Witness Read online

  Hold on, wait a minute.

  A small face popped up from below the front passenger seat window, and his heart shuddered.

  That’s the kid that saw me.

  And just like that, his anger turned to terror.

  A few minutes later.

  Ginny’s fear grew with every moment that Grandpa spent, wandering around the Randalls’s front yard. “Grandpa, don’t,” she whispered. “Come back, come back, come back and get into the car.”

  But he couldn’t hear her; he stood in the yard, standing just about right where she dropped her newspaper on that last, terrible morning, and looking around the yard and then up at the dining room window. She followed his gaze, and as she looked up at the plate-glass window, and as she gazed up at the plate-glass window, a movement out of the corner of her eye made her start with surprise.

  “Grandpa,” she called out. “Grandpa, let’s go.”

  Grandpa turned around and faced her, his back to the dining room window. She jumped up in her seat. She saw someone standing behind the curtain and knew who it was.

  The bad man.

  “Let’s go, Grandpa. Let’s go right now.”

  She pushed the button to make the window roll down, but Grandpa had turned off the engine, and the window did not budge. Terror gripped her. She didn’t want to get out of Grandpa’s car. Curiously, she felt safer in the car, but she wished she and Grandpa were anywhere else in the world at that moment, other than at this man’s front yard. She swallowed and her throat tasted dry. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. “Grandpa,” she warbled. “Let’s go, right now.”

  Grandpa didn’t hear her.

  The front door to the house opened. She jumped up and pulled on the door handle and the door mechanism released and she opened the car door, and she leaned out, hanging onto the door handle. “Grandpa, let’s go.”

  “I want to talk to this man,” Grandpa said.

  “Grandpa, no, he’s a bad man.”

  Grandpa turned around and faced the man, and Ginny saw the bad man hurrying toward her grandfather and she saw the malevolence in his eyes, the deep and abiding hatred and barely contained rage, and she screamed out but it wasn’t enough and the bad man held something dark and hard in his right hand and at first Ginny thought it was a gun, but then the man lifted the dark thing up to Grandpa’s neck—it looked like a small brick—and as he pressed it against Grandpa’s neck, a bolt of lightning sizzled from it and Grandpa’s eyes grew wide and he fell to the ground as fast as if he’d been dropped like a paperweight and that’s when Ginny saw the man looking at her, and he looked angry, and he lifted the dark thing and carried it in front of him and walked toward her and she pushed hard on the door and jumped out of the car and ran away home as fast as she could and she didn’t look over her shoulder, not once, not once even to check and make sure he wasn’t following, but she ran for her life and didn’t stop until she got home and remembered the house was locked and she ran around to the back of the house, to the garage, and opened the garage door and closed it shut and let herself in through the kitchen door and ran up to her bedroom and dove between the covers and started screaming.

  Four hours later.

  “Ma’am, your father has suffered a stroke.”

  Melanie listened with a dull ache in her heart as the doctor explained to her what’d happened.

  Well, this will teach you to head off for a fun weekend with your women friends. You may as well forget ever being free again.

  She’d been about to undergo a spa treatment at the French Lick hotel and spa when an urgent call came through on her cell. The weirdest news, her dad had fainted in a neighbor’s front yard, and after Ginny ran home—and what the hell was her dad doing in the Randalls’s front yard in the first place was a complete mystery to her—and called 911, the ambulance had arrived and gotten Dad stabilized, then rushed him to the hospital, and she’d jumped off her spa table, run upstairs to her room, grabbed her things, told her friends, and ran out to the parking lot and got behind the wheel of her car and sped back up here, lickety-split, and she’d pulled up into the hospital parking lot a mere four hours later, and that was pretty good time, considering she’d been in southern Ohioand had hurried back to Shelbyville in record time, but by the time she got there, they’d stabilized her dad, but the prognosis wasn’t good.

  “There’s a blood clot in your father’s brain, and we’d like to operate, to try and catch it before it ruptures.”

  “What will happen?”

  “He may survive. But if we don’t operate, he will most certainly die.”

  She gave the doctors permission to operate on her father, and as they wheeled her dad into surgery, Ginny and Evie stood beside her, weeping.

  A few hours later.

  Melanie sat by her father’s bed, with his doctor standing at the foot and the occupational therapist standing across the bed from her. Dad lay on his bed, his eyes closed, completely unaware of his surroundings.

  “Your father’s condition is stable, for now,” the doctor said. “And I want him to begin occupational therapy as soon as possible.”

  “Yes,” the occupational therapist, Carol, said. “He’ll be transferred to Shelbyville Retirement Center, which has a top-rate therapy program. We’ll get your dad to an improved state.”

  “What will that state be?” she asked, nodding at the silent form between them.

  “He will be able to sit up and walk with a walker. He’ll be able to talk and communicate.”

  “How in the world are you going to do that?” she asked, “When he’s just lying here?”

  “There are tremendous advances in occupational therapy these days,” Dr. Patel said. “You’d be surprised.”

  “How long will Medicare pay for all this?” she asked.

  “Medicare will pay for the first one-hundred days of occupational therapy,” Carol said, “as long as there’s a prescription from the doctor for it.”

  “Dr. Patel,” she said, “you give a prescription for physical therapy?”

  Dr. Patel nodded. “Yes. I have to issue a scrip for it.”

  Ginny shook her head slowly with wonderment. She was beginning to realize, the hard way, that her life was going to change one-hundred percent again, and she’d better get accustomed to using words in strange new ways. A prescription for physical therapy.

  Who’d a thunk?

  And yet, what else could the doctor call it? An order? Wasn’t it the same thing?

  “I’ll also issue a prescription for a wheelchair,” Dr. Patel said. “Medicare will allow you one wheelchair every four years.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes, really.” He smiled down at her. “Don’t despair. I know your father doesn’t look as if he’s capable of doing anything right now, but there’s a lot going on in that brain of his, and it’ll be our job—” and here he indicated himself and Carol “—to bring him back out.”

  Melanie couldn’t help it; her bottom lip trembled. “How soon will my dad be his old, contrary self again?”

  “He’ll come close,” Dr. Patel hedged, and Melanie knew the answer was no.

  Melanie signed the necessary consents for her father’s transfer, and then the nurse came in to report that an ambulance would be transporting him to the nursing home facility later that afternoon.

  She left the hospital, blinking her eyes owlishly in the suddenly bright light. Everything looked so alien to her, outside of the hospital. Inside the hospital, she saw sick people, people struggling down the hallways with flimsy nightgowns and hooked up to intravenous bottles on portable stands; inside the hospital, she saw professional people doing their daily work, attending to the ill, the sick, the dying. Outside of the hospital walls, she saw healthy people, or, rather, healthy enough people, going about their daily lives. When would any one of them suddenly suffer a catastrophic injury or illness or accident, causing their hospitalization?

  Human life was so very, very frail.

  And she fe
lt so very, very vulnerable, and very much alone.

  27

  Monday, March 25, 2:30 p.m.

  Kathryn wandered over to Margie’s desk and stood to one side, holding a cup of coffee she’d just fixed for herself.

  “Unless you’ve got a cup of coffee for me,” Margie said, “you can go away.”

  “I made it just for you,” Kathryn said, laughing softly. She set the cup of coffee down for Margie onto the counter beside her. Margie looked up and smiled. “Thanks, kid. Whatcha want?”

  “The Shelbyville Police Department is treating this as a suicide.”

  Margie looked around warily, then nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  Very softly, Kathryn said, “I still can’t get over the idea . . . of that hot Tupperware container.”

  “Word to the wise?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d keep that to myself, if I were you.”

  “I know, but really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “I know you don’t, and I don’t either, but we’re out-numbered.”

  Kathryn stood there another moment.

  “Kid, you better scoot.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for the coffee, though,” she said, as Kathryn walked away.

  A few minutes later.

  “What’s going on, here?” Kathryn asked as a phalanx of delivery men walked into the foyer and marched through the Sheriff’s office with ten banker’s boxes. Each box read, in capital letters, RANDALLS, MIRANDA.

  “Don’t know,” Margie said. “It don’t look good, though, whatever it is.”

  Kathryn followed the last delivery man as the phalanx of men walked to the evidence room and stood there at the counter as the first man explained to Pamela what they were doing.

  “We’re dropping off these evidence boxes for storage,” the delivery man said. “On orders from Gil Martin, the Shelbyville Police Chief.”

  “Gil told you to bring those boxes here?” Pamela Stevens, the evidence room clerk asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Shelbyville PD doesn’t have the storage capacity for all these boxes. We were told to bring ‘em here, let you store them for us.”

  “Hold on,” Pamela said. She disappeared for a moment and could be seen talking to someone on the phone. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Well, okay.”

  “What’d internal affairs say?” Kathryn asked.

  Pamela shrugged. “They said to take the boxes.”

  “But isn’t that against procedure?”

  “Yes, but IA said, if the boxes are in a secure place, and not anywhere near where the Sheriff can get to them, and besides all that, the investigation’s closed, so we’re good.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Kathryn asked. “When did it get closed?”

  “Ever since the coroner issued his findings,” Pamela said, and scoffed.

  “Wait, he released his findings?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you see the report?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Ma’am,” the delivery man said. “Can we please drop off these boxes?”

  “Yes,” Pamela said. “Bring ‘em in. I’ve got a special area assigned for these.” She lifted the counter and gestured for the delivery men to enter. She glanced over at Kathryn. “The report’s online. Go look.”

  “Okay, I will,” Kathryn said.

  The phalanx of delivery men walked into the evidence room and were guided to a row of metal shelves that Pamela had cleared away and made available for all ten boxes. Kathryn approached Pamela and took her to one side.

  “Is this really a good idea?” she asked. “Bringing these boxes here?”

  “No, not really,” she said with an evasive frown, “but I got told to make room, and so I’m making room.” She wandered off, then glanced back at Kathryn one last time. “You do what you’re told and you keep your mouth shut, you know?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Everyone’s finished with Miranda Randalls. She’s dead and gone. Am I the only one disturbed by this?

  A few minutes later.

  She called the Coroner’s office.

  “I’m working on my report,” Dr. Bradley Chase said, “but it’s not quite ready to release yet.”

  “Okay,” Kathryn said. “Any idea when?”

  “No, but . . . Deputy McGlone, off the record, okay?”

  “Yes?” Kathryn’s heart plummeted. She knew what he was going to say.

  “I’m afraid I can’t call it anything other than a suicide.”

  “Not what I wanted to hear.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re disappointed. So am I. There’s nothing to tie him to her death.”

  “Really? You didn’t find anything in the carpet fibers?”

  “Blood, a strand of hair, yes, but not conclusive.”

  “Oh, dear, this is bad.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “There was domestic violence in the days immediately before she hanged herself, and yes, a civil protection order was in place, but nothing came of it, and she didn’t call in any complaints during the time the order was in place, and besides all that, there’s no other evidence to tie him to her death.”

  “Am I the only person who thinks this is all mighty hinky?”

  “No, you’re not the only one,” he said. “Did you hear about what happened at the funeral parlor?”

  “Margie—the lady who runs dispatch—told me something happened.”

  “Sheriff Randalls’s step-daughter—the decedent’s daughter—caused a scene at the viewing. She started ranting and raving about how he killed her mother, and how she knew it was him.”

  “Wow, right in front of everyone?”

  “Yes, but you know how people can get when a loved one dies.”

  “Hm,” Kathryn said. “Where’s Sheriff Randalls’ step-daughter now?”

  “From what I understand, she’s a minor, hell, the kid’s only twelve or so, and her father came down from Chicago to take her back home with him.”

  “So, she’s living in Chicago now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me her address, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  A few minutes later.

  Kathryn waited until Sheriff left the office for the day, then walked to the evidence locker.

  Pamela stood behind the counter. “How can I help you, Deputy McGlone?”

  Kathryn pushed forward the serial tracking number. “May I see these evidence files?”

  Pamela studied the number, then frowned. “You sure you wanna see this file?”

  “Why?”

  “Cause I gotta alert the Sheriff and Rob Billings whenever someone looks at this file.”

  “Oh.”

  “You still wanna see it?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay.” Pamela lifted the panel. “Come on back, then.”

  Pamela escorted her down the long hallway to the row of ten boxes stacked neatly on a high shelf and Kathryn reached up for box number one.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Pamela said, handing her a pair of plastic latex gloves. She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Kathryn hoisted the first box over to a table and after slipping on the gloves, pulled out the manifest and studied it.

  CONTENTS OF BOX ONE

  Collection of carpet fibers from dining room carpet;

  Hair samples of decedent;

  Fingernail scrapings from decedent’s fingernails of right hand;

  Fingernail scrapings from decedent’s fingernails of left hand;

  Photos of the room before the decedent was removed;

  Photos of the room after the decedent was removed;

  Samples of matter taken from under buffet table in dining room.

  To her relief, it appeared as if due diligence had been exercised. Whoever processed the scene—and there’d been a lot of people swarming around that day—had the presence of mind to take fingernail scrapings from under Mrs. Randalls�
�s fingernails, and this got done before the Coroner arrived and had her hands bagged.

  She picked up each of the numbered items in their zip lock baggies, one by one, and peered at the items stored within. Each bagged item had a seal and she took care not to smudge or touch the seal. She studied bag number three . . . noticed some matter in the bag . . . what did the fingernail scrapings reveal?

  Please see Coroner’s report for findings on fingernail scrapings.

  Dang. She’d have to look at the autopsy report to get the answer to that question. On an impulse, she dug a little further. Noted the narrative report of one of the technicians.

  When technician Samuels attempted to take prints from off the surface of the dining table, the technician was surprised to note that there were no prints of any kind obtainable from off the surface of the dining table, not even footprints or scuff marks or any discharge from the decedent.

  She stared at the words, uncomprehendingly, for a full moment before she realized why the technician had been concerned. The dining table had been polished clean, with no effluence from Mrs. Randalls, no feet imprints, not even a scuff mark. As the life left her body, her bowels or bladder did not empty involuntarily, nothing escaped from her body? She’d gone to all the effort to use the toilet before she decided to end it all? That didn’t make sense.

  She dug through the file box and found the photos of the dining table, all shining clean and polished. No scuff marks from Miranda’s feet, not a single footprint. It wasn’t possible for her to leap up to the chandelier from a chair at the table; she would’ve had to stand on the dining room table to finish lassoing up the rope and coiling it around the fixture.

  No matter how tidy a housekeeper Miranda Randalls had been, there was no way she could stand on that dining room table and hang herself without leaving some scuff marks on her beautiful dining room table.

  But who could Kathryn talk to about this?