The Witness Read online

  The Witness

  A Detective Christie Opara Mystery

  Dorothy Uhnak

  To my mother and father, with love: another promise kept

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  A Biography of Dorothy Uhnak

  ONE:

  CHRISTIE OPARA OPENED HER eyes and her body stiffened with the fear that she had overslept. She rolled onto her stomach and slid her fingers under the pillow. They curled around the small metal alarm clock and Christie held her breath until she saw the time: it was six-thirty. She had time, but not enough to lie back and close her eyes for just an extra minute. That was what had happened at six o’clock when the alarm shattered her sleep, and the minute had extended to half an hour. Moving mechanically, Christie got out of bed, placed the clock next to the radio on her dresser, turned on the radio and switched the air conditioner to high.

  The commentator was reporting various disasters around the world, starting with international events: wars, skirmishes, their losses, our losses; national scene: politics, strikes, an air crash in the Midwest; moving closer to home: report on New York State lottery winners; and then circling in on New York City. By the time he finished describing some racial clashes on the East Side and some anticipated picketing by some group or other, Christie had her bed made, her pajamas folded and put away. She wanted to know what the weather was going to be; that was what was important to her. Two quick commercials and then, finally, the cheerful voice advised that it would probably break 100 again for the fourth day in a row. Christie snapped the radio off. Great. Just great.

  She resisted the urge to let the shower run ice-cold over her. A tepid shower was better, although its effects wouldn’t really last long. A heat wave. On what was to have been the first week of her vacation, they were in the middle of a heat wave. Christie rubbed the towel over her body. Damn Reardon. He had no right to switch her vacation around.

  Christie flung the closet door open and searched indecisively among her dresses. Usually she had everything picked out before she went to bed: underwear, stockings, dress, shoes, pocketbook. But she hadn’t gotten to bed until after two. That was Reardon’s fault too. In a way. If she had gone out to Sag Harbor with Nora and Mickey, she wouldn’t have been out last night with Gene O’Brien. Christie pulled a yellow cotton dress out of the closet, her mind on Gene. Her underclothes felt sticky against her still-damp body. She needed some time away from Gene. She needed some perspective on the whole thing.

  Gene, at thirty, was a captain in the Police Department. Christie had first known him when he was Mike Opara’s partner, working in plainclothes. They had both made the sergeant’s list; Mike had been killed by a young narcotics addict and Gene hadn’t. Gene, a bachelor intent on his carefully planned career, had gone on studying, taking the tests, getting the promotions. He hadn’t come around as Mike’s friend, looking after Mike’s widow. In fact, Christie hadn’t seen Gene O’Brien until last Christmas at a P.D. Emerald Society party and they were surprised to see each other. He had followed her career in the Department through unofficial channels and, of course, through the newspaper publicity that had accompanied her rise to first-grade detective, but they had just never run into each other.

  The sight of Gene O’Brien had momentarily opened old wounds, but Christie had learned not to live in the past. She told him of her present: of her son Mickey, six years old and the living image of his dead father; of wonderful Nora, Mike’s widowed mother, who lived with them. She hadn’t told him about her job: just that she was assigned to the D.A.’s Special Investigations Squad, and that said as much as he should know or she would reveal. These last months Christie had seen Gene frequently, casually at first; then gradually their relationship had assumed an intensity, which Christie was not quite sure she wanted.

  Christie slipped the dress over her head and began to zip up the back. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stopped. Damn. She stepped out of the dress, slipped it back on the hanger. That would be a great dress for a tail job. Christie forced herself to plan. She needed something quiet and inconspicuous. She selected a lightweight blue denim shift, then dug in a drawer for some scarves. A bright-red print and a solid navy. Alternated, they could change her appearance enough.

  Christie carried the transistor down to the kitchen. The silence of the house depressed her. She made some toast and instant coffee after first reaching for some eggs and deciding against them. Nora spoiled her: bacon and eggs, fresh coffee, toast all ready. Nora insisted she wasn’t trying to add to Christie’s slight frame; she was merely setting a good example for her grandson. Christie licked beads of moisture from her upper lip. At least Mickey and Nora were out at the beach cottage. Christie’s brother Christopher had the usual mob out there: his wife and their four boys, a few cousins, Nora, Mickey. There was always room. She glanced at her watch. Her timing was good.

  The seven-o’clock news was a rehash of the earlier stories of continuing gloom, doom and despair, and Christie didn’t listen. As she rinsed the cup and plate, she began putting the blame exactly where it belonged.

  On Reardon. Casey Reardon. He had waited until Friday to inform her that instead of leaving for vacation, she had to postpone her plans for a week. The assignment didn’t make sense. And she wasn’t too sure of the legality of it, either. Christie dried the dishes and put them away and her mind lingered on that aspect of her assignment. It would seem to her that it wasn’t exactly legal for the Supervising Assistant District Attorney of New York County to assign a first-grade detective to tail his own daughter. The People of the City of New York might resent paying first-grade money to someone for following a college girl from Jamaica Estates to Columbia University for five days. Was someone trying to abduct the girl? Had Reardon received threatening phone calls or letters? If he had, he certainly hadn’t told Christie Opara.

  In fact, all Mr. Reardon had told Christie was that one of his twin daughters, Barbara, was taking a few summer courses at Columbia and the courses would end the first week in August. Something had come up, Reardon had said vaguely, and he wanted Christie to see that the girl got to the University and back home. Period. The expression on Reardon’s face had stopped Christie’s questions cold. He had waved his hand abruptly, then said, “I guess I don’t have to tell you that this is strictly between us—strictly confidential.” At least she had had the final word: “You were right the first time, Mr. Reardon. You don’t have to tell me.”

  Christie picked up a pair of torn sneakers and wondered if they were to be thrown out or if they were a favorite pair that Mickey had forgotten to take. She would ask him when she called tonight.

  Reardon’s assignment not only annoyed her; it unnerved her as well. What if Reardon’s daughter was planning to elope with some boy? Christie smiled at the thought. Maybe she’d be a witness at some hurried City Hall ceremony. After all, Reardon hadn’t instructed her. All he had said was “Use your judgment if anything comes up.
” Christie slipped sunglasses and tissues into her pocketbook and checked the vital contents: detective shield, .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, makeup case, comb, scarves and keys.

  She clicked the radio off in the middle of the 7:30 news. She couldn’t care less about demonstrations and racial violence this morning. Her main concern was the weather and it was hot.

  TWO:

  THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE two men was startling. In height, build, darkness of skin, lightness of eye, they could easily be mistaken one for the other. They were both twenty-three years old with high cheekbones, aquiline noses, thin lips, hair cropped to the contours of their skulls. Each was dressed in a white cotton knit shirt, which indicated the lean hardness of somewhat thin shoulders, and clean starched chinos, which emphasized the narrowness of hips.

  The dreariness of the small furnished room was filled with an intensity that seemed to bounce off the walls and furnishings, touching everything except Rafe Wheeler. He lay stretched the length of the lumpy mattress, his arms over his head, his eyes half closed in concentration on a small piece of plaster that was hanging by a tiny edge in the middle of an old ceiling pattern. His eyes shifted without blinking or widening to Eddie Champion.

  “Hey, man, can’t you just light somewhere? I mean, you been going like this all night. We don’t have long to wait now.”

  Champion whirled from the small window through which he could see nothing but a garbage-laden back alley. He yanked the stained window shade down and it snapped sharply and spun around the roller. “God damn,” he said, and pulled it back into place. His hands seemed alive with the need to hold onto something and he jerked a cigarette from his shirt pocket, put it between his lips, patted his trousers for matches, then tossed the cigarette in annoyance onto the small table.

  “You just lie there,” he said accusingly to Rafe Wheeler. “You just lie there like nothing.” His eyes narrowed against the dimness of the room and his hands worked along the intricate pattern of the footboard, grasping and sliding. His voice was low and hoarse. “What gets to you, man? I been wondering about you. I been wondering plenty about you.”

  Rafe sat up, pulling himself into a cross-legged position. His face was calm and relaxed. “You just go right on wondering, Champ.”

  “I mean it, Rafe. I seen you. Sleeping like a baby all night. Now, that’s just not natural. Considering.”

  Rafe smiled. “Why, you just like to go to pieces, Champ. I never expected that of you. I surely didn’t.”

  Champion’s body stiffened from his neck down to his feet. He felt his toes curl against the soles of his shoes, and his fingers tightened. “Listen, you cool bastard ...”

  A hardness crossed Rafe’s face but it was the only tensing visible. His posture was still easy, loose. “We supposed to keep it cool, remember? Maybe you keeping it all to yourself making it harder on you. But”—he moved his hand in the air “you tell me what you want to. Any way you want it, Champ. Maybe take some pressure off you, you tell me now what’s going to be.”

  Champion stood absolutely still, a flicker of suspicion pulling at his mouth. “Tell you when we get there. Soon enough. Tell you when I tell you, and you better be ready. I’m in charge of this operation and we do it my way.”

  “Be ready. For whatever.”

  Champion kneaded his fingers, hunched his shoulders, stretched his arms. He seemed to be trying to escape from his body. He rubbed his neck, and a long, ugly, wordless sound came from between his parted lips. He stalked to the window, pushed the shade aside, glared down into the alley. He looked at his wristwatch. “Seven-thirty. You got seven-thirty?”

  Without moving, Rafe confirmed the time. “Seven-thirty. We got two more hours.”

  Two more hours; the weight of time hit Champion. It was the heat of the room, the smallness of the place and that son of a bitch so untouched by it all. “The hell. Going out for some coffee.”

  “I’ll make us some fresh instant on the hot plate. Relax.”

  “Forget it. Sick of that crap. Need some real coffee and some air. I be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Rafe eased himself back onto the bed, stretched his body. “Suit yourself. Bring back a cool breeze, will you, baby?” He winked and smiled.

  Champion stood for a moment, regarding him thoughtfully; then he shrugged. “Okay, man, I’ll just do that.”

  Rafe Wheeler did not move for six minutes: six full minutes by his watch. There was no point in looking out the window; Champion wouldn’t be in the alley. He slipped his loafers off and walked silently to the door, opened it slightly, his body positioned so that his shadow wouldn’t be cast into the hallway. He listened for a moment without breathing, his teeth pressed tightly together, then eased himself out of the room. It was a break he hadn’t dared hope for and it had been Champion’s own idea. That made it even better.

  He removed the receiver from the wall phone and dropped a dime in the slot, shocked by the loud clang as the coin made contact. It was unnerving how loud an ordinary dial tone could sound. He dialed quickly, his slender brown finger impatiently picking out the next number before the dial returned from the previous spin. The phone rang twice and was interrupted midway through the third ring by a terse “Yeah?”

  “It’s me,” Rafe said. His whisper was loud in his own ear.

  “What’s up?”

  “Going to be a shooting this morning. At the construction site. He still don’t trust me enough to say who or why. But it’s going to be a real bad one. He’s got a gun. None of us is supposed to but I know he’s got a gun. He don’t know I saw it and—”

  “Yeah? Go on, kid. Anything wrong? Rafe?”

  Rafe stood with the receiver pressed against his ear, his voice frozen in his throat. He could hear words calling out to him from the earpiece and the rising concern in that normally quiet, steady, controlled voice.

  Champion had moved from the shadowed darkness behind the staircase and he was smiling and his voice was pleasant. “I knew it. God damn, but I just knew it.”

  Rafe said nothing. There was nothing to say, and even if there had been, he was physically unable to make a sound.

  “Don’t even tell the man goodbye,” Champion instructed softly. “Just hang up.”

  Rafe heard the voice as though it were inside of his head, calling out to him even after it was cut off abruptly when he replaced the receiver. As though hypnotized, he moved backwards into the room in response to the wordless but definite gestures of his roommate, who leaned against the door, shutting and locking it behind him.

  He had two sharp, distinct impressions. The first was that Eddie Champion was relaxed for the first time in days, his hand absolutely steady and certain as he pressed the nozzle of the .38 revolver against Rafe’s forehead. The second impression—the last Rafe Wheeler was ever to have—was that just before he squeezed the trigger, Champion’s eyes seemed to have turned the strangest color: almost yellow.

  THREE:

  CASEY REARDON SCOWLED OVER an article in The New York Times, making quick, uneven slashes with his pen under certain sentences, bracketing a paragraph to indicate that the article would bear closer reading later in the day. He reached absently for his cup, not noticing it was empty. He looked up, raising his chin slightly, indicating the cup.

  Katherine Reardon took the cup from her husband’s hand, carried it into the kitchen, and filled it with strong black coffee, adding one level spoonful of sugar and just a drop of milk. She caught a glimpse of herself, reflected in the gleaming window of the wall oven, adjusted a loose lock of dark hair, licked her lips. She intoned a silent prayer that Casey would forget about this second cup of coffee and leave for the office, but reentering the dining room, she realized it was too late.

  Her daughter Barbara hadn’t listened to her advice; she never did. Katherine should have expected it. Casey didn’t look up from his newspaper; he reached automatically for the cup which he knew would be placed at hand. Katherine tried to motion Barbara into the kitchen but th
e girl stood at her place and loudly greeted her father.

  “Good morning. Nice weather for a change, isn’t it?”

  Not looking up, Casey answered, “Good morning.”

  Still standing, the girl spoke in an unnaturally bright voice. “Good day for the day’s event, wouldn’t you say?”

  Casey raised his face, an expression of annoyance freezing his features. Slowly, he surveyed his daughter.

  Katherine brought the pot of coffee to the table, poured some for Barbara. “Sit down and eat something, Barbara.”

  “What the hell are you got up for?”

  Sitting now, stirring the coffee, buttering a piece of toast with nervous jabs, the girl said softly, “You know what for.”

  Casey clicked the ball-point open-closed, open-closed. “No. Tell me.”

  “You know,” the girl insisted.

  “I would say, judging from the evidence at hand, that you were going on a picnic or a field trip or maybe to rob a gas station. Dungarees, turtleneck”—he ducked his head down under the table—“and sneakers.”

  “You know,” Barbara said, her voice wavering.

  Casey’s voice hardened, his pale eyes seeming to fill with color. “No. I don’t know. Because, it seems to me—now, I may be wrong. God knows, I’m often wrong. At least in this house. But it seems to me we had a conversation about, oh, about two nights ago. Relative to your nonappearance at any rallies, strikes, protests, rabble-rousings, lynchings, book burnings, et cetera. It also seems to me that we discussed the entire matter quite thoroughly and came to some conclusions.”

  Her eyes dropped to the cup and she played her spoon over the surface of the coffee.

  “Look up at me when I talk to you!”

  She jerked her head up and the spoon leaped convulsively across the table, but her eyes met his steadily if with effort. Christ, those round eyes: Casey felt a surge of admiration and respect, of love and anger. Those familiar eyes, trying to stare him down. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”