The Alibi
“Well then… good night.”
The county solicitor turned and made his way back down the hallway. Once he was out of sight, Steffi practically skipped into her office. She had planted the seed earlier in the week. Today she had nourished it. “Let’s see how fertile his mind is,” she said to herself as she sat down behind her desk and rifled through the stack of phone messages. The one she hoped for wasn’t among them. Irritably, she placed a call.
“Lab. Anderson speaking.”
“This is Steffi Mundell.”
“Yeah?”
Jim Anderson worked in the hospital lab and had a chip on his shoulder the size of Everest. Steffi knew this because she had had run-ins with him and his attitude before. She demanded accuracy combined with speed, which he seemed incapable of delivering. “Have you run that test yet?”
“I told you I would call you as soon as I got to it.”
“You haven’t done it yet?”
“Have I called?”
He didn’t even have the courtesy to apologize or offer an explanation. She said, “I need the result of that test for a very important case. It’s critical. Perhaps I didn’t make that clear to you this morning.”
“You made it clear, all right. Just like I made it clear that I work for the hospital, not the police department, and not the D.A.’s office. I have other work piled up ahead of you that’s just as important.”
“Nothing is as urgent as this.”
“Get in line, Ms. Mundell. That’s how it works.”
“Look, I don’t need DNA testing. Or HIV. Nothing fancy for now. Just a blood typing.”
“I understand.”
“All I need to know is if the blood on that washcloth matches the blood on the sheet Smilow took to you a few days ago.”
“I got it the first time you told me.”
“Well, how hard can it be?” she said, raising her voice. “Don’t you just have to look through a microscope or something?”
“You’ll get it when I get to it.”
Anderson hung up on her. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed as she slammed down her own telephone receiver. Nothing aggravated her more than incompetence, unless it was incompetence combined with unwarranted arrogance.
Dammit, she needed that blood test! She was nursing a strong hunch, and her hunches were rarely wrong. Ever since this morning when the idea first took hold, it had consumed her thoughts until she was now obsessed by it.
As impossible as it seemed, it made a weird kind of sense to her that there was something going on between Alex Ladd and Hammond, and that this “something” was sexual. Or at least romantic.
She hadn’t dared to discuss her suspicion with Smilow. Probably he would dismiss it as absurd, in which case she would look like a fool at best, and a jealous ex-lover at worst.
He would share her theory with his team of detectives, who would make her a laughingstock. Detective Mike Collins, and others who had a hard time accepting women in authority, never would take her seriously again. Everything she said or did would be undermined by their ridicule. That would be intolerable. Her reputation as a tough, savvy prosecutor had b
een too hard-won to jeopardize it by something so laughably feminine as envisioning romance where none existed.
But it would be almost as bad if Smilow did give her hunch credence. He would take it and run with it. Unlike her, he had the resources and the muscle to do some serious sleuthing. He would tell assholes like Jim Anderson to hop, and the hospital lab tech would ask how high. Smilow would have the result of that blood test in no time flat. If the samples matched, Smilow would be credited with making the connection between Hammond and their suspect.
If she was right, she didn’t want to share the credit with Smilow or anyone else. She wanted it all to herself. If Hammond were to be disgraced—dare she even wish for disbarment?—for impeding a murder investigation, she wanted to be the one to expose him. Singlehandedly. No more playing second fiddle, no more group projects for Steffi Mundell, thank you very much.
It would be delicious fun to watch Hammond topple from his pedestal. It would be gratifying to be the one to topple him.
His behavior today as he listened to Trimble’s recording had strengthened her suspicion. He had reacted like a jealous lover. It was clear that he saw Alex Ladd as a victim of her half-brother’s exploitation. Whenever possible, he had rushed to her defense, finding angles that suggested innocence. Not a good mind frame for a prosecutor to be in when trying to convince others of the accused’s guilt.
Maybe he felt nothing more than pity for a girl’s lost innocence. Or sympathy for the professional about to be stripped of all credibility and respect. But whatever it was, there was something there. Definitely.