False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Leigh looked horrified. “He—I don’t—”

  “Come on.” Callie made her stand. She stepped around the vomit. “We can figure out what we’re going to do on the way.”

  “No.” Leigh was clearly struggling to regain her composure. She grabbed Callie’s hand, spun her around. “You can’t go with me.”

  “This isn’t a discussion.”

  “You’re right,” Leigh said. “I have to do this alone, Cal. You know that.”

  Callie chewed her lip. It was a testament to Leigh’s distress that she wasn’t seeing through this. “You can’t do this on your own. He’ll have a gun or—”

  “I have a gun.” Leigh reached into her car. She found her purse. She took out the Glock she’d brandished at Trap and Diego outside the motel. “I’ll shoot him if I have to.”

  Callie had no doubt that she meant it. “And I’m supposed to wait around here while you’re risking your life?”

  “Take the money.” Leigh reached into her purse, this time to retrieve an envelope thick with cash. “You need to get out of town right now. I can’t fix this unless I know you’re safe.”

  “How are you going to fix it?”

  Leigh had a crazy look in her eyes. She was going to fix it by throwing more fuel onto the fire. “I need you to be safe.”

  “I need you to be safe, too,” Callie argued. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You’re right. You’re not leaving me. I’m leaving you.” Leigh slapped the money into Callie’s hand. “This is between me and Andrew. You don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You’re not a criminal,” Callie said, reminding her sister of her own words. “You don’t know how to break into houses and threaten people and crack safes.”

  “I’ll figure it out.” Leigh sounded determined. There was no arguing with her when she got this way. “Promise me you’ll be okay so that I can do what I should’ve done four days ago.”

  “Turn yourself in?” Callie forced out a laugh. “Leigh, do you really think going to the cops right now will stop Andrew from doing what he’s going to do?”

  “There’s only one way to stop him,” Leigh said. “I’m going to kill that twisted motherfucker the same way I killed his father.”

  Callie watched Leigh walk around to the driver’s side of the car. In all of their years together, she had never seen her sister so relentlessly driven toward one thing. “Harleigh?”

  Leigh turned. Her mouth was set. She was clearly expecting an argument.

  Callie said, “What you told me about Buddy. There’s nothing to forgive. But if you need to hear it, I forgive you.”

  Leigh’s throat worked. She pulled herself back from the blinding rage for just a second before slipping back in. “I have to go.”

  “I love you,” Callie said. “There has never been a moment in my life when I didn’t love you.”

  Leigh’s tears flowed unchecked. She tried to speak but, in the end, she could only nod her head. Callie heard the words anyway.

  I love you, too.

  The car door closed. The engine grumbled awake. Leigh swerved out of the parking space. Callie watched the taillights brighten as she slowed for the turn. Her eyes stayed on her sister’s fancy car until it disappeared into the vacant intersection at the end of the street.

  Callie could’ve stood there all night like a dog waiting for its best friend to come back, but she didn’t have time. She thumbed through the fat stack of hundreds in the envelope as she walked back into the clinic. She put the money in Dr. Jerry’s lockbox. She thought about what she was going to do next. The giant loaded syringe was still in her right jacket pocket. She packed up her dope kit and shoved it into the left.

  She found Sidney’s keys in her backpack. Callie would give the BMW one final spin.

  Leigh’s panic had made her vulnerable, the same way it always had. Callie had used that knowledge to get her sister out of the way. Andrew hadn’t taken Walter to his sleek, serial killer murder mansion. There was only one place this would end—the place where it had all started.

  The mustard-colored house on Canyon Road.

  Callie was sweating inside of the yellow satin rainbow jacket, but she kept it snapped up all the way to her neck as she walked down the street. Phil had already peeled out of the driveway in Sidney’s BMW. This was the second time in her life that Callie had given her mother a stolen car to get rid of.

  The first time was when she’d handed off Buddy’s Corvette. Callie’s feet had barely reached the pedals. She’d had to sit so close to the steering wheel that it stabbed into her ribs. Hall & Oates was playing softly through the car’s speakers when she’d careened to a stop in front of Phil’s. The Voices CD was Buddy’s favorite. He loved “You Make My Dreams” and “Everytime You Go Away” and especially “Kiss on My List,” which he had sung along to in a funny falsetto.

  Buddy had played the song for Callie the first night he’d driven her home from babysitting Andrew. She had wanted to walk, but he’d insisted. She hadn’t wanted to drink the rum and Coke he’d put in front of her, but he’d insisted. And then he had pulled over in front of the Deguils’ house, halfway between his place and Phil’s. And then he had put his hand on her knee, and then on her thigh, and then his fingers were inside of her.

  Jesus you’re like a baby your skin is so soft I can feel the peach fuzz.

  Back in Dr. Jerry’s office, Callie’s initial response to Leigh’s confession had been a blinding jealousy. And then she had felt sad. And then she had felt so incredibly stupid. Buddy hadn’t just done the same thing with Leigh. He had done the exact same thing with Leigh.

  Callie took a deep breath. She held tight to the knife in her pocket as she walked by the Deguils’ house. The loaded 20-ml syringe pressed into the back of her hand. She had torn the top part of the pocket to make sure it fit snugly into the lining.

  Her eyes traveled upwards. The moon was hanging low in the sky. She had no idea what time it was, but she estimated Leigh was halfway to Andrew’s house by now. Callie could only hope that her sister’s panic hadn’t yet ebbed away. Leigh was impetuous, but she had the same animal cunning as Callie. Her gut would tell her that something was wrong. Eventually, her brain would figure out what.

  Callie had given in too easily. She had put the idea of going to Andrew’s house in Leigh’s head. Leigh had sped away without thinking and, now that she was thinking, she would realize that she needed to turn around.

  Waiting for that eventuality was a pointless use of Callie’s time. Leigh was going to do what Leigh was going to do. What Callie had to focus on right now was Andrew.

  There was always a moment in a crime novel where the detective said something pithy about how the killer wanted to get caught. Andrew Tenant did not want to get caught. He kept making the game more dangerous because he was addicted to the adrenaline rush that came from taking big risks. Callie, Leigh and Walter had done him a favor by going after Sidney and kidnapping Reggie Paltz. Leigh believed that Andrew was panicking because he’d lost control. Callie knew that he was chasing the high the same way she did with heroin. There was no drug that was more addictive than the ones your body could make on its own.

  As with opioids, there was an actual science that explained adrenaline junkies. High-risk behaviors rewarded the body by flooding the system with an intense surge of adrenaline. Adrenergic receptors, like their country cousin mus, loved the overly aggressive stimulation, which fell along the same pathways as the fight-or-flight instinct. Most people hated that perilous, exposed sensation, but adrenaline junkies lived for it. It was no coincidence that adrenaline’s AKA was epinephrine, a hormone valued by body builders and recreational users alike. An adrenaline rush could make you feel like a god. Your heart raced, your muscles got stronger, your focus sharpened, you felt no pain, and you could out-fuck a rabbit.

  Like any addict, Andrew needed more and more of the drug to get high. That was why he had raped a woman who could recognize the sound of his voice
. That was why Leigh’s mom-friend had been brutally murdered. It was also why Andrew had kidnapped Walter. The bigger the risk, the higher the reward.

  Callie let her lips part so that she could take in a deep breath. She could see the mustard-yellow siding from twenty yards away. The overgrown yard still had the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign out front. As she got closer, she saw that the neighborhood graffiti artists had accepted the challenge. A spurting penis covered the phone number, whisker-like hairs jutting from the balls.

  A black Mercedes was parked by the mailbox. Dealer tags. Tenant Automotive Group. Another calculated risk on Andrew’s part. The house was still boarded up, so the ’hood would assume a drug dealer was stocking up one of his shooting galleries. Or a police cruiser would drive by and wonder what was going on.

  Callie looked inside the car for Walter. The seats were empty. The car was spotless but for a bottle of water in one of the cupholders. She pressed her hand to the hood. The engine was cool. She thought about checking the trunk, but the doors were locked.

  She studied the house before steeling herself for the walk up the driveway. Nothing looked amiss, but everything felt wrong. The closer she got to the house, the more the panic threatened to take over. Her legs felt shaky as she stepped around the oil stain where Buddy used to park his Corvette. The carport was dark, shadows overlapping shadows inside. Callie’s Doc Martens crunched against the concrete. She looked down. Someone had laid down a ghetto burglar alarm, scattering shards of broken glass along the carport entrance.

  “You can stop there,” Sidney said.

  Callie couldn’t see her, but she gathered that Sidney was standing near the kitchen door. She stepped over the glass. Then she took another step.

  Click-clack.

  Callie recognized the distinctive sound of a slide being pulled back on a nine-millimeter handgun.

  She told the woman, “It would be more threatening if I could actually see the gun.”

  Sidney stepped out of the shadows. She held the weapon like an amateur, her finger clutching the trigger, the gun turned sideways like she was in a gangster movie. “How about now, Max?”

  Callie had almost forgotten her alias, but she had not forgotten that Sidney had probably murdered Leigh’s friend. “I’m surprised you can walk.”

  Sidney took another step forward to prove that she could. In the light from the street, Callie could see that the professional attire was gone. Leather pants. Tight leather vest. No shirt. Black mascara. Black eyeliner. Blood-red lips. She saw Callie taking in the change. “Like what you see?”

  “Very much,” Callie said. “If you’d looked this good before, I probably would’ve fucked you back.”

  Sidney grinned. “I felt bad for not letting you finish.”

  Callie took another step forward. She was close enough to smell Sidney’s musky perfume. “We could always go again.”

  Sidney kept grinning. Callie recognized a fellow junkie. Sidney was just as addicted to the rush as her sick fuck of a husband.

  “Hey,” Callie said. “How about a quickie in the trunk of the car?”

  The grin intensified. “Andrew called first dibs.”

  “More like sloppy seconds.” Callie felt the muzzle of the gun pressing into her chest. She glanced down. “That’s a nice toy.”

  “I think so,” Sidney said. “Andy bought it for me.”

  “Did he show you where the safety is?”

  Sidney turned the gun over, looking for the button.

  Callie did what she should’ve done before.

  She pushed the gun out of the way.

  She took the knife out of her pocket and she stabbed Sidney in the stomach five times.

  “Oh.” Sidney’s mouth opened in surprise. Her breath smelled like cherries.

  Hot blood soaked Callie’s hand as she twisted the blade in deeper. The vibration of the serrated teeth scratching against bone went up her arm. Callie’s mouth was so close to Sidney’s that their lips brushed. She told the woman, “You should’ve let me finish.”

  The knife came out with a sucking sound.

  Sidney stumbled forward. The gun clattered to the ground. Blood spattered against the smooth concrete. Her feet got caught up at the ankles. She fell in slow motion, body straight, hands holding her guts inside. There was a sickening crunch as her face met the shards of broken glass. Bright red blood poured around her torso like a snow angel’s wings.

  Callie looked into the empty street. No one was watching. Sidney’s body had fallen mostly inside the darkness of the carport. Anyone who got curious would have to walk up the driveway to see her.

  The knife went back into Callie’s jacket pocket. She scooped up the gun as she walked deeper into the carport. Her thumb toggled off the safety. She located the kitchen door by memory. Her eyes did not adjust until she’d lifted her leg and climbed through the opening Leigh had made two nights ago.

  The scent of meth still permeated the air, but there was a smoky undertone she couldn’t place. Callie was suddenly glad that Leigh had dragged her into this hellhole before. The memories didn’t slap her in the face like they had the first time. She didn’t see phantom outlines of the table and chairs, the blender, the toaster. She saw a squalid shooting gallery where souls came to die.

  “Sid?” Andrew called.

  Callie followed the sound of his voice into the living room.

  Andrew was standing behind the bar. A large bottle of tequila and two shot glasses were in front of him. The gun in his hand was identical to the one Callie held in hers. She could see this detail in the otherwise dark and vacant house because candles were everywhere. Small ones, big ones. Lining the bar top, the floor, the ledge of the grimy windows. Light flickered up the walls like demonic tongues. Puffs of smoke cloistered around the ceiling.

  “Calliope.” He placed the gun down on the bar. The candlelight brought a garish glow to the scratch down the side of his face. Her teeth marks had turned black on his neck. “Nice of you to show up.”

  She looked around the room. Same soiled mattresses. Same disgusting carpet. Same feeling of hopelessness. “Where’s Walter?”

  “Where’s Harleigh?”

  “Probably burning down your ugly McMansion.”

  Andrew’s hands rested flat on the bar. The gun was as close as the bottle of tequila. “Walter’s in the hall.”

  Callie walked sideways, keeping the gun pointed in his direction. Walter was flat on his back. No visible wounds but a busted lip. His eyes were closed. His mouth gaped open. He wasn’t tied up, but he wasn’t moving, either. Callie pressed her fingers to the side of his neck. She felt a steady pulse.

  She asked Andrew, “What did you do to him?”

  “He’ll live.” Andrew picked up the tequila bottle. He twisted off the cap. His knuckles were hairy, but there was no grime under his fingernails. Buddy’s heavy gold watch hung loose around his narrow wrist.

  Pour me one, baby doll.

  Callie blinked, because the words were Buddy’s, but she had heard them in her own voice.

  “Join me?” Andrew filled the two shot glasses.

  Callie kept the gun out front as she walked toward the bar.

  Instead of the fancy stuff he kept at home, Andrew had brought Jose Cuervo, the Walmart of shitfacing booze. The same brand that Callie had started drinking when Buddy had introduced her to the pleasures of alcohol.

  She tasted blood from biting her lip. Buddy hadn’t introduced her to any pleasures. He had forced her to drink so that her body would relax and she would stop crying.

  Callie glanced back in the hallway. Walter still wasn’t moving.

  Andrew said, “I roofied him. He won’t bother us.”

  Callie had not forgotten that Andrew favored Rohypnol. She told him, “Your father liked it when his victims were passed out and helpless, too.”

  Andrew’s jaw tensed. He slid one of the glasses across the bar. “Let’s not delve into revisionist history.”

  Callie stared at the white l
iquid. Rohypnol was colorless and tasteless. She grabbed the tequila by the handle and drank straight from the bottle.

  Andrew waited for her to finish before he tossed back his drink. He turned the glass over and banged it down on the bar. “I take it from all the blood that Sidney isn’t well.”

  “You could take it that she’s dead.” Callie watched his face, but no emotion registered in his expression. She imagined that Sidney would’ve had the same reaction. “Did you have her kill Leigh’s friend?”

  “I never told her what to do,” Andrew countered. “She considered it a wedding gift. Take some of the heat off me. Give her a little taste of the fun.”

  Callie didn’t doubt it. “Was she fucked up before you met her, or did you make her that way?”

  Andrew paused before answering. “She was special from the beginning.”

  Callie felt her resolve start to falter. It was the pause. He was controlling everything, down to the cadence of their conversation. He wasn’t worried about the gun. He wasn’t worried about her potential for violence. Leigh had said that Andrew was always three steps ahead. He had lured her here. He had something awful planned.

  That was the difference between the two sisters. Leigh would be trying to calculate the angles. All Callie could do was stare at the bottle of tequila, longing for another mouthful.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” Andrew took his phone out of his pocket. The blue light glowed back in his face. He showed Callie the screen. His security cameras had obviously alerted him to movement back at his house. Leigh’s fancy car was parked in his driveway. Callie watched her sister walk toward the front door, Glock at her side, before Andrew made the screen go black.

  He told Callie, “Harleigh looks distressed.”

  Callie put Sidney’s gun down on the bar. She had to hurry this along. Leigh had made good time. She would drive even faster when she turned back around. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “I could still smell you on Sid’s fingers when I got home.” He was watching her closely, hoping for a reaction. “You taste exactly as sweet as I thought you would.”

  “Let me be the first to congratulate you on your oral herpes.” Callie turned the shot glass back over. She poured herself a proper drink. “What do you want out of this, Andrew?”