Witness to Death

by Dave White

  John thought about getting to the motel with Michelle. He thought about seeing her on the bed this morning and lying next to her. He pictured Hannah. He pictured Ashley. Then he watched Frank, and his skin prickled.

  “He let that woman—Christine—torture Michelle,” Farnk said, standing back up.

  John felt a lead ball form in his stomach. “Is she…?”

  “Said she was fine. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “What happened? Tell me what they did to her.” John said. His thigh muscles relaxed as he settled his weight onto the stool.

  Frank told him, and John’s arms and legs shook as if he was being tasered. He wanted to get up, run to the door, and bang on it until a guard came. He wanted to tear Sandler’s head off. How could Michelle’s father let this happen?

  When Frank finished the story, they sat silently. John couldn’t think of anything to say. Nothing that would help, anyway.

  Focus on your breathing, John.

  “What about you? Why didn’t they kill you?” John asked when he finally got his nerves settled.

  “They’ll be here for me soon. Sandler thought I knew where Omar was. Now that Omar’s here, they don’t need me.”

  John stiffened. “Sandler probably doesn’t need you sniffing around the bomb either.”

  Frank tilted his head slightly and squinted.

  John relayed Omar’s story. Expecting Frank’s eyes to widen, or his arms to shake was too much. He didn’t react. John answered Frank’s questions as clearly as possibly, making sure he mentioned Ameritech in the process. That seemed to clear something up for Frank, as he nodded when John talked about it.

  Frank said, “I was getting close. A man named Weller was my boss in the DHS. Turns out he was on Sandler’s payroll.”

  John shrugged, sending more fire through his body.

  “So he set me up to be kidnapped on the waterfront, maybe dump me somewhere for a few days.”

  “Why didn’t they just kill you? They killed Ashley.”

  “I think they wanted me to find evidence that would help blame a competitor for the attack.”

  John wanted to shrug again, but didn’t. Let Frank work it out at his own pace.

  “This isn’t making any sense. Sandler and Weller aren’t idiots,” he said. “They put me right in the line of fire and now it’s blowing up in Sandler’s face. Weller is dead, and I don’t even know why.”

  It seemed there were things both of them knew, and neither of them were saying. Pieces of information that were floating around the edges of their conversation, that Frank couldn’t put his finger on.

  “Ashley got me close. She told me something was going on, was trying to feed me information about Sandler. She was my contact at Sandler Industries.”

  The lead ball in John’s stomach thickened.

  “What the hell was she—?”

  Frank looked at John, and again John got the feeling that the answer was close. Mumbling to himself, Frank leaned his back against the door. John couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “She was the one you saw me with in Starbucks.”

  John’s head hurt. He kept seeing Ashley taking her last breath. Her eyes widening slightly as she told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. Her smooth skin as they made love.

  “I know,” he said. “I figured that part out. But I couldn’t figure out why. I thought you were sleeping with her.”

  Callahan took a deep breath. “That was why you followed me that night, wasn’t it?”

  John pictured that day at Starbucks. The shade of brown hair. The way the hand moved slightly, like she was telling Frank to go on. She was wearing a hat he’d never seen. Her back was to him. But maybe he just didn’t want to recognize her.

  Even when he accused her in her apartment, he didn’t really want to believe it.

  “She was helping you?”

  Frank nodded.

  “That’s why she was acting so weird?”

  Frank shrugged.

  “She threatened to break up with me to try keep your cover. Then she came to the police station.”

  “I don’t know, John. She knew something big was going down. Throughout the office there were rumors about Thabata. She uploaded the information about the Thabata meet to our server. I’d mentioned him before. The message was rushed, cut off, but she still told me to be careful.”

  John said, “I should have known. I could have—”

  He leaned over, put his head in his hands.

  “There’s nothing you could have done, John.”

  Frank slid down the wall, and sat, knees bent close to his chest. He breathed through his nose, slow controlled breaths, in contrast to the panting John was doing. John hadn’t realized how fast his heart was beating until now.

  “There has to be something more here,” Frank said. “We’ve got some pieces to the puzzle, but not the whole thing.”

  “Michelle’s dad’s gone nuts.”

  Frank smiled. “Come on, you dated her. You know he’s always been this way. Why do you think my department sent me to look into him? He’s unstable, but he’s always been good at covering his tracks. He only slipped up once.”

  Maybe more than once? Frank is going to figure a way to get us out of here, John thought.

  Frank sat bolt upright, and then stood as John heard the door unlock behind him. He backed away from it and stood next to John. The door creaked as it opened to reveal the woman who had murdered Ashley.

  “Christine,” Frank said as if it were a greeting.

  She smiled when she saw John.

  “Glad to see you,” she said. “I need you gentlemen to come out back with me.”

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  Robert Sandler had woken Michelle and taken her off to a room in the far corner beyond the helicopters. There were two chairs on either end of a long wooden table. Table setting with shiny silverware and white napkins sat on either end in front of the chairs.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  It was warm in the room, warmer than in the open hangar, as if all the heat had been funneled in here. Still, Michelle hugged herself and rubbed her triceps. Her eyelids were heavy. How long before she could rest again?

  “You have to eat,” her father said. Then he looked at his watch. “It’s late and we have a lot to catch up on before tomorrow.”

  Michelle’s hands shook. Her eyes rolled. She couldn’t focus. The room seemed to be tilted at an angle.

  Robert Sandler smiled.

  As one of her father’s employees pushed Michelle’s chair closer to the table, the legs squeaked against the wood paneled floor. The employee then placed a bottle of white wine on the table, along with two glasses. He uncorked the bottle and poured a glass. Handed it to her father. Then another, handing it to Michelle. Michelle’s hand wouldn’t close all the way and she nearly dropped the glass, spilling some of the wine on to the table. She used her other hand to balance the glass and realized she looked like a child.

  Her dad held his glass for a moment, sniffing the wine. Then took a long sip.

  “A little sour,” he said. “But not bad. Try it.”

  Michelle stared at her glass. The liquid wasn’t cloudy, and she couldn’t see anything dissolving in it.

  “I’m doing all of this for you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Michelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d had something to drink. Her tongue felt as if it had been left out in the sun.

  There was a sound to her left, as if feet were clomping on the floor. Michelle slowly turned her head, and the room tilted even more. She felt like she was on a boat. Christine pushed John into the room. And then disappeared down the hall. It had looked like she was with someone else, but Michelle couldn’t get her eyes to work right.

  John paused for a minute in the doorway, his mouth open. His posture went from straight up into a slouch, as if some of the air had been sucked out of him. His cheeks were red and he grinned. He took a step
toward her.

  Michelle felt her heart pound as if it wanted to escape from her chest.

  Robert stood up and shook his head. He said something, but Michelle’s hearing fritzed out at that point. She didn’t hear what he said. A trenchcoat brought another chair. John stopped and sat. Two other men came out and set a table spot for him. Michelle closed her eyes again.

  When she opened them, John had a full glass of wine.

  Her hip vibrated as if she were still sitting in the wheelchair.

  Her dad gulped more wine.

  “How are you doing this for her?” John asked. Then he looked at her and gave her a shrug.

  Michelle tried to give a slight nod. John turned back to her father.

  “I’ve always done everything for Michelle. Paid for college, fashioned her wardrobe, made sure she was cared for by the best doctors in the world. It was my money, my life that I dedicated to making sure she had the best.” Her dad was looking directly at her. Michelle’s vision was finally clearing. The thoughts in her head coming a little quicker.

  “I highly doubt that,” John said. “She lives in New Jersey.”

  Her father spread his hands. “Had you ever asked to move, Michelle, I would have made sure that happened. You could have had anything you wanted.”

  As he spoke, a strong tingling sensation ran down her arms. She felt awake, finally.

  “Anything except you!” She slammed her fist on the table and the silverware jangled. “You were never there for me or Mom. You were always working. You never called. I always had to come see you. You left Mom for your work.”

  Her father took another sip of wine. John went over to Michelle. He put his arms around her shoulders. Michelle shrugged them off.

  When he put the glass down, her father said, “And then you betrayed me. You started to date someone who was investigating me. You let the enemy close to me.” Then as if realizing it for the first time: “And into your bed.”

  For the first time since this morning she thought about Frank. Standing there, not even watching as her own sister jammed a taser into her stomach. Into her hip. And how her father ordered it. Neither of them had looked at her. She was a pawn.

  She wanted to scream. John squeezed her shoulder gently. Her heart rate rose again.

  “It was an accident. I understand. You didn’t know. It’s okay. But it’s an obstacle.” He signaled for another glass of wine. At this point, Michelle couldn’t even tell what this conversation was about. “So, I want you to brace yourself for what has to come.”

  Michelle didn’t want to consider her father’s words.

  “Where’s Frank, Dad? Is he okay?”

  “Turns out, his name’s not Frank. It’s Peter. And he’s here. He’s okay. For the moment.” He looked at his watch. “Yes. For the moment.”

  “Where is he? What are you going to do, Dad?”

  He said, “I’ve known about him since I intercepted Ashley sending him intel. I fed her the information about Omar being down at the docks. She took the bait and told Peter. I thought he could help me, but he’s outstayed his usefulness.”

  John’s hand slipped off Michelle at the mention of Ashley’s name.

  Her father didn’t stand, even though Michelle was up and around the corner of the table and running toward him. The man who was serving them was quick, and before Michelle reached the halfway point of the table, he had her by the arms. She struggled and pulled, yelled “Let go of me!” but he didn’t budge.

  “You think this was my idea?” her father spat.

  “It was Tony. Tony Verderese. He got in touch with me. He found a way for us to make some money. He told me it was a way to make amends. Because I left Mary before Christine was born. But I’m not doing it to make amends.”

  Michelle didn’t speak. Were those tears in her father’s eyes?

  “Please,” he said. “You have to believe me. I am doing this all for you. With the economy ruined so is my company. I can’t run it with foreign deals. The bomb goes off, they trace the shrapnel to Ameritech. The government has no choice but to drop them as a supplier of black ops weapons. Then I step in.”

  John had gone back to his seat. His face was tight.

  Her father shrugged. “By the end of this week, you’re going to have everything you ever wanted. All you need to do is be quiet. Please. Let me work.”

  John stood, but didn’t move toward them. Michelle tried to step forward toward her father, but the man held her tight.

  “You’re insane!” she screamed. “You should have been smarter than that! You should have known what was going to happen. You’re in bed with a mobster! You can’t trust him!”

  “You’re the only one still fighting this,” her father said. As if John wasn’t in the room with them.

  Michelle stopped struggling.

  “I did this all for you, Michelle,” her dad said. “I can’t say it enough. Everything is in motion. There’s no stopping it now.”

  John’s gaze bore into her. The man holding her let her go.

  Michelle felt as if gravity got heavier, pulling her closer to the floor. Her vision started to blur again. She slumped into the chair.

  John dropped his chin to his chest and sat down as well.

  Her father wiped his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Now, let’s have some dinner. You look pale,” her father said. “We’ll need your strength tomorrow.”

  To the left of them, a door swung open and an Arabic man barged in. He was out of breath.

  “What is this?” he said. “A family dinner?

  “Omar . . . “ her father said.

  “We do not have time for this, Sandler,” he said. “I want to explain the new plan.”

  They crunched through snow, walking past a row of black SUVs and away from the hangar, and the gravel road. Christine was behind Callahan, silent except for an occasional, “Keep going” when he slowed. The cold from the snow dug into his ankles, and he wished he had boots on. He flexed his hands, trying to get the blood flowing through where the handcuffs once were.

  Why’d she take them off?

  He could see the edge of the snow bank and for the first time he realized they were on a mountain. He was right, they must have been in Vernon, on the other side of the cliff from the ski lodge. The closer they got to the edge, the more trees, and house roofs he could see. Probably as far as New York State in the gray distance. Why were they walking out this way?

  Callahan’s legs were heavy, as if he’d just run a 5K. He wanted to stop and get it over with.

  They reached the end of the field; the edge of the cliff and Callahan saw it had to be a hundred feet to the ground. The path off the cliff wasn’t straight down but it was a sharp angle of roots, mud and snow.

  Christine grabbed him by the shoulder, jamming her thumb into a pressure point. It felt like someone had shoved a rock into his back and held it there. He went down to his knees.

  “What are you doing?” Callahan said.

  “End of the line,” Christine intoned.

  “And you’ve uncuffed me?”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “And this way is more fun.”

  There was a sound like metal sliding against metal then a loud click. Another loud click.

  A gun.

  “So,” Callahan said. “You don’t trust me, you’re going to shoot me? I don’t think Mr. Sandler will like that very much.”

  “No, I’m not going to shoot you. That’s just back-up,” Christine said. “I’ve always liked weapons. Knives, guns, all that stuff. And these past few days have been kind of fun. I got to use a gun, a knife, the taser. Hell, even a hand grenade. That was very cool.”

  The sweat on Callahan’s body dried, and he got very cold.

  There was more motion behind him and he craned his neck to try and see behind him. Before he got even a quarter of the way around, the woman twisted him back again, scolding him with a tsk tsk. Then a soft whisper of twine, like a fishing line being c
ast. It repeated followed by a short click.

  “I’m not—”

  “No. I want to do something much more personal than that for you. You’re good. You’re an agent. A spy. A gun would be too easy.”

  Callahan bit the inside of his cheek and tasted copper. His knees were burning in the snow. A gust of wind blew stray snow funnels into his eyes. That was the amazing thing about cold, at times it was warm or even hot, but he knew those feelings were tricks of the mind.