Expert Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  Josie’s voice rose and cracked. A sob broke through the cadence of the numbers she called out. She paused and regrouped. The person outside had stopped moving but Josie sensed they were still listening. She began again, calling out each number like it was a bead on a rosary:

  “310-862-3510. His name is Archer. Tell him where you found us. Please, open the door or call that number. 310-862-3510. There’s a reward. There will be a reward.”

  Josie called the number again and again. Her voice rose to such a frantic pitch that she hardly recognized it. She made it through nine numbers. She called again and managed to call out six. When she started from the beginning, she was shrieking the area code and it frightened her. Who was this hysterical woman? Where was the tough attorney she used to be: cool under pressure, clinically objective. But Josie knew exactly where that person was. She was locked up, incarcerated, unable to fight for herself. She was like any other person who finds their options not just limited but nonexistent. It was a surprise, this weakness. How could she have been so arrogant, so sure of herself when, in reality, she was pitifully weak? From the corner of her eye, Josie saw Erika collapse against the wall.

  “They’re gone,” she whimpered.

  Josie sank to the ground just as Erika did her one better and rolled on her side, folded her hands under her cheek and closed her eyes. They stayed that way. There was no discussion of hope and no strategy rolling around in their heads. Whoever had been out there was gone now. The birds had stopped singing. The women inside the building seemed to have stopped breathing.

  Josie’s eyes went to her hands and even that took a great effort. She didn’t want to die bound as she was. She didn’t want to die like Erika, either: beaten and resigned. But, at that moment, it was too much to find the energy to rouse either her outrage or her spirit.

  She leaned back her head, hoping to shut her brain down so that despair wouldn’t take over. Instead, images rolled around inside. Hannah, Archer, Max. Strangely, it was the unfinished wall in her house that caused her to move. If she died, the house would be sold and she didn’t want people thinking she hadn’t finished what she started. If she died, Hannah would become a ward of the state and, again, Josie wouldn’t have finished what she started. If she died, Archer would never know that she loved him from the bottom of her heart.

  Maybe she wasn’t arrogant after all; maybe she just had purpose in her real life. There was a difference, after all. Now this was her real life, so she had to find her purpose again. Gathering her energy, Josie scooted into the corner, crooked her knees and rested her hands. In the next second she was working on the knot again. Erika turned her head to watch, but Josie couldn’t meet her eyes. There was nothing to say and the last thing Josie wanted was to see her own fear reflected in the other woman’s eyes. It seemed Erika understood because she rolled over and faced the wall. It was then, when they had each decided how they would end their time in that hot, hard place, they heard a tentative voice ask:

  “How much?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY:

  Xavier Hernandez’s Place, Los Angeles

  Levinsky, Arson and the uniformed cop were pulling out onto the street, and Daniel Young was already in the car when Liz realized Archer was nowhere to be found.

  “Back in a minute.”

  She closed the door and followed the only path Archer could have taken. It ran between the pit bull’s domain and Hernandez’s duplex. The chain link fence that kept the pit bull corralled intersected with an old wooden one that ran parallel with the freeway. The wooden fence listed, not only because it was weather-worn, but because an ancient tree – the only living thing flourishing in this neighborhood – had grown at an unnatural angle, seeking light between the freeway pilings. There stood Archer, his lips moving, his eyes trained on the tree. Following his gaze, Liz saw a platform cobbled together and wedged precariously between one large branch and another that didn’t look as if it could hold up a sparrow. A boy was crouched on the slats. He had a bird’s eye view of the duplex where Xavier Hernandez had lived for the last few months.

  Liz turned and went back to the car. Three minutes later, Archer followed and swung himself inside. He was fastening his seat belt when the little boy appeared and stared at the car. Archer raised his hand, but the little boy just looked through the windshield, his eyes taking in Liz, Archer, and Daniel in turn. He would be in a gang before he was twelve and in prison by the time he was eighteen, but for now he was just a wary little kid clinging to a chain-link fence.

  “Let’s go.” Daniel touched Liz’s shoulder then sat back and buckled his belt.

  Archer looked over his shoulder. “You’ve got to get out more often if a little kid scares you.”

  “Give it a rest, Archer, he’s right.” Liz started the car and backed out in a cloud of dust. She headed to the freeway. “Did you get anything back there?”

  “Not as much as I wanted,” Archer admitted. “The kid thought I was INS. When I told him I was just interested in Hernandez it got a little easier. My Spanish isn’t what it used to be, but I know that he thought Hernandez was loco.”

  “Was the kid scared of him?”

  “No, just said he was crazy. He was always trying to pet that dog, walking into the street even if there were cars coming. He said Hernandez was confused and his eye didn’t work right.”

  “Ocular damage from the beating probably,” Daniel said, wanting to be part of the conversation.

  “He also said Hernandez had visitors.”

  “That’s interesting,” Liz commented.

  “A man came at least twice, and once there was a woman with him,” Archer said.

  “Cuwin Martin, I would assume,” Daniel muttered, turning around to look back at where they’d been.

  “I doubt Cuwin makes house calls,” Archer scoffed. “He can’t even find his way back to his office.”

  Liz snickered and took the on-ramp fast before shooting across traffic and landing them in the carpool lane. Archer glanced into the side mirror. Behind them the cars slowed. L.A. drivers could smell an unmarked unit a mile away.

  “When was the last time someone was there?” she asked.

  “Archer?” Daniel gave him a verbal poke. Archer took a deep breath. The guy was really beginning to get on his nerves.

  “He saw the woman three days ago. She was in and out fast. She was carrying a small box when she went in and nothing when she came out. He hadn’t seen Hernandez for a couple of weeks.”

  “And before that?” Liz cocked her elbow on the door and rested her head in her upturned palm as traffic slowed.

  “He doesn’t know. He remembers the last time he saw her because his mother and her boyfriend had a big fight, so he went to the tree and sat there until after dark. He said the woman was pretty.”

  “Could he identify her or the man? I mean, if someone had a picture of them and showed him, could he then?” Daniel asked.

  Archer shook his head. “No, he saw her go in from the back, and it was dark when she came out. According to him, she was medium height, pretty, long brown hair, and skinny. For a kid like that, though, skinny and beautiful are relative. The interesting thing is she got into an old red car.”

  “That doesn’t give us much, does it?” Daniel raised his voice. “There must be ten thousand red compacts in Los Angeles.”

  Archer swiveled and threw his arm over the seat back.

  “But we’re only looking for one, Daniel, and we can narrow that down some. There was a red compact in the lot behind your office. I remember what it looked like. I’d know if it I saw it again. I bet if I drove it up for that kid to look at, he could tell me if it was the same car he saw. You’d be amazed what people remember.”

  “In my line of work, I’m always amazed at what they forget,” Daniel shot back. Archer eyed him a second and then turned back around.

  “You’re right about that, Doc.”

  Young made a great living pulling memories out of people’s brains; maybe he eve
n helped them create some new ones. Liz and Archer both had taken statements, sat through trials, followed up on leads based on faulty memories, but they had to start somewhere. There was an old red car in the parking lot behind Daniel’s building. It was there the same day Daniel found that list in his car. Josie had been ‘helped’ into a red car. It was a point on the map, and it was getting bigger all the time. He didn’t need Daniel Young’s permission to buy into it or to pursue it.

  “Liz, think you can pull some strings and get the records from the pay station at the pier parking structure?”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” she laughed. “Let’s spend three weeks sifting through all those tickets looking for cars that were there within twenty-four hours of Josie disappearing. Then we have to run the charge card receipts – that’s assuming the person we’re looking for used a charge card instead of paying cash. I don’t think those two women have that kind of time.”

  “And we don’t have anything else,” Archer answered sharply, hating the cavalier way Liz referred to Josie and Erika Gardener. “We know Josie was at Quality Seafood. Let’s get a picture of Hernandez down there for a confirmation. We know she had a drink with a guy who fits his description. We know she was unsteady and needed help. We can make the assumption she was drugged, and we know he took her toward the parking structure. We know she got into a small red car. We know someone in a blue and white shirt was on the other side of the car helping Hernandez.”

  “Yeah,” Liz admitted reluctantly. Archer was on the right track, she just couldn’t spend all that time running this down without raising some eyebrows.

  “And we don’t have to check a twenty-four hour cycle. We know Josie was at Quality Seafood about four thirty. Get a range of tickets from two through five o’clock.”

  “It could be done,” Liz admitted. “And it would just take a phone call. I’ll follow up with the literacy teacher who worked with Hernandez, too. Will you take care of showing the picture around?”

  “Not a problem,” Archer said, grateful that Liz was getting on board. “Do you have someone who can run the credit cards?”

  “Yep, as long as we’re not talking a couple hundred,” Liz agreed.

  “Great. We get the names, we run them through DMV, come up with some registration information. If we get a hit with a red compact, we check it out. It’s not like the pier is a hot bed of activity that time of day. If twenty cars went in and out I’d be surprised.” Archer turned toward her. “Right? It’s doable. Right?”

  Liz swerved out of the high occupancy lane and back in again in one smooth move. She gained only three car lengths. That made her as ticked off as not thinking the car park through on her own. Some big-time detective she was. “Yeah, I’ll see if I can pull in a favor from the city clerk. But, Hernandez won’t have a credit card.”

  “Nope, but I don’t think he’s our man,” Archer said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he is.” Daniel barked a laugh from the back seat.

  Liz’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, and Archer slid his own right to check out the traffic. He looked back just in time to catch Liz looking at him, and he smiled. Daniel was an acquired taste that neither of them was acquiring.

  “You want us to drop you at your office?” Liz asked.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind,” Daniel said but he wasn’t to be deterred. “But I can’t believe you don’t think Xavier is your man. That’s patently ridiculous given all we know about him.”

  “We don’t know anything about him,” Archer said as the freeway opened up. “And what you know about him is irrelevant. It’s ten-year-old information.”

  “It’s relevant. Believe me,” Daniel sputtered. “I’ve already told you enough to fill a book about Xavier Hernandez.”

  “We’re talking about a different Hernandez. First, he’s impaired. Second, the place where he was living trumps your volumes of information you got from him behind bars.”

  “Really? Well, then, fill me in since you’re the experts now.”

  Before they could answer, Daniel unlocked his seat belt and thrust forward. He reminded Archer of Max putting his snout between the seats when he and Josie were in the car. The damn dog didn’t want to miss a thing and neither did Daniel Young. “This affects me, you know, and if you’re thinking there’s someone else in the mix, I have the right to know.”

  Liz raised a shoulder as if to give Archer permission to answer, but it was more to say ‘he’s got a point.”

  “It’s what we didn’t see in that place,” Archer answered.

  “Like what?” Daniel demanded.

  “Like a yellow highlighter. A pen.” Archer suggested. “Hernandez took some quality time making that list we found in the cars. What’s he writing with?”

  “People keep those things all over,” Daniel scoffed. “A pen could be in the drawer or under the bed.”

  “LAPD would have bagged them if they found them.” Liz shot that his way just as she swerved again.

  “What about a camera?” Archer suggested.

  “Not everybody owns a camera,” Daniel came back.

  “People who take pictures do. There are pictures of you and the two women.” Liz threw that out for consideration. “Good pictures, I might add. ”

  “Maybe he has it with him.” Daniel said. “Maybe the people who visited Xavier have the camera.”

  “Maybe the people who are visiting Xavier are setting him up,” Liz said. “That’s the point. Maybe Hernandez isn’t the mastermind; maybe Hernandez is the dupe. You’ve got a guy who suffered severe brain trauma, he’s on all sorts of meds and he’s running around leaving a ton of clues for us to follow that point right at him? That is really strange.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” Daniel insisted.

  “We don’t count anything out,” Archer said. “The point is that you’re in our territory. We’ll put the current pieces together because they have more immediate merit. We might find that Hernandez’s cellmate had something against Josie and Gardener. Could be there’s a girlfriend out there thinking she can make a few bucks off this.”

  “That’s a stretch. If it was ransom, we would have heard by now,” Liz said.

  “Point being, we need to give weight to what we can see and touch, not theories about how Hernandez will act,” Archer countered.

  “That I can’t argue with.” Liz lowered her hand and clipped the turn signal. She exited on Pacific Coast Highway, made a right and settled in for the surface street drive to Hermosa via Manhattan Beach.

  “What’s really bugging me is that list,” Archer continued. “It was a no-brainer. Once it was found, anyone on that list would connect it to the Hernandez trial. He had to know the cops would put it together fast, find out he was on parole, and run down to where he was living. Then he leaves that giant bulletin board? Come on.” Liz rolled her eyes.

  “Hernandez was always arrogant,” Daniel suggested.

  “Someone is.” Archer muttered. “Could be someone out there is playing us.”

  “That’s a definite possibility,” Daniel suggested as he slid back in his seat.

  Archer looked over his shoulder. He nodded at Daniel Young. That was the first thing they had really agreed on so far.

  An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

  Erika’s head shot up just before she pushed herself up on her hip. Josie was on her feet, using both hands to steady herself as she hurried to stand just underneath the opening. Suddenly the inside of the hut was electrified, sparking and crackling with disbelief and hope.

  “How much? As much as you want,” Josie hollered.

  “We have money,” Erika joined in.

  “There are two of you in there? Shit.” The girl’s voice was filled with awe and it wasn’t the kind Josie liked. She sounded like Billy Zuni, high and happy and hallucinating.

  “Don’t worry about anything except what I’m saying. Pay attention to what I’m saying,” Josie said evenly. “My name is Josie Bates. I liv
e in Hermosa Beach. Do you know where that is?”

  “Sort of,” the girl answered warily.

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Ready? Dial 310-862-3510. A man named Archer will answer. Tell him where you are. Tell him I’m here with you. He’ll know what to do.” Josie waited. “Do you have him? Did he answer?” Josie fought to keep hysteria tamped down, but it was getting more difficult. “Are you there? Dammit, did you call?”

  Erika put her fingers on Josie’s leg as if to temper her reaction, but the tall woman would not be calm.

  “There’s no reception,” the girl said finally, and it sounded as if she were half asleep. Leaves shuffled. She seemed to sigh.

  Erika whispered. “She’s leaving.”

  “Don’t go. Please. Please,” Josie called. “We’ll give you anything you want.”

  “I’m so messed up.” The girl mumbled just as they heard her companions calling, shouting curse words and saying they would leave her if she didn’t get her butt in gear.

  “Shit. Shit. I’m coming!” The girl yelled and started to run.

  “Stop. Please. You can’t leave.” Josie and Erika cried simultaneously.

  But the girl could leave, and the girl did leave. When they were sure she was gone, Erika crawled to her corner and Josie lay down in hers.

  “Don’t worry. Someone else will come. Something will happen. I promise,” Josie said, but she wasn’t really trying to convince Erika Gardener. Hell, she wasn’t even trying to convince herself anymore.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:

  DAY 3:

  Hermosa Beach

  The story of Xavier Hernandez was starting to niggle at the edges of big news again thanks to the freelancer who had tracked Levinsky down at Hernandez’s place and sold a snippet of film to one of the local stations. At the same time, in a serendipitous moment, one of Hannah’s flyers found its way into the hands of the local paper. The paper did a bio on Josie including a nice little history of the Hernandez trial and noted the fact that it was the ten-year anniversary of that particular ‘trial of the century’. That article was read by the local CBS News at Five anchor who happened to live in Manhattan Beach. The freelancer made some bucks, the newspaper had a nice little bump in readership, and the CBS News at Five added some fuel to the fire with information on Xavier Hernandez’s release from prison as part of the release of forty-five thousand felons to relieve prison overcrowding (which the California high court had decided was cruel and unusual punishment). Then they went a step further. They interviewed Daniel Young who, like an idiot, spilled the beans on the lists in the cars, speculated on why these two particular women were targeted, admitted he was also at risk, and offered to exchange himself for Josie Bates and Erika Gardener if Xavier was listening.