The Alibi (57 page)

"This time of night?"

"I want some ice cream."

"There's a freezer full."

"But none of the flavor I'm craving."

The faithful housekeeper always knew when she

was lying, but she never challenged her. That was just

one of the reasons that Davee adored her. "I'll be

careful. Back in a while."

"And if anybody asks me later ... ?"

"I was in bed fast asleep by nine."

Knowing that all her secrets were safe with Sarah,

she went into the garage and climbed into her BMW.

The residential streets were dark and sleepy. There

was little traffic on the freeway and commercial

boulevards as well. Although it went against her natural inclination as well as the automobile's, she kept

the BMW within the speed limit. Two DUIs had been

dismissed by a judge who owed Lute a favor. A third

would be pushing her luck.

The McDonald's was lit up like a Las Vegas

casino. Even at this late hour there were a dozen cars

in the parking lot, belonging to the teenagers who

were clustered around the tables inside.

Davee pulled into a shadowed parking space on

the far side of the lot, lowered the driver's-side window,

then turned off the engine. In front of her was a

row of scruffy bushes serving as a hedge between the

McDonald's parking lot and that of another fast food

restaurant that had failed. The building was boarded

up. Behind her was the empty drive-through lane. On

either side of her, nothing but darkness.

He wasn't there yet and that miffed her. Responding

to his urgency, she had dropped everything--including

a perfectly good highball--and had come

running. She flipped down the sun visor, slid the

cover off the lighted mirror, and checked her reflection.

He opened the passenger door and got in. "You

look good, Davee. You always do."

Rory Smilow closed the car door quickly to extinguish

the dome light. Reaching above the steering

wheel, he slid the closure back across the vanity mirror,

eliminating that light, too.

His compliment spread through Davee like a sip of

warm, very expensive liqueur, although she tried not

to show the intoxicating effect it had on her. Instead,

she spoke crossly. "What's up with the cloak and dagger

stuff, Rory? Running low on clues these days?"

"Just the opposite. I have too many. None of them

add up."

Her comment had been intended as a joke, but of

course he had taken her seriously. Disappointingly,

he was getting right down to business, just as he had

the night he came to inform her that her husband was

dead. He had behaved exactly as protocol demanded.

Professionally. Courteously. Detached.

Never in a thousand years would Steffi Mundell

ever have guessed that they had been lovers who had

once knocked out the glass door of his shower while

making love. That a picnic in a public park had ended

with him sitting against a tree while she rode him.

That one weekend they had subsisted on peanut butter

and sex from after classes on Friday afternoon

until classes began on Monday morning.

His behavior the day Lute died had betrayed none

of the romantic craziness in which they had once engaged.

It had broken Davee's heart that he could

maintain such goddamn detachment when with every

glance she had wanted to gobble him up. His control

was admirable. Or pitiable. So little passion must

make for a very lonely and sterile life.

Trying to harden her heart against him, she said,

"Mark it up to a lapse in good judgment, but here I

am. Now, what do you want?"

"To ask you some questions about Lute's murder."

"I thought you had the case sewed up. I saw on the

news--"

"Right, right. Hammond's taking it to the grand

jury next week."

"So what's the problem?"

"Before today, when you saw the news story, had

you ever heard of Dr. Alex Ladd?"

"No, but Lute had a lot of girlfriends. Many of

them I knew, but not all, I'm sure."

"I don't think she was a girlfriend."

"Really?"

Turning toward him, she pulled her foot up into

the car seat, settling her heel against her bottom and

resting her chin on her knee. It was a provocative, unladylike

pose that drew his gaze downward, where it

remained for several seconds before returning to her

face.

"If you're coming to me for answers, Rory, you

must truly be desperate."

"You are my last resort."

"Then too bad for you, because I've told you

everything I know."

"I seriously doubt that, Davee."

"I'm not lying to you about this Ladd woman. I

never—"

"It's not that," he said, shaking his head impatiently.

"It's something ... something else."

"Do you think you're after the wrong person?"

He didn't respond, but his features tensed.

"Ah, that's it, isn't it? And for you, uncertainty is

a fate worse than death, isn't it? You of the cold heart

and iron resolve." She smiled. "Well, I hate to disappoint

you, darlin', but this little tete-a-tete has been a

waste of time for both of us. I don't know who killed

Lute. I promise."

"Did you speak to him that day?"

"When he left the house that morning, he told me

he was going to play golf. The next time I even

thought about him was when you and that Mundell

bitch showed up to inform me that he was dead. His

last words to me were apparently a lie, which more or

less summarizes our marriage. He was a terrible husband,

a so-so lover, and a despicable human being.

Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass who did the deed."

"We caught your housekeeper in a lie."

"To protect me."

"If you're innocent, why did you need protecting?"

"Good point. But if I had said that I spent that Saturday

afternoon riding horseback nekkid down Broad

Street, Sarah would have agreed. You know that."

"You weren't confined to your bedroom all day

with a headache?"

She laughed and ran her fingers through her hair,

combing out some of the tangled curls. "In a manner

of speaking. I was in bed all day with my masseur,

who turned out to be not only a headache, but a boring

pain in the butt. Sarah didn't want to sully my

good reputation by telling you the truth."

Her sarcasm wasn't lost on him. Turning his head

away from her, he stared through the windshield toward

the row of straggling shrubbery. His jaw was

knotted with tension. Davee didn't know if that was

a good sign or bad.

"Am I a suspect again, Rory?"

"No. You wouldn't have killed Lute."

"Why don't you think so?"

His eyes came back to hers. "Because you enjoyed

tormenting me by being married to him."

So he knew why she had married Lute. He had noticed,

and, furthermore, he had cared. For all his

seeming indifference, there was blood in his veins

after all, and at least a portion of it had been heated

by jealousy.

Her heart fluttered with excitement, but she kept

her features schooled and her inflection at a minimum.

"And what's more ... ?"

"And what's more, you wouldn't have put yourself

out. Knowing that you could have gotten away with

murder, why bother?"

"In other words," she said, "I'm too rich to be convicted."

"Exactly."

"And a divorce is only marginally less trouble than

a murder trial."

"In your instance, a divorce is probably more trouble."

Enjoying herself, she said, "Besides, as I told

Hammond, the prison uniforms--"

"When did you talk to Hammond?" he asked, cutting

her off.

"I talk to him often. We're old friends."

"I'm well aware of that. Did you know he was

with Lute the day he was killed? At about the time he

was killed?"

No longer relaxed, Davee was instantly on guard

and wondering how far Rory would go to pay her

back for the torment she had caused him. Would he

charge her with obstruction of justice for withholding

evidence? She had turned over to Hammond the

handwritten notation from Lute, indicating his appointments

on Saturday. The information could be totally

insignificant. Or it could be key to the solution

of Rory's murder mystery.

Whichever, it was the investigator's job, not the

widow's, to determine what bearing it had on the

case. Even if Hammond's meeting with Lute didn't

factor into the murder itself, it could compromise him

as the prosecuting attorney. The second appointment

had never taken place, if indeed that second notation

had indicated a later appointment. There'd been no

name with it, and by the time specified, Lute was already

dead.

Davee was trapped between being caught for

wrongdoing and fierce loyalty to an old friend. "Did

Hammond tell you that?"

"He was seen in the hotel."

She laughed, but not very convincingly. "That's it?

That's the basis of your assumption that he was with

Lute, that he was seen in the same building? Maybe

you need to take a vacation, Rory. You've lost your

edge."

"Insults, Davee?"

"The conclusion you've reached is an insult to my

intelligence as well as yours. Two men were in the

same large public place at approximately the same

time. What makes you think there's a connection?"

"Because for all the times we've talked about the

hotel last Saturday afternoon, never once has Hammond

mentioned that he was there."

"Why should he? Why make a big deal out of a coincidence?"

"If it was a coincidence, there would be no reason

for him not to mention it."

"Maybe he was having a Saturday afternoon rendezvous.

Maybe he likes the dining room's crab

cakes. Maybe he took a shortcut through the lobby

just to get out of the heat. There could be a hundred

reasons why he was there."

He leaned across the console, coming closer to her

than he had been in years. "If Hammond met with

Lute, I need to know it."

"I don't know if they met or not," she snapped.

That much was true. All she had done was give Hammond

Lute's note. She hadn't asked, and he hadn't

said, whether or not the appointment had been kept.

"What would be the nature of such a meeting?"

"How should I know?"

"Had Lute caught you and Hammond together?"

"What?" she exclaimed on a short laugh. "Heavenly

days, Rory, your imagination is truly running

amok tonight. Where did you get that idea?" He gave

her a hard look, the meaning of which couldn't be

misinterpreted. It pierced the tiny, fragile bubble of

happiness spawned by seeing him again.

"Oh," she said, her smile turning sad. "Well,

you're right, of course. I'm certainly not above committing

adultery. But do you honestly think that Hammond

Cross would sleep with another man's wife?"

After a brief, tense silence, he asked, "What other

reason could they have for meeting?"

"We don't know that they did."

"Has Hammond mentioned seeing anyone else in

the hotel?"

"If he was there, I'm sure he saw the sweating

hordes of people who are in and out of there every

day."

"Anyone in particular?"

"No, Rory!" she said with exasperation. "I've told

you, he didn't say anything."

"Something is wrong with him."

"With Hammond? Like what?"

"I don't know, but it bothers me. He's not his fire-breathing

self these days."

"He's in love."

His chin went back like it had sustained a quick,

unexpected jab. "In love? With Steffi?"

"God forbid," she replied, shuddering slightly. "I

was almost afraid to ask about the depth of that relationship,

but when I did, he said it was over, which I

believe. His lady love is not the charmless Ms.

Mundell."

"Then who?"

"He wouldn't say. He didn't look too happy about

it, either. Said it wasn't just complicated, but impossible. And no, the lady isn't married. I asked him that,

too."

Rory bowed his head slightly. He seemed to grow

fixated on her bare toes while he ruminated on what

she had told him. She had a coveted few moments to

look at him--the smooth forehead, stern brow, rigid

jaw, the uncompromising mouth which she knew

could be compromised. She had felt it on her lips, on

her body, hungry and tender.

"It's a powerful motivator," she said softly.

He raised his head. "What?"

"Love." For ponderous, timeless moments they

stared deeply into each other's eyes. "It makes you do

things you wouldn't consider doing otherwise. Like

marrying a man you hate."