The Witnesses Read online

  Lance swivels in his seat, looks back, sees a light-blue VW Beetle with its side caved in by a red Volvo station wagon backing out of its spot. He shakes his head. He can’t believe the two things he has just seen.

  One was how quick, efficient, and focused Jason was in getting all of them safely into the Yukon. It had been parked such that they could easily leave the parking lot and get on the main road.

  And the other…the other was his wife, Teresa.

  How she was looking at Jason with thanks, admiration…

  And something else?

  Just to punctuate that thought, Teresa reaches forward, pats Jason on his big right shoulder.

  “Thanks, Jason,” she says. “Thanks for looking out for us.”

  Then she sits back without having said a word to her husband.

  CHAPTER 13

  New York State Trooper Leonard Brooks reluctantly approaches the Second Precinct building of the Nassau County Police Department. The one-story brick station house, which provides coverage for Levittown, looks more like a bank branch.

  Even though he’s in full uniform, he’s here on a personal mission, nothing to do with his work, and he’s wondering what kind of reception he’s going to get. After spending a couple of minutes in the lobby, he’s escorted back into an office area and meets with Mark Crosby, a heavyset man with black hair who serves as both deputy commander and deputy inspector for the precinct.

  Crosby leans over his clean desk and says, “All right, what can we do for you today, Trooper Brooks?”

  His round campaign hat is in his lap, and he says, “It’s delicate.”

  Crosby gives a knowing smile. “It always is. What do you have going on?”

  “It’s about my cousin,” he says. “Teresa Sanderson. Her mother is concerned. She was overseas on a trip and wasn’t due back for at least two months. But her mother got a disturbing phone call two weeks ago.”

  “How disturbing?”

  “She told her mother that she was okay, and that she was stateside, and that she was staying in Levit…and then she was cut off.”

  “Levit? That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” Leonard says. “The phone call was disconnected, but her mother thinks she was going to say Levittown.”

  “Un-huh,” Crosby says, tapping fingers on his desk. “Does she have any friends or relatives here?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know if she’s ever traveled here before?”

  “No.”

  “Any connections whatsoever?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Leonard says, knowing this conversation isn’t going well. “All I’m asking is that if you could put the word out to your officers, keep a lookout for her, and—”

  Crosby raises his hand. “Where’s her home address?”

  “Palo Alto, California.”

  “Have you contacted the police there?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Crosby shakes his head. “Troop L covers this part of the state. Are you in Troop L?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Yet here you are,” Crosby says. “Unofficially.”

  “Well, it’s a favor, I guess, and—”

  “What troop are you in, exactly?” Crosby asked, brows furrowed.

  “Troop T, sir.”

  “Troop T! So you work on the Thruway, and you come here, looking for a favor like that? Christ, if you were in Troop L, maybe I could be convinced to work something out, but nope. Not going to go out on a limb for you and your cousin. I don’t know you, I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  “But if I—”

  “You’re wasting my time, Trooper Brooks. And I don’t have enough of it. I think it’s time for you to head on back to the Thruway before I make a phone call to your superior and tell ’em you’ve gone rogue. I don’t think you’ll like that, am I right?”

  Leonard gets up, knowing his appointment is over. “You’re very right, Inspector Crosby. I appreciate your time.”

  Crosby stays seated behind his desk and holds both hands up. “Look. These things work out, okay? I’m sure your cousin and her kids are fine.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Back outside in the bright sun, Leonard Brooks adjusts his campaign hat and thinks through the conversation as he approaches his dark-blue Dodge Charger State Police cruiser. He opens the door.

  Fruitful, but probably not in the way the good inspector had intended.

  How had the man known his cousin had children?

  CHAPTER 14

  Helen is taking away an empty cup of tea from the nearby coffee table when Ronald Temple sees the black GMC Yukon pull into the driveway. The big guy gets out first and then opens the door. The adult male and female step out, followed by the young boy and the young girl. He escorts them into the house and a few minutes pass, and then the big guy comes back and takes several plastic bags of groceries into the house.

  Helen comes back to wipe the table and Ronald says, “Do you see that? Do you? They all go as a group. Who in hell goes shopping as a group? And with a bodyguard as well?”

  Helen rubs the table carefully with a soft cloth. “How do you know he’s a bodyguard? Maybe he’s just a friend. Or a relative. A brother of the man or woman.”

  Ronald picks up his binoculars, looks over at the house. He spots the woman putting groceries away in the refrigerator.

  “I just know,” he says, binoculars still up to his eyes. “When I was on the job, before going into security, you knew these things. Instinct. You could tell by the way somebody was walking that they were carrying a concealed weapon. That guy’s carrying. I just know it.”

  Helen loses her patience before she leaves the living room. “Then for God’s sake, call the police.”

  “Huh?” he asks, lowering the binoculars and turning his head.

  “You heard me,” she says, dishcloth still in her hand. “If you think that man over there is carrying a gun, and probably an illegal one, then call the police. Have them check it out…otherwise, Ronald, I’m getting tired of all of your conspiracy theories. Please.”

  Ronald feels his face warm. “Okay, that’s what I’m going to do. Hand me the phone. I’ll call the cops right now.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Lance helps Teresa put the groceries away. She frowns as she sits back at the round kitchen table with her books and laptop. “Once more, trying to write a book in the twenty-first century without using twenty-first-century technology.”

  He kisses the top of her head and says, “Just a couple more days. That’s all.”

  She reaches up, squeezes his hand. “All right, professor, but if we get to day three and I’m still cut off from Google, you’re going to be cut off from something more intimate. Got it?”

  He kisses her once more. “Got it.”

  Lance takes a short walk down the near hallway and sees that Sandy is reading a thick textbook he lent her yesterday. Then he pokes his head into Sam’s room. He’s bent over a slowly developing dinosaur model.

  Lance goes back into the hallway and nearly bumps into Jason.

  “Professor,” he says.

  “Jason,” he replies, remembering with a sour feeling a talk he’d had with Teresa last night. “Look…can we talk somewhere?”

  Jason says, “Sure. Where?”

  Good question. The only rooms not being used at the moment were the tiny bathroom, the small living room, and the master bedroom. “Come with me, will you?”

  Lance walks into the master bedroom and Jason follows him. Lance says, “I want to help.”

  Jason pauses for a second and says, “You can help me by staying together with your family, under my watch, until Langley’s ready to move you. That will be very helpful.”

  “You don’t understand,” Lance says. “I’m the head of the household. I’m responsible for them, I’m responsible for them being in trouble and for being here, undercover. I want to help defend them if…if things happen.”

  Jason’s face
is impassive. “You ever serve? You ever been a cop? You an NRA member?”

  “No to all three, but that doesn’t mean I can’t—”

  And Lance can’t believe how quickly Jason moves, because in a second or two, a black pistol has been pulled from somewhere in his clothing and is now in his right hand.

  Time stands still. The pistol is pointing right at Lance’s chest.

  And without warning, Jason abruptly tosses the pistol at Lance.

  Lance fumbles and catches it, almost dropping it along the way. The gun is cold and unfamiliar in his hand. It’s bulky, ungainly, and it’s the first time he’s ever held a pistol in his life. The sense of power, the potential of being able to shoot, wound, and kill, practically emanates from the shape of the weapon.

  “Shoot me,” Jason says.

  “What?”

  “Shoot me.” Jason steps forward: big, bulky, scary-looking. “You’ve got the pistol. I’m threatening you, your wife, your kids…react! Shoot me! Now!”

  Lance starts fumbling with the pistol, and in a quick snap, Jason takes it back, twisting two of Lance’s fingers. He cries out.

  “I don’t have the time or the inclination to train you in self-defense, Professor Sanderson,” Jason says, his voice filled with contempt. “You’re out of your league. So keep your family together and let me do my job.”

  Lance feels ashamed, flustered, and doesn’t know what to say.

  And then the doorbell rings.

  The pistol in Jason’s hand disappears back under his clothes.

  “Lockdown, now,” he says in a commanding voice, and goes out, heading to the children’s rooms. “Move.”

  CHAPTER 16

  From his comfortable Barcalounger—he has a brief, grim thought that he’ll probably be buried with this thing when the time comes—Ronald looks on with satisfaction as a Nassau County police cruiser slowly glides to a stop in front of the house next door.

  “I’ll be damned,” he whispers, smiling. “They’re actually going to do something.”

  He had made the call about ten minutes ago. Due to the bored response of the dispatcher—“Yeah, yeah” was her favorite phrase—Ronald didn’t think anything was going to happen.

  Sometimes it’s nice to be proven wrong.

  The cruiser door opens up and a female police officer steps out. Ronald gets up from his chair, grimacing from the pain in his legs. Taking his nostril tubes out, he slowly walks to the door, blanket and revolver in his hand.

  From the kitchen comes the noise of a television, volume turned up loud. Helen is watching one of her favorite reality shows, about overdressed housewives yelling at each other. At the moment, they are baking a cake for an upcoming church function.

  He goes to the front door and slowly opens it up. Near the door is a small green oxygen tank with two wheels on its base and a handle—for use on those few occasions he steps outside. He drapes the hose around his head, turns the handle, and breathes in through his nostrils.

  Despite all his ailments, he feels pretty good, watching the police officer approach the door, now partially hidden by a holly bush.

  A thought from his past comes to him. This time…this time he won’t screw up.

  Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

  He should have been at work that morning as a security officer for an investment firm, but the night before he had gotten hammered at Frank Watson’s retirement bash. With a thudding hangover, he had called in sick, had switched off the phone, and had tumbled back to bed to sleep it off.

  It had been hours before he realized what had happened and days before he received the list of dead people from his firm. Then the whispers came to him, followed him, and never went away for more than a decade and a half:

  If you had been there, you could have saved some of them. Instead, you stayed home and slept it off. Useless drunk. Those people depended on you and you let them down.

  He opens the door wider, preparing himself to provide backup for that solitary cop next door.

  This time he’s ready.

  If something happens—and a part of him hopes it does—he won’t be a failure for a second time.

  In a way, he almost wishes things would go wrong, so he could prove himself.

  He takes the revolver out from behind the blanket and holds it at his side.

  CHAPTER 17

  Officer Karen Glynn of the Nassau County Police Department wishes her shift was over so she could get home and do what she really wants to do, which is study up so she can apply to the New York City Police Department. Nothing against Nassau County and this dull suburb of Levittown, but she wants to do something serious as a cop, not track down stolen bicycles or take reports on vandalized mailboxes.

  She pulls her white cruiser with its blue-and-orange stripes in front of the small blue house—the house that is supposedly harboring a man who might or might not be carrying a firearm, and who may or may not have a concealed pistol permit.

  Biggest call of the week, she thinks, as she calls into dispatch that she’s arrived. She opens the cruiser’s door, walks up to the front of the house.

  Clean and tidy, like every other house on this street, like practically every other house in this part of Nassau County, and she rings the doorbell once, twice, and steps back as the door opens.

  “Yes?” the man at the door asks. “Can I help you, officer?”

  Karen steps back one more time, body on automatic, examining the bulky guy, and she goes into full alert. Even though he’s well-dressed and his hands are empty, it’s those eyes…

  “Ah, yes,” she says. “Officer Glynn, Nassau County Police Department. I’m investigating a…complaint.”

  “What kind of complaint, officer?”

  She says, “Can I see some identification, please?”

  A second or two passes, feeling like an hour. He smiles. “Of course.” His right hand slowly goes to his pocket and her throat is dry, her hand is on her holster, and he comes back with a wallet, from which he pulls out a driver’s license.

  “Here,” he says. “Will this do?”

  She takes the license, gives it a very quick glance—Karen doesn’t want to lose focus on this hulk in front of her—and returns it. “Thank you, Mister Tyler. I see that license is from Virginia. Can I ask why you’re here in Levittown?”

  “Visiting,” he says evenly.

  “I see,” she says. “Well, the department has received word that you’ve been seen walking off the premises, carrying a concealed weapon. Is that true?”

  “Word from whom?”

  “Is that true? That you’re carrying a concealed weapon?”

  Hesitation, then the slightest of nods. “That’s true.”

  “Do you have a concealed carry permit, Mister Tyler?”

  “I do.”

  “May I see it, please?”

  Another second that seems to drag on and on.

  He looks at her.

  “Yes,” he says. “It’s here in my wallet as well.”

  And another plastic-embossed card is removed and passed over, with the man’s photo on it, and issued from Nassau County.

  Karen gives it a glance, passes it back.

  All in order.

  Still…

  Why is her heart racing so?

  “May I come in?” she asks.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d like to take a look around.”

  A slight smile that looks as dangerous as the bared teeth of a lunging German shepherd being held back only by a thin and fraying rope. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Karen is now convinced that even though this guy has all the right permits and identification, something strange is definitely going on, and she starts to—

  He says, “Is this when you’re going to say you’re going to come in now, or go to a helpful judge to get a search warrant for some sort of malfeasance, imagined or otherwise?”

  “I, uh—”


  The man says, “Perhaps this might help.”

  The wallet is returned to his pants, and he reaches into another pocket, removes a business-sized envelope, folded in half, and removes a thick white piece of stationery, which Karen holds and reads and then reads one more time.

  She nods. Mouth still very, very dry.

  Passes the piece of paper back.

  “Thanks…I, uh, I’ll be heading out. Thanks for your cooperation.”

  “Glad to do it, Officer Glynn,” he says, and he gently closes the door in front of her.

  Karen turns and goes back to her cruiser, reviewing what she has just seen: a letter signed by both the governor and the president, asking the reader of said letter to give every courtesy and consideration to its bearer, one Jason Tyler of Arlington, Virginia.

  Whatever the hell is going on here is way, way above her pay grade, and she wants none of it.

  She stops at her cruiser and an old man approaches her, yelling.

  Christ on a crutch, she thinks, this day just keeps getting loopier by the second.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ronald Temple waits and watches, waits and watches, and—

  The police officer heads back toward her cruiser.

  Alone.

  Not calling for backup? Not dragging that big guy out to the cruiser in handcuffs?

  Unbelievable!

  He drops his blanket and revolver on the floor, grabs his oxygen tank handle, and starts out of the door.

  The oxygen tank rattling behind him, he goes across the lawn, seeing the female officer reach her cruiser.

  “Hey!” he calls out, ashamed at how weak his voice is. “Hey! Officer! Over here!”

  She opens the door to her cruiser, hesitates just for a moment.

  Long enough.

  “Hey…what’s going on here?” he asks, wheezing to a halt, the tank beside him. “Why are you leaving so soon?”

  The police officer is cool, polite, and uncooperative, and Ronald remembers the times he behaved the same way when he was on the job.