The Alibi Man

Chapter 33

I long ago ruined my ability to sleep like a normal human being. Prior to my accident, prior to my years working the streets as a Narcotics detective. Long before any of that.

Four or five hours-rarely consecutive, rarely restful, and jammed with complex dreams-had become normal for me. Post-accident, a certain level of chronic pain had made it even more difficult. And I refused (for a host of reasons, some good and some stupid) the kind of medication that would have eased the pain and allowed me to sink below consciousness.

A doctor once told me that my brain had decided sleep stages one, two, and five were essential to life, and that stages three and four were a waste of my time. My own theory was less industrious and more human: that after the dream stage, REM sleep, all I wanted was to escape what lay in my subconscious.

Whatever the theory, the upside of not sleeping is being able to accomplish more than the average working stiff.

I sat at the small writing desk in my living room, making notes. Just a couple of lamps on, Chris Botti’s smooth, sexy trumpet on the stereo, a glass of cabernet to sip at. It would have been a pleasant scenario, if not for the fact that I was investigating the murder of someone I knew.

If Irina had left Players with Bennett or with Jim Brody, where was her car? If she had driven herself to the after-party, where was her car? Landry had made no mention of it, which made me think he hadn’t found it yet.

I made a note: Car?

Had the killer used it to transport her body, then driven himself back to town? That would have been the smart thing. No evidence of Irina in his own car. But there would have been evidence of him in hers. The smarter thing would have been to run the car into a canal.

And where had they gone for the after-party? Out of town to Star Polo? Or across a few acres of manicured lawns and golf course to Bennett’s home in the Polo Club? They had all been drinking heavily. Quicker and easier to do the latter. Cops liked to prowl right around that intersection of South Shore and Greenview Shores around closing time, looking for some easy tickets. There would have been less risk of getting a DUI if they left the club and literally turned right in at the Polo Club’s west entrance.

I made a note: Cop Stop DUI?

The officer on patrol might have seen something-Irina’s car, Irina in someone else’s car, but no one was going to tell me about it.

I wanted to know where in the Palm Beach Polo Club Bennett lived. The homes in the development ranged from efficiencies for grooms, to condos, to town houses, to bungalows, to out-and-out mansions. Bennett would take the big house, because he could afford it, because it was a good investment, because he was spoiled and used to having nothing but the best. Because it was private.

If the party had moved to Bennett’s house, the partygoers had driven through one of the Polo Club’s two entrances, and their comings and goings would be on tape. Tape that I had no access to. But if I could find his house, I could check out his neighbors.

Maybe one of them would complain about a party Saturday night. Even money said Sean knew exactly where the house was.

I made a note: Sean-Bennett’s address?

I picked through the things I had collected from Irina’s apartment. The e-mails I had printed out from her computer were mostly in Russian. Some were order confirmations from online sources of horse equipment and veterinary supplies, things she would have ordered at Sean’s behest. A couple of them were from Lisbeth Perkins: a question as to whether or not Irina wanted to go to a karaoke bar with a couple of other girls. One about where and when they would meet Saturday night.

Those e-mails seemed so innocent in the face of what had happened that night. Young women going out on the town to have some fun, never imagining what was to come later that night.

Should be a great party. C U later. I can’t wait!! Lisbeth had signed the e-mail with a series of yellow smiley faces.

A very young twenty-something, I had thought earlier. Fresh off the farm. She was getting a hell of an education now, poor kid.

I thought about Molly Seabright, the twelve-year-old girl who had come to me a year before to find her missing sister. Molly had often seemed to me to be more of an adult than I was.

Life jades us all at different rates, in different ways.

I had been about Lisbeth’s age when my life truly turned itself on its head. The sadly funny thing was, at that time I had already believed I was cynical.

We were supposed to go out that night, Bennett and I. But I hadn’t been feeling well, and I begged off. He had been exceptionally sweet-brought me flowers, cheered me up, tucked me into bed. He had gone off to meet a couple of buddies for dinner and drinks. I had drifted off to sleep that night thinking how incredibly happy I was, how I was finally getting the one thing I had craved my whole life-someone who really loved me.

By the next day, everything had changed.

Fate delivers the ultimate sucker punch.

I took Irina’s digital camera, which I had lifted from her apartment, connected it to my computer with a USB cable, and downloaded everything on it-twenty-two images from her other life, including the snaps I had taken of the screen-saver photos on her computer monitor.

Parties, polo matches, gal pals at the beach. There were a couple of shots of hunky bartender Kayne Jackson shaking up martinis and libidos from behind the bar at Players.

Big Jim Brody in a straw hat and swim trunks, smoking a cigar as he stood on the deck of a swimming pool. I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.

Brody in the same getup with an arm around Lisbeth in a purple bikini, Lisbeth doing her best not to cringe away from him and his big hairy belly. She wore the kind of smile that could have as easily been from gas pains.

Someone had shot a photo of Irina and Lisbeth sitting together shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek on a poolside chaise, each with an umbrella drink in hand, toasting the photographer. They could have been sisters in their matching blond hair, matching dark glasses, matching medallion necklaces, matching smiles. So happy.

Barbaro and a couple of other players in full polo gear, joking around on the sidelines. Bennett Walker raising a glass of champagne. Bennett on a polo pony. Bennett at the swimming pool. One too many photos of Bennett, I thought.

Despite the years I had spent wishing physical deformities on him, he had aged well, I had to admit as I clicked back to the swimsuit photo. He had bulked up with maturity-with muscle, not fat. As a male animal, he had every right to be arrogant. What Female of the species wouldn’t have wanted that body in her bed?

And what husband-hunting temptress wouldn’t have added those looks to the money that backed them up and come up with a prime target? In the crowd that Bennett ran with, the fact that he was already married wouldn’t have necessarily deterred women from trying.

From what I had learned so far, from the profile of Irina that had begun to come together over the past two days, I had to think a wedding ring wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. The thing Irina wouldn’t have been able to compete with was the financial and social clout of Bennett Walker’s in-laws.

Bennett was a very wealthy man in his own right, but there is nothing wealthy men love more than more money. More money, more power. More power, more control of the world around them.

I got up from my chair and paced like a restless cat, stopping every so often to stretch out one knotted muscle and then another.

If Irina went to the after-party, she went fully aware of the nature of the party and the kinds of things that were likely to go on there. One would presume she had every intention of being a willing participant. So why did she end up dead? Was it a case of rough sex gone wrong? Or had one of those men killed her intentionally? Why? For the rush? Had she pissed one of them off? Had Jim Brody wanted to murder a girl for his birthday? Had Bennett Walker lost his temper, lost control?

I sat back down at my desk and made a note: Motive?

What had Bennett’s motive been when he beat and raped Maria Nevin? He didn’t have one. He’d never seen Maria Nevin before that night. He had no reason to attack her specifically.

The bartender at the last club Bennett and his pals had visited testified that Bennett had been drunk, loud, and obnoxious. In his statement to the police, the bartender said that Bennett’s buddies had been ribbing him about getting married, that his skirt-chasing days were over, to which Bennett had replied that he could have any woman he wanted, anytime he wanted.

The bartender had recanted that statement before trial and had watered down the rest of his testimony as badly as he watered down the overpriced drinks at the bar.

But even if the bartender had stuck to his story, nothing said that night could have provided a motive for what happened.

Maria Nevin had initially told the police-and had held to that version of events right up until the day before she was to take the stand-that Bennett had flirted with her. They had danced together, had a drink together. They had gone for a walk on the beach, had sat on the wet sand as the tide went out, had started making out.

A little too intoxicated, Bennett hadn’t been able to sustain an erection. He became angry. He slapped her hard several times. She struggled to get away from him, scratching him in the process. He pinned her down and choked her, achieved an erection, and raped her.

Was that what had happened to Irina?

I didn’t want any of those images in my head.

To distract my mind, I began to organize the paper strewn across my desk. Irina’s e-mails. Some notes I had made while in her apartment caught my eye. The name of a medical clinic. I typed the name of the clinic into Google. The search engine came back with a list of Web sites. I clicked on the first one, and the Web site opened on my screen:

The Lundeen Clinic:

Serving Women in the Palm Beaches Since 1987.

Obstetrics and Gynecology.

I made a note to myself: Motive.