The Alibi (20 page)

the end of the walkway and came up on his back legs,

throwing himself against the gate. Instinctively Hammond

took a couple steps back.

Laughing at his reaction, the dog owner pulled the

gate open and Winthrop bolted through. "Sorry about

that. Hope he didn't scare you. He doesn't bite, but

given the chance, he might lick you to death."

Hammond smiled. "No problem." Winthrop,

showing no interest in him, had hiked his leg and was

peeing against a fence post.

Hammond must have looked harmless but lost, because

the man said, "Can I help you?"

"Uh, actually I was trying to locate Dr. Ladd's office."

"You found it." The young man pointed his chin

toward the house across the street.

"Right, right."

The man gave him a politely quizzical look.

"Uh, I'm a salesman," he blurted. "Medical forms.

Stuff like that. The sign doesn't say what time the office

opens."

"About ten, I think. You could call Alex to confirm."

"Alex?"

"Dr. Ladd."

"Oh, sure. Yeah, I should've called, but... you

know .. .just thought I'd ... well, okay." Winthrop

was sniffing beneath a camellia bush. "Thanks. Take

it easy, Winthrop."

Hoping the neighbor would never connect the

inarticulate idiot to the assistant D.A. frequently seen

addressing reporters on TV, Hammond patted the

shaggy dog on the head, then set off down the sidewalk

in the direction from which he had come.

"Actually, you just missed her."

Hammond whipped back around. "Her? "

* * *

Mr. Daniels avoided looking either Smilow or

Steffi in the eye when they returned to his hospital

room and took up positions on either side of his bed.

To Smilow the patient seemed more uncomfortable

now than he had fifteen minutes earlier, but it wasn't

gastrointestinal discomfort. It looked more like a bad

case of guilty conscience.

"The nurse said you remembered something that

might help our investigation."

"Maybe." Daniels's eyes nervously sawed back

and forth between Smilow and Steffi. "See, it's like

this. Ever since I strayed--"

"Strayed?"

Daniels looked at Steffi, who had interrupted.

"From my marriage."

"You had an affair?"

Leave it to Steffi to cut to the chase, thought

Smilow. "Tact" wasn't in her vocabulary. Mr. Daniels

looked completely miserable as he stammered on.

"Yeah. This, uh . . . a woman where I work?

We ... you know." Uneasily he shifted his skinny

frame on the hard mattress. "But it didn't last long. I

saw the error of my ways. It was just one of those

things that happens before you know it. Then you

wake up one morning and think to yourself, what the

hell am I doing this for? I love my wife."

Smilow was sharing Steffi's obvious impatience

with Daniels's long-winded confession. He wished

the man would get to the point. Nevertheless, he

warned Steffi with a hard look to give Daniels time to

tell his story at his own pace.

"The reason I'm telling you this . . . She, my wife,

gets all worked up if I so much as give another

woman the time of day. Not that I blame her," he

rushed to add. "She's got a right to be suspicious. I

handed her that right when I committed adultery.

"But the least little thing--even a kind word to another

woman--sets her off. Know what I mean? She

goes to crying. And saying that she's not woman

enough for me. That she can't fulfill my needs." He

looked up at Smilow with weary eyes. "You know

how they get."

Again, Smilow shot Steffi a look that told her not

to jeopardize this by lambasting the man's sexist editorial.

"I didn't describe that lady to y'all in detail because

I didn't want my wife to get upset. We've been

doing pretty good here lately. She even brought along

some, you know, sexual aids on this trip to spice up

our time alone. She sorta looked on it as a second

honeymoon. Isn't much you can do on a church choir

bus, but once we get in our room each night. . .

whew."

He grinned up at them, but then his smile deflated

as though someone had pulled the plug on a rubber

mask. "But if the missus thought I had paid attention

to another woman's face and figure, she might have

thought I was lusting in my heart after a stranger. I'd

have had hell to pay over nothing."

"We understand." Steffi laid her hand on his arm

with rare and, Smilow knew, insincere compassion.

"Mr. Daniels, are you now saying that you can de

scribe the woman you saw in the hotel corridor in

greater detail?"

He looked across at Smilow. "You got something

to write with?"

Slowly, he pulled the old T-shirt over her head. Before,

he had touched her in darkness. He knew what

she felt like, but he wanted to see what his hands had

touched.

He wasn't disappointed. She was lovely. He liked

seeing his hands on her breasts, liked watching them

respond to his caresses, liked hearing her hum of

pleasure when he lowered his lips to them.

"You like this."

"Yes."

He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked it.

She clasped his head and moaned softly. "Too

hard?" he asked.

"No."

But he was concerned, especially when he spotted

whisker burns on her pale skin. He ran his finger

over the spot. "I didn't realize."

She looked down at the light abrasion, then raised

his finger to her lips and kissed it. "Neither did I."

"I'm sorry."

"It didn't matter."

"But if I hurt you--"

"You didn't. You won't." She curled her hand

around his neck and tried to draw his head back to

her.

But he resisted. "Do you mind if. . ." He nodded

toward the bed.

"No."

They lay down, not bothering to straighten the

linens. He leaned over her and, holding her face between

his hands, kissed her so passionately that her

body arched off the bed in order to touch his.

His hand skimmed over her breasts, down her rib

cage, onto a smooth stomach. "Jesus. Look at you.

Beautiful." He fitted his hand into the vee of her

thighs, covering her mound with his palm, his

fingers tapering downward. Inward. Into her softness.

"You're already--"

"Yes."

"So sweet. So--"

"Oh..." she gasped.

"Wet."

He rose above her for another kiss. It was a silky,

sexy kiss that ended only when she gave a soft cry

and climaxed around his fingers, against his thumb.

Moments later she opened her eyes and saw him

smiling down at her. "I'm sorry, sorry."

"Sorry?" he repeated, laughing softly and kissing

her damp forehead.

"Well, I mean .. . you ..."

His lips barely grazed hers. His whisper was soft

and urgent. "Don't be sorry."

He coughed a harsh sigh of surprise when she

closed her hand around him. He almost protested, almost

told her that she didn't have to feel obligated,

almost told her that reciprocation wasn't necessary,

that he couldn't possibly get any harder than he was.

But when she began to explore and massage, the only

sounds he made were soft groans of supreme pleasure.

Not fully aware of what he was doing, he folded

his hand around hers and enhanced her motions.

She nuzzled his neck. She buried kisses in his chest

hair and took love bites of his skin. Unintentionally-- or maybe not--her erect nipple rubbed against his. It

was exciting. It was goddamn erotic. And it nearly

made him come.

When he removed her hand, she angled herself up

and frantically kissed his jaw, his cheek, his lips,

murmuring, "Let me touch you."

But it was too late. He repositioned himself and

sank into her. Withdrew. Pressed. Deep. Deeper.

Then, resting his forehead on hers, clenching his

teeth and squeezing his eyes shut, experiencing more

ecstasy than he had in all previous sexual encounters

put together. . .

"No, let me touch you."

. . . he came.

The ringing telephone rudely jarred Hammond

from his steamy recollection. He was embarrassed to

realize that he had an erection and he was bathed in

sweat. How much time had he lost to that particular

memory? He checked the dashboard clock. Twenty

minutes, give or take.

The phone rang a third time. He jerked it to his ear.

"What?"

"Where the hell have you been?"

Irritably he said, "You know, Steffi, you need to

get some new material. That's the second time today

you've asked me that, and in that same tone of

voice."

"Sorry, but I've been calling your house for an

hour and leaving messages. I finally decided to try

your cell. Are you in your car?"

"Yes."

"You went out?"

"Right again."

"Oh. I didn't imagine you'd be going out tonight."

She was hinting that he explain to her where he

had gone and why, but he no longer owed her an accounting

of his time. It probably stung her pride that

on the night he ended their relationship, he wasn't too

despondent to go out.

It would really wound her to know that he was

staked out on a dark street like a pervert, steeping in

a sweat of sexual arousal, and waiting to see if Dr. A.

E. Ladd was the woman who, about this time last

night, had been stretched out alongside him naked-- his sex cozily sandwiched between their bellies, his

hands caressing her ass--asking if he was aware that

his eyes were the color of storm clouds.

He had a mean impulse to tell Steffi. But of

course he didn't.

He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve. "What's

going on?"

"For starters, why didn't you tell me that Mason

gave you the Pettijohn case?"

"It wasn't my job to."

"That's a bullshit reason, Hammond."

"Thank you, Rory Smilow," he muttered.

"He told me as a friend."

"My ass. He told you because he's no friend of

mine. Now, are you going to tell me what's up?"

"Not knowing that I was going to be playing second

fiddle," she said sweetly, "I joined Smilow at

Roper Hospital, and we lucked out."

"How so?"

"One of those people stricken with food poisoning?"

"Yeah?"

Headlights turned onto the street at the opposite

end from where Hammond was parked. He started

his car.

"Where are you, Hammond?" Steffi demanded

impatiently. "Are you listening? It sounds like you're

cutting out."

"I can hear you. Keep talking. One of the people

stricken with food poisoning ..."

"Saw a woman outside Pettijohn's suite. Well, actually,

he can't swear that it was outside Pettijohn's

suite, but that's a technicality we can iron out if

everything else falls into place."

The car stopped in front of Dr. Ladd's office. She

drove off with some guy in a convertible, Winthrop's

owner had told him.

Steffi was saying, "So after a lot of hem-hawing

about an affair--"

Driving slowly, Hammond got close enough to see

that the car was a convertible.

"On second thought, never mind about the affair,"

Steffi said. "It's irrelevant. Believe me. Anyway, Mr.

Daniels got a much better look at the woman than he

had first led us and Mrs. Daniels to believe."

The glare of the convertible's headlights blinded

Hammond from seeing anything behind them. But as

he pulled even with the car, he turned his head in time

to see the occupants. A man behind the steering

wheel. A woman in the passenger seat. His woman.

No question.

"Mr. Daniels now admits that he remembers her

approximate height and weight, hair color, and so

forth."

Hammond tuned Steffi out. Once he was past the

other car, he cut his eyes to his external side mirror in

time to see the man reach across the console and

hook his hand around the back of her neck, bringing

her face up close to his.

Hammond stamped his accelerator, taking the corner

too fast and causing his tires to squeal. Sure, it

was an immature, jealousy-inspired reaction, but

that's what he felt like doing. He felt like hitting

something. He really felt like telling Steffi to shut the

fuck up.

"Just do it, Steffi," he said, abruptly stopping her

in mid sentence

Taken aback, she took a quick breath. "Do what?"

He didn't know what. He had been only half listening,

but he wouldn't admit that to her. She'd been

telling him about a potential witness. Someone who

had seen someone near Pettijohn's suite and could

provide a fairly accurate description.

Steffi might also have suggested a sketch artist.

She had mentioned that about the time Hammond

had rolled past the convertible, and her prattle had

been drowned out by the blood that had rushed to his

head. The gist of what Steffi told him had registered,

but most of it had been obscured by a wild, primal