MD07 - Perfect Alibi

by Sheldon Siegel

  He was also packing a gun. “How well do you know the boys?”

  “They seem like fine young men. Bobby was very excited when he got into Columbia. Sean is a little quieter. They play their music a little too loud sometimes.”

  “Teenagers.”

  “I raised three of them.”

  “Were you home last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anything suspicious?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Did you happen to see Judge Fairchild come home?”

  “No.”

  “What about Bobby or Sean?”

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I go to bed early. I didn’t see either of them.”

  Pete has been watching in silence. He summons his gentlest cop voice. “Mrs. Osborne,” he says, “you told me you heard Bobby and his father arguing yesterday morning.”

  “I did.”

  “Are you sure it was Bobby and his father?”

  “Yes. I was having breakfast. Their kitchen looks right into mine.”

  “Do you know what they were fighting about?”

  She considers how much she wants to reveal. “The judge was angry because Bobby has been staying out late with his girlfriend. He didn’t like her.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He said he could do better than a girl from the barrio.”

  I can feel my skin starting to burn. Pete keeps his tone soothing. “How did Bobby respond?”

  She frowns. “He told his father to go to hell. I couldn’t believe he talked that way to his father.”

  I can’t believe his father talked that way about my daughter.

  Mrs. Osborne clasps her glasses more tightly. “The judge told Bobby that he would ground him for a month if he didn’t break up with his girlfriend. Bobby told his father that he would stop seeing her as soon as the judge stopped seeing his girlfriend. The judge went through the roof. I don’t blame him.”

  What a lovely parental moment. “Do you recall if Bobby said anything else?” I ask.

  “Yes. Bobby told his father that he was going to make him pay.”

  “He used those exact words?”

  “Yes. I remember it quite specifically.”

  Swell. “I take it you told the police about this?”

  “Yes.”

  I go to the confessional voice. “Mrs. Osborne, do you really think Bobby would have hurt his father?”

  She fumbles with her glasses. “I taught school for forty-two years. I raised three children. I have seven grandchildren. People say things they don’t mean when they’re angry.”

  “Do you think this was one of those situations?”

  “Bobby wouldn’t have hurt anybody.”

  I hope she’s prepared to testify to that effect.

  # # #

  “She’ll be a strong witness,” Pete observes. “She’s incapable of telling a lie. They’ll use her testimony to try to show that Bobby had motive.”

  He has a good feel for how things will play to a jury. “Her testimony could be very damaging,” I say. “Especially when you combine it with the discovery of the bloody clothes in the washer.”

  “It still doesn’t place Bobby at the scene before two a.m.,” he says. “Did you know the judge felt that way about Grace?”

  “Nope.”

  “Aren’t you pissed off?”

  I’d like to scream. “Yep.”

  “Are you planning to do anything about it?”

  “There’s nothing I can do now.”

  His tone turns practical. “Notwithstanding the fact that Jack Fairchild was a philandering, racist pig, we still have Grace to provide an alibi for Bobby.”

  “It would help if we could find somebody to corroborate their story,” I say. "I want you to track down Julie’s boyfriend. Then I want you to figure out what George Savage was doing last night.”

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “To meet Rosie. We’re going to have a little talk with Judge Fairchild’s girlfriend.”

  18/ HE NEVER SHOWED UP

  Saturday, June 18, 4:10 p.m.

  “Are you sure this is it?” I ask Rosie.

  “Yes,” she replies.

  Judge Fairchild’s girlfriend, Christina Evans, lives in a remodeled two-flat down the street from the Palace of Fine Arts, a short hike from the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge. The Marina District is a yuppie enclave of stucco houses and low-rise apartment buildings, where spandex-clad single professionals exchange e-mail addresses in the produce aisle at the upscale Safeway. Its shopping area, Chestnut Street, is lined with coffee houses, pick-up bars, and trendy cafes. The last remnant of the neighborhood’s working-class roots is an iconic saloon called the Horseshoe Tavern run by an outgoing sixfoot-eight-inch giant named Stefan Wever, whose major league career was cut short when he blew out his rotator cuff in his first start with the Yankees.

  “Where’s Julie?” I ask.

  “She’s at home with Sean.” Rosie pushes out a sigh. “She’s also making the funeral arrangements for Jack. Somebody has to do it.”

  “Does he have any other family?”

  “Nope.”

  How painful. “And Grace?”

  “She’s at home with my mother.”

  “Is she okay?”

  Rosie scowls. “Given the circumstances, she’s holding up pretty well.”

  “And Tommy?”

  “He has no idea what’s going on. I’m trying to act normal around him.”

  It’s all we can do. We watch a young mother pushing a thousand-dollar stroller on her way to the Marina Green. “Feeling old?” Rosie asks.

  “Yep.”

  “I have a priest question for you,” she says. “What’s the appropriate way to express your condolences to a grieving mistress?”

  “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  “I guess all those years in the seminary didn’t go to waste.”

  # # #

  “We’re very sorry for your loss,” I say to Christina Evans.

  “Thank you, Mr. Daley.”

  “It’s Mike.”

  She tosses her flowing blonde hair and smiles. “Christy.”

  If she’s heartbroken about her boyfriend’s untimely demise, she isn’t showing it. She’s wearing a pastel jogging suit and sipping iced tea from a designer tumbler. Judge Fairchild liked them young. And tall. And leggy. And athletic. And stacked. Her clear blue eyes surround a model’s prim nose. Her muscles have a personal-trainer tone. We’re seated around a redwood table on the rooftop deck of her upscale fat. The leafy enclave smells of jasmine and has an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate. It’s a nice setup for a young law clerk.

  “We appreciate your cooperation,” I say.

  “I’ve already spoken to the police,” she says. “I want to find out what happened to Jack just as much as you do.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “A couple of years. My ex-husband works for one of the investment banks downtown. I got the condo and the dogs in the divorce. He got the Beemer and the retirement money.”

  Seems fair. We exchange stilted small talk for a few minutes before we turn to business. “How long were you and Jack seeing each other?” I ask.

  “About six months. It was casual.” There isn’t a hint of remorse in her tone. "Jack’s marriage was imploding. I was spinning out of a divorce. We were working late one night. One thing led to another.”

  “I presume this sort of thing was frowned upon at work?”

  “We’re adults. We understood the implications.”

  “You continued to see each other.”

  “It wasn’t as if we were going to get married.”

  “Did the people at your office know about it?”

  “Probably. We tried to be discreet, but San Francisco is a tough place to keep a secret.”

  “Julie found out.”

  Her voice fills with contempt. “She hired a private investigator to get dirt on
Jack for the divorce case.”

  “The boys knew about it, too.”

  “Julie told them. She was doing everything in her power to turn the boys against Jack. It was unfair to put them in the middle. Jack was a terrific father who worshipped his kids. He would have done anything for them.”

  Bobby and Sean have a slightly different take on that subject. “We understand Jack was supposed to come over to see you last night.”

  “He was.”

  “Did it bother you that he left his teenage sons home alone when he came over to see you?”

  “We talked about it. Jack said that the boys would be fine. They were his kids, not mine.”

  Nice. “What time did he get here last night?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “He was supposed to come over after he left the Bohemian Club. He never showed up.”

  19/ WHERE DID HE GO?

  Saturday, June 18, 4:25 p.m.

  “Where did he go?” I ask Christy.

  “I presume he went home.”

  “He didn’t call you?”

  “Nope.”

  I’m no expert on the protocols of extra-marital relationships, but it seems to me that basic courtesy would entitle a mistress to a phone call. “Weren’t you concerned?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t the first time. I figured he got stuck at the Club.”

  “Were you here the rest of the night?”

  She pauses. “I went out for a drink around midnight.”

  Christy gets around. “Where?”

  “The Balboa Café.”

  The hotspot on Fillmore is known as the “Bermuda Triangle,” where the City’s beautiful young singles congregate to hit on each other. “When did you get home?”

  “Eleven o’clock this morning.”

  Evidently, her relationship with Judge Fairchild was even more casual than I thought.

  She gives me a knowing look. “I’d be happy to give you the name of a gentleman who can verify my whereabouts.”

  “That would be helpful.”

  Her tone turns indignant. “It isn’t as if Jack was the only one cheating on his spouse. Julie’s sleeping with one of her students.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She wasn’t the only one who hired a PI.”

  I guess this shouldn’t come as any surprise. “We’re aware of that relationship,” I say.

  “Did Julie also mention that her squeeze threatened Jack?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Young Dr. Newsom caught Jack’s PI rummaging through his garbage on Tuesday night. He got pissed off and confronted Jack in the parking lot at the Hall of Justice. I saw the whole thing. Newsom told Jack that he would get him if he didn’t leave Julie alone. Then he took a swing at Jack. Fortunately, he missed.”

  Perhaps he connected the second time.

  # # #

  Rosie shakes her head in frustration as we’re walking down Chestnut Street a few minutes later. “Why do bright, talented young women waste their time sleeping around with older married men?” she asks.

  “Is that question intended to be a rhetorical one?”

  “No, it isn’t. What did Christy Evans see in a man old enough to be her father?”

  “You mean a man like me?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same things that you see,” I tell her. “Maturity. Wisdom. Experience.”

  “Shut up, Mike.”

  My cell phone vibrates and I flip it open. “Where have you been?” I ask Pete.

  “UCSF. I talked with a couple of the doctors who were here last night. Julie’s story checked out.”

  “You’re unclear on the concept, Pete. The idea is to identify potential suspects, not rule them out.”

  “It’s usually more helpful if I tell you the truth instead of what you want to hear. Besides, I find it hard to believe you’d want to foist the blame for this fasco on Bobby’s mother—especially since she’s paying our fees.”

  “Quite right. Where are you now?”

  “Dr. Newsom’s house. He just got home.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  20/ I DEFENDED MYSELF

  Saturday, June 18, 5:30 p.m.

  Sitting at the kitchen table of his rented one-bedroom bungalow adjacent to the green belt separating Cole Valley from the UCSF Medical Center, Dr. Derek Newsom studies a patient’s chart. The wooded area behind his house has derived notoriety as the summer home of a flock of wild green parrots who spend most of the year perched on Telegraph Hill. The athletic young surgeon-in-training strokes the trim black goatee that sharpens his chiseled face. His hair is still wet from a shower. He is already well on his way to developing the fearless self-confidence—some might call it arrogance—that is essential for surgeons. His bedside manner is still a work-in-progress.

  He finally deigns to look up. “I can’t talk for long. I have to get to the hospital.”

  “We just need a few minutes,” I say. “We’ve been waiting for you to get home.”

  “I went out for a bike ride,” he snaps. “I don’t have a lot of free time.”

  He’s certainly taking the death of his girlfriend’s husband in stride. “Have you talked to Julie?”

  “Briefly. She said I should talk to you.”

  “Have you been over to see her?”

  “That would get complicated. She hasn’t told her sons that we’re seeing each other.”

  “They’re going to find out now.”

  He tries to assert control. “I have a few ground rules,” he says. “I need to keep this discussion confidential—at least until Julie talks to Bobby and Sean.”

  “We’ll try.”

  “Not good enough. I need assurances. This situation has ramifications for everybody.”

  “You mean it might be a career-limiting move if the powers-that-be over at UCSF discover you’re romantically involved with your supervisor?”

  “It isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened,” he says.

  “There will also be repercussions for Julie.”

  “She has more than enough on her plate trying to deal with Jack’s death and Bobby’s arrest. The fact that we’re dating is the least of her problems.”

  That much is probably true. “How long have you and Julie been seeing each other?”

  “A couple of months.”

  “Are you planning to make your relationship a more permanent one?”

  “We haven’t talked about it.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Here. I got home at seven thirty. Julie came over at eight. We had dinner. She was called up to the hospital at eleven.”

  So far, this jibes with her version of the story. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

  “I offered. I’d been on call for thirty-six hours. She insisted I stay home and get some rest.”

  “Did she go straight up to the hospital?”

  “Of course.”

  “Was she there until my partner found her at three o’clock?”

  “Yes. She called me at three fifteen when she was on her way downtown to see Bobby.”

  “Were you here all night?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can somebody corroborate your whereabouts last night?”

  “Are you suggesting I’m a suspect?”

  “Actually, we’re trying to rule you out.” It’s a small lie.

  He looks around his unadorned house, which has an ambiance similar to my apartment. "I live by myself,” he says. “You can talk to my neighbors, but I don’t think anybody was snooping around my bedroom window last night.”

  Fair enough. I take a sip of bitter black coffee. It’s a signal to Rosie to take over. “Did you know Judge Fairchild?” she asks.

  “Nope.”

  “You never met him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ever?” />
  “Nope.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “He was a smart asshole who treated Julie and his kids like crap.”

  That covers it. “Dr. Newsom,” Rosie says, “did you know Judge Fairchild hired a private investigator to gather information on Julie for their divorce proceedings?”

  There’s a hesitation. “Yes.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Julie told me.”

  “Didn’t you also find him rummaging through your trash recently?”

  Another pause. “Yes.”

  “Did that bother you?”

  “Wouldn’t it bother you?”

  “Yes. Did you do anything about it?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  My turn. “Dr. Newsom,” I say, “we talked to some people down at the Hall of Justice who saw you confront Judge Fairchild earlier this week.”

  No response.

  “Look,” I say, “I can understand why you would have been pissed off about somebody pawing through your garbage. The cops already know about your little encounter with the judge. You’re only going to make things worse if you try to deny it.”

  “It was nothing,” he says. “I went downtown and told Jack to leave Julie and me alone. That was it.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “He said he was going to destroy my career and make my life a living hell.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Yes. He said that he would kill me if I didn’t stop seeing his wife.”

  “Sounds like a threat.”

  “It was.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t want to reveal that Julie and I were seeing each other. Besides, it would have been his word against mine.”

  Now it’s his word against Christy’s. “What did you do?”

  “I told him to go to hell. Then he tried to hit me.”

  Christy had a different spin on who started the encounter. “Did you hit him back?”

  “I defended myself. That was the end of it.”

  “Did you tell Julie about it?”