The Sunset Witness Read online

  The Sunset Witness

  By

  Gayle Hayes

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  The Sunset Witness

  Published by Gayle Hayes on Amazon Kindle

  © 2012 by Gayle Hayes

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, media, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  COVER ART

  Both the photograph and graphic design used on the cover are the creations of the author.

  DEDICATION

  This novel is dedicated to my mother, Edna, from whom I inherited my imagination and the need to entertain others with storytelling. At 92 she still enjoys “pulling your leg” with a tale that is both spontaneous and inventive.

  FINAL REPORT OF INVESTIGATION

  TO: Agate County District Attorney

  FROM: Det. Josie Gannon

  DATE: 30 June 2011

  SUBJECT: Disappearance of Rachel Douglas

  On 18 June 2011, the Agate County Sheriff's Department was notified by Twyla Taylor that Rachel Douglas had been missing for two days. The department also received a flash drive on 18 June 2011. The postmark was for Hoquarten, Oregon on 16 June 2011, the day Rachel Douglas went missing. The flash drive contains only one document, and it was written by Rachel Douglas. For the most part, it is her eyewitness account of events. The document is somewhat detailed, but it is included verbatim here because of the insight it provides into the murders at Sunset, Oregon. Unless she contacts us again, her written statement is as close as we are likely to get to Rachel's deposition of the events she witnessed. The department has investigated all but the most intimate moments, is satisfied Rachel's account is true to the facts, and is submitting her account as its report instead of merely paraphrasing. This department's investigation of the events not included in Rachel's account is summarized at the end.

  Subject Rachel Douglas was an aspiring author and working on a novel at the time she disappeared. The style of her writing suggests she might have written this document as practice for, or even as the foundation of, her proposed novel.

  The department has summarized an old criminal case out of Philadelphia. The case appears to be the foundation for the events at Sunset:

  An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1996 concerns the murder of a city councilman named Jacob Gregory. During the trial of Salvatore De Luca, evidence was presented that Gregory had ties to the mob. The prosecutor's chief witness against De Luca was Dennis Wojohowitz. He told the jury he saw De Luca shoot Gregory and helped him dump Gregory in the Schuylkill River. The defense attorney, Robert Douglas, discredited the character and testimony of Wojohowitz. De Luca was acquitted. It was widely speculated that the jury thought De Luca had done the city a favor by disposing of a corrupt councilman. Wojohowitz disappeared after his testimony.

  * * *

  Thursday, June 16, 2011

  My name is Rachel Douglas. If you didn't get this from me, my life might be in danger. Please show this to Detective Josie Gannon of the Agate County Oregon Sheriff's Department.

  Tuesday, May 31, 2011

  Frank sat at a table a few feet away with his back turned to me. He couldn't or didn't want to sit up straight. He wore a beige cardigan that was covered with pills—those annoying fuzzy snags that are bred by polyester. I could see only the top and right side of Frank's head. His hair was gone except for a fine, even layer like fuzz on a peach. His cheekbone was high and his eye deep set. A cane was hooked on the thigh of his right leg. Frank was having soup for lunch. Hunched over as he was, the spoon had only a short distance to travel between the bowl and his mouth. It was obvious that Frank was a regular customer. The waitress knew his name and asked about his meal in a way his wife might have done. I took an interest in Frank because he looked so much like my father.

  After Frank had finished the soup, a waitress asked if he would like something else. He thought he would. The waitress gave Frank a little time to look at a menu. Frank had no idea what he was looking for, but he knew his daughter had ordered it sometimes. I imagined he would have liked his daughter there to help him order. The waitress tried to help, but Frank could sense her impatience and groped for words.

  "I think it has eggs all scrabbled up," he said.

  "Scrambled eggs and ham?" The waitress tapped her pencil on the pad of meal tickets.

  No, that wasn't it. The waitress tried again. "How about an egg salad sandwich?"

  Frank nodded his head and mumbled something that sounded encouraging.

  "What kind of bread, Frank?" she asked, turning up the volume. Perhaps if she had to strain to hear him, he wasn't hearing her.

  "I don't know if it comes with bread." Frank's tone indicated he didn't want to take something to which he wasn't entitled.

  "It comes with bread, Frank. It's a sandwich," the waitress said.

  "Okay, then," Frank said. He was relieved and sighed as the waitress walked away, his eyes fixed on some distant point as if trying to remember a time when ordering a sandwich didn't require the same deliberation as doing his taxes.

  Frank and I were the only ones having a late lunch that day. His presence was comforting to me, as if my father were more than a memory again. I realized I'd not allowed myself to think of him in a long time. For several months after he passed away, the slightest mental image of him or of us together was too painful. I'd not wept for him. I knew he'd had a full life, and I'd been at his side when he left us peacefully. I'd wept for me, because it seemed so unfair that we'd just become close, and he was gone.

  My father was already fifty-two years old when I was born. He met my mother when she hired him to defend her younger brother. My father convinced the jury the drugs were planted by the police officers, and he became mother's knight in shining armor. She was attractive, twelve years younger than my father, and on the rebound. I suppose you could say I was a love child. Mother once told me really beautiful children are the product of intense passion. You might think I am lucky, but I envy girls who are not beautiful.

  My half-brother Paul was already in college by the time I came along, so mother lavished me with her time and attention. My father was rarely home before she tucked me in for the night, but he tried to make up for it in his own way. One morning I remember finding a bejeweled fingerboard on a 14 karat gold chain wrapped in heavy silver paper like a satin frock with a hot pink ribbon around it. On occasion, mother and I would meet him at the firm's private club for an elegant lunch, but he usually entertained well-to-do clients or people who could enhance his law practice.

  When I turned thirteen, my father hired a local theatrical troupe to present me with my gift. It was a trip to New York Cit
y to see the revival of Guys and Dolls. He saw the original production in 1950 when he was attending Harvard. An actor in the troupe knelt at my feet and serenaded me with I've Never Been in Love Before from the musical. Each actor performed a little drama apropos of the gift he or she presented me on behalf of my father, including a reservation at the Plaza Hotel, dinner for two at 21, a gift certificate for a theater outfit at Bloomingdales, and a bouquet of thirteen red rose buds and white lilies to signify my coming of age.

  I first noticed the tension between my parents after that trip to New York City. Mother was radiant in the city, but I noticed the smell of alcohol about her shortly after we returned. One night I awoke to shattering glass, my father's fury, and my mother's plaintive tears. Then the house was as quiet as a tomb. The next morning, the maid hauled the broken bottles downstairs. Years later when we were lying in the sun in Florida talking about the contention between father and me because he was determined to send me to Harvard, mother told me that she'd swept the collection of expensive perfumes off her dressing table to show my father his gifts could not mask the stench created by his practice. That morning, the Philadelphia Inquirer had printed a photo of my father with Salvatore De Luca. He was acquitted the day before in the murder of a local politician, Jacob Gregory.

  While I was always tense when my parents were sparring and sometimes fearful when they were fighting (my father's nose was broken once), I later realized they were attempting to work out their problems then. By the time I was in high school, they went weeks without speaking to each other. My mother was able to tolerate large amounts of alcohol, and she rarely went out, saying she had nothing to wear. Her closet was the size of most bedrooms. My father bought a condo closer to his office and only came home on weekends. He might as well have stayed away altogether. He holed up in his study and took his meals there. He pilfered one of the signs that were posted outside the courtroom and positioned it like a sentry outside his study: QUIET PLEASE! Once, my friends who had come to our house to play doubles tennis thought the sign was a joke until their hysterical laughter pried father from his chair. The door to his office flew open. He glowered at us with hands on his hips, a pipe clenched between his teeth, before slamming the door so hard the courtroom poster fell from its easel and crashed to the oak flooring in the hall.

  My father retired from the law firm when he turned seventy. I was starting my first year of college in Montana. Mother had joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and they both seemed to mellow. I saw them only on holidays and during the summer.

  Mother developed cirrhosis and passed away in 2006 during the week I was cramming for the bar exam. It was probably a good thing that I had to keep it together for the exam, or I'd have fallen apart.

  As she lay dying, I was surprised that my father, who had built a reputation with his command of the language before a jury, could not find some words of comfort and love for my mother. After she died, he grabbed her left hand and worked her wedding set over her swollen knuckle, tossing it on the night table before leaving the room. The ring was worth thousands of dollars and precious to me because it was my mother's. My father didn't care about what it had cost or its sentimental value. He removed the ring as if it was the key that would unlock his cell. Once he had it, he fled the bedroom and his prison. He was free of her forever. I looked at them and realized their lives would have had no purpose unless I could do something positive with mine.

  My father was the happiest I ever saw him on the day I received notice I'd passed the bar. He knew I would pass and presented me with tickets for a Mediterranean cruise. He thought I might take Sarah Duncan, who had been my best friend in Villanova. Instead, I insisted that he go with me. Until Nate's funeral the previous fall, Sarah and I hadn't spoken in years. My father was tall, suntanned, and very fit. Now and then, I noticed a glance in our direction as if we were a May-December romance. We swam, played shuffleboard, and danced to big band music in the evenings. He was a tireless explorer and always had a reserve of energy when I was ready to return to the ship. One night after an especially satisfying day, he spontaneously began to cry, first with an almost imperceptible whimper, and then a flood of tears. I held him until he was spent of tears and then tucked him into his bed. The next day he seemed to have been delivered of a great burden. We never mentioned the episode.

  Once I'd gone to work in the law firm, my father seemed to think of me as an equal. We enjoyed debating the law, and I knew I provided the companionship he'd missed in my mother. Through sheer determination I stayed at the law firm for three years and then braced myself to tell my father I was leaving. My dream was to be a writer. My biological clock was ticking, and there were a few things I wanted to do before I started a family. He took my decision to leave the firm better than I expected. Perhaps he was too tired to argue or did not really understand.

  My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at 78. It was difficult to see this man who had argued before the state supreme court now sitting clueless in front of television sitcoms. The last time I saw him alive, he deftly led me around the living room to a Strauss waltz. Although I was often embarrassed by the cases he took and the negative notoriety he attracted as a result, I realized that he'd generously provided for me even if his way of doing so only made sense to him. I could question his legal ethics, but I could not question his love for me.

  Frank pushed his chair away from the table and steadied himself with his cane. As he walked past me, I could see that he didn't really resemble my father after all. I wanted to thank him for bringing back my father for a little while. Although Frank seemed helpless, his life still made a difference to someone else.

  I finished my lunch and walked toward the cashier. She was telling Frank not to worry about his bill. He came in often enough that she knew he would pay her the next time. He thanked her but was obviously worried and agitated because his wallet was missing. I asked Frank if it would be all right for me to pay the bill. I offered to walk home with him and suggested he would probably find his wallet there and could repay me without having to go right back to the diner. He preferred to go home and bring the amount of the bill back with him. He left the diner, and I gave the cashier my bill and credit card.

  "It was nice of you to try to help Frank," she said. "He doesn't have a living soul that cares about him."

  "He reminded me of my father. I'd like to think someone would've helped him if he were in Frank's place," I said.

  I left the diner and was fishing in my purse for my cell phone when I saw Frank fall. I let the call go to message and reached Frank as he was trying to get his legs under him. I helped him to his feet, brushed off his pants, and insisted that he let me hold onto his left arm while he maneuvered the cane with his right hand. It was a short distance from the diner to Frank's home, which was the last house on Main Street.

  Once we were inside, Frank walked into his bedroom and found the wallet on his bed. He'd changed into the beige cardigan before leaving home and had absent mindedly dropped his blue cardigan, which needed a button, on top of the wallet. He sank into his chair in the living room, almost breathless from the exertion and anxiety. He took a ten dollar bill from the wallet and agreed to let me return to the diner with it. Before I left, I found a glass in the dish rack next to the sink and filled it with water for him. I told him I'd be right back to make sure he was all right.

  After I paid Frank's tab at the diner, I checked my phone and discovered Sarah Duncan's message that she needed to work late and had left a key to her beach house under the loose brick in the doorway. Sarah had contacted me recently, and I was anxious to close the rift in our friendship. She was my oldest friend. Once I left school, and especially after working at the law firm, I'd found it more difficult to let my guard down and make new friends. We both had an artistic streak, but hers was toward painting, while I preferred to write. Our similarities ended there. Her hair was thick, naturally curly, and blonde, while mine was thin, straight as a stick, and dark. I'd not really mind
ed my hair, but I'd been envious of her blue eyes. When I watched awkwardly as she entertained our friends with her hilarious adventures, I took pleasure in the fact that she was short and plump instead of tall and willowy like me. Before she left Villanova, she dabbled in performance art, once pretending to be a bronze statue of Betsy Ross at Independence Mall.

  When I opened his front door, Frank was finishing a conversation on the telephone with a friend whom he called Dennis.

  "Are you feeling better, Frank?" I asked.

  He was opening his wallet, reached for a bill, and handed me five dollars. "This is for your trouble," he said.

  "It was no trouble, Frank. Please keep the money. I'm trying to get my angel wings, and I have a long way to go." I laughed. "Is there anything else you need before I leave?"

  "Not unless you let me pay you," he said.

  "I only have one friend here, and she's leaving. I'd like to consider you my friend, but it won't work if you insist on paying me."

  I pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes and went to the kitchen to refill his water.

  "I should go now, but I'd like to visit again," I said.

  "You're welcome any time. The door is always open."

  "Do you think that's safe?" I asked. After living in a big city, I was naturally suspicious.

  "How long have you been in Sunset?" he asked.

  "Just a few hours. I'm from Philadelphia."

  "Well, you'll like it here, then," he said.

  When I first arrived in Sunset, I found that I'd come to a dead end on Main Street before I'd driven what would have been half a city block in most places. It is as if the town was shoved to the edge of the mainland as far as possible before the hillside turns a corner with sheer drops to the ocean. The town is an eclectic mix of houses and apartments that perch precariously on the terraced hills above the Pacific Ocean. Many homes have an A-frame design and most of those have generous windows with expansive ocean views. Although the homes are generally in good repair, at first glance they appear to have been hastily thrown together. There are no rows of neat neighborhoods. Homes seem to have been haphazardly stuck here and there and are tucked into the hillside wherever space allows. From Main Street, there appears to be no street access or even a walled path like one might find in Europe. The only uniformity is in the homes' exterior gray color that is dreary on a sunny day and oppressive in the fog and rain. Perhaps the owners intended for their homes to blend into the scenery instead of distracting from it. Sarah had led me to believe the only access to this wide spot at the bottom of a cliff was a steep, winding road.