The Original Alibi (Matt Kile)

by David Bishop

  “For the past year I’ve been watching you and a few others drink, enjoying it vicariously. I’m sure Charles told you that the doctor estimates I’ve got maybe a week, give or take. So what the hell is drinking this going to do? Drink up, Matt. Let’s have one together.”

  The general leaned forward, his glass in hand. I got up and leaned across his desk to clink our glasses together. Man’s ritual, born in ancient times and shared since without change other than an evolution from ceramic or pewter mugs to modern glass. I sat back down and watched him take in a modest sip. You could see it ease down his withered throat. His eyes closed. Then he smiled and uttered a slight, “ah,” the two expressions so close I couldn’t tell which preceded the other. Both expressed joy. A moment later, he opened his eyes and took a second sip, this time without the ritual.

  “Now, as I was saying. The death of Cory Jackson argues that Eddie killed Ileana. He had to. My grandson knew I hired you to begin mucking about. You met with him. He saw in you a capable man who would be relentless. His killing Jackson eliminated the only person who saw him kill Ileana. There was no other evidence or witnesses who could connect him.”

  “Yes, General, I’ve toyed with that thought myself. Still, there are a couple things arguing against it.”

  “Such as?”

  “Cory Jackson had already sworn to seeing Eddie. When the D.A. dismissed Jackson’s claim, in reliance on the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Yarbrough and the retired school principal, Jackson’s eyewitness account was nullified. Jackson was no longer a significant threat.”

  “What about those three witnesses? Have you talked with them? Confronted them?”

  “Yes. The Yarbroughs admitted lying. They were coerced with threats of violence against other members of their family.”

  “What? By whom?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “What about Flaherty?” the general asked while excitedly ringing his bell.

  “Flaherty is solid. He is certain he saw Eddie in Buellton that night, just as he told Sergeant Fidgery eleven years ago. With Flaherty in his corner, Eddie should never again find the cops on his porch.”

  “What’s your read on this Flaherty?”

  “He was straight with me. He saw Eddie or believes he did. And if nothing has shaken that belief in eleven years, I don’t see him ever changing his mind.”

  Two more light knocks preceded Charles entering with two more glasses. I took mine. Charles paused without stepping toward the general. “Damn, it, Charles, bring me my drink.”

  Charles stepped toward him and leaned in, the tray just above the desktop. The general took the glass, licking some of the frost from the outside before taking a sip. His eyes were closed in pleasure as Charles latched the door shut. I waited until the general finished savoring the swallow, then he spoke.

  “When the Yarbroughs recanted, it became Flaherty against Jackson and this Montoya fellow who claims he sold my grandson gas right after Ileana’s murder. No. It figures now that Eddie removed the only direct danger, the eyewitness.”

  “General, you’re pulling a milk wagon with a race horse. Slow it down. The police see no connection between the murder of Ileana Corrigan and the killing of Cory Jackson. Jackson has a history of drug arrests, including one for selling. It appears he had cleaned up his addiction to drugs, but not to gambling. When he was killed he owed some bookies. Conjecture says it’s more likely those activities caused his death, totally unrelated to the murder of Ileana.”

  “Are you telling me you think my grandson is innocent?”

  “I’m not saying that either, General. Eddie could well be guilty. Eddie could well be innocent. I don’t know yet. Give it more time. Okay, General?”

  After that I gave him more details about how the witnesses had been bribed to get Eddie arrested, and how the Yarbrough were set up to alibi Eddie, after the general paid the two million for the alibi.

  The general didn’t speak, but he nodded, a new dose of hope showing in his eyes.

  I got up to leave. With my hand on the doorknob, I turned back. “General, I’d like you to be around at the finish line. If you’d like to be, knock off the drinking.”

  Chapter 23

  Reginald Franklin the third had an office in one of those high rise buildings all dressed up in glass and concrete. The kind that said step lightly, be respectful, I’ll be here long after the world has consumed your bones.

  I leaned into the shiny, L-shaped chrome handle pushing open the glass door and entered the two-story lobby. From there I walked on a tan terrazzo floor to the bank of four elevators across from the gift shop. The directory on the wall before the elevators showed Franklin’s office to be on the seventh floor. Elevators spooked me, but I was running late so I decided to face my fear. I pressed the button for seven, then for four after being asked to do so by a young lady wearing a black and white polka dot dress with red heels and purse. Her hair looked like she had come to the building directly from her hairdresser. Her lipstick matched her purse and heels. She could have been a secretary, a wife, a professional in her own right, or a high-end hooker making an office call. I couldn’t tell. She looked over and casually wet her lips. Her tongue, several shades lighter than her lipstick, appeared bumpy along the side I could see. She wore no wedding ring. I couldn’t tell her age closer than early thirties maybe. The modern woman could be asked if she was wearing a bra, but it remained tacky to ask her age, so my guess would have to do. I considered telling her I was a writer, not telling her I had been in prison, and asking for a lunch date. At the fourth floor, she got out before glancing back. I fumbled in my pocket, and then extended my hand holding one of my business cards. My arm aborted the door’s effort to close our relationship before it opened. She took the card, looked at it, then at me, then again at the card, then the elevator door closed on her smile. I had no idea how to reach her. It would be up to her whether this had been one of life’s vignettes or the start of something big.

  I like women who make the first move, although this strategy, if it can be called a strategy, can result in long periods of celibacy.

  Franklin’s office was no less grand than the building lobby except it lacked the two-story ceiling. The built-in front counter and desk combination was backed up by a lady with her hair stacked on top of her head and held there by a couple of those things that look like chopsticks. She was no less pretty than the lady in the elevator. Her outfit held no polka dots, but she did have cleavage. You know me well enough by now to realize that I would trade polka dots for cleavage any day. What man wouldn’t? I mean, I like Polka dots, but it’s no contest. After four years in a prison of men, I no longer took my appreciation for the female form for granted, honoring it at every sighting. I gave her my name and took a seat in the lobby hoping that Franklin and I would become great friends so I would have a reason to frequently visit this building. There are so many lovely ladies assaulting your senses at every turn. It’s like wanting an apple and waking in an orchard.

  After a few minutes, Franklin came out to get me. I recognized him. He recognized me, although Charles had made that easier by calling ahead to remind the attorney that the general wanted everyone to fully cooperate with me. Keep no secrets from good old Uncle Matthew, especially anything you know that might shed light on who murdered Ileana Corrigan.

  After chatting back and forth about everything and nothing, we took coffee in china cups brought in by the cleavage from the front counter. Styrofoam in this office would be a crime punishable by banishment from the ranks of the employed.

  “Mr. Franklin, other than the general’s will, what legal matters do you handle for him?”

  “I do the legal end of all his business dealings. Look over limited partnership agreements he might be considering investing in. The leases he uses for a small apartment building he owns near the Long Beach traffic circle. He sometimes buys or sells real estate and a few times he has invested in a couple of small businesses. The last six months or so, he�
�s divested himself of many of those holdings.”

  “Getting his estate in order?”

  “Something like that, yes.” After a pause he added, “The general’s instructions were that I was to give you a copy of his latest will. It has been mailed to you.”

  I nodded while mouthing the words, “I got it.”

  “The general asked that I cooperate with you. What is it you’d like to know?”

  “Has he recently changed his will?”

  “No. We prepared the current will about five years ago, perhaps a little farther back than that.”

  “I’d like a copy of the former will, the one he changed from, also the one in effect at the time of the murder of Ileana Corrigan.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Kile. The general said to give you a copy of his will. Then again, the general said to cooperate fully with whatever you wanted to know. All right, his former will dates back fifteen years so that would have been before the Corrigan woman’s death. Do you want anything farther back than that? I think we had one, but it involved Benjamin, his son, before his death.”

  “Skip that one. The one I have and the former one executed fifteen years ago will be fine.”

  Franklin buzzed his receptionist, told her what he wanted and we chatted about the L.A. Lakers until she brought it in. I left a few minutes later, resisting a desire to approach Franklin’s receptionist. At this point it seemed a little too strong a mix of business and pleasure. The polka dot dress in the elevator was still in play, although what might come from that would be up to her.

  Chapter 24

  Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. I opened my eyes to see a guy in a ski mask slamming his fist into my navel; it didn’t fit. The blows had somehow brought me around. I hadn’t felt anything before that, but the way his chest was heaving he had been working hard on me long enough for sweat moons to have formed under his arms. I knew I had taken more than three blows. My feet were off the ground, my hands tied above my head. That allowed me to swing back and forth a bit with each blow. He timed his punches so I would swing forward to meet each of them.

  The last thing I remembered, I walked out of Russell’s restaurant on Atlantic Avenue just north of Carson Street. I had parked in the back lot along the alley. Then I remembered my head being hit, after that I remember only now, now with nothing in between.

  I was trussed up like a carcass from a hunt, and that’s likely how my friend in the ski mask saw me. My hands were tied, but they didn’t feel super tight. I fought against the binds without progress. A blow struck the left of my jaw. Thump. Then just below my right ear. Schwap. The meaty part of my face came into play for a while. After that, he zoned in just below the eye where body design forgot to leave any padding. Crunk. Crunk. The internal sounds of blows to the face varied according to bone density and tissue thickness. He was an equal opportunity thug as he worked one side of my head and then the other. The man was nasty and clearly enjoyed his work. I did not.

  I thought about how I would enjoy returning his kindness, should events give me that opportunity. I looked around the room and saw no vise. I had always wondered how well a man would hold up with his testicles in a vise, his in particular.

  Then he left the room. I was alone. I tried to take inventory. It appeared I was in an industrial building. One light was on, a lamp sitting on a metal bookcase against the wall near the single door through which my keeper had exited. There was also a big door, a loading type that had a chain pulley next to it for raising and lowering. The ceiling was dotted with hooks, big hooks. Meat hooks, or ones that looked like meat hooks, spaced evenly along a chain belt likely controlled by a switch somewhere that moved the entire row around the room. The whole set up looked like the thing on which your local dry cleaner hangs clothes. Only, if this had been a conveyor belt for a dry cleaner, it took some serious steroids. More like hooks which might move hanging car fenders through a paint booth, and I was suspended on one of them. The walls appeared to be metal, the floor concrete. I swung my legs up enough to see there was duct tape around my ankles, likely from the same roll used to tape my mouth. I wrenched my head back and saw that my hands were bound at the wrist with a white cord that had been looped above the hook.

  Screeeeech, the metal door dragged on the cement floor. My keeper had come back. The only good thing, he still wore the ski mask. It was warm. He would be uncomfortable. If he planned to use me as a punching bag until I no longer offered entertainment, and then kill me, he would have left the mask off and gone for comfort. I imagined him ugly, as in if I had a dog that ugly I would shave his butt and teach him to walk backwards.

  Thump. Thump. This visit he came to work on my stomach, chest, and kidneys. At least that’s where he started. Thump. Thwack. That last one landed on my chest, those sound different. More hollow. At least they do on the inside. Thump, the stomach. Thump again, then twice more. Thwack. Thwack. These two absorbed by the other side of my chest. Whatever he was being paid, he was earning it. Normally I respect a man who takes pride in his work, but not so much when I’m the work. The number of blows disappeared within the pain which had quit ebbing and flowing between blows and became a constant with periodic highlights. The repetition would have been monotonous, if not for the hurt. Instead, I focused on keeping count of the seconds my host spent with me. The last time we had been together a little over 800 seconds.

  Thwack. I felt it immediately. That thwack. I knew that feeling. I had felt that feeling before. A broken rib, cracked at the very least. It had to happen. With my feet off the floor I was stretched out. My body’s ability to absorb the blows diminished. Damn.

  My personal skier was panting. He was tired. If he had the tape off my mouth I could have suggested we change places for a while so he could rest. Then he switched to my face. He had fast hands. He threw good combinations.

  Seven hundred and fifty seconds and counting.

  The inside of my mouth was getting mushy from repeatedly being slammed against my teeth, particularly after I became too tired to hold my lower jaw up against my upper teeth. My right eye was cut. I felt the blood worm trailing down the side of my face, tasted it in my mouth.

  My head dropped down, my chin held there by my chest. Blood flavored saliva trailed out the corner of my mouth.

  After standing back for a moment, admiring his work, he quit. His chest heaved as he turned to close the door.

  Eight hundred forty seven seconds.

  Both visits had lasted about fourteen minutes. I had also counted the seconds between his visits with me. They ran closer to nine hundred. I had roughly fifteen minutes to try and reset the table or our next meeting would go much like the last two.

  Chapter 25

  It would only get worse after he came back to deliver another pummeling. I took the first minute to hang free, my weight fully on my wrists, willing the rest of my body to relax. The hook I hung on had to look like the others. The hook itself was the curved bottom end of a rod that extended up until it became part of the conveyor system that ran across the ceiling.

  I swung back and forth a bit, and with the momentum I tucked and lifted much like a gymnast pulling up chest high on an overhead bar. Of course, the gymnasts didn’t do it with a broken rib. Then again, the gymnasts weren’t motivated to prevent another beating.

  On the third swing I was able to lurch my hands upward to grasp the upper part of the rod rather than simply having the cord that tied my wrists suspend me from the hook. With that hold I swung higher, tucking my knees on the forward swings, and my hips when swinging backward. The tape on my mouth suppressed my groans from the pulsing rib pain. After a half dozen swings I got the necessary height and tried to loop one heel through the slope of the hook in front of me. Missed. The hook swung away and I went back to regaining the momentum I needed for a second try. Missed. A third. Missed. On the fourth, my right heel seated into the hook and I twisted my foot to put my toes behind the rod above that hook.

  The heel of my left foot had been gouged as it cu
t across the hook which had seeded between my feet. I resembled a fighter plane with one wing sheared off. Still, much of my weight was off my hands. That had been the idea. The next move was critical. I needed to leverage enough of my weight onto my stirruped foot to allow me to pull my hands away fast enough that the cord tying my hands would not slide down to again snag onto the hook. If I succeeded I would fall to the floor. I hoped to land on my feet, but I had no idea how I would accomplish it. That would require a flip I was wholly incapable of doing, first starting toward the floor with my head and then flipping to my feet. Yeah. Right. Still, I had very few, make that no, options at this point. I pushed down with my right heel while releasing my hands from the rod. Almost simultaneously, I violently yanked my hands back and away from hook. The floor was about seven feet from where my nearly horizontal body began the fall.

  I hit the concrete. The impact absorbed by the side of my buttocks and my upper arm. The pain from my rib was piercing. The tape across my mouth was all that kept me from crying out. I lay there stunned, knowing I had to get moving or the fall to the floor would have been endured for nothing. I was free from the hook. That alone meant only that my personal skier would need to rehang me should he come in before I was ready to receive him.

  Before my bad gymnastics bit, while I was just hanging around, I had put together a plan for overpowering my jailer, a plan which might kill him. Ask me if I cared about that. Fortunately, he had tied my hands in front before lifting me high enough to impale me on hook number eight. Yes, they all had numbers. My foot had been suspended on hook seven.

  I needed more time. I needed more luck. I needed my plan to work.

  After rolling over a few times I got to the sidewall. There, I leveraged myself into a standing position by inching my body up the wall. The first thing I did was to pull the tape from my mouth. Next, I picked up a spare hook from the floor and wriggled my way over to a metal chair. There, sitting, I held the loose hook in my hands and poked and tore at the cord around my wrist until the hook had weakened it sufficiently for me to pull my hands free.