Witness to Death

by Dave White

  His shoulder throbbed and he had trouble shrugging out of the jacket. It was hot in the room and he desperately wanted to take it off and lie down, let his body, sweaty from the stress filled drive, breathe.

  Michelle pierced him with a look. “You need to tell me what’s going on,” she said.

  John sat on the bed and let his muscles unwind. He closed his eyes. His heartbeat was finally slowing. He couldn’t feel his pulse throb in his wrist or thumb anymore.

  “I already told you.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  She picked the Bible up from the nightstand and threw it at him. It bounced off his thigh and thudded to the floor, sliding under the desk.

  “I am out with friends and I look up at the news and see your face. I show up at the police station and it’s on fire. What is going on?”

  John fell backwards on the bed. His shoulder hurt.

  “I followed Frank.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought he was cheating on you. I followed him to Jersey City, when he started tailing these guys wearing trench coats. All of a sudden everybody started shooting. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  Staring at the ceiling, he waited for a response. Michelle didn’t say anything.

  “The next thing I know, he killed them all. I watched him strangle one on the LightRail. With his bare hands, just cut the life from him.” He paused, the image of Frank on the train dancing just behind his eyes. “And then I was running. I’m still running.”

  Michelle put her hands over her face.

  “There’s got to be more to it than that. You’re supposed to have the answers.”

  John crossed his arms.

  “I don’t,” he said.

  Michelle got up, stood over him. Her face was contorted, and John couldn’t tell if it was rage or sadness.

  “You never did! That was the problem, John. You always knew what was wrong, but you never had any solutions.”

  “What are you talking about?” He sat back up, his muscles straining against the tension and the exhaustion.

  “Now. Then. When we were together. All you did was worry.”

  “I don’t know if—”

  “You never know!”

  She turned and walked to the desk and hit it. The wooden thunk as her hand smacked it reminded John of the sound of the trenchcoat’s head hitting the train floor.

  “You were always worried about things, but you never knew what to do. And you let it get to you. It was all you talked about. How were you going to pay rent that month? Was your observation okay? How could you improve your teaching? You never knew! And you always came to me. I tried to help. Especially with the water thing. I tried, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  “It isn’t important right now. We can talk about this later,” he said. “What about everything else?”

  “I was wrong,” she said, her eyes wet. “I can’t talk about anything else. It makes my throat burn. I can barely feel my legs right now.”

  He stood up and walked over to her. His chest was on fire, the heat spreading through the rest of his body. First he reached out to touch her shoulder, then he pulled his hand back.

  “Frank always knows what to do. He always has a plan. He never worries. He’s not you!” she shouted. “He’s not anybody. But a goddamn liar.”

  “I got us out today, didn’t I?”

  Michelle turned to him.

  “You did.”

  Her face was flushed, red in the cheeks.

  “If we didn’t go out the fire escape, we’d be in jail right now. Sitting ducks for whoever is following me,” John said.

  “I know. That’s why I’m mad.”

  John stepped back. “What do you mean?”

  “Where was this John two years ago? What happened? You have that quality in you now. Where was it then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Michelle shook her head. “I need a nap. I’m exhausted. I was up all night. I’m finally starting to unwind. I can’t keep my eyes open.”

  She lay on the bed and yawned. Anytime things got tough she wanted to sleep.

  John said, “But—”

  “Please, John, I can’t take all of this right now.”

  John shrugged. “I’m going to take a shower then.”

  Michelle didn’t say anything, instead rolled on to her side, her back to him.

  ****

  John stepped into the shower, his body tensing, as it always did. The water was warm at first, running over his wound, setting it on fire. Then the water went cold. He twisted one of the knobs, tried to get it warm, but nothing. It felt like it was getting colder. Like standing in the snow outside. He coughed and stepped out.

  Towel around his waist, he stood over the bed and watched Michelle. She slept differently than Ashley, different from anyone else. Her body never seemed relaxed. Her jawline was tense as she gnashed her teeth together. All her muscles were flexed. Every morning when she walked into school, it looked like she hadn’t slept at all. Now he remembered why.

  He pulled on his pants and shirt and stared some more.

  As if sensing his presence, Michelle rolled over, and looked at him through squinted eyes.

  “You’re shivering,” she mumbled.

  “No hot water,” he said, balling his hands into fists.

  “Get under the covers with me,” she said.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  She smelled like faded perfume and wet polyester. Her dark hair spilled across the white pillow. She lay on her right side, and John did the same, leaning on his good shoulder. There was less than an inch between his chest and her back. He reached out and touched her elbow.

  Michelle shifted and lifted her arm, putting John’s under hers. Then she shifted backwards, pressing against him. He couldn’t see her face, and he wondered if she’d closed her eyes again. He felt her backside, warm and soft against his thigh. He pulled her closer, and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. She was out.

  She dropped her hand over his wrist, holding it. He closed his eyes and felt his back loosen up.

  Michelle grunted, exhaling slowly. Then she said, “Frank.”

  Callahan didn’t have much to go on. No Omar, no clue to where he was. And no plan to find him.

  It took him two hours to get back to his house now that the ice had turned to snow. His neighbors were out shoveling when he got out of the car.

  “You see anybody come by here this morning?” he asked Eleanore, the older woman pushing one of those plastic supermarket snow shovels in six inch segments, lifting small layers of snow from the sidewalk to the lawn.

  She shook her head and mumbled something. She’d always given him trouble. The front lawn wasn’t raked. The grass was too high, and that was against a city ordinance. She even knew the ordinance number.

  And what was Callahan going to tell her? I’m sorry, I was busy defusing a dirty bomb in Time’s Square. I’ll cut it right now. Usually he just waved her off and went inside. But today he didn’t. He could see something along the side of his house. Footprints in the snow.

  “Eleanore,” he said. “Have you been in my backyard?”

  She stopped shoveling, and fixed the thick fur hat she wore so the flaps covered both her ears. It looked like she’d placed a dead squirrel on her head.

  “You know, normal neighbors would offer to help their elderly neighbors shovel.”

  “I wasn’t home, Eleanore.” He walked along the wall of his house, saw the footprints turn into the backyard and disappear under the kitchen window. The prints had filled halfway with new snow. It’d been a while since they’d been made.

  “Did you go back here?” he yelled at Eleanore.

  “Why would I go into the backyard? Here I am busting my rear end trying to shovel my car out and get back inside. The Devils are on today and I really want to watch them. It’s taken me the best part of an hour to do this much. I did not go into your yard. Now get a
shovel and help me.”

  Getting closer to the kitchen’s sliding glass door, he saw it was still open an inch, as if it’d been knocked off its track. Someone had broken in. Now the question: Was that person still inside? There were no double footsteps out. Either the person walked backwards, retracing the steps, or was inside.

  He should call Candy and ask her to check, but he was sure his neighbor was listening. He didn’t want the whole world to know his career choice.

  He walked back to the front. Eleanore stood there watching him.

  “Where’s your shovel?”

  Callahan pushed his finger to his lips and stepped onto his porch.

  “Don’t tell me to be quiet. All I want is some decency in this neighborhood. Is that too much to ask? My God, they let anyone move in here.”

  She threw her shovel to the ground and stalked out of view around the side of her house.

  Inside Callahan’s house it was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary in the living room. The faint smell of a frozen pizza from last night, which seemed a year away. Callahan slipped off his shoes and crept to the kitchen. Nothing was out of place. Even the dishes from the last three days were stacked the same way in the sink.

  He opened the cabinet beneath the sink, took out his PDA, and snapped it into the small plastic holster that held it. He kept the phone there so Michelle wouldn’t find it when she came by.

  If someone’d broken in here, he’d done a good job not moving anything.

  Turning toward the stairway, Callahan relaxed his muscles. Never go into a fight tense. If he was loose, he could react better, move faster.

  Callahan took the first step, and the stair creaked. Staring at the top floor, he waited for someone to pop out and attack. He once had that happen when he was with the CIA. He was following a suspect who had stolen military base plans. They were running through an old warehouse in Tibet, and the CIA version of Candy was using old satellite feeds to track them, before she was able to see inside. The warehouse had been standing for a while. Plans of the interior of the warehouse weren’t available online. When Callahan went in, the satellite feed kicked out, and Candy couldn’t help him. Callahan reached the third floor, and the suspect popped out, trying to stab him. Callahan still had the scar.

  Now, he waited, not moving, only listening for the sound of footsteps on carpet.

  Nothing.

  He reached the second floor without a sound. His bedroom first. Nothing had been moved there. The bathroom was clear as well.

  The office was a different story. Papers were tossed everywhere. His filing cabinets were pulled open, desk drawers flipped. The computer chair was turned on its side.

  Callahan started picking up the papers and stacking them together. Nothing important, nothing top secret. What could the intruder be looking for?

  After he organized some of his papers, he booted up the computer. No files had been erased. If they’d been copied, it didn’t matter. Nothing other than his financial files and some pictures were saved to the computer. Everything important was kept on memory sticks, which were hidden.

  And that’s when he realized the picture was gone.

  It was a picture of Michelle and him up in Salem, Mass the previous Halloween. They’d gone up for a weekend together. They had another tourist take the picture in a cemetery in front of the grave of one of Michelle’s favorite writers. He couldn’t remember who. But he liked the picture, Michelle looking somber as if she’d lost her first pet. Callahan had mugged for the camera, sticking his tongue out. Michelle was pissed he did that and wanted to delete the photo. He wouldn’t let her. And for Christmas, he’d gotten the picture framed. One for him, one for her.

  He looked under the desk. Not there. Behind the door? No. In between the desk and the filing cabinet?

  The frame was there, a thick black frame he’d found in the mall. The picture was untouched.

  But the memory stick he’d hidden in the frame was gone. The one with all the information from his investigation.

  All the data about Robert Sandler and his business.

  “I have to call my father,” Michelle said for the seventh time that hour.

  John didn’t answer. He hadn’t the previous six times either. He stared at the TV which flickered images of meterologists in winter jackets squinting against the storm. The snow had lightened, but the newscasters said it would get worse.

  Michelle stared at her cell phone. A few times during the past hour she’d opened the phone. She never dialed.

  “It’s bothering you too, isn’t it?” John finally said.

  “What is?”

  “Something is keeping you from calling your dad. I’ve been sitting here hoping you won’t call him.”

  “No. He’s been really good since all this started. Really willing to help. We should take him up on it.”

  “Ashley came to the jail. She got me out.” John aimed the remote and clicked off the TV. “She—” He dropped the remote on the bed. “She helped me get out. But I didn’t call her.”

  Neither of them spoke. It reminded Michelle of the aftermath of the fights her parents had just before the divorce. They’d scream and yell and neither would apologize. And when they’d finished, no one would speak for the rest of the night, as if neither could find the words to fix the relationship, but didn’t want to say anything to damage it further.

  Her mother finally said the words that split them. Michelle wouldn’t make the same mistake. John was the one trying to screw everything up, anyway. Following Frank. It wasn’t her fault. She was stressed out, scared, she’d never dealt with anything like this before. She wasn’t thinking straight.

  “Ashley worked for your dad,” John said.

  Michelle smiled. “I know. I’m the one who introduced you to her, remember?”

  “I remember. How did she know I was in jail?”

  “It was on the news.”

  John nodded. Ashley had said that when she saw him. “But she mentioned that work had been bothering her.”

  But Michelle continued. “I—There was something weird going on in my dad’s house tonight. The maid wasn’t there, he said she had the week off. And he was getting drunk. I’ve seen him drink before—his breath always smelled when I was a kid—but he never got fall over drunk. Just took the edge off. The phone was ringing all night while I was there. But he never answered it.”

  “Ashley was just his secretary.”

  Michelle turned. John was up again, staring out the window, watching the weather. He seemed mesmerized by it. So much so, he wasn’t following her conversation. She wasn’t even sure if he was listening.

  “Yeah. She was,” Michelle said, just to be saying something.

  She stood up and walked over to him. She was about to wrap her arms around him. It seemed like a natural move. She caught herself and crossed her arms. John continued dissecting what he knew.

  “She blew up the police station. Why’d she do that for me? What was she up to?”

  “I don’t know, John. None of this makes sense.”

  John opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

  They stood there for a long time. The snow had nearly stopped, some flurries drifting to the ground.

  Michelle wondered what he was thinking. In the past, she’d been able to read his face. If something was bothering him, he’d pout. When he was excited, his smile was broad and his eyes glittered.

  When they were dating, she hated it, knowing that he might break at any moment in a stressful situation.

  But today there was nothing. Not since the car.

  “We shouldn’t call your dad,” he said.

  “He can help.”

  When he turned, he didn’t look at her. He walked to the other side of the room.

  “We’re sitting ducks here. If someone finds us, we have no way to defend ourselves.”

  “No one knows we’re out here,” she said. “You’re being paranoid.”

  He took off his shirt and peeled the b
andage off his shoulder. The skin around the wound was bright red and stained with dried blood. The bandage still had wet blood on it.

  “The woman who stabbed me found us at Ashley’s apartment. We didn’t tell anyone where we were going, but somehow she found us. It’s not safe here either.”