The Witnesses

by Robert Whitlow

  He watched Lenny put a shrimp on his hook and let the weight on the line take it straight to the bottom.

  “I really liked the young woman Parker was seeing,” Frank said, shaking his head.

  “The one you took to Oriental on the boat?”

  “Yeah. She goes to the church I’ve been attending. But I’m afraid Parker has messed it up.”

  “How?”

  “He accepted a job working for her father, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Hmm,” Lenny replied. “Sounds like maybe he should have listened to her.”

  “I agree.”

  They fished in silence for a few minutes.

  “Tell me more about the girl,” Lenny asked.

  Frank tried to be objective, but it was impossible not to praise Layla.

  “Any young woman who’s made that sort of impression on you is someone I’d like to meet. Parker would be an idiot not to make things right with her. Do you think they would be willing to come over to the house for a peacemaking dinner? Mattie would love to check her out.”

  “If Mattie fixes seafood stew, I’ll make them come,” Frank replied and then paused. “Only in my heart I know I can’t.”

  One of Frank’s lines twitched, and he picked up the rod. A few minutes later he added a seventeen-inch flounder to the live well.

  “Sorry about my fish being so much bigger than yours,” he said to Lenny.

  “Liar,” Lenny replied with a smile.

  Frank replaced the bait on his hook and lowered it over the side. “Would you and Mattie be willing to pray for Parker and Layla?” he asked. “I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Yes,” Lenny said, “it would be an honor.”

  Parker sent a long text message to Creston and a few of his other friends. As soon as Creston had a break between classes, he replied, demanding more information.

  “Congrats. This is better than winning your fantasy football league,” Creston wrote.

  Close to noon, Parker went downstairs to check out the kitchen, which had been downsized from its original dimensions but was furnished with top-of-the-line equipment. Included were two different kinds of coffeemakers, a device Parker had never heard of that brewed hot tea, and a warmer to assist caterers who brought in hors d’oeuvres for firm-sponsored events. The door chime sounded. He rapidly walked through the reception area to the front door and opened it. He was shocked to see Layla standing on the front step.

  “Come in,” he managed.

  “What’s that beeping noise?” she asked.

  “Oh, the alarm system,” Parker replied quickly. “And I have thirty seconds to deactivate it.”

  Parker hurried over to a former coat closet beneath the stairway and opened the door.

  “I wrote the code on a slip of paper,” he said, rummaging in the left-front pocket of his pants. “I need to enter it in my phone.”

  He withdrew his hand without a slip of paper. He tried the other pockets of his pants and shirt and came up empty.

  “I don’t want you to feel like we’re in a movie in which the hero has to disarm a bomb and the red numbers on the detonating device are ticking down to zero,” he said.

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” Layla responded.

  “Here it is!” Parker exclaimed as he extracted a piece of paper from his wallet. He quickly hit several buttons on the control panel. The beeping stopped.

  “We didn’t blow up,” Layla said.

  “Yeah, and I’d hate for the police to be our first visitors. After you, of course,” Parker added quickly.

  “Actually, I’m here on business,” Layla said.

  “Business?”

  “Yes, my father called this morning and hired me to take photos for an open house he’s going to host in a few weeks. He asked me to check it out in advance.”

  “Would you like a tour?” Parker asked, still unsure how to act.

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  They went into the kitchen. Layla looked around.

  “That’s the same hot tea machine my father has at his beach house on St. John’s.”

  “Your father has a house in the Virgin Islands?”

  “Yes, he has to spend his money on something. I went once but won’t be going again.”

  Parker didn’t know enough about the house to give a proper tour and simply followed Layla around as she checked it out. She stood in the doorway of his office for several seconds taking everything in but didn’t comment. Parker was more tongue-tied than he’d been in years. They ended up at the front door.

  “Would you like to grab lunch?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s changed between me and you,” she replied. “And agreeing to do the photo shoot for my father is all about dying to self.”

  Parker had no idea what she meant. “Thanks for coming by,” he offered lamely.

  He reluctantly watched Layla walk down the steps. Passing by on the street was a large new white BMW. Parker saw an older man wearing sunglasses and sitting in the passenger seat glance at him and then quickly look away.

  The man looked a lot like Conrad Mueller.

  CHAPTER 36

  It was early afternoon when Frank and Lenny returned to the dock. They’d each caught their six-fish limit of flounder.

  “I’m going to invite my favorite relatives over this evening for a fish fry,” Lenny said as he opened the live well and prepared to scoop out some fish with a small net. “What are you going to do with this haul? It would be a shame to freeze them.”

  Frank was standing over Lenny, who had knelt down beside the live well.

  “First, I’m going to make sure you only take the fish you caught.”

  Lenny glanced up. The holding tank for the fish was crowded with the dark gray fish.

  “How do you plan on doing that?” he asked. “Did you tag and name them when we caught them?”

  “Trust me,” Frank replied.

  Lenny shook his head. There were two five-gallon buckets beside the live well. He captured a fish in the net and held it up.

  “Yours or mine?” he asked.

  “Yours,” Frank answered.

  Lenny dropped the fish in his bucket. They repeated the process until the fish were evenly divided.

  “Satisfied?” Frank asked.

  “Sure, although the biggest one was yours.”

  “That’s what we thought at the time, but you came over the top near the end.”

  They finished straightening up the boat and got in Lenny’s truck.

  “I like your idea,” Frank said. “I think I’ll see if Parker wants to invite a bunch of his friends over this evening for a fish fry. Most of them would drop everything to dig into fresh flounder. And it will give me a chance to pull Parker aside and talk some sense into him about Layla.”

  As soon as he got home, Frank put the flounder on ice in a cooler beside the cleaning sink and then washed his hands and called Parker.

  Parker was sitting in the kitchen at the new law firm when he received the call. Tom Blocker had stopped on his way to Wilmington following a deposition in Raleigh. Apparently unannounced visits were part of the trial lawyer’s standard practice.

  “It’s my grandfather,” Parker said, covering the phone’s microphone with his hand. “I’ll call him back later.”

  “No, take it,” Blocker replied, leaning back in the chair. “He’s important. I can wait.”

  Parker didn’t want to have a private conversation with his grandfather in front of his new boss, but that didn’t appear to be an option.

  “Hey, Opa,” he said, answering. “I’m sitting here with Mr. Blocker—”

  “Tom,” Blocker interrupted him. “And I like that you call him Opa.”

  “I mean Tom,” Parker continued. “We’re sitting in the kitchen of the new firm in the restored house on Pollock Street.”

  As he listened to the purpose of his grandfather’s call, Parker tried to figure out how to respond.

  “Can I ge
t back to you on that?” he asked. “I’m not sure everybody can get together on such short notice.”

  “Is there a chance for me to meet him?” Blocker interjected. “I can delay my return to Wilmington until later in the evening. He might be able to help me with something too.”

  Parker had the phone to his ear but didn’t hear his grandfather’s response to his previous statement. He told his grandfather about Blocker’s suggestion.

  “And I know you’ve wanted to meet him as well,” Parker continued. “Maybe we should limit it to the three of us.”

  When Parker heard his grandfather’s next suggestion, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut and had tried to send multiple text messages to his buddies. He put his thumb over the speaker again so his grandfather couldn’t hear him.

  “He wants to invite Layla.”

  “How does he know Layla?” Blocker asked in surprise.

  “They met independently of me at church.”

  “Oh yeah, I knew she was dabbling with that,” Blocker said. He hesitated for a moment before adding, “If he wants to include her, I won’t object.”

  “I’d rather keep it to the three of us,” Parker replied to his grandfather. “We’ll be there about six thirty.”

  Frank wasn’t surprised that Parker didn’t want to include Layla. Whatever the wounds between them, they were still fresh.

  He carefully cleaned and filleted three flounder. Two of the large fish could provide more than enough fillets for a generous fish fry, but he decided to increase the menu by adding four small pieces from a third fish topped with a crabmeat stuffing. His hands were deep into the stuffing as he mixed the meat and seasoning together when there was a knock on his door. He wasn’t expecting anyone to arrive for another hour. Quickly rinsing his hands, he went into the living room to find out who it was. It was Layla.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I felt bad about running off on Sunday and wanted to talk to you,” she replied. “But it looks like a bad time if you’re fixing supper?”

  “Not really. Your father and Parker are coming over in forty-five minutes to eat with me. I’d love for you to stay—”

  “No, I can’t.” Layla turned to leave.

  “And I understand why. Parker told me.”

  Layla hesitated. “Did he seem sorry about it?”

  “Not as much as he should have, but I’m hoping he’ll come around.”

  “You don’t think he should go to work for my father either?” Layla asked in a hopeful voice.

  “I honestly can’t say,” Frank replied. “All along I believed I needed to meet your father before I could offer an opinion. Now it may be too late for my opinion to matter.”

  “They’re both hardheaded,” Layla answered. “Maybe they deserve each other.”

  “There are plenty of hardheaded people in both our families.”

  Layla gave him a slight smile. “Which is good if you’re right about what you believe,” she said.

  “I agree.” Frank motioned to the kitchen. “Will you stay a few minutes and help me fix the asparagus?”

  Layla checked her watch. “Okay, but I want to be out of here before they arrive. I don’t want to be in the same room with both of them.”

  Frank led the way to the kitchen. “I thought we would have grilled asparagus tips with the fish,” he said. “I know it’s not a southern staple, but I bought them the other day not knowing I could use them tonight. Here’s the recipe for the sauce. Take a look at it and tell me what you think.”

  Frank resumed his work on the crabmeat stuffing while Layla read about the sauce.

  “My father will like this,” she said when she finished. “Asparagus is his favorite vegetable. Make sure he knows the sauce has German roots. That will ramp it up even more in his eyes.”

  Frank told Layla where to find the ingredients for the sauce. It felt natural to have her in the kitchen helping him.

  “What about hush puppies?” he asked her. “Does your father like them?”

  “Not really.”

  “Parker does. When he was a little boy, he could make an entire meal out of a bowl of hush puppies.”

  Frank put the crab-topped flounder on a large plate in the refrigerator to stay cool. “I’ll broil the flounder after they get here,” he said.

  “Opa,” Layla said, putting down the wooden spoon she was using to stir the sauce.

  Before Layla completed her thought, there was another loud knock at the door.

  “Oh no,” she said. “What am I going to do?”

  “Stay here,” Frank replied.

  He left the kitchen, went to the front door, and opened it.

  “Who’s your company?” Lenny asked.

  Frank glanced over his shoulder. Layla had obeyed his request and stayed in the kitchen.

  “Layla Donovan,” Frank replied.

  “The girl you picked out for Parker?”

  “Keep it down,” Frank whispered, raising his index finger to his lips. “What do you want?”

  “Oh, I was returning the set of putty knives you loaned me for the bathroom remodeling job.”

  Lenny handed Frank a small box with the knives neatly organized.

  “And I cleaned ’em up,” Lenny continued, trying to look around Frank’s shoulder. “I know how you like everything better than new.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Can I come in and meet her?” Lenny asked. “If I don’t, Mattie will give me a hard time.”

  “Suit yourself,” Frank sighed and stepped to the side.

  He led Lenny into the kitchen and introduced him to Layla. Lenny’s eyes opened wider at the sight of the blond photographer.

  “Frank is crazy about you,” Lenny said.

  “Lenny!” Frank exclaimed.

  Layla laughed and spoke to Frank in German.

  “Yeah, that’s part of it,” Lenny said. “You remind him of what was good about where he came from.”

  Layla turned to Frank. “Is that true?” she asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t know how Lenny knew since I’ve never mentioned it to him.”

  “Frank and I have been buddies for so long that we think the same thing without even telling each other.”

  Frank shook his head. “We’re not that close.”

  “Yes, we are,” Lenny said to Layla. “Nice meeting you. I told Frank the other day that you have an open invitation to a fish stew dinner with my wife and me.”

  “Thanks,” Layla replied.

  Lenny turned to leave but stopped. “Oh, what did you say in German a minute ago to Frank?”

  Layla looked at Frank, who spoke. “She told me that you looked like a very nice man and wanted to know if you liked to fish as much as I did.”

  “You didn’t answer her question, so I will,” Lenny said as he faced Layla. “Thank you and yes.”

  After Lenny left, Frank caught Layla smiling several times out of the corner of his eye. She turned down the heat beneath the sauce for the asparagus.

  “I’d better go,” she said. “The next knock on the door will surely be my father and Parker.”

  “I can’t talk you into staying?”

  “No, but I’d love to sample the fish stew Lenny’s wife makes sometime soon.”

  “I can make that happen.”

  Frank escorted Layla to the door. She stepped outside and then turned around and gave him a quick hug.

  Parker and Tom Blocker rode together in the trial lawyer’s Mercedes. When they were still a few miles from Frank’s house, Parker noticed a familiar car passing by, going in the direction of town.

  “Was that Layla’s car?” he asked Blocker.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I’ve tried to get her to trade that piece of junk for something better.”

  Parker realized his own car probably fell in the same category as Layla’s vehicle. He was about to tell Blocker to turn onto the sandy unpaved road that led to his grandfather’s bungalow, but the lawyer had already
flipped on his blinker.

  “How did you know you needed to turn here?”

  “Research.”

  Parker glanced sideways, but Blocker’s face revealed nothing else. He pulled into the driveway for Frank’s house without any prompting from Parker. They parked beneath the large live oak tree and got out.

  Instead of barging in, Parker knocked on the door. His grandfather appeared wearing a nice but rumpled shirt and khaki pants. The older man was way overdressed for a fish fry.

  “Opa, this is Tom Blocker. He’s Layla’s father and my new boss.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “Come in,” Frank said.

  They entered the living room.

  “Why don’t you stay in here while I finish up in the kitchen?” Frank suggested.

  Parker wanted to join his grandfather in the kitchen and help, but he and Blocker sat down in the living room. A few moments later Frank stuck his head through the opening into the kitchen.

  “We’re having asparagus and hush puppies, so both of you should be happy,” he said.

  “You like asparagus?” Parker asked Blocker.

  “My favorite vegetable.”

  “How would my grandfather know that?”

  “You tell me.”

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Parker shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Socializing with Tom Blocker was not going to be relaxing.

  “I left something in the car,” Blocker said, getting up from the sofa. “I was going to bring it in later, but I’ll get it now.”

  After the door closed, Parker jumped up and went to the kitchen. His grandfather was taking a thin fillet of flounder from the fryer and putting it on a paper towel to drain.

  “He went to get something from the car,” Parker said rapidly. “When can we eat? I’m dying out here sitting in silence.”

  “He’s toying with you, waiting for you to say something stupid,” Frank replied.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he always tries to establish himself as the most powerful person in any relationship.”

  “You could tell that by shaking his hand?”

  Frank took another piece of fish from the fryer. “And a lot more.”

  They heard the door open as Blocker reentered the house. Parker left the kitchen. Blocker placed a folder on the sofa where he’d been sitting.