Alibis Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  I put the phone down and went back to the computer. Zayne Delaney’s Facebook page showed a half-dozen selfies. Prominent in the recent ones were posts about how she was loving college life. Interesting.

  I scrolled to one that read “In dorm room with BFF Missy.” It was the girl I’d spoken to briefly outside her dorm at UNM, the one who’d gone to the river party, supposedly with Zayne, although I hadn’t known how to positively identify her at the time. Okay, if Missy attended school here in Albuquerque, how was it going to fool anyone to imply she was now down in Las Cruces at New Mexico State? The background behind the two girls certainly did look like a dorm room. I could see scattered clothing and the general clutter that defines living quarters of kids all over the world.

  Another post, dated two weeks ago, showed Zayne wearing a studious-looking pair of glasses which reflected the glare of a computer screen. “Late night studies,” said the post. The girl’s surroundings showed muted colors in a dim room. I clicked the photo and it came up larger on my screen. The blue and tan color scheme seemed familiar but I couldn’t immediately think where I’d seen it.

  I read the comments her friends had made, commiseration over the tough schedule and encouraging little prods like “Don’t work TOO hard. Hahaha!!!”

  I zoomed the picture, trying to spot Zayne’s tattoo, but in each photo she wore her hair in front of her ears, concealing her neck. I scrolled back over her timeline, looking for some indication when she’d left for college or wherever it was she’d gone. Prior to last October, nearly all the photos on both of the twins’ pages showed the two together. Since then there were a lot more of each girl individually. Something felt different about the things they talked about. Something just a touch off. But what? I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure it out.

  I spent another hour zipping around Twitter and Instagram, looking for activity by either Zayne or Clover Delaney. There was plenty, and pretty soon the whole scene began to blur in my brain. The frequency of posts, both with the girls I knew and with their many friends, was mind boggling. A lot of importance was placed on receiving approval—Likes, and little smiley faces, hearts, flowers, the occasional sad-face or frown.

  Observing them closely, there were undercurrents of the sort I remembered from the horrible, hormonal middle-school years. I thought of the importance these kids placed on social media ‘likes.’ From an adult perspective, it seemed so needy and desperate but I was young enough to remember the pressures.

  It really seemed doubly needy when I considered these were no longer thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds but grown young women. Sad to know so much importance rested on popularity.

  My shoulder ached from steering the mouse and my neck was screaming in protest. I needed to move. I wandered across the hall to Ron’s office but his chair sat empty. He may have told me he was going out—I didn’t remember. Scary to think how absorbed I’d become in the social media world, and how quickly.

  I glanced at his desk and saw his computer monitor still lit. Okay, so he couldn’t have gone too far or for too long. The image on the screen caught my attention. Apparently, it was the home page of Innocent Times, the alibi company Bobby Lorrento had been using to help cover his tracks during his little cheating escapades.

  An idea leapt into my head. I sat in Ron’s chair and put my hand on the computer mouse. Clicking the About Us tab on the page, I found a phone number and an email address. At the bottom of the page was the required tagline with the site owner’s company name and address. I found a pad of sticky notes and a pen and wrote it all down.

  Chapter 36

  I frightened Ron into sloshing his coffee when I left his office as he was coming up the stairs.

  “You need me for something?” he asked, checking the front of his shirt.

  “Nah. Just stretching my legs.”

  I hurried back to my desk where I placed a call to Innocent Times and requested an appointment with Rex Stoddard. I may have given the impression I was interested in their services. I may have also given the impression I was important enough only to deal directly with the company owner. It could have been because I threw the name Bobby Lorrento into the conversation in a way that was not entirely truthful.

  Ten minutes later, I was out the door and heading toward the uptown area that tends to house brokerage firms and insurance offices. Innocent Times was located in an unprestigious suite of offices on a third floor where I imagined—if they’d had windows—the view would consist of some treetops and the windows of the building next door. I supposed it was the sort of business that didn’t need to impress its clients with a lot of frills. The inner-sanctum look was more in keeping with their mission, anyway.

  Rex Stoddard greeted me in his office with the word Private on the door. I supposed it was to differentiate it from the other two doors beyond the tiny reception area, one of which I suspected might be a restroom. Somehow, I had pictured the operation being a whole lot bigger. It could be my name-dropping had nothing to do with getting an appointment with the owner.

  Stoddard was about forty, with a round body, round face and receding sandy brown hair. Somehow, I’d pictured a guy who would start a company to cover up infidelities would be the sort who had needed those services himself. Sitting across from the geeky guy here, I wasn’t getting a match to that image.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “This guy couldn’t possibly juggle multiple women because he’d never have more than one date at a time. Right?”

  I felt a blush coming on. He’d pretty well nailed it.

  “But don’t you see? I was the guy in high school and college—the one all the other guys used as their alibi. ‘Honey, don’t worry about it. I was studying with Rex. Honey, Rex and I only went out for a couple beers.’ They’d buy me a six-pack if I would come up with a receipt showing two beers purchased at some innocent enough spot like Applebee’s. I got where I could finesse those receipts to show the exact day and time the friend wanted. I mean, those little slips of paper looked so real the restaurant employees couldn’t tell they were fake. ”

  Okay, call me impressed.

  “Pretty soon my buddies were sending their other buddies … I quit swapping the favor for beer, and it was amazing how much cash these men were willing to come up with, especially once we all reached the age where they were starting to have wives. I branched out to include receipts from airlines and hotels, little backup materials a guy could leave lying around when he said he’d been away on a business trip. There I was, going for a degree in accounting and making four times more with my alibis than I would ever bring in as a CPA. I dropped out and turned my little venture into a business.”

  “You didn’t feel guilty about all this?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one doing the cheating or telling the lies. All that’s on them.”

  I supposed he had a point about that. I also wondered how much money he was really making. He certainly wasn’t working out of glamourous digs here.

  “Yeah, I know,” Stoddard said. “You’d think I would be in the penthouse suite of offices, right?”

  I really needed to work on my poker face. This guy was too good at reading my mind.

  “I don’t waste money on non-essentials. My clients don’t pay for me to have an office with a fabulous view. These days, most of ’em never even come here or meet me face-to-face. Low-key is the thing. I’ve got a staff of four, a stock portfolio in the millions, and three homes on two continents. It’s all I need.”

  Sounded like plenty, to me.

  “So, what can I do for you? You don’t really look like the typical cheating wife.” A glance at my wedding band. “If you want an admission from me that your husband is one of our clients, sorry. No way you’ll get that info from me.”

  I actually laughed. Drake and I worked together so much and shared all our financial information. Neither of us could possibly fit a sneaky affair into our days, much less cover it up. I handed him my RJP business card and explained I wa
s here about the how, not the who.

  “I’m looking into a case of twins, thinking one of them is covering up for the other, but I haven’t exactly figured out how she’s doing it.”

  “Twins—nice. Identical?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, man, they’ve got it easy.”

  I told him about the social media pages and the selfies. “I’m thinking one girl could be posting for both of them. With the log-on information for both accounts, I suppose even I could manage that much.”

  “Yeah, easy peasy.”

  “The one girl claims to be away at college but the photos on her page look to me as if they could be locations here in Albuquerque. Is there any way I can find out where she was when she put the pictures up on Facebook?”

  He nodded slowly, contemplating. He picked up the handset of his desk telephone and punched a button. “Buddy—in my office for a minute?”

  He replaced the phone and looked at me again. “I started old-school and my specialty still is printed documents. Buddy handles all that tech stuff.”

  I heard one of the other doors open and close and a moment later a young man appeared. He didn’t look more than fifteen but I supposed he could be in his mid-twenties. Guessing ages is getting increasingly difficult these days. He had longish, curly brown hair and wore jeans and a vintage rock band shirt with Tour 2006 above the group’s photo.

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Buddy, this is Charlie. Charlie, Buddy Blue.” Buddy leaned against the doorframe, not offering to shake hands, acknowledging me with only a nod.

  I asked whether it was possible to find out where a particular text message or social media post came from.

  “I could do it,” Buddy said.

  “Is it possible for someone to fake their location? Say, a person here in Albuquerque make it look as if they were in Las Cruces when they posted.”

  “Is either of these girls super tech savvy?”

  I thought of Zayne in her platform shoes, fitted jeans and designer bags. Clover was somewhat outdoorsy but still dressed and acted like the fashion diva rich kid she was.

  “I doubt it,” I told him.

  “She’d have to know a bit about advanced forward link trilateration timing, if she can get into the network. Or there’s always a way of interpolating antenna signals …”

  He pretty much lost me after the word advanced. I got another idea.

  “If I could bring you one of their phones—could you get the information?” I hated to use the word hack, but that’s what it amounted to.

  “Sure.” He backtracked a little. “Depends on how far they went to cover up, you know. But, talking about your average college kid, yeah I can probably do it.”

  He went back to his lair and I talked price with Stoddard. The figure was a little shocking but I knew we were going to pass it along to the Delaneys, and any parents who didn’t keep better tabs on their kids deserved what they got when it came to the cost of tracking them down.

  Back in the parking lot, I climbed into the red Corvette and listened to the soft roar of its engine as I put her in gear and zoomed out of the parking lot. I wondered if I wasn’t getting a little too accustomed to driving the fun machine.

  Chapter 37

  Back at the office, I’d started upstairs when I heard voices from the conference room. One was definitely Ron’s. The other was female. I peered around the corner and saw the back of Marcie Lorrento. What on earth did she want?

  I shamelessly edged over to the wall beside the doorway and eavesdropped. With Sally gone for the afternoon, Ron hadn’t thought to close the door. How convenient.

  “… just that I’m concerned about him,” Marcie was saying.

  “I know.” Ron has developed this soft-and-gentle method with the clients. “You do realize that Jay Livingston cheated you and Bobby out of a lot of money?”

  I’m standing there thinking, and wasn’t actually ever interested in a relationship with you.

  “Some police detective from El Paso called me,” Marcie said. She sniffed a little and her voice broke. “I didn’t quite understand why they’re after Jay.”

  “Let me spell it out. Jay bought Bobby’s Super Bowl ring at the pawnshop. He put the word out the ring was for sale—he’s not a collector. He had a cheaper substitute ring ready, which he sold back to us, using your money, pretending the ring was Bobby’s. Now he’s in possession of the cash and the real ring. It’s enough money to classify as grand theft, and that’s what the police are interested in.”

  “But—”

  “Picture it like this: You go to a shop and see a pair of Manolo Blahniks that you know are real. You love them. You buy them at full price. You get home and open the box to find the clerk substituted a different pair. They look similar but you and all your friends will immediately know they’re fake. It’s kind of like that.”

  I stepped into view. “Let’s not forget the elaborate scam he set up to make me believe he lived in an upscale neighborhood, and the pains I took to try to recover your money.” For emphasis I touched the big bruise on my cheek, although Livingston couldn’t directly be blamed for my vehicle accident.

  Marcie blanched a little when she saw my injuries. “Oh, gosh.”

  Ron intervened again. “Marcie, we’ll continue to cooperate with the police and attempt to recover the ring, but I’m not going to track down Jay Livingston for you. You need to sort out your own marital woes. If I can offer a little advice? Get yourself straight about what you want with Bobby—stay with him or leave him, I don’t care—but don’t bring another man into the picture unless you are completely out of your marriage. There are way too many pitfalls, and you’ve only discovered one of them, being swindled by a crook.”

  I gave a little amen to that. By the expression on her face, I had little hope she would take Ron’s advice to heart. This whole messed-up relationship could still go any which way.

  Ron pulled Marcie’s chair out for her. I held up her purse. Yes, it was a not-too-subtle effort to simply get her out of our offices. We watched from the front window as she got into her car and drove away.

  “Is it true?” I asked. “You plan to work with the El Paso police on this thing?”

  “They haven’t asked for my input,” he told me. “If they do, I’ll give whatever info I can.”

  “It might be worth a call, just a follow-up to see if they’ve found Livingston yet.”

  He gave me a long-suffering stare. “You can if you want to. I only told Marcie what I did to get her out of here.”

  It wasn’t like my brother to get rid of a client. As long as they were willing to pay us to do something, anything at all, he would normally stick with them. Looked as if even Ron was tiring of the power couple and their antics.

  “How’s your search for a car coming along?” he asked as we climbed the stairs to our offices.

  “I’m liking the borrowed Corvette, for now.”

  “Don’t get too used to it.”

  “I know. I know.”

  I got to my desk to find Sally had left me a note saying Donna Delaney had called. She might have changed her mind about my use of Zayne’s car, and maybe Ron’s suggestion was a little prophetic. I called Donna’s number, got voicemail and left a quick message, then I went online for a little research on what vehicle I should consider buying.

  Sports cars were appealing, especially given my newfound infatuation with zipping around town in the borrowed one. But, in reality, a two-seater wasn’t at all practical for two of us and the dog to pack up for a weekend in the mountains. I gazed fondly at a few models on my computer screen then switched my search toward vehicles with a bit of roomy cargo space. Before I could get to the research data on safety and reliability (and, yes, I’m a little obsessive on that stuff), my phone rang. I saw Donna Delaney’s name on the readout.

  “Hi, Charlie, glad you called. Just thought I’d check in.”

  “Afraid I have nothing new. I’m working on an angle that might t
ell us more about the social media posts the girls are doing. So far, Clover seems to be in her normal routine around home and I haven’t had a call from Zayne ordering me to give her car back.”

  “Keep it as long as you need it. If she can’t touch base any more frequently than this, well, she can just wait for the car.”

  “I’ll get together with Clover again soon. With my own car out of commission, I’ve been scrambling a bit to wind up another case and spend more time on yours. I will—I promise.”

  She was nice about it, but I couldn’t help feeling I should be doing more. The twins weren’t children, but their youth, money and good looks certainly put them in a vulnerable position. Again, I told myself to let Ron handle the Lorrento mess so I could devote more time to this.

  Sidetracked by Marcie, my online search for a car and now this phone call, I did a quick refocus. I was missing some important clue in the Delaney case. I felt sure of it. But what? I had to figure that out.

  Chapter 38

  I called Clover’s cell phone but it went immediately to voicemail. Knowing how readily she usually dropped everything for a new phone call, I wondered if she was dodging me. I decided not to get paranoid about it and shut down my computer in readiness to leave for the day.

  A truck from A-1 Landscape Service was the only vehicle in evidence at the Delaney house. I recognized Tommy, the guy who cares for several neighborhood lawns, and waved up the street at him. He waved back but didn’t miss a beat with his noisy edger machine.

  Freckles was a little miffed at being left home all day. I let her out of the crate and she followed me to the kitchen for a cookie. Eyeing the gazebo out back, I was tempted to make myself a lemonade and do nothing for the rest of the afternoon but kick back until Drake came home. However, seeing as there’d been no shortage of fast food in my life recently, it would be smarter to get some exercise. I clipped the dog’s leash to her collar and we headed toward the park.