Alibis Can Be Murder
Charlie Parker Mysteries, Book 17
© 2017 Connie Shelton
Alibis Can Be Murder
Published by Secret Staircase Books, an imprint of
Columbine Publishing Group
PO Box 416, Angel Fire, NM 87710
Copyright © 2017 Connie Shelton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places or organizations are unintentional.
Book layout and design by Secret Staircase Books
Cover image © Ken Cole
Cover silhouettes © Ayutaka
What others are saying about the
Charlie Parker Mystery Series
“Connie Shelton gets better with every book she writes.”
–The Midwest Book Review
“… a good bet…” –Booklist
“Shelton again has done a superb job in bringing New Mexico to life in her colorful, vivid description….Readers can only hope the likable characters, fast-paced plots and local color will continue in another installment.” –Albuquerque Journal
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“…a delightfully complex mystery.” –Romantic Times (4 stars)
“Shelton can only expand her fan base with this solid effort.” –Publishers Weekly
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Books
by Connie Shelton
The Charlie Parker Series
Deadly Gamble
Vacations Can Be Murder
Partnerships Can Be Murder
Small Towns Can Be Murder
Memories Can Be Murder
Honeymoons Can Be Murder
Reunions Can Be Murder
Competition Can Be Murder
Balloons Can Be Murder
Obsessions Can Be Murder
Gossip Can Be Murder
Stardom Can Be Murder
Phantoms Can Be Murder
Buried Secrets Can Be Murder
Legends Can Be Murder
Weddings Can Be Murder
Alibis Can Be Murder
Holidays Can Be Murder - a Christmas novella
The Samantha Sweet Series
Sweet Masterpiece
Sweet’s Sweets
Sweet Holidays
Sweet Hearts
Bitter Sweet
Sweets Galore
Sweets, Begorra
Sweet Payback
Sweet Somethings
Sweets Forgotten
Spooky Sweet
The Woodcarver’s Secret
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Chapter 1
Springtime in New Mexico is a tricky season. There are beautiful, warm days that fool the trees into blooming, followed by hard freezes that knock your socks off and mean death to those tiny apple blossoms and potential peaches. You never really know it’s arrived until, oftentimes, it’s gone and summer has sneaked right up on you. But this spring I knew there had been damage when I walked out the back door on April eleventh and heard a curse word from my ninety-something neighbor, the sweet little lady who somehow raised me through my teen years without resorting to sailor language even once.
“Gram?” I called through the hedge that separates our properties. “Everything okay?”
A wide-brimmed cotton hat, topping her fluffy white hair, appeared at the break in the hedge. “My cherry tree is toast. The plums don’t look a whole lot better.”
It didn’t take a glance at the thermometer to know it was freezing out here. I’d come out with only a flannel shirt and jeans and I was already shivering. By noon it would be seventy degrees, but that didn’t much matter now.
“I should have put the fans out last night,” she lamented. “I knew it.”
“So sorry,” I said. “You know, Drake and I would have been happy to come over and help.”
Elsa Higgins is a sweetie but she has the hardest time being dependent on anyone. Even when it’s a simple fifteen-minute chore, she won’t ask. Of course, the forlorn look over the lost fruit crop gave me a case of the guilts. If I’d not been at the office until midnight, working on tax returns, I might have thought to bring up the subject of figuring out how to warm her trees.
“Hey, I was about to put some blueberry muffins in the oven …” Providing I still had that mix on the shelf. “Want to come over in about fifteen minutes and have some?”
Freckles, our brown and white mixed breed dog, heard the phrase ‘have some’ and she raced from the far corner of the yard in response. Elsa and I both laughed.
“I’d say that’s a yes. Come on, any time. The coffee’s already made.” I shivered and opened the door into my kitchen.
“Freezing?” Drake asked, holding a steaming mug out to me.
“Yeah. I had this silly notion because it’s sunny this morning I would put the cushions on the chairs under the gazebo and we could have coffee out there. No way—it’s barely forty.”
He set the mug on the counter and wrapped his arms around me. “Maybe by happy hour this afternoon.”
We were both eager to use the new gazebo, his Valentine gift to me, which he’d built during the two weeks of unseasonably warm weather in February when he had no pressing jobs for his helicopter business. I loved the turned balusters and white gingerbread trim. In an effort to rush spring into existence we’d purchased wicker furniture and were ready to spend hours out there. Late February turned cold again, March was way too windy and now April—the unpredictable month.
“Oh, I promised Elsa blueberry muffins. Do we still have that box?” I opened a cupboard door.
He handed me my coffee and steered me toward the kitchen table. “Let me handle it.”
How on earth did I ever find this fantastic husband? He builds and he cooks, and he’s still so good-looking it makes my heart beat faster.
Freckles followed Drake around the kitchen as he found the mix, got eggs from the fridge and stirred it all together, actually remembering to turn the oven on first so it preheated. He amazes me. I’m good with boiling water for pasta, microwaving a frozen dinner for myself when he’s working out of town, and not much else unless it comes from packages or jars. I’m an accountant, a partner with my brother in his private investigation firm, and frequent helpmate to Drake, who trained me and turned me into a decent helicopter pilot. As a kid I was always outside, rough and tumbling with my brothers, happy to let my mother—and later Gram—handle everything in the kitchen.
As if thinking her name summoned our neighbor, a tap at the back door meant Elsa had arrived. She carried a small jar of cherry preserves, a legacy of last year’s crop which had not frozen. It’s another thing I never think to do—show up at someone’s house with a little gift. I think of i
t, really I do. Usually it hits me when I’m standing at the door, having pressed the bell. New resolution: start observing the social graces.
She patted Drake on the shoulder, having come from a not-huggy generation. “It smells so good in here.” She was looking at him when she said it. She knows who’s the cook around our house.
Plates, forks, the butter dish and a bowl of strawberries had somehow appeared on the table while I wasn’t noticing. Okay, at this point I’m going to use the excuse that it’s tax season and I’ve had nothing but numbers on my mind for a couple of weeks. Returns were done for the businesses. Somehow between now and the fifteenth I would put it all together, wrap up our personal tax return and get the whole batch in the mail.
Elsa hung her jacket over the back of a chair and Drake took the muffin pan from the oven. I remembered napkins—see? I can handle a few things.
“… at the Delaney house,” Elsa was saying.
I made the mental shift. The Delaneys were neighbors three houses south and across the street from Elsa’s. Since I normally come and go from the north end of the street, I had no clue what she was talking about. It didn’t matter—with Elsa you just wait a minute and you’ll get the rest of the story.
“The twins,” she said, “I’ve only seen one of them around.”
I gave a shrug and passed her the basket Drake had set on the table.
“Those girls are always together and now it’s been months and months, and I’ve only seen one.”
“Which one?”
She giggled. “How should I know? They’re identical twins.”
“Maybe the other girl has left home. They must be out of school by now. Maybe she’s moved away.”
Elsa gave a tiny shake of her head. “Something tells me that’s not it. I’m worried about her.”
A flash from the past shot through my mind—two little blond girls that Gram sometimes babysat. During the three years I lived with her I’d spent a fair amount of time with those kids. Maybe it was a case of sometimes you know someone so well you don’t see them at all. I’ve lived in the same neighborhood my whole life. Could it be that I’ve become blind to what’s going on around me?
Chapter 2
Breakfast wound down pretty quickly, as Drake needed to get out to the small westside airport where his helicopter is hangared and I still had those tax returns nagging at me. Freckles saw Elsa out to the break in the hedge then came back to join me. I kissed my husband at the front door, watched him get into his pickup truck in the driveway, and picked up my purse and keys.
My destination was a gray and white Victorian house in an older part of town, one we had converted to the offices of RJP Investigations. My brother, Ron, is actually the investigator. I’m the financial whiz. Our offices are across the hall from each other and somehow, too often, I seem to get pulled into helping out with his cases. He does a lot of corporate background checks on new hires, with a smattering of cheating-spouse cases.
Yeah, even in the age of digital openness, there are still people who use a PI to gather dirt on the person they once vowed to love forever—all for the purpose of dragging them to court and extracting the largest financial settlement possible. I back away from those—it all seems so sleazy—but I’ve been known to find myself in the midst of a murder or two.
Right now, Freckles and I were riding along in my Jeep with the goal of avoiding any of Ron’s dramas and heading straight to: 1) the tin of dog biscuits on my shelf and 2) the partially completed tax forms in my computer. We pulled into the driveway beside the office and followed its length to what used to be a backyard, now our own little parking area.
Ron’s Mustang wasn’t there yet, but our part-time receptionist, Sally Bertrand, was already on the job, as evidenced by her minivan in its usual spot. Sally was in the kitchen, pouring coffee into a stained mug, looking a little ragged around the edges.
“Long night?” I asked.
“Crazy morning. You know, with Ross staying home mornings with R.B., you’d think it wouldn’t be so nuts. But getting Chrissie off to school and myself to work without some disaster along the way … it never happens. Today, it was a whole bowl of oatmeal coating the highchair, the baby and the floor.”
I gave a perky smile and thanked my lucky stars my only children had been dogs.
She held out the coffee carafe to me but I declined, making a little chitchat about the muffin breakfast at home before calling Freckles inside and heading upstairs. Sally’s domain is the reception area and conference room on the ground floor—originally the parlor and dining room in the Victorian days.
Upstairs, the layout is pretty simple—two identically sized bedrooms became Ron’s and my offices, each with a bay window facing the street. There was a smaller bedroom which is now storage and a bathroom you’d hate to think that a family of five or six people once shared. A shower curtain hides the old bathtub and there’s a standard white toilet and porcelain pedestal sink—nothing glamorous because it doesn’t have to be. I rarely have time for home décor, so I’m pretty content with whatever is handed to me.
I flipped on the lights in my office and turned on my new laptop computer. After years with a crazily outdated desktop clunker, this little thing zooms like a race car. Freckles circled the room and parked herself facing the bookcase where the tin of dog biscuits sits. It’s our morning routine. She’ll sit patiently for about ten seconds, and if I don’t get the hint she’ll be leaping into my field of view to get my attention. It’s just easier to give her the cookie right away.
I patted her little brown and white head and sat down at the computer. An hour had magically vanished when I became aware of Ron standing in my doorway.
“Ever heard of an alibi company?” he asked.
I came out of my Form 1040 like a mole emerging from the ground, blinking and disoriented. “What? Good morning to you too.”
“Yeah. Morning, Charlie.” He’s recently taken to wearing ball caps and T-shirts instead of the Stetson and plaid western shirts he sported for years. Maybe it’s an attempt to impress his new wife of four months, to be cooler with his three sons now they’re getting into their teens, or merely to seem younger—I have no idea. Victoria is such a classy lady, I can’t imagine the ball caps being her idea.
“So?” he asked again. “Alibi companies. Ever heard of them?”
“Em … no.”
He held up a magazine, open to an article whose headline I could barely make out.
“They provide alibis.”
“Okay … You mean to get criminals off the hook?”
“Not serious criminals, more like cheating spouses.”
“Ooh, right up your alley.”
“Ha ha.”
I shot him a look.
“I’ve got this case and everywhere I turn, the guy’s got proof of his innocence. I know he’s sneaking around, but the wife wants proof and I can’t come up with it. According to this article, these places provide their clients with the whole deal—restaurant and travel receipts, answering services where a pretend secretary says the boss is in a meeting, the whole thing.”
“Seriously. Does anyone really care about that stuff anymore? I mean, there are no-fault divorces and it’s a community property state. Why jump through all the hoops when he knows he’ll have to split everything fifty-fifty anyway?”
“When fifty percent is several million dollars, I guess it’s worth a bit more trouble. It’s Bob Lorrento.”
“Bobby The Bomb? The football player?”
“The greatest quarterback in NFL history, the one who could land a pass in anyone’s hands. Forced retirement last year after that shoulder injury.” He went on to spout football stats I couldn’t even begin to follow, the kind of stuff he and Drake talk about on Thanksgiving Day after a huge turkey dinner.
All I remembered about the guy was the headline news about his injury, followed by a local flurry of stories last summer about how he was retiring and moving his family to Albuquerque. Even wi
thout the injury, he was hitting an age where you didn’t see a whole lot of pro ballplayers still in the game.
“Back on target here,” I said. “Bob Lorrento is cheating on his wife?”
“Allegedly. Marcie Lorrento believes he is, and she’s furious.”
“Well, have fun with it. I’ve got paperwork here.” I pointed toward the stacks of receipts and forms littering my desk.
He grumbled a little, to what purpose I have no idea. He knows those aren’t my kind of cases.
We met up again in the kitchen around noon, both Ron and I attracted by the smell of the microwave popcorn Sally had made as a snack. She leaves for the day at one o’clock anyway, but always has a little something to tide her over. I had brought a sandwich from home, but when Ron offered to run out and bring me a Big Mac I couldn’t refuse. Despite Victoria’s best efforts with both of us, the Parkers seem stuck on fast food.
“Any luck with the alibi guy?” I asked, digging into the bag for my fries immediately after he returned with the meal.
“Just getting started, really. I found two of those alibi companies here in town. I’m not exactly having any luck getting them to admit a famous client’s name.”
“Gosh, why am I not surprised?”
He tossed a French fry at me and it bounced off my hand as I was opening the little box containing my burger.
“You seriously think I just come right out and ask, expecting an answer?”
I shrugged and took a huge bite. That special sauce always gets to me and I let out a sigh of contentment. The repartee dwindled as we both got serious about our food. A few minutes later, with the initial hunger slaked, I thought of something.
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