The Alibi

by Sandra Brown

  She was still lost in despondent thought as she unlatched her front iron gate. The rude bleat of a car horn startled her, and she spun around just as a Mercedes convertible screeched to a halt at the curb.

  The driver tipped down his sunglasses, looking at her over the frames. “Good evening,” Bobby Trimble drawled. “I’ve been calling you all day and was about to give you up for lost.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  His chiding smile made her skin crawl.

  “Get away from my house and leave me alone.”

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea to get me riled. Especially not now. Where have you been all day?”

  She refused to answer.

  He grinned, seemingly amused by her stubbornness. “Never mind. Get in.”

  Leaning across the seat, he opened the passenger door. As it swung open, she had to leap back to keep it from striking her shin. “If you think I’m going anywhere with you, you’re crazy.”

  He reached for the ignition key. “Fine, then I’ll come in.”

  “No!”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t think so.” Patting the passenger seat, he said, “Put your sweet little tush right here. Right now.”

  She knew he wouldn’t give up easily and go away. Sooner or later she must confront this, so she might just as well get it over with. She climbed into the car and angrily slammed the door.

  * * *

  Hammond decided not to postpone offering his condolences to Lute Pettijohn’s widow. After concluding his conversation with Mason and seeing Steffi off, he showered and changed. Within minutes, he was in his car and on his way to the Pettijohn mansion.

  Waiting for the bell at the gate to be answered, he mindlessly observed the people enjoying their Sunday evening at the Battery. Two tourists across the street in the park were taking photographs of the Pettijohns’ mansion, despite his presence in the foreground. The usual number of joggers and walkers showed up as moving silhouettes along the seawall.

  He was let in by Sarah Birch. The housekeeper asked him to wait in the foyer while she announced him. Returning shortly, she said, “Miss Davee says for you to come on up, Mr. Cross.”

  The massive woman led him upstairs, across the gallery, and down a wide corridor, then through an enormous bedroom into a bathroom that was unlike any Hammond had ever seen. Beneath a stained-glass skylight was a sunken whirlpool tub large enough for a volleyball team. It was filled with water, but the jets weren’t on. Creamy magnolia blossoms as large as dinner plates floated on the still surface.

  What seemed to be acres of mirrored walls reflected scented candles that flickered on elaborate candlesticks scattered throughout the room. A silk-upholstered chaise piled with decorative pillows stood in one corner. The gold sink was as large as a washtub. The fixtures were crystal, matching the countless vanity jars and perfume bottles arrayed on the counter.

  Hammond realized now that the gossips were probably conservative in their estimate of what Lute had spent on the house’s refurbishing. Although he had been inside many times for various social functions, this was the first time he had ever been upstairs. He had heard rumors of its opulence, but he hadn’t expected anything quite this lavish.

  Nor had he expected to find the recent widow naked and cooing pleasurably as a beefy masseur stroked the back of her thigh.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Hammond?” Davee Pettijohn asked as the masseur draped a sheet over her to cover everything except her shoulders and the leg he was presently massaging.

  Hammond took the hand she extended him and squeezed it. “Not if you don’t.”

  She gave him a wicked smile. “You know me better than that. Not an ounce of modesty to my name. A flaw that liked to have driven my mama crazy. Of course, she was crazy anyway.”

  Propping her chin on her stacked hands, she sighed as the masseur kneaded her buttock. “We’re right in the middle of the ninety-minute session, and it’s so divine I just couldn’t bring myself to ask Sandro to stop.”

  “I don’t blame you. Funny, though.”

  “What?”

  “Lute had a massage in the hotel spa yesterday.”

  “Before or after he got himself murdered?” His frown caused her to laugh. “Just kidding. Pour yourself some champagne, why don’t you?” With an indolent wave, she indicated the silver wine cooler standing near the vanity. The cork had already been popped, but on the silver tray near the cooler was an extra flute that hadn’t been used. It flitted through his mind that Davee might have been expecting him tonight. It was an unsettling thought.

  “Thanks, but I’d better not,” he said.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she said impatiently. “Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. You and I have never stood on ceremony, so why start now? Besides, I think champagne is the perfect drink for when your husband gets blown away in the penthouse suite of his own freaking hotel. While you’re at it, pour me another, too.”

  Her champagne flute was sitting on the floor beside the massage table. Knowing it was usually futile to argue with Davee, Hammond refilled her glass, then poured half a flute for himself. When he brought hers back to her, she clinked their glasses together.

  “Cheers. To funerals and other fun times.”

  “I don’t exactly share your sentiment,” he said after taking a sip.

  She ran her tongue over her lips to savor the taste of the wine. “You may be right. Maybe champagne should only be drunk at weddings.”

  When she lifted her gaze to him, Hammond felt his face turn warm. Discerning exactly what he was thinking, she laughed.

  It was the same laugh he remembered her laughing on a July night years before when both had been attendants in a mutual friend’s wedding. Gardenias, Casa Blanca lilies, peonies, and other fragrant flowers had been used to decorate the garden of the bride’s home where the reception had been held. The heady scent of the flowers was pervasive and as intoxicating as the champagne he had guzzled in a vain effort to keep cool within the constraints of his tuxedo.

  As though they’d been cast by a talent agency, all eight bridesmaids had been gorgeous, matching blondes. In the frothy pink floor-length gown with a deep décolletage, Davee had been even more dazzling than the others.

  “You look good enough to eat,” he had told her outside the chapel moments before the wedding. “Or drink, maybe. You look like you should have a paper umbrella sticking out the top of your head.”

  “A paper umbrella is all this getup needs to be thoroughly revolting.”

  “You don’t like it?” he asked, egging her on.

  She flipped him the finger.

  Later at the reception, when they came off the dance floor after a rousing dance to Otis Day and the Knights’ “Shout,” she fanned her face, complaining, “Not only is this dress too foofy to be believed, it’s the hottest fucking garment I’ve ever had on my body.”

  “So take it off.”

  The Burtons and the Crosses had been friends before either Davee or Hammond was born. Consequently, his first memories of Christmas parties and beach cookouts included Davee. When the kids were shuttled upstairs to bed while the adults continued partying, he and Davee played tricks on the babysitters unlucky enough to be in charge of them.

  They’d smoked their first cigarettes together. With an air of superiority she had confided to him when she started menstruating. The first time she got drunk, it was his car she threw up in. The night she lost her virginity, she had called Hammond as soon as she got home to give him a detailed account of the event.

  From the time they were kids sharing their vocabulary of nasty words, all the way into adolescence, they had talked dirty to each other. First because it was fun, and they could get away with it. Neither would tattle on the other or take offense. As they progressed into young adulthood, their banter became more sexually oriented and flirtatious, but it was still meaningless and therefore safe.

  But leading up to that July wedding, they had been away at their respective un
iversities—he at Clemson and she at Vanderbilt—and hadn’t seen each other in a long while. They were more than a little drunk on champagne and caught up in the romanticism of the occasion. So when Hammond issued that naughty challenge, Davee had looked at him through smoky eyes and replied, “Maybe I will.”

  While everyone else gathered around to watch the cutting of the bridal cake, Hammond stole a bottle of champagne from one of the bars and grabbed Davee’s hand. They sneaked into the neighbor’s backyard, knowing that the neighbor was at the reception. The lawns of the two houses were divided by a dense, tall hedge that had been cultivated for decades to guarantee the kind of privacy Hammond and Davee were seeking.

  The popping champagne cork sounded like a cannon blast when Hammond opened the bottle. That caused them to giggle hysterically. He poured them each a glass and they drank it down. Then a second.

  At some point into the third, Davee asked him to help her with the back buttons on her bridesmaid dress, and off it came, along with her strapless bra, garter belt, and stockings.

  She hesitated when she hooked her thumbs into the elastic waist of her underpants, but he whispered, “Dare you, Davee,” which was a familiar refrain from their childhood and youth. Never had she backed down from a dare. That night was no exception.

  She removed her panties and allowed him to stare his fill, then backed down the swimming pool steps into the cool water. Hammond shed his tuxedo in a fraction of the time it had taken him to get into it, scattering studs that were never seen again—at least not by him.

  As he stood on the edge of the pool, Davee’s eyes widened in astonishment and appreciation. “Hammond, honey, you’ve come along nicely since that time we got caught playing doctor.”

  He dove in.

  Beyond some experimental kissing as youngsters when they had agreed that it was too “totally gross” to even consider opening mouths and touching tongues, they had never kissed. They didn’t that night, either. They didn’t take the time. The danger of getting caught had heightened their excitement to a point where foreplay was unnecessary. The moment he reached her, he pulled her onto his thighs and thrust into her.

  It was slippery. It was quick. They laughed through the whole thing.

  After that night, he didn’t see her for a couple of years. When he did, he pretended that the escapade in the swimming pool had never happened, and she did likewise. Probably neither had wanted that one sexual experiment to jeopardize a lifetime friendship.

  They had never mentioned it until now. He didn’t even remember how they had got back into their clothes that night, or how they had explained themselves to the other people attending the wedding reception, or if they were even required to explain themselves.

  But he vividly remembered Davee’s laugh—gutsy and lusty, seductive and sexy. Her laugh hadn’t changed.

  But her smile was almost sad when she said, “We had fun as kids, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  Then she lowered her eyes to the bubbles in her glass, watching them for a moment before drinking them down. “Unfortunately, we had to become grown-ups and life started to suck.”

  Her arm dropped listlessly over the side of the table. Hammond took the flute from her hand before she dropped it and shattered it on the marble floor. “I’m sorry about Lute, Davee. That’s why I came, to let you know that I think what happened is terrible. I’m sure my parents will call or come over to see you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, there’ll be a parade of sympathizers marching through here tomorrow. I refused to receive anyone today, but tomorrow I won’t be able to fend them off. Bringing their chicken casseroles and lime gelatin salads, they’ll crowd in here to see how I’m taking it.”

  “How are you taking it?”

  Noticing the subtle change in his tone, she rolled to her side, pulled the sheet against her front, and sat up, swinging her bare legs over the edge of the table. “Are you asking as my friend, or as the heir apparent to the D.A.’s office?”

  “I could argue that point, but I’m here as your friend. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

  She pulled in a deep breath. “Well, don’t expect sackcloth and ashes, or hair shirts. None of that Bible stuff. I’m not going to cut off a finger or anything like the Indian widows in the movies do. No, I’ll behave appropriately. Thanks to Lute, the gossips will have enough to keep them in material without me showing how I really feel.”

  “And how’s that?”

  She smiled as brilliantly as she had the night she took her bow at her debutante ball. “I’m positively delighted that the son of a bitch is dead.” Her honey-colored eyes challenged Hammond to say something to that. When he didn’t, she just laughed and then addressed the masseur over her shoulder. “Sandro, be a love and do my neck and shoulders, please.”

  From the time she sat up, he had been standing against the mirrored wall with his arms folded over his meaty chest. Sandro was handsome and heavily muscled. Straight black hair was combed away from his face and held there with thick gel. His eyes were as dark as ripe olives.

  As he moved in behind Davee and placed his hands on her bare shoulders, his intense, Mediterranean eyes stayed fixed on Hammond as though he were sizing up a competitor. Obviously his services extended beyond the massage. Hammond wanted to tell him to relax, that he and Davee were old friends, nothing more, and that he need not be jealous of him.

  At the same time he wanted to warn Davee that now was not the time to flout convention by screwing her masseur. For once in her life she should exercise discretion. Unless Hammond missed his guess, and taking into account Steffi’s remarks, her name would top Rory Smilow’s list of suspects. Everything she did would be closely scrutinized.

  “I admire your candor, Davee, but—”

  “Why lie? Did you like Lute?”

  “Not at all,” he replied honestly and without hesitation. “He was a crook, a scoundrel, and a ruthless opportunist. He hurt people who would let him, and he used those he couldn’t hurt.”

  “You’re equally candid, Hammond. Most people shared that sentiment. I’m not alone in despising him.”

  “No, but you are his widow.”

  “I am his widow,” she said wryly. “I am a lot of things. But one thing I am not is a hypocrite. I won’t grieve for the bastard.”

  “Davee, if the wrong people heard you saying things like that, it could mean trouble for you.”

  “Like Rory Smilow and that bitch he brought here with him last night?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That Steffi person works with you, right?” When he nodded, she said, “Well, I thought she was positively horrid.”

  He smiled. “Few people like Steffi. She’s very ambitious. She rubs people the wrong way, but she doesn’t care. She’s not out to win any personality contests.”

  “Good, because she would lose.”

  “She’s really quite congenial once you get to know her.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You have to understand where she’s coming from.”

  “Up North someplace.”

  He chuckled. “I wasn’t referring to a region, Davee. I meant her drive. She’s had some career disappointments. She overcompensates for those setbacks and comes on a little too strong sometimes.”

  “If you don’t stop defending her, I’m liable to get grumpy.”

  Placing one arm behind her head, she lifted her hair off her neck so Sandro would have easier access. It was a very provocative pose, exposing her underarm and part of her breast. Hammond figured she knew it was provocative, and wondered if she was deliberately trying to distract him.

  “Do you honestly think they’ll suspect me of murder?” she asked.

  “You’ll inherit a lot of money now.”

  “There’s that, yes,” she conceded thoughtfully. “And then there’s the common knowledge that my late husband’s main goal in life was to pork as many of my friends—and I use the term loosely—as possible.

  �
�I don’t know if he was working his way through them because they are, generally speaking, the most desirable women in Charleston, or if they were desirable to him only because they were my friends. Probably the latter, because Georgia Arendale’s ass is bigger than a battleship, but that didn’t stop him from taking her over to Kiawah for a day at the beach. I bet she got a serious burn because it would take a whole tube of Coppertone to cover that much cellulite.

  “Emily Southerland has a complexion that would stop a clock, despite countless chemical peels, but Lute balled her anyway, in that ghastly downstairs powder room of hers—it has a faux fur toilet seat cover—at her New Year’s Eve party.”

  Hammond laughed although Davee wasn’t trying to be funny. “While you, of course, were entirely faithful to your marriage vows.”

  “Of course.” Letting the sheet slip an inch or two, she batted her eyelashes at him to underscore her lie.

  “Yours wasn’t exactly a marriage made in heaven, Davee.”

  “I never claimed to love Lute. In fact, he knew I didn’t. But that was okay because he didn’t love me, either. The marriage still served its purpose. He wanted me for boasting rights. He was the one man in Charleston with balls big enough to bag Davee Burton. In return, I…” She paused, looking pained. “I had my reason for marrying him, but it wasn’t the pursuit of happiness.”

  She lowered her arm and shook her hair free while Sandro went to work on her lower spine. “You’re wincing, Hammond. What’s the matter?”

  “Everything you say sounds like motive to commit murder.”

  She laughed scornfully. “If I was going to kill Lute, I wouldn’t have gone about it like that. I wouldn’t have trotted myself downtown on a hot Saturday afternoon, when this city is crawling with stinky, sweaty Yankee tourists, toting a handgun like white trash, and shooting him in the back.”

  “That’s what you would want the police to surmise, anyway.”