The Alibi (34 page)

I'm unaccustomed to being interrogated by the

police. I was nervous."

"Forgive me, Dr. Ladd," Smilow said wryly. "But

you're the least nervous person I have ever questioned.

We've all commented on it. Ms. Mundell, Mr.

Cross, and I all have agreed that you're remarkably

composed for someone under suspicion of murder."

Unsure if he meant that as an insult or a compliment,

she didn't respond. It made her uneasy to know

that they had discussed her. What had Hammond's

"comments" on her been? she wondered. She had

certainly provided him a lot to talk about, hadn't she?

"You're a fraud, you know."

"I beg your pardon." Pretending to be affronted,

she grabbed two handfuls of his hair and tried to lift

his head. But he was unyielding.

"You come across as a woman who's all calm,

cool, and collected." The stubble on his chin lightly

scratched her tummy. "That's what I thought after I

rescued you from the marines. This is one cool

chick."

She laughed. "Between a fraud and a chick, I'm

not sure which is the most offensive."

"But in bed," he continued, undeterred both in his

vein of conversation and his intent, "your participation

is anything but contained."

"It's hard--"

"It certainly is," he groaned. "But it can wait."

"--to keep one's composure when ..."

"When?"

"When ..." Then his tongue touched her and her

composure was shattered.

"You went to this fair alone?"

"What?" For one horrifying moment, she feared

she had gasped out loud, echoing her orgasm. Even

more horrifying, she had unintentionally turned and

was looking at Hammond. His eyes were hot, as

though he had been following her thoughts. A blood

vessel in his temple was distended and ticking.

She whipped her head back around to Smilow,

who repeated his question. "You went to this fair

alone?"

"Yes. Yes, alone. That's right."

"And you remained alone throughout the

evening?"

Looking into Rory Smilow's implacable eyes, it

was difficult to lie. "Yes."

"You didn't join a friend there? You didn't meet

anyone?"

"As I said, Mr. Smilow, alone."

He paused for a beat. "What time did you leave?

Alone."

"When the attractions began closing. I don't remember

the exact time."

"Where did you go from there?"

Frank Perkins said, "Irrelevant. This whole interrogation

is irrelevant and improper. There's no basis

for it, so it doesn't matter where Alex was, or whether

or not she was alone. She doesn't have to account for

her whereabouts on Saturday evening any more than

you do, because you still can't place her inside Pettijohn's

hotel suite. She's told you she didn't even

know him.

"It's appalling that someone with her impeccable

reputation and high standing in the community is

being subjected to questioning. Some guy from

Macon claims to have seen her at a time when his

bowels were about to burst. Do you honestly consider

him a reliable witness, Smilow? If you do, then

you've lowered your own rigid standards of criminal

investigation. In any event, you've inconvenienced

my client all you're going to." The lawyer motioned

for Alex to stand.

"That was a nice speech, Frank, but we're not

done here. My investigators have caught Dr. Ladd in

another lie that concerns the murder weapon."

Vexed but wary, Frank Perkins backed down. "It

better be good."

"It is." Smilow turned back to her. "Dr. Ladd, you

told us yesterday that you don't own a gun."

"I don't."

From a file, he produced a registration form,

which Alex recognized. She scanned it, then passed it

to Frank for his perusal. "I bought a pistol for protection.

As you can see by the date, that was years ago.

I no longer have it."

"What happened to it?"

"Alex?" Frank Perkins leaned forward, a question

in his eyes.

"It's all right," she assured him. "Beyond a few

rudimentary lessons, I never even fired it. I kept it

in a holster beneath the driver's seat of my car and

rarely thought about it. I even forgot about it when

I traded the car in on a newer model.

"It wasn't until weeks after the trade-in that I remembered

the revolver was still beneath the seat. I

called the dealership and explained to the manager

what had happened. He offered to ask around. No one

claimed to have any knowledge of it. I figured that

someone cleaning the car, possibly even the person

who later purchased it, had found the gun, thought

'finders-keepers,' and never returned it."

"It's a pistol that fires the caliber bullet that killed

Lute Pettijohn."

"A .38, yes. Hardly a collector's item, Mr.

Smilow."

He smiled the cold smile she had come to associate

with him. "Granted." He rubbed his brow as

though worried. "But here we've got proof of your

owning a pistol, and an uncorroborated story of how

you came to lose it. You were spotted at the scene

about the time Mr. Pettijohn died. We've caught you

in one lie about where you were that evening. And

you haven't provided an alibi." He raised his shoulders.

"Look at it from my perspective. All these circumstantial

elements are beginning to add up."

"To what?"

"To you being our killer."

Alex opened her mouth to protest but was dismayed

to find that she couldn't speak. Frank Perkins

spoke for her. "Are you prepared to book her,

Smilow?"

He stared down at her for a long moment. "Not

just yet."

"Then we're leaving." This time the lawyer didn't

leave room for argument. Not that Alex felt like arguing.

She was frightened, although she tried to keep

her fear from showing.

An important part of her job was reading the expressions

of her patients and interpreting their body

language in order to gauge what they were thinking,

which often differed from what they were saying.

How they stood, or sat, or moved frequently contradicted

their verbal assertions. Moreover, when they

spoke, their phrasing and inflection sometimes conveyed

more than the words themselves.

She applied her expertise to reading Smilow now.

His face could have been carved from marble. Without

even a nod toward diplomacy, he had looked her

straight in the eye and accused her of murder. Only

someone with absolute confidence in what he was

doing could be that resolute and unemotional.

Steffi Mundell, on the other hand, seemed ready to

hop up and down and clap her hands in glee. Based

on her experience of reading people, Alex could say

accurately that the police felt the situation was definitely

in their favor.

But their reactions weren't as important to her as

Hammond Cross's. With a mix of anticipation and

dread, she turned toward the door and looked at him.

One shoulder was propped against the wall. His

ankles were crossed. His arms were folded over his

midriff. The straighter of his two eyebrows was

drawn down low, almost into a scowl. To an untrained

eye, he might appear comfortable, even insouciant.

But readily apparent to Alex were the emotions

roiling dangerously close to the surface. He wasn't

nearly as relaxed as he wanted to appear. The hooded

eyes, the clenched jaw were dead giveaways. His

folded arms and crossed ankles weren't components

of an indolent pose.

Indeed, they seemed essential to holding him together.

CHAPTER

20

He was a casting director's dream for the role of

"the nerd." First because of his name--Harvey

Knuckle. It was an open invitation to ridicule.

Knuckle-head. What have you got for lunch today,

Harvey, Knuckle-sandwiches? No-nuts-Knuckle.

Let's pop our Knuckle. Classmates and

later co-workers had coined a variety of such taunts

and they'd been merciless.

In addition to his name, Harvey Knuckle looked

the part. Everything about him fit the stereotype. His

eyeglasses were thick. He was pale and skinny and

had chronic post-nasal drip. He wore a bow tie every

day. When Charleston's weather turned cold, he wore

argyle V-neck sweaters beneath tweed jackets. In the

summer they were substituted for short-sleeved shirts

and seersucker suits.

His one saving grace, which ironically was also

stereotypical, was that he was a computer genius. The

very people around city hall who poked the most fun

at him were at his mercy when their computers went

on the fritz. A familiar refrain was, "Call Knuckle.

Get him over here."

On Tuesday evening, he entered the Shady Rest

Lounge, shaking out his wet umbrella and apprehensively

squinting into the smog of tobacco smoke.

Loretta Boothe, who had been watching for him,

felt a twinge of sympathy. Harvey was a disagreeable

little twerp, but he was entirely out of his element in

the Shady Rest. He relaxed only marginally when he

spotted her coming toward him.

"I thought I'd written down the wrong address.

What a horrible place. Even the name sounds like a

cemetery."

"Thank you for coming, Harvey. It's good to see

you." Before he could bolt, which he appeared to be

on the verge of doing, Loretta grabbed his arm and

dragged him toward a booth. "Welcome to my office."

Still jittery, he propped his wet umbrella beneath

the table, readjusted the lapels of his jacket, and

pushed his eyeglasses up his long, narrow nose. Now

that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom and he had

gotten a better look at the other customers, he shuddered.

"You're not afraid to come here alone? The

clientele appear to be the dregs of society."

"Harvey, I am the clientele."

Abashed, he began stammering an apology.

Loretta laughed. "No offense taken. Relax. What

you need is a drink." She signaled the bartender.

Harvey folded his delicate hands on the table.

"That would be nice, thank you. A short one. I can't

stay long. I'm allergic to secondhand smoke."

She ordered him a whiskey sour and a club soda

for herself. Noticing his surprise, she said, "I'm on

the wagon."

"Really? I had heard you... I had heard other

wise."

"I've had a recent conversion."

"Well, good for you."

"Not so good, Harvey. Cold turkey sucks. I hate

it."

Her candor made him laugh. "You always were a

straight shooter, Loretta, and you haven't changed.

I've missed seeing you around. Do you miss the

P.D.?"

"Sometimes. Not the people. The work. I miss

that."

"Are you still doing some private investigating?"

"Yes, I'm freelancing." She hesitated. "That's why

I called and asked you to meet me."

He moaned. "I knew it. I said to myself, 'Harvey,

you're going to regret accepting this invitation.' "

"But your curiosity got the best of you, didn't it?"

she teased. "That and recollections of my ready wit."

"Loretta, please don't ask me for a favor."

"Harvey, please don't be such a goddamn hypocrite."

Officially he was a county employ, but his computer

access also allowed him to delve into city and

state records. He had so much information at his fingertips,

he was frequently approached by people willing

to pay handsomely to know their coworkers'

salaries, or such. But Harvey refused to be part of

anything unethical or illegal. To anyone who came to

him trying to wheedle a favor, he was irritatingly

adamant in his refusal.

That's why Loretta's blunt statement shocked him.

He blinked rapidly behind the thick lenses of his

glasses.

"You're not the good little boy you would have

everyone believe."

"How altogether boorish of you to remind me of

my one little indiscretion."

"The only one I know about," she said intuitively.

"I still think you pulled the plug, so to speak, on that

asshole who hassled you at the Christmas party.

Come on, now, Harvey, fess up. Didn't you retaliate

by scrambling all his programs?"

He pursed his lips.

"Never mind." She chuckled. "I don't blame you

for not confessing, but your secret would be safe with

me. In fact, I like you better for showing a weakness.

I can identify with human frailty." She wagged her

finger at him. "You love the thrill you derive from occasionally

breaking the rules. It's how you get your

rocks off."

"What horrid terminology! Furthermore, it's untrue."

Despite his public avowal to be a teetotaler, he

quaffed his drink and didn't object when she ordered

another round.

As a policewoman working overtime in county

records one night, she had caught Harvey Knuckle in