The Alibi

by Marilyn Baron

  I bit the inside of my cheek, drawing blood. Did I believe him? Who else could have done this?

  “I’m going to get cleaned up, and I want you to call my secretary and tell her to clear my schedule. I’ll be working from home for the rest of the day. You’ll be working with me on a special project. A project we’ve been working on since early this morning.”

  It took me a second to realize what he was saying. He needed me to be his alibi. How would that look, for me to be working at the director’s house? I didn’t report to him. I didn’t have any special skills that someone in his inner sanctum couldn’t offer. I never thought I’d see him again after that first interview. I later found out that the director interviewed everyone who worked for him. From his tone, I gathered refusing wasn’t an option.

  “Do you really want me to work at your house?”

  “No,” he barked. “But don’t go back to the office. Go home, take the rest of the day off. I don’t care where you go. Do we have an understanding?” His eyes locked onto mine as I pulled around the circular driveway that curved around his stately home and dropped the director off at his front door.

  I felt threatened, but what could I say? I nodded.

  “I won’t forget this,” he called out.

  Neither will I. Not ever.

  “Sorry about the blood in your car.”

  I looked at the vacant seat where he’d been and reminded myself to try to clean the blood off the white leather seats when I got back to my apartment.

  As I pulled away, the door opened, and I caught a glimpse of Miss Julia. She collapsed into his arms, and he closed the door behind them.

  The director had said Miss Julia was with their children in Jacksonville. Maybe she had come home early. Maybe he’d called her home for help. She’d probably be shocked when she saw the blood all over him, and he was wrapped in a bathrobe that obviously wasn’t his. But, judging from her expression, she didn’t seem aware of anything but the director. If she loved him, she would forgive him.

  Then I got as far away from that house as possible, went home, and scanned the news for a report about the murder of The Honorable Savannah Braddock, newest and youngest judge in an outlying county in the second circuit court. I waited all night, and it never came. It wasn’t on the late night news. Had anybody discovered the body yet? Had the director instructed one of his henchman to get rid of it? Should I make the call? The thought of that poor woman decomposing in her bedroom made me sick. I wondered how long it had taken her to die. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing her lifeless, unclothed body before my eyes. I couldn’t stop seeing it.

  The next morning I went in to work, and Peggy called me into her office.

  “Close the door,” she said. Peggy never closed her door. It wasn’t a good sign. I wasn’t even seated when she lit into me.

  “I left you in charge of the office yesterday, and I find out you left it unattended.”

  “It was a family emergency.”

  “That’s funny, because when I talked to the director this morning, he said you were helping him on a special project he couldn’t discuss, but that he was very impressed with you. In fact, he’s putting you up for a promotion.”

  That came as a complete shock.

  She peered into my eyes. “You didn’t know? What is this all about? Are you after my job? Or are you after him? You’re just his type.”

  I was horrified. “No, absolutely not. I have no interest in the director or your job. The director called asking for you, and you weren’t here. He needed a ride, so I offered to help.”

  “I get the feeling there’s more to the story.”

  I wasn’t talking. If the director had wanted Peggy to know, he’d have told her.

  “May I go now? I have a press release to write.”

  The puzzled look on her face told me she didn’t know what I was working on, which must have exacerbated her feeling that she didn’t have her finger in every pie and that she was no longer in control, but she let me go anyway.

  Now I was in hot water with my boss. So the director thought he could buy me off with a promotion? I shrugged. Murder and dirty politics were above my pay grade. But I wasn’t complaining. I could use the money.

  I walked back to my desk, where no press release waited. I could always see if Stanley needed any help. I shouldn’t have worried. There was always something going on around this office. Any minute the phone would ring, signaling an inmate had escaped or killed another inmate or stabbed a correctional officer or started a riot. When I first came to work for her, Peggy, noting how naïve I was, warned me about the inmates employed around the Division office on the work release program. “They’re all going to claim they’re innocent. Don’t believe them.” The phone rang in Peggy’s office. Her door was still open. She turned white as a sheet. The news about Savannah Braddock was out.

  I could hear her making frantic phone calls to her posse. “Did you hear anything?” “When did it happen?” “The director must be devastated.” “Who found her body? I can’t believe it.”

  No one wanted to know the answer to those questions more than me. But I wasn’t in Peggy’s inner circle. I pretended to keep myself busy rifling through a file I had hastily picked up off my desk. But images of Savannah’s naked body continued to haunt me.

  “Oh, my God.” “Who do you think did it?” “When is the funeral?” “Have you seen the director since—” Peggy closed the door. She was going to keep the juicy details to herself.

  Then I began to worry. What if the police started asking me questions? What would I say? That I had been with the director all morning? That’s what he expected me to say, but I was a terrible liar. Could the police even get in the door? Who had jurisdiction? Could the director keep the police out?

  “Did you hear the news?” Stanley asked, hovering over my desk.

  I shook my head.

  “Savannah Braddock was murdered.”

  I tried my best to look shocked. That was easy to do. I was still traumatized. “Do they know who killed her?”

  “They think it might be someone she convicted and sent to prison. Or maybe it was a robbery. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, in a daze.

  Across the hall from our office, we maintained a roomful of hanging desk files. In these files were duplicates of the inmate records in the institutions that housed them, complete with additional facts like name, race, sex, hair color, eye color, height, weight, birthdate, and all of the aliases, marks on the inmate’s face, including descriptions of tattoos like crosses, lightning bolts, swastikas, skull flames, and Vikings.

  We had a file on each inmate with his or her DC number, name, the date the person was received into the system, the inmate’s age, offense, date sentenced, county, and the sentence imposed, and if there was one, the date of parole. We kept the files as background, and because, more likely than not, the inmates would end up back in the system for another offense. And they came in handy when law enforcement wanted to round up the usual suspects.

  We undoubtedly had some recent escapees who would fit the bill in this case. I wanted to hang around and get the latest news. I also wanted to go home and think things over. I wanted to talk to my boyfriend, if he was even still my boyfriend. I grabbed my purse and gave Jean some lame excuse about an emergency.

  “Another one?” she asked. Apparently, she’d heard me give Peggy my excuse about my whereabouts yesterday. Let her think what she wanted. I was getting out of there, and I didn’t care what anyone thought.

  As I walked out the door, I ran smack into a brick wall—an immovable pair of shoulders. I would have tripped had the director not caught me in his grasp.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I heard they found her,” I whispered into his chest.

  “Yes. One of her coworkers went to her apartment when she didn’t show up for court. You look like hell, by the way,” he said.

&
nbsp; “I didn’t sleep,” I replied. “Have they—” I didn’t seem to be able to put a coherent sentence together with the director standing so close. I could understand why Savannah Braddock had fallen under his spell. He was both mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time.

  “The police are looking for a family member of someone she convicted. Or a recent escapee. They’re going over the records now.”

  I frowned. We both knew it wouldn’t produce the real killer.

  “I was nowhere near the scene. We were working together that morning. You remember. I doubt the police will even question you. Have you talked to Peggy?”

  “About my promotion?”

  “Well deserved.”

  Sure it was. After all, I’d been working there four whole weeks.

  “Are you staying here?”

  “Right now, here is the last place I want to be,” I admitted. “I’m going home. I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  He released my shoulders. It was then I could see the toll the previous day had taken on him. His eyes were bloodshot and his face bloodless. He nodded his head in understanding. “I’ll be in touch.”

  I backed away, and he strode over to Peggy’s office and knocked on the door, no doubt going in an attempt to smooth things over.

  “Director, I’m so sorry.” Those were the last words I heard before she admitted him into her inner sanctum and accepted a hug.

  So was I. Sorry I’d ever come to work there.

  Chapter Six

  “I’d like to speak to Daniel Krantz, please.”

  The girl on the other end of the line called out, “Hey, Danny. Phone call.”

  Danny? I wondered what she looked like. And I wondered why there was a girl at the end of the line in his house at all. And why she sounded so at home. He never told me he had female roommates. And I wondered how many other girls there were in the house or in his life. With all the late night studying and drinking and smoking, who knew what all else was going on? By the time I heard Daniel’s voice I had worked myself into a jealous frenzy.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s only been a month. Have you forgotten me already?”

  “Merritt, is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Who was that girl?”

  He hesitated. “Oh, just a girl.”

  “Does she live there?” His silence spoke volumes.

  “I didn’t know you had a female roommate.”

  “I told you about her. You must have forgotten.”

  “I think I would have remembered that. Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Forgotten. About me. About us.”

  “Of course not. I miss you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, why would you say that?”

  “Because you hardly ever call me. I’m stuck in this godforsaken town all by myself, and I’m afraid I’ll never get out of here. And—we need to talk.”

  “That sounds serious. Talk about what?”

  “Everything. Us. I mean, when am I going to see you next?”

  “Thanksgiving. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes, well, Thanksgiving is four months away, and your home is Miami, but I don’t live there anymore. I live in Nowheresville.”

  “Merritt, you were the one who wanted to take that job. I told you, you could come to Virginia.”

  “And do what? Sit around while you study? I got a college education, and I want a career. I can’t get a job in my field there. I did try.”

  “What do you want me to do about it? I didn’t tell you to major in PR.”

  “We could get engaged,” I blurted out. I couldn’t believe I said that, but this conversation was getting nowhere. Long-distance calls were outrageously expensive, and I was paying for this one. I needed to get right to the point.

  “Engaged?” I could almost hear him choking. “I have three years of law school in front of me. That would be premature.”

  “Well, if you really loved me, you wouldn’t want to be apart for three years.”

  “I don’t want to be apart. I miss you. Hey, I have a great idea. Why don’t you check the ride board at FSU and hitch a ride up here? We could spend the weekend together.”

  As tempting as that sounded, if I knew Daniel, we would spend the weekend in bed, and I would be no closer to getting a ring on my finger than I was when I got there. Sure, he missed me. He missed sleeping with me. Although he probably had plenty of girls up there who would oblige him. Who may already have obliged him.

  “Well, what do you say?”

  “I have to think about it.”

  “Don’t you want to see me?”

  “Of course I do. But I really need to talk to you about—”

  “Krantz,” yelled a guy. “You’re hogging the phone. Tracy says you have a study date.”

  “Shit,” I heard Daniel swear.

  “A study date? And who is Tracy?”

  “Just a girl.”

  “The girl who answered the phone?”

  “No, another girl.”

  “Another roommate?” The silence was deafening.

  “You’re going on a date with her?”

  “Merritt, it’s not a real date. It’s a study date. We have a midterm coming up.”

  “A study date?” I was furious. Most of our study dates in college had turned into make-out sessions and more. I needed to get this mess about Savannah’s death off my chest, and my boyfriend was going off on a date with another woman.

  I knew it was an immature thing to do, but I hung up. Right there. Just like that. The problem was I was still hung up on the bastard, and I knew I would drive right over to the FSU student union in Tallahassee and see if anyone was advertising a ride to Charlottesville, Virginia, for the weekend. Because the sad, honest truth was I needed a weekend of mind-blowing sex, of lying against Daniel’s familiar body, to be held and soothed by him, skin to skin, naked and satisfied. It was only then, in the air of intimacy, that I could confide about the murder and get it off my chest.

  Chapter Seven

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said, stretching to get the kinks out of my back and unfolding my cramped legs. We agreed to meet at the same place on Sunday morning. I paid the driver for half the gas and walked up to the house. It was right across the street from the law school, and bigger than I had imagined.

  Daniel opened the door.

  “Baby,” he said, pulling me into his arms and kissing me. “God, I missed you.” He picked up my overnight bag and dragged me into his bedroom. He shut and locked the door and started pulling off my clothes.

  “Hello, you,” I said.

  “Hello,” he said and smiled. “First things first.” He pulled off my T-shirt and my bra and filled his hands with my breasts. “I missed these,” he said, kissing me. Then he pulled down my jeans and pulled off my panties and rubbed up against me. He was definitely glad to see me.

  Then he pulled off his shirt, pulled down his jeans, and threw off his underwear. He jumped into his single bed and pulled me down on top of him and then reversed positions and kissed me some more. He began arousing me with his hands and his lips and his tongue, and it was like we had never been apart. I held him tight, and he entered me and I cried out.

  “Sorry,” I said, not wanting to disturb his roommates.

  “Don’t worry. They knew you were coming.” And then we both laughed. “What I meant was—”

  “I know what you meant.” We were lying on our backs, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Boy, that felt great,” he said. “I don’t ever want to leave this room.”

  “I’m starving,” I argued.

  “Okay, then, I’ll order out.”

  “When am I going to meet your roommates?” And by the tone of my voice he knew I meant his female roommates.

  “I don’t want to share you with anybody yet.”

  “Are we going to spend the whole weekend in your bedroom?” Not that I was complain
ing.

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Admit, it, baby, you missed me, too. I could tell.”

  “All right, I missed you.”

  “When do you have to leave?”

  “First thing Sunday morning.”

  “We only have one full day together.”

  “And two nights.”

  “Well, let’s make the most of them. Let’s take things slow,” he whispered. And he started moving on me again, touching my breasts, kissing my nipples, and moving his mouth lower, rubbing me gently until I came again. I twined my legs around him, moving my body restlessly against his, taking him into my hands and stroking until he got his release. I never wanted this feeling to end. I didn’t realize how much I’d needed him.

  “What if I told you I didn’t want to go back?” I said, biting my lip.

  “I wish you could stay. Of course I do. What about your job?”

  “Well, I really don’t want to go back to Watertown. And there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Daniel sat up in bed. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “What?”

  “You said there’s something you need to tell me. Isn’t that how the conversation usually goes?”

  “I’m on the pill, silly. No, that’s not it. But would it be so bad if I were?”

  “What would you do?”

  “Your use of you is not reassuring. We’d have to figure it out.”

  “I’m paying for law school. I can’t afford a family right now.”

  “Don’t worry, but that’s part of what I want to talk to you about.”

  I sat up and covered myself with a sheet. I looked around at the mess, Daniel’s dirty laundry was everywhere—on the floor, on his desk, scattered socks, wrinkled shirts, mixed with piles of paper. I hadn’t even had time to take a tour, but I’d glanced at the kitchen on my way to the bedroom, and it was as untidy as Daniel’s room. The place was a pit. I couldn’t live here. But I couldn’t live in Watertown, without Daniel, not for three more years.

  “Daniel, I need to know where I stand. I mean, are we together?”

  “I don’t think we could get much closer.” He toyed with my nipple.