False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Andrew was nodding before she finished. “Yes, I understand.”

  Leigh tried to be careful about this next part, which she happened to be something of an expert in. “Sidney doesn’t have that privilege.”

  “Right, but we’ll be married before the trial, so she’ll have it.”

  Leigh knew from experience that a lot could happen between now and the trial. “But you’re not married at the moment, so anything you say to her now isn’t protected.”

  She couldn’t tell if Andrew’s shocked look above his mask came from fear or genuine surprise.

  “Even after you’re married, it’s tricky.” Leigh explained, “In Georgia criminal proceedings, spouses have the adverse testimony privilege—that’s the one where she can’t be compelled to testify—and they also have the confidential communication privilege, which means you can prevent your spouse from testifying about anything you said to her as part of your spousal communication.”

  He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t fully understand.

  “So if you and Sidney are married, and you’re alone in your kitchen one night, and you say, ‘Hey, I feel like I shouldn’t keep secrets from you, so you should know that I’m a serial killer.’ You could invoke confidential communication and she would not be allowed to testify.”

  Andrew was paying close attention now. “Where does it get tricky?”

  “If Sidney tells a friend, ‘This is crazy, but Andrew told me he’s a serial killer,’ then that friend can be called to testify as a hearsay witness.”

  The bottom part of his mask moved. He was chewing the inside of his lip.

  Leigh dropped the bomb that she’d heard ticking the moment she’d spotted Sidney’s leather accessories and various piercings. “Or let’s say Sidney told a friend you did something kinky in bed. And that kinky thing is something similar to what was done to the victim. Then that friend could testify about that kink, and the prosecutor could claim that it showed a pattern of behavior.”

  Andrew’s throat worked. His concern was almost palpable. “So I should tell Sid—”

  “As your lawyer, I can’t tell you what to say. I can only explain the law so that you understand the implications.” She asked, “Do you understand the implications?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Hey!” Sidney was clomping toward them in chunky combat boots. Her mask was black with chrome studs. She was slightly less goth today, but still radiated an unpredictable energy. Leigh could’ve been looking at herself at that age, which was both galling and depressing.

  Andrew said, “We were—”

  “Talking about Callie?” Sidney turned to Leigh. “I swear he’s obsessed with your sister. Did he tell you he had an enormous crush on her? She’s his one hall pass. Did he tell you?”

  Leigh shook her head, not to say no, but because she needed to wake up her stupid brain. Of course Andrew still had a crush on Callie. That’s why he kept bringing her up.

  She tried to steer the topic away from her sister, asking Andrew, “How do you know Reggie Paltz?”

  “We’ve been friends for …” He shrugged, because he wasn’t really paying attention to Leigh now. He was thinking about what she had told him about spousal privilege.

  Sidney picked up on the tension, asking Andrew, “What’s going on, baby? Did something else happen?”

  Leigh didn’t need or want to be here for the coming conversation. “I’ll get started with the investigator while you two talk.”

  Sidney raised one overly arched eyebrow. Leigh realized her tone had sounded chillier than she’d intended. She tried to project neutrality as she passed the young woman in the hallway, fighting the urge to itemize every single part of her that she found annoying. There was no doubt in her mind that Sidney talked to her friends about Andrew. When you were that young and stupid, sex was all that you had going for you.

  “Andy, come on.” Sidney dropped into blowjob voice. “What’s wrong baby boy, why do you look so upset?”

  Leigh closed the door behind her.

  She found herself in a cramped outer office with a metal desk, no secretary, no chair. There was a kitchenette along the side wall. She dumped the coffee in the sink then tossed the cup into the trashcan. The usual was on offer: coffeemaker, teakettle, hand sanitizer, a stack of disposable masks. There was an open door leading down a short hallway, but Leigh wanted to form an impression before she met Reggie Paltz.

  White walls. Dark blue wall-to-wall carpet. Popcorn ceiling. The artwork wasn’t professional enough to be anything but vacation photos: a tropical beach sunrise, dogs sledding across the tundra, snowcapped mountain peaks, the Great Steps of Machu Picchu. A battered lacrosse stick hung on the wall over a black leather loveseat. Old copies of Fortune magazine were scattered across the glass coffee table. A tie-dyed blue rug straight out of an Office Depot catalogue sat like a postage stamp under the glass.

  Younger than she’d guessed. Well-educated; you didn’t learn to play lacrosse in the projects. Definitely not a cop. Probably divorced. No kids, otherwise child support would’ve ruled out the exotic vacations. A college athlete who didn’t want to give up the glory. Probably an unfinished MBA on his college transcripts. Used to having money in his pocket.

  Leigh availed herself of the hand sanitizer before going through to the back.

  Reggie Paltz was sitting behind a desk that had taken its cues from the Resolute. His office was sparsely furnished, with another leather couch shoved against a wall and two mismatched chairs in front of the desk. He had the requisite leather blotter and masculine accessories of every man who’d ever had an office, down to a colored glass paperweight, a personalized business card holder, and the exact same sterling silver Tiffany letter opener that Leigh had bought for Walter a few Christmases ago.

  She said, “Mr. Paltz?”

  He stood up from his desk. No mask, so she could see a once-sharp jawline sliding into softness. Leigh’s snap judgment hadn’t been far off. He was mid-thirties with a tightly trimmed goatee and a flippy early-Hugh Grant wave in his thinning dark hair. He was dressed in khakis and a light gray button-down shirt. A thin gold necklace was around his thick neck. His eyes gave her the once-over, an expert face-to-breast-to-leg evaluation that Leigh had been getting since puberty. He came off as a good-looking asshole, but not Leigh’s type of good-looking asshole.

  “Mrs. Collier.” In normal times, they would’ve shaken hands. Now, he kept his hands in his pockets. “Call me Reggie. Nice to finally meet you.”

  Leigh felt every single muscle in her body stiffen as she clocked the Mrs. and the finally. This entire time, she had been in such a hurry to figure out how to extricate herself from this fucking case that she hadn’t given one damn thought to how she had gotten into it in the first place.

  Mrs.

  Leigh had taken Walter’s last name when they had married in college. She hadn’t bothered to change it back to her maiden name because she hadn’t bothered to divorce him. She had legally changed her first name from Harleigh to Leigh three years before they’d met.

  So how did Andrew know to ask for Leigh Collier? As far as he knew, she was still going by Harleigh, still using her mother’s last name. Leigh had been very careful over the years to make sure that connecting her past and her present took jumping through several hoops.

  That led to the bigger question of how Andrew had found out that Leigh was a lawyer. Sure, the Tenant family knew Cole Bradley, but Cole Bradley hadn’t heard about Leigh until twelve hours ago.

  Finally.

  Andrew must have hired Paltz to look for her. He was glad to finally meet her after doing a deep dive, jumping through the hoops, landing in the middle of Leigh’s life. And if he knew how Harleigh had become Leigh, then he would know about Walter and Maddy and—

  Callie.

  “Guys, I’m sorry.” Andrew shook his head as he walked into the office. He slumped into the low couch. “Sid’s down in the car. That did not go well.”

&nbs
p; Reggie pulled a face. “Dude, does it ever?”

  Leigh’s knees felt weak. She sank into the chair closest to the door. Sweat rolled down her back. She watched Andrew slip down his mask around his chin. He was texting on his phone. “She’s already asking how long.”

  Reggie’s chair squeaked as he sat back down. “Tell her to shut the fuck up.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I’m sure that will calm her down.” Andrew’s thumbs started moving across the screen. An emotion had finally punched through his unreadable veneer. He was visibly worried. “Shit. She’s furious.”

  “Dude, stop replying.” Reggie tapped his laptop awake. “We’re burning through your mama’s cash big time.”

  Leigh unhooked her mask. The Mrs. and the finally kept knocking around inside her skull. She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “How did you two meet?”

  Reggie volunteered, “Andrew sold me my first Mercedes. What was that, dude, three, four years ago?”

  Leigh cleared her throat again, waiting, but Andrew was still distracted by his phone.

  She finally asked, “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, dude used to be a fucking stallion until Sid neutered him with that engagement ring.” He caught a sharp look from Andrew and abruptly shifted back into business, telling Leigh, “I got your firm’s server encryption key from your assistant this morning. I’ll have everything uploaded for you by this afternoon.”

  Leigh forced herself to nod. She mentally tried to unwind her paranoia. The Mrs. was because he had done his homework. It wasn’t unusual for high-income clients to make sure they knew who they were dealing with. The finally meant—what? The simplest explanation was the same as the one for the Mrs. Andrew had hired Reggie Paltz to investigate her, to delve into her life and family, and he was finally meeting Leigh after reading so much about her.

  “Y’all, I’m sorry.” Andrew stood up, eyes still on his phone. “I should check on her.”

  “Ask for your balls back.” Reggie shook his head for Leigh’s benefit. “Dude’s back in high school with this chick.”

  Leigh felt the unwelcome tremor return to her hands as Reggie hunched over his laptop. The simplest explanation still did not answer the most important question. How had Andrew found Leigh in the first place? He was an accused rapist staring down a jury trial that started in one week. It didn’t make sense that he would stop in the middle of it to find his babysitter from two decades ago.

  Which was why her internal warning siren was still flashing bright red.

  “Mrs. Collier?” Reggie’s head was turned in her direction. “You all right?”

  Leigh had to stop her emotions from rollercoastering. Walter’s one abiding complaint about her was the very quality that made Leigh a survivor. Her personality changed depending on who was in front of her. She was sweetheart or Mom or Collier or Counselor or baby or you fucking bitch or, very occasionally, Harleigh. Everyone got a different piece of her, but nobody got the whole.

  Reggie Paltz ran hot, so Leigh needed to run ice cold.

  She reached into her purse to retrieve her notepad and Andrew’s case file. She clicked her pen. “I’m on limited time, Mr. Paltz. My boss wants a full rundown tomorrow afternoon. Take me through it quickly.”

  “Call me Reggie.” He angled his laptop so they could both see the image on the screen: a nightclub entrance, a neon sign with a large comma followed by the word CHAMELEON. “CCTV clocked Andrew doing everything but taking a crap. I spliced it together. Took six freaking hours, but it’s Linda’s cash.”

  Leigh pressed her pen to the notepaper. “I’m ready.”

  He started the video. The date stamp read February 2, 2020, almost a month before the pandemic closed everything down. “The cameras are 4K, so you can see every speck of dirt on the floor. This is Andrew early on. He talked to a couple of foxes, one on the roof deck, another at the lower bar. The roof babe gave Andy her number. I tracked her down, but you don’t want her on the stand. The minute she figured out why I was talking to her, she got all up in that hashtag shit and turned into a raging bitch.”

  Leigh looked down at her notepad. She had gone into autopilot as she recorded the details. She started to turn the page. Her hand stopped.

  Mrs.

  Her wedding ring. She had never taken it off, even after four years of separation from Walter. She let her lips part, slowly exhaled some of her stress.

  “Here.” Reggie pointed to the screen, “This is when Andrew first meets Tammy Karlsen. She’s got a nice body. Face, not so much.”

  Leigh ignored the casual misogyny and trained her gaze on the video. She saw Andrew sitting on a low, cushioned bench with a petite-looking woman whose back was to the camera. Her brown hair was shoulder-length. She was wearing a fitted black dress with three-quarter sleeves. She turned her head as she reached for her drink on the coffee table, laughing at something Andrew had said. In profile, Tammy Karlsen was attractive. Button nose, high cheekbones.

  “Body language says it all.” Reggie tapped a key to double-time the video. “Karlsen scooches closer as the night rolls on. Around the ten-minute mark, she starts touching his hand to make a point or laugh at one of his jokes.” Reggie looked up at Leigh, saying, “I’m guessing that’s when she figured out that the Tenant stood for Tenant Automotive. Damn straight I’d be scooching close to a dude with that kind of cash.”

  Leigh waited for him to continue.

  Reggie tripled the speed, rushing through the video. “Eventually, Andrew’s got his arm along the back of the bench, and he starts stroking her shoulder. You can see him looking down at her tits, so it’s pretty clear he’s sending out messages and she’s receiving them one hundred percent. Around forty minutes in, she starts rubbing his thigh like a freaking stripper doing a lap dance. They went on like that for ninety-eight minutes.”

  Ninety-eight minutes.

  Leigh remembered Andrew using the exact same number in the parking lot. She asked, “Are you certain about the time?”

  “As certain as anybody can be. All this shit can be faked down to the metadata if you know what you’re doing, but I got the raw footage from the bar, not through the prosecutor.”

  “Has Andrew seen the video?”

  “My guess is no way. I sent Linda a copy, but Andy’s going down that river called De Nile. Thinks this is gonna be over and he’s gonna get his life back.” Reggie fast-forwarded until he got to the spot he wanted to show her next. “So look, it’s just after midnight. Andrew walks Karlsen downstairs to the valet. He’s got his hand on her back as they go down the stairs. Then she’s holding on to his arm until they get to the valet. While they’re waiting, she leans in and he gets the hint.”

  Leigh watched Andrew kiss Tammy Karlsen on the mouth. The woman’s hands wrapped around his shoulders. The space between their bodies disappeared. Leigh should’ve noted the number of seconds they held the kiss, but what had caught her attention was the look on Andrew’s face before their mouths had met.

  Entitlement? Derision?

  His eyes had been their familiar blank and unreadable, but his lips had twitched, the left corner tugging into a smirk the same way Leigh had seen when Andrew was a boy promising her that he hadn’t eaten the last cookie, he had no idea where her history assignment was, he hadn’t drawn a dinosaur in her Algebra II textbook.

  She wrote down the time stamp so she could go back to it later.

  Reggie called out the obvious. “Valets come with their cars. Andrew tips the guys for both of them. You can see here where Karlsen gives Andy her business card, then another kiss on the cheek. She gets into her Beemer. He gets in his Merc. They both turn in the same direction, north on Wesley. Not the best way for him to get home but it’s a way to get home.”

  Leigh tuned out Reggie’s road-by-road call-out of each twist and turn the cars took. She thought about the finally, as in nice to finally meet you. Leigh had come on to the case last night, but Andrew had fired Octavia two days ago. That left at least f
orty-eight hours for Reggie Paltz to dig into Leigh’s life. Where else had that finally led him? Had he located Callie, too?

  “Then it’s south on Vaughn, then we got no more CCTV or traffic cams,” Reggie continued, seemingly clueless to her internal conflict. “You can see from this last shot that Andrew’s Merc has dealer plates.”

  Leigh knew he was expecting her input. “Why is that relevant?”

  “Andrew took a loaner off the lot that night. His personal car was in the shop. Classic cars are finicky. It happens sometimes, but not a lot of times.”

  Leigh drew a box around the word car. When she looked up, Reggie was studying her again. She didn’t have to think back through the conversation to know why. They were getting to the part where Andrew’s actions would be harder to explain away. Reggie had been testing Leigh with his crass language, trying to see if his bitches and tits and lap dance would draw a rebuke that would indicate she wasn’t on Andrew’s side.

  She kept her tone icy cold, asking him, “Did Karlsen tell Andrew to follow her back to her place?”

  “No.” He paused after the word, making it crystal clear that he was on alert. “Karlsen says in her statement she told him to call her if he was interested. Her memory’s shaky after she got her car from the valet. Next thing she’s sure about, she’s waking up and it’s morning.”

  “The police are saying Andrew spiked her drink?”

  “That’s the theory, though if he slipped her a roofie, it doesn’t show on the videos or in her tox screen. Between you and me, I pray to the good Lord that she was drugged. You’ll see what I’m talking about when we get to the crime scene photos. You’re gonna wanna do everything you can to get them suppressed. I didn’t even download the files to my laptop. Everything’s encrypted under Triple DES. Nothing goes to a cloud because a cloud can be hacked. Both the primary and the backup server are locked in that closet over there.”