The Alibi

Turning, he faced Steffi, who had thought she was sneaking up behind him. Actually he’d been expecting her.

He continued, “Rhetorically you asked if I could imagine Lute strutting around in one of the spa robes. I couldn’t. I didn’t. Until last night. And when I imagined it, it caused me to wonder how you knew he had been strutting around in a spa robe that day. I then went on to wonder where the used robe was.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “What I surmise is that you wore that robe out of the suite over your clothes.”

“Workout clothes. Which I had thought were a good idea. Who goes to a murder dressed like that? But the robe was even better.”

“You dropped it at the spa.”

“Along with the towel Pettijohn must have carried from the spa. I wrapped it turban-style around my head. Put on sunglasses. I was virtually unidentifiable. I dropped off the paraphernalia at the spa—there were a lot of people bringing robes and towels in from the gym and pool. No one paid me any attention. I ran a few miles, and by the time I got back, the body had been discovered and the investigation was under way.”

“Very clever.”

“I thought so,” she said with a cheeky smile.

He nodded down at the revolver she had aimed at him. “Is that it?”

“Of course not. Do you think I would be so stupid as to use the same gun twice? When I returned the one I used to shoot Pettijohn, I pilfered another. Just in case.”

“As we speak, Basset is spilling his guts. He’s a repentant man with a guilty conscience.”

“It’ll be my word against his. They’ll never trace these weapons to me. I didn’t sign the log and neither did he. Basset could be making up wicked stories about me because he holds a grudge.”

“Smilow asked you to go easy on Basset’s daughter.”

“And I did the first time. It’s not my fault she was busted again. Her hearing is scheduled in a few weeks.”

“What did you promise Basset?”

“That I’d be lenient in my recommendation to the judge.”

“Or?”

“Or sweet Amanda would get the book thrown at her. It was up to him.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“When I’m forced.”

“And you felt forced to kill Pettijohn?”

“He double-crossed me!” she exclaimed in a shrill voice that Hammond had never heard before. Steffi had lost touch with reality.

“I spied for him,” she was saying. “Counseled him on legal maneuvers that would snare his rivals but leave him inside the law. Barely, but inside nonetheless. He told me he was going to use the goods on Preston to ruin both of you. Get you out of there completely and install me in the top seat. But then he reneged.”

Her eyes turned hard. “He saw a better use for Preston’s involvement, and that was to coerce you. He thought he could use that as leverage to get you to come around to his way of thinking. He thanked me for my time and trouble, but asked why he should settle for second best, when he could get the best lawyer on his side.”

“So you came here that afternoon to kill him.”

“I was out of options, Hammond. I had played by the rules and they weren’t working for me. Since joining the office, I had worked the hardest, strived the hardest, but you were going to get the job, just as you’d gotten the last one.

“Pettijohn came along and offered me an advantage. For once, I would be the one with the edge. Then, when the reward was in sight, the son of a bitch yanked his support out from under me.

“I had experienced disappointments before, but none that crushing. Every time I looked at him, I would be reminded of what a chump I’d been. A gullible female, which is probably how he saw me. I couldn’t tolerate being that susceptible and having him lord it over me. Something inside me snapped, I guess you could say. I simply couldn’t let him get away with it.

“He broke the news to me over the telephone, but I insisted on a face-to-face meeting. I showed up a few minutes early for our appointment, and when I saw him sprawled on the floor, my first thought was that someone had robbed me of the pleasure.”

“Alex, maybe.”

“I didn’t know anything about Alex Ladd. Not until that Daniels character gave us her description—and I was sweating bullets when I faced him in that hospital room. I wa