The Alibi

Bobby glared at Heinz, who had tentatively offered the suggestion. “Who asked you? I’m not pleading guilty to anything, understand?”

“But stealing—”

“Gentlemen,” Smilow said, interrupting. “It has just occurred to me that since Ms. Mundell is involved, there might be a way around this.”

With affected calmness, Bobby asked, “What’s on your mind?”

“She’s prosecuting the Pettijohn murder case.”

Red alert!

Suddenly he remembered where he had seen Smilow before. On TV the night following Pettijohn’s murder. He was the homicide detective in charge of the investigation. Bobby leaned back in his chair and tried to pretend that he wasn’t suddenly sweating like a cracker in a cornfield. “Pettijohn murder case?”

Smilow gave him a long, hard, withering stare. Then he sighed and closed the folder. “I thought we might be able to help each other, Bobby. But if you’re going to play dumb, you leave me no choice but to let Ms. Mundell have at you.”

He scraped back his chair and left the room without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.

Bobby looked over at Heinz-like-the-ketchup and raised his shoulders. “What did I do?”

“You tried to mind-fuck Rory Smilow. Bad idea.”

Chapter 28

For half an hour Smilow and Steffi had been patting one another on the back for the excellent job they’d done of manipulating Bobby Trimble. Their self-congratulations were almost more than Hammond could stomach.

“I gave him over an hour to think about it,” Smilow told him for what must have been at least the tenth time.

“So you’ve said.”

“As soon as we walked back into the room,” Steffi chimed in, “he started talking.”

“You must’ve played the bad cop very well.”

“If I do say so myself,” she boasted. “Bobby was convinced that he was facing a rape charge.”

Ellen Rogers had never alleged rape. On the contrary, she had acknowledged her own culpability for the theft of her credit cards and money. She had wanted only to see Bobby Trimble captured and put out of commission, sparing other women a similar humiliating experience.

She had made arrangements to return to Indianapolis immediately, although she made it clear she was willing to testify against Trimble in court if the case came to trial. She left the city, never knowing the gift she had handed the Charleston Police Department.

“I can’t wait to see the expression on Alex Ladd’s face when she hears this tape recording. Hammond, you won’t believe it,” Steff

i enthused. “You asked for motive and, brother, did you get it. In spades.”

He breathed through his mouth to stave off nausea. It had been threatening since he was informed that Alex’s half-brother was in police custody. Steffi and Smilow were so proud of their goddamn tape recording. They were salivating in anticipation of his hearing it, when he already knew the substance of it. He’d heard the incriminating story from Loretta Boothe last night.

The raw facts alone painted an unflattering picture of Alex. By the time Bobby Trimble had embellished the story to suit his own purposes, it would be a character assassination. As Steffi had noted, it provided the motivation the case had lacked. In spades.

Hammond had hoped that Smilow’s investigators wouldn’t be as resourceful or as diligent as Loretta, and that he could continue stalling the case indefinitely until he determined the nature of Alex’s connection to Pettijohn and explained to her about his own meeting with Lute.

He was going to suggest that they both come clean with Smilow. He should have told the detective about his meeting with Pettijohn immediately. But it had been a delicate issue, one he had hoped to avoid anyone knowing about. He was also going to advise Alex to inform Smilow of her past, before he had a chance to uncover it himself and jump to his own conclusions about how it pertained to the Pettijohn investigation.

Unfortunately, he’d been robbed of the opportunity. By the time Steffi had barged in, Alex was gone. He had blessed her for leaving early, and had considered them damn lucky for not being discovered in bed together, which would have damaged their credibility when making their independent confessions to Smilow.

Now this.

Bobby Trimble had appeared out of nowhere, at the worst possible time. Alex had no idea of the trap that had been laid for her. Hammond was powerless to warn her.

A pager beeped. All three of them checked. “Mine,” Hammond said.