False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Walter looped more tape around Reggie’s wrists, saying, “You’re going to talk to me, motherfucker.”

  Leigh checked Reggie’s key ring. Nothing looked right. The key would be short with chunky teeth. She started to try them anyway.

  Walter dragged the other chair across the room. He sat down opposite Reggie. He was so close that their knees touched. The gun was in his lap. His finger rested along the side.

  He asked Reggie, “Why were you at my daughter’s school?”

  Reggie said nothing. He was watching Leigh at the closet.

  “Don’t look at my wife. Look at me.” Walter waited for Reggie to comply before he repeated the question. “Why were you at my daughter’s school?”

  Reggie still didn’t answer.

  With one hand, Walter tossed the gun into the air and caught it by the muzzle. He backhanded Reggie with the plastic handle. The blow was so hard that Reggie’s chair nearly toppled.

  Leigh had clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Blood had splattered onto her shoes. She saw bits of teeth in the carpet.

  Reggie’s shoulders convulsed. He vomited down the front of his shirt. His head rolled around his neck. His face was swollen. His left eye had disappeared. His mouth hung so loose that he couldn’t keep his tongue inside.

  Kidnapping. Aggravated assault. Torture.

  Walter asked Leigh, “Can you get the padlock open?”

  She shook her head. “Walter—”

  “Hey.” Walter slapped Reggie’s head with his open palm. “Where is it, asshole? Where’s the key?”

  Reggie’s eyes were rolling again. Leigh could smell the stench of his vomit.

  Leigh told Walter, “He’s concussed. If you hit him again, he’ll pass out. Or worse.”

  Walter looked at her, and she was shocked to find the same cold deadness that she had seen in Andrew’s eyes so many times before.

  She begged, “Walter, please. Think about what we’re doing. What we’ve already done.”

  Walter wouldn’t look at her again. He could only see the threat to Maddy. He raised the Glock, pointing it at Reggie’s face. “Where’s the key, asshole?”

  “Walter,” Leigh said, her voice shaking. “We can back out the screws, okay? All we have to do is back out the screws. Please, baby. Just put the gun down, okay?”

  Slowly, Walter let the gun return to his lap. “Hurry.”

  Leigh’s legs were shaky as she went to the desk. She pulled open drawers, dumping their contents onto the floor, searching for the small key. She silently begged Walter to not remember the screwdriver in her car. She needed to get her husband out of here, to make him see reason. They had to stop this. They needed to take Reggie to the hospital. And then Reggie would go straight to the police and Walter would be arrested and Andrew would show the tapes and—

  Leigh felt her thoughts lurch to a halt.

  Her brain had been making connections in the background, telling her that something wasn’t right. She inventoried the items on Reggie’s desk. Laptop. Black leather blotter. Colored glass paperweight. Personalized business card holder.

  The Tiffany 1837 Makers letter opener was missing.

  Leigh knew that the seven-inch long, sterling silver desk accessory cost $375. She had bought the same one for Walter a few Christmases ago. It had the distinctive, masculine look of a knife.

  “Walter,” she said. “I need to talk to you in the hall.”

  He didn’t move. “Get the screwdriver out of your car.”

  Leigh went to the couch. She reached into her purse. Ruby Heyer’s crime scene photos were still in the folder. “Walter, I need you to come into the hall with me. Now.”

  Her curt tone of voice somehow managed to cut through the fog. Walter stood up, telling Reggie, “We’ll be right outside that door. Don’t try a goddam thing or I will shoot you in the back. Understood?”

  Reggie lifted his head. His eyes were closed, but he managed to nod once in agreement.

  Leigh didn’t move until Walter did. She led him into the hall, but he stopped before they reached the outer office, hovering near the doorway so he could keep his eyes on Reggie.

  Walter spoke through gritted teeth. “What is it?”

  “Do you remember the letter opener I bought you?” Leigh said. “Do you still have it?”

  Slowly, Walter turned his head in her direction. “What?”

  “The letter opener, the one from Tiffany that I bought you. Do you remember it?”

  Walter’s expression slowly changed into one of confusion. He almost looked like her husband again.

  Leigh thumbed through Ruby Heyer’s file, keeping the photos obscured so that Walter wasn’t set off again. She found the close-up of the knife sticking out between Ruby’s legs. She still didn’t show it to him. Most of Walter’s legal career had been spent on a phone or behind a desk. He’d never tried a criminal case before, let alone a violent murder.

  She said, “I’m going to show you a photo. It’s very graphic, but you need to see it.”

  Walter glanced back at Reggie. “Jesus, Leigh, just get to the point.”

  She knew he wasn’t ready, so she walked him through the details. “Andrew has an alibi for Ruby’s murder. Are you listening to me?”

  Walter nodded, but he wasn’t really.

  “Andrew got married last night,” Leigh said, trying to keep the information as simple and repetitive as she would for a jury. “When the police confronted him this morning about Ruby’s murder, he had an alibi. He showed them photos on his phone. The photos showed Andrew with the caterer, and another one with his mother at the cocktail party, and then with friends waiting for Sidney to walk down the aisle.”

  Walter’s jaw worked. He wasn’t going to entertain her for much longer.

  “This morning, before court, I saw Andrew. He had bite marks on his neck, and a scratch here.” She put her hand to her face and waited for Walter to look. “They were defensive wounds. Andrew had defensive wounds this morning.”

  “Ruby fought back,” Walter said. “So?”

  “No, remember the alibi photos from the night before? You can see the bite marks on Andrew’s neck, but the bruises are already coming up. The timing doesn’t work out. It kept bothering me because I know how long it takes for bruises to get dark like that. Andrew got the bite marks around three, maybe four yesterday afternoon. Ruby talked to her family at five on the telephone. Andrew has photos of himself meeting with the caterers at five thirty. The police think Ruby was murdered around six or seven. Her body was found at seven thirty. Andrew was at home the entire time, surrounded by witnesses.”

  Walter’s impatience was on full display.

  Leigh put her palm flat to his chest, the same way she always did when she needed his undivided attention.

  He finally looked at her. She could see him silently running back through the details, trying to figure out the important parts. Finally, he said, “Keep going.”

  “I don’t think that Andrew killed Ruby. I think that someone else did it for him. The killer used the same MO that Andrew used on his other victims. And Andrew made sure he had a solid, unbreakable alibi for when it happened.”

  Walter was giving her his undivided attention.

  “When I was in Reggie’s office three days ago, he had a letter opener on his desk. The same kind of letter opener I bought you for Christmas.” She paused a moment to make sure he was ready. “The letter opener isn’t on Reggie’s desk anymore. It’s not in his drawers.”

  Walter looked down at the folder. “Show me.”

  Leigh pulled out the crime scene photo. The blunt, sterling silver handle of the knife-like letter opener showed where a metal punch had imprinted T&CO MAKERS into the metal.

  The hardness drained from Walter’s expression. He wasn’t seeing the letter opener. He wasn’t connecting the dots from Leigh’s story. He was seeing the woman he’d laughed with over backyard barbecues. The mother of his daughter’s friend. The parent he’d jok
ed with at PTA meetings and school events. The person whose brutal, intimate death had been captured in the photograph Leigh held in front of his face.

  His hand went to his head. Tears sprang into his eyes.

  Leigh couldn’t take his anguish. She started crying, too. She hid the photograph from his sight. Of all the horrible violations of their marriage, this one felt the most brutal.

  “You’re saying … you mean that he …” The sorrow on Walter’s face was unbearable. “Keely has a right to …”

  “She has a right to know,” Leigh finished.

  “I don’t …” Walter turned around. He looked at Reggie. “What are we going to do?”

  Leigh reached down. She slipped the gun from his grasp. “You’re going to leave. I can’t let Maddy lose you, too. This is my responsibility. I’m the reason all of this happened. I want you to take my car and—”

  “No.” Walter was looking down at his hands. He flexed his fingers. His knuckles were bleeding. Sweat still poured from his body. His DNA was all over the office, the Audi, the parking deck. “We have to think, Leigh.”

  “There’s nothing to think about,” she said, because all that mattered was that Walter was as far from this as possible. “Please, baby, get in my car and—”

  “We can use this,” he said. “It’s leverage.”

  “No, we can’t let—” Leigh stopped mid-sentence. There was nothing to add to the can’t because she knew that he was right. They had kidnapped and tortured Reggie, but Reggie had murdered Ruby Heyer.

  Mutually assured destruction.

  “Let me talk to him,” Leigh said. “Okay?”

  Walter hesitated, but he nodded.

  Leigh stuck the folder under her arm. She walked back into the office.

  Reggie heard her approach. He looked up with his one milky eye. He turned his head, glancing back at Walter standing in the doorway. Then he looked at Leigh again.

  “This isn’t good cop/bad cop.” Leigh showed him the gun. “This is two people who’ve already kidnapped and beaten you. Do you think that murder is far behind?”

  Reggie kept staring up at her, waiting.

  “Where were you last night?”

  Reggie said nothing.

  “Did Andrew invite you to his wedding?” she asked. “Because you’re not in any of the photos that he showed the police. He documented everything with his phone. He has an unbreakable alibi.”

  Reggie blinked again, but she could sense uncertainty. He didn’t know where this was going. She could almost see him running the calculations in his head—how much did they know, what were they going to do, what were the odds he could get out of this, how long would it take for Andrew to make them pay for hurting him?

  Leigh took a page from Dante Carmichael’s book. She opened the folder and slapped down the crime scene photos across the desk with a flourish. Instead of holding back the close-up of Ruby’s scalp, she held back the one that showed the Tiffany letter opener.

  She asked Reggie again, “Where were you last night?”

  He looked at the photo array, then looked back at Leigh. His jaw was too loose for his mouth to close, but he grunted, “Who?”

  “Who?” she repeated, because she hadn’t expected the question. “You don’t know the name of the woman that Andrew had you murder?”

  Reggie blinked. He looked genuinely confused. “What?”

  She showed him the close-up photo of the letter opener. Again, his response was unexpected.

  Reggie leaned in, turning his head so that his good eye could get a closer look. He studied the photograph. His gaze went to his desk, as if to search for the letter opener. He finally looked back up at Leigh. His head started shaking.

  “No,” he said. “No-no-no.”

  “You were at Maddy’s school Sunday night,” Leigh told him. “You saw me talking to Ruby Heyer. Did you tell Andrew about her? Is that why he had you kill her?”

  “I—” Reggie coughed. The muscles along his jaw were spasming. For the first time, he looked afraid. “No. Not me. Told Andy she left her husband. Fucking her physical therapist. Moved to the hotel. But I didn’t—no. I wouldn’t. She was fine.”

  Leigh asked, “You’re telling me that you followed Ruby Heyer to the hotel, then you told Andrew where she was, but you didn’t do anything else?”

  “Right.” He kept looking at the photos. “Not me. Never.”

  Leigh studied what was left of his face. She’d thought from the beginning that he was an easy read. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Reggie Paltz was showing Leigh the kind of fear that Andrew Tenant had never shown.

  “Leigh.” Walter was picking up on it, too. “Are you sure?”

  Leigh wasn’t sure of anything. Andrew was always three steps ahead. Had he gotten the drop on Reggie, too?

  She told Reggie, “Even if what you’re saying is true, you’re still opening yourself up to a conspiracy to commit murder charge. You told an accused rapist how to locate a vulnerable woman who’d just left her family and was living on her own.”

  Reggie winced as he tried to swallow down his terror.

  She asked, “What about your story about how Andrew located me? You said that you showed him the Atlanta INtown article and he recognized my face. Is that true?”

  He nodded quickly. “Yes. Promise. Saw the article. Showed it to him. He recognized you.”

  “And he had you look into me and my family?”

  “Yes. Paid me. That’s all.” Reggie looked at the crime scene photos again. “Not this. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

  Leigh felt in her gut that he was being honest. She exchanged a look with Walter. They were both silently asking the same question—what now?

  “The—” Reggie’s cough was wet. His eye turned toward the server closet. “On the ledge.”

  Walter went to the door. He reached up to the top of the trim. He showed Leigh the padlock key. His eyes mirrored the apprehension that Leigh was feeling.

  She didn’t need a siren in her gut to tell her this wasn’t right. She let herself think back over the last five minutes, then she ran through the last few days. Reggie had been willing to break a few laws for Andrew. Leigh could even believe that he would commit murder for the right sum of money. Where she got caught up was accepting that Reggie would commit this kind of murder. The brutality visited upon Ruby Heyer was clearly doled out by someone who enjoyed what they were doing. No sum of money could buy that level of frenzy.

  She asked Reggie, “Did Andrew ask you to store some digital files for him?”

  Reggie gave a single, painful nod.

  “You were told to release them if something happened to him?”

  Again, he managed to nod.

  Leigh watched Walter twist the key into the padlock. He opened the door.

  She had been expecting a large rack with flashing components, something out of a Jason Bourne movie. What she saw instead were two tan metal boxes sitting on top of a filing cabinet. Each was as tall and wide as a gallon of milk. Green and red lights flashed on the fronts. Blue cords snaked out of the backs and plugged into a modem.

  She asked Reggie, “Did you look at the files?”

  “No.” His neck strained as he tried to speak. “Paid me. That’s it.”

  “They’re videos of a child being raped.”

  Reggie’s eye went wide. He started shaking. Now his fear was unequivocal.

  Leigh couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or terrified of the legal ramifications. Almost every pedophile the FBI had ever arrested claimed they had no idea that child porn was on their devices. Then they spent the next chunk of their lives in prison wondering if they should’ve tried a different excuse.

  She asked Reggie, “What are you going to do?”

  “There,” Reggie said, his head tilting toward the filing cabinet in the closet. “Top drawer. Back.”

  Walter didn’t move. He was clearly exhausted. The adrenaline rush that had brought him to this place had ebbed away, only to be replaced by the
horror he felt over his own violent actions.

  Leigh couldn’t fix that right now. She opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. She saw rows of tabs with client names. The sight of the last five folders in the back made her heart wilt.

  CALLIOPE “CALLIE” DEWINTER

  HARLEIGH “LEIGH” COLLIER

  WALTER COLLIER

  MADELINE “MADDY” COLLIER

  SANDRA “PHIL” SANTIAGO

  Leigh told Walter, “I want you to wait in the car.”

  He shook his head. He was too much of a good man to leave her now.

  Leigh yanked out the folders. She returned to the desk so that Walter couldn’t look over her shoulder. She started with Maddy’s file, because that was the one that mattered the most.

  In Leigh’s legal capacity, she had read hundreds of reports from private investigators. They all had the same predictable uniformity: logs, photographs, receipts. Maddy’s was the same, though Reggie’s notes were handwritten rather than printed from a spreadsheet.

  The records of her daughter’s comings and goings had started two days prior to the Sunday performance of The Music Man and were as recent as yesterday afternoon.

  8:12 a.m. – carpools to school with Keely Heyer, Necia Adams, and Bryce Diaz

  8:22 a.m. – stops at McDonald’s, goes through drive-thru, eats in car en route

  8:49 a.m. — arrives at Hollis Academy

  3:05 p.m. — sighted in auditorium at play practice

  3:28 p.m. – on field for soccer practice (father attending)

  5:15 p.m. – home with father

  Leigh thought about Andrew screwing with his ankle monitor, but she wouldn’t let her mind go to the possibility that Andrew had ended up sitting in the Hollis auditorium watching Maddy check in with the younger kids or lurking around the stadium where Maddy practiced soccer three times a week, because the loaded Glock was too close at hand.

  Instead, she paged to the thick stack of color photographs behind the logs. More of the same. Maddy in the car. Maddy on stage. Maddy stretching on the sidelines.

  Leigh didn’t show the photos to Walter. She wasn’t going to turn him back into the feral animal who had been willing to murder Reggie Paltz.