“Can you give me a list of the stores you visited on that Friday?” I ask. “Then I can check to see if anyone remembers you.”
He smiles and nods before he speaks, apparently trying to give the impression of being eager to please, although he fails utterly. His affect has changed completely since he walked in the door. He’s sitting straight up in his chair, is no longer glowering, but groveling. The very picture of a parasite, a weak stooge. I resist the urge to kick him.
“I remember, I can tell you now,” he says. “The Apple Store is where I spent the most time. Then the bookstore. Then Starbucks, for a coffee. Then I figured it was time to go to MJ’s, that she’d be home.”
“Your ticket was given at 6:27 PM,” I say. “If MJ got off work at 5:30, why would you wait so long to go to her house?”
“I didn’t want to run into commuter traffic on 280,” he says. “I figured I’d be happier sucking back a latte than sitting bumper to bumper for an hour and a half. I left Palo Alto at around 6:30. I must have just gotten the ticket when I got to my car. At that point, I whizzed to MJ’s in twenty-five minutes.”
“Only to find she wasn’t there,” I say.
Again, he nods. “Yes,” he says. “She was out running errands.”
“So between 7:30 and 8?” I ask.
He looks down at his hands and counts on his fingers. “Maybe around 7:45,” he says finally. “Around then. I didn’t look at my watch. But that sounds about right.”
“But that makes no sense,” I say. “Why not go straight down 280 from the city at 3 PM? You’d hardly run into traffic then. You had a key to the house, after all.”
Thomas shook his head. “I didn’t want to just sit around her house. Neither did I want to hang around Los Gatos. Palo Alto’s more hip, more fun to hang out in.”
“Tell me what you did in the Apple Store.”
“I browsed the new hardware,” he says. “I’m a graphic designer. I like to keep on top of it. That’s partly why I needed more cash from John. To get the latest equipment.”
“And after that?”
“I walked down the street to the bookstore—you know, the one in that converted movie theatre, with the courtyard. I love that store. So I roamed around the books for a while.”
I lean forward. “And what kind of books do you read?” I ask. I’m going to take this slow.
“Mostly mysteries. Thrillers. Easy reads. Not like MJ. She reads the hard stuff, is in a book group that’s always reading stuff that sounds incredibly boring. Actually, I ended up buying her a book while I was there, wish I could remember. Oh, I know! Great Expectations. She was thrilled.”
He smiles, almost shyly. “Usually I’m on the receiving end with MJ,” he says. “It was cool to be the giver for once.” He sits back, looking pleased with himself.
“There’s just one problem with that scenario,” I say. I find, when it comes down to it, that I am genuinely unhappy at what I’m about to say, he seems so sincerely proud and affectionate when talking about his sister.
“What?” He sounds nervous.
I say, as gently as if speaking to a preschooler, “The bookstore closed two months ago. That amazing old cinema site is empty. For lease.”
He’s silent.
“So now can you tell me again why your car was parked in downtown Palo Alto from at least 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM?” I ask.
“I really did go to the Apple Store,” he says, and he sounds desperate. He is pulling at his shaggy hair, you can see the tension in his shoulders, and how his feet are shuffling against the tile floor. “I really did look at the new iPad there.”
“And then?”
“And then . . . I . . . I had an appointment,” he finally spits out.
“With whom?”
“I can’t say.” This he says with a determined stubbornness.
“Even though it would give you an alibi for a murder?”
Silence again before he says, “Is there some way you can promise me immunity if I tell you what I was doing during that time?”
“Immunity from being charged with another crime?” I ask. This strikes me as funny and I involuntarily laugh, but stop when I see his face.
He doesn’t answer.
“I think you better fess up. What were you doing on the afternoon and early evening of Friday, May 10?”
“At five o’clock I was in the Apple Store. Like I said. It was after that I had my . . . appointment. Then I went to MJ’s.”
I raise my eyebrow at this.
Then, in a rush, he confesses, “I was buying weed from a guy I know. My dealer in the city had run dry, referred me to a guy down here.”