Witness Page 14

  Nobody in the Sheriff’s Office, what about the Shelbyville Police Department?

  Or how about Doctor Bradley Chase?

  Her cheeks flushed at the memory of how he’d looked at her when she’d visited him at the Coroner’s Office a week earlier. She checked the file and noted that the autopsy report had still not yet come in.

  When was the autopsy report going to be released?

  Time to pay Doctor Bradley Chase a visit.

  A few minutes later.

  She put the items back into the box, set on the lid, and stacked the box back up where it’d been stored on the shelf, then walked out of the evidence room.

  As she signed out at the front desk, Pamela said, “Well, that was quick.”

  “Yeah, I just had one question, really,” Kathryn said, and left.

  A few hours later.

  Ginny bolted awake out of a nightmare. She sat up in bed, blinking, gazing at the darkness and trying to remember where reality left off and the dream took over. She’d been lost in a deep wood, and bad people were searching for her, and she had to hide, but everywhere she went—the holes in the trees, places where she could’ve hidden—had been filled in with cement and she didn’t know what to do, what to think. And, now of awakening, with a horrible feeling in her stomach, the bad men found her and chased her.

  When she finally persuaded herself to believe that she was safe and at home and in her own bed, and nobody was chasing her, she relaxed just the tiniest bit.

  She was safe.

  At home.

  In her bed.

  She shifted a tiny bit and felt a frisson of sick surprise when she noticed the wet patch below her hips. She’d wet the bed. She looked down with dismay and disgust at the noticeable stain on her pajamas. She’d peed herself.

  Oh, this was awful, this was terrible. She hadn’t had an accident like this since she was a baby, and here she was, a big girl of ten.

  Way too old to be peeing on herself.

  Oh, she felt so ashamed.

  A few minutes later.

  She’d gotten all the bedding wet. The sheets were wet, her bed was wet, her pajamas were soaked, her panties were dripping with urine, oh, how gross, how awful.

  She ran into the bathroom, peeled off her soaking wet pajamas and jumped into the shower, holding her face under the showerhead with her eyes closed and tears streaming down her eyes. When she stepped out of the shower, her nostrils flared with the sudden pong of her urine-soaked clothing and a new wave of shame engulfed her.

  She ran into her bedroom, threw on some clothes, then wrapped up the soiled pajamas and the soaked bedding and ran it downstairs to the laundry room and stuffed it all into the washer and poured laundry detergent on top of it and turned the washing machine on.

  With a wave of relief, she closed the washing machine lid and the urine smell disappeared. She leaned on the lid and wept.

  But at least Mommy wouldn’t find out.

  She needed to put fresh sheets on the bed, and make sure Mommy never found out. And she needed to never pee her bed, ever again.

  28

  Monday, March 25, 8:01 a.m.

  The Monday following Mrs. Randalls’s funeral, and Brittany’s outburst at the funeral parlor, the entire school was chattering with excitement. Jesse walked up to her during lunch recess. “Did you talk to the cops, yet?” she asked.

  “Nobody’s talked to me,” she said, “and I don’t know why.”

  “But you saw him kill his wife.”

  “I know, but nobody cares.”

  They looked at one another.

  “Is it because I’m just a kid?” Ginny asked.

  “Either that, or because you’re just a girl,” Jesse said, and laughed.

  A few minutes later.

  Rob looked up as Randy walked into his office and closed the door. Randy held the secret phone in his hand.

  “Whassup, Boss?”

  “Josie just called to let me know a shipment’s arriving.”

  “How soon?”

  “In two hours.”

  “In the middle of the day?” Rob asked, aghast.

  “Don’t know what’s going on, but that’s what she said.”

  “Okay,” Rob said. He closed his PC and stood up.

  Randy stood there a moment longer, then removed his eyeglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Heat’s still on me.”

  “I’ll run over there,” Rob said. “No problem.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rob stood there a moment longer, then said, “This’ll all blow over, Randy. You know that.”

  “I sure hope so,” Randy said.

  “I’ll get going,” Rob said.

  “Look,” Randy said. “I’ll do the research on the kid. I’m scheduled to head over to the school, do the Officer Friendly bit.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to do it?” Rob asked.

  “Nah, I got it covered.”

  “Okay, Boss,” Rob said, and both men left Rob’s office.

  A few minutes later.

  “Class,” Miss Tyson said in her usually exuberant voice, “it’s time for our school convocation today, and we’re going to meet Officer Friendly.”

  Not thinking anything of it, Ginny walked along with her classmates to the auditorium and sat in the row of bench seats with the other kids as the entire school assemblage poured in from all the other classrooms.

  That’d prove to be her first mistake.

  A few minutes later.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Principal Harris said to the assembled school at the convocation. “Today, we’re meeting with Officer Friendly, from the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department. He’s going to give us all safety tips.”

  Ginny strained to look at the police officer and when she saw him, her heart dropped in her chest. Sheriff Randy Randalls, the man she saw in the dining room, and again at the funeral, when Brittany pointed her out.

  Officer Friendly stepped forward.

  Then she noticed the bicycle.

  He slung his hands on his hips. “Hey, kids, I’m happy you’re all here today to see me and I want to share with you some of the tips and defense skills I’ve learned over the years, in helping to keep you kids safe from the bad guys, okay.”

  “Okay,” the kids called back.

  “First thing you gotta know. A bad guy looks just like any normal guy. He can look like anybody. He might even be a neighbor, or a friend of a friend. Not all bad guys drive around in white-paneled vans, you know.”

  A few titters.

  “But if you see a white-paneled van, you need to take care, because the windows have been blacked out for a reason, okay.”

  “To murder you!” a kid shouted out.

  Everyone laughed, and, just like that, the tension lessened.

  Officer Friendly took them through a lot of commonsense safety ideas, then gave them a bunch of suggestions, for when they might find themselves in a situation where they needed to protect themselves. Then he called for a volunteer to get on the bike. He picked a boy, first, and told the boy to release his handles from the handlebars the minute Sheriff grabbed him.

  “Okay, here we go,” Sheriff said. He approached the boy, a big, sturdy, middle-schooler, and when the kid got on the bike and Sheriff lifted him off it, the bike clattered to the floor, and Sheriff hauled the boy away.

  “This young man’s a big, strong boy, but see how easy that was for me,” Sheriff said over his shoulder as he set the boy down and he scampered back into the bleachers. “Now, let’s try something a tiny bit different, and go with a young lady this time.”

  Ginny’s heart flared with terror.

  “Let’s go with a small girl,” he said, “to really show everyone what I’m talking about.”

  He’s going to call on me.

  She knew it.

  “Let’s go with this little girl, here,” he said, pointing to a kindergartener in the lowest row of bleachers, and Ginny let out a sigh of relief.

&
nbsp; But the little girl refused to leave the bleachers and stand up beside Officer Friendly. She pouted and grabbed her teacher around the legs and cried.

  “Okay,” Sheriff said. “Let’s go with someone else, then.”

  And then he saw her.

  “There’s a nice little gal over there,” he said, pointing up into the bleachers, and her body broke out into a hot flash of heat and sweat and everyone turned to look and Miss Tyson smiled at her as the kids cleared a space for her to make her way down the bleachers to the floor. She moved as if propelled from within, and as she drew near to Officer Friendly, her body shivered with terror.

  I saw you kill your wife.

  And he was friendly, but did she detect some tension rimming his eyes as he walked her over to the bicycle?

  “Okay, honey,” he said, “now you get up onto that bike for me, and hang onto the handlebars for dear life and don’t let go, no matter what, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She got onto the bike and clutched the handlebars as if her hands were fused to the handlebars.

  “Okay, now you saw what happened earlier when a big strong boy let go of the handlebars, right? I lifted him right off the bike as easily as a feather?”

  The kids nodded.

  “And bad guys troll around neighborhoods, looking for kids on bikes, and they’ll come up to you and lift you off your bike, but let’s see what happens here when I try to life this little lady off her bike—”

  She knew what was expected of her and she’d die of shame if she didn’t do what she was supposed to do, so she clung to the handlebars for dear life, and inhaled with shock when she felt the officer’s big hands circle her waist and he yanked her, hard, off her bike, but she clung to the handlebars as if they were life preservers and the bike lifted off the ground with her, and everyone oohed and aahed and then they applauded and he grinned into her face and it was all right, everything was fine, she’d done well.

  “Good job, honey,” he said, smiling down at her. “I’m a bad guy and I didn’t get you into my white-paneled van.”

  “Okay,” she said, her teeth chattering.

  “You can let go of the handlebars,” he said, and chuckled, and everyone else laughed. Shamefaced, she let go of the handlebars and scuttled back up into the bleachers to sit beside her classmates.

  “Good work there, young lady,” he called up after her.

  And it might’ve ended her fears, just then, of Sheriff Randalls, but then Officer Friendly said something that made her realize she wasn’t safe at all.

  “Good job, Ginny,” he said.

  “He knew your name,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah,” Ginny said. “He did.”

  And, just like that, she knew she wasn’t safe.

  A few minutes later.

  Officer Friendly gave them a few more safety tips, then, after handing out stick-on deputy sheriff badges, the school was dismissed back to their classes. Ginny sidled up to Miss Tyson. “I need to go to the bathroom, Miss Tyson.”

  “All right,” Miss Tyson said absently. “Run along and get back soon. We’ve got a math quiz.”

  “Okay.” She hurried down the hallway, walked into the bathroom and saw a flock of girls, jabbering away. A well of relief washed through her and she hurried to a stall and locked the door. The girls, still jabbering, finished admiring themselves in the mirror and, just like a flock of birds, swooped out of the bathroom, their voices carrying away down the hallway, and Ginny, in her stall, alone, a lance of fear pierced her heart.

  She strained to pee, but nothing came out; it was as if her bladder had clenched up, along with the rest of her body.

  She closed her eyes and lifted her feet from the floor. Opened her eyes and lifted her feet above the stall door rim, so if anybody were to walk into the bathroom, they’d think it was empty . . .

  A cough.

  Her heart shuddered in her throat and she carefully scooted herself up to a crouched position on the toilet seat and scrabbled her panties back up to her hips and crouched on the toilet seat, holding her breath.

  He’s here.

  Terror filled her throat as a man’s heavy footstep walked into the bathroom and stood at the sinks for a long moment. She didn’t dare peer through the crack in the bathroom stall, she longed to, but she feared that any movement she made would make him notice her and she wanted him to think she wasn’t here.

  But he must’ve been waiting for her to go to the bathroom. He’d stood by, waiting, watching, like a snake, waiting for its victim to appear. He’d waited for the girls to leave the bathroom, and then he walked inside, and now he could do anything he wanted to her, and she wouldn’t be able to call for help.

  Should she scream?

  She heard him putting his hands in his pockets and jingling some change in one of the pockets, the way Grandpa always did, when he was thinking about something, and sweat broke out across her face and dribbled into her eyes and her mouth and she tasted the salty essence of her own sweat on her tongue, warm and sweet and salty.

  Oh, why didn’t someone walk into the bathroom and save her? Why was she all alone here, alone with the bad man?

  He turned on his heel and she was hoping and praying he was leaving the restroom when his footsteps came closer and now he was standing directly in front of her stall. Her heart hammered in her throat as she looked down at the floor and saw his shiny black shoes, the toes pointing straight at her.

  He was standing outside the stall.

  He knew she was here.

  She looked at the lock as the door pushed inwards just a bit, as if he was testing the hold on the door lock.

  He was trying to get inside the stall.

  He was going to kill her, here, in this school, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  He could break this door down if he wanted.

  Then she sensed herself being watched. He was staring at her.

  He could see her.

  And then, just like that, a lot of things happened, all at once. She started sobbing and peeing and the pee ran through her panties and into the toilet in a gushing torrent and there was no way she could pretend she wasn’t here, he could hear her, after all, he could hear her crying and peeing and she was so ashamed and horrified and frightened, and he’d kill her just like he killed his wife and when they found her body, there’d be pee all over it and all the kids in school would laugh at her . . .

  “Leave me alone,” she choked out. “Leave me alone, I won’t talk, I won’t say anything.”

  She looked up at saw his black eyes staring at her through the space between the doors.

  He was watching her.

  A few minutes later.

  Ginny curled herself up into a tight ball, thinking if she made herself small enough, she’d disappear, or perhaps fall in through the toilet and be flushed away and taken to a safe place.

  The feet on the opposite side of the door shuffled from one foot to the other.

  “I-I-I-I won’t tell anyone,” she stammered.

  The feet stopped moving.

  “I won’t tell anybody,” she said, her voice gaining strength.

  And then, mercifully, thank the dear God in Heaven, she heard the click-clack of women’s shoes as someone walked down the hallway and she hoped and prayed that the person was going to walk into the girls’ bathroom, but the footsteps grew louder and closer, and then . . . the person walked past the bathroom.

  As the footsteps had drawn closer, the man standing on the opposite side of the bathroom door, had remained silent, still, but as soon as the woman walked past, the man’s feet moved once again, closer to the door.

  “I won’t tell—”

  “See that you don’t,” the voice said, and then the black shoes stepped away from the bathroom stall and the man silently walked out of the bathroom, leaving her all alone, soaking wet with urine, her clothes stinking, but at least she was alive, she was very much alive.

  When she felt certain the m
an had left the bathroom, she shuddered with relief and wept.

  Then she heard the thundering scamper of a crowd of children—first graders, from the sound of it—thundering into the bathroom. They were a first-grade class on a bathroom break, noisy little kids, and as they crowded around and jabbered away and used the stalls and used the sinks, talking a million miles a second, she used the opportunity to duck out of her stall and, without bothering to stop at the sink to wash her hands, ran out of the bathroom, out of the hallway, ducking through a back exit, and running home, steeped in shame and humiliation.

  A few minutes later.

  Ginny raced home in her sodden clothing, running through various scenarios of what she’d say when she got home, but when she did get home, she was pleasantly surprised to see neither her mom nor grandpa, and then she remembered; mommy had gone out of town with some girlfriends to spend the weekend at French Lick, and Grandpa was probably out with his friends at the McDonald’s. Thank goodness for small mercies. She let herself into the house, tore off her clothes, threw them into the washing machine, poured in detergent, set it to wash. Ran upstairs to the bathroom and took a shower, then went to bed.

  And tried to forget.

  29

  Friday, March 22, 11:30 p.m.

  Following the graveside service, Dad put Brittany into the backseat, Anne got into the front passenger seat, and as Dad started the engine and drove out of the cemetery, Brittany was suffused with a strange and unyielding joy. Yes, joy. She’d just buried her mother, but now she was free of her step-father and her dismal life in Shelbyville.

  She’d put it all behind her and move on to her wonderful new life in Chicago.

  Daddy pulled out onto the highway, onto westbound I-74. It’d be the last time, ever, in her life, she’d ride on this highway. Thank God.

  Brittany sat in the backseat of her dad’s sleek black, two-door Mercedes. Her step-mother sat in the front passenger seat. Daddy was going to trade in this car for a Mercedes van; her step-mother was pregnant, and it would be too cumbersome to have to bend over and deal with a pumpkin seat every time they went on a drive.