Witness to Death Read online

  Jose’s smile went away. “Name don’t ring a bell. Lots of Omars down here.”

  Taking out his wallet, Callahan watched Jose’s eyes light up. He hesitated taking the money out, though. The street was empty, but Callahan couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. People would get the wrong impression.

  He handed Jose a twenty. The bill quickly disappeared into the black coat pocket.

  “I’m still hazy. You his friend? He send you? Otherwise, I don’t think Mr. Jackson is going to be able to help me.”

  “How about if I break your finger? Would that make things clearer?”

  Jose looked at his hand. A flake of ice landed on his pinky and melted. The hand flinched into a fist.

  “You really think you could do something to me that hasn’t already been done? I used to run from people like you. But not no more.”

  Callahan pulled the two hundreds he had in his wallet, leaving him with only five bucks and a credit card. He passed the bills to Jose.

  “Man was down here three days ago,” the dealer said. “Just checking in. Said he was gonna be going away for a while.”

  “He say where?”

  Jose shook his head. “Nope. He just wanted me to take care of something for him while he was gone.”

  “And that was?”

  “What do I look like? That’s his business? I ain’t tellin’ you that no matter how much money you give me..”

  Callahan didn’t think that was true, but nodded and raised his hands palms out. “My mistake.” He’d come back to that subject.

  “Why you lookin’ for him?”

  “I need his help,” Callahan said.

  “Me too. He usually sends me a ton of customers from up in Jersey City, but he hasn’t lately.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  Eyes widened, it was Jose’s turn to raise his hands. “We were both taking classes back in ‘01-’02. Trying to learn English. Can’t run a business without speaking English good and they don’t teach it good in the DR. Know what I mean? He and I just hit it off.”

  “You’ve been friends since?”

  “We lost touch for a while. Least until what happened to his family.”

  Callahan put his hands into his pockets. “What happened to his family?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Callahan closed his eyes and thought about Omar’s file. There wasn’t much on his time before the attempted airport bombing. Nothing on his past. He was a phantom before them, suddenly showing up on the scene.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jose shook his head. “Omar’s been mad about that ever since.”

  “What happened?”

  Jose said, “Bad stuff man. Missiles in the Middle East stuff. They’re dead.”

  Callahan didn’t push. There were more urgent matters to attend to.

  “Did Omar warn you about anything? Tell you not to go somewhere? To get out of the state?”

  Despite his training, Callahan felt his hands shake. He hoped John was keeping Michelle safe. He pictured John in the fetal position on the train. Screw that. He hoped Michelle was keeping John safe and they’d both gotten out of the state.

  “I already told you too much.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything.”

  Jose shook his head. “Who are you? I don’t got to tell you nothing.”

  “What do you get out of this?”

  Jose smiled, as if he couldn’t resist talking more. “Oh, I’d say about twenty percent. I send money and messages to Omar’s country. They send me product. And I get a cut of what Omar has me send. It’s a good way to make a living.”

  Callahan should have him arrested. But he wanted Omar to make contact, talk to someone. Jose was as good an option as anyone else.

  He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and grabbed Jose by the hand. Jose grunted and he took a step backward. Callahan held on and wrote his cell phone number on the dealer’s palm.

  “If you see Omar, you call me. Put the number in your phone.”

  “I don’t call people. Besides, I told you man, I ain’t gonna see him.”

  “You never know. And if you see him and don’t call me, I’ll find out. And I’ll do more than just hurt your hands.”

  Jose looked at the number on his hand. “I call you, you better bring more Ben Franklins.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  The snow was falling harder now, the roads had slickened since Callahan had exited the Turnpike. Definitely going to be a rough ride home.

  Jose sucked his teeth.

  “You worryin’ me. How’d you know to find me?”

  Callahan said. “I work for the government. We know everything.”

  Turning, Callahan started to walk back toward New Street. Behind him, Jose laughed.

  “Yeah, everything except where Omar is.”

  And the words, more than the weather, made Callahan shiver.

  John grabbed Michelle by the wrist. He pulled her into her apartment. The odor of a scented candle hung in the air as they went through the living room then into the bedroom. The familiarity of the bedroom, the purple covers on the bed, the books on education scattered around her desk… Not everything had changed.

  “Where are you taking me?” Michelle said, her voice louder than it was when she yelled at Junior Diaz for not finishing his homework.

  “They’re coming in the front. We need to go out the fire escape.”

  John let go of her wrist. As he shoved the window open, his shoulder exploded, and he felt blood ooze from beneath the bandage. He realized he was sweating.

  “Why are we running? The cops can help us.”

  He froze. The cops should help, it’s what you’re brought up believing. But Ashley and Frank had ruined all that. Bullets flying, cops getting hit, and the explosion at the station. They wouldn’t help. They were out to get him. One wrong move and they wouldn’t hesitate to put him down.

  “No, they won’t,” he said.

  He gently pushed her out the window on to the metal landing. After he climbed out, he reached inside and dropped the blind. Then he forced the window shut. Michelle was already going down to the next landing. Snow had covered the stairs on the escape leaving a record of their progress. Michelle was staring at her feet, placing each step very slowly.

  John followed her. Finally, he dropped off the metal ladder on to the ground. Once his foot hit the snow, he realized how deep it had gotten. The cold cut through his socks, chilling his ankles.

  “Now where?” Michelle asked.

  “Where’d you park?”

  She pointed toward the front of the building, toward the police cars.

  “Where they are.”

  “Let’s go,” he said. “There were only four of them. When I looked out the window, all four were—”

  “Stop where you are!”

  The voices came from above, two policemen with guns drawn stood on the fire escape. John pushed Michelle and told her to run. The police yelled “Stop” one more time. He heard one of them say something else, but didn’t risk looking over his shoulder. The zigzag of the fire escape lay between them and the police, and John hoped that would keep them from firing.

  “The keys. Where are the keys?”

  Michelle’s car was ten feet away.

  “In my purse!”

  They reached the car and she started digging. And digging. Frank had bought her the Coach bag last Christmas.

  “Here!” she said, retrieving the keys and tossing them to John.

  He caught them, unlocked the door and stepped in. Michelle got in on the passenger side. He started the car and the windshield wipers. In the arc of the windshield free from snow, he saw the cops on the ground running toward them, guns drawn.

  Jesus Christ, he thought. They probably think I’m kidnapping her.

  He slammed the car in reverse, backed out of the parking space. He shifted to drive without touching the brake and floored t
he gas pedal. The wheels spun in the snow and for an instant John was sure they weren’t going to go anywhere. But the wheels found traction and he shot out of the parking lot. There was the sound of a firecracker behind them.

  “Oh my God, they shot at us!”

  John looked in the sideview and saw one of the policemen had his gun aimed in the air. A warning shot.

  He turned left, then a quick right, seeing signs for Route 208 three blocks ahead. Once they were on the highway, heading toward the Parkway, he took a deep breath.

  Michelle turned toward him.

  “What the hell have you gotten me into?”

  After a day of following Frank around, John wondered if he should be asking her the same thing. Instead, he said nothing.

  “My father can help us,” she said. “We should go there.”

  “No,” John said. “Frank said we should get out of the state. Once I hit Route 80, it’s non stop to Pennsylvania. We can disappear in Wilkes-Barre. Or Stroudsburg. Go skiing in the Poconos.”

  He grinned at her. Trying to lighten the moment. The last time they’d tried to ski, John fell on a rock and had a bruise the size of Normandy on his thigh.

  Michelle dug her cell phone out of her purse.

  “Let me call my father. He can help us. He knows people in government. He’s been working on a business deal with them for the past few years. He can at least try and get the police off our back.”

  John glanced at her. He wanted to say something. Anything to get her not to make that call. But he didn’t. Michelle wouldn’t listen to him anyway. Her voice had been flat, unemotional. She sounded exactly like she had the week before she broke up with him. Mad and trying to cover it up.

  Michelle dialed the phone. Her father must have picked up, as she started to tell him what was going on. As she spoke the words, her body trembled.

  There was a long pause.

  Finally, Michelle’s father said, loud enough that John could hear him, “Listen to John. Get out of the state. Find a motel in the Poconos. I’ll make some phone calls and see what I can do. Call me when you get there.”

  The temperature had gone up. The snow had again turned to icy rain. It slapped the windshield, sounding like a hand against a cheek. Most traffic had slowed to around thirty miles per hour. Some cars pulled over on the shoulder, their hazards blinking. John kept his speed at forty.

  Michelle watched him drive, his hands tight around the wheel as he squinted though the windshield. His body seemed to flinch a bit with each swish of the wiper.

  She remembered when they dated, how he always used to ask her to drive when it rained. Slipping her thumb under her seatbelt, she puckered her lips, wondering if she should talk.

  She decided to.

  “Do you want me to drive?”

  No answer. Just a breath through his nose. He opened his mouth slightly and let it out.

  Michelle folded the smooth belt into her fist, feeling its edge cut into her skin. She’d seen him near water before. Seen the sweat form on his forehead, his breath get short, and fast.

  He never told her about the feelings, as if he didn’t want to admit their existence. The first time she’d seen it was down the shore. He told her he wanted to walk along the boardwalk, get some butternut crunch, play the wheels, and get some dinner. Maybe a few drinks.

  Michelle wanted to get out on the sand, get some sun, go for a dip. Maybe even play a little volleyball. She’d seen John play in the student vs. faculty game. He was good. It’d be fun.

  The entire drive down, John was quiet. The closer they got to the exit, the harder his breathing. She asked him if he was okay. He didn’t answer. By the time, they took the exit she was pissed.

  “What is the matter with you?” she said, her voice sharp.

  “I’m fine. I’m just concentrating on the road.”

  They found a spot a block from the beach. She got out of the car, and dashed ahead, laughing, figuring him to be right behind her. By the time, she got to the sand, and looked back for him, she found him still waiting to cross the road. Minutes later, he got to the edge of the boardwalk and froze. She walked back to John.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  She took her shirt off, revealing a pink bathing top.

  “How about now?”

  John took a step on to the sand, and then sat down. And then he told her. About Hannah. He sat on the sand and talked, looking north up the coast, his arms folded, as if he was hugging himself. Three sentences into the story, she’d sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders. Told him to breathe into his hands, he was hyperventilating.

  He went through the whole thing, his dad trying to administer CPR, the water gun he dropped. His mother crying and screaming.

  Michelle thought she could help him get over it. She tried to book a cruise, and he sweated and shook just talking about it.

  He wouldn’t try and help himself either. It seemed to Michelle he did the opposite. He discovered something called an overfall, where dangerously steep and breaking seas were caused by opposing currents and wind in a shallow area. He worried he’d get caught in one of those if he got close to the water.

  It got to be too much. Like taking care of a child.

  She broke up with him, telling him she needed some time to find herself. That she wanted to go back to school. Maybe get a doctorate or teach college.

  He understood. Pushed her toward it.

  Then she met Frank Carnathan.

  A nice guy. Who turned out to be—what’d he say his name was?—Peter Callahan, a spy?

  She shifted in the passenger seat. Her arms tensed as if she were ready to pounce on someone. Her vision went blurry and she blinked it back into focus.

  The rain splattered against the windshield, blinding her for a moment before the next whump of the wiper. If she felt like the world was spinning, what the hell was going on in John’s head now?

  “John, I don’t understand. Frank said he works for the Department of Homeland Security. That he’s some sort of agent. He’s been undercover. His name’s actually Peter C-Callahan.”

  She watched John’s hands curl just a bit tighter around the steering wheel. A vein popped in his temple, and it looked like he was gritting his teeth.

  “What happened, John?”

  John didn’t even glance toward her. His moist eyes were fixed on the road. His breathing more and more rapid, face burning red. But he was holding it together, getting them where they needed to go.

  If it was her, she’d be curled up in a ball on her bed, tears streaking her face.

  The ice rain cracked off the roof of the car, sounding like the first time her father took her to the shooting range.

  Whump.

  She reached for the radio and turned it on. Turned it up, The Killers.

  Half an hour later they crossed the border into Pennsylvania. Ten miles later, the ice had turned completely to snow. Michelle watched some of the tension ease from John’s face, the vein in his temple receding.

  “It makes sense that he’s a spy,” John said. “Think about the time he beat up that guido flirting with Ashley.” He stopped for a moment and swallowed. “Or the trips where you couldn’t get in touch with him. I can’t believe we didn’t see it.”

  Michelle wanted to ask him what he was thinking about. His voice was so even. There wasn’t any sweat on his brow. He was able to drive in the rain.

  She, however, could hear the blood pounding in her ears. Every thought of Frank made her want to scream. The joints in her fingers ached.

  They took the exit for Scotrun, and drove a slow five miles until they found a small one story motel. John pulled into the lot and parked.

  Michelle took out her cell phone and texted Frank where they would be staying. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out. When John didn’t, she bent back down to look through the door.

  John sat, staring at the steering wheel, air
whistling through his nose and out through his mouth, as if he were trying to catch his breath.

  John paid the desk clerk seventy-five dollars for a room. His heart was still pounding. No matter how much he could slow his mind, he couldn’t slow his heart rate.