“I’m not talking about sex,” I protested. “I mean are we a couple? Are we going to end up together after you graduate from law school? Are we going to get married?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Then why can’t I just stay here with you? I can get a job, any job.”
“I thought you wanted to work in your profession.”
“I do, but—”
“Don’t you like your job?”
It’s not the job I don’t like. I was learning a lot, but after the murder, I didn’t think I could stay on that job, working for a man who could end someone’s life like that with his large, hard, cold hands and a handy deadly weapon. It obviously wasn’t premeditated. It seemed, to me, to be a crime of passion. The director had come for his usual tryst with his lover and something had gone terribly wrong. Savannah demanded a commitment. She threatened to leave him for another man. The director couldn’t tolerate rejection. Was that the way it had gone down? No matter what happened, I couldn’t keep this secret and stay in that place. What if the director wanted to tie up loose ends? I was the only loose end that could put him at the scene of the crime. A man that powerful, with powerful friends, could make a girl like me disappear. They could blame it on an inmate, like they were for Savannah’s death.
“I like my job,” I began. I started to tell him about my promotion, then rethought it. How could I justify getting promoted in such a short time on the job? That would have looked suspicious. Then I knew I had to keep the secret. I didn’t want to involve another person and put Daniel’s life in jeopardy. “But I miss you.”
He caressed me. “I miss you too, but I barely have enough money to live on here, with the tuition, and it will take me a while to pay back the loans. And I wouldn’t have any time to spend with you. I’m studying all the time. I haven’t even had a chance to go into town. I’ve never even seen downtown C’ville.”
“C’ville?”
“Charlottesville.”
It had only been a month, and Daniel already had inside expressions I knew nothing about. We were growing farther apart every day.
“Isn’t Charlottesville adjacent to the campus?”
“The undergraduate campus, yes. And it’s not called a campus. The law school is off grounds.”
“Off grounds?”
“Mr. Jefferson called it grounds, not campus. The law school is in the north grounds.”
“Oh, I see, Mr. Jefferson called it grounds.”
“The law school was founded by Thomas Jefferson.”
“I knew that,” I reminded. Daniel could be infuriating sometimes and annoyingly smug. “But you’ll get a great job after law school, and then you can pay back your loans. We can pay them back together.”
“I have to get through this semester first. And then next year is a mad dash to get a second-year internship to become a summer associate.”
“Evan and Kate are getting married. He’s in law school, and they’re going to live in married housing.”
“Evan’s parents are paying their way. And he goes to Florida. UVa Law is expensive. And I’m paying out-of-state tuition.”
“I don’t think I can wait for three years.”
Daniel put his hand on my cheek. “What are you saying, Merritt?”
“I might have to move on with my life.”
He dropped his hand abruptly. “Have you met someone?”
I raised my chin. “There are a lot of men in the division.” Mostly inmates on the work release program. I hadn’t seen one eligible man, except for the director, and he was married, had been having an affair, and he was a murderer. Besides the fact he was old enough to be my father.
“Are you breaking up with me? Is that why you came here, to do it face-to-face?”
I blew out a breath. “You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand, then.”
“All my friends are either engaged or already married. I can’t wait around forever.”
“I’m not asking you to wait forever.”
“Three years seems like forever.”
“Baby, come here.” He opened his arms, and I fell into them. Then my tears started falling.
“Don’t cry. We can get engaged, if that’s what you want.”
“It should be what you want too.”
“I do want that. But I can’t afford a ring right now.”
“I don’t care about the ring.” I just wanted some certainty in my life.
He squeezed me in a comforting bear hug.
“You’ve been traveling all day. And you said yourself you’re starving. Let’s get you something to eat. Then we’ll go into C’ville. I actually want to see it myself. They say it’s just like Gainesville. We can take a walk around, get something to eat, get the kinks out—if you have any kinks left.” He laughed. “And I haven’t even shown you the house. You haven’t met my roommates. Tomorrow there’s a toga party at one of the seniors’ houses.”
“I don’t have a toga,” I sniffled.
He unwound the sheet slowly from my naked body. “Et voilà! Just wrap this around yourself. Instant toga.” He started chanting, “Toga. Toga. Toga.”
“You might have to wash it,” I said, smirking.
“There, now that almost looks like a smile. Come on, baby, let’s get out of here.”
At that point I would have gone anywhere with him. I knew just how the weekend would go. We’d eat, walk around, and jump right back into bed. Spend the weekend exploring each other’s bodies, bodies that had been starving for each other, and storing up the satisfaction to hold us for when we were apart. I wasn’t finished with him. Tomorrow night, we’d spend an hour at the toga party, and offer our excuses to leave early so we could jump back into bed and quench our thirst for each other. I wouldn’t even have time to razz him about his female roommates. We would barely have time to come up for air.
I knew I would wait for him. And he knew it too. But could I trust him enough to spill my secrets? Not yet.
I clutched him when we said our goodbyes on Sunday.
“We’ll see each other at Thanksgiving,” he whispered, planting a soft, meaningful kiss on my lips. “Maybe I’ll have a surprise for you then.” Did he mean an engagement ring?
A would-be Mario Andretti screeched up the driveway in his beat-up old VW.
“Christ, Merritt. You’re going home in that?” said Daniel, looking askance at the battered piece of crap pulling up in front of the house.
“My carriage awaits,” I said, wiping a fresh stream of tears from my eyes.
“More like a Formula 1® racer.”
He hoisted my overnight bag into the trunk. “Drive safe,” he said to the driver, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Hey, I got her here, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did.” Then to me, “I love you, Merritt,” he said, standing at the passenger door. “See you soon. Call me when you get back to Florida.” He shut the door.
“I will.” I wanted to tell him. I wanted desperately to unburden myself, but it looked like I was going to have to face the consequences on my own.
Mario gave me a sidelong glance as we pulled away. “So, was it worth it?”
“What?”
“Driving all this way for a booty call.”
I was tempted to say, “Get your mind out of the gutter,” but instead I pursed my lips into a Mona Lisa smile and said, “Definitely.”
“Looks like Lover Boy got lucky.”
Chapter Eight
“The director wants to see you in his office,” Jean said, holding out a pink telephone message slip.
“When did he call?”
“About half an hour ago. You’d better get up there.”
“Where’s Peggy?”
“She’s in with the deputy director.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, just that he needed to see you right away.”
I’d come in late because I was exhausted from the long trip from Virginia. Th
e air conditioning was broken in the car, which had made the trip even more unbearable.
What could the director want? I wasn’t in top form at the moment. I could easily fall asleep at my desk. I put my purse in my drawer, locked it, and was about to walk out of the office to take the elevator up to the third floor, where the executives held court, when Jean called out, “You were gone Friday, so I guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“They did the autopsy. Savannah Braddock was pregnant.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at my chest. “Oh, my God. That’s horrible.” I snapped out of my lethargy in a hurry.
“I know. Peggy said the director was beside himself.”
“He didn’t know?”
“No one knew. When they catch the bastard who did it, they’re going to charge him with a double homicide.”
My knees had turned to jelly. I grasped the side of Jean’s desk.
“Are you okay? You look ill.”
I felt the bile rise in my throat.
“Hey, you’d better get on up there. The director doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
I walked up to the director’s office in a daze, unsure of what I’d find. All I could remember were the contours of Savannah’s perfect body, her beautiful face, unmarred, still faint with the blush of sleep, her smooth fair skin, and the knife sticking out of her belly, her pregnant belly, the blood bright red against the satin sheets.
“Go right in, Merritt,” said Belinda, the director’s secretary. “He’s expecting you.”
I walked into the director’s office.
“Close the door, Belinda. We don’t want to be disturbed.” Then to me he said, “Have a seat, Miss Saxe. Or may I call you Merritt? I think we know each other well enough for that.” He looked at me accusingly. “You went out of town.”
“I wasn’t aware I needed your permission.”
“It would be better if you stayed in the city, under the circumstances.”
“It would be better if you didn’t treat me like a common criminal.”
“From now on, don’t leave town without telling me. How was your weekend?”
The smug bastard. I saw how it had all played out. Savannah had come to him to tell him about the pregnancy and threatened to go to his wife if he didn’t marry her. The director couldn’t live with the scandal, couldn’t give up his cushy job or his high lifestyle. So he eliminated the problem—problems. I wasn’t going to protect this monster.
“Did you call me up here to talk about my weekend?”
“You’re upset. You’ve heard about, about Miss Braddock’s condition, then.”
I fixed my eyes on his like daggers. How appropriate.
“You still think I killed her? You think I killed my own baby? Christ, I lost them both.” And then he broke down, sobbing, his head on his desk.
I had never seen a grown man cry. I was at a loss about what to do. What could I do?
“I was going to leave my wife and marry Savannah. I would have given up everything for her. But when I got there, she was…she was already gone.”
He almost sounded sorry. I almost believed him. The director lifted his head from the desk and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeves. “Has anybody called you?”
“Why would they? No one knows I was there. I have no connection to Miss Braddock.”
“I don’t expect they will. I have them convinced it was an inmate, someone who’d had a run-in with Savannah in court. They’re going through the records now. There are plenty of candidates—violent men who are capable of doing what was done to Savannah, uh, Miss Braddock.”
“But that’s not what happened, is it?”
The director shrugged. “It’s a place to start.” The director had connections, in the police department, the sheriff’s department, law enforcement throughout the state. I had no doubt he could engineer a cover-up. But he had me, just in case things fell apart. I was the alibi.
“The paperwork is on my desk. As soon as I sign it, your promotion will go into effect. Congratulations to our latest Information Specialist III.”
I shook my head. “I don’t deserve that. There’s a man in my office who’s been working there for years, and he’s only an Information Specialist II.”
“You’re an enterprising and loyal—emphasis on the word loyal—young lady. You can have a promising career, if you want it.”
“What about Peggy? She’s bound to get suspicious.”
“You let me handle Peggy. The funeral is this weekend. I’ll have to go, but I don’t know how I’ll get through it.”
I looked at a picture of Miss Julia on his desk.
“Your wife will be there, won’t she?”
He grimaced. “Yes, but—I’d like you to be there.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. After a few seconds, I responded, “I hardly knew Savannah Braddock. In fact, I never even met her formally. I have no business being there. People wouldn’t expect me to attend her funeral.”
“I would.” Was that a direct order? Was I going to start paying for my promotion? Would there be a separate coffin for the baby? No, because the baby was unborn. Savannah Braddock’s funeral was the last place I wanted to be.
“Will you come? It would mean a lot to me.”
Was this some kind of trap? Later on, would the police examine film of who was at the funeral because, just like the killer always returned to the scene of the crime, wasn’t the killer always at the funeral? Acting grief-stricken or at least like a sick voyeur, getting off on the grief of others? Soaking up their pain while reliving the pain of the victim? At least that was the way it always worked on TV.
“If you want me to go, I’ll be there.” After all, the man had just promoted me, and he was my boss’s boss. Even if I was just his alibi, someone he wanted to keep under his thumb and keep a watchful eye on. He had me just where he wanted me.
He wiped his handkerchief across his face for a final time. “Thank you for your fine work, Miss Saxe,” the director said, getting up and shaking my hand forcefully. Dismissing me.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said, as I walked toward the door. Did that mean he would call me, like one of the guys, and shoot the breeze, or invite me out for a beer, or coach me on what to say to the police when they ultimately set their sights on him as a suspect? How was an alibi supposed to act? What was an alibi supposed to do? As far as I knew, there was no alibi handbook.
When I got back to the office, Jean cornered me. “Well, how did it go?”
“It was all right.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to promote me.”
Jean’s puzzled expression was laughable. “To what?”
“An Information Specialist III. Yes, I know I’ve only been here a short time. I know how it looks.”
“Stanley’s going to have a fit. He’s been here for years, and he’s still a II.”
“Do you think he’ll quit?”
“Probably not. Have you told Peggy?”
“She already knew.”
“How did she take it?”
“She was probably not thrilled, but—”
Speak of the devil. Peggy roared out of her office, loaded for bear. A bear I imagined she had bagged on a hunting trip with the director.
“What did you talk to the director about?”
“Nothing, really,” I answered. “Mainly about the promotion.”
Jean went back to her typing. Peggy frowned. She couldn’t figure it out. Of course she couldn’t. It made no sense.
“Come into my office,” she said. “I need you to write a press release.”
I followed her into her office, expecting to be grilled again. She handed me a file and began telling me about Inmate 123 and how he had been placed on death row for the murder of his wife. The vultures of the press were beginning to circle.
“And you will be handling the press inquiries.”
It felt like I’d s
wallowed dirt.
“Isn’t that something Stanley would normally handle?” Peggy regularly wrestled with Stanley for any opportunity to deal with the media. Stanley was an experienced reporter who could handle the media because he had been one of them. Peggy couldn’t stand anyone else getting mentioned in a newspaper. One less press clipping for her file. But she knew that was my least favorite part of the job.
Peggy and I had vastly different approaches to dealing with the media. She was eager to jump into the fray and do battle. I was content to sit on the sidelines and wait for the circus to pass me by. Peggy said talking to reporters was like having sex. “First you withhold information, then you tease and cajole, then you share and release information and leave them wanting more.” They never taught that philosophy in journalism school. To me, talking to reporters was nothing like having sex.
At least that confirmed one thing. Peggy Springer had definitely had sex. I’d had my doubts about that. I didn’t see how she had time to fit sex into her busy schedule.
Much as I hate talking to reporters, I almost burst with pride when I saw myself quoted in my first press interview. It was a simple thing. A simple answer. But there it was in black and white, “The Florida correctional system is overcrowded,” said Merritt Saxe, spokesperson for the Florida Division of Corrections. I Xeroxed the article and sent it to my parents.
“You’re the Information Specialist III. You can handle it.”
Peggy knew I hated writing press releases almost as much as handling media calls. I was always afraid I’d say the wrong thing. Something that, once said, couldn’t be unsaid. Give me a newsletter to write any day.
And this was a high profile case. I’d be on the phone for hours, sweating bullets and downing Tums. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
Was that a smirk on Peggy’s face? She was enjoying my discomfort.
Chapter Nine
The course of the investigation changed dramatically when the police brought in Roy Starnes, the Division Comptroller, for questioning. It didn’t take him long to point the detectives in his boss’s direction. The detectives on the case were almost apologetic when they were admitted to the director’s office to “rule him out” as a suspect. The director had arranged for me to be in the office working on our special “project” when they were led in.
The Alibi Page 5