The Alibi Man (20 page)

chapter
32

         
“SHE’S A PROBLEM.”

“She’s a detective.”

“
Used to be
a detective,” Barbaro corrected.

“She’s investigating the girl’s murder, badge or no badge,” Brody said.

They had adjourned from an uneasy dinner and regrouped at Brody’s house, in the game room, where an antique billiards table dominated the space and oxblood leather club chairs were scattered around on Persian rugs a hundred years old.

Walker paced back and forth in a not-so-straight line. “I don’t want her around.”

“What do you want to do, Ben? Knock her off?”

He wheeled and shouted, “Fuck you! Just fuck you, Kenner! Fuck yourself!”

“You’re the problem,” Kenner challenged, scotch slopping out of the tumbler in his hand as he gestured. “You have to be an asshole every time you open your mouth.”

“She tried to put me in prison!” Walker shouted. “She’ll try to do it again! She’s a fucking cunt, and she hates me!”

“Let’s stay on point,” Ovada said calmly. “How does she know about the after-party?”

“
What
does she know about the after-party?” Kenner asked.

“I saw her talking with Lisbeth this afternoon,” Brody said.

Foster made a face. “Lisbeth? She wasn’t even there that night. She doesn’t know anything.”

“She’s been to other parties,” Barbaro pointed out. He sat against the back of one of the club chairs, looking bored and unhappy to be there.

“So what?” Kenner said. “It’s not against the law to have a party.”

“The party isn’t the issue,” Brody said. “The cops want DNA, for God’s sake. That means they have something to compare it against.”

“It’s not against the law for consenting adults to have sex either.”

“It’s not against the law to own a gun,” Ovada said, “but if you are seen with the gun and a murder victim before the crime, you become a suspect.”

Walker turned a dark look on Brody. “She’s your groom. Fire her. Get her out of here. Send her back to where she came from.”

“And give her every reason to make trouble?” Brody said. “No. I keep my friends close, and my enemies closer.”

“Well, get her close and impress on her to keep her stupid mouth shut,” Walker said. “Stupid little bitch. Does she have any idea how lucky she is? How many hick-town chicks from Bumfuck, Michigan, get to have the life she does? And she’s so ungrateful, she’s shooting her mouth off to someone she met yesterday. Fuck that.”

“She’s hardly the only girl who has been to a party,” Barbaro said.

“No,” Walker returned. “But she’s the only one talking.”

“Maybe she’s thinking she’ll get her fifteen minutes of fame,” Ovada offered.

“Oh, great,” Walker said. “Now we can worry about her going to the press, and they can descend on us right behind the detectives.”

“Here’s a news flash, mates,” Sebastian Foster chimed in. “That’s a done deal—the cops, the press. And it’s got nothing to do with the Estes woman or Lisbeth. The detectives came looking straightaway. The dead girl was at the party at Players. That’s no secret. There had to be a hundred people there to see her. Why wouldn’t the detectives come looking at us?”

“And if we don’t cooperate with them, we look guilty,” Kenner whined.

“If we
do
cooperate, we look guiltier,” Brody said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not going to prison because I got a blowjob on my birthday.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Ovada asked.

“Not a damn thing,” Walker said.

“Deny, deny, deny,” Foster chimed in. “What else is there? Tell them, oh, yes, we all had sex with her? No one would find that suspicious.”

Brody focused on Barbaro. “You’re awfully quiet, Juan. What are you thinking?”

Barbaro shrugged. “Only people who were at the after-party know what happened at the after-party. All of those people are in this room—except one. There is no reason to talk about it that I can see.”

No one said anything.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, pushing himself away from the chair. “I have a match to play tomorrow. I’m certain Mr. Brody would prefer me to be fresh for it.”

He walked out of the room and out of the house, stopping to stand on the front porch. Walker wasn’t far behind him.

“You need a ride home, friend?” Barbaro asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Did you kill her?”

Walker started, gave him a look that slid away too quickly. “No! I told you, no. She was dead when I found her.”

Barbaro just frowned and shook his head, looking out at the yard.

“What’s the matter with you?” Walker said. “You were at the party too. Did
you
kill her?

“You’re letting Elena poison you,” he said. “You’re pissing me off with that. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“Yes.”

“You’re as bad as that stupid little twat groom. You know Elena twenty-four hours and you believe her over me? What the hell is that? What kind of friend is that?” Walker demanded, his voice getting louder and louder.

Barbaro spread his hands and gestured for Walker to keep it down. “You need to calm down…friend.”

“Calm down? Do you have any idea what happens to my life if the media gets wind of me having anything to do with a murdered girl?” he asked. “It’s a fucking nightmare. They’ll dig up everything from back then, spin it around, make me look like Ted Bundy.

“And—and—what about Nancy?” he asked as an afterthought. “None of this is fair to Nancy.”

Barbaro arched a brow. “Somehow, my friend, I don’t believe your concern is for your wife.”

“Well, fuck you too, Juan,” Walker snapped. “You want to have your name put out there as a rapist?”

“No one said the girl was raped.”

“That’s what they’ll imply, that the girl was raped and killed, and it had to be me because—”

He caught himself short of saying it.

“Because you did it before?”

Barbaro stepped out of the way as Walker took a wild swing at him, lost his balance, and tumbled down the stone steps to the lawn, landing with a thud and a groan. When he struggled back up onto his knees, his lip was split and bleeding.

Barbaro descended the steps, put a foot on his shoulder, and knocked him sprawling again.

“Look at yourself,” he said with disgust. “You’re drunk, you’re pathetic. What kind of man are you?”

Walker came up on one knee and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He took a couple of deep breaths and composed himself.

“My father-in-law is pushing me to run for office,” he said, getting up. “Imagine that.”

“You seem a poor choice,” Barbaro said.

“It’s America,
amigo
. Anything can happen. Look at Bill Clinton. The guy nailed anything in a skirt, and he was a two-term president.”

“Was he also associated with a murdered girl?”

“You know,” Walker said with an edge in his voice, “the thing about this club is that no one is innocent. You’ve needed an alibi before.”

“No,” Barbaro said. “In fact, no, I have not. I have
been
an alibi many times. I have been
your
alibi many times.”

“Then once more won’t kill you,” Walker said. “We stick to our story. We left Players, went to my place for a nightcap. We didn’t see Irina after the party.”

“And if the detectives get a warrant and go into your home and find evidence the girl was there?”

Walker looked at his watch. “They’ll never get inside my house,” he said. “That’s what lawyers are for.”

Only slightly unsteady, he walked to his car and drove away into the night.

chapter
33

         
I LONG AGO
ruined my ability to sleep like a normal human being. Prior to my accident, prior to my years working the streets as a Narcotics detective. Long before any of that.

Four or five hours—rarely consecutive, rarely restful, and jammed with complex dreams—had become normal for me. Post-accident, a certain level of chronic pain had made it even more difficult. And I refused (for a host of reasons, some good and some stupid) the kind of medication that would have eased the pain and allowed me to sink below consciousness.

A doctor once told me that my brain had decided sleep stages one, two, and five were essential to life, and that stages three and four were a waste of my time. My own theory was less industrious and more human: that after the dream stage, REM sleep, all I wanted was to escape what lay in my subconscious.

Whatever the theory, the upside of not sleeping is being able to accomplish more than the average working stiff.

I sat at the small writing desk in my living room, making notes. Just a couple of lamps on, Chris Botti’s smooth, sexy trumpet on the stereo, a glass of cabernet to sip at. It would have been a pleasant scenario, if not for the fact that I was investigating the murder of someone I knew.

If Irina had left Players with Bennett or with Jim Brody, where was her car? If she had driven herself to the after-party, where was her car? Landry had made no mention of it, which made me think he hadn’t found it yet.

I made a note:
Car?

Had the killer used it to transport her body, then driven himself back to town? That would have been the smart thing. No evidence of Irina in his own car. But there would have been evidence of him in hers. The smarter thing would have been to run the car into a canal.

And where had they gone for the after-party? Out of town to Star Polo? Or across a few acres of manicured lawns and golf course to Bennett’s home in the Polo Club? They had all been drinking heavily. Quicker and easier to do the latter. Cops liked to prowl right around that intersection of South Shore and Greenview Shores around closing time, looking for some easy tickets. There would have been less risk of getting a DUI if they left the club and literally turned right in at the Polo Club’s west entrance.

I made a note:
Cop Stop DUI?

The officer on patrol might have seen something—Irina’s car, Irina in someone else’s car, but no one was going to tell me about it.

I wanted to know where in the Palm Beach Polo Club Bennett lived. The homes in the development ranged from efficiencies for grooms, to condos, to town houses, to bungalows, to out-and-out mansions. Bennett would take the big house, because he could afford it, because it was a good investment, because he was spoiled and used to having nothing but the best. Because it was private.

If the party had moved to Bennett’s house, the partygoers had driven through one of the Polo Club’s two entrances, and their comings and goings would be on tape. Tape that I had no access to. But if I could find his house, I could check out his neighbors. Maybe one of them would complain about a party Saturday night. Even money said Sean knew exactly where the house was.

I made a note:
Sean—Bennett’s address?

I picked through the things I had collected from Irina’s apartment. The e-mails I had printed out from her computer were mostly in Russian. Some were order confirmations from online sources of horse equipment and veterinary supplies, things she would have ordered at Sean’s behest. A couple of them were from Lisbeth Perkins: a question as to whether or not Irina wanted to go to a karaoke bar with a couple of other girls. One about where and when they would meet Saturday night.

Those e-mails seemed so innocent in the face of what had happened that night. Young women going out on the town to have some fun, never imagining what was to come later that night.

Should be a great party. C U later. I can’t wait!!
Lisbeth had signed the e-mail with a series of yellow smiley faces.

A very young twenty-something, I had thought earlier. Fresh off the farm. She was getting a hell of an education now, poor kid.

I thought about Molly Seabright, the twelve-year-old girl who had come to me a year before to find her missing sister. Molly had often seemed to me to be more of an adult than I was.

Life jades us all at different rates, in different ways.

I had been about Lisbeth’s age when my life truly turned itself on its head. The sadly funny thing was, at that time I had already believed I was cynical.

We were supposed to go out that night, Bennett and I. But I hadn’t been feeling well, and I begged off. He had been exceptionally sweet—brought me flowers, cheered me up, tucked me into bed. He had gone off to meet a couple of buddies for dinner and drinks. I had drifted off to sleep that night thinking how incredibly happy I was, how I was finally getting the one thing I had craved my whole life—someone who really loved me.

By the next day, everything had changed.

Fate delivers the ultimate sucker punch.

I took Irina’s digital camera, which I had lifted from her apartment, connected it to my computer with a USB cable, and downloaded everything on it—twenty-two images from her other life, including the snaps I had taken of the screen-saver photos on her computer monitor.

Parties, polo matches, gal pals at the beach. There were a couple of shots of hunky bartender Kayne Jackson shaking up martinis and libidos from behind the bar at Players.

Big Jim Brody in a straw hat and swim trunks, smoking a cigar as he stood on the deck of a swimming pool. I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.

Brody in the same getup with an arm around Lisbeth in a purple bikini, Lisbeth doing her best not to cringe away from him and his big hairy belly. She wore the kind of smile that could have as easily been from gas pains.

Someone had shot a photo of Irina and Lisbeth sitting together shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek on a poolside chaise, each with an umbrella drink in hand, toasting the photographer. They could have been sisters in their matching blond hair, matching dark glasses, matching medallion necklaces, matching smiles. So happy.

Barbaro and a couple of other players in full polo gear, joking around on the sidelines. Bennett Walker raising a glass of champagne. Bennett on a polo pony. Bennett at the swimming pool. One too many photos of Bennett, I thought.

Despite the years I had spent wishing physical deformities on him, he had aged well, I had to admit as I clicked back to the swimsuit photo. He had bulked up with maturity—with muscle, not fat. As a male animal, he had every right to be arrogant. What female of the species wouldn’t have wanted that body in her bed?

And what husband-hunting temptress wouldn’t have added those looks to the money that backed them up and come up with a prime target? In the crowd that Bennett ran with, the fact that he was already married wouldn’t have necessarily deterred women from trying.

From what I had learned so far, from the profile of Irina that had begun to come together over the past two days, I had to think a wedding ring wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. The thing Irina wouldn’t have been able to compete with was the financial and social clout of Bennett Walker’s in-laws.

Bennett was a very wealthy man in his own right, but there is nothing wealthy men love more than more money. More money, more power. More power, more control of the world around them.

I got up from my chair and paced like a restless cat, stopping every so often to stretch out one knotted muscle and then another.

If Irina went to the after-party, she went fully aware of the nature of the party and the kinds of things that were likely to go on there. One would presume she had every intention of being a willing participant. So why did she end up dead? Was it a case of rough sex gone wrong? Or had one of those men killed her intentionally? Why? For the rush? Had she pissed one of them off? Had Jim Brody wanted to murder a girl for his birthday? Had Bennett Walker lost his temper, lost control?

I sat back down at my desk and made a note:
Motive?

What had Bennett’s motive been when he beat and raped Maria Nevin? He didn’t have one. He’d never seen Maria Nevin before that night. He had no reason to attack her specifically.

The bartender at the last club Bennett and his pals had visited testified that Bennett had been drunk, loud, and obnoxious. In his statement to the police, the bartender said that Bennett’s buddies had been ribbing him about getting married, that his skirt-chasing days were over, to which Bennett had replied that he could have any woman he wanted, anytime he wanted.

The bartender had recanted that statement before trial and had watered down the rest of his testimony as badly as he watered down the overpriced drinks at the bar.

But even if the bartender had stuck to his story, nothing said that night could have provided a motive for what happened.

Maria Nevin had initially told the police—and had held to that version of events right up until the day before she was to take the stand—that Bennett had flirted with her. They had danced together, had a drink together. They had gone for a walk on the beach, had sat on the wet sand as the tide went out, had started making out.

A little too intoxicated, Bennett hadn’t been able to sustain an erection. He became angry. He slapped her hard several times. She struggled to get away from him, scratching him in the process. He pinned her down and choked her, achieved an erection, and raped her.

Was that what had happened to Irina?

I didn’t want any of those images in my head.

To distract my mind, I began to organize the paper strewn across my desk. Irina’s e-mails. Some notes I had made while in her apartment caught my eye. The name of a medical clinic. I typed the name of the clinic into Google. The search engine came back with a list of Web sites. I clicked on the first one, and the Web site opened on my screen:

The Lundeen Clinic:

Serving Women in the Palm Beaches Since 1987.

Obstetrics and Gynecology.

I made a note to myself:
Motive
.