Forgotten Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  While he watched Ian, Morgan reached for his stash of jerky. Teriyaki turkey. His wife picked up double packs at Costco. Costco was maybe the greatest contribution the United States ever made to civilized society. You couldn’t beat double packs of jerky anymore than you could beat the buck-fifty hot dog with a refillable soda.

  Sinatra crooned on the radio while Morgan daydreamed about hitting Costco on the weekend with the old lady for a few of those dogs. That was why he almost missed it when Ian Francis started walking ahead of schedule. It was like someone flipped a damn switch. Ian Francis lurched toward the corner and turned with purpose. Morgan chawed on the jerky as he eased the car back onto the street and turned the same corner slowly. Just then the phone rang.

  “Morgan, here.”

  “Eugene Weller.”

  Morgan raised a brow. Weller’s request had gone through the supervisor but now he was on the horn personally.

  “It’s been over two hours. Where is he?” Eugene demanded.

  Morgan swallowed a spearhead of jerky and almost choked. He managed to say: “Still walking.”

  “Do you think he’s living on the streets?” Eugene pressed.

  “I’ll let you know when he stops. So far he hasn’t stopped.” Morgan immediately regretted his tone. Eugene was a pain in the ass but he wasn’t stupid.

  “I would suggest you take this a bit more seriously. Call me if he makes contact with anyone.”

  “Hansen told me to call him.” Surely mentioning the supervisor would be enough to remind Eugene that he had been the one to set the ground rules. It wasn’t.

  “Call me first,” Eugene snapped and the line went dead.

  “Yes, sir.” Morgan muttered this to dead air and turned his phone off. “You friggin’ twit.”

  Morgan stopped the car, draped his arms over the steering wheel and watched Ian Francis wobble before he become mesmerized by the sight of his reflection once more.

  “Why is Genie so interested in you, you poor schmuck?”

  A Washington Post exposé on domestic surveillance reveals massive FBI databases keeping tabs on Americans not even suspected of criminal activity; costly fusion centers that threaten privacy but produce little intelligence of value; and insufficient and inaccurate intelligence training for analysts serving in the almost 4,000 different counterterrorism organizations across the United States. - ACLU

  CHAPTER 5

  Eugene Weller had made his excuses to Senator Patriota and sent him off to his next appointment in the fairly competent hands of one of the staff; a young man whose name Eugene could never remember but who distinguished himself by writing exceptional letters that captured the senator’s voice beautifully.

  For the last two hours Eugene sat in his office, dark save for a small lamp on the far wall and the light of his computer screen. Three windows were open, each with different references to Ian Francis and his work for the government. More information on the man, his work, and ancillary personnel had been printed out. Certain references had been written down and would be checked elsewhere rather than commit additional searches to the computer’s memory.

  Ian Francis was neither a major player in the grand scheme of things nor did he participate at a particular critical time in the project he had referenced, but the fact remained that he had been a part of it. Senator Patriota would be impressed that Eugene had recognized this to be more than a common security breach, too. Of course, there was more to be found but it wasn’t necessary to pursue the matter immediately. Eugene hit print, closed the open windows, and relaxed.

  Feeling as if he had been smart enough to decline desert after a fine meal, Eugene was left satisfied but clear-headed. He marveled at the efficiency of government on the micro level. There was a plethora of information in the system and yet, more often than not, it was input and forgotten. In a few short hours Eugene had put together a very clear picture of an intricate spiral of dominoes that had stood for decades. Ian Francis was the finger that flicked Josie Bates, a latecomer who had inadvertently placed herself first in the chain. Thankfully, the blow the man dealt her had been glancing. She wobbled, Patriota held her upright, and that gave Eugene time to move her out of the queue. In a few hours the woman would be home and trying to put all this out of her mind. Now here he was, Eugene Weller, domino two; stable and aware, he was not only in the queue, he was master of it.

  He paged through the information again slowly, unaware that he was smiling. He checked the clock and saw that he was late for the meeting at the senator’s house. He called and left his apologies with Lydia: business at the office, he explained. She said she would pass along the message but that they were all getting along fine. Eugene hung up having read between the lines.

  They were all getting along fine without you, Eugene.

  He smirked. If she only knew how much the senator needed him she would treat him with a little more respect. No matter. Eugene needed no accolades, only the satisfaction of knowing he had served well. He looked at the phone and felt a little tug in his groin, a response to the almost giddy excitement that was building as he waited for Morgan’s call.

  Eugene Weller couldn’t wait to find out where a dead man went when he visited Washington D.C.

  ***

  The streets Josie walked were eerily silent. She passed alleyways, stepped around cigarette butts outside a smoke shop, and crunched over a trail of broken glass that lead to a liquor store where a glassy-eyed clerk watched television.

  To her left, in the shadows of a storefront, a pile of trash moved. Josie glanced toward it expecting a cat to dash away. Instead, she found herself looking at the craggy face of an old woman. A knit hat was pulled low over her brow and her bottom lip was pulled up over toothless gums. The woman didn’t blink and Josie passed, painfully aware of the imbalance of life. She could not right all wrongs anymore than Ambrose Patriota could.

  Behind her the woman rolled over again in the dark, disappearing herself. Josie pulled her collar tighter. She turned the corner and saw The Robert Lee Hotel a block ahead. The neon sign atop the building needed repair but other than that it didn’t look too bad at all.

  Then she opened the door.

  ***

  Initially, Josie didn’t notice any one thing about the place because she was overwhelmed by the general sense of decay.

  The lobby was impressively large and at one time had been majestic. Above her, two meticulously crafted barrel vaults came together at right angles to form a groined ceiling. Once that ceiling had been covered in gold leaf to catch the light of the huge chandelier that had lit both whore and ambassador as they made their way down the grand staircase. Now the gilt was flaked and spotty like a fancy manicure picked down to chips. The chandelier was missing crystal fobs and candle bulbs and what was left hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. Instead of sipping Vodka Gimlets at the bar on her left, two men in pajamas were taking slugs out of a bottle while they sat next to a piano that probably hadn’t been played since the Eisenhower era.

  Josie went the other way, treading on wall-to-wall carpet that was threadbare in patches and in others intact enough to see that there had once been a floral pattern of pink mums on a brown background. This path led her to the front desk that had been built to accommodate a crowd of guests. Those crowds had stopped coming long ago. She ran her gloved hand along it as she peered behind. There were no computer consoles which she found interesting since the hotel had a website. There was an open pack of gum, a stack of magazines, the remains of take-out Chinese, and some towels that didn’t look all that fresh. At the far end, there was an office. The window was covered with mini blinds. Three of the slats had been bent at the ends and the middle ones sagged as if someone had worn them down, constantly peering out, hoping to spy a guest. Light flickered behind the blinds in the predictable pattern of a television. Unable to tell if there was anyone in there or not, Josie leaned over the counter and hauled a huge ledger up and over.

  Five people had checked in that day a
nd two had already checked out. None of them were Ian Francis. She flipped the page back. Two days earlier business was stellar. Twenty people had signed in over the weekend. She scanned the names. Half of the signatures were illegible and the others were easily dismissed simply by their length and fancifulness. She flipped back another page and her eyes were caught by the name Frances but this was a first name and the signature was sprawling. Nowhere did she see an example of the cramped, bizarre writing she had in her possession.

  Josie turned the pages again and ran her finger down all the names once more. Bingo. There was an entry for a guest with a last name of Francis. The initial was A. She had missed it the first time around.

  “You want to check in?”

  Not quite startled, just surprised to find anyone in the place with enough energy to call her out, Josie looked up. A man of medium height and maximum girth had propped himself up in the doorway between the lobby and the office. He wore a button down shirt and pinstriped pants. The pleats fanned out under the weight of his stomach. There was a nod to propriety in the shape of a black knit necktie improperly knotted so that the bottom tail was longer than the top. He was looking over his shoulder at the television but had spoken to her.

  “No. Thanks,” she answered.

  “Didn’t think so.” He guffawed at something he saw on the tube before he looked at her. His left eye was lazy and kept swinging toward his own nose. “Restaurant’s been closed for about four years. Bar, too. I gotta bottle if you’re looking for something to warm you up. Or Mulligan’s is open. ’Bout a block down if you want something to eat.”

  “I just had some coffee, but I appreciate the offer. I came to visit a friend. Ian Francis. Can you tell me what room he’s in?”

  “You already looked in the book. I saw you. You’re not a PI. You’d be better than that if you were. You his wife? Maybe you’re a spy. You look like one of them Bond girls. They weren’t too smart neither but they were lookers.”

  “Promise. I’m not a spy.” Josie crossed her heart.

  “It’s the way you got your coat, you know.” He made a circle around his neck. “Spies turn up the collars on their coats like that.” He ambled to the end of the counter, stopped and crossed his arms on the edge. “So, did you find him?”

  “I found someone with the same last name, but the initial is wrong,” she said.

  “Sometimes people do that. Stupid just to change your first initial.” Josie heard the last trill of a Viagra commercial. Whatever he was watching would start soon so she pressed on.

  “This man is about five-ten. His hair is close cut and brown. Stubble on the face. Greying. Glasses. Mid-fifties. Maybe older. He was wearing a blue suit when I saw him.”

  “That the best you got?” the man asked.

  Josie shrugged, “He’s a nervous guy. Kind of stops and starts.”

  The clerk raised his chin and two more came with it. “Him. Yeah. I know him. Odd duck. He ain’t drunk.”

  “Could he have signed in as A. Francis?” Josie asked.

  “Yeah, but he didn’t. It was a kid. A girl. She signed in. I didn’t figure out he was with her until a day later.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Like a kid in a coat and hat. What do I know?”

  “Is she black? Pretty? Did you see a teenage boy with them?”

  “Lady, I told you I don’t know,” he moaned and then that lazy eye of his managed to straighten for a suspicious second. “You sure you’re not here to make no trouble?”

  “Nope. No trouble.” Josie’s heart beat hard. Once, twice, three times, like Hannah tapping out her anxiety. She gave it a minute to calm down. “Are they still in room 720?”

  “Unless he bolted and didn’t pay. That would be a bitch. I gotta cover the room when that happens. They don’t pay me enough to do that, and how am I supposed to see everything. Can’t stay up twenty-four-seven.”

  “If he’s gone, I’ll cover it.” Josie turned away.

  “Want me to call up? Maybe the girl is there and you can talk to her.”

  “No.” Josie was already retracing her steps. “Where’s the elevator.”

  He pointed to the lobby. He had no time for anything more. He was already in his office. Josie found the elevators in the back of the building. She pushed the button three times before she heard a whir. The numbers above the doors stayed dark. She was about to head for the stairs when a bell finally dinged. She pivoted, getting back just as the door opened. She stepped inside then out again. A rat was nestled in the corner, dead and destined to ride the elevator for eternity. It would be better to take the stairs than to get caught between floors with that thing. At least that’s what she thought until she opened the exit door.

  The stairwell reeked and she had seven flights ahead of her. She blessed the hours on the beach playing volleyball. Seven flights would be a piece of cake; seven floors were nothing if it got her to room 720, Ian Francis, and the girl who was with him.

  ***

  Ian jumped a little. He shivered. He wrapped his arms around himself and took the cheap phone out of his pocket. The people in the building had taken it away and then they gave it back. That was nice because the girl had given it to him and told him it was important that he keep it. Good, good girl. She was there no matter what time he needed her. Sometimes he didn’t sleep and she didn’t either. Of course she might sleep and he might forget that he had been watching her. He also might forget that he had slept. Oh, life was strange and he was so tired.

  Ian pushed a button, remembering that a button must be pushed. A number came up and a picture next to that. He pushed the number next to the picture he recognized. The phone rang. He said hello. She spoke quickly, a habit she picked up when she realized how fast the dark came. She almost had what they needed, she said. She would be back soon, she said. She asked where he was and reminded him how to go back to the room. That was good that she reminded him because he was unsure.

  “Are you okay?” she asked again.

  He mumbled and nodded even though she couldn’t see him.

  “You shouldn’t have gone alone. I’m sorry. There was the time to consider.”

  He didn’t tell her she was right. He shouldn’t have gone alone. He forgot to tell her that it was getting harder to stay the course. His arm simply fell to his side. He still clutched his phone. Muscle memory. He had been so used to holding things: pens, pointers, his sweet girl’s hand.

  Ian Francis continued walking, concentrating on the words pulsing inside his brain.

  Hurry. Hurry man.

  Hurry for your girl.

  “Just checking in. Max is fine. A little off his food, but I think it’s just because he misses you. We all miss you.” – Voice Mail, Faye Baxter to Josie

  CHAPTER 6

  Upstairs at The Robert Lee Hotel was no better than down. The guest floors were aged, grimy and clinging to their old glory by a fraying thread. The seventh floor smelled like a stew-pot of dirt, bad plumbing, mold, bodily fluids, and food. The plaster ceiling crumbled in places where melting snow and driving rain had leaked through a roof that needed replacing thirty years ago.

  At the end of the hall was a window and icy air blew through the broken glass. Josie could make out the shadow of a fire escape past that. She walked slowly, noting the silent butlers outside each room, the grime on the doors, the torn carpet. Josie measured her steps, staying alert but she heard nothing until she knocked on the door of room 720 at the end of the hall.

  “Mr. Francis?” she called. “Mr. Francis. It’s Josie Bates. From the hearing?”

  She knocked again. The sound her fist made on the door was hollow and swallowed by the room beyond. Josie took hold of the knob, ready to break the door down if necessary. It wasn’t. The door was unlocked so she pushed it open slowly.

  “Mr. Francis? It’s Josie Bates,” she called. “I’m coming in to talk to you. Don’t be afraid.”

  Josie wished she could take her own advice, but she couldn
’t. She was terrified. Her heart beat harder, sweat formed under her collar, her coat weighed her down, and her gloves seemed to constrict around her hands. She strained to hear a response. She heard nothing. Josie had heard this kind of nothing in Billy Zuni’s house where death kept its quiet, cold counsel. She had heard this silence in the concrete prison where she thought she would die. Josie had heard this silence in her home when she was thirteen and her mother deserted her. She wasn’t sure she could walk into that void again and alone. But this time it was for Hannah, so she threw the light switch.

  The overhead fixture was out but there was enough light coming from the hall to let her see the layout of the room so she left the door open. In front of her was an entry that was no more than five feet long. To the right was a partially closed pocket door. Flat-palmed, she slid it back to reveal a small bathroom. Josie turned on the light. There was a hairbrush on the counter, a glass with two toothbrushes, and a small bar of soap near the sink that had been opened and used. Two towels hung neatly on a bar. The mirror was glued to the wall and plastic clamshell brackets held it in place. It looked like the bathrooms in the base housing where Josie grew up. The mirror itself was cracked on one corner and the silver backing was showing through and turning black in another. The shower curtain was drawn over the tub. She pulled it back with one finger. There was a bar of hotel soap and bottle of cheap shampoo. A woman’s shampoo.