Ear-Witness (7 page)

The footsteps came closer and closer, then stopped. He was in the doorway, just a few feet away from me. The beam of the flashlight played around the room, passing me, then moving back, searching me out. I cringed into a corner, there was no other place to go. The light found my face, and blinded me. It glared steadily for what seemed like hours but could only have been seconds. My teeth rattled.

“Don't kill me,” I cried. “I'm only the babysitter!”

My knees collapsed under me and I sank to the floor, unsteady with the baby's extra weight. The light followed. This was the end, for both of us. I knew it. He was the murderer, back to bump off the witness to his crime. The innocent person he thought was the witness. The innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Brianna twisted her head away from the light, and whimpered. I held her tighter. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, almost deafening me. Then the man whispered something, or he laughed, I couldn't tell which; a familiar noise, like a gush of air escaping from a half-blown balloon or the hiss of a cornered cat. It was followed by darkness. Steps, running steps, retreated down the hall. The screen door banged shut and heavy thudding noises moved down the stairs, becoming fainter and fainter, until there was silence. Brianna was awake now, and scared. She howled. I covered her with tears of relief.

Then Flavia was back, and behind her, Carlos. They were holding candles stuck in kitchen glasses. Carlos was fierce, with a huge carving knife in one hand and a smaller one in his teeth.

“He's gone,” I said. The candlelight was gentle, and hid my face. “We're fine.”

After the killer left we paraded carefully down the front stairs to the Orellanas' apartment. As soon as we got there I handed Brianna over to Flavia, and collapsed into the depths of a huge armchair. Mrs. Orellana was lighting more candles, setting them on little saucers and placing them around the room.

Carlos folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “Somebody should do something about the lights,” he said. “We can't stay in the dark all night.”

Was it my imagination or was everybody looking at me? I didn't want to think about the lights. I didn't want to think about anything, but I forced myself to respond. “You can turn the power for the whole building off and on with a big switch,” I said. “It's in the basement.”

“Where?” Carlos asked.

“If you go down the stairs and keep going,” I said, “you'll come to the back wall. The fuse box is right there. It's not hard to find,” I added.

Nobody said anything. Nobody volunteered.

What I should have said was I'm
not going
. What I actually said was “I'm not going alone.” Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy. A few minutes later Carlos and I were standing side by side in the front lobby. When I yanked the basement door open, a quick scraping sound echoed up the stairs.

“Something's down there,” I whispered.

We stood quietly, listening. “Perhaps it was a mouse,” Carlos said. “Or a rat.”

We held our candles out in front of us, and even though the stairs were wide enough for two, Carlos let me go ahead. I made my
way down, right foot ahead each time, left catching up. On the nineteenth step I felt a change. The railing ended and I stepped onto the cement floor of the basement.

“We're here,” I said. “The hall runs from front to back, like in the apartments. There's a fire exit at the other end, but hardly anybody uses it.”

On the way to the fuse box we passed the closed doors of the furnace room, the storage room, the garbage room and the laundry room. The laundry room? I moved my candle so I could take a better look. The door was shut. But how could it be, when it was always, always kept open? Wedged open, with a little triangle of wood, because of all the heat and steam.

Panic hit me, hard. The noise I heard when we stood at the top of the stairs wasn't a mouse. It wasn't even a rat. It was the dull scraping sound wood makes when it's dragged over cement; the sound of a door being forced shut, a door that had been propped open for years. My mind was jumping all over the place but I knew one thing for sure. That door hadn't moved by itself.

The man in Tammi's apartment had run down the back stairs, and the back stairs ended right beside the fire exit from the basement. You didn't have to be a genius to figure out who was behind that door.

I made a quick decision. If the murderer wanted to hide in the laundry, that was just fine with me. What I was going to do was turn the power back on. Then I was going to get out of there, as fast as my legs would carry me.

The fuse box was in a cubbyhole near the back door. I held my candle up to it, and pointed to the master switch.

“It is too high to reach,” Carlos said. “I will lift you, and you can do it.”

I grimaced into the dark. “I'm pretty heavy,” I said.

“You are perfect,” Carlos said. He put his candle on the floor and squatted beside it.

I climbed onto his back and swung my legs over his shoulders. Carlos grunted. Then he grunted some more, and I swayed upwards until the big switch was right in front of me. It was painted red. I pushed with one hand at the side that was sticking up. Then I pushed again. I couldn't move it. It didn't help that my hand was shaking.

“Can you take my candle?” I said. My voice was shaking too.

Carlos reached up, and as I lowered the glass, the flame blew from side to side and shadows jumped across the wall. I pushed the
switch again, really hard, with two hands this time. There was a loud snap, and light poured down from the hall fixture at the top of the stairs. The basement was still dark.

I slid from Carlos's shoulders to the floor. When I stepped away from him, his hand pulled at my arm.

“Jess,” he whispered. “Don't go.” His hand moved up to my shoulder. “I want to kiss you.”

“Now?” I said. I swung my eyes towards the laundry and swallowed hard.

“You did not say
no,”
he said. “So I believe you mean
yes.”
His face moved towards me and his mouth pressed softly against the side of my mine, sort of half on and half off. Probably I wasn't doing it right, but he didn't seem to mind. When I pulled away, it wasn't because I didn't like kissing him, it was because I couldn't concentrate. I kept listening for that door, for the scraping noise it would make when it opened.

“You can't stop now!” Carlos said.

“I have to!” I answered. It wasn't what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was
There's a murderer in the laundry!
What I wanted to do was run. So that's what I did.

“Tea, with honey,” Mrs. Orellana said. “Perhaps toast too.”

I nodded gratefully. Although the Orellanas' apartment was warm, I was having temperature problems. I was hot, then cold, then hot again, or hot with the shivers. Even worse, there were constant replays going on in my head: glass breaking and a hand coming through a window; a light shining in my face; a killer laughing at me.

“We should call the police,” I said. “I think that man is still in the building.” Then I explained about the laundry door.

Mrs. Orellana set the kettle on the stove, and looked at Carlos, who slouched down in his chair and stared at me through thick eyelashes.

“If that guy was down there, he'll be gone by now,” he said. “We should wait and let Mrs. Tammi call. It is her apartment.”

Flavia held two pieces of bread suspended over the toaster. She glanced first at her mother, then at me, and nodded in agreement.

I'd left a note on Tammi's door, but we heard her come in. When I went into the hall to meet her, I explained everything that had happened; how the man had broken in, and how I thought he was still in
the basement. “We haven't called the cops yet,” I added. “We were waiting for you. Do you want to do it now? I could talk to them.”

Her face glazed over, as if I was really bugging her. “I'll do it, Jess. I mean, it's my apartment, right?”

“You can't go back there, Tammi,” I said. “It's you he's after! Do you want to stay with me?”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she rolled her eyes like I was the dumbest kid alive. “I'll be fine,” she said. “I have a gun.” She patted her purse. “My friend Terri lent it to me.”

Carlos crowded into the doorway. “Show me?” he asked.

Tammi glared at him and shook her head. “No,” she said.

That night I slept in Mom's room. There's a door there too, with a window in it, just like at Tammi's. The hall light was on, I'd put a hammer on the night-table beside me, and the phone was beside it, programmed to dial 911 at the push of a button. I was prepared for anything, even a murderer.

I drifted in and out of sleep, fighting it, afraid to let go. Nightmares and flashbacks all twisted together like the strands of a French braid. I heard footsteps on the back stairs, someone tapping at a door, which opened, then closed again. I jumped awake, my heart thumping in my chest, but there was no one there, only the tail-end of a dream. I slept. Then something, or someone, was banging or maybe hammering; it was a familiar sound, one I'd heard before.

I woke to sunlight, and the rich smells of coffee and bacon. Someone was knocking on the bedroom door.

“Jess?” Raffi said. “Want breakfast?”

“Sure. Give me a minute.”

“Ten.”

I snuggled back into Mom's duvet and thought about the one nice thing that happened; Carlos, and my first kiss ever. I rubbed my mouth with my fingers, wondering how it felt to him, to his lips. Then I kissed the back of my hand, and pretended it was him. I wished he'd tongue-kissed me, because I couldn't figure out how people did it, and whether it was disgusting or not, and there was no one I wanted to ask. Then I pulled the duvet over my head, and thought about him some more, and tried to figure out what we'd do to each other next. It was hard to believe that I finally had a boyfriend, but it felt wonderful. I could hardly wait to tell Kelly.

“Jess,” Mom said. “I thought you wanted breakfast. Aren't you hot under there?”

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely. Cooking.”

My mother had a cow, of course. A-pacing-up-and-down-the-liv-ing-room, clutching-her-elbows-with-her-opposite-hands cow. Not about Carlos and me, because you can't get all upset about something you don't even know about. What got her going was me being in Tammi's apartment and the killer coming back. Not that I blamed her — it got me going too.

“That's it,” she roared. “No more babysitting!”

She hadn't been that upset since she and my father had their big fight when I was twelve. “No more babysitting?” I said. “What am I supposed to do for spending money?”

“Use your head, less. No more babysitting for Tammi. Oh, I feel so guilty! I should never have let you go, never! You could have been k-k-killed!”

Mom was so nice sometimes, but I wished she wouldn't bawl, it made me feel guilty, like everything was my fault. I put my arm around her. “You couldn't have known,” I said.