The Witness

The good made her a little breathless. “Garrison contacted me. Her report was very brief, considering, but inclusive.”
    “Abigail, spill it.”
    “I’m—oh. Yes. They’ve picked up Cosgrove and Keegan. They’re interrogating, and that may take some time. She didn’t mention the blackmail, but I’ve followed some of the communications in-house, so tospeak. Naturally, they believe Keegan blackmailed Cosgrove, and they’ll use that to pressure each of them. More. More important. They’ve arrested Korotkii and Ilya Volkov. They’ve arrested Korotkii for the murders of Julie and Alexi, and Ilya as accessory after the fact.”
    “Sit down, honey.”
    “I can’t. It’s happening. It’s actually happening. They’ve asked me to meet with the federal prosecutor and his team to prepare me for testifying.”
    “When?”
    “Right away. I have a plan.” She took both his hands now, held tight. “I need you to trust me.”
    “Tell me.”
    O N A BRIGHT J ULY MORNING , one month and twelve years from the day she’d witnessed the murders, Elizabeth Fitch entered the courtroom. She wore a simple black suit and white shirt, and what appeared to be minimal makeup. A pair of pretty dangling earrings were her only jewelry.
    She took the stand, swore to tell the truth. And looked directly into Ilya Volkov’s eyes.
    How little he’d changed, really, she thought. A bit fuller in face and body, his hair more expertly styled. But still so handsome, so smooth.
    And so cold under it all. She could see that now, what the young girl hadn’t. The ice under the polish.
    He smiled at her, and the years dropped away.
    He thought the smile intimidating, she decided. Instead, it made her remember, and helped her forgive herself for being so dazzled that night, for kissing a man complicit in the murder of her friend.
    “Please state your name.”
    “My name is Elizabeth Fitch.”
    She told the story she’d recounted now almost too many times to bear. She skipped no detail and, as instructed, allowed her emotions to show.
    “These events happened twelve years ago,” the federal prosecutor reminded her. “Why has it taken you so long to come forward?”
    “I came forward that night. I spoke with Detectives Brenda Griffith and Sean Riley of the Chicago Police Department.”
    They were in the courtroom, too. She looked at them, both of them, saw the faint nods of acknowledgment.
    “I was taken to a safe house, then transferred into the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service and transferred to another location, where I remained under the protection of Marshals John Barrow, Theresa Norton, William Cosgrove and Lynda Peski for three months as there were delays in the trial. Until the evening of my seventeenth birthday.”
    “What happened on that date?”
    “Marshals Barrow and Norton were killed protecting me when Marshal Cosgrove, and a Marshal Keegan who had arranged to replace Marshal Peski, attempted to kill me.”
    Hands tightly clenched in her lap, she sat through the objections, the jockeying.
    “How do you know this?” the prosecutor demanded.
    She talked, and continued to talk, of a pretty sweater and a pair of earrings, of a birthday cake. Of shouts and gunshots, of her last moments with John Barrow and his last words to her.
    “He had a wife and two sons whom he loved very much. He was a good man, a kind one and a brave one. He gave his life to save mine. And when he knew he was dying, when he knew he couldn’t protect me, he told me to run, because two men he trusted, two men who’d taken the same oaths he had, betrayed their oath. He couldn’t know if there were others, or whom I could trust other than myself. He spent his last moments doing everything he could to keep me safe. So I ran.”
    “And for twelve years you’ve lived under an assumed name and remained hidden from the authorities.”
    “Yes, and from the Volkovs, and from those within the authorities who work with the Volkovs.”
    “What changed, Ms. Fitch? Why are you testifying here and now?”
    “As long as I ran, the life both John and Terry died for was safe. But as long as I ran, there could be no justice for them, or for Julie Masters. And the life they saved could only be half a life. I want people to know what was done, and I want to make the life they saved worthwhile. I’m finished running.”
    She didn’t waver through the cross. She’d assumed it would pain her to be called a liar, a coward, to have her veracity, her