False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Leigh turned, seeing a serious-looking padlock on the steel door.

  “I’m very careful when I work these high-profile cases. You don’t want this shit getting out, especially when the client is wealthy. People come out of the woodwork looking for money.” Reggie had turned the laptop back in his direction. He typed two-fingered. “Idiots don’t realize it is a hell of a lot more lucrative to work on the inside than it is to have your nose pressed against the glass.”

  Leigh asked, “How do you know me?”

  He paused again. “What’s that?”

  “You said nice to finally meet you. That implies that you’d heard about me, or you were looking forward to—”

  “Ah, gotcha. Hold on.” More pecking on his damn laptop. He swiveled it back around to show her the screen. The Atlanta INtown masthead filled the top of the page. A photo showed Leigh walking out of the courthouse. She was smiling. The headline explained why.

  LAWYER: THERE’S NO DATE STAMP ON URINE.

  Reggie gave her a shit-eating grin. “That’s some jujitsu lawyering, Collier. You got their own expert witness to admit he couldn’t say whether the guy pissed in his wife’s panty drawer before or after the divorce.”

  Leigh felt her stomach start to unfurl.

  “You got some balls telling a judge that water sports fall under spousal privilege.” Reggie barked out another laugh. “I showed that shit to everybody I know.”

  Leigh had to hear him say the words. “You showed the story to Andrew?”

  “You’re damn right I did. No offense to Octavia Bacca, but when I heard the cops were trying to jam up Andrew on these three other cases, I knew he needed a goddam cheetah with a razor blade.” He rocked back in his chair. “It’s crazy he recognized your face, right?”

  Leigh desperately wanted to believe him. Both the best and the worst alibis could sound wildly coincidental. “When did you show it to him?”

  “Two days ago.”

  Right when Andrew had fired Octavia Bacca. “He had you look into me?”

  Reggie let another one of his dramatic pauses fill the void. “You’ve got a lot of questions.”

  “I’m the one signing off on your invoices.”

  He looked nervous, which gave the entire game away. Reggie Paltz wasn’t on some kind of secret mission. The reason he was bragging about his encrypted server and the need for discretion was because he wanted Leigh to give him more business.

  She adjusted her evaluation, kicking herself because she should’ve recognized the type: a poor kid who had managed to scholarship his way into the rarefied air of the filthy rich. That explained the lacrosse stick and the exotic trips and the shitty office and the expensive Mercedes and the way he kept constantly referring to money. Cash was like sex. You didn’t talk about it unless you weren’t getting enough of it.

  She tested him, saying, “I work with a lot of investigators on a lot of cases.”

  Reggie smiled, one shark to another. He was smart enough to not take the first bite. “Why’d you change your name? Harleigh’s killer.”

  “Doesn’t fit with corporate law.”

  “You didn’t go over to the Dark Side until the pandemic hit.” Reggie leaned forward, lowered his voice. “If you’re worried about what I think you’re worried about, he hasn’t asked me to. Yet.”

  There were so many different things he could be referring to that Leigh could only feign ignorance.

  “Really?” Reggie asked. “Dude has a massive hard-on for your sister.”

  Leigh felt her stomach start to seize again. “He wants you to find her?”

  “He’s talked about her off and on for years, but now that you’re right in front of him, reminding him every day?” Reggie shrugged. “He’ll ask eventually.”

  Leigh felt like hornets were under her skin. “You’re Andrew’s friend. He’s going to trial in less than a week. Do you think he needs that kind of distraction right now?”

  “I think if Sid finds out he’s chasing his first wet dream, dude’s gonna end up with a knife in his chest and we’ll both be out of jobs.”

  Leigh glanced down the short hallway to the outer office, making sure they were alone. “Callie had some problems after high school, but she lives in northern Iowa now. She has two kids. She’s married to a farmer. She wants to keep her past in her past.”

  Reggie drew out the moment way too long before finally saying, “If Andrew asks, I could tell him I’m too busy working other cases.”

  Leigh dangled some more bait. “I’ve got a client with a cheating husband who likes to travel.”

  “Sounds like my kind of assignment.”

  Leigh nodded once, and she hoped to God this meant they had an understanding.

  Still, Reggie Paltz was only part of the problem. Leigh was mere days away from what looked like a very compelling case against her client. She said, “Tell me about these other victims the prosecutor has in his pocket.”

  “There’s three of ’em, and they’re a guillotine hanging over Andy’s neck. They come down on him, his life is over.”

  “How did you hear about them?”

  “Trade secret,” he said, which was how any investigator answered when they didn’t want to give up a cop informant. “You can take it to the bank, though. If you can’t get Andrew out of the Karlsen charge, he’s gonna spend the rest of his life trying not to drop the soap in the shower.”

  Leigh had too many clients behind bars to think prison rape jokes were funny. “How does Tammy Karlsen’s attack tie into the others?”

  “Similar MOs, similar bruising, similar wounds, similar morning after.” Reggie shrugged again, as if these were hypothetical injuries rather than real harms against real women. “The big thing is, Andrew’s credit card pinged at or near various businesses where they were last seen.”

  “At or near?” Leigh asked. “Does Andrew live in the area? Are these businesses he would normally frequent?”

  “This is why I told Andy to hire you,” Reggie pointed his finger at his temple, making it clear he was the smart one. “The three attacks stretched out over 2019, all in DeKalb County, which is where Andrew lives. The first victim was at the CinéBistro, spitting distance from his house. Credit card shows him at the Men in Black matinee on June twenty-second. The victim was there three hours later for Toy Story 4.”

  Leigh started taking notes in earnest. “There are cameras in the lobby?”

  “Yes. Shows him arriving, ordering popcorn and a Coke, then leaving when the credits rolled. No overlap between him and the first victim, but he walked home. No cell phone records. He said he forgot to bring it.”

  Leigh underlined the date on her notepad. She would need to check for rainfall because the prosecutor sure as hell would. Even without that, June in Atlanta saw average temperatures in the high eighties and the kind of rancid humidity that warranted an official health warning. “What time was the matinee?”

  “Twelve fifteen, right around lunchtime.”

  Leigh shook her head. The hottest time of day. Another mark against Andrew.

  Reggie said, “For what it’s worth, every single one of the businesses where the victims were last seen—Andrew frequented them a lot.”

  That wasn’t necessarily a point in his favor. The prosecutor could argue he was staking out the scenes. “Second victim?”

  “She was eating out late with her friends at a strip mall that has a Mexican place.”

  “Was Andrew there that night?”

  “It’s one of his regular spots. Goes there at least twice a month. He got take-out half an hour before the second victim showed up. And like always, he paid with his credit card. No car again. No phone. Dude took another walk in the heat.” Reggie’s shrug had a hint of defensiveness. He knew this didn’t look good. “Like I said, it’s a guillotine.”

  Leigh’s pen stopped. It wasn’t a guillotine. It was a very well-constructed case.

  Ninety percent of Atlanta fell inside Fulton County while the remaining ten
percent was in DeKalb. The city had its own police force, but DeKalb investigations were handled by the DeKalb Police Department. Fulton had by far the largest number of violent crimes but, between MeToo and the pandemic, the last two years had seen a spike in rape reporting across the board.

  Leigh thought about a detective at an over-burdened DeKalb precinct spending hours cross-referencing hundreds of credit card payments at a movie theater and a Mexican restaurant against reported assaults. They hadn’t picked Andrew’s name from thin air. They had been waiting for him to make a mistake.

  She said, “Tell me about the third victim.”

  “She was at a bar called Maplecroft, and Andrew was on the prowl back then. You can see it in his credit card statements. Dude charges a pack of gum. Never carries cash on him. No Ubers or Lyfts. Seldom has his phone. But he was buying a lot of women a lot of drinks all over town.”

  Leigh needed him to make the connection. “Andrew’s credit card statements put him at Maplecroft on the night of the attack?”

  “Two hours before the third victim disappeared. But Andrew had been there at least five times before.” Reggie added, “No CCTV on this one. The bar burned down at the beginning of the pandemic. Very convenient for them, but good for Andy because the server melted down and they didn’t back up to the cloud.”

  Leigh looked for a pattern across the three cases, the same way a police detective would. A movie theater. A restaurant. A bar. All establishments where you’d drink from an open container. “The cops think Andrew roofied all three?”

  “Just like with Tammy Karlsen,” he said. “None of them can remember jack shit about the assaults.”

  Leigh tapped her pen on the notepad. Rohypnol cleared the blood in twenty-four hours and urine in seventy-two. The well-documented side effect of selective amnesia could last forever. “Did the victims drive themselves to these places?”

  “All of them. The first two, their cars never left the parking lots. Cops found them the next morning. Victim number three, the one from Maplecroft, was involved in a single car accident. Hit a telephone pole two miles from her house. No traffic cams or CCTV. Car was found abandoned with the door unlocked. Tammy Karlsen’s BMW was on a side street about a mile from Little Nancy Creek Park. Purse still inside the car. Same as with the others, no CCTV or traffic cams caught any of this, so the guy’s either an evil genius or damn lucky.”

  Or he’d been smart enough to stake out the places well ahead of time. “Where were the victims found the day after?”

  “All in City of Atlanta parks located inside DeKalb County.”

  He should’ve led with that, which was what was called a modus operandi by people who knew how to do their jobs. “Were all of the parks within walking distance of Andrew’s house?”

  “All but one,” Reggie hedged. “But there’s tons of people who live within walking distance of those places. Atlanta’s full of parks. Three hundred thirty-eight, to be exact. City parks and rec maintains two hundred forty-eight. The rest are taken care of by volunteer organizations.”

  She didn’t need his Wikipedia recitation. “What about cell phone records?”

  “Nothing.” Reggie looked circumspect. “But I told you, Andrew never has his phone on him.”

  Leigh felt her eyes narrow. “Does he have a separate work phone and personal phone?”

  “Just the one. Dude’s that guy who says he doesn’t want to be connected all the time, but then he’s always borrowing my phone when we’re out.”

  “Andrew was driving a Mercedes that he took from the lot on the night he met Karlsen,” Leigh said. “I remember reading about a Big Brother lawsuit in the UK over tracking devices?”

  “They have it here, too. It’s called Mercedes me, but you’ve got to set up an account and agree to the terms before it’s activated. At least that’s what the Germans will tell you.”

  Leigh was seven days from trial. She didn’t have time to knock on that door. She could only hope that the prosecutor felt the same. One positive for Andrew was that December’s astronomical Covid deaths and January’s attempted political coup had put trans-Atlantic goodwill on hold.

  She asked, “What else do you have?”

  Reggie closed the traffic cam video and started typing and clicking. Leigh saw six folders: LNC_MAP, CRIME SCENE PHOTOS, VICTIM PHOTOS, CHARGING SHEET, SUPPORTING DOCS.

  He opened VICTIM PHOTOS.

  “Here’s Karlsen. She woke up under a picnic table. Like I said, no memory of what happened but she knew shit got real the night before.”

  Leigh flinched when the photo loaded. The woman’s face was barely recognizable. She had been beaten to a pulp. Her left cheekbone was out of place. Her nose was broken. Bruises ringed her neck. Red and black splotches peppered her chest and arms.

  Aggravated assault.

  Reggie clicked open the folder labeled LNC_MAP. “Here’s a sketch of Little Nancy Creek Park. Closed eleven p.m. to six a.m. No lights. No cameras. You can see the pavilion here. That’s where Karlsen was found by a dog walker the next morning.”

  Leigh concentrated on the map. A one-and-a-half-mile jogging trail. Wood and steel bridge. Community garden. Playground. Open-air pavilion.

  Reggie opened CRIME SCENE PHOTOS and clicked on a series of JPEGs. Numbered yellow markers indicated evidence. Blood splotches trailing down the stairs. Shoe print in the mud. A Coke bottle resting in a patch of grass.

  Leigh moved to the edge of her seat. “That’s a glass Coke bottle.”

  Reggie said, “They still make them here, but this one comes from Mexico. They use real cane sugar down there, not high-fructose corn syrup. You can really taste the difference. First time I ever had one was when I was getting my Merc serviced at Tenant. They stock it behind the bar in the service center. Apparently, Andrew insists on it.”

  Leigh looked him in the eye for the first time since she’d entered the office. “How far does Andrew live from the park?”

  “One-point-nine miles by car, less if you cut through the country club.”

  Leigh directed her attention back to the map. She would need to walk the terrain herself. “Has Andrew been to the park before?”

  “Guy’s a nature lover, apparently. Likes to look at butterflies.” Reggie smiled, but she could tell he knew this was bad. “Fingerprints are like urine, right? There’s no time or date stamp. You can’t prove when the Coke bottle was left in the park, or when Andrew touched it. The real perp could’ve been wearing gloves.”

  Leigh ignored the tip. “What about the shoe print in the mud?”

  “What about it?” he asked. “They say there’s a possible match to a pair of Nikes they found in Andrew’s closet, but possible ain’t enough to pull them over the finish line.”

  Leigh was tired of Reggie controlling the pace of the story. She reached for the laptop and clicked through the photos herself. The prosecutor’s case came into sharp relief. She gave Reggie a lesson on getting to the point.

  “Andrew’s right index print was found on the bottle along with Tammy Karlsen’s DNA. Aggravated sexual battery. That looks like fecal matter. Aggravated sodomy. Bruising on her thighs consistent with penetration. Rape. She was taken to a secluded place. Kidnap. They can’t prove she was drugged or the charge would be there. What about weapons?”

  “A knife,” Andrew said.

  Leigh turned around.

  Andrew was leaning against the doorjamb. His suit jacket was off. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. The discussion with Sidney clearly had not gone well. He looked utterly exhausted.

  Still, his eyes had not lost their unsettling emptiness.

  Leigh could reflect on that later. Now, she skimmed through the rest of the photos. No other physical evidence was documented. Just the video at the bar, the tangentially connected Nike shoeprint, and the fingerprint on the glass Coke bottle. She assumed that Andrew’s prints had not been in the state database. In Georgia, only a felony arrest would garner that dubious honor.

  She asked, �
��Do you know how you were identified?”

  “Tammy told the police that she recognized my voice from the bar, but that’s not—I mean, she’d just met me, so she doesn’t really know my voice, does she?”

  Leigh pressed together her lips. You could just as easily say it was fresh in the victim’s mind, especially after hearing him talk for ninety-eight minutes. The biggest point in Andrew’s favor so far was the Rohypnol. Leigh had an expert witness who could argue the amnesia caused by the drug made Karlsen’s identification unreliable.

  She asked Andrew, “When did the cops get your fingerprints?”

  He said, “They came to my work and threatened to drag me down to the police station if I didn’t voluntarily go with them.”

  Reggie said, “You should’ve called a lawyer right on the spot.”

  Andrew shook his head in visible regret. “I thought I could clear it up.”

  “Yeah, my dude, the cops don’t want you to clear shit up. They want to arrest you.”

  Leigh turned back around in her chair. She paged through the case file. She found a warrant for the prints signed by a judge who would sign off on waterboarding if it got him onto the golf course faster. Still, the fact that they’d gotten a warrant rather than snagged his prints off a water bottle in the interrogation room told Leigh that the prosecutor had not been playing around.

  Andrew said, “I used to think if you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to hide. See where that got me? My entire life has gone to hell because one person pointed her finger at me.”

  “Dude, that’s why we’re here,” Reggie said. “Collier can take down that crazy bitch with one hand tied behind her back.”

  “She shouldn’t have to,” Andrew said. “Tammy and I had a good time. I would’ve called her the next day if Sid hadn’t shown up on my doorstep.”

  Reggie’s chair squeaked as he leaned back. “Look, dude, this is war. You’re fighting for your life. You gotta play dirty because the other side sure as hell is. Don’t be sitting your ass in prison going all I wish. Tell him, Collier. This ain’t no time to be a gentleman about it.”