The Alibi Man

Chapter 56

I had already started walking back to my car by the time Landry called to ask for Irina’s phone number. What a Perry Mason moment that would be, I thought, showing the victim’s found cell phone to her killer’s attorney. Aside from the obvious incriminatory value of the phone being at the house, there would very likely be photographs from the evening’s festivities stored in the phone’s memory.

I hoped Landry had that moment of victory right in front of my father.

Bang, bang, Daddy. There goes another nail in Bennett’s coffin.

He would probably mourn the loss of Bennett going to prison more than he had ever mourned the loss of me walking out on the family. And why not? Bennett was the son he should have been able to sire for himself: handsome, intelligent, ruthless, without conscience. A chip off the old block.

That was what my marriage to Bennett would have meant to my father: that he gained Bennett as a son-in-law. My happiness was irrelevant to him. I had been a means to an end. He should have thanked me for leaving. With me out of the picture, he had Bennett all to himself.

Now he would see Bennett on visiting days in the state penitentiary. Provided my father didn’t get him off. There was no doubt that he would call into question every scrap of state’s evidence. He would cast a shadow of doubt over every aspect of the investigation. I fully expected him to try to throw me under the bus, imply I had somehow interfered with the investigation.

Even as the thought occurred to me, a chill went down my back. Landry had called me for Irina’s number. If he had done that in front of my father, I could already hear the spin on the woman-scorned excuse. He would have me planting Irina’s phone in Bennett’s house, then telling Landry where to find it.

Before it was all over, he would have the jury believing I had killed Irina for the sole purpose of setting Bennett up, or out of a jealous rage that Bennett was with my groom or that my groom was with Bennett. He had already impugned my mental stability, why not take a crack at my sexuality as well?

I could see the tall, gangly kid still working the valet stand on his own as I retrieved my car from the lower parking lot. His friend Jeff the Weasel was probably off selling his story to the National Enquirer: I parked for a killer.

There was no sign of Barbaro’s car. Was he even at that moment sitting in an interview room in Robbery/Homicide, laying out his latest truth of what had happened the night Irina died?

“I saw Beth-Lisbeth… ”he’d said.

Beth.

I wondered.

To I. From B…?

A little sterling silver heart on a charm bracelet. Something sweet, innocent, touching.

It was none of my business. I just felt bad for Lisbeth, that was all. She’d lost her best friend. She felt alone and afraid. I had never been as innocent as I suspected Lisbeth was before she came to South Florida, but I knew what it was to feel abandoned.

My God, Elena, are you in danger of growing a heart?

I certainly hoped not. No good could come of it.

Sean’s house was dark. He’d gone off to one of the Disease du Jour charity balls that dominated the season. I went into the cottage wondering what to do with myself for the rest of the night.

The question was answered for me as I turned on the lights and found Alexi Kulak standing there waiting for me, gun in hand.

“Shouldn’t we be past this by now?” I asked.

Kulak was unamused. He came toward me, pointing the gun in my face, backing me up, as I had backed him up the night before.

The cold kiss of steel touched my forehead as I backed into the wall. He stepped so close in I could feel the heat of his body, smell his sweat. His eyes were wide and glassy. The pupils pinpoints of black.

“Now you find out,” he said in a low voice, “what happens to women who betray me.”