EYEWITNESS

by Marc Timms

  She also didn’t understand how the police could be this wrong. The wrong man almost certainly meant that they’d identified the wrong woman as the victim. Had they recovered her body? What was his story about the cars and the transport of the body? How had he done that without leaving tire tracks? And where was the body?

  Greater still, she felt her face flush. Johanna had spent hours with the police, telling them what she saw and repeating it until she felt sick. They knew every detail of what she’d heard, how she ran, where she’d hid, and in the end, none of that mattered. No one had paid any attention to her words.

  She knew one thing, though. Tomorrow she would be going to the police station to clear this up.

  Johanna didn’t have long to wait when she arrived at the police station later on. Detective Dempsey held the door for her. He nodded at her, but then turned his gaze, watching her as she followed him down the long hall to his desk.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked, pausing towards the end of the long hall.

  “I need to talk to you about your arrest,” she said.

  “What about it? I would think that you’re thrilled that we caught the man who did this. You’re safe now. He won’t be looking for the witness who saw him.” The deputy turned and started to walk again.

  “But that’s not the man I saw. He wasn’t even similar to the killer. This guy was way too young to have been him.”

  The detective sighed and looked aggrieved. “We did the best we could with the information that was provided to us. You only saw him for a short time; you didn’t see all of him; and according to you, he had no marks or identifying features. We had very little to go on. He’s not in any of the security footage, either. When we talked to him, he broke down and confessed.”

  “How are you certain that this guy isn’t one of these people who just confess?” Johanna asked. “I’ve seen this in the movies before.”

  The detective raised an eyebrow. “So have we. He knew certain things about the crime scene—the house with the woman locked inside that no one else could have known. We don’t release everything we know about a crime scene to the press. We hold some back, just in case we need it—and we did this time.”

  She nodded. “So did the perp say how he worked the whole home being locked from the inside trick?” Johanna was interested to hear more about how he’d managed to get in and out without leaving a trace.

  “No, he said he’d tell us today. We haven’t had a chance to pull him yet and hear it. But since you’re here, I’m going to run a lineup, and then I’ll go back to the interview with him. I’d like to know that too. It would cement the case against him.” Dempsey looked at her intently as he said the last line.

  He took her to a small room, where a window took up most of one wall. The scene was so much like a television show or movie that she wanted to inspect every inch of the room. However, she thought better of it. She wanted to be taken seriously here, and Dempsey wouldn’t appreciate it if she appeased her curiosity instead.

  She sat down on the metal chair and waited. She could hear footsteps pass the room, but they continued to walk away from her in each case. Finally, there was a knock on the door, and a woman stuck her head inside.

  “Detective Dempsey asked if you could leave now, and we'll contact you later. Something has come up—there won’t be a lineup today . . .” As quickly as she had appeared, she left. The woman’s face had been an ashy shade of gray, and she’d stammered through the words. Something had upset her tremendously.

  Johanna sat there for a few seconds, puzzled by what had happened. He had been so intent on continuing the interview after she saw the lineup. What could have come up that would have made him change his mind?

  She realized in a second what had happened. A powerful reason must have come up so that he could not continue. Something had happened to the prisoner. Either he’d been in a fight or was beaten up—or he was dead. Johanna suspected that they would come back and tell her that he had committed suicide: a story that she wouldn’t believe. The man had trapped himself by offering a confession without coercion. He had volunteered the information, based on whatever clues had led the police to him.

  However, at the moment, she wanted to leave. This deduction worried her—that someone was killing people associated with the crime she witnessed—and she could be next. Johanna wanted to go home and hear the news for herself.

  She also felt a strong sense of fear while in this room. Someone here had silenced this man before Johanna could view him, or before he could tell the police how he entered and left the house—if he, indeed, knew. The reason for his death might have been that he didn’t know how the killer had left the house locked. A gap like that in his confession would bring doubt with his words, and the police might release him and begin the search again.

  She looked at the officer standing by. She decided to test her theory. “That poor guy. I don’t get it. He confessed and then killed himself. Wow, not the ending I expected.”

  The man didn’t speak, but he nodded. That was enough for Johanna to confirm her theory.

  Two hours later, she no longer had the desire to watch the news regarding the man’s death. Sure enough, he had hung himself in the cell he’d had to himself. Typically, inmates shared a cell with others, but they’d wanted him up early and awake in this case. Others would snore, or ask questions, or generally keep him from sleeping.

  He’d apparently taken a bedsheet and ripped it lengthwise to make a noose, and then hung himself with it. The mystery of the locked house played into the story, with some criminologists suggesting how the crime could have been committed.

  The police made it sounds as though the case was closed, reminding the press of the strangulation and continuing the search for another dead woman.

  Johanna cursed, and then cursed again. This was precisely what she had been afraid would happen. The police had a suspect who could no longer speak for himself, and all of the crimes would be pinned to him—a man who couldn’t deny any theory.

  Marnie and Detective Dempsey appeared on the doorstep at almost the same time. Johanna strongly suspected that they were here for the same reason, but on different sides.

  When she let them in, both started talking at once; the noise was like two sets of earbuds playing simultaneously. She held up her hand and motioned for them both to stop.

  “One at a time, please,” she requested.

  Marnie looked at the detective and then made a grand gesture to snub him. She turned away and looked directly at her friend. “What’s going on? I saw the news.”

  Johanna asked her to hold the thought. “This will take a minute to explain.” She then turned to the detective. He looked the worse for wear, with dark circles under his eyes and a gray pallor to his skin. She wondered for a second if he’d seen a dead body before. He didn’t look old enough to be called a veteran who had viewed years of corpses and mutilation.

  “I need to talk to you privately for a minute,” he said, giving Marnie a look that demanded she leave.

  Marnie gave them both a smile and said, “I’ll use the facilities.” She knew the place well, so she flounced off to the restroom. Just to be on the safe side, knowing her friend, Johanna turned on the vent fan over her stove and let it run on high. The noise was sufficient to block out the conversation.

  “What do you need?” Johanna asked, not feeling charitable. She’d felt like a means to an end at this point, ignored and forgotten, and then used to close a case incorrectly.

  “This case is far more complicated than what you understand. I know to you, it looks like the police have dropped the ball. The perp didn’t match your description. The perp volunteered a confession without telling us how he did it, and then hung himself before he was put to the test regarding the MO.”

  Johanna took a deep breath and decided to go full-on with her theory. “I don’t believe that the man killed himself. I think he was killed—by the man who I saw strangle the girl. I think the
re has to be a link between these deaths and the police. No one else could have gotten to him so quickly.”

  The man stood still and didn’t speak. Johanna thought he might be in shock after today. “We have cams outside the cells. We can see who went in and out of the cell when he was left there. No one else stopped at his cell. Where do you get these ideas?”

  “Then why confess? You don’t have any witnesses to the crime that can place him there. In fact, you came by the house through the car that was the scene of another crime. He could have walked yesterday. Sure, he’d have been under surveillance, but he wouldn’t have been in jail.”

  Dempsey scoffed. “We suspected him by way of the house. His fingerprints were all over the place, inside and out—including some of the locks that were mentioned by the news. We didn’t have any other prints that we could match. That was a good reason to arrest him. He was there and touched the locks in question. So we only needed the how.”

  Johanna paused and thought about this. The case was so convoluted, with each crime linking itself to another person and another offense. The pathway, by itself, was confusing and getting more twisted every day. She wondered if an investigator could take one of the crimes and focus on it to exclude the others—or would the entire pattern have to be studied to find the answer.

  As if to answer her question, Dempsey said, “As far as the local PD goes, the house mystery is over. We found our guy, and we’re sorry that he’s gone. We’ll keep the strangling in the park as a different case, and it will remain open, but I have to be honest with you. Unless we find a clue—or a body—to corroborate your story, we won’t be able to solve the case—or even come up with a credible suspect.”

  Johanna nodded. She had nothing more she could say about that murder. She’d seen it. She could identify the victim and the killer, but there was no way to narrow that down to the man and woman involved in a city of this size.

  “I’m sorry about today,” he said. Johanna was surprised by the change in his tone and tenor. “It’s rough anytime there are deaths, and you’ve had more than your share lately.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but Marnie appeared and looked at her watch. “I think it’s about time for me to get a chance to talk to my friend.” She sat down in a chair, as though she owned the place.

  The detective left without another word. Johanna waited until he had pulled the door closed to speak. “That was really weird. He came to explain the cases and their statuses. I mean, it was nice to hear from him about what had happened and why that man was arrested. Still, I didn’t think the police were quite so considerate in sharing information with the public.”

  Marnie laughed. “Come on. He’s cute. You’re cute. You don’t need to be a sleuth to determine what that’s about. He’s helpful so he can come and visit you again.”

  Johanna frowned. “You think it’s as simple as that?” she asked. “After all, he practically said that the locked house mystery was closed. It felt almost like he was prompting me to look into the matter.”

  “That’s a man I’d like to meet—one who can admit that he’s wrong and needs help from a woman,” Marnie laughed. “Does he have a brother?”

  “You can ask him yourself after we take a look at that house.”

  Chapter 5

  Johanna looked up at the house. She’d had no trouble finding it again. After all, she’d been there to see the corpse being removed from the scene. She’d been asked to identify the woman, which she could not.

  Detective Dempsey was correct about one thing. The scene of that murder had been closed. The tape was gone. No policemen were guarding it. In fact, she could see no signs of security at all.

  Yet, she knew that the house would be locked up. Wasn’t that the whole reason that the case was so confusing? No one could lock the home tight unless they had keys to do so—and also stayed inside the house. She sighed, knowing that the answer would not come quickly or easily, and it might put her in danger. If someone had worked that hard to make the old woman’s death an unsolvable murder, he—or she—would probably work just as hard to keep it a secret.

  Marnie had been assigned the role of photographer, and she was walking around the house, taking pictures on her phone of all the doors and windows. She seemed content with that job, and it allowed Johanna time to think, something she hadn’t been able to do in the last few days. She’d been chased, spent the night in the forest, and then learned that the police had arrested someone who didn’t match her description at all. Then, before she could reveal those discrepancies, he was dead, and the police had closed the case. Phew. No wonder she was tired.

  Johanna had no idea where to start with a home like this. The locked house issue had to be a ruse, a misdirection: something to take the police’s minds off the fact that a murder had been committed here. The problem would be just that, like a magician, the person behind this did not want their tricks uncovered. So perhaps, the smokescreen of the locks confused what might otherwise be an otherwise simple murder to solve.

  Marnie came around from the far side of the house. “I’ve taken photos from each side of the house. Every window and every door has been recorded. I don’t know what you saw, but there’s a second-story window that has a pane broke out. It could have been a tree—or it could be related to the murder in some way. I took several photos of that one.”

  Johanna allowed herself to be taken to the window in the back of the house. Marnie had been right. A lower right pane of the window had been shattered from the outside. That wouldn’t help much if someone was trying to sneak out of the house, as they’d be on the wrong side of the window. She looked around, but there were no ladders or methods of getting down from the window to the ground. An older maple tree stood about ten feet away from the house, but she doubted that someone could jump from the window to the tree—and it still wouldn’t explain how the window was later closed. The ledge outside the window was perhaps two inches wide, not enough room for anyone to stand and leap.

  Marnie scoped the backyard in hopes of finding more clues that needed to be recorded. Johanna appreciated her friend’s enthusiasm.

  Just then, Johanna heard the bark of a dog, and the sound appeared to be getting closer. She moved to stand on the balls of her feet, in case she needed to move quickly, and Marnie did the same. They were looking at each other as they waited to see what was coming around the corner.

  Johanna exhaled, a mix between a sigh and a giggle. The dog was barely a foot tall and entirely black. She’d been alarmed by a Scottie. The dog barked several more times, but then ran towards her. She could tell the dog meant mischief rather than violence, as its stubby tail was wagging briskly. It jumped on her leg and looked up, as if expecting something.

  A middle-aged woman came around the corner as well and said, “Penny, don’t go running away like that. You know I can’t keep up with you.” Johanna could hear from the woman’s ragged breath that she was telling the truth.

  The older woman looked at the two intruders but didn’t say anything about it. “I’m Lilly—and this, of course, is Penny. Can I help you with something?”

  Johanna cleared her throat and decided to be as honest as she could. “I’m the woman who found Jessica’s car in the forest parking lot. I’m the reason the police found the body. I’ve felt horrible about what’s happened, and I wanted to come and see the house for myself. All of this doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m just trying to put some finality to the entire matter.”

  The woman nodded. “I’m Jessica’s next-door neighbor. Penny was her dog, if you can imagine. I took her in after what happened.” The older woman looked at Marnie and then back at Johanna again. “Why don’t you two come and have a cup of tea with me? I was about to make some, and Penny always gets a mid-morning snack as well. She’s very set in her routine, and she’ll be fussing if she doesn’t get her way.”

  Johanna smiled at the little black dog and accepted.

  They walked back to the neighbor’s house in si
lence. She opened the door, and they all followed her to the kitchen. The large windows, which appeared to be new, and the light, airy colors made Johanna feel welcome. Given the dismal, somewhat dark feel of the house next door, this was a welcome change.

  Johanna and Marnie sat down, as Penny ran around their legs, obviously excited that it was time for a treat. Lilly served the tea, and then gave the treat to Penny. They all ate and drank quietly for a minute.

  “So, did you know Jessica well?” Marnie asked, breaking the ice on the topic they all had in common.

  “Not well. We’d say hi, and Penny would come over to sniff out a treat or two from me. That was about it. She kept to herself.”

  Marnie nodded and took another sip of tea. Johanna’s cup was delicious, warm, and invigorating this morning. She was content to let her friend ask questions for the moment.

  “So she didn’t have people come and visit her? No family?” Marnie asked.

  If Lilly minded the questions, she didn’t say so. Johanna suspected that she, too, didn’t have many visitors at her house. The room had a shine that couldn’t be maintained with many people coming in and out.

  “Not really. I think she has a niece somewhere? But her husband had passed away years ago, and their only child was killed in a car crash about ten years ago. It was all regrettable. I don’t remember the details about it, but it was unexpected, and poor Jessica never really recovered from it. So she kept to herself.”

  Johanna decided to jump in with some questions. “So did you inherit Penny in the will?” she asked.

  The woman laughed. “No, nothing like that. I don’t think that the estate found a will, to be honest. The niece or another relative called and asked if I could take care of the dog indefinitely. I think that translates into adopting the dog, but that’s alright. Penny and I get along just fine.”

  “That’s a big expense,” Marnie threw in. “I had a friend who got a dog, and just getting things set up cost a few hundred dollars.”