Alibi

by Sydney Bauer

  “No and yes,” said Sawyer. “I actually believe Jess was right about her father. In fact, to this day I still do not think he knows what is actually going on behind those high brick walls in Guangdong. You see, China is her brother’s initiative, and from what I can gather, he has 100 percent control.”

  Sawyer saw the lieutenant glance at his partner and guessed that perhaps this was not the first time Peter Nagoshi’s name had come up in relation to matters of disquiet.

  “So what gave you the idea that something was amiss?” asked Joe after a beat.

  “Well,” said Sawyer, almost draining his shake before moving on. “The minute Jess organized for a team of SG inspectors to visit the Nagoshis’ Chinese plant, I heard the alarm bells ringing loudly in my ears. The plant manager was nervous, the SG reps delayed, the inspection day heavily monitored and the resultant report straight from the manual of good worker management 101.”

  “But that’s a good thing, right?” asked Joe.

  “Of course, if it were not for the fact that I received a call from a Mr. Lim Chow, one of the plant workers, who claimed conditions in the factory were now beyond appalling—that wages had dropped below the ten cents mark while hours had increased and personal benefits had been withdrawn.”

  “So,” said Joe with a frustrated sigh, “I still don’t get how this relates to . . .”

  “Jess found out about the call,” interrupted Sawyer. “In fact, she had just arrived back in town and happened to be in my office when the call came in. She spoke to Mr. Lim herself. She was beside herself, devastated. She mumbled something about her brother Peter—but stressed she was determined to set things right.”

  “So what did she do?” asked Mannix.

  “She told Mr. Lim that she would arrange for his passage to America—so that he might meet with her father face-to-face. She told him her father knew nothing of this and that he too would he horrified. She told him that she and her father would put an end to the torture, that the foreman would be dismissed, that they would pay their workers compensation and assure them that they would never allow anything like this to happen to his people again.”

  “And did she?” asked Frank. “I mean, did this Lim jump on the first flight from Shanghai and front the boss and shoot the shit and . . .”

  “No,” said Sawyer. “For Mr. Lim, a forty-nine-year-old father of six, was killed in a factory accident within twenty-four hours of making that call. And Jessica was dead another twenty-four hours after that.”

  Silence. Nothing, as the white noise that people made in busy places such as these merged into one low, monotone hum where words and activities around the now huddled group of four became slow, blurred, indecipherable.

  “Kid,” said Joe at last, now leaning low across the formica tabletop to look directly into Sawyer’s eyes. “Are you telling us you think this thing in China . . . that Jessica’s knowledge of Mr. Lim’s accusations led to her murder.”

  “Yes . . . No . . . I’m not sure,” said a now obviously confused Sawyer who pushed his empty paper cup out of the way so that he might place his elbows on the table and rest his shaking head in his hands. “But the timing was way off—or should I say spot on . . . don’t you think?”

  “Jesus,” said Frank.

  “The thing is, I have no proof,” said Sawyer, lifting his head once again. “But I do believe it was either China or . . . or my advice on the other thing that got Jess killed. Either way it was my fault. Either way I had a hand in her death. Either way I will have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my . . .”

  “What?” said Joe, not believing what he was hearing. “Either way, kid? You said ‘either way.’ ”

  Joe looked about their table, quickly, quietly, before reaching across the scratched rectangular surface to grab Sawyer by the wrist—his large hand engulfing the boy’s miniature lower limb, his grip causing Sawyer’s blood to pool on either side of Mannix’s broad, white-knuckled clench. Jones immediately began to wince under the pressure, and Joe saw the first sign of fear in his normally confident pale brown eyes.

  “What the fuck does that mean, kid? Are you saying you have two theories on the cause of Jessica Nagoshi’s death? Are you saying you have two fucking hypotheses—neither of which you have decided to share with the goddamned Boston Police until now?” Joe squeezed a little harder, causing Sawyer to let out the tiniest of yelps.

  “Joe!” said Sara. “Stop this.” She reached across to pull on Joe’s sleeve. “He’s only a kid, you’re hurting him.”

  “No,” said Joe. “I’m sorry, Sara, but Jones here is no kid. He may look like a teenager but he has to be at least . . . what . . . nineteen to be second year pre-law? He’s an adult, Sara, an adult with legal representation on hand. He came to us, remember? If he has something to say he sure as hell better say it now, because I for one am getting sick of all this bullshit.”

  Jones looked at Joe, his face flush, his hands shaking, his mouth opening and closing, allowing nothing but the tiniest of squeaks to escape. And in that moment, just as Joe began to relax his grip, he could have sworn he saw something else in Sawyer’s wide pale eyes—some sense of strategy, some indication that his Mensa brain was working overtime on exactly how to play this one out.

  “You see that building across the other side of the Harbor, kid?” asked Joe, noticing the clouds had finally given way to a crisp afternoon sun. Jones did not respond.

  “Look at it, turn your fucking head and look at it.” Joe released his grasp on Jones’ arm and lifted his hand to Sawyer’s narrow boyish chin, forcing his head to the right. “You see it now?” he asked. “You see that big redbrick building with the fancy glass façade—the one with the group of kids playing on the freshly mowed lawn out front?”

  Mannix watched as the boy’s eyes refocused south, toward Fan Pier and the modern, medium height architectural “statement” that was John Joseph Moakley Courthouse.

  “That may look like a museum to you or an art gallery or some lah-dee-dah office block where people come and go to ‘brainstorm’ and ‘network’ and make shitloads of easy fucking money day after day after day. But looks can be deceiving, kid—that there is the US Federal Courthouse of Massachusetts where criminals have to answer for their bullshit every single day of the year.”

  “I know what it is,” said Jones, perhaps tired of being treated like an idiot.

  “They come in thinking they are smart enough to manipulate the system,” Joe went on, ignoring the kid’s retort. “Confident they can ride the wave and come out pumping the air like a pack of goddamned invincibles. But they don’t, Jones—come out, that is. More than likely their bullshit, and the ego that usually goes with it, has them locked up for good in some not so utopic rat-infested federal prison.

  “Now your bullshit is of the State variety, granted, but it is bullshit nevertheless—withholding evidence, lying to the police, failing to report information vital to the progress of an internationally significant murder investigation. As Miss Davis here can tell you, kid, Suffolk County Jail ain’t no playpen for young intellectuals—especially pretty ones the likes of you.”

  “For God’s sake, Joe!” said Sara, starting to rise from her seat. “This meeting is over. You can’t threaten my client like that. He came here of his own free will. He is willing to cooperate if you would just . . .”

  “Sit down, Sara,” said Frank.

  But Sawyer and Mannix paid no attention; their eyes were locked in a silent bond of understanding. Mannix guessed the kid knew he had gone as far as he could—and as such realized it was now time to cut to the chase.

  “The lieutenant is right,” said Sawyer at last. “I am a coward who likes to think my exceptional intellectual ability makes me better than everyone else. Yes, Lieutenant, I believe there are two ways in which my friend Jessica may have lost her life and sadly, regrettably, I had a hand in them both.

  “My motives for enticing her to join SG were selfish, and if it was China that got her
killed then I am guilty by association, unwittingly maybe, but at fault nevertheless.

  “Secondly, I have to admit, it was also I who started the whole disastrous scenario which is now playing out detail by detail, accurate or not, inside every café, dorm, library, corridor, lecture hall and study room of Deane University. James Matheson killed Jessica Nagoshi—it’s all anyone can talk about.”

  Joe stole a glance at Frank.

  “You see, Lieutenant,” Jones went on, “it was me who convinced her to go out with him. She came to me just before summer break, to ask whether or not I thought she should take a chance and go for a guy who was perhaps not the obvious choice for the daughter of a Japanese-American dynasty. She said this boy was young, smart, idealistic, intuitive . . .

  “And I told her to go for it . . . that love was all too rare in this callous, competitive universe that we young intellects are forced to exist in each and every day of our precious superior lives. I told her to tell the boy she wanted him, to belie the consequences and dive into the wonderful, dangerous quagmire that was inappropriate but unbridled devotion.

  “Of course at the time I foolishly thought she was referring to somebody else. But she was talking about Matheson, you see. The one person everyone seems so sure was responsible for squeezing the life out of her with his own goddamned hands.” Jones looked down at his own hands then, and quickly shuffled them under the table and into the hidden recesses of his lap.

  “Shit,” said Joe at last, realizing what the kid was saying. “You thought Jessica was in love with you. You thought she was feeling you out, to see if you felt the same way.”

  “Not so smart after all, hey, Lieutenant,” said Sawyer, his eyes now glistening with tears. “I told Jess to seek out James Matheson. She thanked me—kissed me even, and then left to meet him by the river. They spent the next four months sneaking here and there and I witnessed every last second of it.”

  “You followed them?” asked Frank.

  “Let’s just say I wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt,” answered Sawyer, most likely not wanting to come off as the poor pathetic fuck that he actually was.

  “You have proof they were together?” asked Joe.

  “Yes, and just in case my word isn’t good enough . . .” Jones looked to Sara then, who gave him the slightest of nods. “Why do you think I asked you here in the first place, Lieutenant?” he went on, lifting his arms to indicate their chaotic surroundings. “You think I spend my life frequenting commercial crap houses like this? These places are nothing but inhumane jailhouses for creatures confined to tanks that bear little or no resemblance to the great ocean expanses from which they were so cruelly abducted.”

  Jesus, thought Joe.

  “No, Lieutenant,” Jones went on. “We are here because this was where they came for one of their rendezvous—the last week of August, barely days before she died.”

  With that Sara reached into her handbag to lay something square and plastic on the blue formica table. “New England Aquarium security camera CD-ROM recording, Saturday, August 26,” she said. “James Matheson and Jessica Nagoshi, here, together, and judging by their body language, very much an item. It’s yours, gentlemen,” she said, handing it to Joe, “on one condition—that my client be given full immunity on any charges relating to his delay in providing this information to the police.”

  Joe took the disc, turning it over once, twice, three times in his large, thick hands.

  “You need them together, Joe,” said Sara at last. “And from what I can gather this is the only piece of evidence you have so far. I don’t want to railroad the Matheson kid, Joe, but they were involved, and if Matheson says otherwise then he is a liar.”

  Joe looked at her then, his eyes flicking back to Jones briefly as if trying to gauge what his motives might be.

  “So do we have a deal?” asked Sara, obviously anxious to secure her client’s immunity.

  “If the disc shows what you say it does,” said Mannix at last, “Jones can have his immunity. But if I find out this kid is holding anything else back or, God forbid, lying about any and all of the above, I swear to God I will kick his ass to hell and back faster than he can say ‘Save the goddamned Whales.’ ”

  Sara looked at Sawyer who gave a short nod in response.

  “Agreed,” she said, shaking Joe’s hand across the table. “You have his word on it, Joe, and you have my word on it too.”

  32

  “He is just so refreshing, David,” said Sara, taking a sip of her merlot, the subtle light of the table lamp casting shadows across her high cheekbones. “He is young and wealthy but unaffected by all the trappings that go along with that sort of existence. He is completely dedicated to helping people less fortunate than himself. He lives and breathes it, David. He is smart and intuitive and devoid of any of the usual pretense that goes along with being one of the Ivy League elite.”

  David said nothing. They were facing each other from either end of the sofa, she with her legs crossed “schoolgirl fashion” underneath her, he relaxed with a wineglass in his hand, socks on his feet and his beautiful, enthusiastic girlfriend sitting mere feet in front of him. He could not believe it was just over a year since Sara had agreed to move in with him—transforming his neat but characterless bachelor apartment into a home—the first real one he had known since he left Jersey all those years ago. Everything around him now “breathed” of Sara—the minimalist limestone-based lamp, the dark grain, low-set coffee table, the whitewashed walls, the black-and-white photography and the comfortable but stylish slate-colored lounge on which they now sat. And he loved every piece of it, because everything reminded him of . . .

  “David . . . ?” she asked, smiling. “Are you listening to me? I know I am going on about this kid but he was kind of inspiring—a breath of fresh air in a generation supposedly reared in the ethos of self-advancement and personal satisfaction.”

  “He made an impression on you,” he said at last, pulling one of her feet out from under her to massage it gently on his lap.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess he did.”

  David knew he wasn’t showing the enthusiasm he should. He knew Sara was on a high after the Sanchez ruling and the subsequent newspaper article, which was read by one Sawyer Jones who had immediately concluded Miss Sara Davis was the smart, determined, humanitarian lawyer for him. But he couldn’t help but think this Jones was, if nothing else, a little on the dramatic side. He still wasn’t sure why he engaged Sara as his attorney in the first place, given he had nothing to do with the Nagoshi girl’s murder. For some reason this Jones seemed intent on implicating himself by association—and in the process managed to exonerate himself of the actual deed by suggesting two possible alternatives for Jessica’s demise.

  If David was a skeptic, he might even come to the conclusion that the kid was orchestrating this whole “woe is me” charade on purpose—to divert Joe and Sara and everyone else from the real course to the truth. That was Joe’s gut feeling, or at least what he alluded to in his private call to David’s office late this afternoon.

  “Sara,” he said at last.

  “Yeah?” she said, taking another sip of her wine.

  “This kid is smart, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “His father is a lawyer and he’s pre-law at Deane so you have to assume he is pretty clued up when it comes to judicial process.”

  “Don’t worry, David, if you think I am taking this one on pro bono you’re wrong. Sawyer has already offered to pay me. I told Arthur I wanted to contribute to the firm financially, and while I won’t be asking Sawyer for a huge fee, it will be more than enough to cover my time and expenses.”

  “No,” said David. “That’s not what I meant. What I am saying is . . .” David paused then, knowing that as much as he and Sara were committed to a relationship based on honesty, it would really knock her confidence to know that he and Joe had been discussing her vulnerability mere hours before. He could see she was overw
helmed by this boy and feared that perhaps the kid could see it too—enough to take advantage of her and use her as a pawn to divert any possible suspicion on his part.

  “This Jones was obviously in love with the Nagoshi girl—he admitted as much himself. He also knew she was in love with somebody else and no matter how strong and optimistic you are, at nineteen that kind of rejection has got to . . .”

  “What are you saying, David?” she said, slowly retrieving her foot to curl it neatly back underneath her.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sara,” he said, knowing she probably already was—or more to the point, wasn’t. “I am not suggesting he had anything to do with the girl’s death but you have to admit, if you take a step back, that his story could be seen to be somewhat contrived.”

  “I don’t believe this,” she said, the previous energy and enthusiasm now completely drained from her face. “You spoke to Joe. He called you and the pair of you sat and gossiped and concluded that poor little Sara was naive enough to be tricked by a teenager who was playing me for a fool.”

  “No, Sara,” said David, now sitting up straight and placing his wineglass on the coffee table. “That’s not it. We just don’t want you to . . .”

  “So you did speak to Joe?”

  “I . . . yes. But . . .”

  “What is it, David?” she interrupted. “Is it the Matheson boy? I have no idea why you seem so convinced of his innocence, especially since you have only met with him a couple of times over coffee.

  “Do you see yourself in him, David? Is that it? Because if that’s the case, I just don’t get it. He may be enthusiastic about his studies but his upbringing, his lifestyle . . . in many ways he is nothing like you, or at least not the David I know. He has lied to the police, surrounds himself with friends who are described as conceit personified and according to your good friend Joe is the number one suspect in the homicide of the year. Why can’t you see it, David? Why is it so hard for you to believe that he did this?”