The Alibi (11 page)

Combined..." She raised her shoulders as though

the conclusion spoke for itself.

After considering it for a moment, he frowned.

"It's almost too obvious, isn't it? Besides, she's got

an alibi."

Steffi scoffed. "The loyal family servant? Yes,

Miss Scarlett. No, Miss Scarlett. Why don't you slap

me again, Miss Scarlett?"

"Sarcasm doesn't flatter you, Steffi."

"I'm not being sarcastic. Their relationship reflects

an archaic attitude."

"Not to Mrs. Pettijohn. I'm sure not to Sarah

Birch, either. They're devoted to one another."

"As long as Miss Davee is boss."

He shook his head. "You'd have had to grow up

here to understand."

"Thank God I didn't. In the Midwest--"

"Where people are more enlightened and all men

are created equal?"

"You said it, Smilow, not me."

"Not just sarcastic, but condescending and self-righteous,

too. If you have so much bloody scorn

for us and what you perceive to be our archaic attitudes,

why'd you move down here?"

"For the opportunity it afforded."

"To right all our wrongs? To enlighten us poor,

backward-thinking southern folk?"

She scowled at him.

"Or do you find our way of life enviable?" Further

baiting her, he added, "Are you sure you're not jealous

of Davee Pettijohn?"

She mouthed, Fuck you, Smilow.

Then she finished her soft drink and stood up to

toss the empty can into a metal trash receptacle. The

clatter it made roused everyone in the waiting room

except the sleeping woman.

Steffi said, "I can hardly stomach women like

Davee Pettijohn. That all too obvious southern belle

affectation of hers makes me want to throw up."

He motioned her toward the door. They stepped

out into the warm, humid air. The eastern sky was

turning a grayish pink, harbinger of dawn. Upon reflection

he said, "I'll grant you that Mrs. Pettijohn

has it down to an art."

"What I'm thinking is that she's artful enough to

use it to get away with murder."

"You've got a cold heart, Steffi."

"You're a fine one to talk. If you were an Indian

your name would be Ice Flows in Veins."

"True enough," he said, taking no offense. "But

I'm not so sure about you."

She had reached the driver's door, but didn't get

in. Instead she paused and looked at him across the

roof of her car. "What about me?"

"No one questions your ambition, Steffi. But I've

heard that work isn't all that's keeping your blood hot

these days."

"What have you heard?"

"Rumors," he said.

"What kind of rumors?"

Smiling his chilly smile, he said again, "Just rumors."

Loretta Boothe raised her head from her sagging

position and watched Rory Smilow and Stefanie

Mundell make their way across the parking lot to a

car where they paused to chat before getting in and

driving away.

They had entered the emergency room with a burst

of energy and purpose, which Loretta knew both possessed

in abundance. They seemed to suck all the

oxygen out of the atmosphere. She disliked them

equally. But for different reasons.

She carried a personal grudge against Rory

Smilow that went back several years. As for Steffi

Mundell, she knew her by reputation only. The assis

tant D.A. was universally regarded as an unmitigated

bitch who thought her shit didn't stink.

Loretta couldn't say why she hadn't spoken to

them or made her presence known. Something had

compelled her to keep her head lowered, her face

down, pretending to be asleep. Not that either would

have given a flip about her one way or the other.

Smilow would have looked at her with disdain. Steffi

Mundell probably wouldn't have recognized her, or if

she had, she wouldn't remember her name. More

than likely they would have said something passably

civil, then ignored her.

So why hadn't she said something? Maybe it had

given her a sense of superiority to be unseen and unobserved

while she eavesdropped on their conversation,

first with the doctor, then with each other.

Earlier in the evening, before she had started feeling

sick and had to drive herself to the emergency

room, she had heard about the Lute Pettijohn murder

on TV. She'd watched Smilow's press conference. He

had conducted it in his typically efficient and unflappable

manner. Steffi Mundell was already horning in

where she wasn't wanted or needed, overstepping her

bounds, which it was said she was good at.

Loretta chuckled. It did her old heart good to see

them grappling for clues and following dead-end

leads. The investigation couldn't be going very well

if their only possible witnesses were people sick with

food poisoning. One thing was certain: Smilow didn't

have a viable suspect or he wouldn't be chasing down

emergency room patients.

Loretta glanced at the wall clock. She had been

waiting for over two hours and was feeling worse by

the minute. She hoped help would be coming soon.

To pass the time and keep her mind off her personal

miseries, she stared through the plate-glass

window at the spot, now empty, where their car had

been parked. Rory Smilow and Steffi Mundell. Jesus,

what a dangerous combination. God help the luckless

murderer when they did catch him.

"What are you doing here?"

At the sound of her daughter's voice, Loretta

turned. Bev was standing over her, fists on hips, eyes

judgmental, not at all happy to see her. She tried smiling,

but felt her dry lips crack when she stretched

them across her teeth. "Hi, Bev. Did they just now tell

you I was down here?"

"No, but I was busy and couldn't get away until

now."

Bev was an ICU nurse, but Loretta figured she

could have asked someone to cover for her for five

minutes if she had wanted to. Of course, she hadn't

wanted to.

Nervously she wet her scaly lips with her tongue.

"I thought I would come by and see . . . Maybe we

could have breakfast together."

"When my shift ends at seven, I will have put in

twelve hours. I'm going home to bed."

"Oh." This wasn't going even as well as Loretta

had hoped, and she hadn't held out much hope that it

would go well. She picked at the buttons on the front

of her dirty blouse.

"You didn't come here so we could have breakfast

together, did you?" Bev's voice had an imperious

tone that grabbed the attention of the admitting nurse.

Loretta noticed her glance at them curiously. "You ran out of money, so you couldn't buy your booze, so

you came begging to me."

Loretta lowered her head to avoid her daughter's

angry, unmerciful glare. "I haven't had a drink in

days, Bev. I swear I haven't."

"I smell it on you."

"I'm sick. Truly. I--"

"Oh, save it." Bev opened her pocketbook and

took out a ten-dollar bill. But she didn't hand it to

Loretta; she forced her to reach for it, adding to her

humiliation. "Don't bother me at work again. If you

do, I'll have hospital security escort you off the

premises. Understand?"

Loretta nodded, swallowing her pride and her

shame. The rubber soles of Bev's shoes squeaked on

the tiles as she turned to go. When Loretta heard the

elevator doors open, she raised her head and called

plaintively, "Bev, don't--"

The doors closed before she could finish, but not

before she could see that Bev's eyes were averted, as

though she couldn't bear the sight of her own mother.

SUNDAY

CHAPTER 8

it just didn't make sense.

Unexpectedly, out of the blue, you meet someone.

It's like getting a gift for no particular reason. The attraction

is instantaneous, strong, and mutual. You

enjoy each other's company. You laugh, you dance,

you eat corn on the cob and ice cream. You have sex

that makes you feel like you've never known what it

was all about before. You fall asleep in each other's

arms and feel more content than you can remember

feeling, ever.

Then you wake up alone.

She's gone. No so long, no goodbye. No hasta la

vista, baby. No nothing.

Hammond thumped the steering wheel of his car,

angry at her, but angrier at himself for giving a damn.

Why should he care that she had run out? Hey, he had

had a terrific Saturday night. He'd had great sex with

a gorgeous stranger who had accommodated him in

bed, then, being even more accommodating, had disappeared,

leaving no strings attached. The dream

date, right? It didn't get much better than that. Ask

any single male his number one, primo fantasy, and

that would be it.

So accept it for what it was, you jerk, he reprimanded

himself. Don't make too much out of it. And

don't remember it better than it actually was.

But he wasn't making it out better than it was. It

had been fantastic, and that's exactly how he was remembering

it.

Cursing, he swerved around a motorist who was

testing his patience by driving too slow. Everything

was an irritant today. Since waking up this morning,

he had been taking out his disappointment and frustration

on inanimate objects. First on the bureau on

which he had rammed his big toe as he had bolted

from the bed and run into the living area of the cabin,

frantically hoping to see her puttering around in the

kitchen looking for a cereal bowl, or thumbing

through a magazine in the living area, or sitting in the

porch rocking chair watching the river flow languidly

past as she sipped coffee and waited for him to wake

up.

His fantasies had taken on the soft-focus glow of

greeting card commercials.

But that's all they had been--fantasies.

Because the living room and kitchen were empty,

her car was gone, and the only occupant of the front

porch rocking chair had been a spider busily spinning

a web that spanned the seat from one armrest to the

other.

Uncaring that he was bare-assed, he had brushed

the spider aside and sat down in the rocker, pushing

back his hair with all ten fingers, the gesture of a desperate

man on the brink of losing all self-control.

What time had she left? What time was it now?

How long had she been gone?

Maybe she was coming back. Maybe he was getting

upset over nothing.

For half an hour, he had deluded himself into believing

that she had gone in search of donuts and danish.

Or cream for her coffee. Or a Sunday newspaper.

But she didn't come back.

Eventually he had relinquished the rocking chair

to the spider and went indoors. In his attempt to make

coffee, he had spilled grounds on the countertop.

Angry over that, he had cracked the glass carafe and

wound up throwing the whole damn machine onto

the floor, breaking it apart and dumping the water

with which he'd filled the tank.

He had searched the cabin, looking for something

she might have left behind, wishing for a business

card... or, better yet, a note. He found nothing. In

the bathroom, he had inspected the wastepaper basket

beneath the sink, but there was nothing in it except

the disposable plastic liner. When he came back up,

he bumped his head on the open door of the storage

cabinet. Furiously he slammed the door, but cursed

with even more ferocity when he slammed it shut on

his finger.

Finally, although the bed was the most poignant

reminder of her, he had returned to it, flinging himself

down onto it and placing his forearm across his

eyes, willing himself to get it together.

What the hell was wrong with him? he had asked

himself. No one who knew him would have recognized him this morning, prowling around naked and

unshaven and not giving a damn, looking and behaving

like a wild man, like a dangerously unbalanced

lunatic. Hammond Cross, acting like a chump, like a

lovesick calf. Our Hammond Cross? You gotta be

kidding!

Wait a minute, did you say lovesick!

Slowly he had lowered his arm and turned his

head toward her pillow. He touched it, placing his

hand in the depression left by her head. Gradually he

had rolled onto his side, drew the pillow against his

chest, and buried his face in it, breathing deeply of

her scent.

Desire engulfed him, but this wasn't about sex.

Okay, it was, but not entirely.

This wasn't ordinary lust. He'd experienced that

lots of times. He would recognize that. This was different.

Deeper. More involving. He was in the grip of

a... yearning.

"Shit," he had whispered. Would you listen to

yourself? Yearning?

Rolling onto his back again, he had gazed up at the

ceiling and dismally conceded that he didn't know

the term for what he felt. It was foreign to him. He