Dead Red (14 page)

Josephine gave a quick laugh, pulled her t-shirt away from her chest, and flapped it a few times to air it out.

“Ron’s moving my room again,” she said. “Called me yesterday.”

Good ol’ Principal Ron Thomas
, I thought. “Why’s he doing that?”

“He’s moving all the special ed classes up to the third floor.”

“Your room’s already on the third floor.”

“Yeah, but it’s one room away from the others,” she explained. “He wants all six rooms in what he’s calling a ‘Special Education Annex.’”

“And your room not being right next to the others…”

“Screws up the annex objective.”

I gave that some thought. “And he’s doing this why?”

“Because,” her husband chimed in, “he’s the principal and he can.”

And Jim didn’t even work for the school system. When your wife’s put in twenty-five years with the New York City Department of Education, you learn to think the way administrators often do, and little surprises you.

“What about you?” Jo asked. “How come you’re not lying around some beach somewhere, drinking really good, really cold beer?”

“I’m doing a little work for a friend.” I explained about my assignment for Jack and that I was at school to pick up my camera. I left out the part about Ricky T and was glad that the newspapers had kept my name out of it.

“A little taste of retirement?” Jo said. “Raymond Donne, PI?”

“Just making a few extra bucks so I can hit that beach and have a few of those beers by Labor Day. You guys going away?”

Jim grinned. “That’s why we’re doing the room now. We’re heading down to Miami for ten days. Mets gotta four-game series with the Marlins.”

“Don’t start, Ray,” Jo said before I could. “We can’t all be the Yankees and make the playoffs every year.”

“Yeah, but Jo,” I said, “once a decade might be nice.”

They both gave me a polite, shut-the-fuck-up laugh and Jo said, “We gotta hit the car and get some more boxes. Go get your camera, Ray.”

“Say hi to Miami Beach for me. See ya in a couple weeks.”

As they headed off to their car, I went into the building. As I had expected, it was stiflingly hot, but pleasantly silent. I walked past the office door, which was shut, meaning someone was inside with the air conditioner on. I opened the door and saw Mary clicking away at the computer. She noticed me and gave me a smile.

“New registrations,” she explained. “You?”

I pointed upstairs. “My camera.”

“Oooh, going away with the cute reporter?”

“Something like that. How are you getting along?”

Mary was one of hundreds of residents of Breezy Point—The Irish Riviera at the tip of Queens—who had lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy two years ago. Now she was living in some part of Brooklyn I’d need a map to get to.

“I’m good, Ray,” she said. “Takes some getting used to, but I’m good.”

This, coming from a woman who’d lost just about everything she owned to a freak of nature and still went to church every Sunday. I gave her a wave, went up to my office, grabbed the camera, the batteries, and the charger, and headed out to take some pictures and interview a witness.

*   *   *

It took me about thirty minutes to get the pictures I needed. I went to all four corners, just as Jack had instructed, and took shots in every direction. I had more than a hundred shots. Let the lawyers figure out what they needed and what they didn’t; I was just an employee doing a job. It was getting real hot, so I decided to hit the bodega on the corner for an iced tea before I went over to the liquor store and interviewed Willy Hudson, the star witness for Jack’s client.

It didn’t take long. The Asian woman behind the cash register told me that Willy was in the storeroom, and I listened as she used the intercom to tell him there was someone here who wanted to talk to him. The figure who emerged from the storeroom was not at all what I had expected. Hudson was about six-and-a-half feet tall, rail thin, and his long, gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a pair of cut-off jean shorts, a red-and-white flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of sunglasses. There was a generic pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. As he approached me, he gave me a look that said I was not exactly what he had expected, either.

“You Mr. Knight?” he asked, with an accent more New England than East Williamsburg.

“No,” I said. “I’m his … associate. Raymond Donne.” I offered him my hand and he accepted it with a firm grip. “I was hoping you had about twenty minutes to give me a statement about the accident.” Hudson looked at the woman behind the counter, who had obviously been listening to our conversation. She nodded. “Fifteen minutes,” she warned, “and this is your break, so smoke now if you’re going to.”

“Thanks, Miriam,” Hudson said, not hiding his sarcasm. When we got outside, he slipped the pack of smokes out of his pocket and removed one. “Her English gets a lot better when she’s ordering me around.” He lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and watched the smoke rise up and disappear.

I took my notepad out of my back pocket and a pen out of my front. “So,” I said, not wanting to waste any of Hudson’s break time with small talk. “Tuesday, April sixteenth, at about five minutes to nine, you were standing out here?”

“Yep. Waitin’ on Miriam to open up. Hadda squeeze under the awning so I didn’t get poured on.”

“Store opens at nine?”

“Every day, except Sunday, of course.”

“And the weather that morning was…?”

He pushed his sunglasses up with his index finger and took another hit from his cigarette. “Like I said: pouring. Nice fog. Couldn’t see the tops of the buildings.” He pointed over to the thirty-story projects a few blocks away. “Bit of a breeze out of the southwest, that’s where the storm was coming in from.”

“You a Weather Channel fan?”

“I’m from Maine. Come from a long line of fishermen and lobstermen. You don’t pay attention to the weather, you in for some trouble.”

“I like Maine,” I said, opting for a bit of small talk. “Thinking about heading up that way before the summer’s out.” I wasn’t really, but figured flattery might make the interview go better.

“Yeah. We got all that charm and shit. Like living in a postcard.” He took another long drag from his cigarette. “That’s why I ain’t been around for the past few months. Been helping out with the family business. Making a little of that Red Lobster money, and now I’m back stocking shelves and breaking down boxes.”

He picked up on the look I gave him.

“I got a woman down here. She don’t wanna move up to Maine, and I don’t wanna live my whole life down here. Whatcha call a compromise. I make enough up there a few times a year to afford living down here.”

I nodded and said I understood. “So, what did you see that morning as it relates to Susan Thompson?”

“That the lady got run over?”

“Yes.”

He reached up and scratched his head. “I was out here, like I said, waiting on Miriam, having a smoke. Seen this lady—Ms. Thompson?—running across the street to catch a bus. Stop’s right there.” He pointed to the other side of the avenue at the bus stop. “She was yapping away on her cell phone, holding her coffee so it don’t spill, in her own special little world, I guess.”

“And the truck?”

“Coming from this way.” He pointed to the corner. “Guy was waiting for the people to get across and then made the right turn.”

“Where was Ms. Thompson when the driver began his turn?”

“Ya mean
exactly
?”

“As close as you can remember.”

He rubbed his lower lip. “A few feet outside the crosswalk, running, like I said, trying to catch that bus.”

I wrote that down. “She was outside the crosswalk?”

“Yep. I mean, I think she was hit
in
the crosswalk, but when she started ’cross the street, she was outside the lines, y’know?”

I looked out into the street at the crosswalk, its lines fading. I nodded and continued to jot down the notes.

“Hey,” Hudson whispered, a secret idea coming to him. “Is there gonna be, like, a reward or something here? Whatta they call it, a witness fee?”

“No, Mr. Hudson. I just need to hear what you saw. Our office”—
listen to me
—“will type up a copy of your statement and have you sign it. We don’t pay for testimony.”

“’Cause I can say it better’n that, y’know? Throw in some details about how she couldn’t see to the left or the right ’cause of her rain gear.” Another idea hit him and he tossed the remainder of his cigarette into the street. “Shit, I can be an expert witness on that with all the boat stuff I got up in Maine. I know you guys pay for expert testimony. I seen that on TV.”

I was sure he had. Just like every other American who got their law degree from the University of Couch and Cable TV.

“I’m sure the lawyers will be in touch with you if they decide to go that way, Mr. Hudson. I’m just here to take your statement.”

“You be sure to let them know that I can make a better statement if they want, and about that expert testimony, okay?”

“I’ll do that. Now,” I said, “excuse me for asking this next question, but you hadn’t been drinking that morning, had you?”

“Why? Someone say I was?”

That wasn’t the “no” I was hoping for.

“I’m asking because the other side is going to ask. They may try to connect your job at a liquor store with your own drinking.” I chose my next words carefully. “I’m also asking because you were wearing sunglasses inside.”

“There a crime about that?”

“No. Are they prescription?”

“Nope. I got perfect twenty-twenty. Whatchoo gettin’ at?”

“I’m just thinking like the other lawyers. If I were them, I’d want to know about your vision, your drinking habits, and why you wear sunglasses inside at your job in a liquor store.”

He rubbed the stubble on his chin, considering what I’d said. “Well, I wasn’t. I do my drinking after lunch and almost never on the job.”

“
Almost?
”

“Shit, man. Who’s side you on here?”

I wanted to say the side of the truth, but I knew how corny that sounded.

“It’s not about sides, Mr. Hudson. It’s about asking all the questions and not being surprised at trial.” I highly doubted a case like this would ever see the inside of a courtroom, but I felt the need for Mr. Hudson to understand the significance of any statements he was making and anything he chose to leave out. “Lawyers don’t like to ask questions they don’t already know the answers to.”

As he nodded with comprehension, he pulled another cigarette out of his pocket. His second in less than fifteen minutes. How much did he smoke when he
wasn’t
working?

“I gotcha,” he said. He looked around, took off his shades, and showed me his slightly bloodshot eyes. “I was out a little late last night, with my lady. Don’t need Miriam in there giving me shit about coming in hung over, y’know? I ain’t been drinking this morning, but I’m still a bit buzzed from last night, that’s all.”

“Were you ‘a bit buzzed’ the morning of the accident, Mr. Hudson?”

He moved his head from side to side. “Mighta been, I don’t remember. It was a few months ago.”

“But you remember where Ms. Thompson was when she was crossing the street, and what she was wearing?”

“There you go again,” he said, angry this time. “Acting like I’m the one did something wrong here. I feel like I’m being cross-examined.”

“Trust me, Willy” I said, switching to his first name to remind him who was running this interview. “This is nothing like being cross-examined. If Ms. Thompson’s lawyers even suspect that you have a drinking problem, they are going to be all over you like holy on the pope. It’s best to get it all out in the open now, so—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “I know. No surprises. Shit.”

I gave him time to think and to take another drag. This guy’s lungs must have looked like an old blackboard.

“So,” I began again. “Were you under the influence of alcohol on the morning of Tuesday, April sixteenth?”

He slipped his sunglasses back on. “No. I was not.”

“And you’ll sign a statement that attests to that?”

“I will.”

“And you’ll swear under oath in a deposition to that?”

“Deposition?” he said. “That’s like a pretrial thing, right?”

There was that TV law degree again.

“It’s when a lawyer for the plaintiff gets to ask you questions, just like they would in a trial. You’ll be sworn in and asked to sign a statement swearing that everything you said was truthful, to the best of your recollection.”

“I’m good with that.”

“Good.” I flipped my notepad shut. “As I said earlier, my office will type this up, and we’ll be in touch to have you sign it.”

“I have to go to your office for that?”

“No. Mr. Knight or I will come by here or your apartment if you’d like.”

“Here’s good,” he said. “Just call first, okay? Like the day before.”

“Absolutely.” I stuck out my hand and he took it reluctantly. “Have a good day, Mr. Hudson.”

“You, too.”

As he turned to head back inside, I remembered the picture on my cell phone. What the hell?

“Ah, Mr. Hudson,” I said, pulling my phone out. “One more thing.”

He looked over and laughed. “You sound like Columbo. What now?”

I brought up the photo on my phone and held it out for him to get a good look at. “Have you by any chance seen this woman?”

He took one step over and leaned into the phone as if he thought it would bite him. He raised his shades and squinted.

“Yep,” he said.

I didn’t even try to hide my surprise. “Really?”

“Every night in my dreams. Either her or someone like her. Look around, Columbo. There’s beautiful ladies all over.”

I took the phone and put it back in my pocket. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Looking forward to it.”

*   *   *

After walking away from the liquor store and Willy Hudson, I wasn’t sure what to do next. It was pushing lunchtime, but I didn’t want to go home, and it was too early to go to The LineUp. I certainly wasn’t going to go door-to-door showing the picture on my phone, hoping to strike gold. Heading into the city and grabbing some lunch with Allison sounded like an idea, but I was sure she was working, so I decided to hold off on that call.