The Alibi (58 page)

"Or killing him."

A quick breath caused her breasts to tremble beneath

the filmy fabric clinging to them. "I wish you

had loved me enough to kill him." She placed her

hands on his cheeks and ran her thumbs alternately

across his lips. "Do you, Rory?" she whispered urgently.

"Do you love me that much? Please tell me

you do."

As though stretching across the years spent in

heartache and yearning, she leaned over the console

and kissed him. The first touch of her lips was as cataclysmic

as a match striking flint. His reaction was

explosive. His mouth devoured hers in a hard and

greedy kiss that was almost savage in intensity.

But it ended just as abruptly. Reaching up, he

forcibly removed her hands from his face and pushed

her away.

"Rory?" she cried, reaching for him as he pushed

open the car door.

"Goodbye, Davee."

"Rory?"

But he slipped through the hedge of bushes and disappeared

into the darkness. McDonald's had closed.

Everyone had left. The lights had been turned out. It

was dark, and Davee was alone. No one heard her bitter

sobs.

CHAPTER

34

I KNOW WHO KILLED LUTE."

Hammond's statement shocked Alex and Frank

Perkins into silence, but it lasted no more than a few

seconds before each began firing questions at him.

Primarily, Frank wanted to know why Hammond was

here in his home study instead of at the police station.

"Later," Hammond said. "Before we go any further,

I must hear Alex's account of what happened."

Turning toward her, he leaned forward. "The truth,

Alex. All of it. Everything. Tonight. Now."

Before she could speak, Frank held up his hand.

"Hammond, you must think I'm an idiot. I will not

allow my client to tell you a damn thing. I want no

part of this clandestine meeting you have forced me

into. You have behaved in the most reprehensible, irresponsible,

unprofessional--"

"Okay, Frank, you're not a priest, remember?"

Hammond said. "You're not my Sunday school

teacher, or my daddy, either. Both Alex and I have acknowledged

how inappropriately we've handled

this."

"A peach of an understatement," Frank remarked

drolly. "The consequences of your intimacy are potentially

disastrous. For all of us."

"How are they disastrous for you?" Alex asked.

"Alex, less than five minutes ago, you admitted to

doing everything within your power to get Hammond

into bed with you. If you have any defense at all, your

being with Hammond that night is it. But how effective

will that testimony be in light of your background

according to Bobby Trimble?"

"How can that be held against me? It's behind me.

I'm not that girl anymore. I'm me." She looked from

him to Hammond. "Yes, every ugly detail of Bobby's

statement is true. With one exception. I never went

beyond letting them look at me."

She shook her head emphatically. "Never. I safeguarded

a small, private part of myself, in case my

hope for a better way of life was ever realized. There

was a line I would not cross. Thank God I had that

kernel of self-preservation.

"Bobby exploited me in the most despicable way.

But it took years for me to stop blaming myself for

my participation. I believed that I was intrinsically

bad. Through counseling and my own studies, I realized

that I was a classic case, an abused child who felt

that I was responsible for the mistreatment."

She smiled at the irony. "I was one of my first

cases. I had to heal myself. I had to learn to love myself

and consider myself worthy of others' love. The

Ladds were instrumental. They had left me a legacy

of unconditional love. I came to understand that if

they could love me, being as basically good and de

cent as they were, I could bury the past and at least

accept myself.

"But it's an ongoing therapy. Sometimes I have

lapses. To this day, I ask myself if there was something

I could have done. Was there ever a time when

I could have stood up to Bobby and resisted? I was so

afraid that he would abandon me as my mother had,

and I would be entirely alone. He was my provider. I

depended on him for everything."

"You were a child," Frank reminded her gently.

She nodded. "Then, yes, Frank. But not the night I

placed myself in Hammond's path and hoped that he

would respond to me." Turning to him, she said with

entreaty, "Please forgive me for the damage I've

done. I was afraid of just this, of what has happened.

I did not kill Lute Pettijohn, but I was afraid of being

accused of it. Afraid of being considered guilty because

of my juvenile record. I went to Pettijohn's

hotel suite—"

"Alex, again I must caution you not to say anything

more."

"No, Frank. Hammond is right. You need to hear

my account. He needs to hear it." The lawyer was still

frowning his concern, but she didn't heed the silent

warning.

"Let me go back a few weeks." She told them

about Bobby's sudden and unwelcome reappearance

in her life, how he had shared with her his scheme to

blackmail Lute Pettijohn. "I cautioned Bobby that he

was way out of his league, that he would do well to

leave Charleston and forget this ridiculous plan.

"But he was determined to see it through, and

equally determined that I help him. He threatened to

expose my past if I didn't. I'm ashamed to admit this,

but I was afraid of him. If he had been the same loudmouthed,

arrogant, unsophisticated Bobby that he'd

been twenty-five years ago, I would have laughed at

his threats and called the police immediately.

"But he had acquired some etiquette, or at least he

affected good manners and social decorum. This new

Bobby could more easily insinuate himself into my life and decay it from the inside. He did in fact appear

at a lecture, passing himself off as a visiting psychologist,

and my colleague never questioned his authenticity.

"Nevertheless, I called his bluff and told him to

leave me alone. I suppose he got desperate. In any

event, he contacted Pettijohn. Whatever Bobby said

to him must have made an impression, because he

agreed to pay one hundred thousand dollars in exchange

for Bobby's silence."

"No one who knew Lute Pettijohn will believe

that, Alex," Hammond said quietly.

"On that I agree," Frank added.

"I didn't believe it myself," Alex said. "And apparently

Bobby wasn't entirely convinced, either, because

he approached me again, this time insisting that

I be the one to meet Pettijohn and collect the cash. I

agreed to."

"In God's name, why?" Frank asked.

"Because I saw it as an opportunity to rid myself

of Bobby. My idea was to meet Pettijohn, but instead

of collecting the cash, I was going to explain the situation

and urge him to report Bobby's extortion to

the police."

"Why not go to the police yourself?"

"In hindsight, I see that would have been the better

choice." She sighed. "But I feared the association

with Bobby. He had boasted about his escape from a

loan shark in Florida. There were numerous reasons I

wanted to stay one step removed from him."

"So you went to the Charles Towne Plaza at the

appointed time."

"Yes."

"You couldn't call Pettijohn on the telephone?"

"I wish I had, Frank. But I thought that meeting

him in person would make a stronger impression."

"What happened when you got there?"

"He was courteous. He politely listened as I explained

the situation." She sat down on the edge of

the love seat and stroked her forehead.

"And?"

"And then he laughed at me," she said shakily. "I

should have known the instant he opened the door

that something was out of kilter. He wasn't surprised

to see me, although he should have been expecting

Bobby. But I didn't realize that until later."

"He knew you were coming, not Bobby, and he

laughed at your story."

"Yes," she said forlornly. "Bobby had called ahead

and told Pettijohn I was coming, told him that I was

his double-crossing partner, warned him that I would

probably concoct a sob story, one guaranteed to make

him feel sorry for me, before luring him into bed and

creating my own chance to blackmail him for more of

a prize than Bobby was asking."

"I didn't give that son of a bitch enough credit,"

Hammond muttered angrily. "Trimble doesn't look

that smart."

"He's not smart," Alex said. "Just crafty. Bobby's

got more gall than sense, and that makes him dangerous.

When he sees an opportunity, he takes risks that

no intelligent person would consider taking. He also

knows the advantage of striking first.

"Nothing I said convinced Pettijohn that I wasn't

part of some devious grand scheme involving sex and

blackmail. He suggested that I not squander the opportunity.

As long as we were there, and I had my

heart set on taking him to bed ... You get my drift."

"He came on to you?" Frank guessed.

"I resisted, of course. Knocked his arm aside. I'm

sure that's when the clove got on his sleeve. I'd

spiked the oranges with them that morning. A speck

must have still been on my hand. Anyway, I spurned

him, and he got angry and began issuing his own

threats, specifically that he had an appointment with

a prosecutor from the County Solicitor's Office.

Hammond Cross." She glanced at him. "He said no

doubt you would be interested in Bobby's and my

scam."

After a moment, she continued, "I panicked. I saw

my carefully reconstructed life falling apart. The

Ladds, who had placed such confidence in me, would

be disgraced. Doubt would be cast on my credibility,

rendering my studies worthless. Patients whose trust

I had won would feel betrayed.

"So I ran. In the elevator I started shaking uncontrollably.

When I reached the lobby level, I went into

the bar looking for a place to sit down, because my

knees felt ready to buckle.

"But when my panic subsided, I realized what an

irrational reaction it was. In seconds, I had regressed

to where I'd been when Bobby had controlled my

life. There in the bar, I came to my senses. My juvenile

record was decades behind me. I am a respected

member of my community. I'm acclaimed in my

field. What was I afraid of? I had done nothing

wrong. If I could convince the right person that once

again my half-brother was trying to exploit me, I possibly

could get rid of him forever. Who better to make

a believer than--"

"Hammond Cross, assistant county solicitor."

"Correct." She nodded up at Frank. "So I returned

to the room on the fifth floor. When I got there, the

door to the suite was ajar. I put my ear to it, but

couldn't hear any conversation. I pushed it open and

looked in. Pettijohn was lying face down near the

coffee table."

"Did you realize he was dead?"

"He wasn't," she said, drawing a shocked reaction

from both men. "I didn't want to touch him, but I did.

He had a pulse, but he was unconscious. I didn't want

to be caught with him in that condition when my former

partner in crime was blackmailing him. So once

again I virtually ran from the suite. This time I took

the stairs down. We must have just missed each

other," she said to Hammond. "When I reached the

lobby, I spotted you leaving the hotel by the main

doors."

"How did you know me?"

"I recognized you from your media exposure. You

looked very upset. I thought--"

"That I had attacked Pettijohn."

"Not attacked. I thought you had punched out his

lights, and that, if your meeting had gone anything

like mine, he probably deserved it. That's why I followed

you. Later, if Pettijohn filed a complaint

against Bobby and me, if I was implicated in a crime,

who better to have as my alibi than the D.A., who

himself had had an altercation with Pettijohn?" She

looked down at her hands. "Several times Saturday

evening, I began to feel guilty about what I was

doing, and tried to leave you."

She glanced at Hammond, who guiltily looked up

at Frank, who was scowling at him like the gatekeeper

of hell.

"By Sunday morning I was very ashamed and left

before Hammond woke up," she told her lawyer.

"That evening Bobby came for his money--there

was none, of course. But to my astonishment he congratulated

me for killing our only 'witness.'"

"You didn't know until then that Pettijohn was

dead?"

"No. I had listened to CDs on the drive home, not

to the car radio. I didn't turn on the TV. I was ... was

preoccupied." After a brief, tense silence, she said,