Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) (8 page)

Sherry’s eyes returned to the road.

She sat back and looked away, murmuring determinedly, her
lips moving like an athlete coaching herself before a competition. “He’s all
I’ve got,” she repeated. She paused, then continued reflectively. “You know,
I’ve been thinking . . . I’ve never decided anything, never decided anything
hard
,
anyway. Well,” She paused in thought. “Brian . . .” She stopped and shook her
head sadly, worked her hands on the apron. “This stupid dead end job, going
nowhere . . . living down here, my schooling . . . I just let things happen. I
guess it’s what I do. Let things happen. That’s what my mom always said,
anyway. I just let things happen.” She worked her hands. “But I can’t
do
that anymore, and I can’t live like it’s just me anymore. I’ve got to
concentrate and make some firm decisions for once in my life. And I’ve got to
make the right ones.” She lowered her voice as if someone might hear. “The
hard
ones . . . for his sake.”

Mary blinked a few times, then whispered, turning her head
out the window so Sherry wouldn’t see the tears rising, and so she could fight
off the picture of John forming again in her mind. “And, the way life’s worked
out, I’m pretty much all he’s got—”

“Hearin’ anythin’ from Ruggle?” Sherry interrupted. Mary
sensed the gruffness was designed to help her manage her emotions. The radio
squawked again and he snapped it off.

After a while she answered through a sniffle. “No. Left him
a message on his voice mail like you said. Nothing. I’ll probably just get a
letter. He likes to have them dropped off at the front desk. Guess he doesn’t
like to talk much in person.”

“Well, prob’ly likes keepn’ a record a’things, ya know?” he
wheezed and pursed his lips. “Like I said, that there’s a
file
man ever
seen one.” He thumbed his hat back. “CYA . . . that’s what’s important to a guy
like that.
People
ain’t too high on the list,” breathed in heavily.
“Fella like that—”

“Listen,” now she broke in to take him off his subject,
smiled at him gratefully when he stopped. “I want to thank you again.” She
patted his arm on the wheel. “Sometimes I think you’re the only friend we’ve
got. Above and beyond, as they say. Helping me sort out Luis’s things . . .
picking up Brian, keeping an eye on him at school. I don’t know how we’d be
getting through this without you, or how I’d be sane at all.” She snickered
softly through a cynical smile. “If I am. If you weren’t here to listen to all
my whining—”

“Hey, Hon,” he looked at her benignly and chuckled
bashfully. “Two way street on that, y’ know? You been puttin’ up with a lotta
me moanin’ n’ whinin’ too . . . them feds.” He shook his head and glanced at
his left hand. “Know, cop’s no different’n anybody else. Even a cop’s gotta
have somebody to talk to. Whatta they call it these days? Vent? Me, I usta tell
the wife everthin’ . . . lotta times she’d tell me what she thought I oughta do
when I’s havin’ a problem . . . soundin’ board, y’know? Prob’ly most cops do.”

He drove in silence for a few moments, then chuckled. “
Pillow
talk
we call it. ‘Course, kin getcha in lotta trouble,” his smile widened
and he arched his brows toward Mary. “Wrong head’s on ‘at pillow.”

The smile faded and he drove without speaking for several
blocks, then looked at her soberly with a single eye wide open. “Both hoein’
tough rows right now . . . maybe it’s good we kin help each other out a
little.” He studied her for a long instant then turned back to the road. After
a few moments he said, “Say, Hon, you lemme know when you gonna talk to them
letter boys again.” He coughed, then laughed dryly. “‘Spect they’d just soon
not have me around much. But I’d kinda like to be there . . . you don’t mind.”

“Don’t worry,” she worked her knuckles and answered firmly.
“I’m not saying anything to them without you being there . . . you’re the only
one who really cares about
us,
it seems to me. I made that clear to that
younger one, that Walker, on one of his calls.”

*** *** *** ***

Mary and Brian were walking toward the bus stop the next
morning when the desk clerk stepped out from the lobby door waving an envelope.
Mary returned the wave but waited to pick it up until after he was off to
school. Back in the room she recognized the computer-generated label and the
absence of a zip code or return address.
Mrs. Beatrice Plummer, Knight’s
Inn, Room # 78.
She tore it open and read it alone in the room. It was
printed on plain stationery without a letterhead.

Dear Federal Witness:

Per your request the agency will coordinate a meeting
between the responsible assigned agents and you within the next seven business
days. Although the Bureau considers it inadvisable and unnecessary, it will
honor your request that Detective Sherry of the New Orleans Police Department,
Homicide Division, be permitted to be present.

Enclosed you will find a brochure offering an overview of
the program. Please review it and return it to us at the meeting noted above.
Do
not copy any portion or discuss it with any person other than official
designees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The undersigned and Agent
Clay Mark Walker #17243 are the agents assigned.
Agent Walker will
communicate the time and place of the meeting you requested.

In closing, I remind you, again, you are not to discuss
any aspect of this with
any other person
, in the interest of the
integrity of the program and the safety of you and your family.

Sincerely,

/s/ Armand H. Ruggle, #8742

Special Assignment

Southern Tier Strike Force

cc: US Attorney Assigned, #2579

STDot.com 743.6

She sat at the little round table, its surface illuminated
by a yellow-white circle from the lamp hanging from the textured ceiling.
Program?
The four-page brochure was titled:
You and the Witness Security Program,
Authorization
under Title V, Organized Crime Control Act of 1970.
She read through it
twice, eyes wide at first, then blinking and damp. Shallow breath came in
gasps, her skin tingled and her heart pounded in her ears and throat, her eyes
narrowed miserably as she read through it a third time, seizing on every word.

“I need to speak to Detective Larry Sherry . . . in
homicide. Yes, Sherry. Please . . . as soon as you can get him the message.”
She spoke tonelessly into the phone, the papers spread out over Brian’s
bedspread. “Yes, yes. It’s an emergency. Tell him to call Mary as soon as
possible.” She waited staring into space, knees drawn tight together, one hand
stroked through her hair, its fingers spread listlessly apart. “Yes. Just tell
him Mary. He’ll
know.”

*** *** *** ***

He was sitting at a booth in the back, hat resting next to
him, a brown coffee pot and two mugs the only things on the table. At
ten-thirty, they were the only customers in
Shoney’s
nonsmoking section.
He looked like a father greeting his grown daughter for breakfast when he saw
her, the initial beam dropped to a frown when he saw her face. “What’s the
trouble, Hon?”

“Look at this, Sherry!” She threw the envelope on the table
and collapsed into the other side of the booth.

His face was blank as he read, first reviewing the letter,
then thumbing disinterestedly through the pamphlet. He picked the letter back
up and scrutinized it for another moment, then laid it back down and twisted
his face to look into hers. “So . . . what’s the problem?”

“I never agreed to enter any . . . any . . .
program!
Shit! Excuse me but who do they think they are?” Her voice was breaking. “This
thing,” she picked up the pamphlet with two fingers like it was something
dirty, then dropped it back to the table. “Christ! Talks about assigning us new
names . . .
new names!!
And . . . what do they call it?” She leaned and
read from it but didn’t touch it again. “
Relocation
!” She bent toward
him shaking her head, trying to find his eyes. “Relocation! They’re crazy! I’ve
never agreed to any of that.” She sat back and pulled her running shoes up onto
the vinyl. “I’ve made a decision. I’ve decided. I’m through with them.” She
wanted her face to look firm, her voice to sound certain. “I’ve done it,
Sherry. I’ve done my part. I’ve been honest and answered every one of their
questions. A dozen times!” she said, shaking her head firmly. “They’re not
getting anything else out of me.”

The detective pulled a Bic from his pocket, regarded it,
then laid it on the table beside his cup and rubbed his temples with the
finger-tips of both hands. He filled her cup, then his own. He looked back into
her eyes over the top of his cup as he sipped, hers stayed untouched. Mary
struggled to hold her mind in the room, keep it at the table, willed it to stay
focused on this awful subject she could not run from.

“Yes . . .they are. They are.” His voice was soft but
resigned. “They got you, Mary.” He sipped again, looked at her for a long
instant and nodded before looking down at the brochure. “You’re caught.” He
pursed his lips and sucked his teeth, scratched under an eye and shook his
head. “You’re just plain stuck, Hon. Stuck ‘tween them killers . . . they’re
killers
Mary. Stuck ‘tween them and those gov’ment boys. Stuck”

“Can they make me testify? Can they do that even if it puts
me . . . me
and
Brian . . . in, in, uh, in jeopardy? Can they do that,
Sherry?” She joined her hands on the table and worked at her knuckles. “Would
they do that? We’re innocent here. We haven’t done anything. Would they put us
in danger?” She squinted and studied his eyes.

His words came even-paced and monotone. “Hon, they kin do
that and they will. I been tellin’ you that, you know? Tryin’ to anyways. Don’t
seem like you been really hearin’ me. Mebbe I ain’t been clear enough.” He
shook his head again. “Long as you stick to bein’ able to identify ‘em, you’re
in the middle o’this thing.” He paused thoughtfully then continued in a
resigned voice. “Like you said before, Mary. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that . .
. doin’ the right thing ‘n all. But then they hafta do what they hafta.” His
voice lowered to a whisper. “And so do you.” He drank again, refilled from the
pitcher. “The damn shame of it, though . . . the shame of it is you’all
are
in danger by your doin’ it.” He sighed softly. “From you tellin’ what I guess
you think you got to tell . . . what you seen that night.” He wheezed. “
Who
you seen that night. You got trouble’s, Hon . . . ‘n you got it comin’ from
both directions.”

“Don’t I have a say in this?” she asked.

“Not much, don’t ‘spect,” he punched the brochure twice with
a thick index finger. “They’re tellin’ you right there what your choices—”

“Change my name . . . change our names! Relocate! Start a
whole new life? What kind of a choice is that?”

He scratched under his eye again and sipped, then raise his
face to look full into her eyes. “Oh, there’s
choices
, Mary.” He glanced
down at the papers on the table. “This’s one could mebbe save your lives.” He
shrugged and looked over her shoulder. “On the other hand, ya know.” He
shrugged again and looked into her face. “People make mistakes identifyin’ . .
. it’s a hard thing, you know? People think they know things at first . . .
later on they forget, ya know. Happens all the time.”

She squinted and took her first sip, trying to use the hot
liquid to help control her voice, help quell the panic in her throat. “Do you
think those people will try to hurt, uh, hurt us if I have to testify?”

“Well, nobody on, uh, on our side kin really say, kin they?”
He looked past her again and shook his head again. “Like I told ya before, them
Cubans got a nasty reputation . . .” He ended with a series of melancholy head
shakes.

She listened to the detective on one level, added her slim
list of assets to meet the challenges she was facing on some other. The most
important friend she and Brian had on earth was probably this red-neck
detective sitting across from her; a man, she forced herself to face the facts
and admit, about whom she really knew little. And, while Mrs. Cloutier’s
loyalty was ferocious and limitless, the truth of it was that she offered
nothing to answer their present needs beyond the simple help of occasionally
looking after Brian.

Brian
, she sighed, shaking her head and squinting
toward the restaurant’s front door like she was expecting him to walk through
it. Brian. There were her parents, she mused. His grandparents, grandparents who’d
never met their only grandchild. She dropped her forehead into the heel of her
palm, cognizant of Sherry’s concerned stare. Brian’s innocent young life was
certainly being disrupted by her mistakes, maybe his young life was even being
risked
by her mistakes and indecisiveness. There
was
a potential solution to
that, she knew. She forced herself to face its terror head on.

There was always John.

She made herself stare at her mind’s image of John’s face
like a person studies the dental hypodermic in hope of the knowledge lessening
the dread. Then she raised her head and blinked, erased the picture like she
was clicking off a TV. Sitting in the booth with Sherry she suddenly felt more
alone than she had since the months before Brian was born.

She leaned over her elbows and examined his face. “I know I
say this all the time but I don’t know what else to do. Thanks again for
everything you’ve done for us . . . all the help.” His eyes were less
transparent than usual, their blue was darker with a more pronounced cast, in
their corners the wrinkles were deeper. “And you think we’re going to need
more—”

He nodded several times before sighing through his nostrils,
pursed his lips and kept on nodding. “Yeah, Spect that’s so, Hon.”

Sherry’s face was drained and she saw the rare sight of both
his eyes wide open at the same time. There was more to them when they were open
together, more depth, they were less guarded. Even with the glisten from the
moisture they were a sharper blue. And behind that sharper blue lurked
more
.

*** *** *** ***

Cameras popped bursts of white light. Eva Longera and some
handsome young man were grinning as brightly as the flashes as they emerged in
fashion regalia from a long white car wearing sunglasses though it was evening.
They were at some gala in some city, but without the sound turned on Mary
didn’t know where; with her mind removed a million miles from the glitz she
didn’t
care
where. She heard them and opened the door before they
knocked.

“I’m supposed to call Walker back this afternoon. His
message said anytime after two o’clock. I waited —”

Sherry signaled understanding with a tiny jerk of his head
and tossed the hat, backpack and lunch pail onto the end of the bed, took out
the Bic and spiral and flipped them onto the little round table. Brian flopped
onto his bed and put the earphones on, ignoring the game’s little screen while
he stared at the ceiling, mouthing sound effects to a game only he knew. Mary
watched him while she spoke levelly to Sherry. “Maybe everything got worked
out. Maybe they don’t need me.”

Sherry shrugged and mumbled something, massaged the back of
his neck with one hand as he looked at the phone.

“There’s only the one phone.” Mary’s trembling finger
pointed out the obvious. “No speaker or anything. I’ll try to let you know what’s
being said if I can.”

“OK, Agent Walker, thank you,” she murmured into the phone
after listening for a few moments. “I appreciate your telling me as soon as you
knew.” She stared at Brian, lying with headphones and closed eyes in his own
world. He’d left the other toys in the box alone, the birthday gift from Luis
was the only thing he’d played with since they’d moved into the motel as its
only
permanent parties
. “You’ll let me know what I’m supposed to do? Ok,
Ok. I’ve got to make some arrangements . . .” Her voice faltered. “Yes, yes.
Thank you. I’m all right. Yes, he’s doing all right, too. Thank you. I think I
can manage.”

She hung up and tried to control the quivering in her lip,
rubbing the tick growing again in the right side of her face. In the crushing
quiet all she could hear were the beeps leaking from Brian’s headset. Her
stomach heaved from the overwhelming stale smell that seemed suddenly to fill
the room. She bent forward at the waist and peered at Sherry, masking her face
so Brian wouldn’t see the fear in it if he opened his eyes.

“They caught them this morning, Sherry. Those men,” she
whispered lifelessly. “Miami.” She breathed out her nose, cracked her knuckles
between rigid thighs. “They’re flying me down there . . . to Miami. Tomorrow morning.
To identify them.” She paused with her jaws aching from the strain of keeping
her voice level, from the immense burden of staying in the terrible
present
.

She glanced at the seemingly oblivious boy, then at the
cobweb in the ceiling corner the maids never noticed, then at the soundless
screen of the TV where lines of exhausted refugees queued to some unhappy
somewhere carrying only what they could. Her eyes scanned over the ficus and
over the box of unused toys, then they came to rest on the mirror over the
bolted-down credenza.

“In a lineup do they use those two-way mirrors, Sherry . . .
like in the movies?” she asked absently, her eyes still on the mirror.

Sherry sucked his teeth and tapped the pad’s spiraled wire
with the Bic and offered only a vague shrug in response.

This mirror held only flat perfect images of herself and her
son.