The Final Alibi

by Simon King

  “Thank you, Chief,” Steph said, but he didn’t respond, simply turning his back on us and walking out.

  “Prick,” Steph muttered under her breath and a laugh escaped my lips. She looked at me then smiled.

  “Come on. Let’s get a bite to eat. My treat,” I said and she stood before I could say anything else, which made me laugh a second time.

  6.

  Mrs. McNorton greeted us with an eager wave as Steph and I walked through the door to her café. I returned her wave then followed Steph to a table in the corner, several of the other tables occupied by the lunchtime crowd. A waitress came over with a bottle of water and handed us a couple of menus, took our order for coffees, then left us again. Steph studied her menu intently, settled on something, then closed it in front of her.

  “I’ve never been here. I normally eat at the Cider Patch further up the street,” she said as she poured some water from the bottle.

  “That lady who waved? She was running this place when I first started here as a cop.”

  “Wow, that’s a long time.” I laughed.

  “Did you just call me old, Officer?” I cried and she slapped my arm playfully.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Jim, hey.” I turned and saw Tami standing at the counter. I waved at her then beckoned her over. She finished paying Mrs. McNorton then made her way to our table.

  “Steph,” I said, “have you met Tami Kennedy?” Tami reached for her hand and they shook.

  “No, not officially. Hi, I’m Steph.”

  “You got time to sit for a bit, Tam?” I asked, but she shook her head.

  “No, sorry. Have to get back to work. You know how it is.” I nodded.

  “Dinner tonight, then?” I asked confidently. Her face lit up, her perfect smile returning.

  “Yes, of course. That would be lovely. Same time?”

  “Sure,” I said. She waved us goodbye, then walked out, clutching her sandwich. I was about to ask Steph what she was ordering for lunch when I heard Mrs. McNorton’s voice in the background. It wasn’t so much that I heard her voice rather what she said.

  “What can I get you today, Dr. Levinson?” My ears pricked instantly and I turned to see who she was talking to.

  The man standing at the counter looked to be well dressed with impeccable grooming. His greyish peppery hair was neatly combed and parted on the political left. He had a full goatee beard, its near blackness almost contrasting his peppery hair. He was thin and I would guess, aged in his mid-fifties. Some people have happy faces, some have sad. Some look angry while others wear natural frowns. When I saw the face of Dr. Levinson, what I saw, was natural deceit. It was the look that I associated with the Encyclopedia Britannica salesmen that would knock on my door, the salesmen that wanted to sell me the latest magazine subscriptions. They would wear that look while telling you wild stories, always trying to convince you to buy their wares. To me, Levinson wore the face of one of those pesky door-to-door salesmen.

  “That’s him,” Steph said over the rim of her glass of water. I nodded.

  “Yup, there he is. Should we introduce ourselves?” I asked, but she shook her head. For a moment, I didn’t know why she wouldn’t want to meet him, considering he was our very next item on the agenda. Then I saw why.

  “It looks like he already has a lunch date,” she said. Levinson had ordered two sandwiches and two coffees to go. He also ordered a slice of chocolate brownie and a lamington. When he finished paying, he took the paper bag Mrs. McNorton was holding out to him and headed outside. I glanced at Steph but she was already ahead of me, on her feet and headed for the door.

  “See you a bit later, Mrs. McNorton,” I yelled and she waved at me as I passed her, already serving the next customer.

  Levinson was getting into his car, something black and German looking, and started the engine. Steph and I headed to her car, climbed in and prepared to follow him. We watched as he reversed out, then headed down Main Street, in the direction of the prison. Steph backed out and followed him, staying back far enough not to draw suspicion.

  “You don’t think he actually bought him lunch, do you?” I asked.

  “Six hours a day, five days a week, he certainly bought someone lunch,” she replied.

  We followed him all the way to the prison carpark, then waited while he picked his items out from the passenger seat and climbed the stairs to the front door. We waited a moment, then followed. He was still standing there waiting when we approached. He smiled at us as we stood there, seemingly unbothered by us. There was a rattle from inside the door, then it opened. The guard was surprised to see us standing there, but once he checked Steph’s credentials, allowed us inside.

  “Who you here to see today, Steph?” he asked as he closed the door.

  “Need to speak to the warden, Jack,” she said, her eyes following Levinson as he walked toward the main gate. “Jack, who’s that?”

  “That’s the Doc that sees Lucifer. Spends a lot of time with him, he does.” In the distance, the gate began to creak on its rollers.

  “Thanks, Jack,” she said, then walked toward the gate where the good doc had already squeezed through the opening and headed off toward one of the far buildings. The guards both inside and on the wall were paying very little attention to us. The two that were standing atop the wall were involved in some deep discussion, their voices carrying to us in a low murmur. I could make out several non-descript words, but when I heard one of them raise his voice a little and say ‘you really think the Cats?’, I knew the subject of their palaver. The two guards walking around separately beneath the wall were occupied with watching the other two guards, obviously wishing they could join in.

  Steph and I watched as Levinson climbed the steps to the hospital building and walked inside, the old, thick timber door slowly creaking closed behind him. Steph hurried a little in front of me and managed to catch the door before it closed completely. Once inside, there was a front room that had a small counter, thankfully unattended. We caught the back of Levinson enter a room down one of the corridors and we headed in that direction, our footfalls echoing gently. There were voices coming from several directions, but none seemed interested in us. A male nurse came out from one of the rooms that lined the corridor, gave us the once over, muttered something that may have been ‘g’day’, then continued walking past us.

  We reached the door Levinson had entered and waited. The door had a small window in its upper half, decorated with wire mesh for safety. Steph looked at the window, then me, and frowned. She was too short to peek through, the rolling of her eyes bringing a smile to my face. She flicked me the bird as I mimicked her going tiptoes, then let a small giggle out. She pushed past me and shoved me toward the door, pointing at the window. I edged towards the door and tried to sneak a peek.

  He had bought Lightman lunch. But that’s not what pissed me off the most. As dumb as it sounds, what pissed me off above all else, was that he had bought him a tuna on rye, my sandwich. At that moment, I felt as if no one was entitled to eat that amazing taste sensation except those that deserved it, and in my book, Harry Lightman didn’t. They were sitting at a small table facing each other. Levinson had spread their little feast out before them and both men looked to be enjoying the meal. But then I saw something that didn’t fit. Trying to describe it now, in hindsight, makes a lot more sense, but I haven’t come to that part of the story yet, so I will endeavour to describe the events as I saw them in that moment.

  The truth is, I didn’t know what I saw, only that it didn’t fit. There was something off. It wasn’t that there was a doctor having lunch with a prisoner, nor that the prisoner, a prolific serial killer, was enjoying a two-course meal paid for by a professional. What I saw that didn’t quite fit was Lightman himself. It was, if I had to put it into words, as if it wasn’t Lightman at all. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I saw. I was about to share my thoughts with Steph when our eavesdropping came to a sudden halt.

&n
bsp; “Can I help you with something?” The voice came from behind us and from the tone, didn’t belong to someone on our side. I turned to see a guard standing there, holding a rifle in one hand. He was tall, at least six-six by my guess, and judging by the way his chiselled jaw was flexing, not happy by our presence. Steph flashed her police ID at him and never faltered.

  “Officer Connor, looking for the warden. Know where he is?” She remained as calm as the proverbial, her voice both projected and confident. The guard stood there for a moment, not answering. He was about to speak when Steph took a step toward him and cut him off. “I don’t have all day; now do you know where he is or not?” The guard actually took a step back and judging by the colour that rose in his cheeks, looked like he had just been slapped.

  “No, ma’am. Haven’t seen him since briefing this morning.”

  “OK then. Any ideas where he might be? I don’t really have the time to go door to door, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Maybe try the main building, down the right corridor. He has a room. It’s-” but then the door that I had been peering through opened and Levinson came out.

  “Everything OK out here?” he asked then saw us. “Ah, James Lawson,” he said, offering me his hand, “Julius Levinson. And you must be Officer Connor,” he said, turning to Steph. She shook with him, now faded rose colouring her own cheeks. The guard, I noticed, was almost sneering now. Levinson then turned to him, whispered something and the guard turned and walked away, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

  “Why don’t you come in?” Levinson asked, opening the door to the room he had just come out of, and before I could object, saw that it now sat empty, Lightman nowhere in sight. I walked in and saw a door on the far side, now closed, but guessed that Lightman had been taken back to whatever cell he called home. Levinson waved at the chairs, offering us to sit. He pressed an intercom button on the wall and when a shrill voice answered, asked for a pot of tea to be brought.

  “I’m sorry if we interrupted you, Dr,” Steph said but he shrugged it off.

  “That’s OK. Did you manage to order your lunch before you followed me here or will you get it after?” Now it was my turn to blush, the heat rising to my ears, but again, he brushed it off. “That’s OK. I knew that you two would be visiting with me sooner or later. Only makes sense considering the amount of time I am spending with your number one suspect. But tell me, do you really believe that he is breaking out of prison to kill then breaking BACK into prison again afterwards?”

  “We are just following up on leads right now, Sir,” Steph offered, but I could hear her anger rising in her tone already. Levinson nodded.

  “Yes, of course.” He suddenly rose, walked toward the door and opened it. Just as he did, a nurse approached, carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. “Thank you, my dear,” Levinson said as he took the tray from her and brought it to the table, the nurse closing the door.

  “How long have you been seeing Lightman?” Steph asked as Levinson poured the tea. He paused and looked at her, smiling. The smile was as fake as he was.

  “Oh, come now, my dear. You can do better than that. I’m sure you’ve already looked at the box of goodies that our good warden gave you, and with it, a complete history of my presence here. And if you haven’t, then you disappoint me.” He resumed pouring the teas then took a cup and fell back into his chair with a thump. “Oh,” he groaned, “getting old is not easy, the pains just seem to creep up on you.”

  “Why?” I asked and he looked at me, surprised.

  “Why what?” he replied.

  “Why are you here? Why do you spend so much time with him? Why did you take a long break then return to seeing him with such an increase in frequency? Why?” He pondered my question for a moment, then smiled that fake smile I was beginning to dread.

  “Jim, may I call you Jim?” He didn’t wait for my reply. “Sometimes, and not very often, we are given the opportunity to study a human that is so evil, that nothing we seem to say or do will ever change that evil. Most of the time, they are either killed or they kill themselves, or they refuse to talk to anybody. But Harry Lightman has chosen to not only live, but share his story with me.”

  “Wait,” Steph said, “we spoke with Harry not long ago, and he was still professing his innocence to us.” Levinson was nodding.

  “I didn’t say he was admitting guilt, sweetheart. What I’m saying is that Harry Lightman is sharing his experiences. The one thing you have to remember is that we aren’t here to extrapolate his guilt or innocence. A court of law has already determined that. You are here to see whether Harry Lightman is still safely locked up and not running around town killing innocent victims again. I’m here to learn from what he has to tell me. The experiences I talk of are from before he was locked up. Harry endured some pretty horrific experiences from an early age. Did you know that he has no penis, for instance?”

  “Pardon me?” I said.

  “The man has had no penis for the better part of his life. You want to talk about evil, Jim? When he was twelve years old, Harry’s father took him to a whore house. Now before you get all mushy-eyed, thinking his father was giving his son a nice treat, he took him there for his own sick pleasure. You see, Harry’s father had paid to see the lad suffer. Had paid the whore above the normal rate to ‘inflict suffering’ on him while his father sat in the corner masturbating himself. You want to talk about evil, Jim? Once she had him tied to that bed, that whore not only bit him multiple times, the scars still visible, but just before his father climaxed, the whore had bitten the lad’s penis off, the blood spurting over her face as his father squirted over the floor.” I felt sick, my stomach turning. I looked at Steph and saw her face grow pale, her mouth open in horror.

  “I…,” I began but couldn’t finish.

  “Not what you were expecting? The evil I speak of, was his father. Now dead of course. And by studying evil, I’m talking about the opportunity to learn about Harry’s suffering. Make his life, what little he has left, actually mean something. Whether he is guilty or not is not something I ever think about. If I can learn something from his suffering, am able to use that knowledge to help others, then that is something worth learning, don’t you agree?” I nodded, the nausea finally abating. It wasn’t that I had an overly sensitive stomach, it was just that what he described came so suddenly and unexpected that it caught me completely off guard.

  “What does he have?” Steph asked.

  “A lung infection that we are struggling to control. I am simply trying to learn as much as I possibly can within the time we have left. That’s why I have been devoting so much time to him. Does that about answer your questions?” I nodded, embarrassingly. I looked at Steph but she was already rising to her feet, holding out her hand to him.

  “Thank you for your time, Doctor, I appreciate it.” He shook with her then me, his eyes never leaving mine, as if trying to drum home his words from the previous five minutes. We walked out, closing the door behind us. As we were leaving, I heard his voice, growing fainter with each step.

  “Ah, welcome back, Harry. I apolo…” but that’s where his voice grew too quiet for me to hear. Harry had been waiting behind the door. I was wondering whether he had actually been allowed to listen in on us when another voice called out to us. It was the warden.

  “Excuse me. Officer Connor? One second, please.” We stopped and turned to find the warden actually running up the hallway.

  “Yes, Sir?” Steph asked as he approached.

  “You have a phone call. Its Chief Rademeyer for you.”

  Chapter 6: Rekindled Passions

  1.

  As we left the police station a couple of hours later, my stomach actually rumbled so loud that Steph looked around for a dog or something. She looked at me when I started rubbing my belly and laughed.

  “I need food,” was all I could manage and she nodded, pointing at her car.

  The reprimand from Rademeyer wasn’t as bad as we were expecting.
It was actually a vast improvement over our previous meetings with him. For one, it was the warden that had called him, complaining about our unexpected arrival and subsequent pursuit of the good doctor. When Steph explained our findings in the ledgers we reviewed from the prison, the chief actually looked interested, keen for us to get any sort of sense of direction with this case. We also told him about what the doctor had told us about Lightman and he nodded.

  “At least it confirms it’s not Lightman. So, that means we have a killer to catch, people. Any ideas?” he said, leaning across the desk, resting on his outstretched hands.

  “I think we need to speak to Clancy again,” I said.

  “The Janitor? Why?” Rademeyer asked.

  “Just him visiting with Lightman for as long as he did. I think he knows more than he’s letting on,” I replied. The chief nodded his head, for once agreeing without some smart remark. Steph and I thanked him for his time then decided to head out and make a beeline for lunch. And at this stage, I didn’t care where lunch came from.

  2.

  We ended up back at Mrs. McNorton’s a little after 4. She was just beginning to clean out some of her display food when we strolled in, the smell of the place making my stomach rumble again.

  “Jim, back again?” I nodded then introduced her to Steph. Steph shook her hand and complimented her on how lovely her café was. Mrs. McNorton thanked her then took our orders, a pie and sandwich for me and a tuna on rye for Steph. A few minutes later and we were both munching on food.

  Neither of us spoke as we ate, the meal so good, it reminded me of home. I ended up ordering a second sandwich as well as a chocolate milk shake. It was like I hadn’t eaten in a week.

  “Aren’t you eating at Tami’s tonight?” Steph asked as I finished the last bite of the sandwich.

  “Yes, but by then I will be ready for the second course, trust me. I’ve always been able to put away stupendous amounts of food.”