Cobra Clearance by Richard Craig Anderson Page B

change.”
    â€œLet’s curb any summary judgments, take our time and follow through with this.” Michael ran the sequence again. And once more after that. Then he settled back into his chair. “I think I know what’s going on. She arrived far in advance of her shift.”
    â€œBecause?”
    â€œBecause she’s poor and has to take the bus to work. She has to make transfers. That means she ends up arriving a good ninety minutes before she has to clock-in.”
    Levi regarded his friend with kindness. “And you know about these things. Because you’ve been there.”
    Michael shrugged. “Yeah, well…listen, we need to find her. Now.”
    Michael’s BMW drew plenty of stares as he parked in front of a rundown duplex in Suitland, Maryland an hour later. He was about to knock when the door opened and an ageless woman appeared. Her dark face was crisscrossed by thin lines resembling a waffle grid, and she wore her hair piled high atop her head. The men produced their credentials. Michael sensed her inherent fear of officials and smiled disarmingly. “Please. Don’t be afraid. We’re not from Immigration.”
    She glanced at the credentials and settled her brown eyes on Michael’s. “You come about that day. Don’t you?”
    Michael picked up on her Jamaican accent. “Has anyone interviewed you?”
    â€œNobody talk to me about that day, not ever.” She opened the door further, then stepped aside. “Come in, please.” She showed them into a small but tidy living room and gestured toward a pair of frayed easy chairs. She offered refreshments, but when they declined she settled onto an equally worn couch.
    Michael said without overture, “You arrived early for work that day.”
    â€œYes. I come in early. The buses, don’t you know.”
    â€œIs that why nobody’s spoken to you? Because you hadn’t punched in yet?”
    She shifted in her seat and made tiny fists. “Maybe they thought I not there, because they see I not on the schedule to arrive yet. But I was.”
    â€œYou saw something,” Michael said matter-of-factly.
    â€œIt is a long ride. When I arrived I went straightaway to the ladies room. After I finish I take a back staircase to the third level. There is a green wooden bench near the south side. I can sit there, take the sun in peace.” She closed her eyes and fell silent. Half a minute went by before she opened them. “As I walk to the bench I pass by a white man sitting in a minivan. He in the driver seat but the motor is not on.”
    â€œWhat color was this van?”
    â€œGray as the sky that day.” She paused until Michael nodded. “This man, he sitting all alone and he not looking at
nothing
. That why I notice him. I turn to him but he got that look, you know? Like he looking at you but he not really seeing you. Like he be staring straight through your soul into that place in the middle of the Earth.”
    â€œWas that the only thing unusual about him?”
    â€œOther people…they sometimes sit in their cars and wait. But they don’t have that look, that for sure.” She wet her lips and whispered, “Mister, I tell you something else ‘bout that man. I see him there before. Two weeks before that nasty day.”
    Michael gently encouraged her. “What made you notice him then?”
    â€œBecause he arrive by taxi, that why. And I ask, ‘Why that man come by taxi’? Then I think, maybe he has car inside. But he don’t go to no car. He just walk ‘round an’ ‘round an’ then he get back in taxi and leave. But he come close to me and I see his eyes, and they the same eyes on the same man on that bad, bad day.”
    Levi asked, “Can you describe the taxi? Is it one that’s been there before?”
    â€œIt was different from all the others. Not a Diamond Cab, and that’s all I know.”