Witness Read online

  Truthfully, though, Brittany loved feeling protected and safe inside a two-door car. It didn’t make her feel at all uncomfortable or cramped. She liked the security of knowing she couldn’t open a car door and leap out of the car, because, sometimes, she did get that terrible feeling, a sudden desire to escape.

  “The lab tests came back normal,” her step-mother said to her dad.

  “Tres bien,” Daddy said in French. He glanced over the back seat and smiled at Brittany and she smiled back. “Are you all right, ma Cherie?” Daddy asked.

  “Yes, Daddy, I am.”

  Everything with her dad and step-mother was going to be normal and happy and peaceful and quiet.

  The adults spoke quietly as Brittany idly scanned through her cell phone messages. After a minute, she reached into her backpack, pulled out her digital camera, and scrolled through the photos on her digital camera.

  I will never forgive that asshole for he did to my mother.

  With every photo of the bruises on her mother’s face, her rage grew.

  “Do you want to stop for dinner on the way home, honey?” Dad asked from the front driver’s seat.

  “No, Daddy, I’m fine.”

  Her step-mother turned around and gave her a loving smile and Brittany returned the smile, but no matter how hard her step-mother tried, it’d never reach the level of love Brittany had felt for her own mother, for Miranda, but Miranda was now dead, and Brittany had to be practical. It was essential that she remain practical. She’d found her mother, dead, hanging from a noose in the dining room, and from that moment on, her world had cantilevered one-hundred and eighty degrees on its axis, and she’d never be the same girl again.

  Her beautiful mother, with the lovely, porcelain-white skin, had been damaged forever after. Her face, bloated, black, swollen with blood, and with eggplant-purple-stained eyelids, her tongue hanging out, her eyes bugging out of her head, oh, it’d been a terrible thing to behold, this vision of her poor, dear mother, hanging, dead. Her mother, who thought the world of her, who did everything to help Brittany do well in school, in gymnastics, in piano, and so supportive and loving; a tender-hearted mommy, and Brittany had loved her mother right back.

  But all the love in the world hadn’t been enough to save her.

  She looked out the window, unseeing, at the scenery passing by, and it surprised her only a little to notice her lack of tears, even as she thought of her mother. Well, she’d cried a lot for her; she’d wept buckets, and so, she supposed, even she might be forgiven for not crying every single time her thoughts returned to her mother.

  That girl . . . why’d she shock Brittany, and for no good reason?

  Mommy did admit to her once that she’d been depressed her whole life. Mommy had gone to see a psychiatrist and—oh, the way Randy behaved, making that whirly-gig motion with his finger at his ear, to indicate that her mother was as crazy as a loon—the psychiatrist apparently had tried to talk Mommy into leaving Randy and taking Brittany with her and staying at the House of Peace, and Brittany had no idea all this had been going on, but if Mommy had only told her what her psychiatrist said, that she was being abused, that both she and Brittany’s lives were in danger, and that Mommy needed to leave her home right now, and if only, oh, if only Mommy had told Brittany even a few of these things, then Brittany would’ve been the first to pack her bags and stand at the door, hollering for Mommy to come join her, get into the car, mom, let’s get the hell out of this house and away from this horrible, horrible man.

  Tears of rage filled her eyes and she dashed them away as quickly as they formed. Oh, how she hated that awful man, that terrible man, and yes, she was ninety percent sure he’d killed her mother, but then again, oh, Mommy had been so muddled in the week leading up to her death. Brittany saw it all now, in crystal clear colors. One night, Mommy came running in from the attached garage, panting, scared, frightened.

  “I almost tried to suffocate myself, Brittany,” Mommy said, as she downed a glass of water. “I closed the garage door and I got into my car and I turned on the engine and I decided I’d let myself die of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  A tremor of terror flitted through her. Why did Mommy want to kill herself and leave her behind? What in the world would Randy have done to Brittany if Mommy had succeeded in killing herself? Oh, it was horrible, terrible, too terrible to think of, because if Mommy had killed herself, Randy would’ve hit Brittany, and then warned her not to tell anyone, and then, oh what? Well, the ambulance would’ve arrived and taken Mommy’s body to . . . where, exactly? A funeral parlor? The morgue? Oh, she didn’t know, and what did it matter after all, for Mommy was dead.

  “It was a mistake to let her stay here as long as she did,” her stepmother said in a low voice to daddy, but Brittany had good hearing and she caught every word.

  Yes, it’d probably been a mistake, because when that girl, that stupid girl went and opened her mouth—

  “I think so too,” Dad said. “But we need never come back here, ever again.”

  “What about Miranda’s estate?”

  Brittany’s ears pricked up. Mommy had an estate? What was an estate? Did it come with a castle? Why didn’t Mommy tell her she had an estate?

  “The house,” Dad said, “was bought in Randy’s name only, and he assured me that Miranda didn’t contribute anything to the purchase price, and she was a stay-at-home mom, so she didn’t contribute to the mortgage payment, so the house is his.”

  “You believed him when he told you that?” the stepmother scoffed. “Doesn’t she have a dower interest in the house? If he’d died, she would’ve inherited it.”

  Dad smiled wryly at her. “Let’s put it this way. It’s easier not to fight with him about the house. Miranda had no cash equity in the house.”

  “But if Randy decides to sell, he’ll have to prove he’s a widower, won’t he?”

  “Yes, but he can hire a lawyer to draw up a Survivorship Deed for him and attach a certified copy of Miranda’s death certificate to it, and then file it.”

  “So, he profits from her death,” the stepmother said.

  “Not really,” Dad said. “He showed me the closing papers from when they bought the house, and the deed doesn’t have her name on it, only his, and he showed me the bank account he cashed out when he came up with the down payment, and he showed me proof of the closing papers, and he was the only one working, so . . . he established for me enough proof that Miranda doesn’t have any interest in the house.”

  “Not anymore,” the stepmother said darkly.

  “That’s right, not anymore,” Dad said.

  “And the Mercedes?”

  “Again,” Dad said, using his I’m-speaking-patiently-to-you-but-you’re-starting-to-wear-me-out voice, “the Mercedes he paid cash for, out of a premarital bank account, and again, it’s in Randy’s sole name.”

  “For a Sheriff,” the stepmother said with acid, “he sure has a lot of money on his hands, doesn’t he?”

  “He is the Sheriff of Rowan County, and he’s worked in law enforcement his whole life,” Dad said, quite reasonably.

  “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t ask to keep Brittany, just so he could get her SSI check.”

  A tremor of terror flitted through Brittany.

  What?

  “If Brittany had been a little girl, and he’d had time to bond with her for the year or so he and Miranda were married, he might’ve made a claim to keep her.” Dad shrugged, clearly indifferent. “But Brittany hates his guts and he knows it, so he knew that wouldn’t fly.”

  “SSI? Brittany asked aloud, unable to help herself. “What’s that?”

  Dad gazed at Brittany through the reflection in the rear-view mirror. “Honey, were you listening in?” He looked to her stepmother and sighed. “I knew we shouldn’t have discussed this in front of her.”

  “What’s SSI?” Brittany asked, leaning forward and placing her arms on the headrests.

  Dad explained. “When a parent dies,
the federal government looks at that parent’s wage history and the money that’s been paid into social security during that parent’s lifetime and comes up with a number that represents the amount of money the surviving children and spouse will receive for that deceased parent. There’s a lump-sum award, and then a monthly stipend until the child turns eighteen, and until the parent remarries or dies.”

  “Oh.”

  “Your mother worked as a school teacher for many years, before she—before she retired . . . and married Randy.”

  Daddy was speaking to her in a carefully modulated voice. What frightened him?

  “I get money?”

  “Well,” Dad said, smiling slightly, “the money comes to me, as your guardian, but yes, it’s money meant for you, and I’m putting every penny of it into a college fund for you.”

  “Who gets the money for the spouse?” Brittany asked.

  “Randy will get a certain amount each month, as your mother’s surviving spouse, every month, until he either remarries or dies.”

  “Really?” Brittany was shocked to hear this. “Even though he killed her?”

  An awestruck silence filled the space.

  After a long moment, Daddy said, “What makes you say that, honey?”

  Brittany clamped her mouth shut.

  “Honey?” her stepmother asked, turning to look at her. “What makes you say that?”

  “Was it wrong for me to say that?” Brittany asked in a small voice.

  “No,” Daddy said. “Honey, it wasn’t wrong for you to say that, but I’m just curious . . . what made you say that?”

  Brittany felt suddenly and horribly as if she’d said a bad thing.

  “I don’t know for sure, but this girl at school said—”

  Dad thumped the heel of his hand, hard, against the steering wheel. “I knew I shouldn’t have let her go back to that school.”

  “What did this girl at school say to you, honey?” the stepmother asked.

  “I don’t remember,” Brittany said, slinking back against the seat. “I don’t remember.”

  Dad and stepmother exchanged glances and didn’t talk of her mother the rest of the trip home to Chicago.

  30

  Friday, March 22, 11:00 a.m.

  As Grandpa drove in his old-man, slow, luxurious way to the Gallatin Brothers Funeral Home and Crematorium, Ginny’s heart sank as they drove past the entrance. She saw a line of school-children and parents and teachers snaking around the block.

  “We’ll be here forever,” she said mournfully.

  “We can still go home, you know.”

  “No, it’s all right.”

  Grandpa parked the car and they got out and walked to the end of the line and a few people ran up and got in line behind them and the line grew even longer.

  It took several forevers, but slowly, ever so slowly, the line shortened and she and Grandpa found themselves out of the bright sun and on the shady front porch of the funeral home, and then they found themselves inside the foyer, with a tri-fold easel set up with Mrs. Randalls’s photo on it; the lady smiled, she looked happy, nothing like the person she saw that terrible day . . .

  She shivered.

  Grandpa put his hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Okay.”

  They moved slowly into the funeral home parlor and away from the agonizing gaze of a once-happy Mrs. Randalls, disappearing inside the bowels of the funeral home for a good long while, turning first this corner, then that corner, then, suddenly, and shockingly, she came around a corner and saw a casket and there, standing in front of the casket stood the man who’d been stringing Mrs. Randalls up that day, and off and away from him, at the head of the casket, stood Brittany and a handsome, dark-haired man who must be her father.

  Sheriff Randy Randalls stood in front of the casket in such a way that he got greeted first, and then the mourner walked over to Brittany, who stood at the head of the casket, and looked down occasionally upon her mother’s pretty blonde hair and stroked her mother’s hair, with tears in her eyes, and Ginny thought it was a little bit creepy to stroke the hair of a dead woman, but then again, who was she to judge? She had no idea how she’d behave if it were her mother, dead, still as a stone, and lying in a casket.

  And then Ginny noticed a handsome man standing close to Brittany, and Ginny realized it must be Brittany’s father.

  Ginny didn’t want to do this, but she couldn’t help it, Mrs. Randalls was just there, and so hard to avoid, and so she kept sneaking peeks at the dead woman’s heavily-made-up face. She’d died by a hanging, and she knew there’d be a dark line of bruises around the neck, and on top of that, she knew from accidentally watching a YouTube video on autopsies, that Mrs. Randalls, who’d undergone an autopsy, had been cut open and gutted, but all these thoughts felt transparent and unnecessary in the scented air of the room, and besides all that, the thing lying in the casket appeared to be not of this world. A creature of wax, with a doll’s golden, shining blonde hair, pink cheeks, rosy lips, with her hands crossed over her stomach, and wearing a blue dress with a white Peter-Pan collar ending just below the chin, concealing all those hideous bruises.

  How fake, how lovely, how false.

  But still, she longed to approach, to look at Mrs. Randalls up close, and see if she could discern the signs of Mrs. Randalls’s death.

  When she and Grandpa reached Sheriff Randalls, Grandpa pushed Ginny behind him as he stepped forward to shake the Sheriff’s hand. They said a few words, then, Grandpa, with a proprietary air, walked her over to Brittany.

  The Sheriff didn’t acknowledge her, but she did sense him gazing at her out of the corners of his eye.

  Did he recognize her? Did he know she’d seen him?

  A tremble of terror overcame her and she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake in coming here. She sidled away from the Sheriff and approached Brittany.

  A few minutes later.

  There’s that girl again.

  Brittany stood there, stone-faced, unsmiling, watching impassively as Ginny what’s-her-name walked toward her and held out her right hand. Brittany didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know what to think. All so surreal, so unbelievably weird and strange. Just finding herself back in this town felt unreal. She’d spent the last four days at her dad’s townhouse in downtown Chicago, and in just the four days she’d been there, she’d discovered, to her pleased surprise, how well she was going to adapt to her big-city life; coming back here for her mother’s funeral, had only brought back to her just how desperate, just how awful, just how fraught with terror and fear, her life here in Shelbyville had been.

  And the number one reason for her pain?

  The asshole standing guard over her mother’s casket, not five feet away from her, standing there as if he had every right to be there. He’d killed her mother; this she knew. But what the hell was she going to do about it? And now, to make things even worse, she saw the girl who’d walked up to her and told her what she’d seen.

  I saw him kill your mother.

  None of this made sense. It was crazy. Here she stood, walking and talking and acting like a normal person, and not at all like a person who’d lost her mother, but a person behaving like a good girl. She knew the mantra, she knew it well; be a good girl, work hard, study, and life will be wonderful, right?

  Well, it didn’t work out too wonderfully for her poor mother, did it?

  And the man who’d killed her was standing near the casket and wiping his eyes—wiping his eyes! —as if he were the beloved husband, when she knew full well what he’d done.

  “Hi, Brittany,” Ginny said.

  But Brittany had reached her limit. She’d been a good girl every time Mom and Randy had a fight; she’d done what Mom told her, she’d run upstairs to her room and locked the door and hidden under the bed, for just in case the asshole came after her. But didn’t call 911—Mommy said not to do it—even though she dearly longed to. She�
��d wanted to call 911 every single time Randy laid a hand on her precious mother, but Mommy had told her not to do it, that 911 was to be called only in the event of an emergency, a life-or-death event, and while Brittany didn’t agree with her mother—Randy hit really hard and didn’t care where his punches landed—and so she’d wanted to call 911 every time Randy hit her mother, but Mommy said no, it’d ruin Randy’s career, and at the back of her mind, Brittany had kept asking herself this question, over and over, the words forming a loop in her mind, the perpetual and unanswered question.

  Why the hell did Mommy put up with it?

  Wittenberg. That’s right. That was the girl’s name. Ginny Wittenberg, and she knew what Ginny Wittenberg wanted to say to her, but she’d heard it all before, over and repeatedly, and she didn’t want to hear it again; she knew what Ginny wanted to say, and so, even as Ginny approached her, she walked past Ginny, past the girl’s grandfather, and suffused with rage, walked right up to Randy Randalls. He was accepting condolences from some official-looking man she recognized from somewhere, but it didn’t matter. She was never going to see this man ever again, for the rest of her life; and for one time and one time only in her life, she was not going to be a good girl, and she was going to tell this man what she thought of him, what she really thought of him.

  At first, Daddy didn’t notice what she was doing. Daddy knew her well, and if he’d known what she planned to do, Daddy would’ve stopped her dead, but Daddy didn’t see her, and so she moved toward her former step-father. Dad had done everything in his power to protect from Randy and prevent her from having anything to do with Randy, and for this she was grateful, but for just one solitary minute, she was going to tell this asshole what she really thought of him.

  And the whole world would know.