Key Witness (53 page)

“It took so much longer than you said it would,” Moira said. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes, Moira. She should recover completely—full range of motion and feeling.”

Wyatt grabbed Levi’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Thank you, Lew. I can’t tell you how much your help and support means to us.”

“Yes, Lew,” Moira added, remembering her manners. “Thank you,” She kissed him on the cheek. “When can we see her?”

“She’ll be out of it for a couple of hours. Why don’t you two take a walk? It’s a beautiful day outside. Michaela isn’t going anywhere.”

They found a small, quiet park on the hospital grounds and sat on a wooden bench that had a commemorative plaque attached to it and took in the sunlight and the smells of the grass, which had been freshly cut. Moira slipped off her canvas shoes and stretched her bare feet out on the grass, leaning back on the bench for support, her arms splayed out to either side, eyes closed to the almost high noon sun. Wyatt looked at her. Her face was beginning to relax, the first glimmer of a smile he’d seen on her lips in days, from the moment the gun had fired and Michaela had screamed.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

She nodded, her eyes still closed. “I’m ready to go on now,” she said. “I haven’t been for days.”

“We need to thrash all this out, so we can put it behind us.”

She nodded again. “But not this minute. Right now, I just want to feel alive again.”

M
ICHAELA CAME TO THREE
hours later. They visited with her in the postop room. There were dozens of stitches along the side of her leg where it had been opened up, and she was wearing a heavy knee brace. Screws had been put in the bone above and below the fracture to hold the rod in place. The leg was in a traction device attached to the bed.

Relieved that she was in no immediate danger, Wyatt headed over to the jail. He wanted to begin tracking Dwayne Thompson’s comings and goings, from the moment he had entered the facility to be a witness in another trial until when he had gone to the grand jury and testified against Marvin White. He tried to put himself in Thompson’s shoes. You’ve come down here from Durban to testify in a trial whose origin goes back several years. The DA working the case is going to sit with you, prep you. A ton of paperwork to review, documents to refamiliarize yourself with, including your previous testimony. Where do you do that inside these walls?

“Afternoon, Mr. Matthews.” The duty officer greeted Wyatt professionally. “How can I help you?”

“I’d like to get a look at your law library. You do have one, I assume?”

“Yes sir.” The officer, a sergeant, paused. “May I ask for what purpose?”

“To see what you’ve got there.” He didn’t elaborate. “Is there a problem?” he asked, putting an edge on his question.

The duty officer knew the drill—treat this important lawyer with respectful deference as long as he didn’t ask for anything improper. Checking out the jail law library didn’t seem like an improper request. After all, the man was a lawyer.

“No, no problem. I’ll have one of the deputies walk you down.”

It was a decent-sized library. He had never been in a jail law library so he had no frame of reference to judge it against, but it seemed to be adequate for the needs of the inmates here, who weren’t doing long stretches and researching intricate, lengthy appeals. He looked around the facility, gazing at the various books and legal journals. Most of the code was there, along with a random sampling of other material. Fairly comprehensive, but half a decade or more out-of-date. Criminal law had gone through a lot of changes recently, he knew, although until now it hadn’t been his field. It would be a bitch trying to do anything on your own out of this place.

Along one wall there was a row of computers on a long table, bolted down. Old 386s, good enough for word processing but nothing more sophisticated. A couple of inmates were hunched over the machines, typing into them. Wyatt noticed that none of the computers were connected to outside telephone lines. The only telephones in the room were public pay phones, which were all occupied.

He approached the deputy who was monitoring the room and introduced himself. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?” he inquired pleasantly.

The deputy in charge looked at the other deputy, Wyatt’s escort. The escort deputy nodded approval. “What do you want to know?” the library custodian asked.

“Who has access to this library?”

“Inmates who need to.”

“What determines that?”

“The sheriff.”

“What is his criterion?”

“There’s different ones. Usually an inmate’s lawyer will file a petition asking permission for a specific reason. We don’t like them hanging around. Some guys would stay in here all day if we let ’em.”

“What percentage of inmates use the facility?”

“Not many. Ten percent or less. Most of the doofuses in here, they’re not sophisticated enough to put what we have to use. And since we’re a jail, by the time they’d work something up that could do anything for them they’re out of here, either sprung or sent to a regular prison facility. Mostly it’s men who have a long wait before their trial’s coming up, because of delays, postponements, continuances.”

Wyatt thought about that for a moment. “Does every prisoner have to sign in and out every time he uses the place?”

“Absolutely.”

“One more question. Do these computers have modems? Can anyone connect to the outside through them?”

“The answer is no and no,” the deputy said. “That would be like handing a pyromaniac a can of gasoline and a book of matches.”

Wyatt nodded, thinking. “Can I use your phone to make a call? It’s local.”

The deputy shook his head. “Sorry. Only authorized personnel can use this. I have to keep it free, in case of an emergency. You can use a pay phone.” He pointed to the bank of pay telephones on the far wall.

“I thought inmates had use of the telephone free of charge.”

“They do, up in their cellblocks. In here they have to pay. The county hasn’t put in free phones here yet. Funding’s held up,” he explained. He opened his desk drawer and took out a spare quarter. “On me,” he said, handing it to Wyatt.

Wyatt waited until a telephone was free, then called his office. Josephine answered on the second ring. “Where are you?” she asked.

“In the law library at the county jail.”

“Don’t tell me they finally caught up with you,” she teased.

“Shhh.” He smiled. “Look something up for me. I don’t have my calendar, I had to check my briefcase with the front desk.”

“What do you need?”

“Look up the dates from when Marvin was arrested and booked into the jail until the date Dwayne Thompson went to the grand jury. I’ll hold on.” He took out a ballpoint and a small reporter’s notebook from his inside breast jacket pocket.

He leaned against the wall, gazing around. A few inmates looked him over. They don’t know who I am, he thought. He didn’t want them to.

Josephine came back on the line. “Okay, I’ve got it. April third to April eleventh. Anything else?”

“That’s it for now.” He jotted the dates down in his notebook. “See you later.” He hung up and walked back to the deputy on duty, who was chewing the fat with his escort. “How far back does your sign-in book go?” he asked.

“First of the year.”

“Can I see the sign-ins for the dates of April third to April eleventh?”

The deputy shook his head. “That’s against regulations.” He nodded toward the inmates. “To protect confidentiality. You could get a court order,” the deputy said helpfully.

“Maybe I will.” He turned to his escort. “I’m done here.”

T
HE HOSPITAL WASN’T FAR
from the jail. Wyatt swung by on his way back to the office. Michaela was back in her room, propped up on pillows, watching television, an old Katherine Hepburn movie on HBO. She quickly clicked it off as Wyatt came in. He had a bouquet of roses with him.

“A rose by any other name … ,” he quoted. Moira wasn’t there, he noticed.

“Thanks, Daddy. You’re always so thoughtful.”

“What were you watching?” He arranged the roses in a plastic water jug, filled it from the tap, and set it up on the windowsill. The afternoon sunlight caught the facets of the flowers, glimmers of light playing among them.

“An old movie. My favorite kind. I’m not supposed to be watching,” she said guiltily. “I’m supposed to be studying.” She pointed to the pile of books arranged alongside her bed. “Keeping up. I don’t want to fall behind, more than I already have.”

“Don’t get crazy over schoolwork. There’s plenty of time for that. Where is Mom, by the way?”

“She went to her store. She wanted to get a look at how things were going.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“I told her to,” Michaela said. “We’re starting to get on each other’s nerves.”

“She’s going stir-crazy,” he agreed. “I could stay here some evenings, give her a night off.”

Michaela looked at him. “I’d rather neither of you stayed.”

“Oh?”

“I’m only going to be here a few more days. Dr. Levi told me they’re discharging me on Monday.”

“That’s good—coming home, seeing your friends.”

She nodded. “Sally, Claudia, and Jasmine came by earlier. It was really good seeing them. I miss my friends, Dad. I miss my life.”

“I’ll bet.”

She worried the hem of her top sheet. “You and Mom aren’t getting along well, are you.” Her statement was declaratory, not a question or an accusation.

He wouldn’t lie to her. “No. We’re not.”

“Are you thinking of separating?” There was a vibration to her voice.

“No.” He paused. “But I think we need time off from each other,” he admitted.

“I hate her sometimes.” There was a concealed venomousness to her statement, which took him by surprise—not that she felt it, but that she’d express it so baldly.

“That’s natural.” Now it was coming out. “That’s why you’re seeing someone professional.”

She pushed up on her pillows, adjusting her position. “Do you want to know one thing that really bugs me about Mom? It’s like
she’s
mad at
me.
For being there to be shot. Like it was my fault she did it.” The words came pouring out as fast as she could spit them out. “It’s like she can’t take the responsibility on herself, you know? Like we’re all supposed to share in this guilt trip, so she doesn’t have to feel so bad.”

“That’s a natural reaction. She has terrible feelings of guilt. That’s how people deal with it sometimes.”

Even as he said that he thought,
Why are you explaining Moira’s actions away? You feel the same way Michaela does. Moira committed the deed. She should take the responsibility.

“Let her deal with it somewhere else than around me. It’s like she’s guilt-tripping me. I don’t deserve it.” She rapped her knuckles on her brace. “I’ve got enough shit to carry around right now without her shit, too.”

He had never known Michaela to be so angry. “I know how you feel.”

“Doesn’t it bug you, Daddy, the way she’s been? With me, with your work, with everything?”

“Yes, but there are things I do that bug her, too. We all bug each other, that’s how it works in families.”

She got in the last word. “Shooting someone and almost killing them is different than bugging them.”

He stayed with her for over an hour. They turned the television back on and watched the end of the movie. As the orderly was wheeling Michaela’s dinner in, Moira telephoned. Michaela answered it. “Hi, Mom.” Her voice wasn’t enthusiastic. “Okay. Yeah, he’s here.” She passed the phone over to Wyatt.

“How’s the store?” he asked. He listened for a minute. “That always happens in construction, you have to deal with it.” He listened some more, at one point pulling the phone away from his ear and smiling at Michaela, who smiled back. He felt a pang of guilt about doing that—conspiring against Moira, particularly at this unsettling time in their lives, wasn’t helpful. Even if it was a minor conspiracy.

“I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up. He hadn’t said “I love you” or “I miss you.” Neither had she.

“Mom’ll be here soon, hon,” he told Michaela. “Tell her how you feel. Without getting angry, if that’s possible,” he advised.

“Why should I have to worry about her feelings?” Michaela demanded. “I’m the one lying here with a steel rod in my leg. She’s out with her friends, pretending like she’s a serious businesswoman.”

“That’s harsh.”

“That bookstore is just so she won’t get bored. Mom doesn’t want to run a business.”

“Maybe she will. Maybe this’ll be a change for her.” He wasn’t going to admit to his daughter that he agreed with her. Those were issues for him and Moira to work out on their own—if they cared enough to try to work them out.

He kissed her on the cheek. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Daddy. Love you. Thanks for the pretty flowers.”

“Love you, too.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING HE
arrived at the office shortly after eight. Josephine was already there, waiting. “You want to see something really bizarre?” she asked.

“Will it make my day?”

“Or break it,” she said portentously, handing him a sheet of paper with the sheriff’s official logo stamped on the top. “Everyone who was seeing Dwayne Thompson in the jail. It wasn’t easy to get this, because it’s confidential material. Actually, your seeing it is probably a violation of jail regulations.”

“My conscience is clear—clear enough for government work, anyway—and you’re not going to tattle on me, so let’s not worry about it.” He glanced at the single page. It looked like some kind of roster. There were only a few names on it.

She watched him attentively as he read the list.

The name jumped out at him like it was etched in neon lights ten feet high. “Holy shit!”

“My exact words,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’ve used my source before. He’s totally reliable.”

“What could this mean?” The name was burning a hole in his brain.

“I don’t know. But it’s heavy.”

“Heavy?” he repeated. “This could change everything.”

W
YATT STOOD ACROSS THE
street, watching the gate where she would come out. He checked his watch—five more minutes. He had been standing there over half an hour, checking his watch every couple of minutes. It didn’t make the time go any faster.