The Alibi

“Just that one lady and me were the only ones around. But I couldn’t have been in the hall more than… hmm… say, twenty, thirty seconds from the time I got off the elevator.”

“Did anyone share the car with you?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Daniels. I appreciate your repeating your story for my benefit.”

Ignoring Smilow’s I-told-you-so expression, Hammond turned Daniels over to Mary Endicott. Smilow excused himself to make some telephone calls. Steffi hovered over the artist’s shoulder and followed the questions she was asking Daniels. Hammond carried his lukewarm coffee to the window and stared out over a day that was much too sunny to match his mood.

Eventually Steffi sidled up to him. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“It was a short night. I couldn’t fall asleep.”

“Any particular reason for your insomnia?”

Catching the underlying meaning to her question, he turned his head and looked down at her. “Just restless.”

“You’re cruel, Hammond.”

“How so?”

“The least you could have done was get stinking drunk last night and second-guess your decision to break up with me.”

He smiled, but his tone was serious. “It was the only decision for us, Steffi. You know that as well as I do.”

“Particularly in light of Mason’s decision.”

“It was his decision, not mine.”

“But I never stood a fighting chance of getting this case. Mason favors you and makes no bones about it. He always will. And you know that as well as I do.”

“I was here first, Steffi. It’s a matter of seniority.”

“Yeah, right.” Her droll tone contradicted her words.

Before Hammond could respond to it, Smilow returned. “This is interesting. One of my guys has been nosing around the Pettijohns’ neighborhood to see if anyone had overheard Lute quarreling with a tradesman or neighbor. Dead end there.”

“I hope there’s a but,” Steffi said.

He nodded. “But Sarah Birch was at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon. She asked the butcher to butterfly some pork chops she wished to stuff for Sunday dinner. He was busy, so it took him a while to get to it. Rather than waiting, she did her other shopping. The store was crowded. She didn’t return to the butcher for nearly an hour, he said. Which means she lied about being at home with Mrs. Pettijohn all afternoon.”

“If she would lie about something as insignificant as going to the market, it stands to reason that she might also tell a whopper.”

“Only the lie isn’t so insignificant,” Smilow said. “The time frame works. The butcher remembers delivering the chops to Sarah Birch just before his shift ended at six-thirty.”

“Meaning that she was in the store anywhere from, say, five until six-thirty,” Steffi mused aloud. “About the time Pettijohn was getting whacked. And the supermarket is two blocks from the hotel! Damn! Can it be this easy?”

“No,” Smilow said with reluctance. “Mr. Daniels said that the woman he saw in the hotel corridor wasn’t ethnic. Sarah Birch definitely is.”

“She could be covering for Davee, though.”

“Nor was the woman he saw blond,” Smilow reminded her. “Davee Pettijohn, by any description, is a blonde.”

“Are you kidding? She’s the Queen of Clairol.”

It didn’t surprise Hammond that Davee’s faithful housekeeper would lie for her. But he was put off by Steffi’s catty comment and uneasy that his childhood friend was seriously being considered a suspect with an alibi that wasn’t as ironclad as she had claimed.

“Davee wouldn’t have killed Lute.” The other two turned to him. “What motive would she have?”