The Outsider (James Bishop 4) (49 page)

Whitaker left Yeaton and came over to Bishop. He looked him up and down, and said, ‘You have any idea of the grief you’ve caused my office these last two days, Bishop? And not just us, either. Just about every sheriff’s office and police department from here to the West Coast has had men on the streets looking for you, and at the end of it our witness is still dead. So tell me, was it worth it?’

‘No question about it,’ Bishop said, glancing over at Barney, ‘and I’d do it all again if I had to. Look, am I under arrest or what? Yeaton was kind of vague on the subject.’

Whitaker sighed. ‘No, you’re not, at least not yet. However, you’ll remain in our custody until you’ve undergone a thorough debriefing by the relevant authorities, and I do mean
thorough
. Later we’ll take you over to our offices at the federal courthouse a couple of blocks from here and get started, but you can expect to write off the next two days, at least. And possibly longer.’

‘And I’m going to be in chains all that time?’

Whitaker studied him for a moment, then said, ‘I think we can probably lose the cuffs for now. Deputy?’

‘Sir.’ Yeaton came over, pulled a small pair of wire cutters from his utility belt and turned Bishop round.

‘Just so you know,’ Whitaker said, ‘at least two of my people will be with you at all times while you’re in this building, so don’t get any funny ideas.’

‘All I want is a quiet life,’ Bishop said. The cuffs were removed and he brought his hands round. ‘I’m curious, though. I got the impression from the news that I was Public Enemy Number One. How come we’re friends all of a sudden?’

‘The news media don’t know everything, Bishop. But we do. And over the last twenty-four hours we’ve been busy interviewing a number of people who were able to fill in a lot of blanks for us. There was a store owner named Clea Buchanan for one, and a pilot named Charles Hooper for another. Oh, and an old couple named Roger and Eleanor Souza. You remember them?’

‘Yeah, nice couple. I liked them. I like them even more now. So tell me, is the man himself here yet?’

‘If you mean Hartnell, he and his army of lawyers are due to arrive sometime within the hour. Although without the key witness I imagine it’ll only be a brief appearance.’

Raines came over and said, ‘Whitaker, I need to confer with Barney in private and he’s demanding that Bishop be present with him.’ He looked down at his wristwatch. ‘Time is of the essence, so if you don’t mind …’

‘Fine,’ Whitaker said. ‘I’ll be down on the second floor. Yeaton, you and Golinski remain at this door. Bishop doesn’t leave this room without you both accompanying him.’

‘If you’ll follow me,’ Raines said to Bishop, and entered the conference room with Barney. Bishop followed.

Inside, he saw five males and two females sitting around the conference table, all smartly dressed. A third woman was standing next to a water cooler, sipping from a paper cup. Bishop assumed they were all part of Raines’ staff. They all stopped what they were doing to stare at the newcomers. Bishop turned away from them and saw there was another door set into the left-hand wall. Raines had already opened it and stood there waiting.

Bishop went over and followed him into a small, spartan, windowless office. Lights hidden in recesses in the ceiling gave the illusion of natural daylight. The room contained a large desk with a phone, four chairs, and three steel filing cabinets set against the opposite wall. There were no decorations.

After shutting the door, Raines marched over and sat in the chair behind the desk with a heavy sigh. ‘Not much to look at, I know,’ he said, gesturing them to sit. ‘Our normal day-to-day offices are in the municipal court building across the way, but it’s convenient to have a couple of rooms set aside for us here for major cases.’

Barney took the middle chair while Bishop took the one on the left. He sat down, looked at Raines and said, ‘I have to say I’m impressed, Raines. I really am.’

The DA frowned at the spare office. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Impressed with what?’

‘At how you’ve managed to keep it a secret all this time. It’s pretty remarkable, actually. I only realized the truth a short while ago myself, although I admit the clues were there from the beginning. I guess I just didn’t pay them enough attention at the time.’

Barney was watching Bishop. Raines leaned forward and made a steeple of his hands. ‘And what have you learned, exactly?’

‘That John Strickland was nothing but a decoy,’ Bishop said, ‘used to divert attention away from the real witness.’

He turned to the boy. ‘His son, Barney.’

Barney gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry, Bishop. I would have told you before now, but I never got the chance.’

Bishop smiled. ‘No, I guess you didn’t. Not that it would have made any difference. So you were actually right there when Hartnell pulled the trigger? You were the one who saw it all first hand?’

‘Yeah, I saw everything.’

‘From your vantage point on the second floor of that old building we just left, right?’

The boy’s eyes widened a little. ‘How’d you know that?’

‘When you regained consciousness in that same building earlier you said you recognized it, but since from the inside it could have been anywhere I don’t see how you could have. Unless you
had
actually been in that building before, like on the night of the murder perhaps. So you want to tell me about it?’

The boy gave a small sigh. ‘It was all just bad luck, really. See, that night I was sleeping over at a friend’s house, which was kind of a regular thing with us. One week I’d stay at his and then the week after he’d stay with me. You know, watching movies and playing video games and stuff. Except this time he woke me up in the middle of the night and told me they’d got an emergency call a few minutes before. He said his grandfather over in Washington State had had a heart attack and he was in hospital and he wasn’t expected to live. He told me they were already packing for the next flight out, and that his mom had already called Dad … called Dad to come get me.’

Barney closed his eyes for a moment, no doubt thinking about his father. Then he opened them and went on, ‘So when Dad showed up I was still pretty groggy, but he told me he was already late for an important appointment and that I could just sleep in the back of the car while he drove there. So that’s what I did. When I woke up again, I saw I was wrapped up in a thick sheet and the car had stopped moving. It was still pretty dark out, but the sky was getting a bit lighter so I knew it was almost dawn, and I saw we were parked behind this old wreck of a building. I couldn’t see Dad anywhere, but I knew he’d be around somewhere so I got out the car and started exploring. It felt exciting at the time, you know? I could hear these weird machinery noises in the distance and I imagined I was the last man on earth and the robots had taken over. You know, like in the movies.’

‘I know,’ Bishop said. Sometimes it was easy to forget Barney was just a twelve-year-old boy, with a boy’s occasional need for make-believe.

Staring at the desk in front of him, Barney continued, ‘So I was doing my recon of the building and found some stairs and went up to the second floor, and then I started hearing voices from outside. I went to one of the front rooms and looked down and saw this limo with its lights on and five men stood around it. I could see ’em all clearly. There was Hartnell, and that guy from today, and some guy in a raincoat and baseball cap, and the undercover cop guy, and my dad. After a few seconds Dad started walking back to the car. I figured he’d freak if he didn’t find me there, so I was about to head back myself when I heard the voices getting louder and I stopped and went back to the open window.

‘Hartnell and this cop were arguing about something, then this guy in the raincoat pointed at Ferrera and said something. Then Hartnell turned to him and said, “Are you sure?” I remember that even now. And this guy in raincoat nodded back and said something else. Then Hartnell pulled a gun and just shot the guy right there, and he just kept pulling the trigger until the gun was empty.’

‘You must have been terrified,’ Bishop said.

‘Oh, yeah, I was. But I knew I had to be cool and stay quiet or I’d be next, so I made my way downstairs without making a single sound and then went back to the car. Except the car wasn’t there anymore, which totally freaked me out. See, Dad had just sped off thinking I was still under that sheet. I spotted the car about a hundred feet away, though, and ran after it, but I knew I couldn’t shout for him to stop or they might hear too. But luckily he spotted me in the mirror and braked and then reversed the car until I caught up. Then he drove us away and I told him what I’d seen and he got real mad and said I should just forget I saw anything. But I couldn’t forget it. Some people can forget things easily, but I can’t. And when I told Mom about it, she just laid right into Dad and told him enough was enough, and that …’ Barney paused and raised a hand to his eyes. He sniffed, clearly close to tears, and said, ‘Sorry, it’s just …’

Bishop placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a gentle press. ‘I know.’

‘I can fill in the rest,’ Raines said, looking quickly at his watch. ‘To cut a long story short, Barney’s conscience kept nagging at him and he felt more and more compelled to report what he’d seen to the authorities. His mother, aware that getting them into witness protection would finally get them all out of the life she hated so much, took his side and together they pressured his father until he finally gave in. He was willing to finally leave the business to hold onto his family, but there was one proviso he insisted on.’

‘He’d assume the role of witness instead of Barney,’ Bishop said.

Raines tapped the table with a palm. ‘Correct. John knew that once Hartnell was charged with murder he’d do everything in his power to track down the witness and silence him permanently. So John knowingly set himself up as the focal target, knowing that if anything did happen he’d get the full brunt of it and Barney would be left unharmed. Unfortunately, Barney’s mother … well, you know what happened there.’

Bishop just nodded.

Raines shook his head and sighed. ‘Of course, when the FBI originally turned the case over to me I told them they didn’t have a chance in hell of getting a conviction against Hartnell. I certainly admired John’s courage in coming forward, but I also knew I couldn’t possibly put him before a jury. With his arrest history I knew the defence would tear his credibility apart in minutes, the trial would be over before it had even begun and I’d end up as the laughing stock of the entire city. So I told them they had to either bring me more evidence or just forget the whole thing.’

Raines turned in his seat and looked at the shut door. ‘Soon after, the family requested a private meeting with me in my office, just the four of us. And that’s when they finally admitted to me that it was the son who’d actually witnessed the murder, not the father, and that’s the moment I knew I was sitting on a gold mine. Even after a few minutes I could see Barney possessed all those qualities I look for in a key witness. He’s intelligent, well spoken, quick-witted, forthright and, best of all, earnest. And I knew with him on the stand I’d have a real chance at finally putting Hartnell away for good. The only drawback was that both mother and father insisted that Barney’s true role in this remain a secret until the trial date itself.’

Bishop said, ‘What about the full disclosure rule? I thought all prosecution witnesses have to be listed by their full names.’

‘Ordinarily, yes, but I found a precedent in an obscure attempted murder case from 1997,
United States v. Murdoch
. In that case the prosecution was concerned about religiously motivated reprisals against his key witness before the trial date and so he managed to have the court records amended so that the witness was listed by his surname only, since it was a fairly common name anyway. After conferring with Judge Koteas in his chambers where I explained the whole situation in full, he finally agreed that Barney could be granted the same protection as the witness in the Murdoch case. Just surname only.’

‘Okay.’ Bishop scratched under his chin. ‘I’ve got one more question, though. Marshal Delaney told me the first trial date was postponed because John suddenly got cold feet, but that clearly wasn’t the case. So what was the real reason?’

‘That
was
the reason,’ Raines said. ‘It was just applied to the wrong person.’

‘I got a panic attack that first time,’ Barney said in a soft voice.

Bishop looked at him. ‘
You?
I don’t believe it
.
’

‘Oh, yeah, and it was a bad one too. That morning I suddenly realized what I was doing and I guess I just folded from all the pressure. I was shivering and everything, a total mess. Mom and Dad took care of me and somehow managed to keep it from the marshals, then Dad called Mr Raines here and told him everything and Mr Raines went to the judge and got him to put the date back. The next day I was fine, though, and I promised Mr Raines it wouldn’t happen again. And it won’t. I’m gonna tell my side now. Hartnell took Mom and Dad from me and I’m ready to make him pay.’

‘That’s why we’re here, Barney,’ Raines said. He checked his watch again. ‘Now we’ve got just over an hour to get you prepared before the trial begins, so first we’ll need to get you some presentable clothes. Nothing too ostentatious, a plain white button-down shirt, some smart chinos and a pair of black shoes should be sufficient. I’ll get an assistant to take care of that in a moment, right after I introduce you to the rest of my staff in the next room. Then once I’ve brought them all up to date on the situation we’ll do a couple of run-throughs to give you an idea of what to expect in the courtroom. It’s just a formality. Believe me, you’ll have nothing to worry about.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Barney said.

Raines smiled. ‘Just a figure of speech. I know you’ll be fine. Now before we get started, I just want to give you a few words of advice—’