The Witness Series Bundle

by Rebecca Forster

  Amelia pointed to him with a chopstick, a speck of plum sauce dropping into her lap.

  "You want me to call and tell Colin that?" she asked.

  "God, no." Jude rolled his eyes. "I'll do it. He's getting so squirrelly I think he's going to need it to come from the top."

  "And then there's the real problem," Amelia said.

  "Which is?"

  "Proof that he even deserves a settlement. We can't find anything that backs up his story about trying to find Tim. No letters. No phone records. We only have his word. I'm trying to run down some of the people who worked for the management company because he says he sent letters through them. If Pacific Park's people are any good they're going to put together some pretty fancy time lines that show Colin wasn't all that interested in his son over the last ten years."

  "Be that as it may," Jude answered, abandoning his food, "it will have to be first things first. I'll get Pacific Park's financial information to Josie. She can make it look like they're using Archer as a scapegoat. Losing their insurance, losing out on a merger deal with Greater United Parks. . ."

  "And don't forget they settled the other thing this morning. Five mil. That was a hit where it hurt," Amelia reminded him. "All of this will add up to trying to pin the blame for Tim's death anywhere but on them."

  "I'll meet with Colin and lay down the law. I'm not going to eat the costs we've incurred just because he wants to play avenging angel."

  Amelia wrinkled her nose as she stared into the little white box. She was listening but they had been over the same ground a hundred times. She was weary of it. Besides, Jude was the one who had to reign in a meddling client, not her.

  "All the pork is gone so I'm out of here. Want me to clean up?"

  Jude shook his head.

  "Naw, I'll get it. You put in a good day. Go on home and take a long hot bath."

  Amelia didn't argue and wished him goodnight. True to his word, Jude picked through the leftovers and he put everything back in the bag. There was no answer when he called Josie so he left a message as he cracked open a fortune cookie and read the message.

  All eyes are watching.

  Lucky him. It also listed his lottery numbers. Jude didn't believe in the lottery – he liked a challenge but he wasn't an idiot. The fortune was another matter all together.

  All eyes are watching.

  Thoughtfully he pocketed the little bit of paper and picked up the phone as he sat down again. Twirling in his chair until he was looking through the glass wall of his office at the plants on the other side, Jude was vaguely aware of his own reflection and a bit later he was aware someone was skulking in the garden beyond the glass. That someone was dressed in dark clothes. They were bending down, almost hidden by the stand of palms. Jude leaned forward, the phone pulling away from his ear. His heart beat faster even though he knew there was no real danger. The glass was thick as steel. Still, for the first time in his life, Jude wished he wasn't alone. He felt vulnerable and that was a really bad feeling.

  Jude shifted in his chair tracking the man when suddenly, he stood up, noticed Jude watching and raised his hand; the hand with a watering can in it. Jude's eyes went to the overalls embroidered with the words Gerry's Jungle. He laughed aloud. Plant maintenance. God, what had he expected? Colin in the shadows? Archer, escaped and murderous?

  Jude laughed at himself. Watch your back had taken on a whole new meaning. You just never knew who was stealing a glance, checking you out, watching. Just like the fortune. You just never knew who was. . .

  "Hello? Hello? Who is this, please?"

  Jude faced the desk. He'd forgotten about his phone call. Now he could hear Wilson on the other end of the phone and he was frantic to find out who had actually called him on the phone. He relaxed when he heard a friendly voice.

  "Wilson, my man," Jude greeted him. "Sorry, I was just watching the guy do the plants in the office. Hey, listen, I know you're working on getting the park plans and financials for Josie but this is something else. I have a message for you to put on your magic website. It will take a minute. Nothing to it and it might pull in some interesting information."

  Jude fingered his little paper fortune and dictated as Wilson oohed and aahed, impressed with the simplicity of the plan.

  "There's money in it, Wilson. Make sure you put that in," Jude directed.

  Jude rang off. He dialed Colin but only got the answering machine. He left a message that was less than charming. After that, he was done for the night.

  Jude crumpled the paper bag with the remains of his dinner and tossed it toward the trash. He made it on the first throw and still felt unsettled. Colin was interfering. Colin was getting on Jude's nerves with his petulant silences and now his meddling. But Jude had set a plan in motion with Wilson. It was a long shot at best but no more so than getting a settlement for a guy who hadn't seen his disabled kid in ten years. If Wilson came through, Archer would be out of the mix, Jude would be negotiating a settlement with Pacific Park, Colin Wren would have his pound of flesh and they would both have a ton of cash. In the end, that's what Colin really wanted. That much Jude Getts knew because, in the end, that's what everyone wanted.

  ***

  Colin played Jude's message twice. The first time he listened; the second time he heard it.

  "So, that's how it is." He pushed the answering machine back but stared at it as if waiting for it to open a dialogue.

  "Arrogant son of a bitch," Colin muttered into the silence. "Damn arrogant. It's my call. My choice. How dare he tell me there's too much time and money invested to change course now."

  Colin touched the desk. He drummed his fingers. He wanted to smash it. But that wasn't his way. He was more methodical, thoughtful and patient. He had trained himself to reign in his emotions. Once or twice he had lost control, done stupid things, hurt people, but that was so long ago. It hadn't been easy to retrain himself, but he had done it. That was his penance. All he had wanted. . .

  "All I ever wanted was a chance. All I ever asked for was to prove that I could be a good father and my lawyer wants to take that chance away from me now. All he wants is money. That's unconscionable."

  Colin paced in front of his desk. He swiped up the drink that had sat on the desk long enough to set a ring on the wood.

  "This can't be right. I mean, if that man is guilty then he should pay, shouldn't he? I mean I want to be fair. If Pacific Park had nothing to do with Tim's death then I should just drop that lawsuit and go after the man who is guilty. Don't you think that's fair?"

  Colin blinked from behind his glasses and looked at his guest. The man on the couch nodded. He knew the winds of fortune could blow this guy one way or the other and he didn't want to kick up the gust that would send him in the wrong direction. So he did what he thought was right. Roger McEntyre sympathized with Colin Wren.

  "That's the way I would read it, Mr. Wren. However, the preliminary is coming up. Maybe you should just wait to hear what the law has to say about all this."

  Roger raised his own glass and watched Colin Wren over the rim. He didn't know what he had expected when he asked Colin Wren for this meeting but the way it was shaking out was certainly a surprise. Colin Wren was angry with his own attorney, buying into Archer's guilt, anxious to be part of the process that would lay blame. Yes, sir, this meeting was a surprise. Yes, sir. Roger never imagined that Colin Wren might let Pacific Park off the hook without a fight or a settlement.

  CHAPTER 25

  Archer was waiting when Josie was let into the interview room. She saw the chain around his waist. Though his hands were free, his ankles were still shackled. He didn't even try to get up.

  "Are you all right?" Josie sat down across from him.

  "I've been better." Archer checked her out. "You look good, Jo."

  "So do you, babe." The endearment felt odd because it had been uttered out of habit, wrong after she had laid down the new ground rules separating their personal life
from her professional one. It was wrong in this place so she left it behind. She would not use it again until he was free. "Are they treating you okay?"

  He lifted one shoulder to show there had been moments but he was not going to share them with her. Maybe later, maybe if they were still together when this was all over, he would tell her.

  "Okay," Josie breathed. She took out her notes. "Let's get to work. I brought you a suit. You're going to need time to change and we're due in court at ten so we've got half an hour to talk."

  Josie checked her notes, explained the proceedings and her concerns even though Archer had attended a thousand preliminary hearings in his day. When she looked up Archer's eyes were unguarded and she saw a deep resentment that was directed, not at his change of fortune, but at her. Josie took it in but didn't react. It was what it was between them. She got down to business.

  "I looked over the notes you gave me." Josie went to the second page of her notes then referred back to the first. "You said that Lexi wasn't feeling well the day you went to Pacific Park. How bad was she?"

  "She was sick as a dog early in the morning. There was pain. Exhaustion. The chemo had taken a toll," Archer recited dutifully though it felt like he had told her the same things ten different ways already.

  "And you still took her to a theme park?"

  Josie pressed Archer for a crisp answer, something that would convince a jury of his intent. If he insisted Lexi go to Pacific Park when she was sick the prosecution could argue that he had an agenda. That agenda was to get Tim to the park no matter what, no matter how sick his wife was.

  "I was taken to Pacific Park," Archer said with overt patience. "Lexi never broke a promise to Tim. She had set the whole thing up weeks earlier. Look at the records at Greenwood. They have a log and they have to write down when one of the patients is leaving the home. Lexi made the arrangements, Lexi signed him out."

  "Okay. Good." Josie was satisfied. That answer fit and Carol Schmidt could vouch for Lexi's devotion to Tim. "Did you have any unusual interaction with Tim that day? Anything someone else might notice?"

  "People took notice of Tim all the time. How should I know if they checked me out while they were looking at him? I took charge of the kid and kept him in line. I tried to keep Tim quiet. I made sure he didn't fall. Lexi walked with us. Sometimes she held his hand. Sometimes she put her arm around him. And then she got real tired. She had agreed to leave after the Shock & Drop. It was the fifth ride of the day."

  Josie took notes thinking back to the tape. Lexi didn't look exhausted. Josie would have to work around it. Even now she had to hide her concern because it was personal.

  "Then you'd only been there a few hours."

  "Three hours, maybe. Two of the lines were long. The Shock & Drop was the longest wait." Archer shrugged as if to say these details were ridiculous when the facts of the day were clear. "Lexi wasn't having fun. Tim was agitated most of the time. He calmed down later. I was glad we would be going home so Lexi could rest. When we got through the line at the Shock & Drop, I fixed Tim's harness. I checked it twice. I put his hands on the holding bar. I tried to show Lexi that I was being careful with Tim, that I knew this was the last time she would have a day like this with her son."

  "Don't phrase it that way, Archer," Josie warned.

  "I meant because she was dying, not because I was going to take the kid out." He put her in her place with a look. "I was thinking about her, but she just looked right through me."

  His voice faltered. Even now, so long after it was all over, Archer still cared what Lexi thought of him that day. Even now, his dead wife's disregard hurt. Even now, so long after it was all over, Archer still did not have a decent thought for Tim Wren.

  "So you went on The Plunge, the roller coaster, The Rotater. . ." Josie read her list and Archer finished it.

  "The inner tube ride and then the Shock & Drop. If I were going to kill Tim, it would have been a helluva lot easier to push him into the water at the Plunge. He couldn't swim. That would have been easy."

  Josie took notes, taking in what he said and ignoring his sarcasm. Archer had been a cop, right and wrong were black and white and he could not understand why no one got it. Josie was a lawyer. She knew that the one who could make the jury see the shape of truth in the shadows of the shade won the day. She also knew not to rise to Archer's bait but knowing didn't make it any easier.

  "I've noted fifteen areas where you would have had better opportunities to hurt Tim if you wanted. But what about earlier, when you got up?"

  "There's nothing that can help there. . ."

  "Humor me, Archer," she said. "We don't have much time."

  He put his big hands over his face. Josie saw a cut on the back of one, a bruise on the wrist, and then his hands fell to the table. He remembered the details but it was hard to speak them.

  "I went for a bike ride. Lexi took her chemo and her Compazine. She liked to be left alone for an hour or so after she took those pills, so I got out of the house. Lexi showered. She called Greenwood to make sure Tim was ready when we got there. . ."

  "Did you hear her do that?" Josie paused, her pen raised.

  "I saw her list. She marked it off," Archer shook his head. "Lexi made lists of all sorts of stuff after she got sick. Lexi worried about the cancer getting to her brain, or that she wouldn't think right, or she'd forget something important. She even said she was going to write down her thoughts for Tim in one of those journals – " Archer snorted, "-like he'd understand them."

  "Did she?"

  "Did she what?" Archer asked.

  "Did she keep a diary?" Josie came to attention. This was the first she'd heard of a journal. "Do you have it? Her diary?"

  "She started one but gave up. Tim wouldn't understand whatever she wrote. But Lexi thought there was going to be some Hallmark thing. She would die, and Tim and me would have Christmas and read from her journals." Archer snorted humorlessly. "It just wasn't going to happen."

  "Good for you, Archer. Stick it to a dying woman."

  "It's not like it sounds, Jo," Archer insisted. "You weren't there. She believed in doing what she thought was right and I knew my limitations. No exceptions. It was the way we lived."

  "But she was dying, Archer," Josie reminded him.

  "Yes, she was. But I couldn't live if I lied to her," Archer countered. "My conscience wouldn't let me."

  Josie couldn't argue with that one. She understood about conscience because she had learned the hard way. She had advocated for a woman, exonerated her of murdering her husband only to have her client turn around and murder her own children. Hadn't Josie struggled to live with her part in that? She still had nightmares about those children. Maybe Archer was right. Brutal honesty might be the better course but Archer supposedly loved Lexi. That should have bought her a little white lie, a peaceful death. Looking at Archer, Josie couldn't help but wonder what she would want from him: pretty lies or an ugly truth. Perhaps it depended on whether or not you believed the soul lived after death. Josie believed in the here and now and that only memories survived death.

  "Then what were you willing to do for Tim?" she asked.

  "I was there while Lexi was alive, for God's sake," Archer barked, frustrated that Josie, who knew him so well, could not understand this.

  Josie leaned over the table, not wanting to understand. Josie put her hand in front of him and tapped twice.

  "It's not enough, Archer. We are about to walk into court and listen to Ruth Alcott make a case against you for murdering Tim Wren. I need to impeach her witnesses. To do that, I need to know what you were willing to do for that boy after Lexi died." Josie sat back and lowered her voice. It was flat and commanding. "I need to hear you say something that isn't so selfish, so self-centered and so righteous it sounds like you can't understand why people don't feel sorry for you when two really good people are dead."

  Archer colored. His eyes registered anger, shame, and confusion as Josie
pushed him to the breaking point. The tactic was ugly and unjust if he was innocent. No, it was ugly because he was innocent. In these minutes, before she was due in court Josie couldn't afford to think otherwise.

  "I promised to pay the bills," Archer said righteously. "I promised to check and make sure Tim was okay. If there were medical problems, I would find doctors to take care of it. When he died, I'd bury him. But I wasn't going to pretend to be his father. They're not going to hang me because I wouldn't pretend to be his father."

  "They might, Archer," Josie answered.

  "Then you better make them see my situation for what it was." Archer tried to stand up but the chains rattled to remind him that freedom lay beyond this door and only the woman across the table could secure it for him. He stayed where he was and put a big hand on the table in front of her.

  "Listen, Jo, there's a lot you don't know about me because we were just starting to find out about each other. You didn't know I believed in heaven, did you? And I believe in hell, too. And I believe that if I lied to Lexi, she would know that I didn't do spit for that kid after she was dead. So why don't you make that judge understand that I was trying to do what was right when I strapped him onto that piece of machinery."

  "And what will I say," she asked evenly, "when they put Carol Schmidt on the stand and she testifies that she heard you say Tim would be better off dead? Or when she testifies that she saw you lay Lexi up against the wall in a fit of rage. You know, Lexi – the woman you loved? The woman you were so concerned about?"