False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Leigh glanced over at her purse as she waited for the light to change. The folder was sticking out of the top. There was a shape to the notes inside, almost like a novel. The crushing pain of Tammy’s early sessions, the gradual opening up where she confessed the horror and shame of what had happened to her in high school. The stumbles on the way to getting her drinking, her cutting, her bulimia, all under control. The failed attempts at reconciliation. The slow understanding that she could not change her past, but she could try to shape her future.

  What the chart mostly revealed was that Tammy Karlsen was smart and insightful and funny and driven—but all Leigh could think while she read through to the last pages was, why couldn’t her sister do this?

  The intellectual part of Leigh understood the science of addiction. She also knew that two-thirds of Oxy abusers were stupid kids experimenting with drugs, not pain patients who got hooked. But even within that group of pain patients, fewer than ten percent became addicted. Roughly four to six percent transitioned to heroin. More than sixty percent matured out of their addiction or went through what was called natural recovery, where they got tired of being addicts and found a way to quit—one-third of them without treatment. As for treatment, in-patient rehab was a statistical failure, and Nar-Anon was more miss than hit. Methadone and Suboxone were the best-studied maintenance medications, but doctors who prescribed medication-assisted treatment were so heavily regulated that they couldn’t help more than one hundred patients in their first year and no more than 275 thereafter.

  Meanwhile, around 130 Americans died of an overdose every single day.

  Callie knew these facts better than anybody, but nothing about them had ever compelled her to quit. At least not for a meaningful amount of time. Over the past twenty years, she had created her own fantasy world to live in, where everything unpleasant or troubling was blurred out by opioids or willful denial. It was like her emotional maturation had stopped the second she’d swallowed that first Oxycontin. Callie had surrounded herself with animals who would not hurt her, books set in the past so that she knew everything turned out okay, and people who would never really know her. Callie did not Netflix and chill. She had left no digital footprint. She had purposefully kept herself a stranger to the modern world. Walter once said if you only understood pop cultural references from before 2003, then you understood Callie.

  The car’s GPS told Leigh to take a left at the next light. She swerved into the turning lane. She waved her hand over her shoulder at the driver who’d wanted to get there first. Then she ignored him as he flipped her off and started screaming.

  Leigh tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she waited for the light to change. After last night, she could only pray that her sister wasn’t lying dead somewhere with a needle sticking out of her arm. Callie had been a wreck when she’d dropped out of the attic. Her teeth were chattering. She couldn’t stop rubbing her arms. Even when they’d finally reached Phil’s house, Callie had been so intent on getting inside that she’d put up no resistance when Leigh had asked for her phone number.

  Leigh hadn’t called to check on her. She hadn’t texted. The not knowing was almost worse than the knowing. Since Callie’s very first overdose, Leigh had grappled with the same dark premonition playing out in her head: a phone ringing in the middle of the night, a heavy knock on the door, a police officer with his hat in his hand telling Leigh that she needed to go to the morgue to identify her baby sister’s body.

  It was her fault. It was all her fault.

  Leigh’s personal phone rang, pulling her out of her downward spiral. She clicked the button on the steering wheel as she took the left-hand turn.

  “Mom!” Maddy rushed out the word.

  Leigh felt her heart do that funny lurch. Then panic set in, because Maddy never made an actual voice call unless something was wrong. “Is Dad okay?”

  “Yes,” Maddy said, instantly irritated Leigh had put the thought in her mind. “Why would you even ask that?”

  Leigh pulled over to the side of the residential street. She knew that explaining herself would only give Maddy a platform for martyrdom, so she waited for her daughter to flitter to the next topic.

  “Mom,” Maddy said. “Necia Adams is having a thing at her house this weekend, and there are only going to be five people, and we’re going to do it outside so it’s really safe and—”

  “What did Dad say when you asked him?”

  Maddy hesitated. She would never be a litigator.

  “Dad told you to ask me?” Leigh guessed. “I’ll talk to him about it tonight.”

  “It’s only—” Maddy hesitated again. “Keely’s mom left.”

  Leigh felt her eyebrows furrow. She had just seen Ruby, Keely’s mother, last weekend. “She left?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Maddy clearly thought Leigh should know this already, but thankfully she filled in the blanks. “Like, in the middle of the night, Ms. Heyer got into some kind of huge screaming fight with Mr. Heyer, but Keely ignored it because, duh. But then, Keely came down for breakfast this morning and her dad was all like ‘Your mom needs some time to herself, but she’ll call you later, and we love you very much,’ and then he said he had Zooms all day, and Keely’s upset because—obviously—so we thought we’d get together this weekend to support her.”

  Leigh felt a nasty grin on her face. She remembered Ruby’s bitchy little quip at The Music Man. The woman would soon learn the value of an in-town education when it came time to pay her part of Keely’s private school fees.

  None of which Leigh could say to her daughter. “I’m sorry, baby. Sometimes things don’t work out.”

  Maddy was silent. She had gotten used to the strange arrangement between Leigh and Walter because they had done the only thing that parents can do in strange times, which was to keep everything as normal as possible.

  At least Leigh hoped that she had gotten used to it.

  “Mom, you don’t understand. We wanted to cheer Keely up, because what Ms. Heyer is doing is bullshit.” Maddy never sounded so strident as when she was fighting an injustice. “Like, she hasn’t called Keely or anything. She just sent a peace-out-do-your-homework-TTYL text, and Keely is so upset. All she does is cry.”

  Leigh shook her head, because that was a shitty thing to do to your kid. Then she wondered if Maddy was trying to tell her something. “Sweetheart, I’m sure Ms. Heyer will call Keely soon. Dad and I already left each other and you can’t get rid of either of us.”

  “Yes, that has been made abundantly clear.” Maddy sounded so much like Callie that Leigh felt tears fill her eyes. “Mom, I gotta go. My Zoom is about to start. You promise you’ll talk to Dad about the party?”

  “I’ll try to get in touch with him before I call you tonight.” Leigh didn’t press her on the fact that the emotional support group had turned into a party. “I love—”

  Maddy hung up.

  Leigh brushed her fingers underneath her eyes, trying not to ruin her eyeliner. The distance between herself and her daughter still brought a physical ache. She could not imagine her own mother ever feeling such longing. There were spiders who took better care of their young. If Maddy had ever told Leigh that a grown man had put his hand on her leg, Leigh would not have told her daughter to slap away his hand the next time. She would’ve taken a shotgun and blown the man’s head into bloody chunks.

  The GPS was flashing. Leigh zoomed out on the screen. She saw the grounds of the Capital City Country Club, which belonged to one of the oldest private social clubs in the south. The neighborhood was dripping with money. Hip-hop stars and basketball players lived alongside old-school Biffs and Muffys, which Leigh only knew because a few years ago Maddy had talked her into trying to find Justin Bieber’s house when he’d lived in the area.

  She turned off the guidance. She pulled back onto the road. The mansions that rolled by were breathtaking—not in their beauty, but in their audacity. Leigh could never live in a house where it took mor
e than thirty seconds to lay eyes on her child.

  The golf course rolled along on her left as she wound her way along East Brookhaven Drive. She knew the road turned into West Brookhaven on the other side of the course. If she’d been on foot, Leigh could’ve cut through the greens, skirted around the lake, walked past the tennis courts and club house and found herself within a few blocks of Little Nancy Creek Park.

  Andrew’s $3.1 million house was on Mabry Road. The deed was held by the Tenant Family Trust, the same trust that held the Canyon Road dump the Waleskis had lived in. Leigh hadn’t been willing to wait for Callie to get around to finding the information, then to get around to passing it along. She had run the search herself before leaving her condo this morning. If it left a trail that came up later, she could say she was looking into Andrew’s real estate holdings in case it came up at trial. No one could fault her for being too thorough.

  Leigh slowed so she could read the numbers on the mailboxes, which were almost as stately as the houses. Andrew’s was a combination of white-painted brick, steel, and cedar. The numbers were lighted neon because it made sense to spend more on mailbox construction than most people spent on their actual houses. Leigh pulled her Audi through the open gates. The driveway whipped around to the back, but she parked in front of the house. She wanted Andrew to see her coming.

  Predictably, the house was one of those ultra-modern glass and steel structures that looked like the murder mansion in a Swedish thriller. Leigh’s heel left a black scuff on the pristine white driveway when she got out of the car. She put a grinding twist into her step, hoping that Andrew would be out here with a toothbrush when she pulled away.

  Square shrubs served as the only landscaping. Tombstone-like white marble slabs led to the front door, sprigs of dwarf mondo filling the breaks. The green was too bright against the high white of everything else. If there had been a way for Leigh to get the jury here OJ-style, she would’ve jumped at the chance.

  She walked up the three low steps to the glass front door. She could see straight into the back of the house. White walls. Polished concrete floor. Stainless steel kitchen. Swimming pool. Cabana. Outdoor kitchen.

  There was a doorbell, but Leigh used the palm of her hand to slap the glass by way of knocking. She turned around to look back at the street. A camera was mounted in the corner of the overhang. Leigh remembered from the search warrant that the police had been authorized to take any recordings from surveillance devices out of the house. Andrew’s system had conveniently been offline for the entire week.

  She heard the faint clack of chunky heels across the polished concrete floor.

  Leigh turned around. She had the full effect of Sidney Winslow doing an Elle Macpherson down the walkway toward the front door. The goth had been toned down for the day. Sidney’s make-up was light, almost natural. She was dressed in a tight gray skirt and a navy silk blouse. Her shoes matched the color of the shirt exactly. Without all of the leather and attitude, she was an attractive young woman.

  The door opened. Leigh could feel the chill of air conditioning mixing into the morning heat.

  Sidney said, “Andrew’s getting dressed. Is something wrong?”

  “No, I just need to go over some things with him. Is it okay if I come in?” Leigh was already inside by the time she finished asking permission. “Wow, what a spread.”

  “It’s crazy, right?” Sidney turned to close the door.

  Leigh made sure she was halfway down the hall by the time the latch clicked. There was nothing more unsettling than someone pushing their way into your private space.

  But this wasn’t Sidney’s private space. At least not yet. According to Reggie’s cursory background check, Sidney kept a condo in Druid Hills, where she was a graduate student at Emory University. That the girl was studying psychiatry was something Leigh would find time to laugh about later.

  Leigh walked down the hallway, which was at least twenty feet long. The expected artwork hung on the walls—photos of half-naked women, a painting by an Atlanta artist known for painting veiny, sweaty horses for bachelor pads. The dining room was stark white. The study, the front parlor, the living room were all so blindingly monochromatic it was like glancing behind the closed doors of a 1930s insane asylum.

  By the time they reached the back of the house, Leigh’s eyes were burning from a sudden burst of color. An entire wall had been devoted to an aquarium. Large tropical fish swam behind a thick slab of glass that stretched from floor to ceiling. A white leather couch sat across from it, a kind of viewing station for the show. Leigh’s brain flashed up the memory of Callie sticking her hand into the ten-gallon tank she’d set up in the Waleskis’ living room. Callie’s fingers had been caked with blood. She’d insisted on washing her hands at the sink first so that the fish didn’t get sick.

  “They’re cool, right?” Sidney was typing on her phone, but she nodded toward the aquarium. “So, it was the same guy who did something at the Atlanta Aquarium. Andrew can tell you about it. He’s really into fish. I just texted him that you’re here.”

  Leigh turned around. She realized this was the first time she’d had a private conversation with Andrew’s fiancée. Unless she counted Sidney calling her a bitch across the parking lot.

  “Look,” Sidney said, as if she’d read Leigh’s mind. “Sorry about the other day. This is all so very upsetting. Andy’s such a lost little puppy sometimes. I feel very protective.”

  Leigh nodded. “Understood.”

  “I feel like—” She held up her hands in an open shrug. “What is going on with this bullshit? Why do the cops have it out for him? Is it because he’s got money or he drives nice cars or is it some kind of vendetta because Linda worked on that Covid task force?”

  Leigh was constantly amazed when rich white people assumed the system always worked until they found themselves wrapped up in it. Then, it had to be some kind of goddam conspiracy.

  She told Sidney, “I had a client who got arrested for stealing a lawnmower. He died of Covid in jail because he couldn’t afford the five-hundred-dollar cash bail.”

  “Was he guilty?”

  Leigh knew a lost cause when she saw one. “I’m doing everything I can to help Andrew.”

  “I fucking hope so. He’s paying you enough.” Sidney was back on her phone before Leigh could formulate a response.

  Since she was being ignored, Leigh took the opportunity to walk to the wall of windows along the back of the house. The same square shrubs lined the tombstone path toward the pool. The decking was more white marble. All of the outdoor furniture was white. Four lounge chairs. Four chairs around a glass table. None of it looked inviting. None of it looked used. Even the grass looked artificial. The only variation in color came from the steel and cedar fence marking the property line in the distance.

  If she had the gift of poetry, she’d come up with a verse about the house being the frigid embodiment of Andrew’s soul.

  “Harleigh.”

  Leigh slowly turned around. Andrew had sneaked up on her again, but, this time, she hadn’t startled. She gave him a cool look of appraisal. In contrast to the house, he was dressed in all black, from his T-shirt to his sweatpants to the matching slippers on his feet.

  She told him, “We should talk.”

  “Sid?” His raised voice bounced against the hard surfaces. “Sid, are you here?”

  Andrew walked into the hall, looking for his fiancée. Leigh could see that the back of his hair was still damp. He’d probably just gotten out of the shower.

  “I bet she went to pick up the cake for the wedding,” Andrew said. “We’ve got a small ceremony planned for tonight. Just Mom and some people from the dealerships. Unless you’d like to come?”

  Leigh said nothing. She wanted to see if she could make him uncomfortable.

  His bland expression didn’t change, but he finally asked, “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

  Leigh shook her head. She had already been caught on one camera. Sh
e wasn’t going to get caught on another one. “Outside.”

  Andrew raised his eyebrows, but she could tell he was enjoying the intrigue. He unlocked the door. The entire set of windows accordioned back. “After you.”

  Leigh stepped carefully across the threshold. The marble was textured, but her high heels couldn’t find even purchase. She slipped them off and left them by the door. She said nothing to Andrew as she headed toward the pool. Leigh didn’t stop at the edge of the marble decking. She stepped down the stairs that lined the disappearing edge. The artificial turf was stiff under her bare feet, still wet from the morning dew. She could hear Andrew’s heavier footsteps hitting the ground behind her. Leigh wondered if this was the sound Tammy Karlsen had heard as he’d followed her into the park. Or was she already handcuffed by then? Was she gagged so that she couldn’t scream? Was she too drugged to know that she needed to?

  Only Andrew would ever know the truth.

  The backyard was roughly half a football field. Leigh stopped in the middle, equidistant to the pool and the back fence. The sun was already beating down. The turf was getting hot under her feet. She told Andrew, “Hold up your hands.”

  He kept smiling, but he did as he was told.

  Leigh patted his pockets the same way she had patted Buddy’s in the kitchen. She found a tube of ChapStick, but no wallet, keys or phone.

  Andrew explained, “I was getting dressed for work.”

  “You didn’t take the week off to prepare for your trial?”

  “My lawyer’s got that all in hand.” His smile was unsettling, as fake as the grass under their feet. “Did you read Tammy’s medical records?”

  Leigh knew what he was looking for. “She has a history of alcohol abuse. She drank two and a half martinis the night that she was with you.”

  “Yes.” His tone of voice had turned intimate. “And she said she was raped before. Don’t forget that. I imagine a jury of my peers won’t take too kindly to her abortion, either.”