Page 136 of Witness 8

‘What did you do with that hammer?’

‘I swung it.’

This was hard. This was so, so hard for Ruby. Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice scratched and broke.

‘You swung the hammer at something, didn’t you?’

‘I swung it into the stud wall. Breaking it.’

‘Ms. Johnson, you confirmed earlier you used to live on this street with your mother and father. Just to be clear, you used to live in the house the Jacksons live in right now?’

‘It was our house.’

Why did you swing that hammer into the stud wall?’

‘I had to break the wall down before the construction work began on the house.’

‘Why is that, Ms. Johnson?’

‘Because I had to move my father’s body out from behind the wall before the construction workers found it.’

The gasp from the jury, and the rest of the courtroom, sounded like someone switching on a vacuum cleaner.

‘Last night you confessed to your father’s murder, to Detective Chase?’

And, as soon as Ruby had told him what she had done, the red priest stopped whispering. The voice inside her head, the red priest,with the voice ofher father, stopped talking.

Ruby, at last, had silence. She was free from the red priest. Free from her father.

And that was the best kind of freedom.

‘It was me. I killed him and buried him in the wall. My mother had nothing to do with it.Nothing. It was all me. She didn’t know. She thought he’d run away. Alison’s mother, Esther, shesaw right through me. She knew I was up to something with the painting. I couldn’t risk her getting me fired from working for the Jacksons. I needed Alison to trust me, and I needed everyone out of that house. I needed Althea gone too. Esther turned against me. So I had to kill her,’ said Ruby.

Alison howled in pain, and John got up from the defense table, went to his wife sitting behind in the gallery and put his arms around her.

Ruby’s own mother was dying, and Ruby had been given a choice last night by Flynn and Detective Chase. She could tell the truth, and her dying mother would have immunity.

Ruby always did what she had to do to protect her mother.

Even lie for her.

Josef had attacked her mom that night, before he left. She fought him off – finally she had fought back. And Ruby had taken a knife from the kitchen drawer, and put it in her father’s neck. Together with her mom, they had pulled down part of the stud wall, put him inside it, and repaired it, plastered it.

Covered it up.

Flynn sat down, and the judge began speaking to the jury.

66

Eddie

Kate and I took a moment.

We stood in the hallway outside the courtroom, watching our client holding his wife. They cried hard. It was a mix of so much pain being released and so much joy at a life returned. Alison would need counseling, and Kate had already told her she would help arrange it. None of this was their fault. A monster had found its way into their home. It was no one’s fault but Ruby’s. The agony of what they had been through together would only deepen their love for each other. Detective Chase had agreed to visit John’s hospital and speak to the director – get our guy his job back, any salary for the time he had missed work and an apology. In exchange, I agreed that John wouldn’t sue the NYPD.

I hadn’t told this to Al Parish yet. He was standing beside his army of associates as they patted him on the back and applauded him for a job well done. There would be no applause when I told him John wasn’t going to sue the police. Al had made enough money out of John. I made a mental note to send Harold Washington III a new pair of jeans. I still felt a little bad about ripping a hole in his expensive pair.

I beckoned Al over.