One-Night Alibi

by Kara Lennox

“Oh, yes, that’s her, though I must say it’s not a very flattering picture. She should have gone to Glamour Shots.”

  “That’s because it’s a mug shot,” Hudson said. “Your boss’s girlfriend was a prostitute.”

  Elizabeth flinched at the bald truth. Why did Hudson have to state it so harshly? But Mrs. Ames just thrust her chin out and looked Hudson in the eye.

  “That’s patently ridiculous. Mr. Mandalay would never date a prostitute. With his money and good looks, he was an attractive catch for any girl. Why would he pay for companionship?”

  “Some men find it easier than working on a real relationship,” Hudson answered as he reached for another cookie.

  Fast as a mousetrap, Mrs. Ames grabbed the cooling rack and moved it out of his reach. “That’s enough cookies. I’m donating these to the homeless shelter. You wouldn’t want to take food away from hungry, homeless people, would you?”

  “No, ma’am.” Hudson had clearly got on her bad side. She wasn’t going to be very forthcoming with information if he continued to rub her nose in the fact that her beloved employer was engaged in some pretty slimy activities.

  “Let’s move on,” Elizabeth said briskly, shooting Hudson an I-dare-you-to-stop-me look. “Besides the lawyer and the girlfriends, who else came to the house? What about workers? You know, gardeners, repairmen.”

  “Oh, well, I know all of the people who do the maintenance. There’s Rosa, the girl who helps me clean, and several gardeners—Bill, Paolo, Ramon and...oh, that one I don’t like. He’s rude and he smokes when I’ve told him a number of times that smoking isn’t allowed anywhere on the grounds.”

  “Can you give us full names for the ones you do remember?” Hudson prompted.

  Mrs. Ames complied. The first three she’d named had been working on the estate for years. “I wish I could remember that fourth one’s name. He’s only been around for the past few months. Actually, I haven’t seen him since Mr. Mandalay passed. But I knew when I first laid eyes on him that he was a shifty type, that he wouldn’t be around long.”

  “Do you have payroll records?”

  “Mr. Mandalay handled that himself. He was very particular about how the grounds were kept. He personally hired and paid the gardeners.”

  “This other gardener whose name you can’t remember,” Hudson said. “What did he look like?”

  “Dark. Short. Very stocky, but a little bit gone to fat. And all those tattoos—revolting.”

  “What kind of tattoos?” Hudson was suddenly on edge.

  “On one arm he was just covered all the way to the wrist with odd images—writhing serpents, devils, a human heart with a knife in it.” She shivered with revulsion.

  “And the other arm had this big mermaid. The tail started on his hand and then it was scales all the way up until... Well, she was bare-breasted. Right on his upper arm. You could see it when he wore a tank top to mow the grass.”

  Hudson looked at Elizabeth, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Mrs. Ames had just identified Fish Tattoo man. Which meant her father undoubtedly had some connection to the break-in and possible attempted murder.

  Elizabeth didn’t want to know this, damn it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WASN’T LIKE Elizabeth to stick her head in the sand, but couldn’t they discover who killed her father without digging into the sordid details of his life? When they brought this unknown perpetrator to justice, the details would all come out. Her father’s reputation would be ruined, and he wasn’t even here to defend himself.

  “Elizabeth,” Mrs. Ames said, “is something wrong? You look like you just took a bite of a bad apple.”

  Elizabeth shook off the bad feelings. “No, I’m fine.” No sense tarnishing the man’s image in Mrs. Ames’s eyes. That would come soon enough.

  Impulsively, Mrs. Ames grabbed a tin of cookies she’d packed up earlier and handed it to Elizabeth. “Here. Take these to work with you,” she said gruffly. “I know a lot of your patients are poor and they might like some home-baked goods to munch on— Oh.” Her eyes opened wide. “Munch. I remember hearing someone call the gardener by that name.”

  Hudson flashed a big grin. “Thank you, Mrs. Ames. You’ve been very helpful.” And that was their cue to leave. It was clear what needed to be done now; Jazz and Fish Tattoo man, aka Munch, had to be found.

  “I’m not going in to work for a while,” Elizabeth said, sliding the tin of cookies back toward their maker. “You should probably just give these to the food bank.”

  When they got back to the car, Hudson climbed into the backseat with her. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. My father tried to have you killed.”

  “If this Munch character had wanted to kill me, he easily could have,” Hudson reasoned. “He was ten feet from me.”

  He was humoring her. “Then why was he there?”

  “We’ll have to ask him when we find him. And we will find him.”

  And when they did, what other horrible facts would be uncovered?

  “Look, just because your dad was involved in some criminal enterprise, it doesn’t mean he was a murderer,” Hudson said.

  “What about my mother? You think he killed her.”

  “I’d like to know why he had her jewelry when he reported it missing. Maybe it was something as simple as insurance fraud. But I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that he killed her.” Not out loud, anyway.

  “I don’t want to know. In fact, I think I should go back to Daniel’s and... I don’t know. Paint my nails and get a massage. You and Joe can do the detective thing. I’m clearly not cut out for it.”

  Hudson didn’t argue with her. Instead he took her hand and pressed it between his, letting her know in a way more powerful than words that he understood her pain.

  “If my father did send someone to kill you,” she said, “or even just rough you up, I shouldn’t be surprised. There’s something about his history you should know.”

  “Okay.”

  “The reason we’re estranged—the reason I cut him out of my life—is that he wouldn’t stay out of my personal life. He scared away every boy who tried to date me. The first one, he just glared at. That was enough.

  “The second one, he paid off. The third one...” She could hardly bear to admit this, but Hudson should know. “He was tougher. It was my first year of college. My dad tried to pay Darren off, like he did the boy in high school. But Darren had family money. A bribe didn’t tempt him.

  “Then a couple of thugs attacked Darren in the street, beat him up. They broke his arm. Darren reported it as a mugging. But next thing I know, he’s blocking my calls and moving across the country.

  “I refused to admit it to myself at the time, but somewhere deep inside, I knew. I knew my father had sent those men to beat up poor Darren.”

  Elizabeth’s phone rang. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, but she checked to see who it was anyway.

  Tonda.

  Suddenly she could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. Though Elizabeth had given Tonda her personal number, the young woman had never called her before. It had to be something important.

  “Tonda. What’s wrong? Did Jackson hit you again?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine. But I... Are you alone?”

  “Yes.” She hated to lie, but she sensed Tonda wouldn’t tell her what the problem was if she thought someone else might overhear.

  “I found Yazmin.”

  “Tonda. I told you not to get involved—”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. I saw her. She was in a coffee shop wearing sunglasses and a big hat, and I knew it was her.”

  “Where was this coffee shop?” Yazmin would be long gone by the time they got there, but at least Tonda’s tip might narrow down the area of town where she was hanging out.

  “That don’t matter. Do you want to talk to her or not?”

  “Well, yes, I do, but—”

  “She’s scared. I told her you might be
able to help. She said she would talk to you. But only you. You can’t bring anyone—not that cop you’re hanging with, for sure.”

  “Wait a minute. Is Yazmin with you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Only if you promise you’ll come alone.”

  “I promise.” She would figure out how—somehow.

  “We’re at the Galleria Mall. Come up the escalator near the cinnamon-bun shop. When you get to the top I’ll call you back and let you know where we are.”

  Damn. Tonda was serious. No chance of showing up with Hudson and Joe in tow. Jazz would bolt.

  “Okay. It’ll take me a half hour or so to get there. Please, please wait for me.”

  “We will.”

  When she hung up, she found Hudson looking intently at her. “What was that?” He’d apparently been able to tell, just from her demeanor, that it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill phone call.

  “Tonda.”

  “The one we talked to last—”

  “Yes. She’s with Yazmin. Jazz.”

  “That’s great! Where are they?”

  “She wants to talk, but only to me. No cops. No anybody.”

  “What? Oh, come on.”

  “Tonda trusts me. I guess that’s good enough for Jazz.”

  “Too bad. She has to talk to us.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Just tell us where she is. We’ll scoop her up.”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it,” Joe said, proving he’d been listening despite trying to look as if he wasn’t, “but we have no authority to ‘scoop her up,’ as you put it. About the best we could do is call the cops on her. She is a person of interest in the Mandalay murder.”

  “And trust Sanchez and Knightly to question her? Knightly would probably start quoting the penal code at her. Then he would lecture her on the evils of prostitution. And if he hadn’t bored her to death by then, he might ask her what her business was with Mandalay.”

  “What about the other detective? Sanchez.”

  “I thought Carla had my back. But she hasn’t done me any favors. I don’t...” This was hard for him to admit. “I don’t trust her. I think she wants to see me behind bars.”

  “No matter how evil or incompetent the cops are,” Joe said, “we can’t illegally detain Jazz. Project Justice skirts the law sometimes, but Daniel draws the line at kidnapping.”

  “It sucks not having a badge,” Hudson grumbled.

  “So I’ll go talk to her. It’s in a public place—nothing will happen to me.”

  Hudson shook his head. “People are killed or kidnapped in public places all the time.”

  “I appreciate your wanting to protect me, Hudson, but this is my life we’re talking about as well as yours. I have to go talk to this woman.”

  “Over my dead body will you go talk to her alone. God only knows what she’s involved in—”

  “You can’t order me around! Where do you come off—”

  “Have you forgotten that there’s a murderer out there who might just be trying to stop us from finding out the—”

  “I’m very aware, thank you very—”

  “Children, children,” Joe interrupted. “Simmer down back there. I think I have a solution. Elizabeth, I’d be okay with you talking to Jazz in a public place, provided you wear a wire. And you let Hudson and me stick somewhere close by.”

  Elizabeth mulled this over. “Okay, I can deal with that.” She was betraying Tonda’s trust in her—a little bit. But her intention wasn’t to double-cross Jazz or get her in any kind of trouble. They needed information—that was all.

  “Where are we going to get a wire?” Hudson asked. “Do they have that kind of stuff just lying around at Project Justice?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. But we don’t need to worry about that. Elizabeth, do you still have your silver phone?”

  “Yes...”

  “It’s preloaded with an app that allows you to leave an open channel while the phone appears to be off. It also has a supersensitive microphone, as good as any dedicated mic you’ll find the police using. Just stick your phone in a pocket. We’ll hear and record every word that’s spoken.”

  “I don’t like this,” Hudson said.

  “Stop being a mother hen,” Elizabeth groused as she dug around her purse for the silver phone.

  Hudson raked his fingers through his already-tangled hair. “She needs a code word. Something she can say that will let us know she’s in trouble—if she sees a gun or something.”

  “I’m really scared,” Elizabeth said.

  “You should be.”

  “No, that’s the code. Something I might naturally say if I sensed trouble. If I go shouting ‘Mayday’ or ‘Rumpelstiltskin,’ they’ll know I’m signaling someone. If you hear me say, ‘I’m really scared,’ you have my permission to burst in with guns blazing.”

  “That’ll work,” Joe said. “Now. Where are you supposed to meet Tonda and Jazz?”

  She told them. She just hoped she could trust them both not to betray that trust. If Joe and Hudson were humoring her with this phone-app business, she was going to strangle them both.

  * * *

  “I’M AT THE top of the escalator now,” Elizabeth said, though she was pretty sure Joe and Hudson could see her. They’d entered the mall about three minutes after she did. Hudson had on his sunglasses and baseball cap that made him look like a drug dealer, but at least he wasn’t immediately recognizable. When she’d seen that they were inside the mall, she’d headed for the escalator.

  Her phone rang—her regular cell phone. “Hello?”

  “We’re in the Saturday’s restaurant. At a booth in the back.”

  Elizabeth oriented herself, spotted the popular chain restaurant. “Saturday’s, I see it.” She wanted to be sure Hudson and Joe heard her destination. “Be there in a minute.” She turned the phone off and hid it in the bottom of her purse, then stuck the silver phone in her jeans pocket.

  They’d tested the microphone app briefly in the mall parking lot. The results were amazing.

  Elizabeth slid past the hostess, waving as she spotted Tonda. At last, she was going to meet the elusive Yazmin, aka Jazz. Tonda moved over to make room for Elizabeth.

  “Yazmin, I’m Elizabeth Downey. Thank you so much for talking to me.” She extended a hand to the tall, painfully thin woman who hid behind a huge floppy hat and sunglasses. Despite the disguise, Elizabeth recognized her from her mug shot.

  Yazmin didn’t accept her handshake. “I know who you are.” She sounded just this side of hostile.

  Elizabeth supposed she couldn’t blame the woman for being so distrustful. She’d probably been taken advantage of her whole life by people in power, people who were bigger, stronger and richer than she was.

  “I appreciate you agreeing to this meeting.” Elizabeth tried again. “It’s so important—the police think I might have killed my father. I’m just trying to find out what really happened to him.”

  Yazmin peeked around the side of the booth. “You swear you came alone?”

  “It’s just me.” Sort of. Elizabeth would pay penance for her lies later.

  “Before I tell you anything, why are the cops looking for me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Cops are looking for you?” Maybe Hudson had underestimated his former colleagues’ intentions. Maybe they really were turning over all stones.

  “Someone named Sanchez. Mina, who used to be a friend, told this Sanchez person where I was staying. But another friend tipped me off to what Mina had done. I got away.”

  “No one’s trying to railroad you, Yazmin,” Elizabeth said gently. “Everybody—us, the cops—are trying to find out who killed my father. So unless you did it, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I don’t know anything.” It seemed like something automatic that Yazmin would spout when she felt threatened.

  “But you did have business with Franklin Mandalay, right? You were see
n arguing in a parking lot a week before he died.”

  “We was just doing business. You know.”

  “There was more to it than that. He was trying to give you money. You didn’t want to take it.”

  Tonda raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t want him to pay you?”

  Elizabeth put her hand on Tonda’s knee, trying to quiet her. This interview was difficult enough without interruptions.

  “I guess that cop saw everything.”

  “He’s my friend. We’re both in trouble.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “You knew my father. You’ve been to his house. He was involved in some criminal activity that might be connected to his murder.”

  Yazmin took a long time before answering. “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me. Got it?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I have no intention of getting you in trouble. Not unless you pulled the trigger. You didn’t, did you?” As if she would say, “Yes, I did.”

  “Would I be here if I’d killed him? I’m terrified.”

  “Why? Is someone threatening you?”

  “There’s some cop looking for me. Isn’t that enough? Wouldn’t they just love to pin a murder on someone like me? Easy sell to a jury.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t argue with her.

  “Look, here’s the deal,” Yazmin continued. “Your papa had a lot of girls on his payroll. Girls like me.”

  Elizabeth nodded her understanding while swallowing down bile. She’d known her father hired prostitutes; she hadn’t known he managed them.

  “He all but ruined King C, my...manager. Lured the girls away with promises of medical insurance, protection, credit-card processing, legal help—but in return he was asking for a lot—complete control of all of our money. He controlled everything—our work hours, what we wore, where we worked, our customers. Anybody who didn’t fall in line got a visit from Guido.”

  “Guido?”

  “That’s what we called him. I don’t know his real name. Had a big tattoo on his arm of a—”

  “A mermaid?” Elizabeth finished for her.

  Yazmin nodded. “You know him?”

  “Trying to find him. He tried to kill Hudson.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” Tonda murmured, her eyes big as quarters. “I seen that guy talking to Jackson not a month ago.”