The Witness

by Dorothy Uhnak

  Reardon snatched the phone from the corner of his large oiled-walnut desk and dialed a number impatiently. Christie could hear a cheerfully feminine voice identifying the office of the Director of Public Relations.

  “Put your boss on the phone. This is Reardon.”

  As he turned, sitting on the corner of his desk, he told Christie brusquely, “Sit down.” His voice was low and hard into the phone. “George, you get those goddam photographers and newspaper people off my floor within the next three minutes or I’m going to have your ass in a sling!” Without waiting for a reply, Reardon smashed the receiver into place. He walked to the window and stood for a moment staring into the glare of the street. Christie could not hear what he was saying, for the torrent of words, directed nowhere, was an inaudible whisper. To Christie, the ring of the telephone was so unexpected and loud that she felt her breath catch in her throat, but Reardon turned from the window with a tight, expectant smile.

  “The little bastard,” he said, looking at the phone. He picked up the receiver. “Reardon. Yeah, George. I don’t give a damn who told you what. This is my floor. You want pictures, take them upstairs in your own department. I’m conducting an investigation down here and these news people are interfering.” Reardon sat in his swivel chair, leaned back and held the receiver high over his head. A high-pitched voice squeaked into the room, and Reardon—his eyes closed, then staring at the ceiling—waited for the talking to stop. He lowered the receiver to his ear and his voice was reasonable and his words, while spoken rapidly, were clear. “George, let me put it this way. If those bastards aren’t gone by the time I walk out into my hallway, I’m going to have my people throw them out bodily. And, George, that wouldn’t be good public relations at all, would it?” Reardon listened for a moment, then winked at Christie. “That’s the way, George. You cooperate with us and we cooperate with you. Just one big happy family. Right, George?”

  Reardon replaced the receiver, glanced at his watch, then at Christie. “What time did you get here?”

  “I’ve been here since nine, Mr. Reardon. I was told you were looking for me, but that you had people in here. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  He considered this for a moment. Christie decided that his irritation today would be all-inclusive and not personally directed at her. “Very thoughtful of you,” he said sarcastically. “You know where the morgue is?”

  “The morgue?”

  “The morgue. You know, where they keep all the dead bodies—the morgue.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s fine. You get down to the morgue right away. Stoney is waiting for you. There’s a body we want you to look at.”

  “A body?”

  “A body. A stiff. A dead person. Right?” Yes, sir.

  “You look at it and then you tell us what you think.”

  “What I think?”

  “For Chrissake, Opara.” The phone rang. “Reardon. Yeah, right, Tom. Be with you in five minutes, as soon as I finish playing Little Sir Echo with Detective Opara.”

  Christie’s right leg was crossed over the painful soreness of her left knee. She wanted to shift position, but didn’t want to distract him in any way. She had no idea what he had been talking about: a body at the morgue. She wanted to ask, but Reardon seemed to have forgotten she was present. He moved about his desk, collecting papers, mumbling to himself as he stuffed reports into his briefcase. Finally he stretched, adjusted his tie, put on his jacket. Christie stood up and her right leg, numbed, buckled unexpectedly. She grasped the edge of the desk to keep from going down. Reardon glanced up, his face annoyed. “What are you doing?”

  “My leg. It went to sleep. I have a trick knee.” She hadn’t intended to say that; the words had come from her lips in response to his expression, which seemed to demand some explanation.

  Reardon stared as though she had spoken in an unknown language. “A trick knee?”

  “I had a shattered cartilage when I was a kid and had my knee operated on. Every now and then, it buckles on me. Like when it gets numb.”

  Reardon ran his hand roughly over his face and shook his head; then the quick glance at his watch brought him back into focus. He spoke as though he hadn’t heard a word that had just passed between them. “All vacations have been canceled indefinitely. If you hadn’t been notified, you’re notified now, right?”

  “Right.” She mimicked him without intending to, but he didn’t notice.

  “Next: Your statement was delivered to the PC this morning and the Mayor should have it by now. The way it stands, with all those kids and their statements, the grand jury would indict this cop and throw the whole thing into open court. Your story is being kept completely under wraps for now. The squad is conducting a complete investigation—we need something substantial.” This reminded him of something else. “After you meet Stoney at the morgue, both of you come back to the office. I’m having a meeting with all squad members at one P.M. sharp.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He moved from behind his desk, his briefcase jammed under his arm, but Christie didn’t move. The words gathered inside her brain until Reardon stopped. “Yeah? Now what?”

  “Well, I just wanted to ask you.” She hesitated for a moment, searched for the careful words. “What about Barbara?”

  Reardon, for the first time that morning, was not only looking at her; he was seeing her. “What about her?”

  Christie’s hand traced a pattern in the air; then her fingers tightened around the edge of the chair before her. “Are you taking a statement from her?”

  “Didn’t you tell me she had her back to Everett?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Detective Opara, I would advise you to let me handle this particular matter. And just in case I haven’t impressed it on you, the matter of my daughter’s involvement is strictly confidential as far as you are concerned.”

  Christie’s voice was even colder than his. “Mr. Reardon, I consider everything I do in connection with my work in this squad as confidential. Not more confidential or less confidential or top confidential or—or—just confidential. Everything!”

  Her eyes were bright green sparks of anger, and Reardon regarded her silently; then, unexpectedly, he laughed a short, hard, brittle laugh. He reached out for her shoulder, turned her toward the door. “Relax, Opara. Come on, move. Stoney’s waiting for you.”

  She moved stiffly ahead of him and stopped at the door, waiting for him to open it. His voice was directly in her ear, warm and breathy and unexpected. “How the hell did you shatter your cartilage?”

  Christie moved slightly so that he could open the door. “Playing basketball. In high school. I—I fell.”

  Reardon’s arm reached beside her and his hand rested on the knob for a moment. His eyes glinted and he smiled. “Basketball, for Chrissake.” He pushed her lightly with his shoulder. “Come on, come on. Let’s go.”

  TWELVE:

  THE MORGUE HAD A coolness unaffected by any season. It was an isolated, timeless place, and the people who worked there looked as if they had never emerged into the real world. The attendant, studying Stoner Martin’s request slip, affected a cheerfulness and a casualness that seemed unnecessary. He whistled brightly as he carefully copied their names and shield numbers in his gray cloth-covered ledger. He slid a round metal ashtray across the black rubber counter toward Stoner.

  “The butt,” the attendant said. “Dinch the butt. Don’t want to fill the air with smoke and have our guests getting lung cancer.”

  Stoner Martin pressed the lit end of his cigarette into the ashtray. Christie had never seen him like this before. She had sought him out through the long, complicated corridors, following the signs that directed her to this lowest level of the building, and felt a wave of relief at seeing the tall, easy, familiar figure. Then Stoner had turned and the face confronting hers was that of a stranger: expressionless, withdrawn, nodding at her without recognition. His brief words of greeting seemed to crackle as though his t
ongue had dried and moved within his mouth with great effort. His eyes were dull and bloodshot. All the sparkle was gone.

  “Just got to get the okay on this slip, and we go,” the attendant said, disappearing into a small inner office.

  “Stoney, what’s it all about?”

  Stoney’s fingers played with the dead cigarette butt. “We’ll just take a look first, then we’ll see.”

  “Well, here we go,” the attendant said. “Just down and around. Hey, still hot out?”

  Stoner, stiffly: “Yeah.”

  “Ought to get some of those people off the streets and down here. That’d cool the situation off, huh?” Then, fearing they hadn’t understood his full meaning, he added, “We’ll get some of them down here before it’s all over, huh?”

  Neither detective answered and the attendant began to hum. He led them into a room that was wide and high and seemed to be lined on both sides with large filing cabinets. He consulted the slip of paper, then thumped the flat of his hand against a locker. “Yup. Here we go.”

  Christie’s vision was blurred. Everything down here seemed green. The walls were green; the dark tile floor, which actually was black, seemed dark green; and the face of the dead man, at eye level as the attendant tugged and slid the body out of its chamber and uncovered it, seemed green. Christie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, looking not at the dead man but at Stoner Martin. His mouth was slightly open and he looked drained and empty.

  Christie forced herself to look at the dead face: to see it. The face, neither young nor old in death, was smooth and pale brown. The only blemish was a dark, caked, small hole in the center of the forehead. The mouth was slightly opened, as though about to speak. The eyes, deep-set in concave sockets, were open in death; they had a dullness, an unseeing, lusterless haze.

  The attendant, standing on the opposite side of the body alongside Stoner Martin, asked her, “Well, you know him?”

  With a gesture, Stoney motioned her to remain silent. With a slight movement of his eyes, not quite meeting hers, not quite abandoning the face of the dead boy, he told her. Christie shook her head. “No, I don’t know him.”

  “Well, neither does anybody else. Except somebody sent in money for his burial. Maybe the guy who shot him. You should have seen him when we got him. His head was that big.” He held his hands extended six inches from either side of his own head. “Man, when they get it in the head, you should see the swelling. His own mother wouldn’t have known him. We did a nice job—considering.”

  Stoner Martin’s face was as tight as a mask, and a gray haze worked down along his dark cheeks. His eyes remained on the boy’s face.

  “Tell you something about this one,” the attendant said, his eyes without pity or curiosity. “Must have had it pretty rough as a kid. Got lash marks across his back and shoulders. Old scars. Must have had it rough.”

  Stoner Martin closed his eyes; his hand touched the cold metal beneath the body of the boy who had been an orphan.

  “Well, he’s being shipped south tomorrow morning. Guess that’s where he comes from. He should have stood there.” The man pulled the sheet over Rafe Wheeler’s face.

  Poor little back-home boy going back home. Stoner Martin reached his hand out. The attendant didn’t see the gesture but Christie Opara did. The long, dark fingers smoothed the sheet over the top of the dead boy’s skull and lingered for the barest instant, bent to the contours of the head, gently, and then withdrew as the attendant slid the body back into the refrigerated wall with a loud metallic finality.

  They went back to the high reception desk, signed the book, lit cigarettes, followed the signs that led to the street exit. Christie dug into her pocketbook for her sunglasses. The sun hit into her eyes like sparks but Stoney didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were wide and vacant and unblinking.

  “Stoney, who was he?”

  He stood motionless and his breath was heavy. “Who was he?” he repeated, as though asking himself. Then, with great effort, he asked Christie, “Who did you think he was?”

  “I’m not sure—not positive, but—”

  “That’s okay. Say it anyway.”

  “Well, he looked like the boy who shot Billy Everett.”

  Stoner raised his hand across his eyes as though he were just aware of the harsh light and he shook his head. “He isn’t. How about we get some coffee?”

  The luncheonette was filled with cold rancid frying odors and civil service employees from the various municipal buildings in the area on coffee breaks. There was evidence of old hamburgers and french-fried-potato drippings on the dull red tabletop and on the stained green apron of the waitress who stood, one heavy hip jutted out, one large hand poised over her pad.

  “Just coffee,” Stoney said without looking at her.

  “You have just coffee and you sit in a booth, cost you twenty-five cents a cup. That’s the rule.” Stoney waved a hand at her and she said, “Okay. It’s your money.”

  Slowly, he began speaking, the words coming in a soft, thick rush, an almost whispering sound, aimed at the surface of the table, slightly disjointed, slightly incoherent, compounded of grief and exhaustion and self-accusation. Christie pieced the story together from the fragments and the sudden complete sentences which were followed by sudden silences. He lifted the cup of lukewarm black coffee to his lips, put it back on the saucer untasted, unaware of the puddle of liquid that splashed on his jacket sleeve. Christie did not know how to comfort him. She sat quietly and let him talk.

  “It was a dirty trick on the boy. My God. He was too soft. Hell. All my fault. You know what? Hey, you know what? Rafe Wheeler didn’t even exist until I got him.” He raised his face for the first time, the words forming the thought that had just occurred to him. “I created him, from the first day. Showed him a whole new rotten world, and there he is now, like you saw him. That’s what I did. Created and destroyed Rafe Wheeler, who was just a nice, gentle kid who never ... he didn’t know nothing. My God, but that boy was ignorant when I got him. But I sure taught him. Yes, indeed, I taught him all right. I did. Jesus.”

  Christie looked up. The waitress was behind the counter whispering to the counterman, her eyes on them. Christie signaled and asked for two more cups of coffee. The waitress brought the coffee, slammed the cups down, lifted Stoner’s still-full cup. Her eyes were two small beads of accusation, her mouth an uneven, greasy orange slash of resentment. “What’s the matter with this cup?”

  Stoner Martin looked up, puzzled.

  Christie stared at the woman who stood there glaring at Stoner, her eyes sliding and dirty on Christie. Impulsively Christie reached her hand across the table; her fingers tightened on Stoner’s hand. “My husband doesn’t like cold coffee in dirty cups,” she said, her eyes steady on the woman.

  The waitress hurried away, eager to relate this information to the counterman. Christie turned back to Stoner and released his hand. There was a familiar smile confronting her, a brightening and deepening of his black eyes and a bell-like clarity in his voice. “Well, my God, little one, but you certainly are a nut.”

  “That miserable slob,” Christie said. “That awful woman, she—”

  “Hey, watch it, now, Christie. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want quoted.”

  “She just—well ...”

  Stoner took a swallow of coffee, put the cup down. “This is miserable stuff. Our girl over there probably poisoned it in the interest of future generations,” he said lightly.

  Christie smiled. It was all she had had to offer him: a momentary protection. It was all he had needed. He was Stoney again. “Listen, Stoney,” she said earnestly, “don’t leave her a tip.

  For the first time in many hours Stoner Martin laughed: a warm, big, full sound. He bounced a coin on the table and pulled Christie’s hand away as she tried to retrieve it. “Christie, leave it.” His eyes were serious again, but clear, and his voice was low and controlled. “Listen, kid, I did a lot of running off at the mouth. More than I
meant to—more than I should have. But—well, the man is going to brief everyone at this meeting and give a complete rundown and a lot of stuff, so—”

  Christie interrupted. “Stoney, all I know is that Rafe Wheeler was someone you cared about very much. You needed a shoulder—I’ve got two of them. I’m glad I was handy, and I hope I helped a little.”

  “Helped a lot, little one—helped a lot. Well, like the man says, let’s move. Come on, come on, let’s go. But first”—he reached down, forced her clenched fist open, removed the quarter and carefully held it up to the woman behind the counter, smiled and placed it on the table. “Okay—now!”

  THIRTEEN:

  EDDIE CHAMPION STRETCHED HIS hard body against the clean white sheets and felt a chill of pleasure. The air conditioner sure cooled things off. His fingers absently traced a series of thick, ropy scars along his left shoulder and down his arm, but the pain was dull and didn’t particularly bother him. The stitch marks from his lower throat to his diaphragm never bothered him. Only his knees ached, and Eddie stiffened his legs, pulled the kneecaps up tight, then released them. He sat up in bed and rubbed his knees, his fingers automatically working over his old wounds.

  When Eddie Champion was three years old, his twenty-year-old mother pushed the button for the top floor of the housing project from which she and Eddie and her two-month-old daughter were about to be evicted. It was a cold, ice-gray day, but neither mother nor children were adequately dressed for the blast of frigid air that assaulted them as they pursued their way to the edge of the roof. They did not remain on the roof for any length of time, as far as witnesses could determine. Actually, the young girl, staring straight ahead, seemed unaware of the climate, so intent was she on her purpose. Without breaking stride, she crossed to the edge of the roof and shifted the infant to her left arm while her right hand caught hold of Eddie’s polo shirt. Without hesitation, she hurled her small son out into space and then, not watching his descent, the infant still in her arm, she followed. Eddie Champion’s mother and baby sister were killed on impact. Eddie was not.