Alibi II (18 page)

E
arly one morning, just as the sun was rising, the FBI stationed themselves on Daniel Boone’s front lawn. Through a long series of investigations over the past twenty years and video enhancement, the FBI had finally cracked the code on the abandoned baby cases from 1986.

Vivian and her team positioned themselves as she rang the doorbell.

As soon as Boone opened the door, Vivian flashed her badge and announced herself.

“I’m Special Agent Vivian Lang; are you Mr. Daniel Adam Boone?”

“Um…yeah…what’s this all about?”

He asked the question as if he had no clue why a special agent for the FBI could possibly be standing on his front porch. He was, after all, a law-abiding citizen, if ever there was one.

“I’m investigating several abandoned baby cases from the late eighties to early nineties and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions? May I come in?” she said, moving closer to the door.

Daniel Boone looked as if he had seen a ghost. His skin turned pale white, his pupils dilated, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face.

“Mr. Boone, do you mind if I come in?” asked Vivian again, standing at the door toe to toe with him, waiting for a response.

Without warning or hesitation, Daniel Boone used all his strength and shoved Vivian’s chest so hard that she fell backward against one of the porch beams. She lunged toward him, but Daniel slammed the door with all his might as Vivian’s shoulder took the impact. He was running through the house when she crashed through the wooden door, dislocating her shoulder, but pursuing Boone all the same.

“Freeze,” she shouted, popping off two rounds at Daniel’s back as he dipped into the kitchen, grabbing a steak knife and running toward the basement staircase where he planned to kill her. Daniel ran though his house, Vivian and the other FBI agents right behind him screaming “FBI, freeze!” and a bunch of other orders Daniel Boone paid no attention to. He reached the staircase, and was almost to the top when he felt his leg being pulled from behind, causing him to loose his balance. He tripped, tumbling backward into Vivian as they both fell back down the flight of stairs.

“Please, please, please don’t hurt me,” Daniel Boone screamed as Vivian pounced on him at the bottom of the staircase. She placed him in a headlock.

“I didn’t do nothing, it was the doctor. Please, you got to believe me. I didn’t do nothing to them babies. I just did like Dr. Vistane told me to. Please, don’t send me to jail.”

“I can’t believe you made me break my god damn nail,” said Vivian, slapping the shit out of him and roughing the frail older man up a bit.

“Please, you’re hurting me,” he said as Vivian pulled out handcuffs and held his hands tightly behind his back.

“Shut up. You are under arrest for kidnapping and child endangerment. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you.”

“Please, I swear, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t. It was the doctor, Dr. Vistane, he’s crazy, you know. He made me do it, he made me do it,” the man said as he began to sob. “I never wanted to leave them. I never wanted to leave them. It’s haunted me all my life, all my life. Please don’t put me in jail. Please, somebody help me,” Vivian watched the man break down in front of her, crying and sobbing uncontrollably. “Help me!”

“Shut up!” she said as she threw him to the floor, his hands handcuffed behind him, and finished reading him his rights.

“Please, ma’am, it wasn’t me, it was the doctor,” he cried over and over again.

Her backup team was on the scene in a matter of seconds. The local boys were always somewhere nearby, too, when she needed them. They assisted Vivian with the arrest and had the man placed in the back of a paddy wagon where he would be transported to the FBI building for questioning. As with any arrest, news leaked immediately and a team of reporters was on the scene.

“Excuse me, Special Agent Lang, the abandoned church baby case is twenty years old, how did the FBI finally crack the case to make an arrest?”

“Who is the doctor?”

“Do you know where the babies came from or who their parents are?”

A hundred and one questions were thrown at Vivian, and she calmly replied.

“We believe the suspect abandoned the babies on the steps of Catholic churches from 1982 to 1992, and we have taken him into custody for questioning. That’s all I can tell you at this time.”

The mob of reporters wouldn’t settle for that and bombarded her with more questions. Of course, with their assistance, this would become one of the biggest news stories in the history of Philadelphia, and Vivian would be at the forefront of the investigation as the arresting officer.

“She held up her hands, shrugged a “Sorry, Charlie,” smiled for the cameras, and waved at the tuned-in audience.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck, they got this bitch on every fucking channel,” yelled Tommy, using the remote to turn the television off before throwing it on the sofa.

“Tommy, calm down, you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” said Gabby, rubbing his back, trying to calm him down. “You always get yourself upset with her.”

“I fucking hate her, she’s the biggest bitch in the world, the entire fucking world,” he said, jealous and pissed that she was getting the glory for solving a case and he wasn’t.

Two Months Later

Nard pulled his Escalade up to the sidewalk and threw it in park. He hopped out of the car. It was Thanksgiving and almost a year since he’d been home. He looked at the writing on a tiny piece of paper he held in his hand. It held the initials KSW and an address in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

“Hey, ma,” he said kissing his mom’s cheek as he walked past her sitting on the porch.

“Hey, them people called, left you a number in there on the counter so you can call them back.”

“Where’s Uncle Ray Ray?”

“He’s upstairs lying down. I don’t think he was feeling too good today. He said he was tired,” said Beverly.

Nard ran upstairs, grabbed a bag that he had packed the night before, and ran back down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Beverly asked, confused and concerned at the sight of the overnight bag.

He had no response, and stopped in his tracks to think of one.

“I got to go out of town and take care of something.”

And he did. It turned out the same private investigator who was hired on his behalf to get a statement from Daisy had been hired by Simon Shuller, and Dizzy was able to give Nard the contact. When Daisy met with private investigator to give the alibi statement for Nard and collect her two thousand dollars, she had completed an intake sheet, and she listed her mother, Abigail Wright, as her next of kin. That same investigator tracked down the entire family and her closest living relative, her cousin, 
Kimmie
 Sue, still living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Once Nard was informed of his findings, he immediately stopped what he was doing, went home, and began to pack his bags.

“You going out of town to take care of something?” asked 
Beverly
, looking at her son as if she knew better. “Take care of what, like you some traveling salesman? Them parole people know you going out of town?”

Nard didn’t answer her, and his silence told her what she would have to do, should they come around while he was gone…LIE. And of course she would, because she would do anything to keep him safe and keep them from locking up her baby. Nard passed her a plastic bag wrapped tightly with rubber bands. He didn’t say a word, simply looking piercingly at Beverly, letting her know he wasn’t playing games. Inside the plastic bag he passed to his moms was forty thousand dollars.

“What’s this?” she asked, and he again ignored her question.

“Take that,” said Nard, watching his mother gasp at the contents of the plastic bag. “Hold that, just in case you need something.”

“Oh, my God, boy, what the hell you done did? Nard, you robbed a bank? What, you selling drugs again?” she asked with her “what the hell” expression still on her face.

“No, Mom, I ain’t selling drugs again,” said Nard, and while he wasn’t at the present time, he did have real big triple-beam plans in his future alongside Liddles.

“Well, where is you going then? And where’d all this money come from?”

Nard put his arms around her as if he was only five and hugged her.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, son.”

He let her go and Beverly watched as Nard walked out the door, never answering her questions, never speaking of where he was going or when he’d return.

“Please don’t let nothing bad happen to him,” she whispered to God, as the porch door closed behind him and he faded down the steps.

Just as Nard turned the corner of the block, Beverly heard her best friend for the past fifty years knocking at the door.

“What in the hell is Maeleen doing?” asked Donna, as Beverly opened the door. Donna pointed across the street to Maeleen.

The two women stood quietly as they watched Maeleen lighting candles that she had placed in a long row on the sidewalk in front of her house.

“What is she doing?” asked Beverly, squinting and wishing she had her glasses.

“Who the hell knows, you’re her neighbor. Shit, she’s probably over there lighting her candles so she can chant it up with the Moonlight God,” Donna joked.

“I think you’re right,” said Beverly as the two women went inside, falling out with laughter as they closed the door behind them so Maeleen wouldn’t hear them.

One Week Later

I
t was a rainy Tuesday as the funeral home prepared for the services for Kimberly Sue Wright. Nard looked on as if he were her closest friend or a friend of the family. He took a seat in the back of the church, sitting in the third row from the last row of pews, watching and waiting. He was quiet and reserved, dressed in a dark black suit, and extremely well groomed. He looked nothing out of the ordinary and when approached was calm and collected.

“Kimmie”—he had learned her nickname by reading the pamphlet being passed out that was on display as you entered the church—had lived a full life.

“She was a very dear friend to me, always there when I needed someone to lean on, always a kind spirit to me, and she is someone that I will miss dearly,” he said as he looked down at her lifeless body.

“She was a friend to many,” said a stranger, patting him on the back.

He looked so dashing, so debonair, that his presence suggested he was a previous suitor in her life and had come to say good-bye. Kimmie was a beautiful woman, even in death. Nard looked at her body lying in the casket in the front of the church. He couldn’t escape thoughts of killing her as he stared at her cold, dead body. He desperately wanted to project a look of sadness, of a broken man, maybe an old boyfriend, so he tried to think sad thoughts, but he couldn’t. All he could think of was climbing into her bedroom window and waiting in the closet for her to come home, as any other normal intruder would. He was wearing a black ski-mask, with gloves on his hands and shoe mitts covering his Tims. The rope in his pants pocket, long enough to strangle her, was all it would take.

Kimberly came home from work on time as usual. He could hear her entering the apartment from the bedroom closet he was hiding in. He looked at his watch.
Same time as the past three days,
he thought to himself.
At least she’s punctual, if nothing else.
Nard heard the locks turning and the door to her apartment opening as he pulled the rope from his pocket, making sure it was there before stuffing it back. He patiently waited, and waited, and waited, resting patiently on a plastic bag of clothes that was in the corner of the closet.

Kimmie, home from work after a long hard day, did her normal routine. She played with her cat, Mittens, for a few minutes, stroking him and rubbing him behind his ears, and then she opened a can of his favorite food and served him his dinner. Then she poured a glass of white wine and made her dinner, eating it on a tray in front of her living room television, drinking another glass of wine afterward, taking a shower, and finally, lights out.

He made sure she had had enough time to fall quietly to sleep, then tiptoed from the bedroom closet over to the side of her bed, making sure not to make a sound. He stood over her, looking at her body under the sheets. She was resting peacefully, and he decided not to choke her, but to suffocate her. He lifted a pillow lying next to her as she opened her eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked, as if in a dream, but realizing she wasn’t, she began to scream.

Nard quickly took the pillow and covered her face. Kimberly fought off her attacker as best she could, but her fight was useless. Moments later, her body went limp as the last breath of air escaped her and Nard suffocated her to death.

Like a thief in the night, he left and waited patiently for her body to be discovered, her family to be notified, and her next of kin to come claim her. It was impossible to track down a person in police protective custody. Instead, Nard had decided to go about it another way, and what better way than this? The only question was whether it would work. And of course it did. Nard spotted Daisy the moment she walked through the door. His heart pounded as she walked by. This was the woman that had ruined his life. Sure, she had aged, but her face was the same, her eyes unforgettable, and besides maybe an added ten pounds, she looked just like the girl in the video he had become used to masturbating to every night.
You fucking sold me out, bitch, you fucking hung me. We’ll see now, though, we’ll see now.
She was dressed all in black, carrying a black clutch in her hand, a black clutch that before the day was out would be missing, until it was found in the bathroom of the funeral home.

“See, you probably left it. You’ve been so upset, this has been a very trying week,” said Webster, rubbing his wife’s back as he consoled her.

“You’re right, it has been quite stressful. I just can’t believe she’s gone. Now I have no one.”

“Yes, but at least you have your bag, and you have me,” he said, trying to cheer her up. “The most important thing is that you took care of everything for your cousin. You gave her a wonderful homecoming. And yes, the stress of leaving your bag is nothing, we found it, and all is well. Now, I’d say it’s time to catch our flight back to Scottsdale.”

Nard watched as the suited gentleman escorted Daisy, as if she couldn’t walk on her own, out the door and into a rented 760 Volvo.

“I’ll see y’all back in Scottsdale,” Nard said as he nodded to himself, looking at the address he had written down from her driver’s license. “Yep, looks like I’ll be seeing both y’all motherfuckers in a minute.”