Witness

by Denise Gwen

  “There’s an arson scene, downtown, at that restaurant that caught fire?”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Meet me there tonight, at eleven o’clock.”

  “Okay,” Rob said reluctantly. “I’m happy to let you keep it all, though, boss.”

  “You deserve your share, don’t you? Don’t you want that money?”

  Rob thought about it. He really did. He could use that last infusion of cash before he went completely straight.

  But still, he mistrusted the sheriff just a tick. A tiny pinprick of fear lanced at him and he decided he’d go to the arson scene ahead of time, check it out, make sure it was safe enough for a final meeting.

  “I’m not giving you all that money,” Randy said.

  “I think you’d better,” Rob said. “I earned it, and you don’t want me turning state’s evidence.”

  “You’d get indicted too, you know.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be worth it to bring everything down.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  “I want my money, Randy.”

  “You’ll have to meet me somewhere . . . else.”

  “I’m willing to do that. How about tonight, at that arson scene?”

  “The restaurant that burned down?”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t look at all odd for us to be seen there. Nine o’clock.”

  Randy ran his hand across his face. “Okay, that works.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Rob said, and left.

  Later that evening.

  Rob drove to the arson scene early, checked the place out, walked through it to make sure he wasn’t walking himself into a trap. Randy had agreed just a bit too easily, he thought, and if he’d brought the amount of money over that Rob thought he was supposed to get, then it was a lot of money worth stealing from someone, someone like himself.

  He walked through the burned-out restaurant, his hands in his jacket pockets, musing. Shelley had agreed to take him back; he was so grateful for this. All he wanted to do was get back to his beautiful wife and kids and he’d leave this mess behind him forever. Randy had gotten him involved in the whole trafficking business, and he didn’t like it. Shelley had put up with a lot of nonsense from him and now it was over.

  He heard a sound behind him, a snap, a twig cracking, or someone stealthily approaching him on foot, and not wanting to be seen, and he whirled around quickly to see who it might be, but when he saw nobody . . . he ducked behind a wall and stood there, silent, watchful. He kept up this silence for a good ten minutes but saw nothing and nobody.

  He thought, maybe, Sheriff might’ve set something up ahead of time, laid a trap for him, but as far as he could see, nobody was out here, not a single soul, apart from himself. At last, he moved away from behind the pole and went to stand near his car, still watchful, still ready, for just in case.

  Ten minutes later, a familiar car pulled up in front of the restaurant and parked on the street in front. Rob recognized the car that Randy liked to use in his official police business and stepped forward. Randy slowly got out of his car and walked around to the trunk.

  Randy brought money with him in his police cruiser?

  Somehow, that didn’t sound right; Randy was the essence of care, and he never transported cash around with him in his own cruiser. If he had to deliver money to a drop, he had someone else bring the bag of money, but maybe Randy was in a rush, or else Randy really trusted him, and wouldn’t think Rob might pull something, but Rob tamped down his fears slowed down and studied the man he used to admire the most in the world as Randy opened the trunk lid and pulled out a black nylon bag.

  “That the hundred grand?” Rob asked.

  “Ayuh,” Randy said, and Rob felt mildly assured by the gravelly quality of his boss’s voice. Randy sure sounded okay. And besides, Rob knew Randy had always taken the lion’s share of the money they collected from the trafficking ring. A hundred grand was nothing to someone like him.

  Randy probably had an off-shore bank account somewhere.

  His musings were cut short by Randy talking to him. “There’s a hundred grand in here, and you can count it if you like, nobody’s gonna bother us.”

  “I would like to take a quick look,” Rob said.

  Randy handed the bag over and the moment Rob felt the weight, the heft of the nylon handles, his heart lightened immeasurably and he thought, yeah, this sure felt like a hundred grand. It sure felt like it. He was sure, he didn’t have to count it, but just to be on the safe side, he unzipped it, peered down, and was satisfied.

  It looked legit.

  To his surprise, Randy hadn’t stiffed him.

  Randy gazed blandly at him. “We good?”

  “Yeah, we’re good,” Rob said, grabbing the bag in his left hand and reaching to shake Randy’s hand with the right.

  “I’m glad we ended things on a good footing, Randy,” Rob said, relief in his voice.

  “Yeah,” Randy said after a moment, “I am, too.”

  They gazed at one another for a long moment.

  “Let me walk you to your car,” Randy said.

  “Yeah, okay,” Rob said, and he walked over to his car, parked some little ways off.

  And did he let his guard down? How did he make such a stupid, fatal mistake, as to turn his back on the man whom he once looked up to as a father? For he did half-turn his back away, and as he did so, out of the corner of his left eye, he saw a white-paneled van tearing around the corner, and as he registered the presence of the van, he realized, a tick too late, he’d allowed his attention to become distracted, and at first, he didn’t even notice the pinprick of sharp pain in the left side of his neck, but as he turned around to gaze in astonishment at Randy, he saw Randy holding a used vial in his hand.

  “What?” he warbled out, when an overweening sensation of sleepiness struck him, and he fell to the pavement and the bag of money spilled out all over the sidewalk and the van pulled up right beside him, the side door flew open, and Manuel, his good old buddy, Manuel, and some other guy jumped out and scooped him up and tossed him into the back of the van, the van door slid shut, and the van pulled away from the curb just as fast as it’d arrived.

  He banged his head up against the interior van panel door and drifted out of consciousness.

  Randy stood there impassively, watching. A third man climbed out of the front passenger seat and approached Randy, and Randy handed him the key to Rob’s truck. “Here you go, young man,” he said.

  “Thanks, boss,” the young man said, and he sauntered over to Rob’s truck and drove away in it.

  Randy stood there a moment longer, then bent down to retrieve the stacks of money and stuffed it all back into the nylon bag, zipped it closed, and walked back to his cruiser and dropped the bag of money into the trunk.

  Then he got behind the wheel and drove back home.

  “You’re right, Rob,” he said to himself. “I wasn’t gonna let you keep all that money.”

  A few hours later.

  After clocking out at the Casino that evening, instead of driving directly home, Kathryn drove through the streets of Shelbyville, her thoughts brooding. Where the hell were the evidence boxes? Who took them? Thus far, no action to prosecute had started, and she knew their threats had been just that, idle threats meant to scare her away and get her to leave them alone as they hid the evidence of Miranda Randalls’s murder.

  But where were the goddamned boxes?

  The crime scene techs, she recognized some of them, usually one or two of a group of six who did the crime scene investigation, and she figured she could do a little more sleuthing on her own. She wanted to find the people who did the crime scene investigation and track them down and talk to them.

  But she’d lost her job, and she had no idea when, or how, she’d ever find out what happened to the evidence boxes.

  It frustrated the snot out of her.

  “The fuckers,” she said aloud, and laughed mirthlessl
y.

  12

  Monday, April 15, 4:05 p.m.

  Sheriff?” Margie asked, standing in his doorway. “There’s an agent here from the FBI here to see you.”

  Randy, who’d been expecting this moment for a long time, still felt a tiny frisson of terror seeping into his heart, but he didn’t give himself away to Margie. He slowly set aside the newspaper he’d been reading, removed his bifocals, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Send him in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Special Agent Danforth got right down to brass knuckles. “I find it hard to believe, Sheriff, that there’s a sex trafficking ring being run out of a Casino and you don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “Well, believe it then, or don’t believe. Your pick,” Randy said, and shrugged.

  “Out of a Casino, Sheriff.”

  “Next county. Not my county seat.”

  Danforth shook his head. “I find that very hard to believe that you didn’t notice it, being literally under your nose, as it were.”

  “Outside of my jurisdiction,” Randy said, not even pretending to be polite. “Not my county. In case you didn’t notice, Danforth, I run Rowan County, not Broward.”

  “Still,” Danforth said, and snorted. “Really? I’m just surprised you failed to notice. It’s pretty obvious to me, and I got all that from just wandering around the Casino today.”

  “Well, Agent Danforth, it’s nice to see you, nice to see my tax dollars at work, but as you can see, I’ve got work to do—”

  “And your wife,” Danforth said, suddenly switching tack. “What’s the story on her?”

  Randy, who’d been half-rising, stopped suddenly, and looked sharply at the sharp-nosed agent. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Some folks in this town say your wife didn’t die by her own hand.”

  “Some folks in this town oughta mind their own business.”

  “What’s going on with the investigation, Sheriff? I hear the evidence boxes were here initially, then taken to the Shelbyville PD, then back here again?”

  “What’s your interest? The investigation’s concluded, Special Agent Danforth, and it was determined that my wife committed suicide.”

  “Well, in a sloppy-assed, one-horse town like this, I can just imagine how everything got, so-called ‘investigated’, and now the evidence boxes are back in your shop, how convenient for you, eh?”

  “Get up from my chair and get up off your ass, and leave my office, you ass-hole,” Randy said, leaning over his desk, “and don’t let the door hit you on the fucking way out, okay?”

  “I’m not through with you, Sheriff,” Danforth warned. “This was just a first, friendly visit, but if you’re gonna play the tough guy, then go right on ahead. I’ve brought down bigger clowns than you, so go on ahead and play that game, but I’ll be back, all right.”

  He stood up and walked out of Randy’s office, leaving Randy shaking in rage.

  A few minutes later.

  The nerve of that asshole.

  Randy wandered around his office, slamming doors and yelling. How dare that little asshole treat him like that? Like a country bumpkin in his own god-damned office, the rat-mother-fucker. Okay, so the Fibber didn’t know anything, yet, of the sex-trafficking ring; all he seemed to care about right now was Miranda’s death, but from what he’d heard on the street, nobody had uttered a peep about his business contacts down in Columbia. Oh, he supposed, in the fullness of time, the sex-trafficking ring might finally start to draw attention, but for now, it was still safe, even though he knew that Don Diego was going to change things up.

  And besides, he’d already decided, hadn’t he, with Don Diego and his crew, that they were gonna move the base of operations? Yes, they were. They’d done it at the Casino that one time, the dumbasses, and they’d gotten noticed, and then they’d gone and chosen a new location, and now they were just gonna see where it went; but for the time being, until they got a good grasp on all this, they’d lie low and let the dust settle for a bit before making any more deliveries.

  At the back of his mind, he sensed that Don Diego and his crew were going to sever ties with him.

  Well, if they did, he wasn’t going to like it, but there wasn’t really very much he could do about it, was there? Even so, he was gonna miss making all that money.

  “God-dammit,” he screamed.

  He knew he ought to count his lucky chickens. The Fibber thought he had him cold, but he didn’t mention or breathe a word about the sex-trafficking ring. No, all he cared about was Miranda. And, as far as Miranda was concerned, the special prosecutor had already been working behind the scenes, but from what Randy knew, they weren’t gonna pin her death on him, just domestic violence, and he’d do his time and then move on.

  What alternately pissed him off, and, if the Fibber had known any more than what little he did know, he’d be doing a whole hell of a lot more to Randy than just harassing him, that was for good and fucking sure. There would’ve been arrest warrants, that kind of thing, and instead of one lone Fibber, there’d be a whole shitload of Fibbers clogging up the parking lot. If Agent Danforth suspected anything more, or if he’d known anything more, then there wouldn’t’ve been a friendly visit; there would’ve been arrest warrants and a perp walk.

  But what galled him, what really galled him was this. The FBI agent thought he was too stupid to run a sex-trafficking ring.

  Which, in a way, was a good thing.

  13

  Monday, April 15, 4:00 a.m.

  “Randy,” Josie said, calling him the following day. “We got a problem.”

  She’d called him on the secret line and he sighed as he absorbed her words.

  “This isn’t good, is it?” he asked.

  “I’m out here at the farm, and Rob’s nowhere to be found. He was supposed to be here today for the exchange.”

  “He’s not there, huh?”

  “No, do you have any idea where he might be? Isn’t he supposed to be out here today?”

  “Yes,” he said, and wondered. Where the hell was Rob?

  That’s when it hit him, things were starting to fall apart.

  “I can’t do this alone, Randy,” Josie said. “You gotta come over here. Steve’s starting to lose it.”

  They’d agreed, when they embarked upon this operation, that he’d never make a physical appearance at the farm, and now Josie was begging him to show up. And if she was begging, then it was because he had to be there.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  Six hours later.

  Kathryn, working her usual daytime shift at the Casino, jumped with surprise when she saw someone out of the corner of her eye who looked familiar. She quickly followed the person and when he rounded a corner, she started with surprise. The Sheriff? What the hell was he doing here, at the Casino? The Casino was in Broward County, and outside of his jurisdiction.

  The Sheriff liked to gamble. What was he doing here? She kept following him and he must’ve been really paying attention, or being super flinty, for he suddenly turned around and saw her.

  She stood there, in shock.

  He looked mighty displeased to see her.

  He turned and ducked out of the Casino by a side door.

  What the hell was going on?

  A few moments later.

  Kathryn walked around the back of the Casino, but apart from a truck delivering food to the back kitchen, she saw nothing of interest. Where was the Sheriff?

  She wandered back inside and walked up to a blackjack table. The blackjack dealer glanced at her, looked away, then looked at her again, more steadily.

  His nameplate said Jim.

  “Hi, Jim,” she said, standing off to one side. “I’m Kathryn McGlone, and I’m new around here, thought I’d walk around the Casino floor, get to know everybody.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Kathryn,” Jim said. “What brings you here?”

  Did she want to tell him she got fired from the Rowan Co
unty Sheriff’s Office? Did she really want to start off on what felt like the wrong foot? “Well, I lost my job at the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, and I needed work, so I applied for a security position here.”

  “You used to work for Sheriff Randy Randalls, eh?” Jim said.

  “Yes. Lost my job.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Jim said, lining up a fresh set of cards, but that kind of thing isn’t too uncommon, over at the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Something in his voice . . .

  “What do folks say about Rowan County, out here in Broward County?” she asked.

  “Word to the wise,” he said, glancing at her nameplate, “Office McGlone, but you probably got out of the Sheriff’s Office in the nick of time.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Some strange things going on out there. Like the Sheriff’s wife’s death. A lot of people thought that was mighty strange.”

  “I thought so too,” she said glumly. “I wouldn’t stop investigating it, and that’s kind of why I got fired.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “They claimed I removed evidence boxes from the storage locker, but I didn’t, but there’s a pretty convincing piece of film, and you’d swear it was me on the video.”

  “You were lucky to get out when you did,” Jim said.

  “I’m ashamed of myself,” she admitted.

  “You shouldn’t be.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “The Sheriff’s girlfriend runs this Casino.”

  “Oh, Josie Barnhart?”

  “Yeah, she’s his girlfriend, and was his girlfriend, long before the last Mrs. Randalls died.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that.”

  “She’s involved in something else here, by the way. It’s all hush-hush, but just thought I’d let you know.”

  “Okay.”

  Some customers approached.

  “Care to play a round or two of blackjack, ladies?” Jim asked.