An Alibi A Day

by A. R. Winters

  “Thanks,” is what she settled on.

  “I’ll give you a tow into Hawthorne, my mechanic’s there. Do you know the village?”

  That was a stroke of luck.

  “I do! That’s where I’m staying! My grandma and aunt live there.”

  “Hold on and I’ll hitch you up in a minute. Let me just go get my truck.” He started to move, but then stopped himself. “Charlie, by the way.”

  “Allie.”

  With a toothy grin he gave her a wave, and she watched as he disappeared up the embankment. Just beyond it was a wire fence which he hopped over after leaning one strong arm on a wooden fence post. On the other side of the fence was some private land of some kind, though she couldn’t really see it.

  Allie waited almost five minutes before he returned, and when he did it was in what appeared to be a gardener’s van—a small truck with a flatbed behind, in which were various bags, implements and a large tool cupboard fixed to the back of the passenger cabin. On the side it read Charlie’s Landscaping, Gardening, and Handymanning—Cheap, Cheerful and Fast.

  He pulled up in front of her car, and before she knew it, he had attached a rope to the back of his van and the front of her car.

  “All right, hop in, steer behind me, and we’ll get you back into Hawthorne.”

  Allie beamed at him. This was the kindest thing anyone had done for her in a long while, and she couldn’t deny the fact that he was good looking to boot. Being a gardener, he was the outdoorsy type, probably ideal for Jackie, she mused.

  After ten nerve-wracking minutes following Charlie as he towed her car, they went down a small road off the High Street that she’d never explored before. There wasn’t much to it, though at the end, sure enough, there was a garage which backed onto a woody copse. Above the garage was a sign reading Skip’s Garage & Mechanics.

  She hadn’t enjoyed the drive over, as she wasn’t in control. All she could do was steer and brake when he slowed down. Not being able to drive as she pleased was an uncomfortable feeling. But now it was over.

  She pulled the handbrake and undid her seatbelt.

  It was time to meet Skip.

  Chapter 15

  Charlie was already out of the cab of his van and walking over to her car when she stepped out. They were both smiling.

  “Hold on here a moment, I’ll have a word with Skip first and then bring him out here to have a look. I’ll put in a good word—you know what mechanics are like, even the good ones.”

  Allie nodded uncomfortably. Again, she was at the mercy of the kindness of a pair of strangers.

  Charlie returned with Skip a few moments later. He was older than Charlie, perhaps in his forties, and he was a wiry thin with a steel grey moustache that looked like it was trying to hide his facial expressions.

  “What’s the matter with it?” Skip asked her, nodding his head at the Toyota.

  “Doesn’t work.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Yeah, that sounds like a problem. Let me have a look at her.”

  Charlie followed behind Skip, watching everything he did, from attempting to start the car with the key, to peering under the bonnet once trying to start the car had proved fruitless.

  Finally, Skip stood up, dusted off his black, grease-caked hands and caught Allie’s eye.

  “Yep. She’s broke, all right. I’m going to need to get some parts in for this, I’m afraid. It’s an older model, and I’ll have to get them shipped.”

  “How long will that take?”

  He rubbed his chin as if he’d never considered the question before. “Maybe a week, to get you back on the road again?”

  “A week?” Allie’s shoulders slumped as she said it. A week. It was a long time without her car. And she might need it.

  “Yeah, ten days should do it.”

  “Ten days? But you said a week...”

  Skip shrugged his shoulders. “A week would be good, wouldn’t it? Let’s hope for a week.”

  Allie stared at him. What was this? Hope? Didn’t he know how long it would take? How could he live like that?

  Charlie rested a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t flinch—for once.

  “I’ll check in every day. Make sure it’s done just as fast as possible. Make sure old Skippo doesn’t take too many days off.”

  “Hey, I never take days off!” said Skip, clearly affronted.

  “Spending the day on eBay doesn’t count. Even if you are in your garage while you do it.”

  Skip looked down at his hands and muttered, “Need the parts for work.”

  “Thanks,” said Allie to Charlie. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do without my car.”

  “That’s a shame. So where does your gran live? I’ll give you a lift.”

  Allie shook her head. “I’m staying at the B&B on the High Street.”

  “Hey, Charlie,” called Skip. “If she needs a car, why don’t you lend her that Miata you were doing up?”

  Charlie’s eyes lit up. “What a great idea!” He turned to Allie. “I’ve got this car, bought it second-hand, and I’ve been doing it up to sell on. It’s just about finished. I got it detailed yesterday, so it’s as clean as a whistle too. You interested?”

  “Clean? Like, really clean?” Now he’d piqued her interest.

  Charlie nodded at her. “Yeah. But more importantly, it actually goes.”

  Allie wasn’t convinced that that actually was more important. But different people had different priorities, she supposed. Equally important would have put it best for her.

  “That sounds... amazing. But I couldn’t possibly. You don’t even know me.”

  He looked into her eyes, and she noticed that his brown eyes seemed almost impossibly deep.

  “I’m a pretty good judge of character. And I’m pretty sure you’re not going to do a runner.”

  “I might crash it,” Allie countered.

  Charlie gave her a thoughtful look. “Good point. Deal’s off. See ya.”

  Allie looked on in astonishment as Charlie turned around and headed back to his gardener’s van.

  She could walk back to the B&B from here, she figured. It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes.

  When he was halfway back to his vehicle he turned around, a goofy grin on his face. “Got you!”

  Allie raised a hand to cover her mouth to stop from laughing.

  “Okay, you got me.”

  “Come on, let’s go get the car. I’ll call my insurance company and get you added as a temporary driver for a week or two when we get there. Is your licence clean?”

  She nodded. “Spotless.”

  “Good.” Charlie was by the passenger side of his van, and he pulled open its door. He held out a hand in front of it. “Come on, get in.”

  With butterflies in her stomach, she did as she was told. She’d never gotten in a stranger’s van before. It wasn’t a very Allie thing to do at all.

  She almost made a scene, but manners won out over Allie’s natural inclinations when she saw the inside of his van. It wasn’t the worst vehicle interior she’d ever seen, but it wasn’t exactly up to her standards either. With the very tip of a finger, she pushed an empty crisp packet off the seat and onto the floor, where it joined half a dozen of its cousins.

  Tentatively, she sat down, then pulled the seatbelt across her and clicked it home, trying not to let it touch her skin.

  “You’re lucky I tidied up in here last week. It was a right state.”

  Allie giggled. Yeah right, this thing hadn’t been cleaned in years.

  “What? Why are you laughing? I’m serious! You should have seen it.”

  Allie failed to suppress a shudder as she realized he actually was serious.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine. But I’ve had a bit of a bad week, to be honest.”

  Charlie started up his vehicle. It was much noisier than her own car, but the confident roar of the engine was reassuring.

  “My place is about five
minutes away.” He turned the vehicle around with an experienced three-point turn, and when they turned onto the High Street, he glanced at her again. “So, what’s been happening? Why the bad week?”

  “Oh. Well. Lots of people think I murdered an old man. But I didn’t. So now I’m trying to—” Allie cut herself off. They were supposed to be keeping that a secret, weren’t they?

  “—you’re trying to find out who really did it? That’s you? I’ve heard about you. I thought there were two of you though.”

  Allie sighed before she answered. Famous. She was finally famous. Maybe only in Hawthorne, but nonetheless, everyone seemed to know who she was.

  Being famous had been something she wanted to avoid all her life. She couldn’t think of anything worse. And, so she had thought, it would be pretty easy to do—most famous people struggled to get there. All she had to do was nothing. At least, that’s what she had thought.

  But it seemed fame had sneaked up on her anyway.

  “Does everyone know who I am?”

  “Well. I reckon everyone’s heard of you. I mean, even I had, and I don’t know much.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. You seem to know a lot about cars. And I bet you know a lot about gardening.”

  He considered that for a moment. “Maybe I do know a few things. Never thought about it like that before.”

  Allie watched him as he drove. His right hand on the steering wheel, the strong forearm muscles flexed when he nudged it left or right to keep it straight. His left hand mostly hung on top of the gear stick as he changed up and down frequently in the stop-start flow of traffic in a small village with narrow streets and too many big SUVs.

  “So, you’re investigating, huh? Are you a policeman?”

  “Police officer,” correct Allie.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said Charlie with an amused chuckle, unembarrassed by his mistake.

  “But no. I’m not. It’s just that me and my sister are the only suspects the police have. We want to find out who really killed the old man before we get arrested ourselves!”

  Charlie nodded in understanding, as if he heard similar stories every day of the week.

  “But you didn’t do it, right?”

  Allie glared at him, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were on the road ahead.

  “No, of course we didn’t do it.”

  “That’s good. I have a policy of not lending my car to murderers. Just a little quirk I have.”

  Allie glared at him some more, then she noticed he was grinning. It was a joke.

  “Very funny.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and gave a mock bow, knocking his head on the steering wheel.

  Allie smirked at that and felt like she’d won a minor victory.

  “Here we are, my humble abode.”

  Charlie pulled into the driveway of a large two-storey stone house with a well-kept front garden. It was big enough that you could comfortably describe the left- and right-hand sides of it as wings.

  “It’s... lovely,” she said, unable to conceal her surprise.

  “Yeah. Actually, it’s not really mine. I just rent a room here from Old Patricia.”

  “Old Patricia?”

  Charlie stopped the vehicle with a loud crunch as gravel slid underneath the tyres. “Yep. We call her that ‘cause her name’s Patricia and she’s old.”

  “Well, it looks like a lovely place to live anyway.”

  He nodded. “Yep. It’s all right. Sit there a moment, and I’ll bring the Miata around. It’s in the old stables. They’re my garage and workshop now.”

  Allie sat and waited, and in less than a minute, she heard the sound of an engine starting and then revving loudly before dying back down to a throaty idle. The engine started up again, and she heard the car approaching before she could see it.

  Charlie came back, driving down the small pathway that went down the side of the house. It was barely wider than the silver sports car he was driving.

  Allie had not known what a ‘Miata’ was, but if she’d had to guess, it would have been something like this. It sounded like a fun little sports car—and that’s exactly what it was.

  Charlie drove up and parked right next to her before quickly hopping out and opening the passenger door of his van for her.

  Allie smiled down at him as she exited.

  “Why don’t you hop in and have a look, and I’ll call the insurance company and get your name put on. Have you got your licence with you?”

  “Of course.” Allie took out her licence from her bag and handed it over to him.

  “Is the address and everything right?”

  “Yes... it is,” she said with some hesitation. She realized that she had just handed her ID, containing her address, to a man she barely knew and had only just met. He did seem nice though.

  While Charlie made his phone call, Allie climbed into the car. It was much lower than her old Toyota, and she felt dangerously close to the ground.

  She examined the interior and was surprised to see that Charlie was right. It was immaculately clean. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the lack of the distinctive new car smell, it would have seemed brand new. With a satisfied nod, Allie said, “This’ll do. This’ll do nicely.”

  When the mechanic had first mentioned how long it would take, she had considered renting a car. But the very thought of it had made her uncomfortable. There was no way a rental car would have been this nice. She really was lucky to have met Charlie, she decided.

  Charlie soon appeared around the other side of the car, opened the door, and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s lovely,” said Allie.

  “Surprised? Bet you didn’t think a mucky old gardener like me would have something like this, would you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I imagined you’d have some kind of rubbish-mobile,” she said with a grin.

  Charlie frowned for a moment before it turned into a grin. “I called the insurance company. Bam. You’re on the policy.”

  “Goodness, that was quick. How much do I owe you?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Turns out, when I called them, they said I’m entitled to add a second driver to my policy for free. So that’s what I did.”

  “For a week?”

  He shrugged. “I guess it’s for the length of the policy. They didn’t say.”

  Well, that was odd. She and Charlie were basically sharing an insurance policy. That was the kind of thing married couples did, wasn’t it? Not a strange gardener and a tourist visiting his village.

  “Umm, are you sure you’re okay with that?” she asked.

  “Why not? Might as well get my money’s worth out of them.”

  Allie nodded in partial understanding. She was also keen on getting as much value from every purchase she made as possible. But she’d never done anything like this.

  “If you change your mind, please, let me know, and I’ll return the car right away.”

  “Don’t worry about it. All right, do you want to start her up? You’ll be like a test driver for me, make sure everything’s working right. You’re basically doing me a favour.”

  Allie grinned at him. She knew it was a total lie, but it was a nice lie. She didn’t mind them so much.

  The car started quietly, but as soon as she touched the accelerator, she could hear an engine with a lot more oomph than she was used to.

  “She sounds good, doesn’t she?”

  “I think so,” said Allie who really wasn’t sure about those kinds of things. “Shall I... go?”

  Charlie patted the dashboard. “She’s ready and waiting. Take it easy to start with. She can be a lot of fun, but you should get used to her first.”

  She, she, she. Allie knew that people referred to contraptions with engines as female, but it hadn’t really ever made sense to her.

  “Does she have a name?” Maybe she would finally figure out this assigning-gender and naming-of-object
s thing.

  “A name? Oh. Umm. Miata...” Charlie stumbled.

  “Mia?” suggested Allie.

  Charlie slapped the dashboard. “Perfect. Mia the Miata. My favourite girl.”

  Allie glanced over at him curiously and for a moment their eyes met.

  “And Allie, my second favourite,” he said with a grin.

  Now that made no sense. How could she be his second favourite girl when they had only just met? But then again, how could he rate a vehicle higher than her, an actual flesh-and-blood person?

  Allie gripped the steering wheel tightly with her right hand while she slipped it to Drive with her other. Unlike her car, this was an automatic. Ah-ha! As the car shifted to drive, Allie’s brain shifted too, and she understood. He was being polite! That’s why he said she was his second favourite girl. Pleased that she had figured it out, she released the handbrake and started the car forward.

  With gentle crunching, the Miata rolled down the driveway, little pieces of gravel flying out the way as they progressed.

  “Drives smooth, doesn’t she?”

  Allie nodded but didn’t respond, keeping her focus on the driveway ahead and the controls of the car. She was still getting a feel for how sensitive it was and wasn’t yet ready to engage in the potentially dangerous combination of talking and driving at the same time.

  At the end of the driveway, she confidently tapped the stalk to indicate she was going to make a right turn.

  The windscreen wiper began to move with a complaining squeal as the dry rubber rubbed against the drier glass of the windscreen.

  “Other side,” said Charlie needlessly.

  Allie quickly corrected her mistake, and the indicator light being to flash at precise one-second intervals while the wipers made another screeching descent back to their hiding place.

  They turned into the road, and Allie skilfully, albeit slowly, begin the short drive to the B&B.

  “So, you're investigating,” said Charlie. “How’s it going? Do you need any help?”

  After checking that the road ahead was clear she risked a quick glance in his direction. He was looking at her with his deep brown eyes and a look of almost childlike curiosity on his face.