False Witness Page 11

  Leigh forced herself not to snatch the address out of his hand. “She’s a trust-fund baby.”

  “Is that the story you wanna tell me?”

  Only one emotion could cut through the Valium: anger. “Jesus fuck, Nick. What’s with the third degree? Either give me the information or—”

  He tossed the address onto her lap. “Get outta my ride, Counselor. Go find your junkie.”

  Leigh didn’t get out. She unfolded the paper.

  ALAMEDA MOTEL 9921 STEWART AVENUE.

  Back when Leigh worked Legal Aid, she’d had a lot of clients living in the long-term motel. They charged $120 a week to poor people who could find a hell of a lot better place to live if they could save up the deposit money to rent a place that charged $480 a month.

  Nick said, “I got work to do. Either start talking or start walking.”

  Her mouth opened. She was going to tell him the truth.

  She’s my sister. I haven’t seen her in over a year. She lives like a junkie prostitute while I live in a gated condo building and send my daughter to a twenty-eight-grand-a-year school because I pushed my baby sister into the arms of a sexual predator and was too ashamed to tell her that he’d come after me, too.

  “Fine.” Leigh couldn’t tell Nick the whole truth, but she could tell him part of it. “I should’ve been up front with you from the beginning. She’s one of my previous clients. Back when I worked for myself.”

  Nick clearly expected more.

  “She was a gymnast in elementary school. Then she got into competitive cheerleading.” Leigh narrowed her eyes to ward off a crass cheerleader joke. “She was a flyer. Do you know what that is?”

  He shook his head.

  “There’s a couple of guys, sometimes as many as four, who are spotters. They do things like raise up the flyer on the palms of their hands while she holds a pose. Or sometimes they just throw her up into the air as high as they can. We’re talking fifteen, sometimes twenty feet off the ground. The flyer spins around, does a couple of flips, then she comes down, and the spotters interlock their arms to form a basket for her to land in. But if they don’t catch her, or they catch her wrong, then she can mess up her knee, break an ankle, sprain her back.” Leigh had to stop to swallow. “Callie landed wrong on an X-Out basket toss and ended up fracturing two vertebrae in her neck.”

  “Jesus.”

  “She was so strong that the muscles held it in place. She kept performing. But then her legs went numb and she was rushed to the ER and she had spinal fusion surgery and she had to wear a halo to keep her head from turning and she started taking Oxy for the pain and—”

  “Heroin.” Nick was on the streets. He’d seen the progression in real time. “That’s quite a sob story, Counselor. The judge must’a bought it since her ass isn’t behind bars where it belongs.”

  The judge had bought a confession from the innocent junkie Leigh had bribed to take the fall.

  Nick asked, “She on the needle or smoking it?”

  “Needle. It’s been off and on for almost twenty years.” Leigh’s heart had started pounding again. The crushing guilt of her sister’s tortured life had broken through the veil of Valium. “Some years are better than others.”

  “Christ, that’s a hard road to walk.”

  “It is.” Leigh had watched it play out like a never-ending horror novel. “I wanted to check on her because I feel guilty.”

  His eyebrows arched back up. “Since when does a defense lawyer ever feel guilty?”

  “She almost died last year.” Leigh couldn’t look at him anymore. She stared out the window instead. “I gave her Covid.”

  SUMMER 1998

  The night was pitch black. Harleigh’s eyes sharpened on every detail picked out by her car’s headlights. Mailbox numbers. Stop signs. Taillights on parked cars. A cat’s eyes as it scrambled across the road.

  Harleigh, I think I killed Buddy.

  Callie’s hoarse whisper had been barely perceptible on the other end of the telephone. There was a scary flatness to her voice. She had shown more emotion this morning when she couldn’t find her socks for cheerleading practice.

  I think I killed him with a knife.

  Harleigh hadn’t asked questions or demanded a reason why. She had known exactly why, because in that moment, her mind had taken her back to that sweaty yellow Corvette, the song on the radio, Buddy’s enormous hand covering her knee.

  Callie, listen to me. Don’t move until I get there.

  Callie had not moved. Harleigh had found her sitting on the floor of the Waleskis’ bedroom. She still had the phone to her ear. The operator’s staticky voice was talking over the screeching wah-wah-wah sound that the phone made when you left it off the hook too long.

  Callie’s hair was out of its usual ponytail, shrouding her face. Her voice sounded raspy as she spoke the words along with the recording. “If you’d like to make a call …”

  “Cal!” Harleigh dropped to her knees. She tried to pry the phone out of her sister’s hands, but Callie wouldn’t let go. “Callie, please.”

  Callie looked up.

  Harleigh fell back in horror.

  The whites in her sister’s eyes had turned black. Her nose had been broken. Blood dripped from her mouth. Finger-shaped red slashes ringed Callie’s neck where Buddy had tried to choke the life out of her.

  Harleigh was responsible for this. She had protected herself from Buddy, but then she had put Callie directly in his path.

  “Cal, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “What—” Callie coughed, and blood misted out from her lips. “What are we going to do?”

  Harleigh gripped Callie’s hands like she could keep them both from sinking farther down. So much ran through her mind—you’re going to be okay. I’ll fix this. We’ll get through it together—but she saw no way to fix this, no path out of hell. Harleigh had entered the house through the kitchen. Her eyes had flickered across Buddy the same guilty way you’d pretend to not see a homeless person freezing in a doorway.

  But he wasn’t homeless.

  Buddy Waleski was connected. He had friends all over the place, including inside the police force. Callie wasn’t some coddled suburban white kid with two parents who would lay down their lives to protect her. She was a trashy teenager from the bad side of town who’d already spent time in juvie for stealing a pink cat collar from the dollar store.

  “Maybe—” Tears welled into Callie’s eyes. Her throat was so swollen that she had trouble speaking. “Maybe he’s okay?”

  Harleigh didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Will you see if he’s okay?” Callie’s black eyes caught the reflection from the table lamp. She was looking at Harleigh, but she was somewhere else, a place where everything was going to work out all right. “Buddy was mad, but maybe he’s not mad anymore if he’s okay? We can—we can get him help. Linda won’t be home until—”

  “Cal—” Harleigh’s sob strangled around the word. “Was it—did Buddy try something? Did it happen before or …”

  Callie’s face gave her the awful answer. “He loved me, Har. He said he was going to take care of me always.”

  Harleigh was literally bowled over by the pain. She touched her forehead to the filthy carpet. Tears seeped from her eyes. Her mouth opened as a moan escaped from deep inside of her body.

  This was her fault. This was all her fault.

  “It’s okay.” Callie rubbed Harleigh’s back, trying to comfort her. “He loves me, Harleigh. He’ll forgive me.”

  Harleigh shook her head. The stiff carpet scratched against her face. What was she going to do? How was she going to fix this? Buddy was dead. He was too heavy for them to carry. There was no way he would fit in Harleigh’s tiny car. They couldn’t dig a hole deep enough for him to rot in. They couldn’t leave because Callie’s fingerprints were on everything.

  Callie said, “He’ll take care of me, Har. Just tell him I’m s-sorry.”

  This was her fault. This was all
her fault.

  “Please—” Callie’s broken nose whistled with every breath. “Please will you check?”

  Harleigh kept shaking her head. Her chest felt like claws were digging into her ribcage, pulling her back into the stinking shithole that was her life. She was supposed to leave for college in four weeks and one day. She was supposed to get away, but she couldn’t abandon Callie like this. The police wouldn’t see the cuts and bruises as evidence that her sister had fought for her life. They would see the tight clothes, the make-up, the way she wore her hair, and say she was a conniving, murdering Lolita.

  And if Harleigh came to her defense? If she said that Buddy had tried it with her, too, but she’d been so busy getting on with her life that she hadn’t warned her sister?

  It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.

  “Please check on him,” Callie said. “He looked cold, Harleigh. Buddy hates being cold.”

  Harleigh saw her future circling down the drain. All the things she’d planned for—the brand-new life she’d pictured in Chicago with her own apartment, her own things, maybe a cat and a dog and a boyfriend who didn’t already have a criminal record—were gone. All the extra classes in school, all the nights she’d spent studying in between working two, sometimes three different jobs, putting up with handsy bosses and harassing comments, sleeping in her car between shifts, hiding money from her mother, all to end up exactly where every other miserable, hopeless kid in this ghetto ended up.

  “He—” Callie coughed. “He was m-mad because I f-found the camera. I knew about it but not—he taped us doing—Har, people watched. They know w-what we did.”

  Harleigh silently replayed her sister’s words. The apartment in Chicago. The cat and dog. The boyfriend. All of it melted into the ether.

  She forced herself to sit back up. Every part of her brain was telling her not to ask, but she had to know. “Who watched you?”

  “A-all of them.” Callie’s teeth had started chattering. Her skin was pale. Her lips had turned the blue of a jay’s crest. “Dr. Patterson. C-coach Holt. Mr. Humphrey. Mr. G-ganza. Mr. Emmett.”

  Harleigh’s hand went to her stomach. The names were as familiar to her as the last eighteen years of her life. Dr. Patterson, who’d warned Harleigh to dress more modestly because she was distracting the boys. Coach Holt, who kept telling her his house was right up the street if she ever needed to talk. Mr. Humphrey, who’d made Harleigh sit in his lap before he’d let her test drive a car. Mr. Ganza, who’d wolf-whistled at her last week at the supermarket. Mr. Emmett, who would always rub his arm across her breasts when she was in the dentist’s chair.

  She asked Callie, “They touched you? Dr. Patterson and Coach—”

  “N-no. Buddy made …” The chattering cut her off. “M-movies. Buddy made m-movies and they w-watched us.”

  Harleigh’s vision started to sharpen again, the same as it had during the drive over. Only this time, everything was red. Everywhere she looked—the scuffed walls, the damp carpet, the stained bedspread, Callie’s swollen, battered face—she saw red.

  This was her fault. This was all her fault.

  She used her fingers to gently wipe away Callie’s tears. She watched her own hand move, but it was like watching someone else’s hand. The knowledge of what these grown men had done to her baby sister had split Harleigh in two. One side of her wanted to bite down on the pain the same way that she always did. The other side wanted to cause as much pain as possible.

  Dr. Patterson. Coach Holt. Mr. Humphrey. Mr. Ganza. Mr. Emmett.

  She would destroy them. If it was the last thing she did, Harleigh would end their lives.

  She asked her sister, “What time does Linda get home in the morning?”

  “Nine.”

  Harleigh looked at the bedside clock. She had less than thirteen hours to fix this.

  She asked, “Where is the camera?”

  “I—” Callie put her hand to her strangled throat like she needed help pushing out the answer. “The bar.”

  Harleigh’s fists were clenched as she walked down the hallway. Past the guest room, the bathroom. Past Trevor’s bedroom.

  She stopped, turned around. She cracked open Trevor’s door. His night light spun pinprick stars against the ceiling. His face was tucked down into his pillow. He was fast asleep. She knew without asking that Buddy had made him take his sleepy medicine.

  “Harleigh?” Callie stood in the doorway. Her skin was so pale that she looked like a ghost hovering in the darkness. “I don’t know w-what to do.”

  Harleigh pulled Trevor’s door closed behind her.

  She walked up the hallway, past the aquarium, the couch, the ugly leather club chairs with their cigarette-burned arms. The camera was on a pile of wine corks behind the bar. Canon Optura, top of the line, which Harleigh knew because she had sold electronics over the Christmas rush. The plastic case was broken, a chunk missing from the corner. Harleigh ripped the camera away from the power cable. She used her thumbnail to drag the tiny slider to eject the mini-cassette.

  Empty.

  Harleigh searched the floor, the shelves behind the bar, trying to find the cassette.

  Nothing.

  She stood up. She saw the couch with its depressing, solo imprints on opposite sides. The grungy orange drapes. The giant television with the cables hanging down.

  Cables that went into the camera she was holding in her hands.

  The device had no internal storage. The mini-cassette, which was slightly larger than a business card, held the recordings. You could plug in the camera to a TV or VCR, but no cassette meant no movie.

  Harleigh had to find that cassette to show it to the cops so that they could see—what?

  She had never been inside of a courtroom, but she had grown up watching woman after woman get knocked down by men. Crazy bitches. Hysterical girls. Stupid cunts. Men controlled the system. They controlled the police, the courtrooms, the probation agencies, welfare services, juvenile hall and the jails, school boards, car dealerships, supermarkets, dentists’ offices.

  Dr. Patterson. Coach Holt. Mr. Humphrey. Mr. Ganza. Mr. Emmett.

  There was no way to prove they had watched the video, and unless it showed Callie screaming No the entire time, the cops, the lawyers, the judges, would all say that she had wanted it because, no matter what happened to women, men always, always covered each other’s asses.

  “Harleigh.” Callie’s arms were hugged around her slim waist. She was trembling. Her lips had turned white. It was like watching her baby sister disappear in stages.

  This was her fault. This was all her fault.

  “Please,” Callie said. “He—he could still be alive. Please.”

  Harleigh looked at her sister. Mascara ran down her face. Blood and lipstick smeared her mouth into a clown’s grimace. Like Harleigh, she had been desperate to grow up. Not because she wanted to distract the boys or call attention to herself, but because adults got to make their own decisions.

  Harleigh slammed the camera down on the bar top.

  She had finally seen their way out of this.

  Buddy Waleski was sitting on the kitchen floor, his back against the cabinets under the sink. His head had dropped forward. His arms were at his sides. His legs were splayed out. The cut was in his left leg, a tiny spring of blood bubbling out like sewage from a broken pipe.

  “Please ch-check.” Callie stood behind her, black eyes unblinking as she stared at Buddy. “P-please, Har. He c-can’t be dead. He can’t.”

  Harleigh went to the body, but not to help. She stuck her hand into Buddy’s pants pockets, searching for the small cassette. She found a wad of cash on the left side along with a half-roll of Tums and some lint. A remote control for the camera was in the right pocket. She threw it across the floor so hard that the battery cover broke open. She checked the back pockets and found Buddy’s cracked leather wallet and a stained handkerchief.

  No cassette.

  “Harleigh?” Callie said.


  Mentally, Harleigh pushed her sister to the side. She needed to keep her focus on the story they would tell the cops—

  Buddy had been alive when they’d left the Waleski house. The only reason Callie had called Harleigh to pick her up was because Buddy was acting strange. He’d told Harleigh some guy had threatened to kill him. He’d told Harleigh to get Callie the hell out of here. They had both gone home and then, obviously, the man who had threatened Buddy had murdered him.

  Harleigh punched at the story, looking for weak points. Callie’s fingerprints and DNA were everywhere, but Callie was here more than Buddy. Trevor was dead asleep, so he wouldn’t know anything. Buddy’s blood was confined to the area around his leg, so there were no bloody fingerprints or footprints that could be traced back to Callie. Everything had an explanation. Maybe some of it was weak, but it was believable.

  “Har?” Callie’s arms were still wrapped tight around her narrow waist. She was swaying back and forth.

  Harleigh took her in. Black eyes. Strangled neck. Broken nose.

  She told Callie, “Mom did this to you.”

  Callie looked confused.

  “If anyone asks, tell them you talked back and Mom gave you a beat-down. Okay?”

  “I don’t—”

  Harleigh held up her hand to stop Callie from talking. She needed to think it all through forward and back again. Buddy came home. He was scared. Someone had threatened his life. He hadn’t said who, just that the sisters should go. Harleigh drove Callie home. Buddy was fine when they left. Callie had gotten the shit beaten out of her the same as she had dozens of times before. Social services would be called again, but a couple of months in foster care beat the hell out of the rest of your life in prison.

  Unless the police found the mini-cassette, because the cassette gave Callie a motive.

  Harleigh asked, “Where would Buddy hide something small, something smaller than his hand?”

  Callie shook her head. She didn’t know.

  Harleigh let her gaze bounce around the kitchen, desperate to find the cassette. She opened cabinets and drawers, looked under pots and pans. Nothing seemed out of place, and Harleigh would know. Before Callie took over, she had practically lived at the Waleskis’ five nights a week over three long years. Studying on the couch, cooking Trevor’s meals in the kitchen, playing games with him at the table.