The Alibi

by Marilyn Baron

  “Gentleman, I’d like you to meet Merritt Saxe, our new Information Specialist III.” He shot me a warning look. “She’s here helping me with a special project that’s going to change the direction of corrections for the next century. Merritt, meet Homer Chaffee and Plato Barnes.”

  Homer and Plato? Could there be two less philosophical-looking people? I had a feeling if I looked in a dictionary under “good old boys” I’d find Homer’s and Plato’s pictures. I was face to face with Andy of Mayberry and Barney Fife.

  “Now, what can I do for you boys?”

  Detective Homer Chaffee, who did all the talking and was obviously the man in charge, handed me his card, shuffled, and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. “Will, we’re here about Savannah Braddock. Just thought we’d save you a trip down to the station. We, uh, talked to Roy Starnes.”

  “Good man, Roy.”

  “Yes, well, uh, Mr. Starnes led us to believe that you, uh, and the victim had a special relationship, if you know what I mean, and that we should probably take a closer look.”

  The director let loose with a belly laugh. “Me and Savannah? Christ, Homer, she was young enough to be my daughter. How long have you known me? I’m a happily married man. Don’t you let Miss Julia hear you talking like that. She’d tan my hide. That woman has a memory like an elephant, and she sure can hold a grudge. And she’s a crack shot. Which is why I would never mess around.” Boy, the director could put on a good-old-boy accent like nobody’s business. I tried to steady my hands while the director delivered the coup de grace. “Just what are you insinuatin’?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything, Will. Of course I know you wouldn’t do anything to dishonor Miss Julia. We just have to check on your whereabouts on the morning of the murder.”

  “Uh, let’s see.” The director looked through his calendar, rubbed his chin like he was contemplating, and fixed a faraway look on his face. He was good.

  “Wait, now…Merritt? Wasn’t that the morning we were working on that special project? I asked you to come to the ranch to deliver some papers, and that’s when we started talking about it, you know, the special project. You remember that, now, don’t you, darlin’?”

  Darlin’? Now I was on the spot. I flushed and stammered, and gnashed my teeth. The room was spinning.

  The director put his powerful arm around me and pulled me close into a bear hug, winking at the detectives. “Now, don’t be shy, honey. These nice gentlemen just need to get their answers, and then they’ll be on their way. They’ve got important work to do. They’re not interested in what we do in our private time.”

  Jesus. The big rat was implying that we, the director and me, were an item, to throw the detectives off his trail.

  “Come on, tell the boys what they need to know. We don’t want to hold them up.” He squeezed me harder.

  “Miss Saxe?” Detective Chaffee prompted.

  “I, uh, well, I, um, h-he’s r-right. We were working on a s-special project that morning.” I inhaled a breath and might have fainted if the director hadn’t been there to hold me up. It was true. That special project was a murder cover-up.

  “Now, boys, there’s no need to spread this around. I wouldn’t want Miss Julia to get a whiff of gossip. Let’s just keep this special project to ourselves.”

  “I see,” said Detective Chaffee, and judging from the big smile that dawned on his face, he did see. The director was diddling his newest hire, and he didn’t want Miss Julia to know about it. Apparently, that wasn’t as farfetched as it seemed. I was his alibi. I had lied to the police. I was doomed.

  “Would you sign a sworn statement to that effect?” Homer posed, deepening the hole.

  “Of course we will,” assured the director.

  “Well, then, there’s no need to trouble you two further,” said Chaffee, extending a professional courtesy to his fellow law enforcement colleague. “I’m going to have some statements sent over for you to sign. No need to come down to the station.” He turned to me. “Thanks for your time. Miss Saxe, if you can think of anything else you’d like to tell me, then you give me a call.”

  I could barely speak. I gave him my best deer-in-the-headlights stare, and nodded.

  “Homer, I’m going to see that Miss Julia invites you and Trudy over to the ranch for drinks and dinner real soon, ya hear?”

  “That would be great. Trudy would love that. She’s dying to see how Miss Julia redecorated the place. Thank you for your time.”

  “Glad to be of service. Now, if there’s ever anything I can do for you boys, anything you need, you be sure and let me know.” And just like that they were gone. And I was officially a criminal, working in the criminal justice system.

  The director shut the door and edged closer to me. His body almost touched mine. His aftershave gave off a powerful aroma of spearmint and man scent. I was overwhelmed.

  “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Rounding on him, I found my voice and my moral high ground. “I lied to the police. I could go to jail.”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head, sugar. You aren’t going anywhere as long as you stick to the truth and stick with me.” Was that a threat or a proposition? If he was capable of killing the woman he supposedly loved, then he would have no trouble getting rid of me.

  “The truth?” I blurted out. “That was definitely not the truth.”

  “In a manner of speaking, it was.”

  “Not in any manner. How could you let them think…?”

  The director smiled. “That we were lovers?” He enjoyed toying with me. He tilted my chin up with his fingertip and tilted it left and then right, and his eyes slowly traversed my body. I flinched.

  “Is that so hard to imagine?” he teased. “I can imagine it. In fact, I have imagined it. I’m imagining it right now.”

  Shit, what a gutter rat. I had to get out of there and go home and wash off the veneer of filth that was coating the room. Savannah’s body was hardly cold, and he was looking to replace her with a new bedmate. Me.

  “I have to go.” I extricated myself from his grasp, ran to the door, opened it, and shot out.

  His booming laugh followed me down the hall.

  Chapter Ten

  “I need to speak to Daniel Krantz.” I tapped my foot silently on the shag carpet.

  “Danny,” a female voice shouted. “Phone for you.”

  Danny again? It took him almost a minute to pick up the telephone. What was he doing, zipping up his pants? Who was he with? Who was that sexy-sounding girl on the other end of the line?

  “This is Danny.”

  “Daniel,” I said, choking on my words and trying to hold back the tears.

  “Merritt, baby, is that you? You’re crying. What’s wrong?”

  “I need to see you.”

  “Honey, we talked about that. You were just here, and I’m coming home at Thanksgiving, which is right around the corner.”

  I sniffled. “I could catch another ride up.”

  “This isn’t a good weekend. I have a major test in Contracts to cram for. And then I’ve got a paper due in Torts. And next week is my Property exam. I’ll be up all night studying. I wouldn’t even have time to see you.”

  Up all night with who?

  “Then come to Watertown after your test.”

  “Honey, this is law school. You know I can’t skip class. I can’t afford the time.”

  “Well, if I was working up there, we could see each other anytime. We could move in together.”

  “Hold on, Merritt. We talked about this.”

  “I have something to tell you, and it can’t wait.”

  “Then tell me over the phone.”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “I want to quit my job. I want to be with you.”

  “You’re painting a pretty picture, Merritt, but we’re too young. I’ve got three years of law school ahead of me. I can’t
just quit and play house with you all day.”

  “Is that what you think I want to do? I’m in love with you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “Of course it does.”

  I pouted, for all the good it did me over the phone. “There’s something I have to ask you—a legal question.”

  “Sure, if I can answer it.”

  “Let’s say a person vouches for another person about their whereabouts on the morning of a crime, and say that person signs a statement to that effect, but that person couldn’t corroborate said person’s whereabouts and lied to the police. Could that person be liable for filing a false statement?”

  “What are you talking about? Is this some friend of yours? You’d better tell them not to sign a false statement. I don’t actually know the consequences of swearing to a false statement. Maybe it depends on the crime. What are we talking about here?”

  I hesitated, almost choking on the words. “Well, murder.”

  “Merr, is this some kind of a joke? I don’t want you associating with anybody like that. I know you work for the prison system, but I don’t want you ending up there. I know you’re not asking for yourself. Who is this person who violated the law?”

  I sighed. Daniel didn’t know me very well, or the new person I’d become.

  “It’s nothing. It’s hypothetical, just a problem I ran across at work. Since you are in law school I figured you might know about something like that.”

  “I’d say steer clear of anyone who willfully lies under oath, either in a court of law or on a sworn statement.”

  “That’s what I thought. Well, sorry to bother you, then. Good luck on your exams.”

  “I love you, Merritt. Good night.”

  “Good night.” I cradled the phone gently when what I really wanted to do was slam it down, and I deliberately didn’t say, “I love you” back. Daniel didn’t understand anything. Couldn’t he tell I was desperate and needed help, or at least sympathy? I wasn’t about to blurt out my problem over the phone. All he cared about were his exams and his new life in Virginia, while I was wrestling with life and death matters in Nowheresville, Florida.

  And speaking of states, limbo was not a very desirable state. I was still a stranger in town, and I had no friends to hang out with, or call, just the people at work, and those I definitely could not confide in, especially not Peggy. This lonely life had to end.

  I made up my mind. I was going to give Daniel an ultimatum at Thanksgiving. Either get engaged or break up. I felt like a clam, living inside my head. I couldn’t move forward. I liked the work, but somehow I had gotten entangled in a mess that I had no idea how to unravel.

  On the bright side, there was the promotion, deserved or not. I sure could use the extra money, even though it was essentially hush money.

  I went into the kitchen and started puttering around. I warmed up some soup. Soup always made me feel better. To tell the truth, which apparently I now had trouble doing, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I turned off the burner and poured some soup into a bowl and took my bowl to the TV tray in front of the couch. Another mindless night in front of the TV. I could always read, but I wanted the voices on the TV to keep me company. This was not any way to live, I thought, as I sipped my soup.

  Three hours later I woke up in a daze in front of the TV. I had slept the night away, again. This had to stop. Tomorrow morning I was going to go in to work, plant myself in front of the director’s office, and demand he make it all go away. Sure, he frightened me. He was a killer, after all. And he had a whole army of people behind him. All I had was myself.

  Chapter Eleven

  “The director will see you now, Miss Saxe,” said Belinda in her most formal and unfriendly tone. She was growing suspicious that all of a sudden an underling was in her boss’s office at all hours of the day. She was the gatekeeper and resented the fact that the upstart, me, had instant access to her boss. It wasn’t adding up.

  “Miss Saxe, will you close the door behind you?” I tried not to act frightened. But alone with a killer was the last place I wanted to be. I shut the door slowly. Were the doors soundproof? Could his secretary hear me if I cried out? I looked around for weapons. I imagined the director carried a gun in his jacket.

  “Have a seat. What can I do for you, Merritt?”

  I stammered and refused to sit. “I came here to set the record straight.”

  “What record?”

  “We lied on our statements to the police, and I’d like to correct that.”

  The director laughed. “You want to admit you lied under oath?” The director had the ability to fluster someone with his nerves of steel.

  “I want to make it right. I don’t want to be involved. I want you to get me out of this.”

  “Unfortunately, Miss Saxe, you’re in it up to your pretty little neck.”

  I pursed my lips, and my hands flew to my throat. That sounded like a threat.

  “At least help me get rid of the evidence.”

  The director straightened in his chair. “What evidence?”

  “The picture of you and Savannah, the one inside the frame that you, I mean the killer, smashed to pieces on the floor of the condo.”

  “The one you picked up off the floor?”

  “To protect you.”

  “Well, then, I suggest you continue protecting me. Think of it as part of your new job description.” He paused. “And, Miss Saxe, I think you’re under the false impression that I am the killer. I am not the killer. I was in love with Savannah Braddock. She was carrying my child. Had she lived, I would have married her.”

  I looked the director right in the eye. He almost sounded sincere, but I didn’t believe him for a minute. If he was so innocent, why would he need me for an alibi?

  “What did you do with the picture?” he asked.

  “It’s in the night table in my condo.”

  “Can you put it in a safe deposit box at the bank?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Well, then, get one.”

  I recalled the photo. It was so intimate it had made me blush just to look at it. Savannah was in a skimpy bikini, and the director’s well-developed abs were visible above his tight swimming trunks. He had his arm around her, and she was smiling up at him. Someone must have taken it of the two of them. Someone who knew about their illicit relationship. It was obvious, the way the two were draped around each other, that they were involved, if not in love.

  “I can’t afford to have that found in my house.” He was probably more afraid of his wife finding it than the two detectives that had stopped by earlier. “They’d never think to look in yours.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Merritt, I’m going out of town with the director for a corrections conference in South Carolina, won’t be back until just in time for Thanksgiving. I’m leaving you in charge of the office while I’m gone. I need to go home and pack. We’re leaving right after the trial.”

  “The trial?”

  “The Savannah Braddock trial starts today. The director wants to be there when Roy Starnes takes the stand. You know, for moral support.”

  I panicked. I hadn’t realized it was the trial date already.

  “Are you going to the trial?”

  “No time. I have a million things to take care of.”

  “You’re leaving me in charge?”

  “Yes, you’re the most senior in my absence. I hope there are no crises while I’m gone, but I’m sure you can handle it. See you next week.”

  I almost laughed. Not a day went by at this place that we didn’t have a crisis.

  “What if we get any media calls? Will Stanley be here?”

  “Yes, but you outrank Stanley.”

  My stomach turned. Maybe if I locked myself in Peggy’s office and didn’t answer the phone, nothing would happen. Not a fire, a murder, a kidnapping, or any number of things that could and probably would happen in my boss’s absence.

  Peggy was enjoying herself.
Stanley was smirking. Oh, happy day.

  Peggy gathered her briefcase and some papers and sailed out the door. If there was one thing she liked better than collecting her press clippings, it was alone time with the director.

  I inhaled a breath.

  I looked at Stanley. “Stanley, I expect you to handle any media calls that come in.”

  “Not a chance. You’re the Information Specialist III. I’m only a II. That’s above my pay grade.”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” I pleaded.

  “You’re on your own, Merritt.”

  He got that right.

  “I’m in charge in Peggy’s absence. So you’ll deal with any media calls that come in.”

  Peggy knew how much I hated dealing with the media. Anyway, if Roy Starnes was scheduled to take the stand. I needed to be in that courtroom. I made a flimsy excuse to Stanley and bolted out of the office.

  When Roy was sworn in, my stomach clenched. The prosecutor asked a few slow-pitch questions, establishing Roy’s identity and his relationship with the victim. Then he went in for the kill. Roy was their prime suspect, and they weren’t going to go easy on him.

  “Mr. Starnes, did you visit Savannah Braddock on the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  The courtroom exploded.

  “Was it by invitation?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you show up at the lady’s door unannounced?”

  “She forgot her scarf at the ranch at the director’s Fourth of July barbecue. I thought she might need it.”

  “You thought she might need her scarf in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, I didn’t think. I just acted.”

  “You wanted another chance to see Miss Braddock, isn’t that right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And when you surprised her at her apartment, what was she wearing?”

  Roy’s pale face turned a deep shade of red. “Her n-nightgown.”

  “Her sheer, white nightgown? The one she was wearing the night she was murdered?”