EYEWITNESS

by Marc Timms

  EYEWITNESS

  By

  Marc Timms

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  Copyright Notice

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Mark Timms – All rights reserved

  All rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark.

  Table of Contents

  Books By Marc Timms

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About The Author

  Books By Marc Timms

  Books by Marc Timms

  SHOCK SERIES

  SHOCK

  SHOCK – The Truth

  SHOCK – The Chase

  SHOCK – The Chaos

  SHOCK – The Capture

  FORGOTTEN SERIES

  FORGOTTEN – The Return

  FORGOTTEN – THE Quest

  FORGOTTEN – The Revelations

  FORGOTTEN – The Reveal

  FORGOTTEN – The Unveil

  Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Johanna Cole spat the leaf out of her mouth and looked around. She couldn't remember where she was or how she'd gotten here. Johanna sat up, slowly and carefully, while she looked around. The setting was familiar, but her brain was not focused on where she was. Her mind was filled with several images, each more disturbing than the last.

  She took a deep breath and tried to focus her mind, but the images came fast and furious—and seemingly in no order. What had happened to her?

  She recalled running last night, feeling like her lungs would explode, finally stopping when she could run no more. However, she could not recall why she was fleeing or what she had seen. The thought made her pause. She had witnessed something—that much seemed to be clear—but she wasn't sure what it had been.

  She remained seated in place and shifted slightly to rest against a tree. She looked at her watch. It was 7:30 in the morning by her Fitbit; she tried to recall her movements. She tapped the step tracker and went back through the hours. She'd been moving and active, according to the device, at 1:00 a.m. this morning but had stopped before 2:00. So whatever she'd seen had been in the early hours of today.

  The biggest question was, why had she been in the woods at that time of night? She could take care of herself, but even so, being in the dark woods at that time was not a smart move.

  Johanna stood up and looked around again. The first thing she needed to do was leave the woods. She recognized that this was Winston Woods, but the reason for her presence here was still unclear. Why had she come here?

  Without a good idea of where she was, Johanna started to look for a path or a marker that would take her back to the road or a parking lot. Her car must be here; she certainly hadn't walked here.

  Off in the distance, she saw a sign and headed towards it. Of course, a few hills and muddy puddles stood between her and the sign . She trekked there slowly, watching for other people. Johanna felt anxious as she approached the directions on the sign. The instructions would take her to Center City and people, which made her uncomfortable.

  She followed the directive to the nearest parking lot. As she came out of the trees and into a clearing, she could see her car and headed to it.

  However, as she got closer, Johanna started to slow her pace and began to feel sick.

  The car next to hers was a Kia Soul with the backseats folded down.

  The memories of last night came flooding back, in order, and in vivid detail.

  No wonder she'd run. She'd seen a murder last night.

  Chapter 2

  She threw up twice before she could pull out her phone and dial 911. She explained what had happened in as few words as possible, and the operator indicated that a patrol car would be out in a few minutes.

  She got into her car, locked the doors, and turned on the ignition. Everything worked fine. No one had messed with her car to prevent her from leaving, as if she would have actually returned to the scene of the crime.

  The police arrived in about five minutes. In that time, Johanna had brushed the leaves out of her hair and applied a little makeup. She didn't want to appear on the news looking like she'd slept in the forest.

  Johanna wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't the two lone police officers coming to the scene. She had expected at least a detective and the forensic teams. Instead, two young officers in uniform had arrived. Neither looked older than thirty, and she wondered if they'd dealt with a big case before. The police had likely sent these two because they deemed the call as unreliable. The others would have to come later after she'd convinced them that she was telling the truth. One officer had not even interacted with her. He'd inspected the car. Johanna watched to ensure in her own mind that he didn't touch anything that might be considered evidence later. Indeed, the two people in the car would have left fingerprints.

  She sat in the passenger seat of her car while the patrolman stood, towering over her. She felt as though she was receiving an interrogation—rather than the killer.

  "So let's go through this again," he said, making it sound like Johanna had not already told him three times what had happened.

  "I was here last night," Johanna said. "I came back to my car, and there was another car beside mine. It was parked so that anyone would have trouble sliding into the passenger side. I wasn't happy about that."

  "So what did you do?" the man asked.

  "I saw the car was moving a little, and of course, I assumed that something sexual was going on in there." Johanna had practiced what she was going to say. She didn't want to use her everyday vocabulary for the police.

  "What changed your mind?" the officer asked.

  "The woman. She pounded on the window. It seemed more like she was trying to get my attention than—you know. When I got past my embarrassment, I looked more closely, and the guy had her pinned down and had one hand across her neck."

  "Then what happened?" Johanna looked around, wondering what the other officer was doing, but he was nowhere to be seen. She thought it odd—perhaps they didn't believe her.

  "The last time she pounded on the window, it was softer than it had been before. Then I saw nothing else."

  "Nothing?"

  "Not for a short time. Then the killer turned and looked out the back window and saw me. He started to open the door, and I ran. I ran until I couldn't run anymore, and then I just stayed there all night."

  Johanna knew this would raise some eyebrows. She'd chosen to stay outdoors, alone and in the woods, rather than come back at some point. Johanna had assumed that the man would be looking for her. She'd w
itnessed a murder, and she could identify him—a clear path for him to the death penalty.

  "Can you show us where exactly you stayed all night?" the officer asked.

  Johanna shrugged. "I’m not sure. I wasn’t running in any particular type of pattern, so this morning it took me a while to find a sign to guide me back to the parking lot.”

  “Okay, so probably not,” he muttered, as he took some notes. Johanna hadn’t figured out the methodology of his writing. He seemed to choose the most bizarre things to scribble down.

  The other officer traipsed over. He stood on the other side of Johanna so that she now had to turn her head to look at one or the other. Her neck, which had protested the lack of a comfortable bed last night, reminded her of the adventure.

  “What did they have to say?” the officer taking notes asked.

  “The car is registered to a woman named Jessica Dunphy. I’ve got the address. We put in a call, but there was no answer.” The second officer had apparently been working the phones, Johanna surmised.

  “No signs of a struggle inside the car?”

  The second officer shook his head. “I mean, things are scattered around inside the car, but nothing looks like a struggle took place. Of course, that’s hard to say, the way some people keep their cars.” He looked inside Johanna’s car, and she was glad that she’d cleaned it out earlier in the week.

  The second officer turned his head toward Johanna and spoke directly to her for the first time. “Are you sure about what happened in the car?”

  “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t have run, staying outside all night, if I hadn’t been sure that I saw a killing.” She was feeling defensive now. These officers had gone over her story multiple times, and now they were questioning the most salient point of the story. She’d seen a woman strangled to death last night.

  “There’s no body in the car. There’s no body in the vicinity. I did a thorough search around, and I saw nothing. No drag marks to show that someone had been moved out of the car. No signs of anyone else either. No cigarettes, no wrappers, nothing.”

  The first officer, who had continued to take notes, looked up. “So that means that the killer—if there was one—had to go get another car, come back, load the body into the car, and then take her somewhere else to dump the body. This is pretty isolated. I can’t imagine what he was looking for if not to hide her from discovery.”

  Johanna put her face in her hands. “I can’t tell you why he did what he did. I’m just telling you what I saw last night. Have you checked the car owner’s house? Is anyone there?”

  The second officer shot her a look. “Ma’am, you shouldn’t be listening in on our conversations. This is police business.”

  His phone received a text, and he turned away from Johanna, as if she could read through its cover.

  “We’re going to need you to come with us,” he said, when he turned back around.

  “What? You don’t have a body or a crime yet, and you’re arresting me?” Johanna felt her skin flush, as she sat there. She wished that she’d never called 911 to report this matter. She had a feeling then—as now—that she would regret it.

  “We’re not arresting you. We need an identification.” He walked back to the patrol car without waiting for the others.

  The first officer closed his notebook, shoved it in a pocket, and offered Johanna a hand in getting up.

  She didn’t need it, but she felt that it had been proffered as something of a peace offering. They walked to the car in silence.

  Johanna had objected when they told her to get in the back. The rear seat was where the criminals sat, and she would be riding through town in the back, making everyone think that she’d committed a crime. The mere thought of it bothered her.

  “It’s all we’ve got,” the officer said. “We need you to come with us. We’ll drop you back here when you’re done.” He waved a hand to motion her inside. She paused and then climbed into the back of the car, feeling guilty as she did.

  Bars ran horizontally and vertically across the opening between the front seats and the rear. She slumped a little in the backseat because she wasn’t sure where they were going or who they would see on their way. The thought of being accused left her embarrassed.

  Johanna recognized the area of town they were heading towards. Covedale was once a lower-income Catholic neighborhood that had somehow built two hundred or so beautiful homes in the styles of the early twentieth century. The families had moved out as the children grew up. They had been purchased by several trendy or gay folk, who had returned the homes to their original beauty. She wasn’t sure that either the woman or man from last night seemed the type to live here.

  They pulled in front of a two-story home and stopped. Johanna could easily have determined that this was their destination since she counted four other patrol cars and two black vans. The officer on the passenger side let her out of the rear seat, and they headed up the front walk. She marveled at the number of people in various roles and ranks outside the house.

  “Are we going in?” she asked. “Is there a body still in there?”

  The man shrugged. “From what I understand, we’re waiting on a warrant. No one has gone in yet. No one seems to be home—or if you’re right—there could be a dead body inside. However, we don’t want to compromise the scene in any way, so we want to do this exactly by the book.”

  She nodded, but Johanna felt like so much had been left out of that conversation. The house was locked up, but someone had placed the dead woman in her home? He’d apparently carried her to his car, driven her here, put the woman in the house, and then left—locking up behind him. Which likely meant he knew the victim well. This was turning out to be a crime that was committed by someone close to the dead woman.

  If she lived alone, Johanna couldn’t understand why he’d taken the woman so far from home to kill her. Indeed, they would have been equally secluded in a house owned by a single person.

  By Johanna’s watch, she’d been there for the most of an hour before another car drove up, and yet another patrol officer made his way up to the house. She watched in horror as the men burst through the door and began to call out, as they combed through the house. She recognized the efficiency and method, but she had a horrible idea that she knew what they’d find.

  After a minute or so, she heard a different type of shout, and two of the people she assumed to be the forensics team headed inside as well. It would only be a matter of time now before she’d be asked to identify that woman. She felt a pang of sadness as well as the anxiety from last night.

  She’d been right; the woman had been murdered in the car and brought here. Johanna was glad that this would soon be over. Her life could continue, somewhat uninterrupted by the crime.

  A gurney was carried down the stairs, carrying a covered body. Johanna had seen enough crime dramas to know that the woman was dead. There were no IVs or machines, and the EMTs had not hurried to the ambulance.

  They stopped in front of Johanna and waited. The first officer came up behind, startling her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump,” he apologized.

  She nodded.

  “This is the body we found inside, and we need you to identify her. Caucasian woman, just like you said.”

  She nodded again, fearing that speaking would cause her to break down. She didn’t want to show any emotions at the moment. She wanted this to be over.

  He pulled back the sheet and paused.

  Johanna looked down. The woman on the gurney was older: nothing like the woman she’d seen last night. “It’s not her,” she said quietly. “That’s not the woman I saw.”

  Chapter 3

  Johanna pushed her head off the sofa pillow and looked up. Her best friend was standing over her. For a second, she recalled a similar situation where the police officer had done the same thing. However, with this, Marnie didn’t intend to intimidate her, but she obviously felt concerned. She had her bottom lip pulled in, her eyes slightly shaded by th
e lids.

  “You’re on the news,” Marnie informed her, with no preamble. “You saw a murder and then led the police to another body.” The words sounded almost surreal coming from her friend. The morning had felt unreal, but these words felt even more so in such an everyday setting.

  “Yeah,” Johanna said. “It’s a long story.”

  Marnie sat down on the edge of the sofa. “I have time. I want to hear all about it.”

  Johanna sat up and tried to focus. She’d gone without coffee that morning, and the headache that played around the edges of her brain was threatening to take over. “Let me get some coffee,” she said, starting to stand.

  Marnie pointed to the coffee pot. “I’ve already made some. It’s nice and strong. I figured you’d need it after this morning.”

  She managed to pour a cup of coffee and loaded it with sugar, knowing that she needed all the fuel she could muster. A night’s sleep on the forest ground left her groggy.

  Marnie had waited on the sofa, but now she turned and looked at her friend. “So tell me what happened.”

  Johanna went through the story again, trying to leave nothing out. She stopped at the point where she’d indicated that the dead woman in the house had not been the woman she’d seen in the parking lot.

  “How can you be so sure?” Marnie asked. “It’s hard to see someone clearly in a car, and she was laying down, if I understand the positions correctly.”

  Johanna nodded. “They were entirely different. It’s not like I had to identify one of two women our age. The woman in the car was much younger; the woman in the house was probably my mother’s age. There was no comparison. The woman in the car was blonde and wore makeup. The other woman was a brunette with some purple strands in her hair. Her face looked far more natural than the other woman.”

  “I can see that,” Marnie said. “So what we have here are multiple mysteries. First, who were the people in the car? That’s going to be tough because the only ID we had was the car, and that proved to be a dead-end—if you can call another body ‘a dead end.’”