The Alibi Man

Chapter 9

The day was nearly over by the time I got back to the farm. The horses, unaware and unconcerned with how my day had gone, were hungry. Cars from the SO were parked all over the place, including the one Landry had been driving. They were up in Irina’s apartment doing the same thing I had done hours before them.

A deputy stopped me as I got to the barn.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s an investigation in progress. You can’t go in.”

I looked straight in his face. “I can and I will. I own these horses,” I lied, “and they need to be fed. Do you want to be held responsible for the illness or death of any of these animals? Before you answer that, I should inform you that any one of them is worth more money than you’ll see in five years.”

He was officially intimidated. The young ones are so easy.

“No, ma’am. But could you please wait here while I go inform the detective in charge?”

I sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked past him. He didn’t stop me, but he did go into the lounge and, presumably, up the stairs to the apartment, where he would tell Landry about me. The man in charge.

As I went about feeding the horses their dinner, I tried to pretend the deputies and detectives and crime-scene investigators weren’t there. If they weren’t there, then I could pretend Irina wasn’t dead. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have to interact with Landry.

He didn’t come flying out of the lounge. That was a good sign. I went about my business, tending the individual needs of my charges. Witch hazel and alcohol on legs that tended to puff up overnight, carefully wrapped bandages-not too loose, not too tight. Lightweight sheets on all but Oliver, who thought it was hysterically funny to rip his expensive custom-made blankets to shreds. A few extra carrots for Arli, for his traumatic morning. A few extra carrots for Feliki, because she was the boss mare, and no one could get anything she didn’t get too or she would throw a tantrum in her stall.

I went last into the stall of the new princess of the barn: Coco Chanel. Coco was amazingly beautiful, dark chocolate brown with a splash of white on her hind legs and a perfect blaze down her face. Ears pricked at attention, she looked at me with huge liquid eyes filled with happiness that I was coming in to visit.

I spoke to her in a quiet voice, touched her neck, scratched her withers. She arched her neck, sniffed my head, ruffled my hair with her nose, and started scratching my shoulder. Reciprocity with no strings attached, no ulterior motives.

I wrapped my arms around her neck, closed my eyes, pressed my cheek against her, and hugged her. To experience such pure innocence and trust at the end of that day felt cleansing. This sweet horse had never been mistreated, had never been anything but adored her entire life. She didn’t know violence or hatred or the perversions that poisoned the minds of humans. I wished I could have said the same.

“Have you been in the apartment?”

I let go of the horse, turned, and looked at Landry. I wondered how long he had been standing there. The thought that he might have been there for a long time, watching me in an unguarded moment, irritated me.

“Yes,” I said. “I imagine my prints are still on file with the SO. You won’t need to take them again.”

“You shouldn’t have gone up there,” he said without any kind of rancor. His face was drawn. His tie was yanked loose.

“You should know better than to bother telling me.” I slipped out of the stall, closed and latched the door.

“Did you take anything?”

“Of course not,” I said, as if highly offended. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I don’t know procedure?”

“I think you don’t give a rat’s ass about procedure. You never have. Why start now?”

“Is there something in particular you want from me?” I asked. “Because, if not, I would like to go get out of these stinking clothes, have a shower and a drink, and go to bed. I’ve had as much of this day as I can stand.”

He was probably thinking the same thing. He’d been working this for ten hours without a break, I was sure. Without a meal, I was willing to bet. A steady diet of coffee, maybe a doughnut, or a candy bar, or some horrible fast-food beast on a bun that he would have eaten with one hand while he stood off to the side at the scene, continuing to direct people with the other hand. And now he would go back to the sheriff’s office and start on the paperwork. He still had a long night ahead of him.

I didn’t feel sorry for him. That was his job. Irina was just another DB (dead body) for him. He had known her well enough to say hello, that was all. Personal emotion would not be a factor in this for him, nor should it have been.

“What did you see up there?” he asked.

“The same things you did.”

“I mean, did it look like anything was out of place?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’d never been in Irina’s apartment before. She was a very private person.”

He nodded, then rubbed his hands over his face and down the back of his neck. The muscles there would be as tight and corded as ropes holding a great weight. His right shoulder would have a knot in it the size of a tennis ball. He would groan like a dying man if someone started to work the kink out with a massage.

I had no interest in doing that. I just knew it was so because I’d done it many times.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, the same as he would ask if we had been meeting for dinner. How was your day… where’d you go… what did you do…

“I need to sit down.”

I walked out the side of the barn toward the riding arena. The landscaping lights had come on as the sun sank low. I sat down on an ornate park bench. Landry sat on the opposite end.

I told him about the photograph on Irina’s laptop, the one from the tailgating party, and about finding Lisbeth Perkins at Star Polo and the things Lisbeth had told me about the encounter with the guy at the club on Clematis Street.

“She didn’t have a last name for him?”

“No, but she has a photo of him on her phone.” I didn’t tell him that I had the photos as well. I didn’t want to show him, didn’t want to deal with looking at that last photo again with an audience. “She also has photos of Irina later in the evening at a birthday party at Players. Lisbeth left the party around one. Irina stayed.”

“Anybody of interest at the party?”

“A lot of wealthy men with shaky morals,” I said. “Jim Brody, who owns Star Polo. A couple of hotshot polo players. Paul Kenner, Mr. Baseball-”

“Spitball,” he corrected me, scowling. Kenner had once hit on me, in front of him. Men.

“-A couple of Palm Beach rich boys. Bennett Walker.”

Somehow I expected Landry to have a big reaction when I said that name, as if he would instantly know all about my history with Walker. Stupid. Landry hadn’t even been living in South Florida at the time. And I certainly hadn’t spilled my heart out to him about it. Our pillow talk had consisted of more current events.

“Bennett Walker,” he said. “He races boats, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” I said, even though I did. Bennett and my father had the sport in common. They could have talked boats for hours. For all I knew, they still did. “He’s into the polo scene.”

“Rich.”

“Filthy. You’ll want to talk to him,” I said, dreading the thought.

He nodded. “I’ll want to talk to anyone who was at Players that night, down to busboys and valets.”

I should have told him about Bennett and the rape/assault charges back when. I should have told him I had testified at the trial.

I should have told him that I had loved Bennett Walker once. That I had loved him enough to say yes when he asked me to marry him. But I told Landry none of those things. He would find out soon enough.

Tearing all those memories out of the emotional and psychological scar tissue was going to be a terrible experience. I wanted to stall the inevitable as long as I could. I felt like Harrison Ford in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the gigantic stone is rolling after him as he tries to escape the secret temple. The huge ball that was my past and my pain was rolling toward me, and there was nothing I could do to escape it.

Landry reached over and stroked his hand over the back of my head tenderly. “Elena,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about this morning. About Irina. About the way I treated you when we first got to the scene. I’m not the most tactful guy when I’m angry.”

“You were cruel,” I said, looking straight at him. He looked away.

“I know. I wish I hadn’t said what I did about you quitting. I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why did you say it?”

He thought about his answer for a moment, weighing the truth versus something less.

“Because I wanted you to hurt… the way I hurt.”

I shouldn’t have wanted him to touch me, but I did. If I could have gone back in time to Sunday night, knowing what was going to happen that Monday, I probably wouldn’t have broken up with him. I probably would have put it off, just to give myself the luxury of turning to him. He probably expected that I still would turn to him.

I could have leaned forward and kissed him. He had moved that close. And then he would have wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. And we would have gone into my guest cottage, and we would have ended up in bed-because we always ended up in bed. And we would exhaust each other, and maybe I would be able to sleep and not dream.

Headlights turned in at the gate just then. Sean, back from his day at the beach.

“That’s Sean?” Landry asked. “You want me to tell him?”

I shook my head as I stood up. “I’ll do it.”

“I’ll need to talk to him.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” I asked.

He looked at his watch. “It can wait until later. I need to grab something to eat. I’ll go and come back.”

“Thank you.”

He wanted to say something more but thought better of it. I walked away before he could change his mind.

The best thing to do in a weak moment: walk away.

I didn’t look back.