Hostile Witness

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

Josie backed off, slowly releasing Hannah's wrist. She was shaking, stunned at her anger and Hannah's admission.

"No, I don't want to make anything of it."

Josie sank back into her chair. Grown women broke their first hour in this place. Hannah Sheraton was ready to fight. She had guts, Josie would give her that.

"So then don't call me on it."

Hannah slumped in her chair, resentment seeping out of her. Her jumpsuit gaped open. Josie could see one perfectly formed breast sans bra. The nipple was pierced. There was a tattoo staining her shoulder, blue/black and red. Her hand knocked underneath the table in a maddening rhythm. Everything about her said hard as nails but Josie didn't buy it. There was something beyond the anger that intrigued Josie; something in the way Hannah stood up for herself that Josie admired.

"So tell me about what you're doing. There isn't time for me to guess, and you don't want the prosecution to know anything your own attorney doesn't know."

Hannah closed her eyes and kept them closed.

"I do it because that's what I do. I touch things twenty times. It makes me feel safe. I'm obsessive/compulsive. All the doctors say the same thing." Hannah's lashes fluttered. Her lids raised half way in an expression that was weary and guarded. "What a waste of money. What's wrong with liking to know my boundaries? It doesn't hurt anyone. It doesn't even hurt me."

"I think I'll wait for your doctors to tell me if you have severe behavioral problems," Josie said.

"That's rich. They only know what I tell them." Hannah dismissed Josie only to find the ensuing, insistent silence annoying. She filled it. "I'm better with doors than I used to be. I saw you looking at me when I touched the door. That's why I figured you for a doctor. You look like the kind of doctor my mother likes."

"And what kind would that be?"

"My mom likes women doctors. Extreme women."

Hannah put her burned hand to her throat and dropped the fingers down to the opening of her jumpsuit. This was a Linda move. Hannah was a puppy, learning all the wrong things before she was weaned. Sensing Josie's discomfort, Hannah teased.

"The kind of women my mom likes either hate to screw, or they screw too much. That's the kind of extreme they are. She probably likes lawyers like that, too. Which one are you?"

Josie shook her head.

"I've heard that word before, Hannah, so why don't you tell me something I really want to know. Tell me what kind of doctors Fritz liked." When Hannah fell silent Josie pushed on. "Your mother said Fritz Rayburn took an interest in you. She said he paid for some clinics and your doctors."

Josie wasn't playing Hannah's game and Hannah wasn't interested in Josie's.

"They were just places, just people. I don't think he ever met any of the doctors in them. He just sent me there."

"How did you feel about that?"

"Like he was sticking his nose in where it didn't belong; like he was punishing me when I didn't do anything."

The hair was going back and forth again but slower now as if she was seeing Fritz, hearing him, and was pissed at him. Between the words Hannah breathed her numbers. When she reached twenty twirls she stopped and put her burned hand on the table, always in the same place. She was done.

"I'm not going to talk about Fritz. He was just in the house sometimes, that's all. He was a damn hypocrite always talking about the law, and justice, and art, and people falling all over him like he was better than everyone else. Well, he wasn't better, and he wasn't around a lot. So let's not talk about Fritz."