If the Witness Lied (15 page)

The faded old sofa is gone. A small sleek couch is in its place. If there is such a thing, it’s a one-person couch.

The big TV is still in the front room. Dad almost never went there. After eating dinner, and putting Tris to bed, and cleaning up, he’d lie on his sofa, using the little kitchen TV as radio, listening but not looking, letting a sports commentator be his lullaby. Smithy often snuggled up. Sometimes they didn’t even talk. You don’t always need to talk. Sometimes you just warm yourself by the fireplace of your dad’s presence, and everything is better because he is there.

Tris will never know that feeling.

Smithy’s cell phone rings. She can almost feel Cheryl’s rage bouncing off transmitters on distant hills.

Worse, Angus will be over his shock. He’ll be planning how to turn Smithy’s behavior to his advantage. The camera crew is probably out of the van. Perhaps Angus is narrating into a microphone. The dear saintly aunt, in her struggle to keep the sad remnants of this family together, locked out of her own house by the—

But the caller is Madison.

Smithy sobs into the phone. “Madison! What’ll I do? I’m in the house. I locked Cheryl out. The TV crew is in the front yard. I’m in here alone. Madison, it doesn’t even feel like our house! Come and get me. No, don’t! They’ll just film us.”

*   *   *

Yet again, Jack puts Tris’s helmet on and straps him into the bike seat. Dunkin’ Donuts will be warm. Tris loves donuts, and they can sit as long as they want.

Jack’s route takes him past the empty football field. Incredibly, the school day is not yet over, so the team is not yet practicing.

His friends tell Jack, Leave Tris in day care. He isn’t your responsibility. Let your aunt pick him up! Get back on the team!

They’re right, and Jack has never been sure why he took on Tris like a permanent after-school job. Now he knows. At the back of his mind, he has known all along: this woman is evil. Jack cannot leave his little brother with her.

Jack misses sports so much his muscles ache. When he watches a game (Watches! How has this happened to him? How can he be a spectator, and not a player?), his hands feel the texture of the football, his toe pivots to change direction, his arms tighten to make the throw.

Baseball is his true love, of course. He’s teaching Tris. They use a foam ball and a light plastic bat. It’s pretty boring.

This whole season long, whenever Jack starts to watch a ball game on TV, he has to walk away. What good is it without Dad there to cheer and yell? Dad always kept up a running commentary on the plays—courteous if Mom was around to listen; swear words and vulgarities if she was not. Jack and Dad shared an easy conspiracy in their baseball attitudes.

Time is elastic. Time softened his sisters, and eventually Time will give him the sixteenth birthday he yearns for. But the time in which they can stop Cheryl is slipping away.

Suppose Jack goes to the police this afternoon with these photographs and his new explanation about how Reed Fountain died.

Suppose they believe him. The first thing they will do is remove Tris from Cheryl’s care. They won’t give him to Jack. Online (the only place Jack has ever done research), the worst stuff is the easiest to find. Jack has turned up hideous situations where foster parents abuse the children with whom they’re entrusted. He knows most foster parents must be good people who love little kids. But life has already thrown Tris around. Jack can’t risk letting anything else happen. Besides, online it says that the average stay in foster care is three years.

Tris would be six.

And suppose Jack goes to the police and they
don’t
believe him?

Cheryl will have the ammunition she needs to put
Jack
in foster care. Jack can probably find parents of friends who’ll take him in temporarily. Or maybe Wade will find a boarding school for Jack, too, and ship him out of state. Or maybe he’ll end up in a juvenile detention facility where everybody else is a drug dealer.

Jack would survive any of that. But would Tris? Because there would be no Tris protection team left to prevent the filming of the docudrama and no big brother to stand between Tris and his own father’s murderer.

Jack makes a quick detour into the parking lot of a chain pharmacy that has a large photo department. Once again, Jack frees his little brother from his child seat, fibbing about why they’re here. Now he has to distract Tris, who will want to push all the buttons and examine all the photos. “Down this aisle?” he
says to Tris. “Toys. Candy. Pick one of each. I’ll meet you at the checkout.”

Please don’t anybody kidnap him right now, Jack thinks, jogging over to the self-service photo counter. The procedure is fast but takes a lot of steps. Jack makes mistakes. He’s sluggish from the shock of Cheryl’s lies and actions. While he’s waiting, he downloads the pictures to his own e-mail, to Madison and Smithy and, after some thought, to Wade.

For a long time he had the idea that Wade was the guy’s first name. It’s actually Mr. Wade, a classmate of Dad’s from college who does not live nearby. He was executor of Dad’s will, and the judge appointed him trustee of the money. Now he will be the trustee of something else.

Jack takes a white envelope from the pile on the counter, slides the prints in, seals it and puts it into his backpack along with the boots.

Wait.

If the photographs are not sufficient evidence, Jack can’t just give up. Obviously, his next move is to find more evidence. Not only has he never looked in Dad’s cell phone before, he’s never looked in Dad’s laptop or briefcase. He didn’t save these for their content—he saved them because he saved everything that was Dad’s.

There’s got to be a reason Cheryl took a terrible risk and did a terrible thing. Can there be a virtual or paper file or clue?

Tris tugs at his pant leg. His little brother has chosen Cheetos, which Cheryl never buys because they turn his fingers
yellow. Cheryl never lets him have anything that will render him sticky, which is practically every food out there. Tris’s normal state is sticky. For his toy, Tris has picked out a set of tiny metal cars enclosed in heavy plastic. Big print says “Ages five and up.”

“Fine,” says Jack.

*   *   *

How calm and reassuring Madison’s voice is. Smithy hasn’t heard it in so long. It’s like really good music.

“Go straight out the back door, Smithy. I’ve got my car. I’m coming for you. I’m at the library, so I’m just a mile away, it’ll take me only a few minutes. Go through the woods and I’ll meet you on Kensington. So far today Jack and I have each run through the woods, so those people are used to it; they figure we’re nutcases who are always thrashing through thorns. Don’t look behind you. There’s no video value in the back of somebody’s head. I can’t stay on the phone with you. It would be too crummy to get pulled over for talking on my cell while driving, and what else do the police in this town have to do?”

Smithy is out of the house like a shot. She’s halfway across the wet grass before the glass door of the breezeway slaps shut behind her. She races toward the path Dad and Jack made so many years ago, in that other life. Are the TV people laughing at her? Will Smithy’s role in this horrible documentary be her backside as she gallops like a cow across a pasture? “Mad, I can feel them back there snickering.”

“They don’t matter,” says Madison, which is the lie of the century. TV always matters.

Smithy is into the trees. Madison disconnects. I won’t cry, Smithy tells herself, but she’s been crying since she entered the kitchen. She has to use her sleeve to mop her nose. She slips in the wet underbrush, scrambles to her feet mud-streaked and bruised and slips a second time.

She can see where Jack went through—the thin roller mark of his bike tires—and geometric sneaker prints that may be Madison’s. The skid marks are her own. The neighbor is not going to be happy. On the other hand, the neighbor is not the outdoor type and with any luck, he won’t come down here till spring.

Smithy staggers up the slope from the little wilderness and comes out on Kensington. It’s a civilized street, with careful landscaping, symmetrical shutters and sealed garage doors. Smithy yearns for a life like that: neatly arranged, tidy and predictable.

Down the block, a car flashes its headlights.

*   *   *

Jack’s phone rings. There’s no law against speaking into your cell phone while riding your bike. He flips it open.

It’s Cheryl Rand.

Can he speak to this woman? Should he? Holding on to his waist is the little boy Cheryl orphaned and blamed.

We don’t have a plan yet, Jack thinks. We still need time. We haven’t even collected Smithy yet. I have to keep pretending
that nothing’s happening, because the instant I admit that I know, Cheryl will head in some direction that I can’t control.

Not that Jack can control any direction anyway.

“Hello, Cheryl.” He’s amazed how even his voice sounds.

It’s the first time Jack has omitted the word “aunt.” It’s liberating. The courteous acknowledgment of kinship is over. She’s not his aunt. She never was. She’s a predator.

There’s a pause, which is not like Cheryl. Either she notices he’s not calling her aunt or she’s got witnesses and is choosing her words carefully. “Jack, honey,” says Cheryl.

She’s got witnesses.

“It was wonderful of you to pick up the baby and take him to the soccer game. But it’s been raining on and off all day. I’m worried that he might catch a chill. I’ll come get you both.”

Jack has a brainstorm. “Valley,” he says. Valley Regional High School is a thirty-minute drive. “I’ll meet you in half an hour at the front door.” He disconnects, and notices Diana’s message waiting. He listens to her offer of help.

They reach Dunkin’ Donuts. Jack gets Tris down, removes both helmets, locks his bike and takes Tris into the warmth. His parents were big coffee drinkers who ground their own beans. The rich, coffee-scented air brings back the image of his mother brewing coffee, his father adding milk, the clink of spoons, the texture of bathrobes.

“You be the big boy,” Jack tells Tris, loud enough for the counterpeople to pick up their cue and smile. “You order the donuts, okay? I’ll find the seats.”

Tris is excited by this responsibility. He lets Jack have his
plastic bag with the Cheetos and the toy cars so that he can carry the donuts.

Jack is already finding speed dial, already sliding into a chair.

The woman at the counter leans way over to see Tris. “Hi,” she says. “What’s your name?”

Nobody ever figures this out, because Tristan is a rare name. This conversation is good for a whole minute, especially because the woman has a heavy accent—Spanish is Jack’s guess—and she is going to have trouble with Tris’s speech under any circumstances.

Jack is lucky.

Diana answers immediately.

*   *   *

Madison turns down Kensington. There’s Smithy, at the far end of the long block.

Smithy and I came home because of Dad’s birthday. Because we failed to celebrate it. In the end, there’s only one celebration Dad would want—for us to be a family again.

Madison has always felt that without parents there is no family.

Now, she thinks, we’ll always be orphans. But we can still be a family.

Madison stops the car, steps out and embraces the pale, thin, muddy girl who is her sister. “It’s okay,” she says, kissing Smithy’s cold cheek. Unlike Madison and Jack, Smithy has grown no taller this year. She feels little in Madison’s arms. Needy and scared. “It’s going to be okay,” Madison repeats.

Smithy lifts a tear-streaked face. “You think so?”

Madison’s heart soars. She is the big sister again. “I do. Now get in the car, quick, before those TV people drive around the block.”

“I’m muddy. What about your upholstery?”

“My upholstery is dying for evidence that my sister is sitting on it. Anyway, I threw an overnight bag into the backseat when I left the Emmers’. We’re going to meet Jack and Tris at Dunkin’ Donuts so we can talk. You can change into my clothes in the bathroom. Don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re together.”

“It’s not okay, Madison. The TV people are right there in our driveway, and I made it worse. This man Angus—”

“I met him. He’s a piece of work.”

“Well, he’s furious with me now and he’ll be against us, and against Tris, and now the docudrama will
really
be horrible, and where are we going to go after we have a donut? Even Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t let you spend the night.”

“They haven’t gotten us yet, Smithy. They haven’t gotten Tris, either. We’re still ahead.”

Smithy takes a hunk of tissues from a little box balancing precariously between the front seats. She flips open the mirror behind the visor to inspect the mud damage, and moans.

“So listen up,” says Madison. “There’s been a development.”

*   *   *

Diana is in her last class. The final class on a Friday is often a dud, but not today. It’s political science, and in early November,
with elections only hours off, the class has a lot to contribute. When Diana’s cell rings, everybody else is irked, because
they
remembered to turn
theirs
off.

Diana gives the teacher a snarky fake smile, and stage-whispers, “Have to go to the bathroom.” This is an obvious—in fact, audible—lie, because everybody heard her phone ring. But at the tail end of the school day, the teacher is tired of the whole cell phone war. She waves Diana out into the hall as if swatting a mosquito.

It’s so close to the end of class she might as well head for her car. “Jack?”

“Diana, I need you to do something for me. Please. I’ve gotten Cheryl out of the house. She’s going to Valley because she thinks Tris and I are at a soccer game there. While her side of the garage is empty, I need you to pull down the attic stairs and go up and get Dad’s laptop and briefcase. If her car’s there, you can’t get the stairs down, so you won’t be able to do it. I don’t want Cheryl to know the stairs exist, never mind that the laptop and briefcase exist. Can you do it? Right now? There isn’t much time.”

Diana is attracted to this. It sounds both criminal and adventurous, but with nothing bad actually happening. However, Diana is a careful person—the perfect babysitter; probably the perfect future assistant principal. “What’s the rush? She’ll go shopping the minute you and Tris get home anyway. She’ll be out of the house and you can get it yourself.”