The Alibi Man

by Tami Hoag

  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.”

  Chapter 57

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, genuinely afraid because I really didn’t know what he was talking about. That was always a much stronger line when I was lying.

  Kulak looked as crazy as he had the first night he came to me. The significant difference was that his insanity that night had been driven by grief, and this rage was being given extra fuel by drugs. Raw emotion and chemical reaction—a volatile mix, the kind of combination that got people killed every day of the week. Especially when the vessel containing that mix was holding a gun.

  “You lying whore,” he said, pushing the barrel of the gun into the skin just below my left cheekbone. “I saw you. I saw you on television.”

  “What are you talking about? On television?”

  “You and your lover. He killed my Irina. You would protect him. You would never tell me.”

  I swallowed hard and tried not to shake as I looked him in the eyes. “Alexi. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have to believe me.”

  “I don’t have to do nothing,” he said. “I do what I want. I’m thinking I want to kill you.”

  “How can I help you if you kill me?”

  “You are of no use to me, you lying cunt.” He grabbed me by the neck and marched me across the room, toward the French doors onto the back patio. As we passed the hall to the guest suite, I wondered what he had done to Lisbeth. She was of no use to him either. Had he killed her? Or was she in bed, still blissfully unconscious, unaware of the danger just beyond her door? Kulak had begun to mutter in Russian. He shoved me out the door. I could see his car parked at the far end of the barn, out of sight from the driveway.

  If he got me in the car, I was as good as dead. I pretended to stumble, throwing Kulak off balance, then came up with an elbow, hitting him in the Adam’s apple. He tumbled backward, choking, grabbing at his throat with one hand. I bolted sideways, started to run.

  I felt the sting almost before I heard the shot. The bullet cut through the flesh of my left upper arm like a hot, sharp knife. I grabbed my arm just as Kulak barreled into me from behind, knocking me flat on the flagstones, my right arm caught beneath me and no way to break my fall. My breath burst out of my lungs, and stars swam before my eyes. Alexi Kulak stood, grabbed me by the scarf I had tied around my throat to hide the marks he’d left from choking me, and hauled me to my feet.

  He had to half-drag me to his car. Not because I was fighting him, but because I couldn’t. Stunned, semiconscious, and bleeding, was no match for him. When we reached the Mercedes, he popped the trunk and shoved me inside. I had only a second to register the fact that there was already a body in it. Bennett Walker.

  Chapter 58

  Edward Estes declined to speculate as to the whereabouts of his client.

  “You might want to give him a call,” Landry said in a voice filled with magnanimous sarcasm. “Give him the heads-up. As a courtesy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.”

  He left Paulson to deal with the attorney.

  “Every cop in the county is looking for Walker’s car,” Weiss said as they walked away from the house. “We’ve got the airports covered.”

  “What about the marinas? Walker races boats. If he can get to a marina, he can be down the coast in a hurry.”

  “I’ll notify the Coast Guard,” Weiss said. “You know Estes is gonna try to say the phone was planted.”

  “He can say whatever he wants. We’ve got the discovery on videotape. No jury in this neck of the woods is going to believe the poor-little-rich-boy routine a second time around.”

  His phone rang. He grabbed it. Dugan.

  “I’m just saying,” Weiss went on.

  “Save it,” Landry said, snapping the phone shut. “Let’s go break his alibi. Barbaro is waiting for us.”

  The Spaniard sat in the interview room, waiting. Landry watched him through the one-way glass. He appeared calm and relaxed, not like a man about to rat out his best friend on a murder. He ran a hand back through his hair, checked his watch, casually drummed his fingers on the table. He looked confident.

  Landry turned to Dugan. “You got that thing working?” The voice-stress-analysis machine—it had a yard-long name Landry had never bothered to learn—would pick up on the voices in the conversation and determine whether or not any of the parties were feeling stress or anxiety. A poor man’s lie detector of sorts, and a good tool if the interviewee was easy to rattle. Landry had to think it would be of little use here. “Press him on the London case,” Dugan said, adjusting a knob on the machine. “He won’t be expecting that.”

  Landry nodded, picked up a file folder with case notes, and went in. “Mr. Barbaro. Thank you for coming down.

  “ Barbaro made a small dismissive motion with his hand. ”I felt an obligation.“

  “To whom?”

  Barbaro studied him for a second, making up his mind. “To Irina, of course.”

  “You didn’t seem to feel any
obligation when you gave your first statement, saying that you and Mr. Walker were passed out at his home that night and never saw Irina Markova after you left Players. Why is that?”

  He sighed like a man burdened by a great disappointment. “I never imagined what had happened. That my good friend could have killed the girl.”

  “Really?” Landry said. “That seems strange to me, seeing how you went through virtually the same experience in London a couple of years ago.”

  The Spaniard’s dark eyes met his. “That was something very different.”

  “A young woman, raped and murdered. How is that different?”

  “The man who perpetrated the crime was not a friend of mine.”

  “He got off. Did you know he was guilty too?”

  Barbaro shrugged. “I was not surprised.”

  “Another wealthy guy,” Landry said. “Into the polo scene.”

  “A sponsor, yes.”

  “Scotland Yard tried to pin it on you.”

  “Prosecuting a foreign polo player would have been much easier than prosecuting a wealthy member of British society.”

  “The wealth-has-privilege thing.”

  “Money is the universal language, is it not?”

  “So here you are, years later, in the States,” Landry said. “Playing polo, minding your own business, and son of a bitch if a girl you know isn’t murdered. You must have thought that was a hell of a coincidence. I know I do.”

  “I came here of my own volition, Detective,” Barbaro said. “I came to tell you the truth.”

  “As opposed to the lie you’ve been telling me.”

  “I don’t excuse my behavior.”

  “That’s good. What changed your mind?”

  “I’ve been accused of growing a conscience.”

  “Is that right? Have you?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Do you have anyone who can corroborate your story—that you left the party at Walker’s house?”

  “I thought I saw Lisbeth Perkins. I don’t know whether she saw me.

  “Lisbeth Perkins told us she was home in bed shortly after one. Why wouldn’t she tell us she saw you later?”

  “You would have to ask her that question.”

  “Are you aware Lisbeth was attacked last night and threatened?”

  “I heard, yes.”

  “Do you think she might be more apt to tell us she saw you now than she would have before the beating?”

  “I resent that implication, Detective,” Barbaro said, rising from his chair. “I came here to set the record straight about that night. If you’re not interested in that, I’ll take my leave.”

  “You didn’t see anyone else going back to your car?” Landry asked. “No one saw you?”

  “I saw the Freak,” Barbaro said.

  “What freak?”

  “The Freak,” Barbaro said impatiently. “That’s what she is called. She is a crazy woman. She is always around the parking lot there.”

  “And this freak is your alibi?”

  Barbaro sighed. “Detective, if I was going to simply make up a story, do you not think I would come up with something less ridiculous?”

  Landry sidestepped the issue. “Do you think Bennett Walker murdered Irina Markova?”

  Barbaro looked suddenly very weary. “I think, Detective Landry, that for some men who have too much, there is never enough.”

  “I guess what I’m wondering, Mr. Barbaro,” Landry said, “is, were you one of those men too? This happened before in your life, you were suspected, denied it, came around and talked, and an acquaintance of yours almost went to prison. Maybe that’s your idea of tipping the scales.”

  “And maybe,” Barbaro said, “you can go to hell.”

  As he reached to open the door, someone knocked, and Weiss stuck his head in, looking to Landry.

  “We’ve got Walker’s car—and a dead body.”

  Chapter 59

  “He’s going to kill us,” Bennett said, terror in his voice. “He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?”

  “Shut up!” I snapped.

  It was pitch-dark in the trunk. The smell of diesel fuel, sour sweat, and fear gagged me. I lay half on top of him. When I tried to move away, I cracked my head on the trunk lid.

  “He’s a Russian,” he said. “He’s that gangster Irina talked about. He’s killed people.”

  “Shut up!” I snapped again. My arm was burning like hell and still bleeding.

  “Oh, my God. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Shut up!” I screamed, and kneed him as hard as I could. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Yes, he’s going to kill us! He’s going to kill you, and he’s going to torture you first, and I’m going to watch, you son of a bitch!”

  “Jesus Christ, Elena! Do you hate me that much?”

  “It’s nothing less than you deserve for the lives you’ve ruined.”

  “Oh, my God,” he said again. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  To him.

  “Can you move?” I asked. “Are your hands free?”

  “No. They’re tied behind my back.”

  “Roll over,” I ordered. “I’ll try to undo the rope.”

  “It’s duct tape.”

  “Roll over!”

  Bennett struggled to move, to turn away from me. I struggled to get my hands in position. My injured arm was throbbing like the beat of a bass drum. I could move my fingers, but they felt swollen and clumsy. I couldn’t find the end of the tape. I broke a fingernail trying to scratch through it.

  “Fuck!”

  The hell with Bennett, I thought. He would be of no use getting away, because he would think only of himself and end up getting us both killed in the process.

  I started trying to feel around the trunk for anything that I might be able to use as a weapon. There was nothing.

  The car made a sharp left, then a sharp right, then sat for a moment as something rattled and screeched outside.

  A gate.

  The car moved forward. The gate screeched and rattled shut.

  When the trunk opened, the first thing I saw was the barrel of Kulak’s gun. I held my breath and waited for Kulak to pull the trigger.

  “Get out,” he said. “Get out!”

  I got out, a little dizzy, legs wobbly.

  Hands bound behind his back, Bennett struggled out and stood doubled over for a moment.

  “Stand up!” Kulak ordered.

  Bennett rocked once on the balls of his feet, then bolted forward, hitting Kulak like a battering ram. He knocked the Russian sideways and kept running for the gate.

  Alexi Kulak very calmly got his balance back, aimed, and fired.

  I watched, horrified, as Bennett’s right leg buckled beneath him, and he went down, crying out.

  In the distance I could hear police sirens, but I knew with a terrible sinking feeling in my gut they wouldn’t be coming here. We were locked inside the gates of Alexi Kulak’s auto salvage yard, and we were at the mercy of a madman.

  Chapter 60

  “So who is this guy?” Landry asked, shining his maglite into the trunk of the car.

  “Jeffrey C. Cherry,” the deputy said, reading from the victim’s driver’s license. “West Palm Beach; 06-20-88. He’s got an employee parking sticker from Players.”

  “Jeez,” Weiss said, poking at the trash around the body. “If he didn’t have that crowbar in his head, I’d say he died from eating his shit.”

  “There’s a couple of dime bags of coke,” the deputy said. Could have been a drug deal gone bad.“

  Landry looked over at Bennett Walker’s Porsche. “Could have been. But what was Bennett Walker doing here, and where is he?”

  “And what drug dealer wouldn’t steal that car?” Weiss asked, the keys are in it.“

  Landry took a pen out of his pocket and pushed open the small duffel bag that sat on the victim’s chest. A couple stacks of 1’s—singles topped with a twenty—and what looke
d like some drug residue.

  “This sucks,” he said. “This is some kind of setup. This kid works at Players—”

  “Valet,” Weiss said, peering in the open driver’s door. “He’s got a name tag in here.”

  Landry walked away from the car and called Elena. Straight to voice mail. He didn’t like that. She would have been waiting to hear news on what the search warrant had gained them.