Alibi

by Sydney Bauer

  He looked at his watch. 2:55 p.m. He was sure Simpson was due in Professor Elliot’s elective on professional responsibility at three. And if that was the case, he should be gathering his books by now. He should be glancing at his own timepiece, shaking his head and realizing he had less than five minutes to . . .

  Simpson looked up toward the antique clock just above the mantelpiece. He shut his texts, closed his laptop, took another sip of his water and gathered his notes before running his hand across his slick ginger hair and getting to his feet. He ignored everyone around him, which was not unusual considering the room was now almost full of first years. And then he picked up his books and the . . .

  Shit, said Sawyer to himself. He wasn’t meant to take the glass! Why the hell would he do that? The glasses were meant to be left on the tables so the students who worked part-time cleaning the common room for some measly handful of change could collect them at the end of each day and take them to the cafeteria to be cleaned in the industrial-sized dishwasher.

  But then he saw Simpson shake his head, as if he had realized he had picked up the glass by mistake. And then he let it drop on the nearest table—on its side for God’s sake—with no regard for the poor sods who would have to clean up the mess in his wake.

  Simpson walked toward the exit. Sawyer waited by the bulletin board. Simpson pushed his way out the door. Sawyer gave a sigh of relief.

  And then Sawyer “Undercover” Jones did some breezing of his own. Well, not so much breezing, but definitely some fancy footwork, in and out of the furniture toward that upturned water glass, which sat on the now wet coffee table just ripe for the taking.

  And then he went to retrieve the pen—the one Lieutenant Mannix had given him, stressing he was not to touch the glass no matter what. He was meant to scoop it up—like a hoop on a stick, but he had . . . Shit, where the hell was that pen? It wasn’t in his pocket. Where he had put it? It must have fallen out, but when, where?

  And so, knowing opportunities such as these only came along every once in a while, and telling himself that Jason Bourne would think on his feet without hesitating, Sawyer inserted his thumb into the glass like a hook and lifted it from the table, immediately dropping it into the plastic evidence bag provided by Detective Frank McKay.

  He took a breath. He felt his heart finally starting to slow, and then he smiled ever so slightly as he gave himself a mental pat on the back and headed out the back way toward the main quadrangle. He was meant to meet them by the doughnut stand, just outside the main gates, where no doubt McKay would be devouring his umpteenth Krispy Kreme as he and Mannix waited with anticipation for their “deputy” to deliver them the evidence.

  And he would—deliver it, of course, with all the humility he could muster. All the time knowing they could not have done this without him, and feeling damned fine about the whole thing, now that it was done.

  62

  The water fell down her back in a cascade of miniature rivulets, her long brown hair now drawn straight against the force. She turned to face him, her aqua eyes now blinking against the stream, and he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close, kissing her deeply.

  “David, I . . .”

  “Shhh,” he said, kissing her again, this time lifting her up so that she might wrap her legs around him. He turned his back on the water, moving forward so that she might rest her back against the cool tiles of the shower recess. And then they made love slowly, deliberately—their hearts beating as one, their breaths long and deep until any trace of the past twenty-four hours was a vague and distant memory.

  And finally, as he released her, David made a promise to himself that he would never forget that this was what life was about—the ability to love and be loved, to have faith in a future and someone to share it all with.

  Hours later the moonlight was drifting through their bedroom window—on, off, on, off, as it sneaked its way between the intermittent clouds that surged across the midnight sky as if determined to get somewhere by morning. Sara lay awake, nestled into David’s shoulder, his breathing slow and regular, telling her that he was most likely asleep, or close enough to it.

  “David,” she said in a whisper, not knowing exactly why she felt the need to talk about this tonight, especially after the day that they had had, and considering the grueling months she knew were sure to follow. “David, are you awake?”

  “Yeah,” he said, although he sounded anything but. “What is it?” he asked, as he shifted slightly, pulling her even closer to him, his arm now wrapped around her shoulders.

  “I was thinking,” she began, not knowing exactly how this was going to come out. “No, not so much thinking, more like questioning what this all means—to us, and what we believe.”

  “Come again?” he asked, tilting his head so that he might look into her eyes.

  “Well, to be honest, it has been on my mind since the arraignment, since Katz raised the whole feticide issue, the argument of when a pregnancy becomes valid, when a promise becomes a person and when an unborn child becomes a life.”

  “What are you trying to say, Sara?” he asked, and she could see his brow furrow in the muted white light.

  “I don’t know, it’s just that . . . I know our client is innocent and I know Katz’s grandstanding is ultimately just that. But I can’t help but think that two weeks, ten, thirteen, twenty-three—to that child’s parents, in this case James and Jessica, that potential life became a person the minute they made love.”

  David said nothing, but she sensed the trace of a nod.

  “I am not saying I agree with Katz legally, but morally, personally . . . I mean, if my mother had disregarded me before I became ‘viable,’ if she had chosen to abort me instead of adopting me out . . .”

  “Sara,” he said at last, now rising up onto his elbow to look her direct in the eye. “It’s all right to feel angry, confused. Hell, if we didn’t question this issue, what kind of potential parents would we be?”

  He stopped there and she wondered if he had meant to say what he had. They had never discussed the issue of children before, at least not like this; alone, exposed, in an atmosphere that demanded openness and sincerity and truth.

  “But don’t you see,” he went on. “As sad as this might be, the reality is, the minute we make that child legally viable, the minute we allow our own sensibilities to enter that courtroom, we hand Katz his double homicide on a platter. This child should not be used as a bargaining chip. To me that is even more reprehensible than fighting to dismiss the charge.”

  He took a breath before going on.

  “I’m a Catholic, Sara, born and raised, and I value human life as much as the next guy. But I am also an attorney, hired to save a young man’s life, and if that means fighting the feticide tooth and nail then that is exactly what I’ll do.”

  And she nodded, knowing he was right and feeling the sting of his candor, both at the same time.

  “And if it was me?” she said at last, asking the one question she knew he would not want to hear. “If it was me and our baby who were murdered in that greenhouse—me and your potential son who lost their lives in a brutal double massacre.”

  “Then I would walk to my dresser, pull out my gun and shoot the person responsible until he died twice over—once for you and once for . . .” His voice began to falter and for some inexplicable reason, she loved him all the more for it.

  “I am sorry,” she said at last, the tears now falling freely down her face.

  “Don’t be,” he said. “That’s why I love you—and why, despite it all, you give me a reason to cherish this crazy world we live in.”

  63

  “Quantico, Virginia, is in Prince William County, twenty-three miles north-northeast of Fredericksburg near Dumfries and Stafford along Highway 619,” Frank began. “It is totally surrounded by Marine Corps Base Quantico and the Potomac River. It is located south of the mouth of Quantico Creek on the Potomac and, as of the 2004 census, had a population of 561.”


  “And if you don’t give it a rest, Frank,” said Joe, peering through the rain-soaked windscreen, “I will leave you here to make it an even 562.”

  “The FBI Academy is located on the Marine Corps Base,” continued a now grinning Frank, raising his eyebrows above his bifocals and extending his arm so that the brochure was now even farther away from his pink, flushed face. “The 385-acre Facility provides the security, privacy and safe environment necessary to carry out the diverse training and operations functions for which the FBI is responsible.”

  “Safe.” Joe laughed. “I’m sure it was until about a year ago when Leigh torpedoed the place with her presence. Simba says she spent the first eighteen weeks of training correcting her superiors and the next six months trying to get her head across every damned unit on the base.”

  “I thought all new agents were recruited to field offices immediately after training?”

  “They are,” said Joe. “But according to Leo, when she topped her academy class and asked if she could spend the next six months learning how the FBI lab techs and profilers work, her Special Agent in Charge found it impossible to say ‘no.’ ”

  “Imagine,” said Frank with a chuckle. “Someone finding it hard to say ‘no’ to Susan. Just didn’t have the balls to stand up to her, is all.”

  “And we did?” countered Joe.

  “Absolutely,” smiled Frank.

  They had just turned into the Academy’s western gate and were approaching the third and final security checkpoint, the first two having been manned by the Marines and this final one by the FBI Police. Joe and Frank pulled out their IDs while the officer checked their names on the visitors’ sheet and within minutes they were told to park at the main reception stop. Agent Leigh would drive down from the main facility to pick them up.

  Joe held tightly to his briefcase, which contained the glass Sawyer had retrieved from the Deane Law School Common Room. For some reason he had become very protective of this lone piece of evidence, so much so that he had physically opened his case and checked on it three times in the past six hours.

  “Don’t worry, boss,” said Frank, as if reading his mind. “Susan said she could pull some strings in Latent Prints. Get it rushed through on the quiet.”

  Joe nodded.

  “And Agent Jacobs is all lined up. Simba called him personally and asked him to meet us under the radar.”

  “We have to be careful we don’t mention Simpson or Nagoshi by name,” reminded Joe. “Jacobs is stand up but I don’t want to place him in the middle of things.”

  “So we just allude to our two suspects via character rather than name,” said Frank.

  “Exactly, and if either of their profiles fit, well, at least we know we are on the right track.”

  Half an hour later, Simpson’s prints had been rushed to the Latent Print Unit to be compared to the two unidentified prints from the Nagoshi greenhouse, and Joe and Frank were getting an impromptu but extremely informative tour of the new FBI laboratory facility from their ex-fellow detective, now FBI Agent Susan Leigh.

  Leigh was obviously genuinely excited about showing her ex-boss and partner around her new “home” and was, as usual, a walking encyclopedia of information.

  “This place is amazing,” she said. “The lab, which is only six years old, by the way, takes up almost 500,000 square feet over four floors, three of which are dedicated to specialized laboratories and offices for the scientists and technicians who work here. All laboratory areas are separate to offices to avoid evidence contamination—they even have special biovestibules that act as airlocks between the two work spaces, where the technicians change in and out of their examination gear.”

  “So what kind of stuff are we talking here?” asked Frank. “I mean, apart from the obvious.”

  “Some serious shit, McKay,” said the enthusiastic Leigh, falling back into the comfortable cop to cop vernacular. “This place conducts over a million examinations a year with over fifteen units following different areas of expertise. There are the obvious ones, like latent prints and DNA analysis but there are other units who look solely after chemistry, computer analysis, explosives, firearms, audiovisual, hazardous materials, minerol ogy, questioned documents, photographic and racketeering.”

  They stopped in front of a glass display showing a range of guns and other armaments, everything from homemade pistols to rocket launchers.

  “See that there,” said Susan, pointing at a small handgun that sat snug inside a rather thick book. “The perp carved out the pages in the shape of the weapon so that the pistol was a tight fit. Then he walked into a bank, book in hand, and proceeded to rob the joint.”

  “How much did he score before he got popped?” asked Frank.

  “Not enough,” said Susan with a half smile on her face. “Here,” she said gesturing to them both. “Lean forward. Take a closer look at the book.”

  Frank and Joe moved closer to the glass to get a better view. It was a thick, hard cover version of an old novel, the pages fibrous and yellowed with age.

  “Jesus,” said Joe. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yep,” smiled Susan at her ex-chief’s astute observation. “Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind—first edition, May 1936. Basically, we worked out that this big thinker would have had to have robbed ten banks to get the book’s worth back again. The idiot hacked his payroll to pieces and spent the rest of his life paying for it.”

  “Obviously a budding rocket scientist in the making,” said McKay.

  “Aren’t they all?” said Susan.

  They had made the decision on the way down to tell Susan as much as possible without compromising her position as a federal law enforcement officer. They trusted their ex-coworker 100 percent, but were also determined not to place her in a position where she felt obliged to inform her superiors of the nature of their investigations.

  “So,” said Leigh once they were seated in a windowless meeting room on the third floor of the sprawling facility. “How much can you spill?”

  “Not much, except to say the prints, and the matter we want to discuss with Special Agent Jacobs, are related to an ongoing investigation.”

  “Ongoing, huh?” said Susan with a half-smile. “I thought the Nagoshi case was closed.”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about, Susan,” said Joe. “Just dotting our ‘I’s, crossing our ‘T’s.”

  “Damn it,” she replied, her dark brown eyes now alight with interest. “And here I was getting all excited at the prospect of being asked to help you both with some covert little gem—something that might rub that asshole Katz the wrong way.”

  Joe smiled before stealing a glance at Frank who gave him the slightest of nods. “You enter at your own risk, Susan,” he said at last.

  “Then let me the hell in.”

  Sara sat down beside him and took a breath. This was not going to be easy. They had decided to tell James everything, not just because it was his life they were dealing with, and not just because they needed to ask him questions relating to their two alternative hypotheses, but also because they knew he had a bright legal mind, and could well be of assistance as they built their case for trial. They would have liked to have waited until he was out of the infirmary, but they had effectively strangled their preparation time the minute they had decided to agree to Katz’s motion for a speedy trial, and now had to live with the consequences.

  And so Sara started with Peter Nagoshi, and Mr. Kwon and Mr. Lim, and the human rights atrocity that was Nagoshi Inc.’s automobile plant in Guangdong. James sat up in his bed, listening to it all—silent, still, apart from his right hand, which seemed to twitch involuntarily every few seconds or so.

  “I don’t believe this,” he said at last. “For starters, Jess rarely mentioned her brother. I sensed they weren’t close but she never criticized him openly, apart from making the odd jibe at his conservatism and obsession with work.”

  Sara frowned. This was a blow in itself.
They were hoping Jessica had relayed some form of concern regarding her brother’s ambition and determination to usurp her as future company CEO. They thought perhaps she might have told James about China and her fears that Peter was going behind their father’s back. But then again, she only spoke to Mr. Lim mere hours before her death, so she probably didn’t get the opportunity to . . .

  “Jess would have been pissed,” said James, interrupting her thoughts. “She hated that sort of thing. She often spoke of her father’s humanitarianism and, if she found out, I am sure she would have been determined to fix things.”

  There was a pause.

  “So she knew?” he asked after a time. “About what was going on in China?”

  “She found out the night before she died.”

  “Oh,” he said, nodding his head. “Did he kill her?” he asked at last.

  “Perhaps. In fact, we believe it was either Peter or . . . ,” Sara hesitated, not knowing exactly how to tell him.

  “Or who?” said James, his voice rising a little.

  “Or your friend H. Edgar Simpson.”

  James was speechless, the color now draining from his face completely.

  “This is crazy,” he managed. “You cannot be serious. What are you guys trying to do, Sara? Jess’s brother, H. Edgar? Are my chances that slim? Is my situation that dire that already, months before trial, you are leaning toward a last resort ‘Plan B’?”

  Sara knew what James was asking and, in all honesty, she could not blame him. “Plan B” was a term used when desperate defense lawyers, with no real proof of their client’s innocence, play the only card they have left—throwing up a series of alternative scenarios, or more specifically, possible perpetrators, in an effort to establish reasonable doubt. Truth be told, no matter how despairing, it was a viable strategy, but they knew that in order to maintain at least some form of credibility they needed to narrow their field of potential alternatives to one—which was why Sara was so determined to push on, in the hope that James might assist them in identifying the real killer in their midst.