False Witness

The book flashes back to summer 2005. Leigh has fled Atlanta for Chicago, where she’s living with Walter. Callie shows up at their apartment. She steals some of their valuables, presumably for drug money, and leaves behind a box with something inside. Leigh and Walter assume it’s a cat because Callie loves animals and is always saving strays. But when they open the box up, they discover a baby—Callie’s baby. Callie was in recovery from addiction during her pregnancy, and now she has given her child to Walter and Leigh, with a note: “For Harleigh & Walter because I love you” (279). Maddy is, in fact, Callie’s daughter.

The narrative flashes forward to spring 2021. It’s still Wednesday. Leigh is helping Maddy with her homework. Leigh reflects on how Callie is Maddy’s biological mother. Walter and Leigh were worried that Callie might try to come back for Maddy and take her away from them, but she’s always kept her distance and never referred to Maddy as anything other than their daughter.

Leigh decides to tell Walter the truth about her and Callie’s past. First Leigh tells Walter about her own experience babysitting for Buddy—how he assaulted her once and how she then slapped his hand away the next time, and he never tried anything else again. Leigh explains that she pushed the memory of the assault out of her mind. When she was 16, she quit the babysitting job and passed it on to Callie. Leigh reveals that Buddy raped Callie for two and a half years. She tells Walter all about the night that Buddy died; Callie nicked his femoral vein with a knife and, instead of calling an ambulance, she called Leigh—who then finished the murder by wrapping plastic wrap around Buddy’s head. Leigh unloads her guilt on Walter: “I knew that it was my fault. I pimped out my own sister to a pedophile” (290). She expects Walter to be disgusted or angry, but he isn’t. He tells her, “You were only thirteen years old. He molested you, and nobody did anything. You said you should’ve protected Callie. Who protected you? […] You were a child!” (291).

Finally, Leigh tells Walter that Andrew/Trevor is her new law client and that he has Buddy’s old videos—and the video of Callie and Leigh killing Buddy. Walter is angry that Leigh isn’t going to the police immediately. He suggests that Andrew/Trevor might try to rape Maddy. He then suggests that Leigh is acting like her own mother, Phil. Hurt, Leigh leaves.

The next day, Callie goes to an AA meeting, where she makes up a fake name (“Maxine” or “Max”) and background story—with the intent of meeting Sidney. Callie and Sidney strike up a conversation in the bathroom of the AA meeting, and Sidney asks Callie if she has any drugs. Callie tells Sidney that she does. The two women leave the AA meeting to have drinks and do drugs together. Callie plans to kill Sidney: “Andrew was going to pay for threatening Maddy. He was going to pay with Sidney’s life” (307).

On the same day, Walter calls Leigh to tell her that he is sending Maddy on a trip with his mother, to keep her safe. Walter is also formally initiating their divorce after months of separation. Leigh goes to work. It’s the day of jury selection for Andrew/Trevor’s rape trial. Leigh meets with Andrew/Trevor, who tells her that his ankle monitor went off the day before. Leigh and Andrew/Trevor are talking when the police show up—another woman has been violently attacked, this time killed, and Andrew/Trevor is the prime suspect. The crime has the same characteristics as the other assaults, including the cut on the left thigh just over the femoral artery. Leigh realizes that Bradley’s prediction has come to fruition: “Peeping Tom turns into rapist. Rapist turns into murderer” (321). The dead woman is Ruby, the missing mother of Maddy’s friend.

Callie and Sidney are drunk and high. Sidney brings Callie back to her and Andrew/Trevor’s home. In the kitchen, Callie is shocked to see the knife she used to cut Buddy’s leg. Sidney and Callie hook up. As they’re hooking up, audio comes on over the speakers in the house—after a moment of confusion, Callie realizes that Sidney is playing old videotapes of Callie and Buddy: “Buddy, please, it hurts too much please stop please… Her own voice, fourteen years old. Hurting. Terrified” (334). Sidney admits that she knows all about Callie and Buddy, and that she recognized Callie the second Callie entered the AA meeting. Sidney reveals that Andrew/Trevor has all the old tapes of Buddy and Callie in the safe in the house—but that Sidney doesn’t know the combination. Enraged, Callie attacks Sidney.