Hannah, or business like he said.”

  Josie’s words trailed off as she noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. She pressed play out of habit and took a minute to collect her thoughts. The first message was Ian Frank’s secretary. Yes, Mr. Frank would meet with Josie in the morning, nine sharp.

  “Want me to go with you?” Archer asked. “Might be good to have someone else listen in on what Rayburn’s old partner has to say.”

  “No. I’ll see him on my own. You check out. . .”

  The machine was talking again. It was Hannah asking if Josie was okay. Counting. Counting softly but Josie could hear it. Asking Josie to call when she could. Then something muffled. The phone clattered and the line went dead.

  Josie stopped the machine and picked up the phone. She dialed the Malibu house.

  “She doesn’t sound good,” Archer muttered and then fell silent. “Nothing?”

  Josie shook her head. She disconnected.

  Archer checked his watch, “She’s probably on her walk.”

  “Probably,” she mumbled but Josie was unsettled. Josie punched the answering machine again hoping the next message was Hannah calling back, surprised to find it was Linda. She had tired of waiting at the house and was at Bo
relli’s restaurant. She wanted to see Josie. Please.

  “Please?” Archer looked surprised.

  “Please,” Josie reiterated with a grin.

  “Want me to go with you, Jo?”

  “Sure.” Josie disappeared into the bedroom. She tossed her duffle on the bed and came back to the living room with her leather jacket on. “I guess Hannah must be with her.”

  “Suppose so,” Archer answered as they parted on the doorstep. Josie wanted to walk and clear the tequila out of her head. Archer garaged the Hummer. They met at Borrelli’s front door within a minute of each other.

  Linda was waiting in the bar at a table for two, dressed all in black from the tips of her Italian boots to the last coat of mascara on her lashes. She started to smile when she saw Josie but lost it when she figured out the man who opened the door was part of the package.

  “Linda?” Josie greeted her.

  “Who’s this?” Linda eyed Archer.

  “Archer. Linda Rayburn. He’s working with me on Hannah’s case.”

  Linda nodded. Archer checked her out then made his excuses. He would wait at the bar; the two women would talk.

  “Do you want something?” Linda lifted her cocktail when they were alone.

  “Yeah. I’d like to know where Hannah is.” Josie took a seat.

  “She’s at home,” Linda said, peeved that she wasn’t directing the conversation. “I meant did you want something to drink?”

  “No, thanks and I’m not sure Hannah is at home. I just called. There was no answer.”

  Linda waved away the concern.

  “She’s probably out doing her walking thing. You know how it goes. Couple times around the house. Some weird dancing on the sand. Back in the house. Back outside again. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  Josie took a deep breath. She put her elbows on the table and raised her hands, clasping them under her chin.

  “But I do worry, Linda. If you’re not with Hannah, and I can’t reach her, you are defying a court order. Judge Norris didn’t say to take Hannah home and lock her in. He said that you were supposed to supervise her.”