The Alibi Man (26 page)

“One last question,” I said. “Did you ever see Bennett Walker—or any of the rest of them, for that matter—hurt Irina physically?”

She didn’t answer me. Either she was faking it or she had in fact fallen asleep. It didn’t matter which. I didn’t need Lisbeth Perkins to tell me Bennett Walker was capable of hurting a woman.

I knew that firsthand.

chapter
45

         
“I KNEW
he was up to no good,” the gate guard said. J. Jones. She pursed her lips and shook her head as she narrowed her eyes at the photograph of Bennett Walker. She was the size of a small upright freezer.

“How’s that?” Landry asked.

“Because men that good-looking are always up to no good,” she said, looking at him like he was stupid. “And he never drives that car. What’s he doing in that car? He’s always Mr. Big riding around in his Porsche or his this or his that. He ain’t ridin’ around in no Volkswagen. Him and that dark-haired foreign guy. Ooooh! I got to say, I do like lookin’ at that one.”

“You’re sure it was him?” Weiss said, tapping at Bennett Walker’s head with his ballpoint pen. “You’re sure it was Sunday night?”

“Am I sure?” she said, offended by his obvious stupidity. “Am I
sure
? That’s my job. That’s what I do. Are you
sure
you’re a detective?”

“I have to ask that one every once in a while myself, Miss Jones,” Landry said, straight-faced.

Laughter exploded out of her like a cannon shot. Her massive chest rose and fell like a ten-foot sea. “You got a sense of humor,” she declared.

“No,” Landry said. “Not really.”

The guard turned back to Weiss. “Honey, I’m working here in the middle of the damn night. Someone comes, someone goes, I’m gonna know it. That’s what passes for excitement here. You think I’m just sitting around doing my nails all night? You think I’m just watching movies?”

“Were you here Saturday night?” Landry asked, pressing on.

“No. I was off Saturday. I have a life, you know. I’m not just sittin’ in this place my whole life like a veal.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Weiss said impatiently. “We’ve got the tape. Let’s go.”

Landry thanked the guard and left the booth behind Weiss, who was already halfway to his car.

“So?” Weiss said. “That’s gotta be enough for a search warrant for Walker’s house. Videotape and an eyewitness who puts him in the dead girl’s car.”

Landry’s phone rang. Elena. He held a finger up at Weiss and took the call. “Landry.”

“The after-party was at Bennett Walker’s house in the Polo Club. Lisbeth told me.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

He clicked the cell phone closed and said to Weiss, “The party was at Walker’s house.
Now
we have enough for a warrant. Let’s go nail his ass.”

chapter
46

         
I PROWLED
around my living room with my cell phone in my hand, trying to decide what to do next. I could go to Bennett’s neighborhood in the Polo Club and ask around to see if anyone saw him murder a girl Saturday night. That would go over big.

I could see it: security handing me over to Landry to be arrested for criminal trespass while he was executing a search warrant at Bennett’s house. How convenient.

He didn’t need me asking the neighbors anything. He would have uniforms doing KOD duty (knocking on doors) while he oversaw what went on in the house.

He would be trying to get a search warrant, I knew. If I had been in his position, that was what I would have been trying to do. I wondered how far he would get before my father stuck a wrench in the wheels of justice.

If he hadn’t already at some point in his career, Landry was about to find out that there was a different set of rules for men like Bennett Walker and Edward Estes. The iron hand of justice would put on the kid glove. People who would have been ready to jab the needle in the arm of any other murderer would suddenly back down. The district attorney would be more willing to accommodate a deal.

Hard time? Surely, Mr. Walker—whose father-in-law footed the campaigns of practically every Republican candidate in the state—hadn’t intended to strangle the girl. It was probably an accident. Perhaps time in a minimum-security facility with a good tennis court in exchange for a plea to involuntary manslaughter…

But what was I thinking? My father would never entertain the idea of a plea. He would run the state ragged in a full-blown CourtTV trial. He would reach deep into Bennett’s coffers and call expert witness after expert witness. The state’s budget for the trial would be pocket change by comparison. The state’s attorney would be begging for five bucks to get ink pens and legal pads for the table. Edward would be forking over five or ten grand a pop for people with degrees to take the witness stand and convince the jury to buy a nickel for a dime.

At least this time the victim couldn’t recant her testimony in exchange for a six-figure payoff.

Restless, I went to look in on Lisbeth. Whether she had been faking it or not when I left the room, she was well and truly out now. The lamplight from the bedside table touched her face with an amber glow. She looked about twelve, with her thick, wavy mane spread out across the pillow. A little girl still dreaming about becoming a princess.

I went in and covered her with a cashmere throw and touched her forehead to check for any sign of a fever.

Elena Estes: Mother Earth.

The cell phone vibrated in my hand. I walked out into the hall and answered it.

“Elena? It’s Juan. I need to speak with you.”

“Here I am,” I said. “Have at it.”

“No, no. Not this way. I want to see you.”

“Why?”

“You are not making this easy for me,” he said.

“Well, I know that’s how you like things, but I’m not in the mood for it, Juan. Lisbeth Perkins has been beaten, strangled, and half-drowned.”

“What?” he asked with what sounded like genuine shock. “Lisbeth? When did this happen? How did this happen?”

“Last night. She did night check, then someone grabbed her.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I’m trying to decide if I should be upset about that or if I should just shrug it off,” I said sarcastically. “Especially seeing as she isn’t dead, she just wishes she was. What do you think?”

“I think you are trying to make a point I’ve already taken.”

That gave me pause.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, soul-searching.”

“It’s good to know you have one.”

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said.

“I suppose you did.”

He heaved a sigh and tried to regroup. “Please, Elena. Meet me. Or I can come to you. Whatever you prefer.”

I preferred not to have him come to my home, where my only witness was passed out cold in the bedroom. I had no reason to trust him. Even money said someone in that clique had attacked—or paid someone else to attack—Lisbeth. There was no doubt in my mind they had put their heads together the night before, after finding out about my past life with the sheriff’s office. Brody knew I had been pumping Lisbeth for information. So did Barbaro.

Instead of trying to take me out of the equation, they did the easier thing and turned on Lisbeth. Easier to turn off the faucet than to make the bucket disappear.

“What’s it about?”

“Bennett.”

I said nothing.

“Meet me downstairs at Players. I want to speak with you before I go to the detectives. Please, Elena, give me that chance.”

He was going to turn on Bennett. I couldn’t have been more shocked…then hopeful, then suspicious.

“A soul
and
a conscience,” I said. “Seems too good to be true.”

“Meet me, please,” he said.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” I said, and closed the phone.

chapter
47

         
A COUPLE
of TV news vans had taken up residence in the main parking lot at Players. Python-size tangles of cord had been snaked from the vans up to the prime exterior-shot spots, where blinding white lights and screens stood on spider legs, ready for the on-camera talent to step in front of them.

Irina’s murder was Big News again, with the rumors about the Alibi Club and its members. This was the last public place Irina had been seen Saturday night, a natural choice for a backdrop. As I watched, a blond woman with a very serious expression stepped into one of the setups to do her thing.

The tall gangly kid was working the valet stand. His hair was sticking up. He looked overwhelmed, which I imagined happened all the time, considering the slow-turning wheels of his brain.

“Where’s your pal Jeff?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said, breathing a little fast. “He’s late. I know that. And it’s real busy.”

He hustled off to open the doors of a cream-colored Bentley. I went inside the club, took the stairs down, and told the maître d’ I was there to meet Mr. Barbaro.

We were just far enough into the dining room that I couldn’t gracefully back out when I saw the real focus of the media attention: Bennett Walker and my father having dinner. A publicity stunt that had my father’s fine hallmark all over it. He wanted the public to see Bennett—handsome, well-dressed, well-behaved—having a serious discussion with his handsome, well-dressed, well-respected attorney. Only my father could have bullied club management into allowing cameras into the dining room.

My feet stopped moving forward and I couldn’t seem to help but look right at them.

My father was holding court and had yet to notice me. His hair had gone entirely gray and his face was a little drawn, but otherwise he looked exactly the same to me: arrogant, intelligent, and in his element in front of cameras.

The mix of emotions that bombarded me in that moment were diverse and upsetting. Just as I had with Bennett, I wanted not to feel anything when I saw my father for the first time in all these years. But of course that couldn’t happen. The emotional memories of the first twenty-one years of my life rose up like a tidal wave inside me.

Anger, rebellion, guilt, that devastating sense of inadequacy I had always felt when he looked at me with that cold, disapproving stare. The stare that met my eyes now as he sat at a table with the rapist and probable murderer who had shattered my world twenty years past.

“Elena,” he said, with that same subtle hint of condescension as always, as if he were a king deigning to speak to a commoner.

The backs of my eyes burned, and I was furious with myself for it. But I had only that split second to think about it, because the couple of still cameras and video cameras there to make my father and Bennett Walker the news at eleven swung toward me with the realization of who I was.

I was trapped. I could leave and look like a coward or stay and face them both. There really wasn’t a choice at all, considering the options.

I reached somewhere very deep inside me to hold my composure.

He wasn’t ten feet away. I took a step, and another, toward him.

“Edward,” I said, echoing his tone of voice exactly.

I saw the almost imperceptible tension in his jaw. I had stopped calling him Father when I was twelve, a defiance he hated. I wouldn’t be subservient to him. He had punished me time and again for my disrespect. I had never wavered. The only currency that meant anything to me had been the horses, and I knew he would never take them away from me, because it would reflect badly on him and make him look like the tyrant he was.

I glanced at Bennett, then back at Edward.

“Just like old times,” I said. “Bennett destroying a woman’s life, you defending his actions, and me on the side of right.”

He was furious with me, but he would never show it in public. He rose, as any gentleman would. Bennett stayed seated and pouted.

“Be careful, Elena,” my father said very quietly.

“Be careful?” I said so everyone could hear. “Of what? Are you threatening me?”

“You wouldn’t want to say anything slanderous,” he said, in that same quiet voice he might use to speak to a small child.

I laughed and smiled the sardonic half smile. “It’s only slander if it isn’t true.”

Shutters and motor drives went mad.

He shook his head sadly. “It’s a shame you became so bitter.”

The benevolent monarch. My ass.

“How can you be disappointed?” I asked calmly. “I’m exactly what you made me.”

He sighed the sigh of the long-suffering parent. “You shouldn’t upset yourself, Elena. It isn’t good for you.”

Implying that I wasn’t psychologically stable.

“Well,
Father,
” I said, with such venom he would never want to hear the word again, “just when I think you can’t possibly disappoint me more than you already have, you manage to find a way. Congratulations.”

I turned my back to him and walked away.

“I’ll give your regards to your mother,” he said. “If you want me to.”

I just kept walking. I certainly didn’t care if people thought I was an ungrateful child. People had thought far worse things about me.

“Ms. Estes!”

“Ms. Estes!”

I held a hand up to indicate I had no intention of speaking to the media. They didn’t try to follow me into the ladies’ room.

The dizziness hit full force then, the shaking, the sweating. I threw up, rinsed my mouth, splashed cold water on my face. I didn’t look at myself in the mirror for fear of what I would see in my eyes—vulnerability. I would hate myself for it.

I rinsed my mouth again, then dug an Altoid out of my purse.

When I finally stepped out into the hall, I was alone. The jackals had all run back to try to pull some meat off my father.

As I turned toward the terrace, there was Barbaro looking at me.

My vision flashing red, I went straight at him and into his face. “You rotten son of a bitch!” I said, struggling to keep my voice down. “You filthy, rat-bastard, son of a bitch! You set me up!”

“No! Elena, I swear!” he said.

I gave him such a look of disgust, he should have died from it.

“Elena! Please!” he said, and made to grab my arm as I turned away from him. I jerked out of his grasp. My pulse was roaring in my ears. I slammed out the side door to the external staircase and started climbing.

I knew he was behind me. I kept walking.

“I didn’t know they were here,” he said, hustling alongside me as I went toward the parking lot.

“Oh, please. You can’t come up with anything better than that?”

“That’s the truth! I swear! I wouldn’t do that to you!”

“Why not?” I asked, finally stopping and turning to face him. We were well away from the building now and half hidden by trees.

“Why wouldn’t you, Juan? Jim Brody is your bread and butter. I’m supposed to believe you wouldn’t set me up if he asked you to? Bennett is your best friend. You wouldn’t help him if he asked? You already have, in something far more egregious than blindsiding me.”

“I didn’t—”

“Or did my dear old dad put you up to it himself?” I asked. “I’m sure you’ve met him. You’ve probably been out on one of his boats with Ben. Christ, he’s probably your lawyer too.”

“I refused,” he said. “Brody offered, I refused.”

“So, you’re a rat leaving a sinking ship. Is that it? Trying your luck on your own?”

“I’m not guilty of anything but looking the other way.”

“Yeah? Well, a girl died in that time you turned your head,” I said. “That makes the person looking away an accessory.”

“I wasn’t there,” he insisted.

“That’s your new story?”

“It isn’t a story. Listen to me,” he said. He looked over his shoulder, checking for cameras and microphones. No one had noticed us.

“I was not there with Bennett all night,” he said.

I stilled my temper and studied his face in the poor light. It had been a long time since I’d learned to spot a liar. I was very good at it. If Barbaro was trying to scam me, he was very talented.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I went to Bennett’s house after the party, but I didn’t stay. I didn’t want any part of it.”

“Any part of what?” I asked, my mind running rampant with sordid and terrible possibilities.

He looked away. “I am not a Boy Scout. I’ve partied a lot. That’s not a secret.”

“Spit it out, for Christ’s sake,” I snapped. “I’m a big girl. And you, as you said, are no Boy Scout. Don’t waste my time pretending to be embarrassed or trying to break it to me gently. I was a cop for a long time. Nothing you have to say is going to shock me.”

“Irina…was high, she’d been drinking,” he began. “Everyone was on something or another. Irina told Jim Brody she wanted to give him a very special gift for his birthday.”

He was clearly uncomfortable with the memory. I waited.

“Irina was the only girl who came back to Bennett’s house that night,” he said.

I felt sick at the possibilities for the rest of the story. Irina, brash, high, full of herself, and half a dozen men with one thing on their minds.

“She wanted to—”

I held up a hand to forestall any details he might have been about to give me. The details of the debauchery didn’t matter. Only one thing did.

“Who killed her?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I told you, I left. I walked back here for my car.”

“Did anyone see you leave the party?”

“They were otherwise occupied.”

“Did anyone see you walking?”

“No, but I saw Beth—Lisbeth—when I got to the parking lot.”

“Try again,” I said. “Lisbeth left the party at Players around one.”

Barbaro shrugged. “I thought it was her. It looked like her. I was sitting in my car. She walked past. She looked at me. I remember thinking, how strange to see her there. Then again, I had been drinking. I suppose I may have been mistaken.”

“I suppose you may have been.”

“You could ask her,” he suggested.

I made a noncommittal sound. I remembered Barbaro’s handsome face staring up at me from the cover of
Sidelines
magazine on the table in Lisbeth’s apartment. I remembered the snapshots of him and his buddies on the refrigerator in her kitchen.

He may have figured she would back him up because he was who he was or because she had a crush on him. Or he might have been counting on her silence because it had been assured the night before when someone whispered in her ear:
“This is what happens to girls who talk too much.”

“No one else,” I said.

“I saw the Freak creeping around,” he said.

“How did you get your car keys?” I asked. “I know you use the valet. They were gone by then.”

“I give them only the valet key. I keep my keys.”

“And no one was here to see you,” I said.

“No.”

“You have no one to corroborate your story.”

“No,” he said, growing impatient with my line of questioning while he was trying to do the good and noble thing.

I didn’t care.
Good
and
noble
were two words with which none of his cadre had more than a passing acquaintance.

I shrugged. “I’m only asking you the same questions the detectives will.”

He still took offense. “I wish I had seen ten people, but I did not. I didn’t know I would need an alibi later.”

“And it wouldn’t have mattered if you had, would it?” I said. “All you had to do was pick up a phone, right?”

Barbaro said nothing. He had no defense for that, and he knew it.

“Who killed her?” I asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“Who do you
think
killed her?”

He rubbed his hands over his face and walked around in a little circle.

“I had a call from Bennett,” he said. “Just before dawn.”

“He needed an alibi?”

“Yes.”

I remembered that call myself. Not a phone call, a personal call. Twenty years ago. Four in the morning. I had been sound asleep. Bennett had let himself into my condo. The sound of the shower in the guest bath woke me—and confused me. Why would he shower in the guest bath? When I went to ask him, the door was closed and locked.

Still feeling unsettled, I had gone back to bed. Some time later, he slipped under the covers next to me, warm and naked, and when I stirred, he told me he had been there for hours.

“No, you haven’t,”
I whispered, a strange apprehension stirring inside me.

“But you’ll say that for me, won’t you, baby? You’ll say that for me….”

I felt sick at the memory.

“Later he told me Irina was dead,” Barbaro said. “That she was dead when he found her in his pool. He said she must have drowned.”

“And you believed him,” I said.

“I wanted to believe him. He’s my friend. I couldn’t imagine it hadn’t been an accident.”

“If it was an accident, why didn’t he call 911?”

“She was dead,” he rationalized. “He was afraid of the scandal. He’s a very visible, wealthy man, from an influential family. His wife is a fragile person—”

“I wonder if he ever thought of that while he was busy fucking twenty-year-old girls,” I said. “And so, because Irina was already dead, and out of his touching concern for his invalid wife, he—
and you
—thought it was a perfectly acceptable idea to dump her body in a canal so aquatic organisms could feed on her eyes and her lips, and an alligator could stick her corpse under a sunken log to rot until it was just right for dinner.”