“THIS IS GOING TO SOUND strange,” Grady says, “but for now I would ignore the alibis.”
He’s sitting on the corner of my desk. This morning, Susan came by and congratulated me on the case finally beginning to move. “A fourth woman, eh?” she asked. “Too bad this John Taylor is dead. I’d like to nominate him for Man of the Year.” Still, despite my leads, she’d like me to consult with Grady before I take the next step.
“I’m confused,” I say to Grady. “If two of the three most plausible suspects had absolute proof that they were elsewhere at the time of death, how could they commit the crime?”
“Alibis can be faked,” he says. “Times of death can be manipulated. Motives are harder to cover up.”
“But the alibis for Deborah and MJ are very solid,” I tell him. “Multiple reputable witnesses in each case. Helen is a different story, as is MJ’s brother.”
“Then question the time of death,” he says. “I’m always most suspicious in cases where the alibis are foolproof right when someone is supposed to have died.”
He starts pacing the room. “So what about Helen? You haven’t discounted her, then?”
“Well, Mollie checked, and no Helen Richter left LA on any of the airlines from any of the local airports on that date,” I say.
“What about driving? After all, she had a twenty-one-hour window to do the twelve-hour round trip between LA and San Francisco and easily bump off her cheating husband in the process.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve subpoenaed the security camera tapes from Helen’s parking garage and the condo building’s entrance. I should have those in the next few days.”
“And even then, will you have covered all entrances to the building? Could she have gotten out a back way and rented a car or otherwise run off to San Francisco?” Grady asks. “Don’t give up on Helen. She’s my personal favorite front runner.”
I laugh. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d met her,” I say.
“In the meantime, work on the other two,” says Grady.
I’m not happy with his advice. “What should I do, keep calling them back in for questioning? Ask them where they were every minute of Friday? I’ve run out of questions, and they’ve noticed.”
“Don’t be shy about asking them the same things again,” Grady says as he turns to leave, “and study the transcripts. Something will appear. Someone will crack. Something will shake out. It always does.”
46
Samantha
I KNOCK ON THE DOOR. No one answers, so I knock again. And yawn, tired from last night. Peter’s friends came over, we played Scrabble and drank too much wine, stayed up until 2 AM arguing about whether armpit and brainpower were valid words. Our version of debauchery: drunken wordplay. I woke with a hangover, and I welcomed the thousand tiny knives of a cold shower.
It’s one of those days that you question everything. Why am I in Palo Alto? As a member of the police, no less? Why Peter? Why not any other of the twentysomething males littering the valley? The arbitrariness of stuff sometimes gets to me. Why this car? Why this pair of jeans? Why this life?
I knock again. Still no answer. Yet a car is in the driveway. It’s 2 PM so I doubt MJ is sleeping. A bright Saturday, not too hot, the perfect early August Northern California day that is now becoming a year-round phenomenon thanks to global weirding.
The house is a nondescript California rancher, distinguished from the rest on the block only by its air of tired neglect. The grass on the front lawn is parched and yellow, the mailbox appears to be nearly falling off its pole, and the pavement leading up to the house is cracked and uneven. The car in the driveway is a late model Toyota Prius. Of course it is. And the yard probably hasn’t been watered to conserve natural resources. I know my neo-hippies.
I also know that despite the outward look of this property, the price tag would be substantial. I’m standing on some of the most expensive real estate in the world. The fact that many of these aging multimillion-dollar ranchers are bought and then scrapped to make way for custom-built mansions—no prefabricated McMansions, not here—speaks to all the money that surrounds us.
I knock one last time, not expecting a response. Then, because I am loath to make the long drive back to Palo Alto without accomplishing anything, I begin exploring. Walking to the right of the house yields nothing, just a high fence. I get luckier on the left side. A gate is set in the wooden fence that apparently encloses the entire backyard. It isn’t locked, so I click open the latch and pull.
And am stunned by what I see.