by Andrew Grant
False Witness is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Grant
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Grant, Andrew, author.
Title: False witness : a novel / Andrew Grant.
Description: First edition. | New York : Ballantine Books, [2018] | Series: Detective Cooper Devereaux ; 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041944 | ISBN 9780399594335 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780399594342 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Police—Alabama—Birmingham—Fiction. | Serial murder investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Crime. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6107.R366 F36 2018 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041944
Ebook ISBN 9780399594342
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook
Cover design: Scott Biel
Cover image: © Elisabeth Ansley / Trevillion Images
v5.1
ep
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Andrew Grant
About the Author
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise.
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON,
The Idler No. 84, November 24, 1759
One year ago.
Last September, Lucas Paltrow saved Deborah Holt’s life.
More accurately, he fixed her car. But to Deborah that amounted to the same thing. Because when her faded green Chevy Nova ground to a dead stop near Paltrow’s workshop late on that stifling Monday afternoon, she was well on her way to making the biggest mistake of her short, misguided life. It would have been a fatal mistake, she was certain, when she looked back. But by the time Paltrow had coaxed some life into the ancient, half-seized motor, Deborah was set on a new path. She turned the car around. Swallowed her pride. And for the first time in almost two years, she completed the journey home.
—
Deborah had woken up in bed alone that day, which was nothing new. It had been that way most days for the last couple of months. Usually the apartment was empty by the time she staggered to the bathroom, but that morning was different. Her stomach was calmer. It wasn’t the urge to vomit that had finally forced her to open her eyes. It was the sound of the front door scraping shut. She checked her phone. It was 6:18 am. Normally she slept until around 11:00, when she heard Thor—her boyfriend—getting ready to go meet his buddies. Then she’d doze for another hour or so. Or for as long as the nausea would allow.
What was Thor doing up so early? No one else from the music business would be awake at that time, and with his kind of artistic sensibility it was impossible for him to work a regular job. Could he have changed his mind about that? Their money troubles were getting out of hand. She’d been fired from two local bodegas because she couldn’t handle the mornings, and none of the other neighborhood stores would hire her once she’d become known as unreliable. The band was on hiatus, with her unable to perform. Thor wouldn’t let her risk going onstage, given how rowdy the clubs could get. He wouldn’t let her do bar work, either, for the same reason. Which was sweet in a way, but still—a few extra dollars would be very welcome. Figuring she would ask him about it later, Deborah settled back down on her pillows.
The bedroom door inched open. Thor was silhouetted for a moment before he switched out the hallway light. He was barefoot. His T-shirt—the expensive one she’d bought him for his birthday—was screwed up in his hand like an old rag. His long blond hair was sticking out from his head at all kinds of crazy angles. His jeans were unzipped. They were slipping down his thighs. He didn’t have on any underwear…
“Asshole!” Deborah opened both eyes wide and hoisted herself up onto her elbows. “You scared me. I thought you were leaving. Where the hell have you been?”
“Sorry, babe.” Thor hitched up his jeans and took two uncertain steps toward the bed. “I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Well, you did.” Deborah grabbed a pillow from Thor’s side of the bed, flung it at him left-handed, but missed. “So tell me. Where have you been?”
“I had to meet someone.” Thor fastened his zipper. “An A&R guy. From a major label. Out of New York. He’s leaving town this morning. First thing.”
“Really?” Deborah flopped back down. “That sounds like total bullshit. Why am I only hearing about it now? Why didn’t you mention it last night? You said you’d come to bed as soon as the game was over. Honey? Are you lying to me?”
“Of course I’m not lying!” Thor grinned, his whole face lighting up the way he knew she couldn’t resist. “I only heard about the guy after you were already asleep. I got a text from Rudy. And I figured, I had to try. It could have been the breakthrough, babe. After all this time.”
“Could have been?” Deborah lifted her head.
“Things didn’t go too great.” Thor looked at the floor. “The guy said he’d be in touch, but…”
“That’s too bad.” Deborah sat up. “But at least you tried. Now come kiss me before I run to the bathroom. Then we can sleep.”
Thor moved a little c
loser, leaned down, and pecked her on the forehead. It was the briefest of contacts and he was only within range for a moment, but it was enough. Deborah could smell the whiskey on his breath. The dope smoke in his hair. And another woman’s perfume on his chest.
“Goodbye, Oliver,” she said under her breath as she closed the bathroom door. It was the first time she’d spoken his real name out loud since she’d followed him from Birmingham to Nashville, and she suddenly realized she didn’t care where he was pretending to have been. It was time to face facts. She was two days shy of her twentieth birthday. Pregnant. Broke. With no prospect of work. And her boyfriend was a liar and a cheat.
In other words, it was time to cut and run.
—
Deborah had never liked living in Birmingham. She’d been born in Wetumpka, a small friendly town ninety miles to the southeast that was famous for its meteorite crater, and she’d never forgiven her mother for making them move after her father had abandoned them when she was fourteen. She’d spent the next four years dreaming of ways to get out. Her teachers at Ramsay High had talked up the merits of good grades and college, but she had other ideas. Her voice. Thor’s guitar. A recording contract. Fame. Fortune. And glory. It was her destiny. All she needed to make it happen was transport, so throughout high school she worked a minimum of two jobs at a time at the jumble of bars and clubs around Five Points South, not far from her mother’s new house. She was too young for many of those jobs to be legal, but she quickly learned that if she made her skirt short enough and her top tight enough, her male bosses would happily pay cash and keep her off the books. She also learned that with the right kind of outfit and an open mind, there were other ways to earn cash from the male customers…
When she finally put the Magic City in her rearview mirror, two weeks after she turned eighteen, she never planned to return. I-65 was slick with water after an unexpected, short-lived rainstorm and the low fall sun was glinting off the surface as if it was plated with rose gold. Deborah could feel it drawing her northward, promising a fabulous new life of glamour and independence.
—
Deborah’s dream died the morning she realized that Thor had betrayed her. She finally had to accept that the promise of a rock star lifestyle was an empty one. It took her another couple of hours to organize herself, after Thor fell asleep. And even then she didn’t consciously plan to head back south. But after she’d driven for two and a half hours, the tall buildings of downtown Birmingham loomed large through her windshield and she saw that the sky was again obscured by clouds. This time, though, the road surface was dry. It was pitted and dull. Like quicksand, she thought. Innocuous-looking, but sucking her relentlessly down. All the way back to her miserable old world.
Deborah’s eyes filled with tears, making it hard to negotiate the elevated left-hand curve onto 20/59 and blurring the unwelcomely familiar images of the park and courthouse and art museum below and to the side. The chimneys of Sloss Furnaces rose ahead of her like the charred trunks of ruined trees in some post-apocalyptic nightmare, prompting her to make the habitual right onto Stephens. She glanced out of her side window, across the flat roofs of the wide, lower buildings, and toward the City Federal in the heart of downtown. As she looked, the bold neon sign on its roof blinked into life. It was red. Red was for danger. What was she doing?
Deborah shook away the thought and forced her attention back to the road ahead. She cruised past the brick fortress of St. Vincent’s hospital, as she’d done hundreds of times before. She fought the feeling of being boxed in as the raised section of road came to an end and the trees and shrubs on both sides grew taller and closer, their leaves already turning orange and gold. But when she approached the off-ramp to 21st Avenue—a stone’s throw from her mother’s house—she found she couldn’t reach for the blinker. She couldn’t turn the wheel. Some invisible force was making her keep going straight. And press harder on the gas.
OK, then, she thought. New plan. Stay on this road till I hit 459. Take that to 20. And keep going southwest till I get to Mexico…
Deborah stayed on track for almost seven more miles, but as she cut under I-65 she felt the car suddenly lose power. Was she out of gas? No. So what else can go wrong with cars? She had no idea. Fearfully she gripped the wheel and willed the faithful old Chevy to keep going. The engine seemed to recover and Deborah gained a little speed as she passed the on-ramp to 65 South and the entrance to a small strip mall. She saw an auto shop offering tires and oil changes and considered stopping, but what would she tell them? The car seemed OK again. Maybe it was just a hiccup?
Deborah covered another mile without incident and was beginning to breathe more easily when all the dashboard lights came on at once. The engine cut out. Her speed plummeted. A woman in a blue SUV almost plowed into the back of her, just managing to swerve in time, honking furiously. Rattled, Deborah fought with the steering, which had suddenly become unbelievably heavy. She tugged desperately on the wheel, turning it just enough for the last of her momentum to carry her into the mouth of Deo Dara Drive. The Chevy rolled a little farther until its front wheel met the curb. It rocked back slightly on its aging springs and Deborah stamped frantically on the parking brake, scared that she’d bounce all the way back into the busy traffic. When she was sure the car was stationary, Deborah switched off the ignition. She counted to three, then cautiously turned the key back the opposite way. There was no response. She tried again, twisting harder, almost bending the slender strip of metal. Still nothing happened. She gave it one more futile attempt then climbed out and slammed the door with all her strength.
Fine, she thought. So my car’s betrayed me now, too, just like everything else in my life. Well, so what? I’m not giving up. I’m not going back. I’ll just hitch a ride to the border…
Deborah popped the trunk, and as she leaned in to retrieve her two bags she felt someone watching her. She straightened up, looked around, and saw a guy staring at her from the far side of the street. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties. He was around six feet tall. Slim, but clearly muscular. She could tell that from the way he held himself, despite his blue, loose-fitting mechanic’s coveralls. His cheeks and chin were covered with a couple of days’ stubble, and his thick dark hair was artfully mussed up, like he’d just walked out of a salon. Deborah thought he looked good. But more than that. Familiar. And so did the building he was standing in front of. It was a single story high with a shallow pitched roof, white walls, and blue wood trim. Like a low-rent industrial version of a Swiss chalet she’d once seen on TV, Deborah thought. But where did she know the place from? And who was the guy?
She fussed with her luggage for a couple more minutes until she remembered. The guy had been a regular at one of the bars she’d worked at before leaving town. The Horny Toad. He’d hit on her a couple of times in a cranky, impatient kind of way, but had always left with different girls. And he was always handing out business cards with a picture of his workplace on them. He was named Lucas Paltrow, she recalled, and he did something with cars. Auto electronics, maybe? Meaning he wasn’t a regular mechanic, which was unfortunate. But hey, what did she know? She was no expert. Maybe her car just had a dead battery or something. It wouldn’t hurt to ask him, before abandoning it and trying to hitchhike a thousand miles.
Paltrow didn’t take much persuading to look under the hood. He told Deborah to steer while he pushed the Chevy onto the forecourt in front of his workshop. Then he showed her to the waiting area, gave her a glass of water, and disappeared back outside. Deborah flicked through the stack of magazines on the low table in the center of the room, rejected them all, and moved to the window to watch Paltrow work. He had the hood open as well as both front doors, and seemed to spend most of his time fiddling with something up high behind the dashboard near the glove box. After twenty minutes he slid across to the driver’s side, turned the key, and Deborah punched the air with delight as the engine sluggishly turned over and reluctantly fired.
“I’ve
got it running.” Paltrow shouldered open the waiting room door and peeled off his work gloves. “But it won’t get you far. It’s in terrible shape. Needs a complete overhaul. I could see six other things wrong with it, right off the bat. And to tell the truth, a car that age, it’s probably not worth the money. Where are you heading?”
Deborah picked up her purse. “Mexico.”
“Not a chance.” Paltrow shook his head. “You won’t make it halfway.”
“That’s no good.” Deborah clutched the purse tight. “I have to make it!”
“Why?” Paltrow glanced at Deborah’s abdomen. “Is that where the baby’s father’s at?”
“The father?” Deborah took a step back. She hadn’t realized that her condition was so obvious. “He’s not in the picture anymore. Like that’s any of your business.”
“How old are you, anyway?” Paltrow took stock of Deborah’s face, her chest, her legs. “I remember you. I haven’t seen you around these last couple years, but I always figured you were underage, working those bars. So what does that make you now? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
“I’m twenty.” Deborah tried to inject some confidence into her voice. “In two days.”
“So you’re nineteen.” Paltrow crossed his arms and leaned back against the doorframe. “You’re knocked up. You’re traveling alone. Your car’s a wreck. How much money have you got? Have you even got enough for gas? Mexico’s a good couple days’ drive from here.”