Hostile Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  “I can, but you’ve got to help me now,” Kip mumbled. “You owe me that. After everything I’ve done. After all the risks I took for you. You owe me, not her. I hate her. It’s my turn now.”

  Linda’s heart turned to stone. Just when she thought life was going to be easy it took the cruelest turn of all. She hadn’t even wanted one and now she had two children pointing at her, making her part excuse, part reason, part inspiration for the things they did. It wasn’t fair.

  Linda sighed and caressed Kip’s hair. She would do what she could. She’d push Kip to his limit and make him find his courage again. She’d be smart, she’d watch and wait, and move only when it was necessary. But in the end, if Hannah didn’t do her part, they were all screwed.

  4

  Josie woke up at six with the sun in her eyes, the smell of Archer all around. It was in the sheets, on her body, in the scent of the dark coffee he preferred, the piquant smell of the chemicals he used in his darkroom. The sense of him was everywhere. In the way his clothes were hung precisely in the closet, and in the book of forensic techniques that lay open on the bedside. Once a cop, always a cop. On the bookshelf, a rosary hung over the neck of an empty bottle of tequila. It was a long story. Short version: Archer found religion one night while a buddy lost his. He said he kept the rosary to remind him to play savior only when it was a sure thing. Josie didn’t believe him. He could never be so calculating. He had saved her, and she wasn’t a sure thing. Josie threw an arm over her eyes for a second, then rolled onto her side to touch the place where he had slept. The sheets were cold. He’d been gone for awhile.

  Josie got out of bed and searched for her clothes. She found her muscle shirt and panties but the sweats and sports bra were missing in action. She shimmied into what she had, glanced at the picture of Lexi, Archer’s dead wife, and then went looking for the man they shared. She found him on the rooftop balcony, a perk of owning the building.

  “Morning,” Josie walked up behind him and wound her arms around his waist. He was a big man; made her feel downright dainty. She loved the smell of his shirt. Starched and pressed by the man who wore it.

  “Don’t move,” he commanded.

  Josie didn’t but only because she didn’t want to. She held her breath, loving the feel of him when he was excited by what he saw through his lens. His gut tightened beneath her hands. A solitary muscle rippled. Quick like a snake. A click. He sighed with satisfaction and stood up slowly, surveying the beach once more before turning around to kiss Josie. She kissed him back just long enough for them both to be happy. When she slipped out of his arms, he let her go. No nonsense. No jealousy. No neediness. Respect. Affection. Comfort. Chemistry. It was the kind of relationship people who could take care of themselves did well.

  Archer and Josie did it extremely well.

  They met a year ago. Archer snapped a picture of her at the pro-am volleyball tournament. She had her hand on her hip, baseball hat on backwards, sunglasses covering her eyes. When the picture was printed, Josie was pleased. She could see her six-pack abs, the ropes of muscles in her legs, and the fine definition of her biceps. Archer said that wasn’t what he saw. He saw her glaring at him from behind those glasses, unhappy that she had lost a critical point, determined she wouldn’t lose the next one. He knew they would be more than good friends. It took Josie a month longer to figure it out.

  “You want more coffee?” Josie picked up the thermal pot to pour herself a cup. He shook his head. Josie and her coffee joined him by the balcony railing.

  “I got the sun coming up. I picked up some woman skinny dipping around five.” Archer lifted his chin to indicate the surf. Josie looked at him. He had a wonderful profile. He looked like an Irish boxer: strong jawed, short, straight nose, eyes that were dark and close together. Those eyes held a person tight in his line of sight. His was a man’s face and a man’s body. He didn’t own a suit. He was as different from the men Josie used to date as Baxter & Associates was from the kind of law she used to practice. What had she seen in those men in designer suits? Josie leaned into him, playfully banging his shoulder with her own.

  “You’re going to get sued one of these days when somebody sees themselves on a postcard or in a magazine.”

  “I know a good lawyer. She wouldn’t let me down.” He pushed back. Not a hint of a smile. It wasn’t his way. He smiled with his eyes, with his touch. Josie knew when Archer was happy. It was the same way he showed hurt and anger and compassion - with his eyes, with his touch.

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Josie said wryly. “I might decide you’re not worth it one of these days.”

  Archer put a big hand on the back of her neck and followed up with a kiss. He pulled Josie into him, draping his arm over her shoulder.

  “This from a woman who lets herself in and has her way with me in the middle of the night? I think I can count on her.”

  Josie sipped her coffee and stayed nestled against him. He waited just long enough, and then gave her the nudge she seemed to want.

  “So? You weren’t exactly talkative last night.”

  Josie chuckled softly. The truth was they hadn’t exchanged two words. Archer once told her that he could tell what she needed by the way she came to bed. If Josie wanted to talk she crawled in already debating. When she needed something else – something more personal – she came in quietly, stayed close, he could hear her thinking. He even seemed to know whether it was old troubles, or new, that had to be dealt with.

  Then there were the nights like last night. It wasn’t sleep she wanted, or talking she needed. Josie needed to clear her mind so she could rest, and Archer had a way of making that happen.

  “I had a visitor last night. . .” Josie began, training her eyes on the runner of sand and the never-ending carpet of blue ocean as she filled him in.

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the beach chairs on the balcony sharing a bagel, Josie’s coffee was cold and her story was over. Archer knew it all: Linda, the history, the girl, the charge, the victim, the retainer – impressive - and the fact that the next move was Josie’s.

  “You told her you were going to check it out. So check it out.”

  “Jesus, Archer. You know how I feel about murder – women involved in murder. It’s not that easy.”

  Josie took a bite out of the bagel. She wasn’t hungry; she just didn’t relish trying to explain again why it wasn’t easy. But Archer had made his living investigating criminals, so lawyers were not a great challenge.

  “Why not?” He laced his hands behind his head and looked right at her.

  Most people found it uncomfortable to look Archer in the eye. They said his eyes were flat, cold and judgmental. Josie always thought of his gaze as a level playing field.

  “Because it opens a can of worms. If she’s innocent, she’s going up against a lot – the press and the DA who really wants a pound of flesh and who knows how the governor’s office will play into all this. If she’s guilty and I get an acquittal, I don’t think I could live with myself. It’s sort of like being an ex-nun. I still believe in God, I just don’t think He’s omnipotent. Besides, it’s been a long time since I put together a defense like this.” Josie put her fingers to her mouth. She didn’t exactly bite her nails but she came close.

  “You handled really big cases for sixteen years before you came here,” Archer reminded her.

  “Linda’s a friend,” Josie countered.

  “She’s an acquaintance. If she was a friend I would have heard about her.”

  "Okay. Okay. Then there’s the fact that this is a juvenile matter.” Josie held up her hand. “And before you say anything about her being charged as an adult it’s still a child we’re talking about. I don’t know what to do with a kid.”

  “You know what to do with a client, Josie.”

  Archer snapped the pedal of his black racing bike he kept on the roof, instead of the garage. The garage was full of files from old cases, keepsakes from the house he shared with Lexi,
and a Hummer. That vehicle was a man’s hunk of metal that could go anywhere he thought there might be a picture or a perp. Archer watched the pedal twirl for a minute and then looked at her.

  “When Lexi died I didn’t want to look at another woman. Then you stood right in front of me. I couldn’t ignore you and that caused a lot of pain, Jo. I had to figure out if I was happier being with a live woman or living with the memories of a dead one. Do you think you don’t miss what you used to do? Maybe this thing is a test. Go see this girl. If you feel hinky, walk away. Just do it because it’s the right choice.”

  “Good job, Archer. Make me feel like two cents. I’m not afraid if that’s what you think. I could go down there. I could see this girl and make up my mind.”

  “Then do it. That’s all the mother is asking.”

  “No. You don’t know Linda. She’s expecting me to make the trouble go away,” Josie objected.

  “Who cares what she expects? I’m just saying that if you turn your back now, you’ll never look in the mirror the same way again.”

  “Says you, Archer.” Josie pushed herself off the beach chair. She should be on the beach picking up a game, checking on Billy, or laying all that tile. She should be biking to Santa Monica with Archer. She shouldn’t even be thinking about dead people and murderers, innocence and guilt, and the thousand ways she knew to spin evidence to make her story sound like God’s own truth. And Archer should be a little more helpful. He could at least concede she had a reason to be cautious. When he didn’t, Josie bailed.

  “I’m going home.”

  As she walked past, Archer reached up and took her arm.

  “You should know what you’re made of, Josie. Everybody should know that.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Josie kissed him on top of his head. “Or maybe next week.”

  She found the rest of her clothes in the bedroom, dressed, and collected Max. If it had just been her, Josie would have hustled down the three flights of stairs. With Max, it took a little longer. On the Strand, Hermosa was coming alive. Rollerbladers, walkers, a mother pushing a stroller, people sipping coffee, reading their paper, and surfers straddling their boards, waiting for the wave they could ride, or the one that would drown them.

  Josie didn’t bother to watch and see which it would be. She felt her own wave coming and she wasn’t ready.

  From the rooftop balcony Archer leaned on the railing and watched Josie go. He didn’t bother to turn the tripod and take a picture of her. He never liked to take pictures of people walking away so he just watched Josie as the early morning people turned to look at her. She was so tall and striking, tanned and confident. He also saw she walked just a little too fast for comfort and not fast enough for exercise, she kept old Max close to her like a friend along to help her find her way in a strange place.

  But Hermosa wasn’t strange. It was the call of an old, frightening, fascinating place that had Josie Baylor-Bates spooked. Archer could have talked her through it, past it, or out of it, but he didn’t. That woman had been fooling herself for a long time. Josie thought she chose to live near the beach in Hermosa and work in a neighborhood law firm because she was disillusioned. That was a lie. Josie had run to Hermosa, hidden her head in the sand of Faye Baxter’s little law firm. Now somebody was tugging on her head, and she was trying to keep it stuck in the sand.

  Archer took a deep breath and looked away. She was almost out of sight and there was nothing he could do for her now except wait for her to come back. Much as he wanted to go with her, stand guard when she came face to face with that kid, he wouldn’t.

  Instead, Archer put himself behind the camera and turned it back to the sea. That’s how much he loved her.

  “Input.”

  Governor Joe Davidson poured nonfat milk on his half a cup of bran cereal, positioned the small plate of fruit to his left, and the tall glass of lemon water on his right. Though it was early, and though the sun was shining invitingly outside his hotel room in Santa Monica, he had eyes only for his sparse breakfast, and ears only for ideas on how to handle the Rayburn matter. The Governor’s chief of staff, Alex Schaeffer, and his campaign manager, Cheryl Winston, had thought about nothing else since they heard the news of Hannah Sheraton’s arrest the night before.

  “Well,” Cheryl began, “I’m a little pissed the D.A. didn’t give us a head’s up on this. I would think, given the fact it had to do with a justice’s death, he would have at least kept us in the loop.”

  “Cooper’s an ass,” Davidson said flatly. “He thinks this little show of autonomy will be impressive enough to put him in the running for Rayburn’s seat. Miscalculated as usual - the arrest, and the assumption.”

  The governor finished off the cereal, pushed the bowl exactly six inches to his left, and pulled the plate of fruit six inches until it was in front of him. He ate methodically, chewed thoughtfully, and listened.

  “I don’t think this changes anything.” Alex put in his two cents. “This is Kip Rayburn’s stepdaughter. It’s not like it’s his own kid doing some sort of Medea thing.”

  The Governor’s eyes flickered toward his associate.

  “I believe you’re thinking of Lear, and even that isn’t a correct analogy.”

  “Whatever. He’s only had the wife for two years. The kid’s been a problem since day one. There’s no relationship there.”

  “I don’t care about the emotional involvement.” The governor took a sip of his lemon water. “Will there be any public opinion fall out that might jeopardize my standing if we continue with the appointment? Conversely, will continuing with the appointment solidify my standing?”

  “I say keep going with Kip’s appointment,” Cheryl weighed in. “Half of California can identify with a crappy stepfamily situation. It’s no skin off Kip Rayburn’s nose if we spin it so that you’re sympathetic to the extraordinary circumstances facing blended families today. This is an extreme circumstance that points to the need for a dedicated and compassionate ear on the bench. Blah, blah, blah.”

  “Fine.” The governor sliced the air and cut her off. “The election is only four months away. I want to be sure that he’ll be approved and that the dowry is worth it. Kip isn’t his father. He’s less than impressive in person.”

  “He’s got a decent enough mind. He’s not going to make waves on the court. He hasn’t made any enemies. There aren’t any skeletons,” Alex assured him.

  “More than that,” Cheryl chimed in, “he brings the bucks just like his dad. Look, let’s get real here. With Fritz dead, Kip is a full partner with Ian Frank. Between the two of them, they represent three major California corporations that only support you with campaign dollars because they liked the association with a California Supreme Court Justice. We’ll keep it going with Kip. It’s sort of an abbreviated Kennedy scenario.”

  “Playing devil’s advocate.” Alex held up his hand. “Can’t we pick up those dollars somewhere else? One of the unions maybe? Then we could look for someone with a little more star quality for that slot on the bench.”

  Davidson himself dismissed that plan.

  “It’s getting to hot to hit the unions up again. I don’t want any more of those ‘legislation for dollars’ news stories. Kip brings quiet money. Kip’s appointment won’t look like payback.”

  “We’re dancing around the real benefit. Kip is president of the CLA,” Cheryl reminded them.

  “He’s a hell of an administrator,” Alex agreed. “The California Litigator’s Association has been real happy with him. Those guys have the bucks and Kip’s the main man. He’s an easy sell to the public and a moneymaker. There’s no downside, so I say we announce tomorrow and minimize coverage of the girl’s arrest.”

  The governor toyed with his glass. His face was long and colorless, his expression unreadable. Finally, he spoke.

  “Kip understands we’re expecting a lot from him in terms of support during the election and before he takes the bench, right?”

  Alex nodded, “Absolutel
y. Until he takes the oath he raises funds. After that, no impropriety, just association.”

  “Exactly. Letter of the law is important.” the governor mused. “Just to be safe, call Kip. Tell him we’d like a few days before the announcement. Bring me a poll analysis by, say, Monday afternoon. If it’s good, I’ll announce.”

  Cheryl and Alex nodded. Cheryl would do a quick and dirty poll, check with Kip, and write a press release to have at the ready. Alex would contact donors and feel them out. If everyone was happy, Kip’s appointment would move ahead.

  “One more thing.” Cheryl hesitated before leaving the hotel room.

  “What?” The governor was focused on his ever-present notepad now that breakfast was over.

  “The girl. Shouldn’t we say something about the girl?”

  “The purpose?” the governor asked.

  “She’s only sixteen. They would expect you to say something about her,” Cheryl suggested.

  “What’s our stand on juvenile offenders in the admission of a felony?” Davidson asked offhandedly.

  “It’s been a sub-platform to our law and order stance. We’ve been tough on crime across the board,” Alex answered.

  “Then we support prosecuting her to the full extent of the law. We have the greatest faith in our justice system and even more faith in those we appoint to uphold the law.” Davidson shook his head slightly as if he was disappointed he had to do everything.

  “But this is different,” Cheryl suggested. “I mean, this girl isn’t exactly a hard case, she’s Kip Rayburn’s stepdaughter.”

  “She’s irrelevant except as a concept,” Davidson muttered.

  “A concept,” Cheryl reiterated as she glanced at Alex who shrugged. A second later Davidson looked up.

  “Any more questions?”

  “No.”

  Cheryl and Alex left the governor to his notes and parted ways. Both of them hoped if they ever found themselves on the wrong side of the law, the governor would think of them as something more than a concept. Both of them knew that was a false hope.