Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) (11 page)

Her face broke into an admiring smile. “She makes it easier
for me to be gone, more bearable, you know? I’ll tell you, that woman’d do
anything for Brian . . . like he’s her mission in life.” She looked down and
shook her head. “Poor kid! First Luis . . . now just the two of us living in
that place,” she shuddered. “Starting another school in the middle of the
year.”

She leaned against her chair-back, gazing across the room at
a large, lush-colored painting of a dancer. “I just couldn’t ask him to meet a
bunch of new kids, tell them some phony name. He’s shy anyway . . . always been
cautious about making friends. We talked about it, but I just couldn’t make him
do that.”

She shook her head sadly. “He’s sure paying the price of his
mother’s mistakes. No wonder he’s not talking.”

“You should t..take it easy on yourself . . . and on him. I
don’t have, uh, k..kids, I don’t know a lot about them. But I would, I would go
easy, not try to, uh, try to push him too much. Or yourself.”

Mary nodded glumly with her chin propped in her hand. “Yeah,
I’m sure you’re right. It just doesn’t seem fair . . . he sure hasn’t had much
in his little life.”

She frowned thoughtfully, looking idly at the painting and
twisting her hands together. “Do you think it’s, uh,
unnatural
or
something to raise a boy without a, uh, uh, without a
man
in his life?”

He reddened and paused. “I’m no expert. But it’s been done,
hasn’t it? D…Done well? Look at the way those princes in your magazine have
grown into young men, without a m . . . mother—”

“Yeah, but they had money, lots of it. And lots of family
around them. Brian’s got nobody now.” She looked down at her hands in her lap.
“Have you noticed how pale he’s gotten since we moved into that damned place?”

Walker looked back at her blankly.

“Just the opposite of the way his father is . . .
was
,”
her voice trailed off as Walker eyed her intently but didn’t interrupt. “Hardly
seems fair,” she repeated, then snickered at the sympathy that had crept over
Walker’s face. “Carrying the cross, eh? Curse of the parent breed.”

She smiled appreciatively for a moment, then knit her brows.

“We’re trying to get him to come out of his shell a little.
We’re being gentle enough, I think . . . I hope,” she grimaced. “Even Sherry’s
doing his part.”

He peered at her for a long moment. “Uh . . . how well do
you ah . . . know, em, D..Detective Sherry?”

“Well,” she answered quickly, then paused. “I guess when you
think about it . . . we haven’t known him very long. Just since Luis. So much
has happened since then . . .
that
seems like a lifetime ago, you know?
I don’t know what we’d have done without him, without Sherry. He’s been really
kind . . . given us a lot of his time.”

She spoke while looking questioningly into Walker’s face as
a sheet of pain or confusion slid over it. Although he didn’t
speak
with
sureness—or perhaps because of that—his face had an uncommonly expressive
quality as if it, too, was trying to bail out the troubled tongue.

“I, uh, we t..think . . . I guess it’s just s..smart, that
you should be, ah, you should be c..careful. This is a uh, a hard t..time. You
could be vulner—”

“Look!” She looked at him intently and snapped a little
harsher than she intended. “Sherry’s been nothing but nice to us. Sometimes it seems
like he’s the only one who cares about us. About
us
? Can you understand
that?”

“Yes,” he coughed and took a sip of water. His Adam’s apple
jumped as he frowned and swallowed, his China-blue eyes had lost their dark
rings. “I c..can. “I care too . . . about you. He’s not the only one. I
c..care, too.”

“I know that, Mark,” she immediately softened, but resisted
the impulse to reach across the table cloth and touch the back of his hand. “I
can tell that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come across so strong. I’m really
stressed these days,” she started to punctuate with
you know?
, but
managed to stop herself. “But I
know
Sherry’s looking out for
our
best interests.”

She sat back and her face calmed. “He reminds me a little of
my father.” Then she smirked, sipping from her own glass. “Except for his
English!”

She was about to mention the cautions Sherry was giving
about the dangers of testifying when the maitre d’ walked past their table,
trailed by an affluent-looking older Hispanic couple. Only three tables were in
the small room. He seated the other couple at the one under the painting, the
remainder was empty.

She leaned over her place setting and whispered. “Sherry
seems like the only one who cares as much about Brian and me . . . as
people,
you know? About how we’re going to get through all this. I think he’s more
worried about us than on getting a conviction on those men, don’t you?”

He touched his lips with an index finger and his eyes
narrowed, the worried look fell back over his face be he said nothing more
about Sherry. As he sat mute and concerned-looking, Mary again promised to quit
talking so much, to quit trying to cram all the space between them with words.

In the next instant she gestured around the room and broke
the vow. “Well, one good thing about all this . . .it’s been awhile since I’ve
been in a nice restaurant.” She snickered. “As a
customer
anyway.”

He looked at her with his eyes reflecting the candle
twinkling between them. “I hope it’s ok f..for me to tell you that you are, em
. . . you, uh . . . you look very n..nice tonight.”

“Thank you,” she smiled graciously. “To tell the truth,
having my own room to myself, getting in a nice nap and shower made me feel a
little guilty, you know?” She looked into his kind, shy face and felt herself
blushing. “And I gotta admit it was nice to worry a little about how I looked
tonight . . . that seems like a lifetime, too.”

“Your eyes are an unusual c..color, especially in this
l..light—”

“I know. I’ve heard that all my life . . .
yellow-green
it says on my driver’s license.” She smiled at his nod. “Of course. That’s
another thing you already knew, eh? My dad’s are the same. He and I can stand
in front of a mirror and you can’t tell our eyes apart. I always like that.
Connected
,
you know? Genes, I guess.”

She paused and looked wistfully at the painting.

“Brian’s are darker, a kind of chocolate brown. And his are
intense . . . like
his
father’s.”

The light in the room was lemony, its only source candles
flickering on each of the cloth-draped tables, and from others glowing against
the walls set in heavy pewtar sconces. A strain of soft saxophone jazz floated
in the air, warm and buttery as the light. According to the back of the
Cafe
D’Arts
menu, the artwork hung throughout the restaurant were replicas
“painstakingly
recreated by recognized Miami area artists”
of the paintings displayed at
the second Parisian showing of the
Salon D’Refusals,
the famous
Impressionist showing from over a century ago.

She looked at Mark over her menu.

“What a nice concept for a restaurant! Somebody had a good .
. .” She stopped in mid-sentence, caught his shining, bashful eyes, shook her
head and laughed. “Aha! Reading the Mary Catherine Wilson file again?”

He reddened and sipped water.

“I knew you liked art, knew you, uh, s..studied it. And I
knew today would be, ah, hard . . . would be a hard d..” He gulped hard. “A
hard day for you.”

The white-haired couple were seated on the same side of
their table in front of the painting Mary recognized as an oversized copy of
Edgar Degas’
Prima Ballerina,
its colors enriched by the opaque light,
its size dominated the room.

Mary put her chin in her hand and studied the painting, and
as she did that she was aware of the man and woman scrutinizing
her
.

She ignored their interest, and indulged in the relief of
silence, trying to remember a report she’d once done on Degas. He sculpted as
well as painted, she recalled, remarkable feats given that he was almost blind.
He particularly appreciated ballerinas, seeing them essentially as
motion
by using a telescope at the ballets of Paris where he was a well-known and
welcome patron.

It took him eighty-three years to decide to kill himself.

As her mind reviewed her training, her eyes drank in the
painting. In this work the young dancer’s eyes seem lost in a distant dream. As
Degas imagined her, her body is finely balanced over a silk-slippered tiny
foot, her neck and face are cast to chalk by the glare from the kliegs, a
silver bracelet shines from the wrist of an arm pointed skyward. Red roses are
tucked in her hair and around her narrow waist, more crimson blossoms pinned
over generous young breasts. Contrasting its albescent purity, a black satin
ribbon circles her neck with its pointed strands flying in concert with her
balletic grace. The ballerina is the work’s only completed figure; others
appear, but they’re only shadows. The dream-faced girl dances alone on her
stage, alone on the restaurant wall, alone in the Miami night— a solitary
swan’s paean to the joy of movement, movement ironically stilled by Degas’
human limits, and by the frozen fix of footlight dazzle.

Mary’s eyes swam in the beauty of the painting, she basked
in its visceral power, and in its power to evoke thought and contemplation—the
highest role of art as she understood it—and its power to evoke memories.

For an odd moment the masterpiece reminded her of the day
she’d just been through—a day of drama in which it seemed that only
she
was real. Her memory vault opened to her father’s cluttered little reading den;
his little girl, his only child sat on the ottoman in front of his leather
armchair, listening and leaning against his knees. In her vision her father is
listening to Maria Callas, wearing the cabled cardigan sweater her mother had
thrown away several times, and he resolutely retrieved in the singular act of
marital defiance Mary could recall, a newspaper open across his lap.
As
humans sweet bunny
, he stroked her hair,
we’re doomed to live in a world
made up of both beauty . . . and beasts.
She missed him. Missed the pipe
smell clinging to the maroon cardigan, missed his quirky wisdom, missed his way
of making her laugh at whatever the problem. She smiled tightly, noticing
Walker observing her in her contemplation, watching carefully, but not
bothering her.

She even missed her mother, she thought, sighing audibly as
Walker’s face softened in sympathy. How could she ever explain
this
mess
to her?

Agent Walker was proving to be pleasant and comfortable
company; courteous and quiet, he allowed space for her mind to roam without
much interruption. She thought again about the day: the image of the
determined, dangerous men on both sides of the diaphanous wall appeared as
vividly as if she was still sitting in the big darkened room. It scared her
again and she started talking, this time not to fill the space between them,
but to cover her fear.

“So,” she looked at him and tilted her head pleasantly.
“Tell me . . . did you always want to be an FBI agent?”

“No.” He looked down and shook his head.

“I was going to be . . . an, a . . . um lawyer.” She almost
bit her tongue to stop it from flapping out of desire to save him. “Well, I,
uh, I d..do have my uh, my uh, law d..degree. I am a lawyer. But I, uh, I
wanted to be a
t
..
trial
lawyer. My grandfather was a
p..preacher.”

He arched his brows over a small smile. “Almost the same
t..thing, right?”

In the pale light from the candles she saw the tops of his
ears brighten. He listlessly pointed an accusing finger at the mouth, its lips
pressed into a thin white line. “B..but, uh, uh, you know—”

“Well,” she jumped in. “You sure seem good at what you do,
Mark. Better than that other man you work with. Ugh!” She shivered and shook
her head while she cracked her knuckles in her lap. “He gives me the creeps.”

Walker smiled and glanced down at her wringing hands with a
hint of disapproval. “I don’t . . . uh, know him that well. I took some
k..kidding when I got this assignment. I guess Agent Ruggle doesn’t have much
luck k..keeping partners—”

“I don’t doubt that . . . guy’s got the charm of a
barracuda.”

Walker shrugged a reserved agreement. “Maybe he’s got his
r..reasons.” He smiled. “He did decide that, uh, that
I
should handle,
er, should, uh, be the laison with you.”

The smile widened to include his eyes. “After the thing at
the police station—”

“Sorry . . . guess I kind of lost my cool.”

“It worked out fine. I get
this
duty, the better
d..duty.” He looked around the room folding and unfolding his napkin, then
smiled back at her. “Having a nice meal out with a nice woman . . . a p..pretty
woman.”

He held his gaze for an instant, then straightened in his
chair and continued in a more official voice. “Agent Ruggle’s flying down to
handle the bail hearing after that pair gets arraigned. He’ll make sure they
don’t get bail.” He looked at the painting, but not
at
the painting as
his face colored. “I got in under kind of a special p…program the Clinton
people had for the, uh, handicapped. It’s gone now with Bush two, but the law
degree helped but I have some, uh, t…technical skills that they need,
computers, my cameras. I think Agent Ruggle thinks I’m, uh, that being assigned
with me. . . is, uh, some kind of
p..punishment
for him. The way I, uh,
t..talk. I think it embara—”

“Hey . . . hey! Don’t let that bother you.”

This time she did reach across and softly rested the tips of
her fingers on the back of his wrist.