The Alibi Man

Chapter 28

I started trembling. My heart was beating so fast I should have been frightened. A witness could put Irina with Bennett Walker, leaving the club together in his Porsche.

“When?” I asked. “When did you see them leave together?”

He dropped his hand and shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe a week ago.”

Not the night she disappeared, I realized. This kid hadn’t been working Saturday night. Still, his statement put them together, established that they had spent time alone together.

Unless that was what Jeff the Weasel was hiding-that Bennett Walker was the guy Irina had left with, that Bennett had bought the kid’s silence.

“And that one.”

His voice snapped me out of my speculation. “What?”

“That one,” he said again, touching the tip of his finger to the magazine page. “Escalade.”

Jim Brody.

“He gets a lot of girls,” he said. “I don’t know why. He’s really old.”

“And really rich,” I said.

Jeff the Weasel came jogging back from the valet lot, looking suspicious.

“So, Jeff,” I said. “Your friend here says he saw that girl leave with Jim Brody.”

“No, he didn’t,” Jeff said. “He wasn’t even working Saturday night.”

“Not Saturday night,” the tall one said. “Last week. Remember? You were here.”

Jeff stared at his pal, wide-eyed. “You are so fucking stupid! Shut up! You’re not supposed to talk about the customers!”

“Guess what, Jeff?” I said flatly. “If one of these guys was the last person to see that girl alive, we’re not talking about a customer. We’re talking about a killer. And you’re not part of the Wink-Wink-Boys-Will-Be-Boys Club. You’re aiding and abetting in a felony murder. You don’t get sent to juvie hall for that. You ask your mother to pack you clean underwear and a big tube of K-Y Jelly, because you’re going away to live with the big dogs.”

I pulled my phone out of my bag and called Landry while I stood there. I wasn’t sure whether he would pick up or not. To his credit, he did.

“There are two valets working the parking lot at Players tonight,” I said without preamble. “You need to speak with them as soon as possible. They have information.”

I hung up. The boys stood side by side, Mutt and Jeff-literally-mouths hanging open.

“You’ll be meeting Detective Landry from the sheriff’s office shortly,” I informed them. “Please give him my regards.”

I left them standing there panicking and walked down to my car. When I pushed the button on the remote to unlock the doors, the lights flashed and the car made a little wolf-whistle sound- and someone jumped off the hood and spun around to face me.

I don’t know which of us was more startled: me, or the peculiar little character caught with her hand in the Burger King bag I had left on the hood.

We stared at each other. She was in the same strange getup as the last time-the black unitard that covered everything but her face, the conical hat with the pom-pom, the platform shoes. Only her makeup had changed. Tonight her face was painted a dark color-blue or purple, I thought, though I couldn’t really tell in le poor light of the parking lot. The area around her left eye was outlined in silver. She had painted a trail of curving lines from the right corner of her mouth up diagonally across her cheek to the corner of her right eye.

“You’re naughty!” she declared.

“I’m naughty? That’s my dinner you’re eating.”

She wadded up the fast-food bag and put it behind her back.

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“My name is No Name,” she said. “You can’t put that on my permanent record.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. What should I call you?”

Her eyes darted to the left, as if she were listening to the counsel of an invisible friend. “You may call me Princess Cindy Lullabell.”

“Cindy,” I said. “My name is Elena.”

“I don’t care,” she said bluntly. “You’re naughty. Like the others.”

“What others?”

She shook her head from side to side, pom-pom waggling back and forth at the top of her pointy hat.

“What does it mean to be naughty, Cindy?” I asked. “If I know, I can try not to be.”

Princess Cindy Lullabell dropped the Burger King bag on the ground, turned her back to me, wrapped her arms around herself like a lover would wrap his arms around her, and started wiggling. She paused once to look over her shoulder at me and blow me a kiss.

“Are you talking about people kissing?” I asked.

“They’ll put that on your permanent record, even if you have a special pass.”

“Thanks for the warning. Can I show you something, Cindy?”

She gave me a dubious look.

“It’s just a photograph,” I said.

She looked sideways at her invisible consultant. “Is it a trick?”

“No. I just want to know if you’ve seen this woman.”

I held the photograph out, hoping there was enough illumination from the sodium vapor light to allow her to see. She reached up into her pom-pom and turned on a pinpoint light. The mother of invention.

She took the photo from my hand and studied Irina and Lisbeth.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “They’re VERY naughty. They won’t be allowed to graduate, and that will go into their files.”

I took the snapshot back and pointed at Irina. “Did you see her here Saturday night?”

She thought about that, conferred with whatever voice she was hearing. When she turned back to me, she said, “When is Saturday?”

“Three days ago. There was a big party that night.”

“I don’t attend parties,” she said. “There might be drinking and naughtiness. My advisor says I have to go now. Thank you very much. Dinner was lovely. Good night.”

She curtsied, then bolted and made for the pipe gate and the Polo Club development on the other side of it. She was surprisingly quick in those awkward thick-soled shoes. I followed her at a distance, not so much interested in catching her as in seeing where she went.

I didn’t want her to be frightened of me. Who knew what kind of information was locked up with the butterflies in her head? I climbed through the gate and started to jog after her.

She ran on ahead of me, elbows pinned to her sides, her lower arms flailing up and down, as if she were some strange wounded bird trying to take flight. She turned onto a cul-de-sac lined with lower-end condos-lower-end meaning they rented for a mere $3,500 a month for a one bedroom, one bath.

As I turned to cut across the grass, the toe of my adorable Chanel ballet flat tripped me, and I fell forward onto my knees and elbows. When I got up and looked around, Princess Cindy Lullabell was nowhere to be seen.

Damn.

I retrieved my shoe and jogged down the cul-de-sac to the spot I had seen her before I’d gone down. There was a shed row of double garage doors, all closed. The growth of tropical trees and banana plants and giant ferns had created a dark corridor down the side of the last of the condo buildings.

I didn’t have a flashlight and wasn’t inclined to go in there even if I’d had one. The potential for a nasty surprise was enough to keep me out. The lush landscaping was a haven for rats and mice. Rats and mice attract snakes. On the other side of the thicket of trees was a canal. Canals attract alligators.

The image of the gator rolling with Irina’s lifeless body in its jaws flashed through my mind.

I went between the condo buildings instead, where light spilled out from the windows, allowing me to see what I was stepping on, mostly.

Horse people populated Palm Beach Polo and Golf. Horse people and their multitude of Jack Russell terriers, Welsh corgis, Westies, Labradors, Labradoodles, cocker spaniels, and every other breed of dog known to man. The owners weren’t always so conscientious about cleaning up after them.

I looked around for another fifteen minutes, checked the storage sheds. Tried the doors. No luck. I went down the street to the west-entrance guard shack, which faced South Shore. The guard was watching a movie on a tiny television set. I went up to the glass door and tapped politely. She turned and glared at me and made no move to invite me in. I pulled the handle myself and hoped she wouldn’t pull a gun and shoot me.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt, but did you see anyone run past here a few moments ago? A person dressed in black with a cone-shaped hat and big platform shoes?”

“The Freak?” she said, indignant that I had asked her a question.

“Yes.”

“No, I ain’t seen her.”

The woman was the size of a baby hippopotamus. She had planted herself on that chair like Jabba the Hutt.

“Do you know anything about her?” I asked.

“No.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“No. Why would I know that? Do I look like I would hang out with the Freak?”

“Not at all. But working here, I imagine you see and know about all kinds of things.”

Her name tag read J Jones.

“You don’t happen to know her name, do you, Ms. Jones?”

“The Freak,” she said impatiently. “Are you deaf?”

“I don’t imagine that her mother gave birth to her, looked at her, and proudly said, ”Let’s call her the Freak,“ do you?”

J. Jones made a face. “You don’t need to get flip with me,” she said.

“Apparently, I do.”

She looked me up and down, taking in the fat lip, the grass-stained white pants.

“Do you live here, ma’am?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then why are you here? You can’t be here for no good reason. How did you get on the property?”

“I climbed through the gate from Players.”

“That’s criminal trespass,” she said. “And why are you running round looking like that? What do you want with the Freak, looking like that? All grass stains and dirt, like you been rolling around on the ground like an animal.”

“I tripped and fell.”

“Running after the Freak,” she said with disgust. “What’s up with that?”

I surrendered. “Never mind. Thank you for all your help.”

She snorted. “I didn’t give you any.”

“Exactly,” I said, my attention no longer on the guard but on the TV screens showing cars coming in and going out through the gate.

Guests were required to stop at the gate to talk their way in. Residents drove through, bar-code stickers on their cars being read by a sensor, which opened the residents’ gate as they approached, and all of it was caught on tape. I wondered how many of the residents were aware of that.

Barbaro had said he and Bennett crashed at Bennett’s house in le Polo Club Saturday night. They had to have come through either this gate or the main gate on Forest Hill Boulevard. If Irina had voluntarily come in with one of them-or drove herself-that would be on tape.

Exhausted, I hiked back to the parking lot and to my car. I drove home, went into my cottage, and went facedown on the bed, thinking about what to do next.