False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  “Well,” he began. “It was very interesting. I hadn’t realized how many international travelers we get into the city. Did you know that Atlanta has the busiest passenger airport in the world?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Leigh answered, though she did. The point of her questions wasn’t so much about getting details as it was to figure out what kind of person Hank Bladel was. Could he be impartial? Could he listen to the facts? Could he understand the evidence? Could he persuade others? Could he parse out the true meaning of reasonable doubt?

  She said, “You mentioned in your questionnaire that you were stationed overseas for eight years. Do you speak any foreign languages?”

  “I never had the ear for it, but I’ll tell you, most of my airport rides have a better grasp of the English language than my grandchildren.” He chuckled with the judge, sharing an old man’s bafflement with the younger generation. “Now, some of them like to talk, but others, you figure out you just need to be quiet, let them make their calls, keep under the speed limit, and get them there on time.”

  Leigh nodded as she catalogued his answer. Open to new experiences, willing to listen. He’d make an excellent foreman. She just didn’t know for which side. “You told my colleague that you volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club. What’s that like?”

  “I’ll be honest. It’s become one of the most rewarding parts of my life.”

  Leigh nodded as he talked about the importance of helping young men and women get on the right track. She liked that he had a firm sense of right and wrong, but she still didn’t know whether that would work in Andrew’s favor.

  She asked, “Are you a member of any other organizations?”

  Bladel smiled with pride. “I am a brother with the Yaarab Shriners, which belongs to the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America.”

  Leigh turned so that she could see Dante’s face. He looked like someone had just shot his dog. Shriners were a more liberal offshoot of Freemasons. They staged clown parades, wore funny hats, and raised millions of dollars for children’s hospitals to supplement America’s deplorably imbalanced healthcare system. Leigh had never seated a Shriner on a jury who didn’t go out of his way to understand the real-life implications of beyond a reasonable doubt.

  She asked the man, “Can you tell me a little bit about the organization?”

  “We are a fraternity based on the masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth.”

  Leigh let him keep talking, enjoying the theater of the courtroom exchange. She paced in front of the stand, thinking about where Bladel would sit on the jury, how she would frame her argument, when she should lean into the forensics, when she should deploy her experts.

  Then she turned and saw the bored look on Andrew’s face.

  He was staring blankly at the court reporter, completely uninterested in the cross-examination. He had only used the notepad she’d given him once, and that was when they’d first been seated. Andrew had wanted to know where Tammy was. He had been expecting to see his victim in the courtroom because he didn’t understand how criminal trials worked. The State of Georgia had charged Andrew Tenant with felony crimes. Tammy Karlsen was their witness. The rule of sequestration forbade her from attending any part of the trial until she gave testimony. Even a brief appearance in the gallery would’ve likely resulted in a mistrial.

  “Thank you, sir,” Leigh said, taking advantage of Mr. Bladel’s pause for breath. “Judge, we accept this witness and ask for him to be seated.”

  “Very well.” Turner let out another loud yawn behind his mask. “Excuse me. We’ll finish there for the day and resume at ten tomorrow morning. Ms. Collier, Mr. Carmichael, do you have any business that needs attending?”

  To Leigh’s surprise, Dante stood up.

  He said, “Your honor, as a bit of housekeeping, I’d like to amend my witness list. I’ve added two—”

  “Judge,” Leigh interrupted. “It’s a bit late to spring two new witnesses.”

  The judge gave her a strident look. Men who interrupted were passionate about their case. Women who interrupted were shrill. “Ms. Collier, I recall signing off on your own very late motion for substitution of counsel.”

  He was giving her a warning. “Thank you, your honor, for approving the substitution. I’m more than ready to proceed, but I would ask for a delay to—”

  “Your two propositions sit in tension,” Turner said. “Either you are ready or you are not ready.”

  Leigh knew the battle was already lost. So did Dante. He handed her the filing on his way to give the judge a copy. Leigh saw that he’d added Lynne Wilkerson and Fabienne Godard, two women she’d never heard of. When she put the page in front of Andrew, he barely gave it a glance.

  Turner said, “Approved as submitted. Are we finished?”

  Dante said, “Your honor, I’d also like to request an emergency hearing to revoke bond.”

  “Are you fuh—” Leigh caught herself. “Your honor, this is ridiculous. My client has been out on bond for more than a year, and has had ample opportunity for flight. He is here to vigorously participate in his defense.”

  Dante said, “I’ve got an affidavit from Mr. Tenant’s probation officer documenting five separate instances where Mr. Tenant has interfered with the functioning of his ankle monitor.”

  Leigh said, “That’s a very umbrageous way to describe what is clearly a technical issue that probation has yet to resolve.”

  Turner waved his hand for the affidavit. “Let me see it.”

  Again, Leigh was given her own copy to read. She skimmed the details, which took up less than one page and listed the times and dates of the alarms, but with only ephemeral causes—possible tampering with optical cable; possible use of GPS blocking; possible breach of set perimeter.

  She started to open her mouth to point out that possible wasn’t proof, but then she stopped herself. Why was she trying to keep Andrew out of jail?

  The fail-safe. The tapes. Callie. Maddy.

  Leigh felt the rollercoaster slowly clicking its way back up the hill. Why was she so sure that Walter had turned her in? What was that gut feeling based on?

  Maybe it’s a bad idea to connect another teenage girl with a goddam rapist?

  Turner said, “Ms. Collier, I’m waiting.”

  She jumped back into the defense. “Four of these false alarms date back over the last two months, Judge. Why is the last one different, other than the fact that we are four days from trial in the middle of a pandemic? Is Mr. Carmichael hoping that my client gets infected in detention?”

  Turner gave her a sharp look. No one was allowed to talk about the fact that inmates were Corona cannon fodder. “Watch yourself, Ms. Collier.”

  “Yes, Judge,” she demurred. “I would simply restate that my client is not a flight risk.”

  “Mr. Carmichael,” Turner said. “Your response?”

  “Flight is not the issue, your honor. We’re basing our motion on the fact that Mr. Tenant is suspected of committing related crimes,” Dante said. “He tampered with his ankle monitor to evade detection.”

  Turner looked exasperated by the lack of details. “What are these crimes?”

  Dante tried to bluff his way around the question. “I’d rather not get into it, your honor, but suffice to say we could be looking at a capital offense.”

  Leigh was disheartened to hear him bring up the death penalty. Dante was clearly throwing a Hail Mary. His case on Ruby Heyer’s murder was weak. He was either trying to buy himself time to break Andrew’s alibi or scare Andrew into confessing.

  She said, “Judge, as you know, that’s a very serious allegation. I would ask that the prosecutor either put up or shut up.”

  Turner narrowed his eyes at Leigh. She was pushing too much. “Ms. Collier, would you like to rephrase that?”

  “No thank you, your honor. I think my meaning is plain. Mr. Carmichael has no evidence that my client’s ankle monitor was tampered with. He has possib
le reasons but nothing concrete. As for the so-called capital crime, are we meant to extrapolate from his—”

  Turner held up his hand to stop her. He sat back in his chair. His fingers rested on the bottom part of his mask. He looked out at the vacant gallery.

  Andrew was finally interested now that his freedom was under threat. He lifted his chin for Leigh to come over and explain what was happening. She held up a finger, telling him to wait.

  On television, judges who ruled from the bench usually did it quickly, but that was because they had a script that told them what to say. In real life, they took their time thinking through the finer points, weighing the options, trying to anticipate whether or not they would be overturned on appeal. This looked a lot like staring into the void. Turner was known to take longer than usual.

  Leigh sat down. She saw Jacob writing on one of the legal pads, explaining the judge’s silence to Andrew. Andrew still hadn’t reacted to the two new names on Dante’s witness list. Lynne Wilkerson and Fabienne Godard. Were they two of the three previous victims that Reggie had been tipped off about? Were they new victims who’d come forward when they’d seen that Andrew was going to trial?

  Walter was right about so many things, but never so much as about Leigh’s role in Andrew Tenant’s crimes. Her silence had allowed him to continue hurting people. Ruby Heyer’s blood was on her hands. Worse, Leigh had been willing to go after Tammy Karlsen in order to keep Andrew from releasing the videos. She had never let herself think too hard about the consequences of Andrew’s freedom. More women abused. More violence. More lives destroyed.

  Their beautiful girl forced to flee her home.

  “All right,” Turner said.

  Leigh and Dante stood up.

  Turner looked at Andrew. “Mr. Tenant?”

  Leigh indicated Andrew should stand.

  Turner said, “I find these reports on your ankle monitor malfunctions to be very troublesome. While the cause of the alarms cannot be pinpointed, I want you to understand that my continued lack of remand depends on nothing further occurring. Do you understand?”

  Andrew looked at Leigh.

  She shook her head, because of course the judge had ruled in his favor. “He’s not revoking your bail. Don’t fuck with your monitor again.”

  She could tell Andrew was grinning. “Yes, your honor. Thank you.”

  Turner banged his gavel. The bailiff called it a day. The court reporter started to pack up her things.

  Jacob told Leigh, “I’ll put together profiles and email them to you later tonight. I’m assuming we’re working through the weekend?”

  “Yes.” Leigh powered back on her work phone. “I want you to finish out the examinations tomorrow. I’m going to tell Cole Bradley that I’m moving you to co-counsel.”

  Jacob looked surprised, but he was too overjoyed to ask her why. “Thank you.”

  Leigh’s throat worked. It felt good to do something right for a change. “You’ve earned it.”

  She looked down at her phone as Jacob left. She started the email to Bradley. Her hands were still steady. Dante and Miranda were powering up their phones as they walked out of the courtroom. The rollercoaster was steadily falling toward Walter speaking to the police. Leigh needed to find Callie tonight. Her sister had a right to know the amount of hell that was about to rain down.

  “Harleigh.”

  Leigh had let herself block out Andrew. She looked up.

  His mask was off. He was at the witness stand. “Is this where Tammy will sit?”

  Leigh sent the email to Bradley and dropped her phone into her purse. “Who are Lynne Wilkerson and Fabienne Godard?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Jealous ex-girlfriends. One’s an alcoholic, the other’s a crazy bitch.”

  “You’re going to need a better story than that,” Leigh said. “These women didn’t spontaneously decide to come forward today. Dante has been keeping them under wraps. These women are going to get on that stand and do exactly what I warned you Sidney might do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Testify in front of a jury that you’re a sadist who gets too rough in bed.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Andrew said. “But history tells me that a cash inducement will persuade them both it’s better to sit this one out.”

  Leigh warned, “That’s called bribery and tampering with witnesses.”

  He shrugged, because he didn’t care. “Reggie will meet you at your car. Give him the list of the jurors so far. He’s going to start looking into them, see if there are any weak points we can exploit.”

  “How does Reggie know where my car is?”

  He tsked his teeth, shaking his head at her stupidity. “Harleigh, don’t you know that any time I want, I can find you or your sister?”

  Leigh wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled. Andrew’s eyes tracked her as she walked out of the courtroom. She looked down at her personal phone. Her thumb pressed the power button. She watched the screen, waiting for the signal to pick up.

  She was in the stairwell when the notifications came in. Six calls from Walter. Two from Maddy. They had both left voice messages. Leigh clutched the phone to her chest as she walked down the stairs. She would listen to them in the car. She would let herself cry. She would find her sister. Then she would figure out what to do next.

  The lobby was full of stragglers. The metal detectors were blocked off. Court was closed for the day. Two deputies stood guard by the exit. She nodded to Walter’s friend. He winked at her in response.

  Sunlight washed over her face as she walked through the square. She felt her phone buzz again. Not Walter or Maddy this time, but Nick Wexler with another DTF? Leigh mentally ran through some polite rejections before she realized that Nick wouldn’t care. They had barely been lovers. They had never been friends. And once Leigh’s crimes were out in the open, they would likely be enemies.

  Her phone went back to her side. She crossed the street at the light. She had parked her Audi in the deck opposite the square. Before Covid, the lot had been filled with customers for the restaurants, bars, and boutique stores that used to line the streets of downtown Decatur. This morning, Leigh had found a prime spot on the first floor.

  The overhead lights flickered maniacally as she walked through the garage. Shadows danced around the three cars parked close to the front gate. The rest of the spaces were empty but for Leigh’s Audi, which was parked at the base of the ramp. Out of habit, she let her house key stick out between her fingers. Between the dark shadows and low ceiling, this was just the kind of place where women disappeared.

  Leigh shuddered. She knew what happened to women who disappeared.

  She looked at the time on her phone. Reggie was probably on his way to retrieve the jury list. Leigh had worked enough contentious divorce cases to know how the private investigator would locate her Audi. She ran her hand under the car’s rear bumper. She checked the wheel wells. The GPS tracker was in a magnetized box stuck above her right back tire.

  Leigh tossed the box onto the ground. She opened her trunk. Out of habit, she punched in the combination on the safe she’d had bolted to the floor. She might’ve been a suburban mom, but she wasn’t a stupid suburban mom. Leigh’s Glock was in the safe. Sometimes, she shoved her purse inside when she didn’t want to carry it around. Now, she needed a spot to store Ruby Heyer’s crime scene photos. Her hand rested on the file. She thought about the knife that had been left inside of the woman. The state of Andrew’s dark bruises.

  “Leigh?”

  She turned around, shocked to find Walter standing there. Then she looked behind him, wondering if he’d brought the police.

  Walter turned, too. He said, “What is it?”

  Leigh swallowed the saliva that had rushed into her mouth. “Is Maddy safe?”

  “Mom has her. They left after we talked this morning.” He crossed his arms. His anger hadn’t abated, but it had become focused. “Ruby Heyer’s dead. Did you know that?” />
  “Andrew did it,” Leigh said.

  He didn’t look surprised because nothing about it was surprising. Of course Andrew had escalated. Of course he had killed someone in Leigh’s orbit. Walter had told her last night that it was going to happen.

  He said, “Keely had to be sedated. Maddy is a wreck.”

  Leigh waited for him to confess his actions, but then she realized that making Walter say the words was cruel. “It’s okay. I know you went to the police.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “You think I dimed out my own wife to the cops?”

  Leigh didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  “Fuck, Leigh. Do you really think I’d do that to you? You’re the mother of my child.”

  Guilt washed away her steely resolve. “I’m sorry. You were so angry with me. You’re still so angry.”

  “What I said—” He reached out for her, but then he let his hands fall away. “I said it wrong, Leigh, but you weren’t thinking. Or you were thinking too hard, assuming that everything would work out because you’re too fucking smart to let it go sideways.”

  She took a shaky breath.

  “You are smart, Leigh. God damn, you’re smart. But you can’t control everything. You have to let people in.”

  He had stopped to let her respond, but she didn’t have the words.

  He said, “What you’re doing right now, tearing shit down, thinking that you’re the only one who knows how to build it back up, that’s not working. It has never worked.”

  She couldn’t contradict him. There were thousands of variations on this same argument they’d had over the years, but this was the first time that she accepted he was absolutely right.

  She said out loud the mantra she had only ever said to herself. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  “Some of it is, but so what?” Walter acted like it was that simple. “Let’s put our heads together and figure this out.”

  She closed her eyes. She thought about the sweltering night in Chicago when Callie had brought them their gift. Before that fateful knock on the door, Leigh had finally relented and sat in Walter’s lap. Then she had curled into him like a cat, and he had made her feel safer than she had ever felt in her entire life.