Expert Witness (9 page)

She closed off her throat and held the next gulp in her mouth. It was hard to swallow given how she was tied.  Josie was thinking she would have to pace herself when suddenly she lost control of the precariously balanced bottle. It dropped out of her mouth, fell to the ground and spun away. Josie thought she heard a crack but it was hard to tell. The rabbit hole was opening again, and she sure as hell was getting tired of falling through it. To fight it, she’d focus on something else. Josie pulled her feet up and kicked the woman behind her. She kicked and kicked and kicked.

“Talk to me,” she demanded, and then she slept again.

The Strand, Hermosa Beach

Hannah stormed down the Strand. She went past the five thousand square foot mansion that squatted like a Sumo wrestler next to a tiny box of a place that had been built before Hermosa Beach was prime property.  Hannah fumed as she went by three men sitting on a patio drinking beer. They were dressed in shorts and well-loved logo t-shirts that reminded them of happy days spent in crappy bars. She heard their burst of laughter and that ticked her off even more. They weren’t laughing at her she was just pissed that they were happy and had nothing better to do than sit around drinking.

Two women walked toward her: the big one waddled and the other was so old she toddled. A man on a beach cruiser slalomed around Hannah, and then a tall woman in running shorts and a backward baseball cap jogged past. The woman could have been Josie; that woman should have been Josie. 

Hannah swiped at her hair. She climbed over the low retaining wall that separated the beach from the bike path and trudged through the still-hot sand. It filtered into the back of her gold shoes and chaffed where it got near her toes. Angrily, she ripped off her shoes and high-stepped with a vengeance toward the shore.  She hated the sand, the smell of the ocean, and grown people running around like children eager to get in another hour of play before it got dark and their mothers called them home to dinner.

Hermosa Beach wasn’t the real world. The real world was scary and out of kilter and not right, and if these people weren’t careful they’d end up like Josie.  Gone somewhere, leaving someone alone, abandoning someone again.

Hannah stopped a few feet from the water’s edge and took a deep breath, surprised to hear the tremors of a sob intermixed with it. She tossed her shoes on the sand on the other side of a berm. Scrambling over it, she dug in her heels and planted her rear; she pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around her knees, and realized it was Archer she was mad at.

Wait.

That’s what Archer said as he ran out the door.

 
Go home
.
Walk the dog
.
Stay put.

Well screw him. Letting her head fall back, Hannah closed her eyes and, ever so slightly, began to sway hoping some part of Josie would reach out to her.

Even with her eyes closed, Hannah was aware of the blue world of Hermosa Beach.  Robin’s egg day faded into navy nights. The palest, palest baby blue wispy clouds hung offshore. She had tried to paint this place as a way to claim it as her home, but this kind of beauty was elusive. The colors morphed by the minute and the landscape of it was flat. Sand, sea and the sky all coexisted seamlessly. There was no drama, no conflict to focus on.

Beach people were equally hard to define. They weren’t super-charged with the energy it took to pursue success. They didn’t lust. Hannah could spot lust a mile away. These people simply loved without restraint and accepted that people came and went. Their souls went no further than their smiles; their worries were lost in big hearts. Their beauty was worn like God’s hand-me-downs, still attractive in their faded glory. Except for Josie.

Josie’s kindness was tempered by practicality. Her compassion was reserved for those who deserved it. Her beauty was strong. Josie walked beside Hannah, but stayed far enough away so that she couldn’t be clung to.  Josie was objective, pro-active and a problem solver. She was Hannah’s friend and guardian and mentor and muse. And she wasn’t here. She wasn’t anywhere.

At least Archer had something to do. Well, she would do something, too. Whatever she did had to be something important, but Hannah didn’t know what that something was yet. The beach was almost deserted. People were off to dinner or to the bars, and it would do no good to sit in the sand and count and tap her concern away. Max would need attention; there was no way around that.

Ten minutes later she was opening the door to the house and letting Max out into the yard. Real night was coming. There was homework to be done, but before she could do anything the phone began to ring. Hannah ran for it and grabbed the receiver.

“Josie! Hello!”  Hannah cried.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

Josie’s eyes were dry and gritty, yet the cheek pressed into the ground was wet. It was if she had been crying in her sleep. There was only one time in her life that she had wept but that was long ago. Still, something had made her cheek wet. When she figured it out, crying seemed to be an appropriate response: the water bottle was tipped over and drained dry. The water had run from a crack in the plastic, over the hard packed ground and under her cheek. There was barely a swallow left. It didn’t matter. She was truly awake, and now she was remembering things. 

Archer. Hannah. Max. She knew who they were, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen them.  It was as if her life was a movie and part of it had been left on the cutting room floor. Cursing the rope, Josie pulled on it in frustration and managed to inch up, angling her body so that her arms were bent. She could look over her shoulder now, and what she saw made her sick.

She was butt-to-butt with a woman whose legs were bare and shapely, scratched and bloody.  At first it appeared that she was naked. Josie strained further only to fall back when she pinched a nerve in her neck. She shook it off and tried again. This time she caught a glimpse of black lace panties and a skirt bunched around the woman’s waist. Those panties weren’t torn, and Josie’s pants were still buttoned at the waist.  Rape was out of the equation for the time being.

Looking up, Josie saw that dark was coming, but that was all right because she had seen enough to know where she was: a storage building. These bunkers had to be fifty years old if they were a day, used by crews cutting roads up and down California from San Bernardino to Malibu and beyond. No one used them any longer.  They weren’t usually found on beaches or in deserts, but in the foothills and mountains. Figuring this out was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.  Her lashes fluttered. She shook her head again. Stay awake. Stay alert. She needed to catalogue all the information she could.

 One: Through the hole in the wall, Josie believed she had seen the light of a full day pass.  While that was not a certainty, it was something to work with.

Two: the light indicated it was probably close to five in the afternoon. Twilight came around six. There was a possibility that someone might stumble upon this hut, but only if it was near a populated area. Given the planning that had gone into this situation, she doubted they were near civilization. Since school had begun, there wouldn’t be vacationers.

Three: This was neither beach quiet nor beach hot, the stillness was extreme and the air silkier. This was not the desert. It wasn’t dry enough. She breathed deep and decided this was mountain air. But where was she? San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs?  San Bernardino Mountains? Both were within two hours of Hermosa, and an easy ride on a weekend when there was little traffic. But, if she and the woman behind her were taken on a weekday, it would be tough to transport them too far, keep them unconscious and do it at separate times.  Add more time to get them here, tie them up, and get away.  That was a huge time investment.  In the San Bernardino Mountains it would be hard to go through all that without some notice since year-round folk lived in the area.

 There were other places, though, like the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches of nothing off the Grapevine. It was amazing how many wide-open spaces there were in a state full-to-the-brim with people.  To figure out where she was, there was only one thing to do: get out of that building.

Archer’s Apartment, Hermosa Beach

The message on Archer’s answering machine wasn’t what he was hoping for. A client who was paying him to check out an employee he suspected of embezzlement wanted to know if any headway had been made. Not in the last twenty-four hours since you hired me, Archer thought as he erased it. There were only bills in the mailbox. He tossed them on the bookshelf. He called Liz, told her where he had found the piece of paper, read her the list of names and told her about the Hernandez connection. He informed her that The Blue Fin Grill had no cameras and spent a few moments ragging on idiots who didn’t monitor their premises. Liz listened, but it was after five and there wasn’t much she could do.  She promised to make some inquiries, but they would only be made at her discretion. She wanted him to understand that. No amount of pleading was going to make it anything more. Oh, and she wanted a copy of that paper with the names on it just in case. She’d run the names on the list and see what popped up. You never knew what she might run across. But, damn it, Archer; she had a whole lot to do as it was. He better get that through his head.

Pleased, Archer hung up. Liz was hooked and he needed to keep his wits about him. The day wasn’t over and there was a lot to do. He took a quick shower and pulled on fresh clothes. He knew forty-eight hours without sleep was his limit, so he had to work fast.  He ate the leftovers from Burt’s straight from the Styrofoam box as he sat in front of his computer and searched the names on the list.

Erika Gardener. No Facebook. No Twitter. She obviously had no love for social media, which was weird for a writer. He typed in a few choice words and got her DMV records. The woman had happy feet. She had moved every two years since the Hernandez trial. San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Paris – Paris? – Venice Beach and Hollywood Hills. There was nothing after the Hollywood Hills address. Maybe she got married and dropped out of the rat race. Maybe she was raising a pack of kids. He’d drill down later on her specifically. If she wrote anything of interest on the Hernandez trial it would come up when he gathered information on the case itself.

Isaiah Wilson was another matter. There was so much information on that guy Archer was worried his computer would implode. None of it was particularly current, but if Josie’s disappearance were linked to the anniversary of his daughter’s death, his press would skyrocket. Archer hit up Amazon and saw Isaiah Wilson’s five books held decent sales rank so the franchise was still respectable. The reverend’s website was slick. His pictures were posed and retouched; his image was polished and potent: dark suit, hair waving back from a high forehead, piercing eyes, sunken cheeks, pointed chin. Add it up and you got the perfect image of a man who had suffered and survived. Books could be bought through his website which also offered listings for his television appearances and, of course, PayPal for donations. Nothing offensive, everything seemed above board making the clown avatar seem strange.

Archer went back ten years. Wilson looked exactly the same but shabbier. He was about to navigate away when a picture caught his eye. The photo showed Reverend Wilson on the steps of the courthouse talking to a young man. Whether he was counseling him, praying with him or fighting with him was unclear.  In the picture they were surrounded by people, press and parishioners who held signs imploring God for justice. Archer checked out the caption: Reverend Isaiah Wilson and Paul Rothskill.

Archer printed the picture and set it aside. He clicked out of that screen and returned to Google.  Instead of typing in another search, Archer finished off his food. Fish, he decided, should be reheated. He tossed the Styrofoam box toward the trash, dialed Hannah and got an invitation to leave a message.

 “It’s me,” he said. “The car is in good shape. It doesn’t look like anything bad happened. The cops towed it. They still aren’t going to investigate, but I have some leads I’m running down.” He was about to hang up when he reconsidered. “When you get this, stay put ‘till I get back to you.”

His next call was to Josie and Faye’s secretary, Angie. He needed to get back inside the office and asked if she would wait for him. She was headed home, but would leave the back door open if he promised to lock up after he retrieved the files he wanted.  Archer wished Angie good night and she wished him good luck. All that done, he turned back to the computer for one last search. There was one more picture he wanted to see. He typed:

Janey Wilson.

An Outbuilding in the California Mountains

“I’m an attorney. I live in Hermosa Beach. Hannah Sheraton lives with me. She goes to Mira Costa high school. My boyfriend is named Archer. He’s an investigator. A photographer. He was a cop before he retired. Do you know him?  What do you do? Do we know each other? Who are you? Talk to me.  Please. Just say something.”