One-Night Alibi

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” the man said.

“Sure.” She led them to her office, which was hardly more than a glorified closet, furnished with a battered wooden desk, an ancient metal file cabinet and two mismatched armchairs. She thought about offering them refreshments. She kept a cooler with water and soft drinks behind her desk and a stash of peanut-butter crackers in a bottom drawer. Often her clients arrived hungry.

But these two cops didn’t look as if they wanted to eat or drink. She sat down behind her desk, and each of them took a chair.

“What can I help you with?” she asked, her stomach tying itself into knots.

They both looked uneasy. “I’m Detective Sanchez,” the woman said, “and this is Detective Knightly.”

“Ms. Downey,” Knightly said, smoothly taking over, “can you tell us where you were Saturday night?”

This did not sound good. It was how the cops began every interview with someone suspected of a crime, at least if she could believe what she saw on TV.

“I was at a friend’s wedding,” she said.

“Until about what time?”

“I’m not sure. Seven? Eight?”

“And then where did you go?”

I went home with a man I just met and had mind-blowing sex. She was so not saying that. “I went home.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.” Lying to cops was getting to be a habit with her.

The two cops exchanged a glance. The woman, Sanchez, took notes.

“C’mon, why are you asking me this?” Elizabeth prodded. “What’s going on?”

“It’s about your father,” Sanchez said. “We found him...well, there’s no easy way to say this. We found him in Lake Conroe.”

“Oh. Oh, Jesus.” Every drop of blood drained from Elizabeth’s head, and she was glad she was already sitting down. “Dead? He was dead?”

“Yes,” Sanchez confirmed. “The M.E. puts his time of death sometime between the hours of 11:00 p.m. Saturday night and 5:00 a.m.”

“My father was murdered?” she asked, just to be sure that she hadn’t misheard something. The reality of those words tasted strangely sour in her mouth. She’d always assumed she’d be indifferent to the man’s death. But hearing the news, she felt an odd sting of sadness.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Sanchez said in a perfunctory way. “His housekeeper told us you were his next of kin.”

She nodded. “What should I do now? Do I need to identify him? Maybe there’s a mistake.” She grabbed on to that thin thread of hope. She wasn’t ready for her father to be dead just yet.

“We identified him through his fingerprints,” Knightly said.

“Oh.” Elizabeth swallowed back tears. Why was she crying? Her father had been a thorn in her side for years now. She hadn’t even spoken to him in months.

“Can anyone verify when you arrived home?” Sanchez asked. Back to business.

She hoped not. “I doubt it. I live in a big building—people come and go a lot.” She paused, then realized where the questions were leading. “You think I had something to do with my father’s murder?”

“These questions are just routine,” Knightly quickly said. “We always check on the whereabouts of family members of any murder victim.”

Any grief Elizabeth might have felt was quickly pushed aside in favor of fear. This was not routine. Anyone close to her or her father—including Mrs. Ames, the housekeeper—knew he and Elizabeth were estranged. She had even taken her mother’s maiden name so that people wouldn’t associate her with him. And now she was a suspect.

And if she gave them Hudson’s name? The one man more likely than she to be the killer. Dear Lord. That was going to look very, very bad.

She shrugged helplessly. Had she used her cell phone that night? No. Her phone had been out of juice, and she’d used Hudson’s landline to call a cab.

“When you went home,” Sanchez asked, “did you make any phone calls, check your email?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. I went to bed with a book.”

“It’s all right,” Knightly said soothingly. “I’m sure there’ll be no problem. Again, we’re sorry for your loss.”

Sanchez didn’t look so sure. She snapped her notebook closed. “I guess that’s all for now. Don’t leave town.”

Elizabeth sighed quietly in relief. Maybe this would all blow over. They’d find who did this, and they wouldn’t scrutinize her any further.

Sanchez stood, but Knightly remained seated, looking troubled. “Ms. Downey, do you know anyone who would want to hurt your father?”

“Detective, my father was a high-powered attorney who made his money by taking advantage of people in vulnerable situations. I imagine many of the people he dealt with hated him. I suggest you look there for a suspect.”

“We’ll do that. Again, sorry for your loss.”

Elizabeth didn’t take another full breath until the detectives were gone. Of all the lousy times for Franklin Mandalay to get himself murdered, why had he done it on the night the two prime suspects had been together?

CHAPTER FOUR

DETECTIVE CARLA SANCHEZ said nothing to her partner until they were back in their silver LTD.

“You went awful easy on her,” Carla said as she slid her key into the ignition and started the engine. She turned the AC on full blast and angled one of the vents on her face. Hot day for October. She wished she’d taken off her jacket, like Knightly had.

“I don’t think she did it,” Knightly said. “Her reaction seemed pretty genuine. Those were real tears.”

“Some people can cry on cue. Especially beautiful women who manipulate people to get their way. Especially if they think they’re going to jail.”

Knightly seemed to mull this over. He opened his notebook and glanced at his notes. “She does have a helluva motive.”

“Yeah, like about seventeen million of them.”

“Do we know for sure she inherits?”

“She’s his only child. Only close relative.”

“Who cut herself off from him and hasn’t accepted a dime from him in seven years. That doesn’t sound like someone motivated by money.”

“You’re letting your gonads sway you. Just because she’s pretty and bats her eyelashes at you doesn’t mean she can’t pull the trigger on a gun.”

Knightly nodded. “Point taken. It’s too early to rule out anyone. But we do have other suspects.”

“You mean Hudson.”

“I know he was your partner, but we have to talk to him.”

“I know.” Carla and Hudson had been partners for a couple of years, and she knew him pretty well. He was smart, and he closed a lot of cases, but he was way too casual about rules like dress codes and properly filling out paperwork. And he was constantly on the prowl for women.

Okay, prowl wasn’t the right word. He was just...aware. He flirted with every female he encountered and made conquests where he could.

Carla was one of those conquests.

After their one night together, he’d been ready to move on. She’d acted as though it was no big deal, but he’d hurt her feelings more than she would ever admit.

Yeah, she knew him pretty well, and though she pretended reluctance, she actually relished the thought of seeing him wiggle helplessly like a worm on a fishhook.

“I hate to even consider a fellow cop,” Knightly said, “but we have to. Two weeks before Mandalay’s death, Vale beat him up. The incident became very public and Mandalay was pressing charges. They go away with him dead.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

Carla well remembered when she’d first met Hudson Vale. She’d been still in uniform. He’d been a green recruit. She’d thought he was the most charming man she’d ever met, not to mention sexy. Drinks after work had led to a crazy backseat encounter. But after that, he hadn’t looked at her twice. She’d watched as he’d moved on to conquest after conquest—that blonde skank from Dispatch, then a stacked redheaded lawyer, then others.

Carla had no longer interested him.

She’d learned to work with him, even considered him a friend. But she hadn’t forgotten.

“We might as well go question him now,” Knightly said.

“Not if you’re going soft on him. I don’t want anyone accusing us of taking it easy on him just because he’s one of us.” She tried not to smile.

“Not soft, but I hope he has an alibi.” Knightly opened his window. “Damn, Sanchez, you got it like a meat locker in here. You know that air-conditioning dries out my contacts, right?”

“Not too many people have an alibi for the middle of the night. I mean, most people go home and go to sleep, and who can verify that?”

“Huh. When was the last time you think Hudson Vale spent a Saturday night alone? Sleeping?”

“Good point,” Carla conceded. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Exactly,” Knightly agreed.

* * *

HUDSON WASN’T USED to having so much leisure time. His first two weeks on suspension, he’d painted his house, sealed his deck, washed his car twice and made repairs to the dock.

Yesterday, Sunday, he’d been in a blue funk. Between thinking about the burglar he’d almost shot, and the abrupt disappearance of Liz early that morning, he hadn’t summoned enough energy to do more than stare out at a great blue heron fishing along the lakeshore.

That Monday morning, he’d started in on gardening.

Not really his thing. Usually he trimmed a few bushes, kept the lawn mowed, raked leaves in the fall, and that was it.

A car had turned down his street; Hudson recognized the growl of a powerful engine, and knew almost before he turned his head that a police vehicle was coming his way. A silver LTD. Were they coming to arrest him?

Hudson’s stomach whooshed even as he straightened and arranged his face into a neutral expression. He’d known this might happen. His word against that of a powerful, rich attorney, and the only witness to the incident, Jazz the prostitute, couldn’t be found.

He relaxed slightly when he recognized his partner, Carla Sanchez, get out of the passenger side. He and Carla weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy with each other. They would never be drinking buddies or confidants. But she was smart, and he felt certain she had his back.

He tensed when he saw whom she was with. Todd Knightly, Mr. Rules-and-Regulations. Were they partners now? Did that mean Knightly was working Major Crimes?

Hudson tried to read their faces. Sanchez had her best poker face on. She wasn’t giving him a clue. Knightly had a determined glint in his eye, but also appeared slightly worried.

“Mornin’,” Hudson greeted them in his best good-old-boy demeanor. He stood up and brushed the dirt from the knees of his jeans, expecting Sanchez to make some crack about his disreputable appearance. She was always giving him grief about the way he dressed. She thought his loud Hawaiian shirts were juvenile.

She said nothing.

Last he heard, Carla hadn’t believed Mandalay’s story about an unprovoked assault. Had something changed her mind?

“I’m guessing,” he said, “this isn’t a social call.”

Knightly didn’t engage in any small talk. He never did. When he was on duty, he was all work, all the time. “Vale, where were you Saturday night between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning?”

The question actually brought to mind a series of very pleasant memories. “I was here. At home.” Though the evening hadn’t ended as he’d wished, he couldn’t help a slight smile as he recalled the beautiful siren who had shared his bed two nights ago.

“Alone?” Knightly said.

“As a matter of fact, no.”

Knightly cut his eyes toward Carla and nodded, as if saying, I told you so. He took out his notebook. “Can you give me the name and contact information of the person or persons you were with?”

“Come on, what is this?” Hudson asked impatiently.

“Just cooperate, for once,” Carla said.

Perspiration broke out on Hudson’s forehead. Something was really wrong here. “Liz. Her name was Liz.”

“Last name?”

Hudson rubbed his chin. “Ah, there’s the problem. I didn’t get a last name.”

“Typical,” Sanchez muttered.

Knightly ignored her. “How can we find this woman?”

“She’s a friend of a friend. Of a friend. I’m sure I can track her down if there’s a need. But might I ask why there’s a need? Last I heard, I was off duty Saturday night. A guy is allowed to have a little fun, isn’t he?”

“Franklin Mandalay.” Knightly watched Hudson carefully, as if expecting some kind of reaction.

“Jeez, what’s that bastard accused me of now?”

“He didn’t accuse you of anything,” Sanchez said. “He’s dead. From a bullet through the heart.”

“Dead?” He waited for someone to burst out laughing. Nobody did. “Holy crap, you’re serious.”

“He was found in the lake,” Sanchez said.

Hudson immediately went into detective mode. “Time of death?”

“This isn’t your case,” Knightly said. “We’ll ask the questions. You provide the answers.”

Hudson sighed. Knightly had been watching too many episodes of Dragnet. “You can’t honestly think I had anything to do with it.”

“You had a beef with him,” Sanchez said. “His body was found less than two miles from your house. And you don’t have an alibi.”

“I do have an alibi.”

“Whose name you’ve conveniently forgotten. Do you take so many women to bed that—”

“Her name is Liz.” Wow, Sanchez was certainly in a mood. So much for having his back. “I met her at a party. We came back here. She stayed until about four, then she had to leave because she worked in the morning.” That was sort of the truth.

“What kind of car did she drive?” Knightly asked, all business.

Sanchez, on the other hand, was getting personal. Years ago, long before they’d been partners, they’d slept together. Once. She’d wanted more; he’d realized it was a mistake. She’d been angry at the time but claimed to have put the matter behind her. Still, she never missed an opportunity to rag on him for his “indiscriminate sleeping habits,” as she called them.

“We took my car,” Hudson explained. “And she took a taxi home. Look, I’ll ask around, track her down. Give me a day or two. If I can’t find her, break out the rubber hoses and the hot lights and have at me.”

“In a day or two you could be on the other side of the world,” Sanchez said.

Knightly shook his head. “He isn’t going to run, Carla, or he would have done it already. He had to have known he’d be a suspect.”

“I didn’t know anything until five minutes ago,” Hudson couldn’t help but point out.

Knightly took off his mirrored sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Vale, we have to clear you from the suspect list. You understand that, right? People are going to ask questions, and we’ll have to have good, solid evidence that you couldn’t have done this. Give us a real alibi and we’ll get our job done.”

Hudson nodded. “I totally get that. And I will find the mystery woman. So unless you’re prepared to arrest me on the spot, y’all best back off and let me get to work.”

Knightly considered him for a few more seconds. “All right. Two days.” He turned and strode back to the car, jerking the driver’s door open.

“Hey, Sanchez,” Hudson said softly as his former partner turned away. “How long did it take for them to promote Knightly into my job?”

She lowered her voice. “The transfer to Major Crimes was already in the works. I requested to work with him. He might be a little humorless, but he’s a good cop. He knows the law. He follows protocol.”

Hudson knew he’d just been put down. But now was not the time or place to argue.

“You better go, before Mr. Rules-and-Regulations reports you for consorting with a suspect.”

“If I were you, I’d forget about Knightly and focus on finding the girl. If she exists.”

Hudson’s jaw dropped as Sanchez slid into the passenger seat. Did his own partner actually think he might have killed a man? Did she actually prefer working with that pompous ass?

Knightly had about a year’s seniority over Hudson. In fact, when Hudson had first made detective—assigned to juvie and missing persons—Knightly had shown him the ropes with a sort of big-brother attitude that was only slightly annoying. Hudson had assumed he was well-meaning.

But after a few months, Hudson had realized that Knightly relished his superior attitude. He had the state and local penal codes memorized word for word and wouldn’t hesitate to complain to the lieutenant if he thought any of his colleagues weren’t following the rules. He always wore a suit with razor-creased pants. He was always perfectly clean-shaven, his head freshly shaved every day to minimize the impact of his receding hairline.

When a position opened up on the Major Crimes squad, both Knightly and Hudson were considered. When Hudson got the nod, Knightly congratulated him and appeared to be a good sport, but Hudson always suspected Knightly felt cheated.

Hudson took a deep breath to steady himself. He couldn’t afford to let emotion cloud his thinking. This had gone way beyond salvaging his career. He was now a murder suspect.

His story about a woman with no last name who’d disappeared into the night with no trace did sound fishy. Hudson wouldn’t have bought it if some other suspect had told it to him during an investigation.

But she was real. He simply had to find her and get her to make a statement to the police. It might be embarrassing for her. But even as little as he knew about her, he believed she would do the right thing. She wouldn’t let him swing in the wind to save herself a little embarrassment. Or a lot of embarrassment if she turned out to be in a relationship. Which, he realized, he really hoped she wasn’t...and not just to make his alibi stronger.

Liz was a friend of Jillian’s. He didn’t have Jillian’s number, but Claudia would have it. Or someone at Project Justice, where she worked, would know how to get in touch with her. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Claudia, but only reached her voice mail, which meant she was probably in a session. He told her succinctly what he was looking for, confident his problems would soon be solved.

Thirty minutes later she returned his call. By then, he was sitting on his deck with a can of Mountain Dew in his hand, trying his best to let the view of the lake calm his nerves.

“I can give you Jillian’s number, but it won’t do you much good,” Claudia said. “She’s on her honeymoon.”

Crap. He could still try to call her. Maybe she would answer. It wasn’t cool to bother someone on their honeymoon, but getting Liz’s contact information would take only a couple of seconds.

Claudia already knew what he was thinking. “Even if you called her, it’s doubtful she’d pick up. They went to Patagonia.”

Double crap. “The only thing I really know about her is that she’s a social worker, and she works at a clinic of some kind. I guess I could call every clinic in the city and ask for her.” But if that was his only recourse—

“You should talk to Mitch.”

“Delacroix? The computer hacker at Project Justice?”

“We don’t call him that. He’s a computer data analyst. Tell him everything you know about Liz. Anything at all you remember. I bet he can find her for you in less than an hour. You’ve helped out Project Justice in the past. Now let them help you.”

* * *

IT TOOK LESS than an hour. In fact, it only took about seven minutes. With some prodding, Hudson had remembered that Liz had said free clinic. That narrowed down the possibilities considerably. With a little bit of fancy online footwork, Mitch had come up with three urban clinics in the Houston area with employees named Elizabeth.

Hudson decided to visit them in person, rather than try to get Liz on the phone. As skittish as she was—and as angry as she’d been with him when she’d fled his house—she might refuse his call or try to make him think she was the wrong Elizabeth. It would be easier to confront her in person and convince her she needed to come forward with her statement.

With addresses for the three clinics in hand, Hudson set out to find his alibi. It took a few minutes for him to realize that the tightness in his chest had little to do with his thorny predicament, and almost everything to do with the fact he couldn’t wait to see Liz again. He only wished his excuse for tracking her down wasn’t what it was.

Houston City Clinic was the first stop. It was a depressing storefront office crowded between a run-down bodega on one side and a pawn shop on the other. Hudson had a hard time picturing Liz spending every day at a place like this. It would say something about her character if she wanted to help people that badly.

He walked through the crowded waiting room, filled with snuffling adults, screaming toddlers and feverish babies and thanked God for the great health coverage he got through the sheriff’s department.

At least, for a while longer.

“Excuse me,” he asked the harried receptionist, “I’d like to see Elizabeth, please.”

“If you mean Dr. Eliza Eldridge, that’s you and everybody else in here.” She looked him up and down. He’d put on some decent-looking khaki pants and a polo shirt, wanting to appear his best when he encountered Liz again. He supposed he looked a little too well-heeled to be patronizing a free clinic, but people could fall into unfortunate circumstances anytime.

Or maybe the receptionist had simply pegged him as a cop. Some people had a sixth sense when it came to spotting law enforcement.

“Take a number,” the woman said.

“Maybe you can help me.”

“No cutting in line,” she said without looking up. “Take a number.”

“I just want to ask a question. Is Dr. Eldridge a tall brunette with dark blue eyes?”

“She’s five foot two with brown eyes and a ’fro.”

“Then I have the wrong Elizabeth. Thank you for your time.”

She didn’t look up.

One down, two to go.

The second clinic was in a better neighborhood. But it shared the same air of hopelessness as the first. “Elizabeth” was easy to find; she actually worked at the front desk, according to a nameplate. She wasn’t Liz, either.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a friendly smile.

“Are you Elizabeth?” he asked, just to be sure. Liz had said she was a social worker, not a receptionist, but he had to be thorough.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“No other Elizabeths work here?”

“No, just me,” the pretty Latina woman said, still smiling. “You aren’t a bill collector, are you? ’Cause I made my car payment yesterday.”

He smiled back. “No, nothing like that. Just trying to find an old friend.”

“Good luck.”

One to go. His heart lifted as he turned into the parking lot of the third clinic, Los Amigos Family Clinic. Despite the sadly depressed condition of the neighborhood overall, this clinic was clean and bright, and the entire block on which it sat was free from trash and graffiti. The small, freestanding building was painted in bright colors, and the windows were clean. A sign in the window advertised Free Flu Shots.

Inside was bright and fresh, too. There was still a crowd of people waiting for care, but they didn’t seem quite as desperate as the patients at the other clinics.

The receptionist sat behind a glass partition. Hudson rang the bell, and the frosted-glass door slid open. A young man in a nicely pressed shirt greeted him with a polite smile. “Help you?”

“I’d like to see Elizabeth, please.”

“I’m so sorry—Ms. Downey had to cancel her appointments today. She had a death in her family.”

“Oh, no, that’s terrible.” Hudson’s heart went out to Liz. He wanted to be there for her, to comfort her, give her a shoulder to cry on. Which was ridiculous, because he barely knew her. “Just to be clear, is this Elizabeth tall with dark hair and dark blue eyes?”

The young man nodded. “That’s her. Can I give her a message?”

“I don’t suppose you could give me a phone number, could you?”

“Ah, no. We can’t give out our employees’ personal—”

“Yeah, no, I get it. That’s okay.” He had a last name now. Downey. If nothing else, Mitch could find a phone number and home address. For that matter, he could tell Sanchez, and she could track Liz down. But he’d much rather talk to Liz first.