Material Witness

by L. A. Mondello

  “Can you be that sure?”

  All he had was his gut feeling. “Yes.”

  “Now whose judgment is a little cloudy?” She turned to Russo. “He’s off this case.”

  “What?”

  “Wait a minute,” Russo said. “We have a shooting to investigate. Junior Canfield or rather, Agent Novak, wasn’t the only person killed at Rory’s last night.”

  “This is my case, Charley. You can’t just yank me off it,” Jake said.

  “In case you didn’t hear right, Ms. Alvarez has requested that you be there with her at the safe house.” Turning to Captain Russo, she added, “Don’t worry. The FBI is prepared to share information as necessary with your office as long as it doesn’t interfere with our own investigation. And since Jake is a witness to what happened, even if he didn’t see the shooter, it’s in our best interest that he remain alive.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Russo asked.

  “It means, Fagnelio called a meeting with Jake and then sprayed the place with bullets. I don’t know why, but I aim to find out if he was a target, and if so, why. I don’t have to remind you that this federal investigation takes precedent over your case.”

  “I’m not going,” Jake said, turning to Russo.

  Charley started to protest, but Russo held up his hand to stop her.

  “Yes, you are. If I have to drag your ass to the car and tie you inside, you’re going.”

  “What? What about Fagnelio? What about this damned case I’ve been working on for three fucking months!”

  “Kevin will take over it and work with the FBI. Jake, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Angel Fagnelio knew you were undercover. That dirt-bag lied straight to your face and set you up to die. Wait until we have him in custody. Once Fagnelio goes before a grand jury, you won’t have anything to worry about and neither will Ms. Alvarez. Trumbella’s organization is responsible for too many deaths already. I don’t want to add you to the list.”

  Jake started to protest.

  “Enough!” Russo charged, slamming his fist on the coffee-stained blotter on his desk. “The decision has been made.”

  Charley picked up a butterscotch candy from the nearly empty glass jar on the desk and twirled it between her fingers. “I’ll call the office in Virginia to tell them to expect you along with Ms. Alvarez. Pack your bags. You’re leaving within the hour.”

  She took one step toward Jake.

  “But I warn you. If anything goes wrong, if you cross me just one time because of our past association, I'll drag your ass right out of there and you can kiss your career good-bye.”

  And that was Cyclone Charley, Jake thought cynically as he watched her strut out of the office, leaving the door ajar.

  #

  Chapter Five

  The empty road stretched out endlessly ahead of them like a string of railroad ties on a track with no train. The four-door federal-issue sedan quietly hummed down the Blue Ridge Parkway toward the brim of the Smoky Mountains. Their driver, a federal agent whose name Cassie had already forgotten in the long line of names she’d heard this morning, was concentrating on the road that was taking them far away from her home in Providence.

  They'd be safe out of the city. But even Cassie knew that mobsters didn't recognize city or state limits, much less view them as an obstacle.

  As soon as Angel Fagnelio was caught and brought before the grand jury, Cassie would be called back to testify. She had to face him, just like she had all those years ago when she'd faced her cousin's murderer in a humid Miami courtroom that stormy day.

  Cassie's heavy sigh wrapped around her as she stared out the window, watching the last remains of the sunlight dip below the tree line. Rhododendrons lined the roadway, bare of any flowers that might have made this journey brighter.

  Why in God's name did she live in a world of concrete and pavement when she could look out her window and see the peaceful countryside of Virginia? In the city, she didn't have beautiful sunsets over the mountains or rolling green hills that stretched on forever. There was just her small apartment in the safe part of the town. There was Angel Fagnelio, and hundreds just like him, crawling the streets, waiting to hurt innocent people who were just going about their daily lives.

  Cassie’s whole definition of safe had changed drastically in the last twenty-four hours. She had believed she was safe in the city. She thought she'd gotten over the black feeling of fear that consumed her eight years ago. But it was still there, imbedded deep inside like an angry cancer just waiting to grow.

  Rolling her head back to the headrest in the back seat, she turned toward Jake and watched his profile. He’d been sleeping for the first leg of the journey out of Rhode Island and through Connecticut. Now he sat tall and stiff in the seat, his long body barely fitting into the space. His strong jaw was squared as if he were rolling something back and forth in his mind, or trying to force it out. His dark blue eyes were intense with thought.

  Cassie wanted to believe Jake was just concentrating on what was ahead. But as time wore on, she got the distinct impression he was forcing himself not to look at her.

  Was he angry with her for insisting he come? It wasn’t that she'd blame him. In one fell swoop, she'd turned not only her life around, but Jake’s as well.

  She had the whole Federal Bureau of Investigation ready and willing to put out the red carpet for her if it meant she'd cooperate as their material witness. Once she was in the room giving her demands to them, she knew they would have granted her anything to get Angel Fagnelio convicted for his crimes.

  Charlotte Tate was another story, and even Cassie had to admit she was surprised when the special agent came into the conference room and agreed to Cassie's request.

  While they were at her apartment, Jake had promised it was going to be all right. And she believed him. Maybe now that they were alone together, he'd changed his mind?

  “You look tired. I’m surprised you’re not still sleeping,” she finally said, wishing she could close the gap between them and ease the tension plaguing him. She wanted to place her hand in his, touch his cheek, now shadowed with dark stubble. Anything to bring the connection back she felt earlier when they were alone at the police station.

  Jake answered quietly. “I’ll sleep more when we get where we’re going.”

  Cassie glanced at the driver to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, then back to Jake. “You're angry with me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You've been cool all afternoon.”

  He hesitated a fraction of a second. “Have I?”

  She nodded. “You haven't said much, but when you do, you look…well, angry.”

  His sigh echoed defeat. “I guess I am. Seeing Charley brought back a lot of memories I'd just as soon forget.”

  He turned to look at her then, and she saw his smoky eyes were filled with warmth. He wasn't completely plagued with the tightness she'd seen all day. Some of it had subsided.

  “I'm sorry if you mistook my…coolness for being angry with you. I'm not. Kevin always says I was born with an intense stare. He got used to it.”

  “Then I guess I'll have to get used to it, too.”

  Jake went back to watching the road with his intense look. She went back to watching the strong lines of his profile.

  He glanced at her then, and she knew her fears were true. His eyes were haunted.

  She leaned forward in her seat to talk to the driver. “I’m sorry. I forgot your name.”

  The driver glanced in the rear view mirror. “Agent Hogan.”

  “That’s right. Can you at least tell me how much longer it’s going to take for us to get to this safe house?”

  Cassie had long since brushed aside her annoyance that the exact location of the safe house couldn't, or wouldn't be disclosed to them. She’d been given strict orders to call Maureen and her parents to tell them she was going out of town and wasn’t sure when she’d be back. But she was safe and she would get in
touch with them. She was also given strict orders not to use her cell phone or email.

  As much as she hated the idea of being locked up for Lord only knew how long, she was looking forward to getting there and having a nice hot bubble bath before crawling beneath the sheets.

  “A few hours still. If you're tired, why don't you nod off for a bit. It’ll make the drive go quicker.”

  Cassie leaned back in the seat. “I can’t sleep,” she muttered.

  “You’re too wound up,” Jake said.

  She cocked her head to one side and tossed him a wry grin. “No kidding, Sherlock. You’re just as bad. I've seen more relaxed stiffs in the city morgue.”

  “Do you have to do that?”

  His question, as much as the stark look on his face, startled her, filling her with a sense of foreboding. She felt herself shrink down in the seat.

  “I was just teasing.”

  “I meant, go to the morgue. Do you have to do that in your research?”

  Eight-year-old memories Cassie wished she could will away stormed her mind at an alarming speed.

  “Just once,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t for research.”

  When she paused, choking on her own reaction to the memory, she saw that he was waiting.

  “My cousin was murdered eight years ago. Even though she witnessed it, my grandmother couldn't believe he was really gone, so my aunt and I took her to the morgue. It was horrible.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Me, too,” Cassie said shakily as the memory of her grandmother falling to the floor and weeping uncontrollably flooded her mind.

  “I thought because you write about it…”

  She tilted an eyebrow. “What? That I get off on blood and gore?”

  He lifted his shoulder in an idle shrug.

  “Guess again. I hope I never have to see someone I love like that again. Not in this lifetime. Seeing Emilio that way…was quite enough.”

  Jake heaved a sigh, and she heard him mutter an oath under his breath.

  “Were you close to him?”

  Cassie shook her head, swallowed a bit of emotion that bubbled up her throat. “That's what makes it more horrible to me. Before he died, I remember seeing him exactly three times in my life.”

  Jake’s eyes widened as he glanced at her.

  “I was visiting my family in Miami when it happened. My cousin and I were the same age, but I never got a chance to get to know Emilio when I was growing up because we lived so far apart. I’d gone down for a visit during spring break at college and spent a few days with my grandmother. Emilio and I really hit it off. I was hoping to finally get the chance to get to know him more during that visit.”

  A blanket of sadness covered her as she turned away, twisting her attention away from the memories to the relative safety of the scenery. Dark roads, barren hills, trees that had yet to produce buds that would pop out in spring. And they would. It was only with absolute death that spring didn’t come.

  The sun was now long gone. The headlights shone bright on the dry road ahead of them. They drove in silence for a few minutes. Every once in a while Cassie's mind would wander to that day on her grandmother's porch.

  The sight of an animal's illuminated eyes at the side of the road brought her back to the present. She was in a car with Jake Santos and an agent she’d met three seconds before climbing into the car. She wasn't eighteen anymore, but she was once again on the run.

  “How'd it happen?” Jake ask.

  “Emilio?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, like I said, it was spring break. My father was livid I’d gone to Miami.”

  “He was angry you went to visit your family?”

  “Yes, well, no, not really for visiting my family. It was because I went to Miami without telling him. I didn’t tell anyone. I just showed up on my grandmother’s doorstep one day. She was so thrilled.”

  Cassie laughed just thinking about how her grandmother had called all her neighbors from the front porch to tell them her little Juanita had come home.

  “My father didn’t want me to travel to Miami. He'd said if I wanted family around, he would have paid for them to come visit us in Stamford. He just didn't understand.”

  “I'm afraid I don't, either.”

  She laughed quietly, without the bitterness she'd felt her whole life about her father's reasons for not wanting to return to Miami.

  “My dad didn't have an easy childhood. Things were rough for his family when they first came over from Cuba. That's something I was spared because I grew up in a nice middle class Connecticut neighborhood, well away from the prejudice he'd encountered in his life. He worked hard, not only building his business up in Stamford, but building his self-esteem.”

  “Something to be proud of.”

  “Yes, and I am. Unfortunately, it built a wide gap between me and my only other family here. It wasn’t just the cultural differences either. He tried hard to blend into the mainstream, leaving his culture behind. He wanted to be American in all ways that counted. I doubt I'll ever know everything that caused him to leave Miami. He doesn't speak much of that time. But I got a good glimpse of it the day Emilio died.”

  “You mean, you were there…when it happened?”

  Cassie swallowed hard. She'd always wondered if things would have been different if she hadn't gone to Miami. Maybe Emilio would still be alive.

  “I remember it was this gloriously perfect sunny day, and Emilio and I had just come home from the beach. I loved the beach and the warm water.

  “Anyway, we were just sitting on the porch with my grandmother, dumping the sand from my beach bag.”

  She paused for a minute, running her hand over her cheek as if to wipe away the image. But it remained.

  “A man started yelling in Spanish. He’d apparently followed us up from the beach. I didn't understand any of it because I don't speak it fluently. My parents only spoke English, even in the house. The next thing I knew my grandmother was screaming and the man had grabbed me by the hair. He'd pulled a gun, was waving it around like a flag and laughing. Emilio was shouting in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying. Then I was thrown aside and Emilio was lying on the ground bleeding.”

  Cassie swallowed down the acrid taste of bile. The sound of the gunshot, the smell of gunpowder still seemed to choke the air around her with startling clarity, even after all these years.

  “The man who shot him didn't even run. He wasn’t scared at all. He just stood there laughing as Emilio bled on the dirt, like taking my cousin's life was nothing. Then he looked at me and my grandmother—I'll never forget his face—he said we were next.”

  Jake swore then. It didn't shock her, like the plethora of expletives she'd heard that day during the shooting. Or the look in the eyes of her cousin's killer.

  “So this is nothing but a reoccurring nightmare,” Jake said almost to himself.

  Sighing, she said, “That's putting it mildly. I testified then. My grandmother didn't. Even though she witnessed the murder, she refused to believe it happened. She was too frightened. I don't blame her. It was pretty horrible.

  “My father was furious at me, both for going to Miami and for doing what I thought was right.”

  Jake reached across the seat and covered his hand over hers. She ignored the immediate zing of energy that shot through her and gladly accepted the comfort he offered.

  “Fear makes people do funny things, Cassie. I see it all the time. Your father must be feeling it all over again now.”

  “I couldn't tell my parents,” she said quietly, gazing out at the darkness. Although by now, they probably knew.

  Cassie hadn’t told anyone, except for Maureen. She knew her parents would worry, so she’d asked Maureen to tell them she was going away for a few days. It would be surprisingly easy for Cassie to keep her whereabouts from her parents, at least in the short term. Cassie lived such a solitary life while she was working on a book. She'd hardly leave the house except to go to the
library and pick up some food at the grocery store. Even then, Chinese take-out and pizza were her best friends. There was no one at home to fret about her or wonder when she came home. She didn't even have a cat to worry about feeding.

  There were times when a deadline loomed and she would drop out of sight for months, communicating with her mother only via email or a quick phone call. She could do both at the safe house and reassure her parents that she was fine without having to deal with her father directly.

  Jake squeezed her hand gently. “At a time like this you could use your parents' support.”

  “How much support can I get from them if they're in Stamford and I'm tucked away in a safe house? Besides, my father would only blame me again.”

  “They're going to find out, Cassie. It was in the papers.”

  “I’m sure they read about it. But I asked Maureen to call them. They’re going to worry. At least this time I wasn't to blame.”

  Jake frowned. “It wasn't your fault then, either.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thanks. I did blame myself for a while though. I figured if I hadn't gone… Dad said it was better to forget it ever happened. Forget we'd lost Emilio like we had. After it was all over, he insisted my grandmother and my aunt come live with us. He didn't want any of us to talk about the shooting ever again. And no one did. We never forgot Emilio, but it was as if he'd died some other way. He was just gone. I know my father blamed me, even if he didn't put it into words.”

  The vacant sound of the tires crushing the pavement beneath them mocked her, surrounding her like the tide of blinding fog now rolling over the hills.

  With a shake of his head, Jake said, “I don't understand how you do it. How can you write about crime and not relive that horror every single day?”

  “It's because of that incident that I write about crime. My character, CJ Carmen, is a strong woman. I wrote her that way so she wouldn't feel all the fear that I've felt since that happened.

  “A month after that creep was convicted for killing Emilio—over a wink, mind you. Emilio's mortal sin was winking at this guy’s girlfriend on the beach. Anyway, I started writing Fire in the Night, my first crime novel. All that anger and fear just came pouring out of me. It was very cathartic. I learned a lot, too. Most of all, I learned my father was wrong. About some things anyway. There are things about our culture that may not be wonderful. But it's not all bad. There's good there. People find themselves in situations they have no control over. Like this. But it doesn't make it all bad.”