Reluctant Witness (50 page)

The mood in the conference room grew more
somber the longer Deirdre stood there, listing the particulars of
the case. As much as I felt compassion for Shaun, Eve, and Tovar, I
had to admit they really did botch things up. They could have
gotten me killed and no one would have ever known I was
innocent.

“Surely it wasn’t deliberate or malicious on
their part. They did what they thought was in the best interests of
their agency,” Hirsh announced, trying to smooth things over. “We
can certainly all agree that they were deliberately misled about
her involvement in the criminal activities and acted on the bad
information. It happens sometimes in law enforcement. And now that
she has been cleared of all suspicion in the case, we can use her
testimony to put Jared Spears behind bars.”

“No.” Deirdre swiped at imaginary lint on her
tight pencil skirt before sitting back down in her chair. She took
her time crossing her legs, giving Manny Lewis ample opportunity to
admire at what she had to offer as a woman. I shook my head in
disbelief. Small wonder Lincoln never had a chance at making his
marriage work. Deirdre was a real player and she played to win. If
that meant distracting men to gain the upper hand in a legal case,
she was more than happy to do it.

“No?” Hirsh couldn’t quite believe what she
was hearing.

“Once again, I think not,” said my attorney
with a sniff of disdain for the whole idea. “Bad idea.”

Stunned, the assistant U. S. attorney turned
quickly and spoke into Dorfman’s ear. With her back to me, all I
saw was her ponytail swaying back and forth, until she finally
turned back to us and said two words. “Why not?”

“
You people will probably
flip Jared Spears, and when you do, my client is likely to get the
short end of the stick yet again. I won’t have that. Her testimony
is not critical to your case. And let’s be honest, Manny,” Deirdre
purred, directing her attention to the handsome U. S. attorney,
“you and I both know this case is an opportunity for you to advance
your career, if you can get Jared Spears to come clean on his
money-laundering operations. You’d be an idiot not to go for
it.”

“Perhaps you and I should set aside some time
to discuss this matter off the record,” Manny suggested to Deirdre,
glancing at her stocking-covered legs and stiletto heels like a
hungry wolf checking out a potential lamb chop for dinner. He
obviously had no idea he was dealing with another wolf in sheep’s
clothing. “I think we might be able to negotiate a reasonable
solution to all this.”

“I will be happy to meet with you one-on-one
to discuss a settlement,” she concurred, “provided you intend to
see my client’s losses are compensated adequately.”

Hirsh rolled her eyes, rather perturbed at
being elbowed out of the game, and let out an audible sigh of
disgust. The men in the group just stared down at their files,
avoiding eye contact. I noticed one or two of them briefly smiled.
Dorfman just looked straight ahead, stone-faced, but his knee was
pumping like a piston under pressure, trying to stay up to speed on
the situation.

Tom, watching his boss’s former sister-in-law
in action, shook his head in wonder. Leaning over to me, he
whispered in my ear. “Isn’t she something else? By the time five
o’clock rolls around, Deirdre’s going to have this jerk eating out
of her hand and believing he’s the next governor-elect.”

For the rest of the meeting, the conversation
between the two lawyers sizzled with so much sexual tension, I
almost expected them to knock all the papers off the conference
table and go at it even as we sat on the sidelines and watched.

“Excuse me, but I think it’s inappropriate
for you to....” Dorfman put a warning hand on the assistant U. S.
attorney when she started to admonish her boss.

“Don’t go there,” he hissed at her.

“Good thing the Cornwall brothers aren’t
here,” I commented under my breath.

“It would kill Linc to witness this,” Tom
shook his head, dismayed. “And Jeff would lay her out in lavender.
But then, she is good at what she does. It takes a weasel to catch
a weasel.”

A short time later, the three of us left the
federal office building, heading to the parking lot. Brushing past
me, as if in a wordless bid to call shotgun, Deirdre beat me into
the front passenger seat of Tom’s rental car; I wasn’t surprised
she delegated me to the back seat, given her penchant for pecking
order. I caught sight of Tom’s wink in the rear view mirror and
tried to hide my smile.

“Now what?” he asked her, starting the
engine.

“Give me a second. I want to see if I can get
a manicure.”

We spent the next five minutes listening to
Deirdre cajole the receptionist at Daniel James. When she finally
wore the poor woman down, she gave Tom the address and we dropped
her off in front of the West Bay Street salon, a few blocks from
the Hyatt Regency. As she got out of the rental car, toting her
briefcase and purse with her, Deirdre made a prediction.

“Mark my words, Marigold. Jared Spears is
going to cut a deal and save the federal government the cost of
prosecuting him. It’s just a matter of catching Leesa Braun and
turning the screws on her until he caves.”

“You don’t think there will be a trial?” I
asked, surprised.

“Not if I play my cards right. Tell Jeff I’ll
call him after I have dinner with Manny tonight and let him know.
Thanks for the ride, Tom. Say hi to Joanne for me.”

“Will do,” replied the man behind the wheel.
“Marigold, are you hopping up front?”

“I am.” I scrambled out of the back seat and
joined Tom. As we watched Deirdre walk away, I heard my companion
snicker.

“Oh, what I would give to be a fly on the
wall during the phone call to Atlanta tonight. It’s going to be
priceless.”

“Worth every penny,” I agreed, giving him a
grin.

Two weeks later, Deirdre’s prediction came
true. Jared Spears was placed in the witness protection program
with his fiancée, Leesa, after they both agreed to turn on their
collaborators. In order to be admitted into the program, they both
had to come clean about every detail of their money-laundering
schemes and the murder of that poor man back in Newport, Rhode
Island.

By then, I was long gone. The day after
meeting with the United States attorney, Terry and Nancy instructed
me to pack my things. It was time to hit the road again and get out
of town before folks started asking too many questions about
me.

“Here’s the deal, kid. I’m driving you to the
airport and putting you on a plane to California. Don’t worry. We
have someone on the flight to keep an eye on you. You and Mini Coop
are off on your next adventure. You’ll have a chance to start
making plans for your new life, Marigold. It will be a good thing.
And you’ll like my buddy, Bitterman. I worked with her. She’s a
real hoot.”

Clovis Bitterman turned out to be a short,
stocky, no-nonsense retired FBI agent with a private law practice
out in the San Fernando Valley. She picked me up at LAX and took me
to her craftsman-style bungalow in Glendale for a couple of weeks.
The rationale for having me stay with her was simple enough. If,
for any reason, the federal government changed its mind and decided
to try to prosecute Jared and his fiancée, Clovis would make sure
they understood just what a bad idea it was to drag me back into
it. She would, as a member of my unofficial legal team, remind them
that we were prepared to sue the government for the harm I endured.
And if anyone wanted to do me bodily harm, she was more than
capable of handling the situation. Clovis, like Nancy, had a few
awards for marksmanship.

Since her retirement from the FBI, Clovis
specialized in white collar crime and, instead of working for a big
firm, preferred having a small legal practice of her own; she got
by with one paralegal and an assistant. There was a small guest
cottage in her backyard, which she used as her office. It was
cramped, but charming. It was also convenient, in case I ran into a
problem with unwanted visitors.

I got back to the business of planning the
decor for Jeff’s condo, this time with a new laptop, an encryption
program that would thwart the average hacker, and new passwords. I
also had an encrypted phone I used to speak with Jeff every
day.

The reason for my sudden
relocation became clear to me during one of our first conversations
when I arrived in California. Someone in the media floated the
rumor that Jeff was somehow involved in my case, and the press
began to pester him for answers. Given his public status as a
best-selling author and TV producer, they thought they smelled a
story. Everyone wanted to know about the woman called Marigold
Flowers. Jeff got busy dating every starlet he could find. He even
flew out to California twice, appearing at an awards dinner with
Sierra Wyllys one night and a Hollywood gala with Zoe Charnack
another. The gossip columns began to speculate whether he was in
the market for a wife or just trying to sign an actress for the
lead in his new summer TV series,
Dangerous
Deception
.

“I can’t believe you’re here and I can’t see
you,” I told him the night he called after he dropped Zoe off.

“Tell me about it,” was his gruff reply. “The
press is camped outside my door.”

Norma Parker, the vile Boston gossip
columnist better known as “Nosey Parker”, offered her theory about
Jeff after he showed up in Massachusetts to scout locations for
filming. She hinted he was using the women to hide the fact that he
was gay, and pointed to the fact that Jeff was never without a male
entourage.

“Isn’t it amazing how wrong people can be
when they fill in the blanks?” he laughed bitterly during one of
our conversations. “Here I am, heading into forty soon and I’ve
never been married. That apparently suffices as evidence that I am
gay. Unbelievable. It just goes to show you how unscrupulous some
people really are. Boy, am I glad I got you out of town in time.
Imagine what Nasty Norma would have done to you, love.”

Chapter Forty
Five

“Too bad,” I deadpanned. “I always hate to
miss out on a good time.”

“Yeah, it was lots of fun. I’d liken it to
having a root canal done by an orangutan on crack.”

After I hung up, I crawled
into bed with my dog and my book, getting lost once more in
A Whisper of Ginger
. I
finally came to the chapter on the wedding of Nora and Jean-Claude,
curious about the outcome:

It was inevitable. I knew that one day my
past would catch up to me and my life would unravel. Reborn as Mary
Logan in Kona, I had happily thrown myself into building the
Hawaiian Butterfly and Spice Company. Occasionally, a stranger
passed me and did a double-take, thinking I looked like a long-lost
neighbor or distant relative. I was even mistaken once for Monique
Ravel, the acclaimed star of theater and film, on a catamaran trip
to Bora Bora with Jean-Claude. So many times I felt that little
jerk of my heart when I was out in public, the shiver of terror
that sent me into a panic, only to find it was a false alarm. But
on this particular morning, I had real reason to panic. I was
recognized.

It happened by accident. Jean-Claude and I
were in Honolulu, preparing for the wedding ceremony that was to
take place on Waikiki Beach the following day. We had checked into
the Hilton Hawaiian Village at Waikiki with his parents; they were
to be our witnesses.

Dressed in shorts and a tee shirt for the
quick trip to the Kuhio Pharmacy a few blocks away, I slipped my
feet into my running shoes and tied the laces. I stuffed some cash
and the room key into my fanny pack, preferring to travel
light.

“I need to pick up a pair of pantyhose and
some bobby pins. I won’t be long,” I promised Jean-Claude, who was
sitting out on the balcony, reading a history on Pearl Harbor.

“Good, ma chérie. I thought we might all go
snorkeling this afternoon, after lunch.”

“That sounds like fun.” I kissed the top of
his head and ruffled his hair affectionately. “I’m looking forward
to it.

I rode the elevator down to the lobby and
set off from the hotel at a leisurely pace, strolling to the
entrance of the resort. There, the hustle and bustle of city
traffic zoomed past me as I waited for a chance to cross over to
the shady side of Kalia Road, with its lush tropical foliage. I
headed towards Ala Moana Boulevard, listening to the cheerful
chirping of the birds in the trees as I daydreamed about the
wedding. This time around, I was marrying for love, and that
thought put a smile on my face.

“Nora? Nora Hazen?” I froze momentarily as a
loud, unfamiliar voice hailed me. “Nora, is that you?”

As soon as I heard the woman call my name,
instinct kicked in. Flustered, I fought the urge to turn around and
see who it was beckoning me. What was my best option? I kept going,
pretending not to hear that insistent yell. I turned my face away
from the sound, hoping to convince whoever it was that I was not
Nora Hazen. A moment later, the Waikiki Trolley rumbled past me. I
breathed a sigh of relief when it turned left at the end of the
street. Just another close call, I told myself, but a little too
close for comfort. I called Jean-Claude for instructions.

“I was recognized,” I informed him, “but I
don’t know by whom.”

“Damn!” he growled. “Where are you? I will
come to you.”

I told him my route, glancing around as I
did so. There was no sign of the woman.

“Keep going. I will catch up to you,” he
promised, “but first I want to see if you have a tail.”

“Okay.”

I took a right on Ala Moana Boulevard a
moment or two later and had to navigate through a thick crowd of
people waiting to cross the street with the light. Unexpectedly, I
felt a hand touch my shoulder. I shrugged it off. There was a tug
on my shirt sleeve. “Nora?”