“You guys know I’ve got your back, right?” asked Skwarecki.
“Oh, like you had my sister’s when she got run over?” asked Pagan.
“Hey!” I said. “She did her best.”
“You could’ve been fucking killed, Maddie,” Pague continued. “And you don’t know it was random. None of us do. Isn’t that right, Detective?”
“How would anyone have known I was going to be at the cemetery that morning?” I asked. “Or even what I looked like?”
“And did you finish testifying today? Or do you have more to go?” asked Pagan.
Skwarecki didn’t answer that.
“You never traced that car, right?” I asked. “I thought someone gave you guys a partial plate number.”
“Wasn’t enough. Two letters.”
“They say what it looked like, the car?” I asked.
“Big thing,” she said. “American.”
“I figured that from the sound of the engine. And it sure as hell didn’t feel like a Datsun.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” said Skwarecki. “Pedestrian versus car? Jap-scrap’ll kill you just as dead.”
I shivered.
She shook her head. “Fucking bicycle will, it’s going fast enough.”
My bones remembered the gunning engine, the smack that punched me out of my shoes.
“What color?” asked Pagan.
Skwarecki looked at her, puzzled.
“The car. If someone got a partial plate number, they had to see what color it was, right? At least Maddie’d know what to look out for next time she’s stranded alone at a bus stop.”
“Guy said it was some kinda gold,” said Skwarecki. “With a white roof.”
That’s right. A flash of white, then pain and sky.
I hunched forward, bile climbing my throat.
Skwarecki touched my shoulder. “Yo, you okay? Gonna puke again?”
I bolted for the bathroom.
44
If getting run over is connected to this case, how’d they know you’d be back at Prospect the morning you got hit?” asked Pagan once I’d brushed my teeth and returned to the living room.
“Someone overheard us in the restaurant across the street from the courthouse,” I said. “There were these guys at the next table—”
“Bost talking about it all pissed off right after the grand jury,” said Skwarecki. “Fuck.”
“How’d they know you’d be in the restaurant, though?” asked Pagan.
“Only place to eat,” said Skwarecki. “Lunchtime, you kidding?
Everybody’s there: lawyers, cops, witnesses, jurors, any perp who’s made bail.”
“Did your perps make bail?” asked Pague.
“No,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean they don’t have friends on the outside,” said
Skwarecki. “Albert’s got some gang crap on his rap sheet. Witness intimidation’s practically the entire point of gangs.”
Pagan looked at me. “Like maybe those two guys at the cemetery the morning you got run over?”
“Jesus,” said Skwarecki. “You tried to convince me in the hospital, Madeline, and I blew you off. You think maybe those two were in the restaurant the day before?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “They still would’ve known it was me.”
“How?” asked Pagan.
“They took my picture.” I looked at Skwarecki. “After you and Bost left they started messing around with a Polaroid camera. I remember the flash going off, right in my eyes. They took my fucking picture.”
“You guys have lunch there again today?” asked Pagan.
“Like I told you,” said Skwarecki. “Only fucking ziti for twenty blocks.”
“But how would they know where I work?” I asked.
“The address was your work address on all your witness statements,” she said. “Anybody could’ve sat behind Bost today and seen it.”
“This is really getting creepy,” said Pagan.
“Creepy, but still weird,” I said.
“Weird how?” asked Skwarecki.
“Well, it’s not like anyone actually threatened me about testifying specifically, right?” I said. “I mean, the guys at the cemetery, the phone call tonight. If they’re trying to intimidate me as a witness, shouldn’t somebody have come right out and said so? Like ‘Go to court and you’ll sleep with the fishes’ or some shit?”
“Maybe they thought they’d killed you the first time, with the car,” said Pagan. “And then when you showed up today, they realized they’d only winged you.”
“Even so. The guy on the phone tonight scared the crap out of me, but he didn’t tell me not to get back on the stand tomorrow.”
Maybe it was just a prank call after all.
“They don’t have to come right out and say it,” said Skwarecki. “Shit like this? They figure you’ll know.”
“But I didn’t know. Even you didn’t, really,” I said.
Pagan crossed her arms. “It’s still fucking scary.”
“Look,” I said, “on the bright side? They know where I work, but they don’t know where I live.”
Skwarecki nodded. “Is your home number unlisted?”
“No,” I said.
“Is it in your name?”
“All our names,” said Pagan.
“Any of you ask Ma Bell not to publish the address?”
“Shit,” I said.
Skwarecki glanced at the security grate over our fire-escape window. “Not to mention someone just tagged your building. Paint was still wet, right?”
“What?” said Pagan.
“Fresh graffiti by the front entry,” said our friend the detective. “ There’s your overt threat.”
Pague went pale. “You got a gun, Skwarecki?”
“I’m a cop. Of course I’ve got a fucking gun.”
“ On you?”
Skwarecki peeled back her blazer, revealing the holstered pistol at her hip. Then she put her right foot up on the table and lifted her trouser cuff so we could see the smaller one strapped to her ankle. “Any more questions?”
“Yeah,” said my sister. “Want to sleep over?”
Not like any of us actually slept, really. Pague and I both went to bed a while after we’d made up the sofa for Skwarecki, but I’d moved from Dean’s-and-my bed to Sue’s an hour later, apprehensive in the dark.
Around midnight, Pague reached her foot across the space between the beds to poke me in the calf.
“You still awake?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Is it worth it, going through all this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just can’t believe I’m putting you through it.”
“Look, if you think it’s important I’ve got your back.”
“Thank you.”
“You should probably be glad Dean’s out of town, though. He’d freak.”
“Hey!” said Skwarecki out in the living room. “Simmer down in there or I’m gonna have to separate you.”
Before I could answer, the phone rang.
I threw off the blankets and climbed out of bed.
“You think it’s the guy?” whispered Pague. “Calling here?”
“My luck, I bet it’s Astrid.”
I answered it in the dark kitchen, and shut the door behind me.
“Bunny?”
“Hey there,” I said softly. “How’s Texas?”
“Not bad,” he said. “One of the sales reps took me out to dinner at his favorite restaurant tonight.”
“How was it?”
“Chicken-fried steak so big sumbitch hung off both sides of the plate.”
“We’ll have plenty of Szechuan waiting soon as you’re home.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s going to be a little longer than I thought.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Actually, everything’s great. Christoph just promoted me to sales—raise and a commission.”
I could hear th
e pride and relief in his voice, and I was incredibly happy for him after the rocky plains of the last year and a half.
Hardly the right moment to come clean about the armed cop camped on our sofa. Pagan was right; he’d totally lose his shit.
“Dean, that is awesome. Congratulations. And it makes me like Christoph a whole lot better, that he knows what a good thing he has in you.”
“Well, I have to go to Canada as soon as I’m done here. Quebec, to a paper mill. My first sales call.”
“Will you be back in time for Mom’s nuptial event?” I asked.
“I’ve got five more days here, then La Tuque. I’ll do my best.”
“I could use the moral support, you know?”
“I just want to see you,” he said.
“Me too you. I’m really glad things are going so well, but it still sucks to have you on the road.”
And I’m scared.
“How’s the cast?”
“Itchy.”
“When does it come off this time?”
“Another couple of weeks,” I said.
“I can’t wait to see your naked arm again.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay? You sound kind of sad.”
“Just tired,” I said.
“I love you, Bunny.”
“Me too you,” I said, and we hung up.
I walked back to the bedroom.
A car drove by in the street below, schussing through the slush.
“You didn’t tell him,” said Pagan from across the darkened room.
“This kind of news? I figured I’d better do it in person.”
If I’d told him all the details of my day, he would’ve come running home on the first prop-jet out of Amarillo. Just when things were starting to look up for him.
I didn’t care about the paycheck, just his pride. He had something to excel at now—as he so very much deserved.
God knows holding back a few details from my intrepid spouse to protect that wouldn’t be the hardest thing I’d ever done.
And then I jumped back out of bed and ran to the bathroom again.
Dry heaves, since I hadn’t touched a bite of dinner.
“You okay?” Pagan stood in the bathroom’s street-lit doorway.
“I’m fucking terrified.”
“It’s one more day. Skwarecki takes you to court, then you’re done, right?”
“I guess,” I said.
“You know what?”
“What?”
“It is worth it. What you’re doing.”
“That means a lot.”
“Nobody stood up for that kid when he was alive. Somebody has to now.”
“I know.”
“Don’t back down.”
“I won’t. Thank you.”
“Just don’t get us all fucking killed, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“That’s all we can do. Any of us.”
“Yeah.”
“You done puking?”
“Let’s hope.”
“So brush your teeth. Come back to bed.”
45
I still felt like dog shit when I woke up the next morning, so queasy with nerves I didn’t even have coffee.
“You gotta eat something. Settle your stomach,” said Skwarecki.
“I’m not hungry,” I said. “Feels like I’d just puke if I tried food.”
“We could stop at a deli on the way, get you a bagel.”
I grabbed the Nutella out of the cupboard and ate three big spoonfuls. “Happy now?”
She shrugged. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” I said, surprised.
In fact I was kind of hungry now. Enough to scrape the jar empty with my spoon.
Skwarecki looked at her watch.
“Let’s hit it,” she said. “When you’re up first they always start on time.”
Skwarecki stayed with me right up to the door of the witness room back at the courthouse.
“You gonna be okay?” she asked.
“I guess.”
“Meet you right back here at lunch, okay? By that point you’re probably done with testifying.”
“What’ve you got planned for the morning?” I asked.
“Ah, the usual—couple hands of canasta, maybe run a few license plates. Then maybe drive around, see if I can find any gold Lincolns.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For all of this.”
“Protect and serve, right?”
“Above and beyond. Staying over, making me eat something this morning?”
“Hey,” she said. “Who’s your buddy, who’s your pal?”
As soon as I sat back down in the box, I saw Kyle in the back row of the gallery right next to Cate.
The swearing-in from yesterday still counted, I guess, because Bost got right into the questions from where she’d left off.
I was more nervous, though. I kept looking at the sea of faces behind the two lawyers’ tables, trying to see if anyone looked like they had an ax to grind. Literally.
We were quickly in new territory, though, Bost and I. Not just rehashing what I’d already told the grand jury. I had to give up playing Spot the Boogeyman so I could concentrate on her questions.
Bost had led me up through when she asked us to find the second sneaker.
“So you and Detective Skwarecki agreed to return to the cemetery that same afternoon?” she asked.
“We discussed it that afternoon, but we planned to meet each other at Prospect the following morning.”
“And did you do so?”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Detective Skwarecki was late,” I said, wondering if she’d discussed last night yet with Bost.
“Did you enter the cemetery grounds before she arrived at any time?” asked Bost.
“I did not,” I said. “I’d been told to wait for the detective—and told specifically not to undertake any sort of search without her being there.”
“Were you still there at the front gates when she arrived?”
“No. I’d moved to the corner of the larger street.”
“What happened then?”
“I got hit by a car. Right before she arrived, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“The car knocked me unconscious.”
“Did you return to Prospect Cemetery that day, Ms. Dare?”
“I had a broken arm, a black eye, and a bunch of stitches in my scalp. I don’t even remember most of the ride home from the hospital.”
“Your arm hasn’t healed yet?” she asked.
“They rebroke it twice,” I said. “I’m really hoping the third time’s the charm.”
A couple of people laughed at that.
“I can imagine,” said Bost, smiling at me. “And have you returned to Prospect Cemetery since that morning?”
“I have not,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be much use clearing brush.”
“Thank you, Ms. Dare.”
Bost looked at the judge. “I have no further questions for the witness at this time, Your Honor.”
At the defense table Marty Hetzler stood up and shot his cuffs.
46
Angela Underhill crossed her arms above her massive belly as her attorney slipped around behind her.
He paused to button up his blazer before stepping forward toward me.
“Good morning, Ms. Dare.”
“Good morning, Mr. Hetzler.”
He gave me a little nod of approval for knowing who he was.
“I only have a few questions for you today,” he said. “I’m sure we’d all like to break for lunch as quickly as possible.”
He moved a couple of steps closer, which was a good thing as I was then no longer blinded by the gloss of his shoes. These were black, buffed to such an acme of luster that they might have been patent leather, or smeared with shellac.
“My first question pertains to your professional background, all righ
t?”
“Certainly,” I said.
“What is it that you do for a living?”
“I work for a book catalog at the moment.”
“What other kinds of job experience do you have?” he asked.
“I’ve worked as a teacher at a boarding school for disturbed kids, and as a journalist for a couple of small newspapers,” I said.
“So you have no training or professional experience in pathology or law enforcement?”
“I do not.”
“Ms. Dare, I’m just asking about this to remind our jurors that your speculation yesterday about the condition of the remains you discovered was exactly that, speculation—”
“As I said at the time, Mr. Hetzler, I have no professional background or expertise in the fields of forensic science and criminal
justice. I just wanted to say that the bushes in which I discovered the child’s remains were thick and extremely low to the ground.”
“I think we all understand that, thank you.”
“You’re most welcome,” I said.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve stumbled onto a crime scene, though, is it, Ms. Dare?”
“Unfortunately, it is not.”
He nodded, smiling at me and then at the jury. “In fact, over the last couple of years, you’ve been involved with two separate murder investigations, haven’t you?”
“Not by choice,” I said.
“Really?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Hetzler looked at the jury. “It just seems to me that someone who stumbles across three suspicious deaths in as many years might be something of an aficionado.”
His body count was low, but why quibble?
He turned back to me. “So what are you, Ms. Dare, some sort of murder groupie?”
“No. And I’m appalled by the highly inappropriate flippancy of that characterization.”
“Just a habitual witness, then?”
“I worked as a journalist, Mr. Hetzler. As such, I was given information about an unsolved double homicide—which ultimately led to the murderer’s apprehension.”
Hetzler raised a hand to his flashy tie. “But you then turned up even more crime, at a boarding school?”
“Objection—relevance?” Bost stood up. “Your Honor, could you please remind Mr. Hetzler to stick with the matter at hand? I see no point in this line of questioning.”
Invisible Boy Page 24
