Alibis Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  None of that interested me, but on the nightstand between the twin beds was something that did—a cell phone. I glanced over my shoulder. After watching these kids awhile I couldn’t imagine either of them being more than ten feet from this device. But the house was empty. I’d watched Zayne and her friend leave and go to the riverside party. Could Clover have forgotten her phone when she left with Ryan for the movies? Doubtful.

  I picked up the phone and sat on the edge of one bed. It responded when I pressed the button, lighting up immediately. The background showed a photo of the two girls, with identical smiles and arms around each other. The little icon for text messages showed only two. I tapped it and saw they were from Zayne. So this must be Clover’s phone. It made sense, as I’d seen Zayne at the party with hers.

  The list of recent calls was extensive. I’d just begun to look through them to see who I might recognize when the phone vibrated and pinged in my hand. I jumped and it fell to the carpet. I stared at the screen as if it were a poisonous snake. A banner came up showing the sender as Zaynie: we r at riv, u coming?

  Maybe this was good news. Not quite a photo, but I could report to their aunt that the girls were in contact.

  A beam of light crossed the bedroom window, catching my attention. A car had stopped nearby. Uh-oh. Whether it was Clover and Ryan or someone else, I was in deep doo-doo for being in here. I put her phone back on the nightstand and picked up my flashlight where I’d set it beside me on the bed. No one had got out of the car yet but it wouldn’t take them more than thirty seconds to cross the yard and open the front door.

  I dashed down the hall and through the living room, stumbling on the stupid sneakers in my haste. I heard two car doors slam, then male and female voices. The scattering of shop receipts on the dining table caught my eye, pale slips in the muted beam of my light. I’d taken a huge chance coming in here and hated to leave with nothing to show for my heroics. I reached out and snatched a fistful of the paper strips, jammed them into my jacket pocket.

  Through the kitchen, into the laundry room I dashed. I slipped out the door into the garage and pulled it oh-so-quietly shut behind me. Letting my bright beam guide me through the maze of garage junk I beat a quick retreat to the back door. I peered into the back yard. No lights shone out here, but I figured it was time to stop taking chances. I ducked to the side yard, out the gate and to the street. A look around showed no vehicle in front of the Delaney house. Either Ryan had dropped Clover off and driven away, or the vehicle I heard was someone else. I arrived a minute later at my own front door panting like an exhausted puppy.

  I’m getting too old for this.

  At home, Drake was in his office with his pilot logbook in front of him. He’s diligent about making entries for every flight, and over the years has filled several books with not only the required hours flown but little notes about where he went and who his passengers were. Although he’s not a name-dropper in social situations, more than a few celebrity names appear in those pages. He looked up and flashed me the smile that had won me over when we met.

  “You and Elsa cooking up something next door?” he asked.

  “In a way. I was over there for awhile.” I wasn’t sure he’d approve of my spying on the other neighbors, and I felt fairly certain he wouldn’t be wild about the fact I’d sneaked into the Delaney’s home and searched the girls’ personal things.

  “Did you eat anything?” I asked.

  “Yep. Me and Freckles shared some of the leftover chicken in the fridge. There’s more if you want me to warm it up for you.”

  I declined, needing a few more minutes for my stomach to settle down. I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. Freckles followed my every step. One thing about dogs: they know when they’ve exhausted one food supplier and are fickle enough to switch loyalties immediately to the next person who might be a likely candidate.

  “Sorry, kid. Nothing for you here,” I said as I pulled the stolen sales receipts from my pocket.

  I smoothed the wrinkles from the slips and spread them out. I’d managed to nab four transactions from four different stores. A little flush of pride as I considered there might be useful information here.

  One was a long list from Walmart, a few household supplies and a lot of snack food and soda. How did the twins stay model-thin eating this kind of stuff? I wanted to know their secret. The other three receipts came from clothing stores and the names matched the shopping bags I’d seen. Ralph Lauren and Barneys were apparently their favorite brands. I was about to discard the whole batch as a waste of time—really, who cared that those jeans had cost three hundred dollars?

  Then something caught my eye. The Walmart receipt wasn’t from the store where I always went. This one came from Las Cruces. The town where I’d been so certain Zayne Delaney was not attending school. But what if she was?

  What if the twins had been telling the truth all along?

  Chapter 21

  I woke from a restless night filled with questions about the girls across the street. It didn’t help when the Corvette zoomed past our house somewhat after midnight, just as I’d been drifting off to sleep, reminding me I still wasn’t sure which twin had actually driven it to the river party earlier. I’d thought of phoning Donna Delaney with the skimpy information I had, but it seemed pointless. There really was nothing to report yet. I decided I might as well get an early start at the office, so I left Drake asleep under our nest of warm blankets and tried to be as quiet as possible as I showered and dressed.

  The Victorian was dark and quiet when I arrived, with only the glow from a lamp on a timer at the front desk. I pulled into the parking area in back and called Freckles to follow me inside. We set coffee to brew and I opened the bag I’d bought at the drive-thru window at McDonald’s.

  I know—I’m not supposed to be eating this stuff. A warm bowl of gooey, mushy oatmeal at home would have been the healthier choice. My inner critic finally shut up and I bit into my egg on a muffin. Freckles doesn’t care what I have for breakfast—she’ll take a tidbit of whatever is left.

  Upstairs, with coffee mug in hand, I turned on my computer and noticed Ron had left a note in his scratchy handwriting stuck to my desk phone. I was to invoice the Lorrento account for the hours he’d put in yesterday tracking one J.L. Segal, supposedly the purchaser of the missing Super Bowl ring. Did he want me to set up a second account for Bobby Lorrento, or bill these hours against the retainer Marcie had paid? I set the note aside to ask him—it would be simpler to do it once than to do it wrong and have to backtrack.

  It took me an hour to run an accounts receivable report, print clients’ month-end statements and stuff them in envelopes for mailing. One of these days I would look for a way to automate this more efficiently and send billing electronically, but for now I needed to review each client’s account before dunning them.

  I had gathered the batch to set on Sally’s desk for the mailman when I heard sounds downstairs. It sounded as if Ron and Sally had arrived at the same time, and I walked downstairs to refill my empty mug and greet them.

  “I saw your note about the Lorrento billing,” I told Ron. “Shall I wait until you’ve got the ring back or just accrue the hours every day?”

  “Well, I thought this was going to be an easy one—look up the buyer, do a quick drop-in visit and offer cash. Bobby said to give him ten percent more than he’d paid for it. Which, I’ll tell you, is a sizeable chunk of change. I figure, what guy wouldn’t love to make ten percent on his money in a couple of days, right?”

  I wasn’t at all sure how this answered my question, but I let him talk.

  “I can’t find him. There are only a handful of Segals in Albuquerque, none with a name or initial J, but it didn’t take me long to call them all and inquire.”

  “No luck, I’m guessing.”

  “Right. So, I went statewide, which ate up the rest of the day, and still no luck.”

  “Somebody who collects Super Bowl rings wouldn’t n
ecessarily be local. Maybe the pawnshop guy put the word out—I don’t know … Craigslist or something?—and the buyer came to town on a mission.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be impossible to track every Segal in the country, so I’m back at square one.”

  I wished I could help him, but it sounded daunting and I had other things on my agenda today. I went back upstairs, really wishing I’d swiped that cell phone I found in the twins’ bedroom last night. It would contain a wealth of information and the girls would never guess their snoopy neighbor was responsible. Daddy would just buy another phone, and there probably wouldn’t even be a lecture about taking better care of their things. I doodled on the note Ron had left, realizing he’d never answered my question about the billing.

  Across the hall Ron’s voice rose. “So, no address or anything?”

  A long pause. He was apparently on hold because he began crushing paper and tossing the balls toward the trash basket. I knew this because I could hear them hit the wall each time he missed. The repetition began to irritate me.

  I got up from my desk and walked to his doorway. “Can you just—?” I came to a halt when his attention turned back to his call.

  “What’s the name on the card?” he asked. “Address? Really? You didn’t get an address?”

  He was scribbling on a notepad and I could tell this wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. I started to turn away but heard his receiver drop back to its cradle.

  “Charlie, can you give me a few minutes?”

  Not really. “Sure.” I sat down in the chair across from his desk.

  “With the boss away, the young clerk who sold the ring made some fundamental mistakes. She put a name on the sales slip, no address, and she didn’t compare it to the name on the guy’s credit card. The name on the card was J. Livingston.”

  I felt a smile coming on. “Ron, seriously? J. Livingston, J.L. Segal. You’ve been spoofed.”

  His eyebrows pulled together.

  “Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was a bestseller book way back in the seventies.”

  “How would I know that?”

  Okay, so he doesn’t read much fiction. “The guy gave a fake name for the receipt, but it’s doubtful he could do that on a credit card, especially one with a high enough credit line to cover a ring like that. You’re not looking for a Segal, you’re looking for a Livingston.”

  My brother surely would have figured this out. He’s a good detective, really. I think he was simply flustered by the dollar amount and fame of the lost item. A more experienced pawn clerk would have gotten better information and we’d be on the way to tracking the ring.

  “All right,” Ron said, looking a little sheepish. “But Livingston isn’t exactly an uncommon name either, so it still looks like I’m back to square one.”

  I felt badly about the roadblocks in his path, but I had my own path right now. After all, it was my brother who’d suggested he work the Super Bowl case and I take the mission of getting a photo of the Delaney twins together. My goal wasn’t going to happen with me here in the office, so I decided to head back to the home front and go back to old-fashioned surveillance. Goody.

  It was becoming second nature to me, glancing up the street to see which cars were home at the Delaney place. Once I’d snapped that all-important photo, I really had to get a life.

  This time, the red car sat in the driveway. I’d decided to quit being shy about showing up at their door. Why be cagey, when the request from their aunt was a legitimate one? I put Freckles in the house and walked over and rang the doorbell. No answer, but I wasn’t actually surprised. This had become the new format of my days. I rang a second time, to be certain, then walked around to the backyard.

  As hoped, I found the garage side-door unlocked, so I went right on in, immediately wishing for my flashlight. The only light came from the space around the large roll-up door, and it was minimal. I picked my way through the same collection of junk as last night and, again, found the connecting door to the kitchen and opened it.

  Not much had changed in the living and dining rooms, other than I noticed a pair of lace-up sandals kicked off near the front door, a little spill of dirt beside them. With no idea when the girls left or how long they would be away I made straight for the pink bedroom and looked on the nightstand. The cell phone was gone.

  I patted the rumpled bedcovers and did a quick peek under each bed (horrific—you don’t want to know). The jeans and shirt the party twin had worn last night lay at the top of a pile of clothes on a chair. I picked up each item and shook it but no cell phone showed up.

  Dammit, I knew I should have grabbed that thing last night. In the back of my mind I had the feeling if I could see the calls made from that phone I would somehow be able to figure out the locations of both girls, although the whole concept was a bit fuzzy to me.

  I turned in a circle, studying the room. The clutter was so prevalent it was hard to focus on any one item, but I made myself give it a really hard look. Same with the adjoining bathroom where the vanity surface couldn’t be seen for the litter of hairbrushes, eye shadows, mascara tubes and lip-glosses. Two hair dryers, two sets of giant hot rollers, two lighted magnifier mirrors and a pair of electric flat-irons. I thought of my own single plastic compact of blusher and one tube of lipstick in the shade I’d always worn. I own a blow dryer, and somewhere in the depths of a drawer is a curling iron I rarely see. I think I’m definitely missing something in the girlie-genetics department.

  My boggled mind tried to focus once again, but I still saw no cell phone.

  I meandered back to the bedroom, resolved to give it one more go-over, when my own phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. My heart rate went into overdrive and I must have jumped a foot. I grabbed it before it could ring a second time and tapped the screen without looking.

  “No one’s home over there,” Elsa said. “I saw Clover drive away about an hour ago.”

  She was guessing as to which twin she’d seen, but I was busted nevertheless.

  “I saw you go around to the backyard, but I don’t think anyone will answer the back door either.”

  “Thanks, yeah, you’re right. Hey, I’m just checking out something over here. Can you keep watching a few more minutes and call me again if she comes back?”

  She seemed tickled to be part of my detective work, and I felt somewhat reassured no one could walk in on me, as had almost happened last night. I set about giving the house a much more thorough search.

  Chapter 22

  I took a quick peek into the girls’ closet. The floor was covered by a huge pile that made it look as if the shoe department at Dillard’s had exploded here. The upper shelf contained a few childhood board games—including the same Candy Land I had played with these kids more than a dozen years ago. Plush animals filled a shelf unit like a little button-eyed zoo. If there was a clue that would help me here, I didn’t see it.

  With the luxury of a lookout across the street, I decided to spend a little time in the rest of the house. These opportunities wouldn’t come often.

  The parents’ room contained a king-size bed, neatly made with a thick comforter of silk in the same navy and tan scheme I’d noticed in the main bathroom. Their adjoining bath followed those tones as well, with tasteful décor items in just the right numbers and the necessities tucked away in drawers. It seemed the kids respected their parents’ space and had left it untouched in their absence.

  On to the living and dining areas, where the girls and their messy lifestyle once again reigned. I looked more carefully this time at the receipts and shopping bags on the dining table. All came from Albuquerque businesses. The bags were empty, and I resisted the urge to fold or toss them in the trash.

  The huge sectional sofa in the living room faced a monster big-screen TV, the seating area littered with popcorn tidbits and candy wrappers. Six plastic drink cups with dried cola residue sat on the tables. The two elephant-ears houseplants flanking the door to the backyard looked desperate for wat
er. I jammed my hands in my pockets to quell my fierce urge to tidy the place. A bookcase contained few books but held mostly travel mementos—a tiny Eiffel Tower, a set of carved wooden camels, a metal pitcher with a distinct Middle Eastern design. Photos of the family proved they’d been to these places, along with some cute casual shots of the two girls as they grew up. Toddlers gathering Easter eggs in the backyard, a first-day-of-school pose, the two with sleek long gowns and prom dates. I didn’t see a single handwritten note or a tell-all diary in the room, so I headed to the kitchen.

  The front of the fridge brought a few insights: A shopping list with yogurt, green juice, blueberries, M&Ms and potato chips sent mixed messages. Photos of the twins at different ages in a variety of vacation spots stuck there in little magnetic picture frames—Disneyland featured in several of them. Inside the fridge, the same contradiction of taste and lifestyle showed up in boxed salad greens, which looked fairly fresh, from Whole Foods alongside a six-pack of beer. The freezer contained fish sticks and a frozen pizza. The tall trash can in the laundry room contained three more pizza boxes and a bunch of empty Coke cans, which really should be in their recycling bin.

  Frustrated, I turned to study the whole scene. Was there not a single clue to tell me what the girls were up to? I didn’t see one useful thing. I felt myself getting grumpy. This whole thing was a waste of time.

  I made my way out the laundry room door to the garage, through the mess, out the back door, once again leaving it unlocked as I’d found it, although I doubted another sneaky visit to the house would produce any further information. Short of ripping into pillows and dumping the contents of drawers, I’d pretty much covered the place. I mentally kicked myself once again for leaving the unguarded cell phone last time. It had to be the place a modern girl would leave a wealth of notes and messages. I had let it slip away.