Key Witness (44 page)

He could have borrowed a car. Or stolen one.

“What happened after you left the party?” he asked the girl.

“We hung around. It was a hot night. We went over to Marvin’s place for a while, till his mama fell asleep. Then we went out again.”

Okay, getting better. “So that was when?”

“Till about midnight.”

“And then?”

“We went to my place.”

“Were either of your parents there?”

“My mama,” Leticia said. “ ’Cept she wasn’t there.”

“Her natural father did a Carl Lewis ’fore she was ever born,” Dexter said, filling in the blanks. “Her mama done raised her, her mama and her grandmama. Raised her and two sisters and two brothers. ’Cept her grandmama’s been dead three years now.”

“Your mother was there but she wasn’t?” he asked. “I don’t understand that.”

“Her mama’s a crackhead,” Dexter explained. “She was over to a crack house that night. She hangs around there, hoping they’ll throw her a taste. Sometimes they do. Make her work for it, though.”

Sex? Wyatt wondered. Something more debasing?

With a start he remembered that Michaela was sitting right next to him, taking all this in. In his tunnel-vision search for the pieces of the puzzle he had completely forgotten about her. He turned to her. “Do you want to say good night?” he asked, his tone implying the reply.

“I want to stay,” she said adamantly. To Dexter, she asked, “Is that all right? With Leticia?”

Dexter looked at her, then at Wyatt. “It’s all right with us. But maybe you should check with your father.”

She turned to Wyatt. “I want to stay,” she said again.

He thought about it for a moment. “Okay. But nothing that’s said here leaves the room. This is a privileged conversation. Including your mother,” he added with emphasis.

“I won’t say anything to anyone,” she promised.

He turned back to the girl. “Were you and Marvin there alone, or were your brothers and sisters there, too?”

“They was there, but they was sleeping in the bedroom. Me and Marvin was alone in the living room.”

“What did the two of you do there?” he asked.

Before she could answer, Dexter cut her off. “You know what they did, Mr. Matthews,” he said, looking at Michaela.

Michaela took the inference in stride. “I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said, looking straight at Dexter.

“Sorry ’bout that,” he answered with a smile.

Wyatt watched this brief repartee. In another world, another time, this boy and his daughter could be friends.

“Did you do anything besides that?” he asked her.

“Watched a movie on TV. HBO. Drank some wine.”

“Do you remember the name of the movie?”

“Twelve Monkeys.”

“That’s a bitchin’ movie,” Louis interjected from across the room. “I’ve seen it three times.”

He’d look that up in an old
TV Guide.
Dexter couldn’t have prepped her on that. And he’d cross-check it with Marvin.

So far so good. Getting better. Not as buttoned-down as Agnes Carpenter, but pretty good. “Is there anything else you did that could bolster this alibi?” he asked her.

“We went to the drugstore to get ice cream. All-night drugstore, on King Boulevard. Rocky road. Marvin, he got a sweet tooth on him,” the girl said.

“And they got their picture took,” Dexter added, almost jumping out of his seat. “Show him,” he ordered her.

She dug a wrinkled picture-strip out of her purse and handed it to Wyatt. It was a three-photo strip, the kind where you sit in a cramped booth, drop in your quarters, and get three one-inch-square Polaroids.

Marvin and Leticia. Smiling at the camera. In one of the pictures, he had his hand inside her blouse, firmly on her breast.

“These pictures show that you and Marvin were together,” Wyatt agreed. “But they don’t establish when.”

Dexter smiled. “Look on the back.”

Wyatt turned the strip over. On each individual photo there was a time stamp. Time and date. The time stamped on the pictures was 2:45
A.M.
The date was April 12.

D
EXTER AND THE OTHERS
from Sullivan Houses sat in the Jeep Cherokee. Wyatt leaned in the driver’s-side window. The girl was riding shotgun. “Thanks for coming,” he said to her, talking across Dexter.

She mumbled something inaudible.

“She says she had to do it,” Dexter translated. “Even though Marvin never did pay her no mind after that one time. Least he didn’t knock her up.”

“You know you’re going to have to testify in court,” Wyatt reminded her.

She nodded.

“I’ll be working with you before that,” he assured her. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

“Yes sir,” she whispered.

“If anyone from the district attorney’s office calls you,” he continued, “you notify me right away.”

She nodded.

“She ain’t talking to no one unless you say to,” Dexter promised him.

“Okay, then. You’ve got a long drive back, so you’d better be going. I’ll keep the pictures, for safekeeping.” He reached in the window and shook Dexter’s hand. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Whatever I can do.”

He stood in the driveway until their car was gone.

Moira was in bed, waiting for him. “You’ve gone too far,” she said as soon as he walked in the door.

He undressed sitting on his side of the bed. “That happened to be a very important meeting,” he told her over his shoulder. “And you told me you don’t want me to go down to where they live, remember?” He couldn’t resist throwing that back in her face.

“Have these important meetings at your office. And you should not have allowed Michaela to be in there with you—and them.” The words were practically spat out, venom from a viper’s tongue.

“Michaela learned a good lesson tonight,” he countered.

“She’s not old enough yet to learn these lessons.”

“She’s the age of those kids. She is old enough.”

She shook her head in anger. “Why don’t we move back into the city so she can have firsthand experience of that kind of life every day?”

He ignored her. “It’s late, babe. Let’s go to bed. You had a great day, signing your lease. Take that thought to sleep with you.” He walked into the bathroom.

“I had a great day,” she called after him, “until you screwed it up.”

He sat in the kitchen, nursing a cognac. Hearing footsteps, he looked up. Michaela poked her head in.

“I forgot to bring water upstairs,” she explained.

He nodded.

She drew a glass from the purifier. “Dad?”

“What, honey?”

“I’m glad you let me stay in there with you.”

“Me, too.”

“They seemed okay,” she said.

“They are.”

“They’re not that much different from me, really.”

He put a fatherly arm around her shoulder. “No, they’re not.”

“I’m lucky, Dad.”

“Well …” She was lucky. That was true. They all were, including Moira. “Take advantage of it,” he reminded her.

“I do. I will. Seeing those guys reminds of that.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing.”

He smiled. Giving her a kiss on the forehead, he said, “And I’m glad you feel that way.”

T
HE CALL CAME FROM
out of the blue, like so many of them do.

“Some guy wants to talk to you,” Josephine said, leaning into his doorway.

“Who is it?” he asked, his head buried in a transcript.

“He won’t tell me. Only you.”

“About the case?” He looked up.

She nodded.

“What about it?”

“He wants to talk about the case. He won’t give me his name, he won’t tell me what he wants to talk about regarding the case. Only you. You want me to shine him on?”

Distracted: “No, I’ll take it.”

“Line three.” She paused. “Do you want me to tape it? I’ve got it set up.”

“Without telling him?” He frowned.

“For reference,” she said defensively.

He shook his head. “If he’s sophisticated he might figure it out, and then we’d be in trouble. If I decide I need you to listen in, I’ll let you know.” He started to pick the phone up, then hesitated. “When was the last time we were swept?”

“The day before yesterday. Monday and Thursday mornings, as you requested.”

“The lines should be safe then.” Tapping into someone’s phone was illegal, but people did it anyway. He punched up line three, picked up the receiver. “Wyatt Matthews,” he announced as Josephine flounced out of sight, not too discreetly.

“You’re the lawyer on this multiple-murder charge.” A man’s voice, with a pronounced upper-Midwestern accent. Working-class, Wyatt would bet lunch on it. “For that nigger.”

Wyatt held his tongue. “Yes, I am Marvin White’s attorney. Who am I talking to, please?” He pulled pad and ballpoint toward him.

“Don’t worry about that. Not yet.” Wyatt heard the man’s heavy breathing come across the line. He sounded like he had emphysema, or heavy asthma. Then harsh, barking coughing, a phlegmy rattle. This is a sick man, Wyatt thought. He wondered if the man was calling from a hospital.

“Dwayne Thompson.” The caller’s sandpaper voice cut through the line. “That name mean anything to you?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking. Making sure you’re not some lame can’t find his ass with both hands kind of lawyer.”

“I know where my behind is,” Wyatt told the caller.

A rheumy chortle. “What about Doris Blake?” the voice asked. “The name ring a bell?”

Wyatt thought for a moment. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You’re not taking care of business, pal.”

“Is that what you called to tell me?” He wished now he’d had Josephine tape this call. “Long-distance, I presume.”

“Don’t presume nothing. Just do your fucking homework. You and I might could do with a personal face-to-face confab. I gotta think on that. See where it gets me. I’ll call you back tomorrow,” the voice promised. “Same time, same station.” He hung up.

Wyatt leaned back in his chair, the receiver dangling from his fingertips. Doris Blake? Was that the name of one of the murder victims? He thought he knew all their names.

He buzzed Josephine. She was there immediately. “Were you listening in?” he asked.

“Only your side. Anything tasty?”

“Does the name Doris Blake resonate? One of the victims, a witness?”

She shook her head. “I don’t recall it.”

“Well, maybe it’s nothing. But see if you can get a line on someone named Doris Blake who might have some connection to this.”

“Any particular area?”

“The way the caller put it, I think she’s referenced to Dwayne Thompson, but I’m not sure.”

“Okay.”

“And while you’re at it, cross-reference any connections Thompson might have had between the jail and Durban. Any inmates he knew up there who are down here now, anyone who’s presently working at the jail who might have been working at Durban.”

“What are you looking for?”

“The same thing I’ve been looking for from day one. Thompson couldn’t have mined Marvin’s brain for all that information. Somebody put him in the pipeline. I’m looking for who could have done it, and how.”

“I
T’S HIM AGAIN.”

One day later. Wyatt had been waiting for the call.

“You know who Doris Blake is now?” rasped the unknown caller.

“She’s a lieutenant with the sheriff’s department. Jail detail.”

“Good work, Lawyer. Although I had to practically stick it down your throat for you.”

“I appreciate your help.”

“There’s more … if you want it,” the voice coyly promised.

“I want it.”

The mysterious caller lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of Rawleysville, about fifteen miles from where Durban State Penitentiary was located. It was an old, established park—the neon sign that rose above the entrance dated back to the fifties. Some of the residents had lived there that long, judging by the permanence of their structures, Wyatt thought as he drove his Jaguar through rows of spiffy double-wides that looked like they had grown out of the ground, the gleaming trailers sporting manicured lawns and small, carefully attended-to flower beds, with Weber barbecues and lawn chairs tastefully set in front of the screen-door entrances.

Lamar Brown’s trailer—that was the man’s name—was set at the far end of the complex, like it was an afterthought plunked down. It was an old Airstream, the kind people used to tow behind Ford Country Squire station wagons as advertised in
Life
magazine, circa 1955. In contrast to most of Brown’s neighbors’, his front yard was crabgrass and chicken dirt that hadn’t seen a sprinkler for years. There was no car in front.

Wyatt parked near the entrance and got out, taking care not to step in a large pile of dogshit that had been left a short time before his arrival, judging from its moist freshness. He rapped on the screen-door frame. “Mr. Brown,” he called out. “Are you in there? It’s Wyatt Matthews.”

He heard some shuffling around, then a series of harsh, throat-grinding coughs. “It’s open,” Brown called out hoarsely.

It was hot inside the trailer, and dark. What light there was came from shafts of sunlight slicing through the louvered windows that were open on both sides, but there was no breeze drafting through them. The small main compartment—living area/kitchenette—was spartan and clean. A Formica fold-down table, Naugahyde benches on either side, a dish rack with a few washed plastic dishes that were drying, a recliner in a corner, a television set bolted to the wall.

Wyatt stood just inside the doorway for a moment, letting his pupils adjust to the low light.

Brown was sitting in the recliner. A portable oxygen tank was set up next to it. Brown took the mask off his face. “Any trouble finding me?” he asked in his raspy hoarse voice.

“No.” His eyes better accustomed to the dim light, Wyatt took a look at the man. It was hard to tell how old he was—he could have been forty-five, or just as easily, sixty-five. His sparse hair, matted down over his mottled scalp, was gray and lank, in need of cutting. Broken capillaries spread like little firecracker explosions all across his cheeks and nose. He was heavy; but worse, he was flabby, his white doughboy arms flopping out of his Hawaiian shirt, which was unbuttoned across his white whalelike chest and stomach. His outfit was rounded out with billowing shorts and flip-flops. If this were an old detective movie, and Wyatt was Humphrey Bogart, Brown would be Sidney Greenstreet.