False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

  Cracked wooden handle. Bent blade. Callie had used it to cut Andrew’s hot dog into pieces because, otherwise, he would try to shove the whole thing in his mouth and start to choke.

  Where was Andrew now?

  Sidney’s car was parked outside like a welcome sign at a rest stop. Callie had stolen his favorite knife. She had ensured his wife wouldn’t be able to pee straight for the next six weeks. She had found his VCR and his video tape behind the rack in the electronics closet. She had gouged his white leather couches and scraped long, angry lines into his pristine walls.

  What was he waiting for?

  Callie felt a heaviness in her eyelids. It was almost midnight. She was exhausted from today and tomorrow wasn’t going to get any easier. Somehow, telling Dr. Jerry the truth had made her body accept the hard fact that her wicked ways were finally catching up with her. Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong.

  She looked at her dope kit. She could shoot up now, try to chase the high again, but she had a feeling that Andrew would show up the moment she started to nod. The giant syringe in her pocket wasn’t meant for the medical examiner to find. It was meant to put down Andrew so that Maddy would be safe and Leigh could get on with her life.

  The idea wasn’t even a plan but, regardless, it was as foolish as it was dangerous. Dr. Jerry was right. Callie was too small and Andrew was too large and there was no way she would surprise him again because, this time, he would be expecting her to go batshit crazy.

  She could’ve spent the next few minutes or hours trying to figure out a better way, a sneakier way, but Callie had never been known to look too far ahead, and the pins and rods in her neck made it impossible for her to look back. All she had on her side was a determination for this to be over. It might not turn out well in the end, but at least it would be the end.

  Friday

  19

  The clock was just passing midnight by the time Leigh found herself squinting through the burglar bars lining the front windows of Dr. Jerry’s darkened waiting room. She’d assumed that the old man was dead, but Reggie’s surveillance photos of Callie had proved otherwise. The clinic’s Facebook page showed recent photos of animals they’d treated. Leigh had recognized Callie’s handiwork in the names. Cleocatra. Mewssolini. Meowma Cass. Binx, which was apparently the real name of Fucking Bitch, or Fitch for short.

  Leave it to Callie to remember the cat from Hocus Pocus, a movie they had watched so many times that even Phil started quoting some of the lines. Leigh would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so frantic to locate her sister. The fact that Leigh hadn’t talked to Callie in two days was usually a relief. Now, only the worst-case scenarios were running through her mind—an altercation with Andrew, a bad dose of dope, a phone call from the emergency room, a cop at the door.

  Walter asked, “Are you sure she’s here?”

  “That was Dr. Jerry we passed down the road. She has to be here.” Leigh tapped on the glass with her fingers. She was worried about the silver BMW convertible taking up two spaces in front of the building. They were not only in the ’hood, they were in Fulton County. The tag on the car was from DeKalb, which was where Andrew lived.

  “Sweetheart, it’s late.” Walter pressed his hand to the small of her back. “We’re meeting with the lawyer in seven hours. We might not be able to find Callie before then.”

  Leigh wanted to shake him, because he didn’t understand. “We have to find her now, Walter. The minute Andrew can’t get in touch with Reggie, he’s going to know something’s wrong.”

  “But he won’t really know.”

  “He’s a predator. He goes by instinct,” Leigh told him. “Think about it. Reggie’s gone, then Andrew finds out voir dire is postponed and I’m nowhere to be found. I promise you he’ll either post all of the videos online or he’ll show the original murder video to the cops, or—whatever he does, I can’t let Callie be here for the blowback. We’ve got to get her out of town as quickly as possible.”

  “She’s not going to leave town,” Walter said. “You know that. This is her home.”

  Leigh wasn’t going to give her sister a choice. Callie had to disappear. There was no arguing the point. She tapped harder on the glass.

  Walter said, “Leigh.”

  She ignored him, walking farther down, cupping her hands to her eyes to help her see into the dark waiting room. Her heart was in her throat. Her fight or flight was spinning like a Ferris wheel. Leigh could only take her life in five-minute increments because if she let herself think past those few minutes, then everything would start to snowball and she would be staring down the fact that life as she knew it was about to be over.

  She was frantic to protect her sister from the coming avalanche.

  “Leigh,” Walter tried again, and if she hadn’t been so worried about her husband, she would’ve screamed at him to stop saying her fucking name.

  They were both exhausted and shellshocked by what they had done to Reggie. Driving around aimlessly most of the night hadn’t diminished their anxiety. They had coasted by Phil’s, knocked on doors at Callie’s cheap motel, roused clerks at other nearby motels, cruised past shooting galleries, called the booking desk at the police station, talked to nurses at five different emergency rooms. It was just like old times and it was still horrible and still emotionally draining and they still had not found her sister.

  Leigh wasn’t going to give up. She owed it to Callie to warn her about the tapes.

  She owed it to Callie to finally tell her the truth.

  “There.” Walter pointed through the burglar bars just as the lights came on inside the waiting room. Callie was wearing jeans and a satin yellow jacket that Leigh recognized from middle school. Despite the heat, she had snapped it closed all the way up to her neck.

  “Cal!” Leigh called through the glass.

  Her tone didn’t put any urgency in Callie’s step as her sister slowly made her through the waiting room. Walter was right about the tan. Callie’s skin was almost golden. But the sickliness was still there, the painful thinness, the hollowed-out look to her eyes.

  The harsh lights put Callie’s deterioration on full display when she finally reached the door. Her movements were labored. Her expression was blank. She was breathing through her mouth. No matter what, Callie always looked pleased to see Leigh, even when it was over a metal table at the county jail. Now, she looked wary. Her eyes darted around the parking lot as she slipped a key into the lock.

  The glass door swung back. Another key opened the security gate. Up close, Leigh could see faded make-up on her sister’s face. Smeared eyeliner. Splotchy eyeshadow. Callie’s lips were stained dark pink. Decades had passed since Leigh had seen her sister with anything more than cat whiskers drawn in straight lines across her cheeks.

  Callie spoke to Walter first. “Long time, friend.”

  Walter said, “Good to see you, friend.”

  Leigh couldn’t stomach their Chip and Dale routine right now. She asked Callie, “Are you okay?”

  Callie gave a Callie response. “Is anyone ever really okay?”

  Leigh nodded toward the BMW. “Whose car is that?”

  “It’s been parked there all night,” Callie said, which wasn’t technically an answer.

  Leigh opened her mouth to demand more details, but then she realized there was no point. The car didn’t matter. She had come here to talk to her sister. She had rehearsed her speech throughout the long, endless night. All that she needed from Callie was time, one of the very few resources that Callie always had in abundance.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Walter said, as if taking a cue. “It’s good to see you, Callie.”

  Callie returned a salute. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  Leigh didn’t wait for an invitation. She went inside the building, pulled the gate closed. The lobby hadn’t changed in decades. Even the smell was familiar—wet dog with a tinge of bleach because Callie would get on her hands and knees to scrub the floor if it meant Dr. Jerry wouldn’
t have to.

  “Harleigh,” Callie said. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

  Leigh didn’t answer. She turned to check on Walter. His shadow was unmoving in the passenger seat of her Audi. He was looking down at his hands. She had watched him flex his fingers for almost a full hour before she’d made him stop. And then he had picked at the open wounds on his knuckles until blood had roped down his hands and onto the seat. It was like he wanted a permanent reminder of the violence he had visited upon Reggie Paltz. Leigh kept trying to get him to talk about it, but Walter wouldn’t talk. For the first time in their marriage, he was unreadable to her. Another life she had destroyed.

  Leigh turned away, telling Callie, “Let’s go to the back.”

  Callie didn’t ask why they couldn’t sit in waiting room chairs. Instead, she led Leigh down the hallway to Dr. Jerry’s office. Like the other spaces, nothing had changed. The funny light with a tubby chihuahua as the base. The faded watercolors on the wall showing animals wearing Regency clothing. Even the old green and white tartan couch was the same. The only difference was Callie. She looked haggard. It was as if life had finally caught up with her.

  Leigh knew that she was going to make it worse.

  “Okay.” Callie leaned against the desk. “Tell me.”

  For once, Leigh didn’t censor the thoughts running through her head. “Walter and I kidnapped Andrew’s investigator, Reggie Paltz.”

  “Huh,” was all that Callie offered.

  “He had the fail-safe,” Leigh continued. “But I’m still going to turn myself in, and I felt I owed it to you to tell you first because you’re on those tapes, too.”

  Callie tucked her hands into her jacket pockets. “I have questions.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind. This is what I have to do to keep Maddy safe. To keep other people safe, because I don’t know what else he’s going to do.” Leigh had to stop to swallow down the panic bubbling up her throat. “I should’ve done this the moment Andrew and Linda showed up in Bradley’s office. I should’ve confessed to all of them, then Ruby would still be alive and Maddy wouldn’t be on the lam and—”

  “Harleigh, slow your roll,” Callie said. “The last time we talked, I was having a panic attack in an attic, and now you’re telling me there’s a fail-safe and you’re turning yourself in and somebody named Ruby is dead and something’s wrong with Maddy?”

  Leigh realized she was worse than her daughter trying to rush out a story. “I’m sorry. Maddy is fine. She’s safe. Walter just talked to her on the phone.”

  “Why did Walter talk to her? Why didn’t you?”

  “Because …” Leigh struggled to organize her thoughts. The decision to turn herself in had brought a certain level of peace. But now that she was standing in front of her sister, now that the time had finally come to tell Callie everything, Leigh kept finding reasons not to.

  She explained, “Ruby Heyer is—was—a mom-friend of mine. She was murdered Wednesday night. I don’t know if Andrew killed her himself or if he had someone else do it, but I know without a doubt that he was involved.”

  Callie didn’t react to the information. Instead, she asked, “And the fail-safe?”

  “Reggie had two servers in his office. Andrew asked him to store backups of Buddy’s video tapes as a fail-safe. If anything happened to Andrew, Reggie was supposed to release them. Walter and I stole the servers. His laptop had the encryption key to get them open. We found fourteen video files, plus the murder video.”

  All of the color drained from Callie’s face. This was her nightmare come to life. “Did you watch them? Did Walter—”

  “No,” Leigh lied. She had made Walter leave the room because she needed to know what they were dealing with. The brief glimpses of the Callie videos were enough to make her physically ill. “The file names gave us what we needed—your name, then a number, one to fourteen. The murder video had your name and mine. It was easy to figure out. We didn’t have to watch them to know.”

  Callie chewed her lip. She was as unreadable as Walter. “What else?”

  “Andrew hired Reggie to watch you,” Leigh said. “He followed you on the bus to the library, to Phil’s, to here. I saw his logs, his photos. He knew everything that you were doing, and he told Andrew.”

  Callie didn’t seem surprised, but a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. The room was too hot for the jacket. She had buttoned it up to her neck.

  Leigh asked, “Have you been crying?”

  Callie didn’t answer. “Are you sure Maddy is safe?”

  “Walter’s mother took her on a road trip. She’s confused, but—”

  Leigh’s throat worked. She was losing her nerve. Callie clearly wasn’t well. This was the wrong time. Leigh should wait, but waiting had only made it worse. The passage of time had turned her secret into a lie and her lie into a betrayal.

  She said, “Cal, none of this matters. Andrew still has the original video tapes. But it’s not only about the tapes. As long as he’s free, you, me, Walter, Maddy—none of us is safe. Andrew knows where we are. And he’s going to keep hurting, possibly killing, more women. The only way to stop him is to turn myself in. Once I’m in custody, I’ll turn state’s evidence and take Andrew down with me.”

  Callie waited a beat before speaking. “That’s your plan, to sacrifice yourself?”

  “It’s not a sacrifice, Callie. I murdered Buddy. I broke the law.”

  “We murdered Buddy. We broke the law.”

  “There’s no we, Cal. You defended yourself. I killed him.” Leigh had watched the murder video from beginning to end. She had seen Callie strike out at Buddy in fear. She had seen herself deliberately murder the man. “There’s something else. Something I never told you. I want you to hear it from me, because it will come out during the trial.”

  Callie ran her tongue along her teeth. She had always known when Leigh was going to tell her something that she did not want to hear. Normally, she found a way to throw Leigh off, and now was no different. “I stalked Sidney at AA, then I got her stoned, and we went to Andrew’s house, and she fucked me, and then there was a fight, but I kneed her really hard between the legs, and I think the original tapes are inside the safe in his closet.”

  Leigh felt her stomach drop like a stone. “You what?”

  “I stole this, too.” Callie pulled a knife out of her jacket pocket.

  Leigh blinked, disbelieving what was right in front of her, though she could describe the knife from memory—Cracked wooden handle. Bent blade. Sharp, serrated teeth.

  Callie shoved the knife back into her pocket. “I told Sidney to tell Andrew to find me if he wants his knife back.”

  Leigh sank down onto the couch before her legs gave out.

  “It was in the kitchen drawer,” Callie said. “Sidney used it to cut limes for our margaritas.”

  Leigh felt like she was absorbing the story sideways. “She fucked you, or she fucked with you?”

  “Technically, both?” Callie shrugged. “Sidney knows about the tapes, is the point I am making. She didn’t actually come out and tell me, but she let me know the originals are locked inside the safe in Andrew’s closet. And she knows that the knife is important. That I used to use it when Andrew was little.”

  Leigh shook her head, trying to make sense of what she had heard. Stoned, fucked, fight, kicked, safe. In the end, none of it was worse than what she’d let happen to Reggie Paltz. “Jesus Christ, every day, we’re both more and more like Phil.”

  Callie sat down on the couch. She clearly wasn’t finished dropping bombs. “That’s Sidney’s BMW outside.”

  Grand theft auto.

  Callie said, “I thought you’d be Andrew when you knocked on the door. He hasn’t come for me. I don’t know why.”

  Leigh looked up at the ceiling. Her brain couldn’t absorb all of this at once. “You incapacitated his girlfriend. I chased off his private investigator. He has to be furious.”

  Callie aske
d, “Is Walter okay?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Leigh turned her head so that she could look at Callie. “I’m going to have to tell Maddy everything.”

  “You can’t tell her about me,” Callie insisted. “I don’t want that, Leigh. I’m the soil. I grew her for you and Walter. She was never mine.”

  “Maddy will be okay,” Leigh said, but she knew in her heart that none of them would come out of this unscathed. “You should’ve seen her when we first went into lockdown. All of my friends were complaining about their kids, but Maddy was so good, Cal. She had every right to throw a fit or do something stupid or make our lives miserable. I asked her about it, and she said she felt bad for the kids who had it worse.”

  As usual, Callie found something else to focus on. Her eyes were glued to the Regency paintings on the wall as if they were the most important thing in the room. “Her father was a good guy. I think you would’ve liked him.”

  Leigh said nothing. Callie had never mentioned Maddy’s biological father before and neither Walter nor Leigh had ever had the courage to ask.

  “He took away some of my loneliness. He never yelled or raised his hand to me. He never tried to push me into doing shit so we could score.” Callie didn’t have to tell Leigh what women usually got pushed into doing. “He was a lot like Walter, if Walter was a heroin addict with one nipple.”

  Leigh laughed out loud. And then tears sprang into her eyes.

  “His name was Larry. I never got his last name, or maybe I did and I forgot it.” Callie let out a long, slow breath. “He OD’d in the Dunkin’ Donuts off Ponce de Leon. You can probably find the police report if you want his name. We were shooting up together in the bathroom. I was stoned, but I could hear the cops coming, so I just left him there because I didn’t want to get arrested.”

  “He cared about you,” Leigh said, because she knew how impossible it was for anyone to not care about her sister. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to get arrested.”

  Callie nodded, but she said, “I think he would’ve wanted me to stick around long enough to give him CPR so he didn’t die.”