The Alibi

by Sandra Brown

  Loretta Boothe, who had been watching for him, felt a twinge of sympathy. Harvey was a disagreeable little twerp, but he was entirely out of his element in the Shady Rest. He relaxed only marginally when he spotted her coming toward him.

  “I thought I’d written down the wrong address. What a horrible place. Even the name sounds like a cemetery.”

  “Thank you for coming, Harvey. It’s good to see you.” Before he could bolt, which he appeared to be on the verge of doing, Loretta grabbed his arm and dragged him toward a booth. “Welcome to my office.”

  Still jittery, he propped his wet umbrella beneath the table, readjusted the lapels of his jacket, and pushed his eyeglasses up his long, narrow nose. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom and he had gotten a better look at the other customers, he shuddered. “You’re not afraid to come here alone? The clientele appear to be the dregs of society.”

  “Harvey, I am the clientele.”

  Abashed, he began stammering an apology.

  Loretta laughed. “No offense taken. Relax. What you need is a drink.” She signaled the bartender.

  Harvey folded his delicate hands on the table. “That would be nice, thank you. A short one. I can’t stay long. I’m allergic to secondhand smoke.”

  She ordered him a whiskey sour and a club soda for herself. Noticing his surprise, she said, “I’m on the wagon.”

  “Really? I had heard you… I had heard otherwise.”

  “I’ve had a recent conversion.”

  “Well, good for you.”

  “Not so good, Harvey. Cold turkey sucks. I hate it.”

  Her candor made him laugh. “You always were a straight shooter, Loretta, and you haven’t changed. I’ve missed seeing you around. Do you miss the P.D.?”

  “Sometimes. Not the people. The work. I miss that.”

  “Are you still doing some private investigating?”

  “Yes, I’m freelancing.” She hesitated. “That’s why I called and asked you to meet me.”

  He moaned. “I knew it. I said to myself, ‘Harvey, you’re going to regret accepting this invitation.’ ”

  “But your curiosity got the best of you, didn’t it?” she teased. “That and recollections of my ready wit.”

  “Loretta, please don’t ask me for a favor.”

  “Harvey, please don’t be such a goddamn hypocrite.”

  Officially he was a county employ, but his computer access also allowed him to delve into city and state records. He had so much information at his fingertips, he was frequently approached by people willing to pay handsomely to know their co-workers’ salaries, or such. But Harvey refused to be part of anything unethical or illegal. To anyone who came to him trying to wheedle a favor, he was irritatingly adamant in his refusal.

  That’s why Loretta’s blunt statement shocked him. He blinked rapidly behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “You’re not the good little boy you would have everyone believe.”

  “How altogether boorish of you to remind me of my one little indiscretion.”

  “The only one I know about,” she said intuitively. “I still think you pulled the plug, so to speak, on that asshole who hassled you at the Christmas party. Come on, now, Harvey, fess up. Didn’t you retaliate by scrambling all his programs?”

  He pursed his lips.

  “Never mind.” She chuckled. “I don’t blame you for not confessing, but your secret would be safe with me. In fact, I like you better for showing a weakness. I can identify with human frailty.” She wagged her finger at him. “You love the thrill you derive from occasionally breaking the rules. It’s how you get your rocks off.”

  “What horrid terminology! Furthermore, it’s untrue.” Despite his public avowal to be a teetotaler, he quaffed his drink and didn’t object when she ordered another round.

  As a policewoman working overtime in county records one night, she had caught Harvey Knuckle in his superior’s office, scrolling through his personal finance files and sipping from his secreted bottle of brandy.

  The little man had been mortified to be caught red-handed doing the very thing he vowed never to do for someone else. Barely able to contain her laughter, Loretta had assured him that she had no intention of tattling and had wished him good luck on his treasure hunt.

  The next time she approached him needing a favor, Harvey didn’t hesitate to grant it. From that night on, whenever she needed information, she went to Harvey. He never failed to produce. She had been tapping that valuable resource ever since.

  “I know I can count on you, Harvey.”

  “I’m making no promises,” he said prissily. “You’re no longer with the police department. That changes things significantly.”

  “This is very important.” She scooted forward on her bench and whispered confidentially, “I’m working on the Pettijohn murder case.”

  He gaped at her, absently thanked the bartender who delivered his drink to the table, and took a quick sip. “You don’t say?”

  “It’s very hush-hush. You can’t breathe a word of this to a single soul.”

  “You know you have my confidence,” he whispered back. “Who’re you working for?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “They haven’t made an arrest yet, have they? Are they close to making one?”

  “I’m sorry, Harvey. I can’t discuss it. It would violate my client’s confidence if I did.”

  “I understand the necessity for confidentiality, I do.”

  He wasn’t all that disappointed. The intrigue kindled his unappeased sense of adventure. Being let in on a secret, to any extent, gave him a place in an inner circle when he was excluded from most. It twinged Loretta’s conscience a little to manipulate him this way, but she was willing to do just about anything to please Hammond and make up for her past mistake.

  “What I need is everything you can unearth on a Dr. Alex Ladd. Middle initial E. I also have her Social Security number, driver’s license number, and so on. She’s a psychologist who practices here in Charleston.”

  “A shrink? Is that her connection to Pettijohn?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Loretta,” he whined.

  “Because I don’t know. I swear. So far all I’ve got on her is the run-of-the-mill stuff. Income tax returns, banking records, credit cards. Nothing out of joint on any of them. She owns her home, has no major debts. No one’s suing her. She hasn’t even had a traffic ticket. Her university and postgrad transcripts are impressive. She was an excellent student and had offers to join several existing practices. However, she opted to set up her own.”

  “Just starting out? She must come from money.”

  “She inherited a wad from her adoptive parents, one Dr. Marion Ladd, a general practitioner in Nashville. Wife Cynthia, a teacher turned homemaker. They had no other children. They were killed several years ago in a commuter plane crash during a skiing trip in Utah.”

  “Was foul play suspected?”

  Loretta hid her smile behind a sip of her club soda. Harvey was getting into the spirit of the project. “No.”

  “Hmm. It sounds to me as though you have quite a lot already.”

  Loretta shook her head. “I know nothing about her early life. She wasn’t adopted until she was fifteen.”

  “That old?”

  “Oddly, that’s when it seems her life began. The circumstances of her adoption and her life prior to it are a black hole. It’s giving up no information, and I’ve had no luck trying to penetrate it.”

  “Huh,” Harvey said, taking another quick slurp of his drink.

  “She attended a private high school. The people I talked to there—and I worked my way up the chain of command—were nice and polite but tight-lipped. They wouldn’t even commit to sending me a yearbook of her graduating year. Very into protecting the Ladds’ privacy and wouldn’t talk about them at all.

  “According to everything I read about them, they were highly respected and above reproach.
Cynthia Ladd was awarded Teacher of the Year before she left the profession. Dr. Ladd’s patients mourned him when he died. He was a church deacon. She… Never mind, you get the idea. No scandal or even close to one.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “Get into the juvenile records.”

  Again he groaned theatrically. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “There’s probably nothing there. I just want you to take a look.”

  “Just looking could get me fired. You know how CPS is,” he whined. “They guard those records like they’re holy relics. They’re not to be tampered with.”

  “Not by anyone less than a genius who won’t get caught. I need them from Tennessee, too.”

  “Forget it!”

  “I know you can do it,” she said, reaching across the table to pat his hand.

  “If Child Protection finds out what I was doing, I could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “I have every confidence in you, Harvey.”

  He was viciously gnawing his lip, but she could see that he was enticed by the challenge it presented. “I’ll agree to try, that’s all. I’ll try. Also, something this delicate can’t be rushed.”

  “I understand. Take your time. But hurry.” She downed her club soda and belched softly. “And Harvey, while you’re at it…”

  He grimaced. “Uh-oh.”

  “I want you to check on something else for me.”

  * * *

  “It’s Smilow.”

  “You’ll have to speak up,” Steffi told him. “I’m on my cell.”

  “So am I. A guy at SLED just called.”

  “Good news?”

  “For everybody except Dr. Ladd.”

  “What? What? Tell me.”

  “Remember the unidentified particle John Madison took off Pettijohn?”

  “You told me about it.”

  “Clove.”

  “The spice?”

  “When did you last see a spike of clove?”

  “Easter. On my mother’s ham.”

  “I saw some yesterday morning when I went to Alex Ladd’s house. There was a cut-glass bowl of fresh oranges on her entry table. They were spiked with cloves.”

  “We’ve got her!”

  “Not yet, but we’re getting closer.”

  “What about the hair?”

  “Human, not Pettijohn’s. But we don’t have one to compare it to.”

  “Not yet.”

  He chuckled. “Sleep tight, Steffi.”

  “Wait, are you going to call Hammond with this update?”

  “Are you?”

  After a pause, she said, “See you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Hammond seriously considered not answering the telephone. He changed his mind seconds before the machine kicked in. Immediately he regretted it.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to answer.” His father’s tone of voice turned the simple statement into a reprimand.

  “I was in the shower,” Hammond lied. “What’s up?”

  “I’m in my car on my way back home. I just dropped your mother off at her bridge game. I didn’t want her driving in this rain.”

  His parents had an old-fashioned marriage. The roles were traditional, clearly defined, and the lines never blurred. His father made all the major decisions independently; it would never have occurred to Amelia Cross to challenge that arrangement. Hammond couldn’t understand her blind devotion to an archaic system that robbed her of individuality, but she seemed perfectly content with it. He would never enflame his father or hurt his mother by pointing out the inequities of their relationship. Besides, his opinion of it didn’t matter. It had worked for them for more than forty years.

  “How are things going with the Pettijohn case?”

  “Fine,” Hammond replied.

  Preston chuckled. “Could you elaborate a little?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m curious. I played nine holes with your boss this afternoon before it started raining. He said Smilow has questioned a female suspect twice, and that you were present both times.”

  His father was more than idly curious. He wanted to know if his son was performing competently. “I’d rather not discuss it over a cell phone.”

  “Don’t be silly. I want to know what’s going on.”

  Trying to keep from sounding too defensive, Hammond gave him the highlights of Alex’s interrogation. “Her lawyer—”

  “Frank Perkins. Good man.”

  Preston was well apprised of the details. Hammond knew he wasn’t violating any confidentiality because it had already been violated. Preston’s friendship with Monroe Mason dated back to prep school days. If they had played nine holes of golf today, Mason would have already divulged the details, and there would be little left for Hammond to disclose.

  “Perkins thinks we’ve got nothing on her.”

  “What do you think?”

  Hammond chose his words carefully, not knowing when something he said would come back to haunt—or trap—him. Unlike Alex, he wasn’t an accomplished liar. It wasn’t his habit to lie, and he disdained even the slightest fib. Yet he already had two whoppers of omission to his credit. He discovered he could lie to his father with relative ease.

  “She’s been caught in a couple of lies, but in Frank’s able hands, they would probably be disregarded.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of our side’s failure to produce hard evidence linking her to the crime.”

  “Mason says she lied about where she was that night.”

  “Mason didn’t leave anything out, did he?” Hammond said under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why would she lie if she doesn’t have something to hide?”

  Feeling cavalier and ornery, Hammond said, “Maybe she had a secret rendezvous that night, and she’s lying to protect the man she was with.”

  “Maybe. In any event she’s lied, and Smilow is right on top of it. I know you don’t like him, but you’ve got to admit that he’s an excellent detective.”

  “I can’t argue that.”

  “He’s got a law degree, you know.”

  Hammond recognized that as one of those statements that his father threw out like a quick jab to the face. It was intended to distract you from the right uppercut that was coming.

  “I hope he never decides to move from the police department over to the solicitor’s office. You might find yourself out of a job, son.”

  Hammond ground his teeth to keep from saying the two words that flashed through his mind.

  “I told your mother—”

  “You discussed the case with Mom?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because… because it’s unfair.”

  “To whom?”

  “To everybody concerned. The police, my office, the suspect. What if this woman is innocent, Dad? Her reputation will have been trampled for nothing.”

  “Why are you so upset, Hammond?”

  “I hope Mom doesn’t regale her bridge club with all the juicy details of the case.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  Maybe he was, but the longer this telephone conversation got, the more it was pissing him off. Mostly because he didn’t want his father monitoring him through every step of this case. A murder trial of this magnitude consumed a lawyer’s life. Hours stretched into days, and days into weeks, sometimes months. He could handle it. He would relish handling it. But he wouldn’t welcome being critiqued at the end of each day. That could become demoralizing and cause him to start second-guessing every strategy.

  “Dad, I know what I’m doing.”

  “No one ever questioned—”

  “Bullshit. You bring my ability into question every time you consult with Mason and ask him for a report. If he weren’t pleased with the work I’ve done, he wouldn’t have assigned me to this case. He certainly wouldn’t be touting me as his successor.”

 
“Everything you’ve said is true,” Preston said with maddening control. “All the more reason for me to be worried that you’ll blow it.”

  “Why would you think I might blow it?”

  “I understand the suspect is a beautiful woman.”

  Hammond hadn’t seen that one coming. If it had been an actual uppercut, it would have been a knockout and he would be on the mat. He reeled from the impact. One hundred percent of the time, his father seemed to know where to strike him where he would feel it the most.

  “That’s the most insulting thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Listen, Hammond, I’m—”

  “No, you listen. I will do my job. If this case warrants the death penalty, that’s what I’ll ask for.”

  “Will you?”

  “Absolutely. Just as I’ll indict you if my investigation warrants it.”

  After a slight pause, Preston said softly, “Don’t bluff me, Hammond.”

  “Call it, Dad. See if I’m bluffing.”

  “Then do it. Just be sure to examine your motives first.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, be certain you have substantial evidence and not just a petty grudge. Don’t cause us both a lot of time, effort, and embarrassment just because you’re pissed off at me for being hard on you. I would never be convicted. In your attempt to spite me, you’d only be spiting yourself.”

  Hammond’s fingers had turned white and were aching from gripping the telephone receiver so hard. “Your phone is cutting out. Goodbye.”

  * * *

  Ignoring the rain, Alex had decided to go out for a run. Through the downpour, her legs pumped at a steady pace. Adherence to her exercise regimen seemed essential when the rest of her life had been pitched into chaos. Besides, after seeing rescheduled patients late into the evening, it gave her a physical outlet for cerebral overload. It cleared her head and allowed her mind to wander freely.

  She worried about her patients. If and when it became public that she was a suspect in a murder case, what would happen to them? What would they think of her? Would it change their opinion of her? Naturally it would. It wouldn’t be realistic to hope that they would disregard her involvement with a murder investigation.

  Maybe she should begin as early as tomorrow trying to place them with interim therapists so there would be no suspension of their treatment if she were to be incarcerated.