A is for ALIBI Page 6

  “Oh no.” I laughed, still trying to catch my breath. “I don’t want to get sweat all over your seats.”

  “Can I follow you back to your place?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I thought I’d be especially winsome so you wouldn’t put me on your ‘possibly guilty’ list.”

  “Won’t help. I’m suspicious of everyone.”

  When I came out of the shower and stuck my head around the bathroom door, Scorsoni was looking at the books stacked up on my desk. “Did you have time to search through the drawers?” I asked.

  He smiled benignly. “They were locked.”

  I smiled and closed the bathroom door again, getting dressed. I noticed that I was pleased to see him and that didn’t sit well with me. I’m a real hard-ass when it comes to men. I don’t often think of a forty-eight-year-old man as “cute” but that’s how he struck me. He was big and his hair had a nice curl to it, his rimless glasses making his blue eyes look almost luminous. The dimple in his chin didn’t hurt either.

  I left the bathroom, moving toward the kitchenette in my bare, feet. “Want a beer?”

  He was sitting on the couch by then, leafing through a book about auto theft. “Very literate taste,” he said. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

  “I have to be somewhere at six,” I said.

  “Beer’s fine then.”

  I uncapped it and handed it to him, sitting down at the other end of the couch with my feet tucked up under me. “You must have left the office early. I’m flattered.”

  “I’ll go back tonight. I have to go out of town for a couple of days and I’ll have to get my briefcase packed, tidy up some loose ends for Ruth.”

  “Why take time out for me?”

  Scorsoni gave me a quizzical smile with the barest hint of irritation. “God, so defensive. Why not take time out for you? If Nikki didn’t kill Laurence, I’m as interested as anyone in finding out who did it, that’s all.”

  “You don’t believe she’s innocent for a minute,” I said.

  “I believe you believe it,” he said.

  I looked at him carefully. “I can’t give you information. I hope you understand that. I could use any help you’ve got and if you have a brainstorm, I’d love to hear it, but it can’t be a two-way street.”

  “You want to lecture an attorney about client privilege, is that it? Jesus Christ, Millhone. Give me a break.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” I said. I looked down at his big hands and then up at his face again. “I just didn’t want my brain picked, that’s all.”

  His expression relaxed and his smile was lazy. “You said you didn’t know anything anyway,” he pointed out, “so what’s to pick? You’re such a goddamn grouch.”

  I smiled then. “Listen, I don’t know what my chances are on this thing. I don’t have a feel for it yet and it’s making me nervous.”

  “Yeah and you’ve been working on it ��� what ��� two days?”

  “About that.”

  “Then give yourself a break while you’re at it.” He took a sip of beer and then with a small tap set the bottle on the coffee table. “I wasn’t very honest with you yesterday,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “Libby Glass. I did know who she was and I suspected that he was into some kind of relationship with her. I just didn’t think it was any of your business.”

  “I don’t see how it could make any difference at this point,” I said.

  “That’s what I decided. And maybe it’s important to your case ��� who knows? I think since he died, I’ve tended to invest him with a purity he never really had. He played around a lot. But his taste usually ran to the moneyed class. Older women. Those slim elegant ones who marry aristocracy.”

  “What was Libby like?”

  “I don’t really know. I ran into her a couple of times when she was setting up our tax account. She seemed nice enough. Young. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six.”

  “Did he tell you he was having an affair with her?”

  “Oh no, not him. I never knew him to kiss and tell.”

  “A real gentleman,” I said.

  Scorsoni shot me a warning look.

  “I’m not being facetious,” I said hastily. “I’ve heard he kept his mouth shut about the women in his life. That’s all I meant.”

  “Yeah, he did. He played everything close to his chest.

  That’s what made him a good attorney too. He never tipped his hand, never telegraphed. The last six months before he died, he was odd though, protective. There were times when I almost thought he wasn’t well, but it wasn’t physical. It was some kind of psychic pain, if you’ll excuse the phrase.”

  “You had drinks with him that night, didn’t you?”

  “We had dinner. Down at the Bistro. Nikki was off someplace and we played racquetball and then had a bite to eat. He was fine as far as I could tell.”

  “Did he have the allergy medication with him then?”

  Scorsoni shook his head. “He wasn’t much for pills anyway. Tylenol if he had a headache, but that was rare. Even Nikki admitted that he took the allergy cap after he got home. It had to be someone who had access to that.

  “Had Libby Glass been up here?”

  “Not for business as far as I know. She might have come up to see him but he never said anything to me. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking that somebody might have dosed them both somehow at the same time. She didn’t die until four days later but that’s not hard to explain if the caps were self-administered.”

  “I never heard much about her death. I don’t even think it hit the papers here. He was down in Los Angeles though, I do know that. About a week and a half before he died.”

  “That’s interesting. I’m going down there anyway. Maybe I can check that out.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I better let you go,” he said, getting up. I got up and ambled to the door with him, oddly reluctant to see him go.

  “How’d you lose the weight?” I said.

  “What, this?” he asked, slapping his midsection. He leaned toward me slightly as though he meant to confide some incredible regimen of denial and self-abuse.

  “I gave up candy bars. I used to keep ‘em in my desk drawer,” he murmured conspiratorially. “Snickers and Three Musketeers, Hershey’s Kisses, with the silver wrappers and the little paper wick at the top? A hundred a day.”

  I could feel a laugh bubble up because his tone was caressing and he sounded like he was confessing to a secret addiction to wearing panty hose. Also because I knew if I turned my face, I’d be closer to him than I thought I could cope with at that point.

  “Mars Bars? Baby Ruths?” I said.

  “All the time,” he said. I could almost feel the heat of his face and I slid a look up at him sideways. He laughed at himself then, breaking the spell, and his eyes held mine only a little longer than they should. “I’ll see you,” he said.

  We shook hands as he left. I didn’t know why ��� maybe just an excuse to touch. Even a contact that casual made the hairs stand up along my arm. My early-warning system was clanging away like crazy and I wasn’t sure how to interpret it. It’s the same sensation I have sometimes on the twenty-first floor when I open a window ��� a terrible attraction to the notion of tumbling out. I go a long time between men and maybe it was time again. Not good, I thought, not good.

  Chapter 8

  *

  When I pulled up in front of K-9 Korners at 6:00, Gwen was just locking up. I rolled down my car window and leaned across the seat. “You want to go in my car?”

  “I better follow you,” she said. “Do you know where the Palm Garden is? Is that all right with you?”

  “Sure, that’s fine.”

  She moved off toward the parking lot and a minute later she pulled out of the driveway in a bright yellow Saab. The restaurant was only a few blocks away a
nd we pulled into the parking lot side by side. She had stripped off her smock and was brushing haphazardly at the lap of her skirt.

  “Pardon the dog hair,” she said. “Usually I head straight for a bath.”

  The Palm Garden is located in the heart of Santa Teresa, tucked back into a shopping complex, with tables outside and the requisite palms in big wooden tubs. We found a small table off to one side and I ordered white wine while she ordered Perrier.

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Not much. I gave that up when I got divorced. Before that I was knocking back a lot of Scotch. How’s your case?”

  “It’s hard to tell at this point,” I said. “How long have you been in the doggrooming business?”

  “Longer than I’d like,” she said and laughed.

  We talked for a while about nothing in particular. I wanted time to study her, hoping to figure out what she and Nikki Fife had in common that both of them had ended up married to him. It was she who brought the conversation back around to the subject at hand. “So fire away,” she said.

  I curtsied mentally. She was very deft, making my job much easier than I’d thought she would. “I didn’t think you’d be so cooperative.

  “You’ve been talking to Charlie Scorsoni,” she said.

  “It seemed like a logical place to start,” I said with a shrug. “Is he on your list?”

  “Of people who might have killed Laurence? No. I don’t think so. Am I on his?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s odd,” she said.

  “How so?”

  She tilted her head, her expression composed. “He thinks I’m bitter. I’ve heard it from a lot of different sources. Small town. If you wait long enough, anyone’s opinion about you will be reported back.”

  “It sounds like you’d be entitled to a little bitterness.”

  “I worked that through a long time ago. By the way, this is where you can reach Greg and Diane if you’re interested.” She pulled an index card out of her purse with the two names, addresses, and telephone numbers.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. Any advice about how they should be approached? I was serious when I said I didn’t want to upset them.”

  “No, no. They’re straight shooters, both of them. If anything, you might find them a little too up front.”

  “I understand they haven’t kept in touch with Nikkie.”

  “Probably not, but that’s too bad. Old business. I’d much rather see them let that go. She was very good to them.” She reached back then and pulled the scarf out of her hair, shaking her hair slightly so that it would fall loose. It was shoulderlength, an interesting shade of gray that I didn’t imagine had been tampered with. The contrast was nice… gray hair, brown eyes. She had strong cheekbones, nice lines around her mouth, good teeth, a tan that suggested health without vanity.

  “What did you think of Nikki?” I asked, now that the subject had been broached.

  “I’m not really sure. I mean, I resented the hell out of her back then but I’d like to talk to her sometime. I feel like we might understand each other a lot better. You want to know why I married him?”

  “I’d be interested in that.”

  “He had a big cock,” she said impishly and then laughed. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist that. Actually he was awful in the sack. A regular screwing machine. Terrific if you like your sex depersonalized.”

  “I’m not crazy about that kind myself,” I said dryly.

  “Neither was I when I figured it out. I was a virgin when I married him.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “That’s a bore.”

  “It was an even bigger bore back then but it was all part of the message I was raised on. I always thought the failure was mine in terms of our sex life.” She trailed off and the faintest tint came to her cheeks.

  “Until what,” I ventured.

  “Maybe I should have wine too,” she said and signaled to the waitress. I ordered a second glass. Gwen turned to me.

  “I had an affair when I turned thirty.”

  “Shows you had some sense.”

  “Well yes and no. It only lasted about six weeks but it was the best six weeks of my life. In a way, I was glad to see it end. It was powerful stuff and it would have turned my life around. I wasn’t ready for that.” She paused and I could see her reviewing the information in her head. “Laurence was always very critical of me and I believed I deserved it. Then I ran into a man who thought I could do no wrong. At first I resisted. I knew what I was feeling for this man but it went against the grain. Finally I just gave in. For a while I told myself it was good for my relationship with Laurence. I was suddenly getting something I’d needed for a long time and it made me feel very giving with him. And then the double life began to take its toll. I deceived Laurence for as long as I could but he began to suspect something was going on. I got so I couldn’t tolerate his touch ��� too much tension, too much deceit. Too much good stuff somewhere else. He must have felt the change come over me because he began to probe and question, wanted to know where I was every minute of the day. Called at odd hours in the afternoon and of course I was out. Even when I was with Laurence, I was somewhere else. He threatened me with divorce and I got scared so I confessed up. That was the biggest mistake of my life because he divorced me anyway.”

  “As punishment.”

  “As only Laurence Fife knew how. In spades.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “My lover? Why do you ask?”

  Her tone was instantly guarded, her expression wary.

  “Laurence must have known who he was. If he was punishing you, why not punish the other guy too?”

  “I don’t want to cast suspicion on him,” she said. “That would be a lousy thing to do. He had nothing to do with Laurence’s death. I’ll give you a written guarantee.”

  “What makes you so sure? A lot of people were mistaken about a lot of things back then and Nikki paid a price for it.”

  “Hey,” she said sharply, “Nikki was represented by the best lawyer in the state. Maybe she got a few bad breaks and maybe not, but there’s no point in trying to lay the blame on someone who had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m not trying to blame anyone. I’m just trying to come up with a direction on this thing. I can’t force you to tell me who he is.”

  “That’s right and I think you’d have a hell of a time finding out from anyone else.”

  “Look, I’m not here to pick a fight. I’m sorry. Skip that for now.”

  Two patches of red appeared on her neck. She was fighting back anger, trying to get control of herself again. I thought, for a moment, she would bolt.

  “I’m not going to press the point,” I said. “That’s a whole separate issue and I came here to talk to you. You don’t want to talk about that then it’s fine with me.”

  She still seemed poised for flight so I shut my mouth and let her work it out for herself. Finally I could see her relax a little and I realized then that I was as tense as she. This was too valuable a contact for me to blow.

  “Let’s go back to Laurence. Tell me about him,” I said. “What were all the infidelities about?”

  She laughed selfconsciously then and took a sip of wine, shaking her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset but you took me by surprise.”

  “Yeah, well that happens now and then. Sometimes I surprise myself.”

  “I don’t think he liked women. He was always expecting to be betrayed. Women were the people who did you in. He liked to get there first, or at least that’s my guess. I suspect an affair for him was always a power relationship and he was top dog.

  “‘Do unto others before they do unto you.’”

  “Right.”

  “But who had an ax to grind with him? Who could have hated him that much?”

  She shrugged and her composure seemed restored. “I’ve thought about that all afternoon and what’s odd is that when it comes right down to it, I’m not sure. He had awful r
elationships with a lot of people. Divorce attorneys are never very popular, but most of them don’t get murdered.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t related to business,” I suggested. “Maybe it wasn’t an irate husband pissed off about alimony and child support. Maybe it was something else ��� ‘a woman scorned.”’

  “Well there were a lot of those. But I think he was probably very slick about breaking things off. Or the women themselves were sufficiently recovered to recognize the limits of the relationship and move on. He did have an awful affair with the wife of a local judge, a woman named Charlotte Mercer. She’d have run him down in the street given half a chance. Or that’s what I’ve heard since. She wasn’t the type to let go gracefully.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  “She called me up after he broke off with her.”

  “Before your divorce or afterwards?”

  “Oh afterwards, because I remember thinking at the time that I wished she’d called sooner. I went into court with nothing.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What good would it have done? You couldn’t have gotten him on adultery even back then.”

  “He didn’t get me on that either but it sure would have given me a psychological edge. I felt so guilty about what I’d done that I hardly put up a fight except when it came to the kids, and even then he beat me down. If she’d wanted to cause trouble, she could have been a big help. He still had his reputation to protect. Anyway, maybe Charlotte Mercer can fill you in.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll tell her she’s my number-one suspect.”

  Gwen laughed. “Feel free to mention my name if she wants to know who sent you. It’s the least I can do.”

  After Gwen left, I looked up Charlotte Mercer’s address in the telephone book by the pay phone in the rear. She and the judge lived up in the foothills above Santa Teresa in what turned out to be a sprawling one-story house with stables off to the right, the land all dust and scrub brush. The sun was just beginning to go down and the view was spectacular. The ocean looked like a wide lavender ribbon stitched up against a pink-and-blue sky.

  A housekeeper in a black uniform answered the bell and I was left in a wide cool hallway while “the missus” was fetched. Light footsteps approached from the rear of the house and I thought at first the Mercers’ teenage daughter (if there was one) had appeared in Charlotte’s place.