House Witness

by Mike Lawson

  She heard Bill, on the bridge, say to Bryan, “Try not to run into anyone,” then he brought both Ella and Patty another mimosa. He took in Ella in her bikini, making no attempt to act as if he wasn’t examining her body, and said, “Wow.”

  It turned out to be a marvelous day. Not only was the weather perfect, but Ella didn’t get seasick. They had a pricey lunch at a place with umbrellas and outdoor tables—Bill paid for everything—then Ella and Patty went shopping while Bill and Bryan sat in a local brewpub trying out the beers. Patty bought a couple of things: sandals that looked likely to fall apart in a month and some beads that Ella thought looked tacky. Ella didn’t buy anything. She was a girl who bought things on sale, and she wasn’t going to pay the prices they charged gullible tourists.

  On the cruise back to Charleston, Bryan and Patty sat on the sundeck and were soon asleep. They were both a little drunk, especially Bryan. Ella was glad that Bill didn’t seem drunk at all and had obviously paced himself. She wanted to marry a rich guy and preferred not to marry a drunk, although she hadn’t written that down on her list of don’ts.

  She stood next to Bill on the bridge as he steered the boat, and after they’d cleared the marina, he said, “Okay, let the grilling begin.”

  “Grilling?” she said. “I wasn’t grilling you.” But she had been, and she was irritated that she’d been so unsubtle that he’d noticed. “I’m just curious about you.”

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “Well, you said you didn’t live in Charleston. Where do you live?”

  “I said I didn’t have a home in Charleston. But right now this is where I’m living—I’ve rented a place down on the beach; you’ll like it—and I expect to be here for about a year.”

  “A year? I don’t understand. What exactly do you do, and where do you go from here?”

  “As for what I do, it’s complicated. Like I told you, I’m a lawyer but don’t practice law anymore. The truth is, I was disbarred, which was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Uh-oh, Ella thought again. “Disbarred” didn’t sound good.

  “What I do now is I help out other lawyers who have difficult cases.”

  “Help them out how?”

  “It depends on the case. Like I said, it’s complicated, but if a lawyer needs some help to win, he might call me, if he can afford me. What I do now pays a hell of a lot better than practicing law.”

  “You keep saying it’s complicated, like I’m too dumb and blond to understand.” She tried to keep her voice light, but she was actually getting a little pissed.

  “I don’t think you’re dumb at all. It’s just that I can’t give you specifics. I’m sure you’ve heard of lawyer-client privilege, and how what lawyers say to their clients is confidential. Well, that applies to what I do, too.”

  She found out later that the reason he couldn’t be more specific didn’t have anything to do with lawyer-client privilege. He just wasn’t willing to admit to a girl he’d just met that he was a criminal.

  Three months after their first date, Ella was living with Bill Cantwell.

  One of her rules was not to fall in love—love was not a prerequisite to marriage—but she’d broken her own rule. She loved the damn guy, she couldn’t help it, and she could tell he loved her, too.

  In so many ways, he was the ideal mate. He was rich. He was fun to be with. He was great in bed. And she learned so much from him. In spite of all the effort she’d made to improve herself, she knew she wasn’t sophisticated or well educated, and since Bill was older than she was and had been to college and seen the world, he was always teaching her—and he did it in a way that didn’t make her feel stupid.

  She had no idea how much money he made, but whatever the amount was, it had to be a lot. Bill Cantwell didn’t scrimp. On anything. The beach house rented for eight thousand a month. He leased a Mercedes convertible for the nice days and a Cadillac SUV for the not-so-nice ones. His suits were tailored. She was shocked to learn he ordered some of his shoes from a shoemaker in Italy. He spent money on spas and massages and manicures when he was in the mood. Twice they flew up to New York because he liked the city and wanted to take in a couple of Broadway shows.

  When it came to her, he was extraordinarily generous. Once she moved in with him, he couldn’t help noticing her wardrobe: how few clothes she had and how cheap most of them were. Without making her feel embarrassed about it, he said she deserved an early Christmas present and that he was buying her a new wardrobe. They shopped that day from ten in the morning until nine at night, and Ella figured he easily spent five thousand dollars. Ella didn’t know what was going to happen with him, but if they separated she’d have the clothes she needed to find another man.

  After a month of living together, he convinced her to quit her job, not that he had to try that hard. His schedule was erratic, he often didn’t leave the house for days at a time, and he wanted her to be there with him when he wasn’t working. She asked him, “What am I going to do all day?”

  “Think of this as a sabbatical,” he said. She knew what a sabbatical was; she’d just never heard of a waitress taking one. “Use the time to educate yourself. Read. Go to art galleries and museums. Sit in on a couple of classes that interest you over at the university. And one thing you’re definitely going to do is learn how to play golf.”

  He was a big golfer, and wanted her to learn so they could play together. He bought her a set of expensive Ping clubs fitted to her measurements, and for a month she took lessons every day with a pro at a nearby course. She was surprised to find out that she was quite good—the pro said she was a natural—and in a couple of months she was able to play with Bill without slowing him down too much.

  As for what he did, she still didn’t really know, and she had decided, for the time being, not to push him on the subject. As he’d done that day on the boat trip to Isle of Palms, he maintained that he was assisting a lawyer with a difficult case. But exactly how he was assisting wasn’t clear to her. He’d spend days doing nothing that appeared to be business-related. Other days, he’d sit on the deck at the beach house making calls for hours or he’d be online, studying things on the Internet.

  There were several times when he was gone for two or three days, and a number of nights when he left after dark and didn’t come home until early in the morning. She wasn’t at all worried that he was cheating on her—she was absolutely confident he was still mesmerized by her—but she had no idea what he did those nights he wasn’t home. One morning, she found him sitting on the deck, staring at the ocean. He’d been gone for two days and must have come home while she was sleeping. He looked terrible: tired, unshaven—but more than that, he looked shaken, as if something had happened that scared him. Whatever it was, it was a couple of days before he was his old self again.

  Finally, as Ella knew it eventually would, things came to a head between them.

  “My work here in Charleston is done,” Bill said one day.

  It was December, but clear and warm, more like fall than winter. They were sitting on the deck of the beach house, side by side in Adirondack chairs, both looking out at the ocean. There was the slightest breeze coming off the water, just enough to ruffle Bill’s hair, and he looked tanned and, well … “gorgeous” was the only word she could think of.

  “Really?” Ella said, not knowing what that was going to mean in terms of their relationship, and felt her stomach tighten.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was able to wrap things up sooner than I expected. I don’t know when the next job will come along, but it won’t be here. I’m thinking about going to Hawaii for a couple of months, and I want you to come with me.”

  Ella didn’t even hesitate. “No,” she said. “Not until you tell me what you really do. And for that matter, who you really are.”

  For such a gregarious guy, Bill was amazingly adept at saying hardly anything about himself. In the time they’d lived together, she’d learned that he was raised
in Colorado, attended the University of Colorado at Boulder, became a lawyer, moved to San Antonio, and then was disbarred. But he wouldn’t tell her why he was disbarred; a misunderstanding, he said. He’d told her that he’d been married for a short time and had no children, and she believed him. His father was dead but his mother was alive and lived in Santa Barbara. He seemed fond of his mother, and called her fairly often. But as for his job, all she knew was the paper-thin story that he assisted lawyers with difficult trials.

  She didn’t want to lose him, however. She was living her dream. She was with a wonderful man who had money to burn and who had introduced her to a world that she’d never had a chance to be a part of until now. She wanted to marry him, but she wasn’t about to marry a man whose life was a total mystery. She was fine with leaving Charleston, but she wasn’t going to leave with him unless she understood what lay on the road ahead.

  Finally he said, “Okay. I’ll tell you what I do.”

  12

  As Ella knew she’d be staying in New York for at least six months, she’d taken a lease on a one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea. Actually, she was subleasing. The apartment was owned by a doctor who was on some save-the-children mission in Africa, and he had marvelous taste; his place wasn’t some leather-recliner, wide-screen-TV man cave. She wondered if the doctor might be gay. The artwork on the walls was subtle but stunning, he had two Iranian rugs that cost as much as midsize sedans, and the kitchen—which Ella couldn’t have cared less about—was designed for a master chef. The place rented for seven thousand a month—which meant it was nowhere near as grand as the places she and Bill had lived in in the past; but it would do.

  Two days after she met David Slade at the Mandarin Oriental, Ella spent the day in her apartment reviewing the files he’d given her, which included the witness statements, transcripts of everything said at Toby’s lineup, a ballistics report on the bullets that killed DiNunzio, and the results of DiNunzio’s autopsy.

  The prosecution’s case, as she already knew, boiled down to five eyewitnesses and the fact that the state could prove, with Toby’s fingerprints, that he’d been in the bar—but that’s really all the prosecution had. It had no motive, no murder weapon, and no physical evidence linking Toby directly to the accountant’s death. But five witnesses …

  As she’d told Slade, she and Bill had never had a case that involved five witnesses; the most they’d ever dealt with was three. She couldn’t help wondering if she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

  Her next step was to have background checks performed on all the witnesses. There are online sites that for a modest fee of $39.95 will provide you all the information supposedly available on a person that is a matter of public record: criminal history, addresses where the person has lived in the past, bankruptcy records, etc. But Ella wanted much more than what a generic online people search engine could provide, and it was going to cost a whole lot more than $39.95.

  Five years ago, Bill had come across a company in Dallas that mined the Internet for data and had access to all the right databases. Somehow, and in spite of all those privacy protection guarantees that people are given, this company had relationships with banks and credit card companies, and could get information that a law enforcement agency would have needed a warrant to obtain. For a very hefty fee, Ella could get not only material that was a matter of public record but also an in-depth financial profile of an individual. And unlike the data provided by the companies that charged $39.95, the Dallas firm’s information was accurate. She called the people in Dallas, gave them all she had on the five witnesses, and told them to start digging. It would take them a week to provide what she wanted, after which they would FedEx a report to her—Ella didn’t want them sending her an email.

  While waiting for the background checks to be completed, Ella visited the witnesses’ residences. Jack Morris, the bartender, lived in a five-story walk-up in Brooklyn that was a complete dump. The barmaid, Kathy Tolliver, also lived in Brooklyn, in a similar dump. Ella, being an ex-waitress, couldn’t imagine how bartenders and barmaids could afford to live in New York, even in the hovels Jack and Kathy lived in. Edmundo Ortiz, the busboy, lived in a public housing project in Queens called the Astoria Houses. Not a place Ella would want to visit alone after dark.

  The other two witnesses appeared to have money. The old lady, Esther Behrman, lived in an upscale assisted living facility in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side off Riverside Drive, within a short walk of the Hudson River. Rachel Quinn, Ms. eHarmony, lived in a high-rise with a doorman on the Upper East Side, not far from the Guggenheim Museum.

  A week after she requested the information, a thick FedEx envelope from Dallas arrived—and Ella could immediately see how she was going to take care of the bartender, Jack Morris. He was going to be a walk in the park. She could also see a viable approach for dealing with the barmaid and the busboy. The fact that none of these three people had much money gave her options. Rachel Quinn, however, turned out to be loaded, as was the old lady, Esther Behrman. Esther had a net worth of about two million and Rachel made almost four hundred grand a year working as a lawyer for a hedge fund.

  Ella didn’t see anything in the data about Rachel Quinn that she could use, making her think that Ms. eHarmony was going to be a challenge. In regard to the old lady, she could see a possible way forward, but it was going to be risky. Really risky. On the other hand, you couldn’t expect to make two million on a case without taking some chances—something Bill didn’t always seem to understand.

  That night, Ella went to McGill’s—the scene of the crime—and took a seat at the bar. She was wearing a black wig over her short blond hair and a pair of glasses with large black frames. Her dress was the fashion equivalent of a gunnysack, and on her feet were clunky black Doc Martens. On her ring finger was a wedding ring, but not the one Bill had given her, just a plain gold band. She dumped a purse the size of a small duffel bag on the bar stool next to her, then spread out the financial section of The New York Times. In other words, she did everything she could think of to keep men from hitting on her.

  Jack Morris was behind the bar making someone a blue martini and was wearing black tuxedo pants, a white dress shirt, and a black bow tie. He was close to seventy and had the wrinkles of a longtime smoker. Ella could see that he was a competent bartender. He chatted with the customers if they were in the mood, but left them alone if they weren’t. He made drinks fast and never overpoured, which the owner of McGill’s certainly must have appreciated. And he caged tips.

  Ella used to do the same thing when she worked in restaurants so that she wouldn’t have to share all her tips with coworkers. Morris was careful and didn’t get too greedy. If a customer left three ones on the bar, he’d deftly palm one, place the other two in the tip jar, and, when he was certain the barmaid wasn’t watching, slip the one he’d palmed into his pocket. Once a drunk, probably by accident, left a twenty for a tip—and the twenty magically turned into a five. Ella liked the fact that Jack Morris was a sneaky thief.

  Ella watched as Edmundo Ortiz lugged a couple of bags of ice into the bar and poured them into a cooler where bottles of beer were kept. Ortiz moved fast and efficiently, and Ella bet that he was a hell of a worker, and probably an honest one, unlike Jack Morris. She didn’t see Kathy Tolliver. There was a short, chunky blonde in her forties who was serving drinks to the tables—definitely not Kathy—and Ella wondered if it was Kathy’s night off or if she had called in sick.

  While sitting at the bar, Ella took in the lighting and dimensions of the room. Included with the information provided by David Slade had been a sketch that showed where all the witnesses had been seated when the killing took place, and Ella had memorized it before coming to the bar.

  Rachel Quinn had been sitting near the door that customers used to enter the bar from the street, and her table was about seventy feet from where Dominic DiNunzio had been sitting when he was shot. The problem—for the defense—was that Toby ran right past Quinn
’s table when he fled the bar. The entrance to the kitchen was about four feet from Quinn’s table, and that’s where Edmundo Ortiz had been standing, holding a tray of glasses, when Toby ran past him holding a gun in his hand. What all this meant was that Toby Rosenthal had been only a couple of feet away from Quinn and the busboy as he ran from the bar—which was not good at all. Ella wasn’t too worried about the busboy, but again Rachel Quinn was looking like a major problem.

  The bar, where Jack Morris and Kathy Tolliver had been standing when DiNunzio was shot, was also about seventy feet from DiNunzio’s table. Toby’s face would have been recognizable from this distance, but because of the dim lighting in the room, Jack and Kathy could claim to be less sure about what they saw—and when Ella was done with them, that’s exactly what they’d claim.

  The old lady, Esther Behrman, was a different story. Esther, in fact, had had the catbird seat. She’d been sitting only about ten feet from DiNunzio’s table and she’d clearly seen Toby when he shot the accountant—that’s what she’d told the detectives who interviewed her, and she’d had no problem at all picking Toby out of the lineup.

  It was really a shame, but Esther … Well, Esther just had to go.

  13

  Fourteen years earlier

  Charleston, South Carolina—December 2002

  “Okay,” Bill said as they sat there on the deck of the rented beach house in Charleston, “I’ll tell you what I do.”

  “Good,” Ella said, but she was as nervous as she’d been three years ago when she was sixteen and missed her period—an occasion that turned out to be a false alarm.

  “Like I told you, I assist lawyers, defense lawyers,” Bill said.

  “But I don’t know what that means,” Ella said.

  “If you’ll stop talking, I’ll tell you.” Then he smiled to take the edge off his words. “Let’s say a man runs over another man with his car and flees the scene and is later caught by the police.”