Secret Alibi

by Lori L. Harris

  His mouth tightened. Jack had yet to take a sip of coffee, and she suspected that he’d poured it only to give the illusion that they were two people having a conversation. But that’s where the illusion started and stopped, she realized, wondering why she hadn’t sensed it earlier with Detective Fitz.

  What Fitz had labeled an informal, fact-gathering interview had deteriorated into something more intense. More uncomfortable for her. Had the police found something that led them to believe Dan’s death wasn’t suicide? Did they think she was somehow involved? She almost wanted to laugh at the idea. Great. She’d gone from terrorized to paranoid in a matter of seconds.

  “Was he alone when you spoke to him?”

  Leaning back, Lexie folded her arms. “I don’t know. He was text messaging me.”

  “Did you erase his messages?”

  “No.” She dug the phone out of her purse and placed it on the table in front of her. “I usually make notes of important calls when I get home at night.”

  “May I look?”

  She slid the phone across to him, and then watched as he manipulated the buttons. After several moments, he turned the screen and held it up for her to see.

  Anniversary surprise stop by drink.

  “That was the first one,” she said.

  “Wedding anniversary, I assume?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  He looked at the phone again, though she suspected he really didn’t need to.

  “The call came in at ten-fifteen. Where were you when you received it?”

  “Dinner.”

  “Kinda late for dinner. Were you alone?”

  “It was a business dinner. At Baldacci’s. My guests were Drs. Rafferty, Lemon and Lattimer. We were discussing a new drug, one that I rep. The reservation was for eight o’clock. We finished up a little before eleven.”

  “Eleven,” he repeated. He hit a few more keys and again turned the screen so she could see it.

  paprs signd last dink

  “This one came in at 11:05. Were you still at the restaurant?”

  She shook her head. “I had just arrived home.”

  “Alone?”

  The question bothered her. Perhaps because of what had happened between them two months ago, and what she sensed to be the underlying suggestion that she often spent the night with near-strangers.

  “Very alone.”

  If she hadn’t been watching his face closely, she wouldn’t have seen the barely perceptible tightening of his mouth and the infinitesimal narrowing of his eyes.

  He nodded. “So why don’t you tell me more about these property settlement papers? Was your divorce not final?”

  Again, she sensed a hidden question—had Lexie been married when they’d slept together?

  “The divorce was final six months ago. However, there was a problem with the paperwork, something fairly minor that only recently came to light. Dan took advantage of it, though, and filed an appeal of the original settlement, claiming that the division of property hadn’t been equitable, and that he should retain possession of this house.”

  “And you didn’t agree?”

  “No. The house belonged to my grandparents and had been willed to me nearly a year before Dan and I married. Besides, he didn’t really want the house. He hated it. He just wanted to drag things out.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “This wasn’t the first time he claimed to have signed the documents,” she said.

  Instead of commenting, Jack punched more keys. He held up the phone.

  Pick up tnight or brn them n house

  “Where were you when this came in?”

  “At home. I was still sitting in my car, debating what I should do.”

  “Did you believe that he might actually burn the papers and the house?”

  “Dan never threatened. He warned of consequences.”

  “So you thought him capable?”

  “Of burning the papers?” She glanced away. “Yes. I thought him capable.”

  “And the house?”

  She rubbed her forehead. The headache really pounded now, making it difficult to think.

  “Lexie, did you think he might burn the house?”

  She shoved the hair that had fallen forward off her face as she looked up, meeting his gaze. “Intentionally? No. Accidentally? Maybe. If he’d been drinking,” she admitted.

  “Did he have a drinking problem?”

  She fiddled with the charm bracelet again, her fingers automatically searching out and finding the smooth, heart-shaped locket. “Not as far as he was concerned.”

  Once again, Jack’s eyes narrowed, but this time that wasn’t the only change. It was like watching an approaching tornado, the clear skies of a summer afternoon suddenly turning dark and lethal. Treacherous and unpredictable.

  And in that moment, it hit Lexie that she wasn’t being paranoid earlier. Jack did think she might somehow be involved. Probably Detective Fitz did, too. How had she not picked up on it sooner?

  Without saying a word, Jack got up and left the room briefly. When he came back, he had a cell phone encased in a plastic bag, the inside of which was smeared with blood. He wasn’t alone this time, either. A Hispanic man followed him in, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt printed with CRIME SCENE, but stopped just inside the door.

  This time Jack didn’t sit down. Deep Water’s police chief held up the phone, as he had the last one.

  Silently, she read the screen: Don’t drink with murderers

  “Care to explain that?”

  She realized that if they’d been looking for motive, she’d given them several in a matter of minutes. Her ex-husband was bullying her on a property settlement. He’d threatened to burn a house that she obviously wanted enough to fight him for. And then there was the most damning reason—the one they didn’t even know about yet.

  “Lexie?” There was menace in Jack’s tone.

  She lifted her eyes to his but remained mute. Should she ask to see an attorney? No one had read her her rights yet. Didn’t they have to do that? Wasn’t anything she said up until now inadmissible in court?

  Jack punched more buttons, held the phone up yet again. F off

  “Were you angry?”

  “Irritated. And…” Lexie closed her mouth, worried that her response would be misinterpreted.

  Jack placed the phone on the table in front of her, the screen still lit and the words still there. The smeared blood on the inside of the bag blurred the screen. She looked away, her gaze stumbling onto Jack’s as he watched her.

  “You don’t believe Dan’s death to be a suicide?” Her voice was pitched lower than usual. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her. Lexie looked toward the Hispanic man, who hadn’t moved. “Do you?”

  Jack’s voice came as if from a distance. “It’s up to the medical examiner to make that determination. Our job is to do a thorough investigation in the meantime. Anytime there is a questionable death, we have to approach it as if it’s a homicide.”

  She didn’t believe him. Maybe they had to wait on the official word, but her gut told her they were already building a case. Against her.

  “Would you be willing to submit to a gunpowder residue test? Just to help rule yourself out?”

  Lexie sat there for several seconds, weighing the request. She was really and truly screwed, wasn’t she? If Dan hadn’t killed himself—if he had instead been murdered—no one would buy her innocence, would they? She had opportunity and more than enough motive. And now they would have a residual test?

  She stood slowly, her gaze moving from the man who waited near the door—the reason for his presence now obvious—to the man in front of her, who stood between her and the back door.

  “It would be a waste of time,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I spent part of my afternoon at the gun range, trying out a new pistol.”

  Chapter Three

  Jack di
dn’t say anything for several moments, but then he didn’t need to. The look in his eyes, though quickly concealed, was all the proof she needed. Jack Blade—a man she had slept with and still dreamed about some nights—actually thought her capable of murder.

  “Any witnesses to that?”

  “Two or three.” She cast a quick glance in the direction of the crime scene officer. Fitz had returned and now stood next to him. Great. Just what she needed, a bigger audience.

  “What gun range?” Jack asked, and she returned her attention to him.

  “Frankie’s on Sabal Run.” She gathered up her purse and her jacket. “Now, if you’re through with me…” She adjusted the purse on her shoulder.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not.” He looked over at Fitz. “Please inform Ms. Dawson of her noncustodial rights.”

  She couldn’t breathe. “Am I under arrest?”

  Fitz shook his head. “No. You have the right to leave at any time. And you have the right to hire an attorney and have him present before this interview continues.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.” She glanced from Fitz to Jack. Asking for an attorney would only serve to make her look guilty. And while she may have entertained the thought of killing Dan once in sheer frustration, she hadn’t ever done anything to harm him.

  “What is it that you want?” she asked.

  “For starters? For you to submit to gunpowder residue testing,” Jack said.

  Lexie put her jacket back on the table, as well as her purse. The procedure, nothing more than a swab of both hands, took a matter of minutes.

  “Anything else?”

  “Your shirt. There’s blood on the right cuff.”

  Involuntarily, Lexie’s hand flexed. The vision of Dan’s bleeding, shattered skull swam before her eyes. Nothing would have saved him. “I tried to help….”

  “Help how?” Fitz asked politely. Too politely.

  Lexie glanced up, taking in the three identical expressions of professional skepticism. Ignoring Fitz’s question, she met Jack’s stare. “You want my shirt? What would you like me to wear home?”

  As she continued to meet his gaze, another vivid memory of the night two months ago surfaced. Jack unbuttoning her blouse, his warm hands pushing it off her shoulders and down her arms. She wanted to glance away but didn’t.

  Jack nodded to the heavyset detective. “Fitz, get something for Ms. Dawson to put on.”

  Fitz brought her one of Dan’s shirts. She opened the kitchen door into the dining room, heading for the small bath beneath the stairs, but when she reached the foyer, a sharp breeze whipped in through the open front door. In the next instant, she realized why it stood open.

  Everything went cold inside her as she watched two men maneuver Dan’s body out of the den. Dan hadn’t been a big man, just shy of two hundred pounds, but they still struggled, their feet shuffling noisily against the wood floor as they made a wide turn to avoid the entrance table and a small side chair. Only when the load was aligned with the front entrance did they carry their burden out into the frigid December night.

  Dan was dead. Was inside that heavy bag. Tonight was the last time she would see him. She wouldn’t attend the funeral. Not because she didn’t want to, but because her presence there would upset Dan’s parents. And she understood just how difficult it was to lose a child.

  The body bag was loaded into a waiting vehicle. She should feel something. Grief. Sorrow. Maybe even outrage. But she felt none of those things. She simply felt empty and scared.

  The men moving the body hadn’t noticed, but a detective who she’d been introduced to earlier but hadn’t seen since—and whose name she couldn’t remember—walked out of Dan’s office at that moment and stood staring at her, his gaze direct and condemning.

  Immediately bowing her head, she ducked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She’d been in such a hurry that she hadn’t turned on the light, so now was forced to fumble for the switch. The few seconds that she was trapped there in the dark pushed her to the edge of her already tenuous hold on her control.

  Had the timing been on purpose? Had they hoped seeing Dan’s body would force her to confess?

  Turning, she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes appeared dazed and slightly red. Some of it was the late hour, the fact that her contacts were beginning to feel scratchy, but mostly it was the shock. Not just Dan’s death, either. She’d gone through her whole life trying to do the right thing. Believing that as long as she did, everything would be okay. Tonight showed her just how stupidly naive she’d been.

  After removing the blouse, Lexie shoved an arm into one of the long sleeves. She could smell Dan’s cologne on the shirt. Not strongly, but it was still there. Her fingers felt stiff, unresponsive, so buttoning the shirt took some effort. As she lifted her hands to do the topmost button, the material brushed across her rib cage. The sensation of cloth across skin tightened her apprehension. Dan’s fingers. That’s what the contact felt like. As if it was Dan touching her.

  When she lifted her gaze to the mirror this second time, she saw a familiar stranger. Someone terrified and lost. She recognized that face, but the last time she’d seen it, she’d been twelve years old.

  Maybe she’d had it all wrong earlier. Perhaps Dan hadn’t brought her here tonight to kill her, but to frame her.

  Was it possible to make a suicide look like murder? Could Dan have hated her enough to do that?

  Lexie turned her back on the mirror. She had to pull herself together. She couldn’t go out there looking the way she did now. Beaten. Frightened.

  Someone knocked on the door. “You okay, ma’am?” Fitz asked. Was he waiting for her to come out? To confess?

  “I’m fine,” she said, but realized she didn’t sound that way, her voice pitched higher than normal. She slumped against the wall and waited until she heard Fitz move away.

  But he was waiting for her when she opened the door, and took the blouse and jacket from her.

  He placed them in separate evidence bags. “We need to inspect the contents of the gun safe.”

  With a sharp nod, she immediately headed for the stairs. It was easier to give them what they wanted. Besides, if the gun was her grandfather’s, they’d find that out soon enough.

  She led the way upstairs, Fitz and the tall, rangy detective whose name she didn’t remember trailing behind her. The master bedroom had been redone since she moved out, the antiques replaced by contemporary pieces. The bed was neatly made, but there were signs that the room had been searched—drawers not quite closed and the closet door left open.

  Taking that first step into the master bedroom closet, suddenly surrounded by Dan’s personal things, it seemed as if he was there in that small space with her.

  She remained unmoving after that initial step, her eyes focused on the door to the gray safe. One of the two men behind her cleared his throat, reminding her that she was not alone. They probably thought her hesitation was motivated by fear over what they would find inside. Maybe she should be.

  She took the final steps. As she lifted her fingers to the dial, she realized they trembled. Her companions would no doubt have already noticed. Lexie manipulated the combination lock, then reached for the lever handle. With the scent of gun oil suddenly overriding that of Dan’s cologne, she thought of another man—of her grandfather. It was his presence that she felt as she scanned the lineup of shotguns and rifles, the shelves where automatics and revolvers were arranged neatly.

  Out of habit, she started to reach for the Colt 1861 Navy revolver, but Fitz stopped her. “We can take it from here, ma’am.”

  After Fitz escorted her to where Jack was waiting for her in the kitchen, he left, presumably retracing his steps.

  She wrapped her arms in front of her. “If we’re done here, I really would like to go now.”

  Even though she was standing right in front of him, her gaze meeting his, she didn’t see the man who had made love to her two months ago. At that moment,
he was just a stern-faced professional doing his job. She knew it was too much to expect one night together to make any kind of real difference, but still found herself oddly angry with him.

  “We’re done for tonight,” he said.

  Instead of maneuvering around him as most people eager to escape would have, she remained where she was, her body only inches from his, and waited, eyes reflecting what she hoped appeared to be confidence and not the fear she actually felt.

  Jack didn’t step aside, but did turn enough to let her past. At the last moment, he wrapped his fingers loosely around her upper arm, forcing her to turn back, to lift her gaze to his again. She felt a sharp stab of awareness run through her, accompanied by the memory of his hand closing around her upper arm, his mouth coming down hard on hers. But not this time. This time his mouth only flattened with… Disgust? Distrust? It didn’t really matter, she realized.

  Jack’s fingers flexed. “Where will you be staying?”

  “Detective Fitz has the address, but then you already know the way, don’t you?”

  The pressure of his fingers increased and his eyes briefly lost some of their remoteness. “Hire a lawyer.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t kill my ex-husband, Jack.”

  He looked as if he planned to say something more, but didn’t. Releasing her, he stepped back.

  Once outside the back door, Lexie fought the urge to run. The rain had stopped, the night clearing so that stars hung overhead now. Without the protective blanket of clouds, the temperature had continued to drop toward the low thirties, and without a jacket, she was shivering before she’d made it halfway around the side of the house.

  Had she made a mistake in answering questions, in submitting to the residue test? In opening the safe?

  It was too late to worry about it now. What was done was done. But she’d do as Jack suggested; she’d contact an attorney first thing in the morning. If Jack or his men had more questions they wanted answered, she’d only do it if her attorney was present.

  A wind gust went through the material of the shirt as if it wasn’t there. Wrapping her arms around herself, she kept walking, faster now, with her shoulders hunched and her head bowed. She was suddenly eager to reach her car, not just for the warmth it offered, but also for the privacy.