Key Witness

by J. F. Freedman

  “Would you care for a libation?” she asked him. She had crossed to a small mahogany-colored side table that was set up as a bar, with four or five bottles on it, and several glasses on a shelf underneath. There was an ice bucket and tongs alongside the bottles. She picked up the bottle of Dry Sack. It was three-quarters empty.

  “No, thanks,” he declined.

  She sipped down half of her own small glass and refilled it. Then she sat in an overstuffed chair that was set at a close angle to his end of the sofa.

  He did a quick sizing-up. Early to mid-fifties, with a puffiness around her eyes that was the inevitable residue of decades of steady, unremitting drinking. The rest of her face was tight; she’d had a facelift, maybe more than one. It was a decent job—her husband was a doctor, she would have had someone good do it. And she knew how to put on makeup; she wore a lot of it, skillfully applied. Carefully coiffed hair, dark blond with light blond highlights. Her dark green knee-length wool jersey dress clung snugly to her body, which was firm for a woman her age. She’d had work there, too, he assumed. Her crossed legs, sheathed in dark Donna Karan hose, were sleek, free of cellulite. In soft light, with the right clothes and accessories, she was a reasonably attractive, albeit flashy, woman—a woman who spent a lot of time and money to look as good as she could. She reminded him of one of the Gabor sisters, the one from Green Acres.

  Marvin had fucked her. More than once, Wyatt assumed. He speculated on how much she had paid him.

  “Thank you for seeing me at this late hour,” he began.

  “I feel I have no choice,” she replied. “Not that I want to get involved in this sordid mess. But …” she hesitated. “I’m not going to let some innocent boy die because it might put me in scandal. Will put me in scandal,” she amended.

  “I don’t know how to put this delicately. …”

  “Don’t,” she interrupted. “Frank talk will be cleaner, and healthier.”

  “Yes, I agree. All right, then. Tell me about your … situation with Marvin White, Mrs. Carpenter. Particularly on the night of …”

  “Last August eighteenth,” Josephine prompted. “That was the night of the fourth murder,” she told Wyatt, reading from her notepad.

  “Please call me Agnes.”

  “Agnes.”

  “It’s such an old-fashioned name.” Her voice had a built-in world-weary complaint, as if she was shouldering an exceptionally heavy burden. “It was my grandmother’s name, my paternal grandmother. My friends call me Aggie.” She giggled, a quick burp-laugh. “But you’d better call me Agnes. We aren’t friends; yet.” She waited a moment, as if inviting objection. Hearing none, she held up her glass, which had somehow gotten empty. “Do you mind? This is going to be difficult. I need all the support I can get.”

  “Not at all.”

  She got up and walked over to the little bar in the corner, her hips swaying rhythmically.

  “If she starts calling you Marvin, I’m out of here,” Josephine whispered behind their hostess’s back.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he whispered back.

  She sat back down, crossing her legs again. “You’ve met Marvin,” she said.

  “Of course. He’s my client.”

  “He’s handsome, isn’t he? A young black Adonis. Don’t you agree?” she asked Josephine.

  Josephine bit her tongue. “Absolutely.” She snuck a glance at Wyatt, who was maintaining a poker face. “A real good-looking kid. Man.”

  “I wanted him immediately. Don’t be shocked. I’m very open about sexual matters.”

  Wyatt knew that called for a response. “Uh-huh.”

  “So I propositioned him,” Agnes said matter-of-factly. “Not in any vulgar way, of course. I’m not vulgar. But I am a normal woman, with normal sexual desires, and he appealed to me. He appealed to me strongly.”

  “How long did you and he …” He was having trouble with this. He was no prude, far from it, but this woman’s blatant, almost triumphant eagerness to talk about her sex life to a complete stranger was unnerving.

  “Fifteen months. Usually twice a week. Whenever he made a pickup or delivery. I never wear a garment more than once without having it cleaned, so I have a considerable amount of cleaning that has to be picked up and delivered. Usually Mondays for pickup and Thursdays for delivery. In the morning, around eleven.”

  “I see.” Wyatt thought for a moment. “If your … sexual encounters … were in the morning, how was it that he was in your home that night?”

  “I asked him to,” she said. “I knew my husband wouldn’t be coming home that night, so I told Marvin that I wanted him to spend the night here. He was happy to do so,” she added. “There was never any coercion. I did pay him, I admit that. He was a poor boy, he needed money. But there was never any pressure. He wanted me as much as I wanted him.” Another glass of sherry went down the hatch. “I’m an exceptional lover.”

  Wyatt tacked in another direction. “How could you be sure your husband wouldn’t come home that night? Was he out of town?”

  “No,” the woman answered in a voice heavy with suppressed anger. “He was in town. He was staying at the Carlton Hotel. Room 1422.”

  “How did you know that?” Josephine asked bluntly.

  Agnes laughed without mirth. “I knew because the detective I hired told me. Leonard was there with his mistress. A twenty-nine-year-old X-ray technician,” she said derisively. “They’ve been having an affair for at least three years that I know of.” She waved her empty glass in the air like a conductor’s baton. “He wasn’t coming home, for love or money. Especially love. So I used some of his money to buy my own love.”

  Wyatt looked at her. “Where’s your husband tonight?”

  “Where do you think? If he was here, or if I thought he was going to be here, would I be talking to you?”

  Josephine had a portable tape recorder in her purse. She set it on the coffee table and turned it on. Agnes Carpenter began giving her statement.

  “She wants to fuck her husband. Fuck him over.” Josephine was so disgusted she felt like spitting.

  They were outside the Carpenter house, by his car. The moon was three-quarters full, low in the sky under a soft cloud-blanket.

  Josephine looked back at the house. One by one, the lights were going off downstairs. A moment later a single one went on upstairs.

  “Lonely women make good lovers,” Josephine cackled. “Ha!”

  “Have some compassion.”

  “Ahhh.” Her shoulders sagged. “I do.” She glanced up at him. “That really is true, you know. About lonely women making good lovers.”

  “How would you know?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “If you’re alone it’s by your choice, and you know it.”

  “If you say so.”

  He didn’t want this conversation to play out any further. He needed to get home. “It’s late. Time to go.”

  He walked her down the block to her car. “Mañana,” he said.

  She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  He waited at the curb until she drove away, then walked back to his car. As he was getting in, he looked up at the lit second-floor window in Agnes Carpenter’s house. A figure was silhouetted in it, staring out at him. He wasn’t sure, but it looked to him like she was naked.

  He glanced at the clock in his dashboard as he drove up his driveway: 11:35, later than he would have liked. The outside floodlights, on a movement sensor, lit up as the Jaguar drove into the front yard. The garage doors, activated by the remote on his visor, rose with a grinding of chains. He parked his car next to Moira’s and pushed the button inside the door to close it.

  Moira had left the porch lights on, and one lamp in the foyer; otherwise the house was dark, and still.

  Slipping out of his shoes and turning off the porch lights and hallway lamp, he was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when he remembered that he hadn’t killed the alarm, which w
as located in a hide-a-box inside the coat closet near the front door. The timing mechanism was set for forty-five seconds; he’d been in the house almost that long.

  Racing back down the stairs, he yanked open the alarm door. The lights were red and blinking, a process that didn’t start until there were ten seconds left: nine, eight, seven … five, four, three. Rapidly, he punched in their five-number code.

  The blinking stopped—the lights switched from hot red to benign green. He let out a sigh of relief—if he hadn’t caught it, not only would an alarm have gone off in the security company’s control center, which would have called forth an immediate armed response, in three minutes or less, guaranteed—their cars were constantly patrolling the neighborhood, particularly since the robbery at the Spragues’ house next door; but the system would also have triggered a second alarm in the township’s police station, and they, too, would have radioed the nearest squad car to check it out.

  It was a silent system. There was no Klaxon to warn off an intruder. Silent, and deadly.

  Wyatt hated having the alarm on, particularly when they were in the house. Once, a few months ago, waking before dawn and groggy from too much entertaining the night before, he’d gone outside to get the newspaper and had forgotten to disarm the damn thing. Standing on the wet green grass of his large front lawn in his boxer shorts and thongs, looking at the scores at the back of the sports section, he’d been startled and nearly scared shitless to see a security company sedan barreling up his driveway, brakes squealing as the car got within fifteen feet of him, a burly guard jumping out with a .357 magnum in his hand.

  It had been okay, the driver knew him and people did forget to turn their alarms off. The cops, who arrived moments later, were okay with it, too, because he was Wyatt Matthews, solid citizen. But after that incident, he hadn’t set it when they were in the house, only when they were out and there was no one home.

  Until the Spragues were robbed, and Moira insisted on using it at night as well.

  He reset the system to on. God forbid she should wake up before him and find out it was off. Tiptoeing up the stairs, he undressed in his bathroom, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed.

  Moira was sleeping on her side, turned away from him. He lay on his back under the cool sheets, thinking about his interview with Agnes Carpenter. She was full of shit in a lot of ways, but her story had the ring of truth to it.

  Still, it was only her word. Who could tell how she would hold up under cross-examination? But it was an alibi, and hopefully there would be more. One such alibi as this might not sway a jury; two or three would be irrefutable. Chalk one up for their side.

  Moira’s breathing was deep and regular, but for some reason he thought she was faking it, that she wasn’t really asleep. It would be nice if she would roll over and meld into his arms.

  Frank Sinatra’s voice drifted into his head. When you’re worried, and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep, and you’ll fall asleep, counting your blessings. …

  He had much to be thankful for. A wonderful home, wife and daughter, more money than he’d ever imagined he would make, good friends, a great career. And he was doing work that moved him in his gut. Which might, when it was all over and done, actually make a difference in the world.

  DORIS BLAKE FREAKED WHEN she rounded the corridor leading to the infirmary and found a deputy sitting in front of the door. She had worn a pair of silk underpants, bought at a special boutique that catered to large full-bodied women—a fat girl’s store, with bra sizes up to 56DDDD. It was comforting to know there were women much larger than she.

  The deputy jumped to his feet. “Good morning, Lieutenant. How can I help you?”

  “Why are you here?” she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

  “Guarding the prisoner, ma’am,” he said. He was young, a year out of the academy, and scared of this large woman. Her temper was legendary, and he didn’t want to do anything to provoke it. “District Attorney Pagano’s express orders. And the sheriff.”

  “Oh, I see.” She affected a satisfied air. “I thought perhaps there had been a situation.”

  “No, ma’am. No problem.”

  “Good,” she said to the guard, asserting her authority.

  She signed in upstairs, exchanging gossip with Walt Michaelson, bantering with the crew that was finishing their shift. They were okay people, most of the time. There was some joking from the men about her personal life, but it never got vicious. They knew better; also there was some feeling of protective sympathy toward her. The other jailers knew her to be a hardworking, dedicated peace officer who had gone to law school at night and was out to better herself. You had to admire someone who did that.

  Dwayne’s reassignment was one order she couldn’t finesse. She’d taken a big risk having him transferred down there in the first place, but this was beyond her. Dwayne would still be working in the infirmary during the day, and she could see him there, but they couldn’t have sex, not there, not with other people around.

  Maybe she could figure out a way to get him into the law library occasionally. It would be risky, having sex there, but it was doable. It would be fast, though, a fuck and nothing else—no languid foreplay, no lying in his arms afterward.

  That was a dream. It had been a good ride while it lasted, but it was over.

  In a few weeks she would be leaving this institution, starting a new career, trying to hook on with a law firm. She’d made some preliminary overtures, but so far there hadn’t been any definite job offers. It was a tight field, and law firms weren’t looking for forty-something neophyte lawyers who were just starting out. She still had more interviewing to do; there were some all-women firms that might not care what she looked like.

  That wasn’t her concern; not now. Her concern was sustaining a relationship with Dwayne. Her whole life, every thought, feeling, and emotion, was tied up in him. If she couldn’t see him anymore, she didn’t know what she would do.

  MICHAELA HAD TWO WEEKS off from school—spring break. Moira was taking her on a college tour. Come fall she would have to decide what schools she would apply to.

  They were going to be gone for ten days. Wyatt would be alone.

  He was sorry to see them go, especially Moira, because there was unsettled business between them. They needed to find a way to get back on an even keel, right their marriage again.

  It was still dark out when he drove them to the airport. Their plane left at seven-thirty. They checked their bags with a porter at the curb and walked into the terminal.

  “Have fun,” he told them, kissing Michaela first, on the cheek, giving her a hug for good measure, then embracing Moira with a hard kiss on the mouth, with some desperation behind it.

  “I’ll call you tonight; or tomorrow, depending,” she told him.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m going to use the time to work. Maybe I’ll stay in town tonight.”

  “I never worry about you, Wyatt,” she said wistfully. “That’s part of the problem.”

  “I need you, babe.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  He spent the day on the telephone. At seven Josephine stuck her head into his cubicle. “I’m taking off,” she said, as if reluctant to leave. “Don’t work too late.”

  “Don’t worry. Just a little longer.”

  She lingered in the doorway a moment before leaving. She had been angling for an invitation to stay, that was obvious. Maybe have dinner—he’d told her he was batching it for the week.

  Don’t worry. She was the second woman he had said that to today. In both cases he hadn’t thought about what that had meant to them.

  He worked until eight-thirty. Then he closed up shop for the night, got into his car, and drove a mile to the downtown Four Seasons Hotel. The firm maintained an account there; if a partner needed to spend the night, he called and they had a room for him. In Wyatt’s case, as with the other seniors, a suite. There was no point in g
oing home—he could stay here and avoid the traffic, productively use the time that would have gone into travel. He’d brought his toilet articles and a change of clothes with him, figuring this might happen.

  He ordered a cheeseburger and a couple Heinekens from room service, eating off a tray while watching a baseball game on ESPN. He’d thought he would get more work done—he’d brought his bulging briefcase with him—but he was too antsy. He needed to get out, move, be in the company of people having a good time.

  Exchanging his suit for a more comfortable outfit of khakis, polo shirt, sport coat, and Top-Siders, he rode the elevator down to the lobby, ambling around. He wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to do. A quick look into the crowded bar showed a bunch of solitary male drinkers, professionals like himself; a few small groupings, men and women there on business together, talking animatedly and laughing at their own jokes; and a smattering of single women, business types, plus a few ladies who appeared to be expensive-looking prostitutes. One, sitting alone at the bar, caught his eye and smiled encouragingly, but he quickly looked away. That type of woman didn’t interest him, not even for a drink and casual conversation.

  There was a small newsstand set off the reception area. He leafed through a magazine that featured the entertainment the city was offering that month. Under the section CLUBS he saw a listing for a place called the Jazz Table, which he’d never heard of or been to. They were featuring a quintet tonight—tenor sax, trombone, plus the usual piano-bass-drums rhythm section. The address was in a mixed-neighborhood area of the city, heading down toward the general direction of Sullivan Houses.

  The jazz scene in the city had gradually evaporated in the last two decades. All the old, established clubs had died out. Lack of patronage, uneasiness about crime in the areas where most of the clubs had been located, the paucity of a core group of younger fans—the market wasn’t there anymore, certainly not for the nationally known players. Wyatt couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a straight-up local jazz joint.