False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  “You know what I want.” Andrew didn’t make her guess. “Tell me about my father.”

  Callie wanted to laugh. “You picked the wrong fucking day to ask me about that asshole.”

  Andrew said nothing. He was watching her with the same coldness that Leigh had described. Callie realized she was pushing him too much, acting too reckless. Andrew could reach for the gun, there could be a knife under the bar, or he could use his hands because, up close, she realized how big he was, how the muscles rippling under his shirt were not for show. If it came down to physical blows again, Callie did not stand a chance.

  She said, “Before yesterday, I would’ve said Buddy had his demons, but he was an okay guy.”

  “What happened yesterday?”

  He was pretending like Sidney hadn’t told him everything. “I saw one of the tapes.”

  Andrew’s curiosity was piqued. “What did you think about it?”

  “I think …” Callie hadn’t let herself process what she thought, other than disgust with her own delusions. “I told myself for so long that he loved me, but then I saw what he did to me. That wasn’t really love, was it?”

  He shrugged off the question. “It got a little rough, but there were other times you enjoyed it. I saw the look on your face. You can’t fake that. Not when you’re a kid.”

  “You’re wrong,” Callie said, because she had been faking it all of her life.

  “Am I?” Andrew asked. “Look at what happened to you without him. You were destroyed the moment he died. You were rendered meaningless without him.”

  If there was one thing Callie knew, it was that her life had meaning. She had grown Leigh a baby. She had given her sister something that Leigh would’ve never trusted to give herself. “Why do you care, Andrew? Buddy couldn’t stand you. The last thing he said to you was to drink your NyQuil and go the fuck to bed.”

  Andrew’s expression showed that the blow had landed. “We’ll never know how Dad felt about me, will we? You and Harleigh robbed us of the chance to get to know each other.”

  “We did you a favor,” Callie said, though she wasn’t so sure. “Does your mother know what happened?”

  “That bitch doesn’t care about anything but work. You were there. She never had time for me then, and she doesn’t make time for me now.”

  “Everything she did was for you,” Callie said. “She was the best mother in the neighborhood.”

  “That’s like saying she was the best hyena in the pack.” Andrew’s jaw clenched, the bone sticking out at a sharp angle. “I’m not talking about my mother with you. That’s not why we’re here.”

  Callie turned around. The candles had distracted her. The smoke and mirrors. Walter’s unmoving form in the hallway. She hadn’t noticed that some of the mattresses had been moved. Three of the larger ones had been stacked on top of each other. They were exactly where the couch used to be.

  She felt Andrew’s breath on the back of her neck before she realized he was standing behind her. His hands were on her hips. The weight of his touch pressed into her bones.

  His hands spread across her belly. His mouth was close to her ear. “Look at how tiny you are.”

  Callie swallowed down bile. Buddy’s words. Andrew’s voice.

  “Let’s see what’s under here.” He worked the snaps on her satin jacket. “Do you like this?”

  Callie felt cool air on her stomach. His fingers slid under her shirt. She bit down on her lip when his hand cupped her breasts. With his other hand, he reached down between her legs. Callie’s knees bowed out. It was like sitting on the flat end of a shovel.

  “Such a sweet little dolly.” He started to pull off her jacket.

  “No.” Callie tried to move away, but he’d caught her in a vise-like grip between her legs.

  “Empty your pockets.” His tone had turned dark. “Now.”

  Fear seeped into every corner of her body. Callie started to shake. Her feet barely touched the ground. She felt like a pendulum on a clock, hinged only by the hand between her legs.

  He tightened his grip. “Do it.”

  She reached into her right pocket. Sidney’s blood was sticky on the knife. The loaded syringe brushed against the back of her fingers. Slowly, she pulled out the knife, praying that Andrew didn’t go looking for more.

  Andrew wrenched the knife from her hand. He tossed it onto the bar top. “What else?”

  Callie couldn’t stop the trembling as she reached into her left pocket. Her dope kit felt so personal that it was like taking out her own heart.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “My-my—” Callie couldn’t answer. She had started crying. The fear was too much. Everything was bubbling back up. Her rosy, faint memories of Buddy were colliding against the cold, hard anger of his son. Their hands were the same. Their voices were the same. And both of them had taken pleasure in hurting her.

  “Open it,” Andrew said.

  She tried to pry up the lid with her thumbnail, but the shaking made it impossible. “I can’t—”

  Andrew snatched the kit away from her. His hand slipped out from between her legs.

  Callie felt hollowed out inside. She staggered over to the pile of mattresses. She sat down, pulling her jacket closed.

  Andrew stood in front of her. He had opened her kit. “What’s this for?”

  Callie looked at her tie-off in his hand. The brown leather strap had belonged to Maddy’s father. There was a loop on one end. The other end was chewed where Larry, then Callie had grabbed it in their teeth to pull the tourniquet tight enough to make a vein pop out.

  “Come on,” Andrew said. “What’s it for?”

  “You—” Callie had to clear her throat. “I don’t use it anymore. It’s for—I don’t have any veins left in my arms that I can use. I shoot up in my leg.”

  Andrew was silent for a moment. “Where in your leg?”

  “The f-femoral vein.”

  Andrew’s mouth opened, but he seemed incapable of speaking. The candles made light flash across his cold eyes. Finally, he said, “Show me how you do it.”

  “I don’t—”

  His hand gripped her neck. Callie felt her breath stop. She clawed at his fingers. He slammed her back onto the mattress. The weight of him was unbearable. He pressed what little air she had left out of her body. Callie felt her eyelids start to flutter.

  Andrew was above her, scrutinizing her face, feeding off of her terror. He had her pinned down completely with one hand. Callie could do nothing but wait for him to kill her.

  But he didn’t.

  He released his hold on her neck. He ripped open the button on her jeans. He yanked down the zipper. Callie stayed flat on her back, knowing she couldn’t stop him as he tugged down her jeans. He brought one of the candles closer so he could see her leg.

  He asked, “What’s this?”

  Callie didn’t have to ask him to clarify. He jammed his finger into the Band-Aid Dr. Jerry had used to cover the abscess. The incision split open, sending a sharp pinch through her leg.

  “Answer me.” He pressed harder.

  “It’s an abscess,” she told him. “From shooting up.”

  “Does that happen a lot?”

  Callie had to swallow before she could speak. “Yes.”

  “Interesting.”

  She shivered when his fingers tickled up her leg. Her eyes closed. There was no resolve left inside of her body. She longed for Leigh to break down the door, to shoot Andrew in the face, to rescue Walter, to save her from what was going to happen next.

  Callie bit down on her helplessness. She couldn’t let any of that happen. She had to do this herself. Leigh would be here eventually. Callie wasn’t going to be the reason her sister got more blood on her hands again.

  She told Andrew, “Help me sit up.”

  Andrew grabbed her by the arm. The vertebrae in her neck made a popping sound as he jerked her up. She looked around for her dope kit. He’d left it open on the edge of the mattres
s.

  She told him, “I need water.”

  He hesitated. “Does it matter if something is in it?”

  “No,” she lied.

  Andrew walked back to the bar.

  Callie picked up her spoon. The handle was bent into a ring so she could hold it better. She took the bottle of water from Andrew. She assumed he’d made Walter drink from it. She had no idea what the Rohypnol would do but neither did she care.

  “Hold on,” Andrew said, bringing the candles closer so he could see what she was doing.

  Callie felt her throat work. You didn’t do this for porn. You did it in private, or you did it with other junkies because the process was yours and yours alone.

  “What’s this for?” Andrew pointed at the cotton ball in her kit.

  Callie didn’t answer him. Her hands had stopped shaking now that she was giving her body what it wanted. She opened the baggie. She tapped the off-white powder onto the bowl of the spoon.

  Andrew asked, “Is that enough?”

  “Yes,” Callie said, though it was actually too much. “Open the bottle for me.”

  She waited for Andrew to comply. She held a sip of water in her mouth, then squirted it out onto the spoon like a cardinal feeding its baby. Instead of using her Zippo, she picked up one of the candles from the floor. The white vinegar smell was strong as the dope slowly boiled into a liquid. The dealer had fucked her. The stronger the smell, the more shit in the cut.

  Her eyes met Andrew’s over the smoke rising from the spoon. His tongue had darted out. This was what he’d wanted from the beginning. Buddy had used tequila and Andrew was using heroin but they both wanted the same thing in the end—Callie put into a stupor so that she couldn’t fight back.

  With her free hand, she tore off a piece of the cotton. She picked up the syringe. Bit the cap off with her teeth. She placed the needle into the cotton and pulled back on the plunger.

  “It’s a filter,” Andrew said, as if a great mystery had been solved.

  “Okay.” Callie’s mouth had filled with saliva the second the smell had hit the back of her throat. “It’s ready.”

  “What do you do?” Andrew’s hesitancy gave her the first glimpse of who he’d been as a boy. He was eager, excited to be learning a new, illicit thing. “Can I—can I do it?”

  Callie nodded, because her mouth was too full to speak. She twisted her body to bring her feet onto the mattress. Her pale thighs glowed in the candlelight. She saw what everybody else saw. The femurs and bones of her knees so pronounced that she might as well be looking at a skeleton.

  Andrew didn’t comment. He laid down alongside her legs, propping himself up on his elbow. She thought about all of the times he’d fallen asleep with his head in her lap. He’d loved to be held while she read him stories.

  Now, he was looking up at Callie, waiting for instructions on how to shoot her up with heroin.

  Callie was sitting at too severe an angle to see the upper part of her thigh. She peeled off the Band-Aid. She found the center of the drained abscess by feel. “Here.”

  “In the—” Andrew was still hesitant. He had a better view of the drained abscess than she ever would. “That looks infected.”

  Callie told him both the truth and what he wanted to hear. “The hurt feels good.”

  Andrew’s tongue darted out again. “Okay, what do I do?”

  Callie leaned back on her hands. The satin jacket fell open. “Tap the side of the syringe, then gently depress the plunger to get the air out.”

  Andrew’s hands were far from steady. He was as excited as he’d been when she’d shown him the two bicolored blennies she’d bought at the fish store. He made sure Callie was watching, then thumped his finger on the side of the plastic.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  Trev, are you tapping on the aquarium like I told you not to?

  “Good,” she said. “Now get rid of the air bubble.”

  He tested the plunger, holding the syringe up to the candlelight so he could watch the air leave the plastic tube. A trickle of liquid slid down the needle. At any other time, Callie would’ve licked it off.

  She told him, “You want the vein, okay? It’s the blue line. Can you see it?”

  He leaned down so close that she could feel his breath on her leg. His finger pressed into the abscess. He looked up quickly, making sure it was okay.

  “It feels good,” she told him. “Press harder.”

  “Fuck,” Andrew whispered, digging in with his fingernail. He practically shivered. Everything about this was exciting to him. “Like this?”

  Callie winced, but said, “Yes.”

  He caught her eye again before tracing the tip of his finger along the vein. She stared at the top of his head. His hair spun out from the crown the same way Buddy’s had. Callie remembered running her fingers along his scalp. The embarrassed look from Buddy as he’d covered the thinning patch.

  I’m just an old man little dolly why do you want anything to do with me?

  “Here?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes,” she told him. “Put the needle in slowly. Don’t press the plunger until I tell you it’s in the right place. You want the needle to slide into the vein, not through it.”

  “What will happen if it goes through?”

  “It won’t go into the bloodstream,” Callie said. “It’ll go into the muscle and it won’t really do anything.”

  “Okay,” he said, because he had no way of knowing the truth.

  She watched him return to his work. He shifted on his elbow to get more comfortable. His hand was steady as the syringe moved toward the center of the abscess.

  “Ready?”

  He didn’t wait for her acquiescence.

  The tiny prick of the needle made a sound come out of her mouth. Callie closed her eyes. Her breath was coming as fast as his. She tried to pull herself back from the brink.

  “Like that?” Andrew asked.

  “Slow,” she coaxed, her hand sliding down his back. “Move the needle around inside.”

  “Fuck,” Andrew groaned. She could feel his erection pressing against her leg. He rocked against her, sliding the needle in and out of her vein.

  “Keep doing that,” she whispered, running her fingers down his spine. She could feel the flex of his ribs as he breathed. “That’s good, baby.”

  Andrew’s head fell against her hip. She felt his tongue on her skin. His breath was hot and wet.

  She reached into her jacket pocket. She popped the cap off the 20-ml syringe.

  “Okay,” she told Andrew, her fingers locating the space between his ninth and tenth rib. “Start pushing it in, but do it slow, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The sickness from the first taste of heroin nagged at her like a virus.

  She pulled the syringe out of her pocket. The blue liquid looked dull in the candlelight.

  Callie didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t let him walk out the door. She stabbed down at an angle, puncturing through the muscle and sinew, driving the needle directly into the left ventricle of Andrew’s heart.

  She was already pressing down on the plunger before he realized that something was very wrong.

  By then, it was too late for him to do anything about it.

  There was no fighting her off. No screaming. No cries for help. The sedative nature of the pentobarbital took away any last words. She heard the agonal breathing Dr. Jerry had warned her about, the brainstem reflex that sounded like a gasp for breath. His right hand was the last part of his body that he had under any control, and Andrew pushed the heroin in so fast that Callie felt her femoral vein turn into fire.

  Her teeth clamped together. Sweat poured off of her body. She held tight to the 20-ml syringe, her thumb shaking as she pressed the thick blue liquid through the needle. Adrenaline was the only thing that kept Callie from collapsing. There was still half a dose left. She watched the slow progress of the plunger going down. She had to give him the full dose before the adrenaline burned off. Leigh w
as going to be here soon. This couldn’t be like the last time. Callie wasn’t going to make her sister finish the job she had started.

  The plunger finally sank to the bottom. Callie watched the last of the drug flood into Andrew’s black heart.

  Her hand dropped away. She fell back onto the mattress.

  The heroin took over, coming for her in waves—not the euphoria, but the slow release of her body finally giving in to the inevitable.

  The pungent vinegar smell. The larger than usual portion. The Rohypnol in the water. The fentanyl she had taken from Dr. Jerry’s drug locker and chopped into the off-white powder.

  Andrew Tenant wasn’t the only person who wasn’t going to walk out that door.

  First her muscles unwrapped themselves from their tight knots. Then her joints stopped aching, her neck stopped hurting, her body let go of the pain it had been holding on to for so many years that Callie had stopped counting. Her breathing was no longer labored. Her lungs no longer needed air. Her heartbeat was like a slow clock counting down the seconds left in her life.

  Callie stared up at the ceiling, her eyes fixed like an owl’s. She didn’t think about the hundreds of times she had stared up at this same ceiling from the couch. She thought about her brilliant sister, and Leigh’s wonderful husband, and their beautiful girl running down the soccer field. She thought about Dr. Jerry and Binx and even Phil until finally, inevitably, Callie thought about Kurt Cobain.

  He wasn’t waiting for her anymore. He was here, talking to Mama Cass and Jimi Hendrix, laughing with Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse and Janis Joplin and River Phoenix.

  They all noticed Callie at the same time. They rushed over, reaching out their hands, helping her stand.

  She felt light in her body, suddenly made of feathers. She looked down at the floor and watched it turn into soft clouds. Her head went back and she was looking up at the bright blue sky. Callie looked left and then right and then behind her. There were kindly horses and plump canines and clever cats and then Janis gave her a bottle and Jimi passed her a joint and Kurt offered to read her some of his poetry, and, for the first time in her life, Callie knew that she belonged.