Alibi

by Sydney Bauer

  James Matheson’s pool house looked like something out of Vogue Living. The front-facing wall, which bordered the aqua mosaic tiled pool, was made up of a line of whitewashed glass bifold doors, which were now drawn back, their canvas roman blinds pulled up to their extremities to reveal the three room “apartment” within.

  David, who was now alone following Jed and Diane’s departure back to the main house, stepped into the living area where the slightly weathered pale timber floors were covered by a massive natural fiber rug. The furniture was a mixture of comfy cream couches and wicker chairs, with a weathered coffee table supporting a stone textured vase that exploded with blue and white hydrangeas. There were pale green throws and blue and white cushions and similarly colored wall art, including a pair of old semi-stripped green-painted wooden oars that sat above the western windows—all of which was reflected in a huge framed mirror on the far side of the room.

  Next came the bedroom, which was basically an extension of the feel of the picture-perfect living area beyond, the neatly arranged shelves stacked with law texts, the bed made up in a masculine blue, the stand-alone wardrobe stocked with freshly ironed shirts and chinos and the simple white desk supporting more texts and neatly organized assignments in progress. In fact, the only barren space in the entire room was the rectangular area at the center of the desk, which was no doubt where James would normally place his Titanium laptop, which David knew had already been confiscated from his Law School locker at Deane.

  David poked his head into the equally pristine bathroom, all white tiles with a limestone floor and perfectly rolled Egyptian cotton towels, and was overcome with the strange sensation that he had walked onto a movie set, a world where summers were long, pool parties were civilized and jugs of Pimm’s and lemonade, complete with mint and cucumber, were served at dusk. It was a scene where the entire cast was straight from a Ralph Lauren commercial, all buff and tanned and fit—the American college dream. Truth be told, James was a living, breathing example of such a dream. He was smart, rich, healthy, likable. He had good-looking friends, supportive parents, straight “A” grades and, at least up until the last few months, a future filled with nothing but promise.

  But David could not help but think that perhaps this would be James’ greatest obstacle. Many would assume he was smug and conceited. One look at this house, where the decorations alone cost more than your average college kid’s first apartment, and people were bound to jump to conclusions. Even David found the order of this young man’s home somewhat disconcerting, but he knew that this was how the privileged few lived, with housekeepers and pool cleaners and staff to service their every need. And besides, he thought, within the hour this designer’s showcase would not be so pristine, despite the cops’ feigned attempts to leave things in order.

  He was wasting time. He had to focus. He checked the obvious places first—drawers, cupboards, rubbish bins, keepsake boxes, wardrobe floors. He found James’ shoes—including a pair of Nikes—at the bottom of the wardrobe, aligned and clean with not a trace of dirt beneath them. David knew these would be the first pieces to be taken into evidence, after which they would be analyzed to within an inch of their lives by the world’s most competent forensic experts.

  He glanced over James’ assignment notes, flicked through some texts, lifted up some cushions until finally he found himself staring at the carefully arranged walnut-framed black-and-whites on the far side of James’ bedroom wall. There were shots of James as a child, sandwiched between his two flawless parents, an older one of his mother and father’s wedding, a few of the three of them skiing on some family winter vacation and another of a teenage James and his mother in scuba gear, perhaps taken on the Great Barrier Reef. There were a series of action shots, of James powering down the pool, kayaking on the Charles, and one from his school years winning a rowing race in some Sydney regatta. And the more recent shots—of James and his college friends, a variety of young men and women all smiling and laughing with perfect hair and perfect bodies and no doubt even more perfect brains.

  And then he saw them, a shot of the three. James took center stage, his arms draped casually around the shoulders of the two young men on either side of him—Heath Westinghouse to his left, all tanned skin and white teeth; H. Edgar Simpson to his right, shorter, thinner but with a look of pure arrogance on his pale, spotted face.

  And then, just as he started to turn away, two things caught his eye simultaneously. The first was in the form of the corner of a yellow Post-it Note that had been stuck behind the picture of the three, and the second, a red flashing dot reflected in the glass surface of the framed photograph before him—it was coming from the bedside table, beyond the portable telephone and the ivory colored lamp.

  He stopped.

  He could hear them now—a convoy of police cars making their way toward the main house. The crunching of gravel was loud and getting louder and the urgency of it grated on him. He did not have much time. He pulled the photo from the wall and peeled the yellow note from the back of the frame. Cabot 312 it said. Nothing more, nothing less.

  He put the note in his pocket before turning to the source of the flashing. He heard a car door slam, and then another and another, and found himself diving for the gadget that sat hidden beyond the bedside paraphernalia. He would have to hurry. It would not look good being found in James’ apartment just minutes before the prior arranged search—a search Mannix had kindly coordinated with David as a courtesy to his friend and the accused boy’s parents.

  It was an old-fashioned answering machine and according to the light indicated James had five new messages. He picked it up, fiddled with the buttons but, realizing he was running out of time, cut to the chase and pushed the eject button so that the machine might release the miniature tape inside. The machine obeyed, slowly, carefully, lifting its little plastic hinged door to reveal the cassette inside. David could have sworn he heard it creaking, a little further, a little further, until . . . nothing. The tape had been removed. Someone had lifted what was obviously some vitally important information from James Matheson’s answering machine—and David was pretty sure he knew exactly who it was.

  49

  Forty minutes. He had been in there for over forty minutes. Sara looked at her watch again. It had been a gift from David, a family heirloom that once belonged to his grandmother. It made her think of him and that now familiar twinge of guilt rose in her stomach, sending a wave of bile toward her throat. She knew he was at the Matheson house, and she knew she should be there with him. At the very least she could have helped him console the parents. Explain the process of the search, share a cup of coffee with James’ mother.

  But here she was, sitting motionless outside a Suffolk Country Superior Court grand jury hearing room, waiting for her client to emerge from screwing his client to the wall, and hopefully giving her some take on where Katz was going with this whole bloody mess. Truth be told, she was beginning to think she should have “bumped” young Sawyer Jones after all.

  She looked around her, at the cold stone walls and dark wooden benches, at the gray-painted ceilings and dusty overhead lights. The corridor was reasonably quiet, the odd pedestrian making their presence known moments before they turned the corner into the main thoroughfare with the click of their shoes on the green tiled floor. In fact, she heard them now, a group of approaching feet, six to be exact, belonging to three suited men, two young, one older. They stopped at the far end of the passageway, the older man, obviously a lawyer, gesturing toward a bench where they all took a seat and leaned forward into a huddle.

  Westinghouse and Simpson, she knew. They were here to give their testimony. Katz would be following Sawyer’s confirmation of James and Jessica’s relationship with the two friends’ account of the critical confession. It was the perfect strategy. One, two, three. He would begin with James’ lies and finish with his emotional admission of guilt.

  There were twenty-three jurors in that room and all Katz needed was the go-ahea
d from twelve. There was no doubt about it, the ADA would have his indictment within the hour, she said to herself as the door finally opened and her slightly flushed client emerged. Roger Katz had caught his fish—hook, line and sinker.

  Sara got to her feet, starting to approach Sawyer, but stopped dead in her tracks when he lifted his left hand, ever so slightly, indicating her to move back and away. She shifted her feet quickly, and reversed into a water cooler recess in the wall, tilting her head forward slightly to see Katz now materializing behind her client, moving out into the corridor, shaking Sawyer’s narrow hand before turning his back on the young student to greet the three obviously more important people coming toward him.

  The group of four stood in a tight circle, Sawyer now ignored and off to the side where he fished into his pocket, retrieved his cell phone and appeared to be turning it on so he could check for messages. He was slow and deliberate, measured and thoughtful as he stared at the phone, pressing the odd button every few seconds or so.

  He was also close enough to hear what they were saying, Sara was sure of it—and then she knew that retaining Sawyer Jones as her client had not been such a bad idea after all.

  50

  “So?” said David as Joe Mannix emerged from the now crowded pool house. The blue skies overhead were rapidly being replaced by a thick layer of dark rain clouds, the wind now whipping up from the northwest—a sharp, bitter chill that went straight through David’s light wool suit jacket, biting into his skin.

  “So I feel like I just emerged from the pages of some fancy interior design catalog.”

  “I know what you mean—but that wasn’t what I was asking.”

  “We’re done,” said Joe. “The crew is cleaning up.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant either,” interrupted David, removing his sunglasses to look his detective friend in the eye.

  “Jesus, David. You know the rules,” said Joe. “We’ve bagged everything we see as a potential piece of evidence. It’ll be sent to the lab for analysis and . . .”

  “BP Crime or FBI?”

  David knew most pieces of evidence recovered during the course of a murder investigation were analyzed by Boston PD’s respected Crime Lab Unit. But this case was different. Katz would want the added credibility of having the FBI on board and Mannix would most likely agree—not because he did not think his own guys were good enough, but because he would want the security of the backup, because he wouldn’t want Katz crying foul if something went awry and because Leo King was a friend.

  “Both,” said Mannix, confirming David’s guess. “Leo called this morning,” he added quickly, perhaps knowing that while he could not discuss the results of the search with his attorney friend, he could give him a heads-up on the FBI test results. “You got lucky.”

  “None of the prints match my client,” said David, a new wave of hope banishing the chill.

  “Two no-gos and one inconclusive.”

  “And the two no-gos?”

  “No idea.”

  “Well, it could have been worse,” said David, who despite the good news was disappointed the prints could not be matched with another possible perpetrator.

  “I gather you got the paternity results,” said Mannix, lifting his jacket hood over his head. The rain was beginning to fall, the first small droplets landing on the pool and sending tiny concentric circles dancing across its glossy aqua surface.

  “Yeah. Gus called last night,” said David. “Shit,” he added, “I have to tell the Mathesons.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Mannix nodded, looking back toward his men who were almost ready to leave. “No word from Sara?”

  Neither of them had heard any news as to the progress of this morning’s hearing and both were anxious to get some word.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh well,” said Joe. “I’ll catch you.”

  “Sure,” said David, still dissatisfied at having learned nothing from the search. “But you’ll call, right?”

  “When I can,” said Joe, obviously determined to play this by the book.

  Jed Matheson was holding an umbrella over David’s head, walking him back to his car. The man was quiet, contemplative, David having explained he was unable to garner any additional information regarding the results of the search.

  “Jed,” said David at last. “There’s something I have to tell you—you and Diane—about . . .”

  “You have the results of the paternity test,” guessed Jed Matheson, turning to face David.

  “Yes.”

  Matheson said nothing, just waited for David to go on.

  “It was your grandson, Jed. I’m sorry.”

  Matheson nodded and in that moment the tall, handsome, fifty-something looked for all the world like an old man with a broken heart.

  “You will save him, won’t you, David?” he asked at last, his gray eyes glossing over with tears. “For I am afraid Diane and I could not go on without . . .”

  “I’ll prove he didn’t do this, Jed,” said David, hoping beyond all hope that he could follow through on his promise.

  “All right, then,” said Jed, taking a breath before shifting his umbrella to his left hand and placing his right in his pocket, then retrieving it again to shake David’s outstretched hand.

  “And you know . . .” he said. David felt it immediately. Matheson was squashing something into his palm. “I will do anything to help my son.”

  David released Matheson’s grip and, to his own surprise, curled his fingers around the hard flat object, making no attempt to look at it before opening his car door and climbing inside.

  “I understand,” he said shutting the door behind him. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes,” said Jed Matheson. “I expect you will.”

  51

  Tony Bishop was nervous as all hell. And it wasn’t because this special meeting included his boss and firm partner Gareth Coolidge. It was the two men across from them that saw his heart now up a beat, or more specifically one of them, in the form of Peter Nagoshi.

  Bishop had gone to his boss first thing this morning. The Nagoshis were contacted and asked to attend a meeting on the stately twenty-ninth floor Financial District offices of Williams, Coolidge and Harrison at their earliest convenience. They had decided to hold this little gathering in the more contained setting of Coolidge’s harborview office. Smaller than the firm conference room, it offered an intimacy perhaps more appropriate to delivering the extremely sensitive information they had to share. And so here they were, grouped around the small meeting table, backed by the extensive views across the now-deep gray waters that met the horizon in a blur of offshore rain.

  Tony glanced around the table—at Peter looking like some Hannibal Lecter impersonator with a large white bandage across the middle of his face, at the normally expressionless John Nagoshi who was perhaps also showing the slightest signs of uneasiness, and at Gareth Coolidge, the coolest attorney Tony had ever known, now carrying the beginnings of circular sweat rings under the arms of his pristinely pressed Brooks Brothers shirt.

  “We have a problem,” Tony began after Coolidge gave him the nod. “This morning I received a call from Terrance Tan, one of the senior attorneys at our office in Singapore. Mr. Tan is Chinese with an extensive history in Chinese business law and he has been assisting me with the legalities of the establishment of your operations in Guangdong.”

  Tony took a sip of the ice cold water before him, stealing a quick glance at Peter Nagoshi, whose dark brown eyes were set on him with a new intensity.

  “Mr. Tan told me he heard a rumor. No,” added Tony, knowing there was no way to sugarcoat this thing. “Not a rumor, more confirmation that Tsohuang Manufacturing were about to release a new compact car, ‘The Apple,’ to the local market—a car that, according to Mr. Tan, is an exact replica of the Nagoshi ‘Dream’ CC250.”

  “What?” said Peter, sitting forward in his seat.

  “ ‘The Apple,’ ” Tony went on, needing to get t
his all out before he had to deal with what he knew would be the Nagoshis’ anger, “is not only visually identical to the ‘Dream,’ but according to Mr. Tan’s contacts, also contains numerous identical parts and components. It will be released to the Chinese market within the month, flooding local car dealers with vehicles priced at seventy-five percent of what you planned to charge.”

  And then he saw it—the utter devastation on their faces. Despite the fact that Peter’s features were largely concealed, the visible portions were now distorted in an expression of rage. Tony found himself placing his palms on the edge of the table, as if bracing himself in preparation for the possibility that the younger Nagoshi might leap across the table and . . .

  “How did this happen?” asked John Nagoshi at last. His tone even, his voice showing only the slightest trace of a quiver.

  “All too easily, I am afraid,” said Gareth Coolidge, speaking for the first time.

  “John,” he went on, leaning over the table. “You knew in order to base this plant in Guangdong, you would have to enter into a joint agreement with a Chinese manufacturer—fifty percent is as much as the Chinese government will allow foreign operators, and that leaves you open to all sorts of confidentiality risks. I am not saying your Shanghai Holding’s partners were at fault,” Coolidge went on. “But they have joint ventures with other foreign automobile manufacturers, who in turn have joint ventures with other Chinese companies—including outfits like Tsohuang. I am afraid technology theft is a rampant reality in China, John, so much so that it is becoming almost impossible for foreign companies to keep secrets from global competitors.”

  Coolidge paused, obviously leaving an opening for Nagoshi to ask another question.

  “These are not answers, Mr. Coolidge,” said Peter, obviously miffed that their attorney saw fit to address his father directly, effectively excluding him from a conversation on China—his China, his undeniable success! “I hear what you are saying but it does not equal reason. Plans for each part of the Nagoshi ‘Dream’ have been kept separate, individual, so that this might be prevented. We have gone to the greatest lengths to assure our security,” he said, his nasally voice now rising a notch. “Even the prototypes have been kept under lock and key, and constantly guarded by security workers.”