The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag Page B

rancor. His face was drawn. His tie was yanked loose.
    â€œYou should know better than to bother telling me.” I slipped out of the stall, closed and latched the door.
    â€œDid you take anything?”
    â€œOf course not,” I said, as if highly offended. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think I don’t know procedure?”
    â€œI think you don’t give a rat’s ass about procedure. You never have. Why start now?”
    â€œIs there something in particular you want from me?” I asked. “Because, if not, I would like to go get out of these stinking clothes, have a shower and a drink, and go to bed. I’ve had as much of this day as I can stand.”
    He was probably thinking the same thing. He’d been working this for ten hours without a break, I was sure. Without a meal, I was willing to bet. A steady diet of coffee, maybe a doughnut, or a candy bar, or some horrible fast-food beast on a bun that he would have eaten with one hand while he stood off to the side at the scene, continuing to direct people with the other hand. And now he would go back to the sheriff’s office and start on the paperwork. He still had a long night ahead of him.
    I didn’t feel sorry for him. That was his job. Irina was just another DB (dead body) for him. He had known her well enough to say hello, that was all. Personal emotion would not be a factor in this for him, nor should it have been.
    â€œWhat did you see up there?” he asked.
    â€œThe same things you did.”
    â€œI mean, did it look like anything was out of place?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know. I’d never been in Irina’s apartment before. She was a very private person.”
    He nodded, then rubbed his hands over his face and down the back of his neck. The muscles there would be as tight and corded as ropes holding a great weight. His right shoulder would have a knot in it the size of a tennis ball. He would groan like a dying man if someone started to work the kink out with a massage.
    I had no interest in doing that. I just knew it was so because I’d done it many times.
    â€œWhere’ve you been?” he asked, the same as he would ask if we had been meeting for dinner.
How was your day…where’d you go…what did you do….
    â€œI need to sit down.”
    I walked out the side of the barn toward the riding arena. The landscaping lights had come on as the sun sank low. I sat down on an ornate park bench. Landry sat on the opposite end.
    I told him about the photograph on Irina’s laptop, the one from the tailgating party, and about finding Lisbeth Perkins at Star Polo and the things Lisbeth had told me about the encounter with the guy at the club on Clematis Street.
    â€œShe didn’t have a last name for him?”
    â€œNo, but she has a photo of him on her phone.” I didn’t tell him that I had the photos as well. I didn’t want to show him, didn’t want to deal with looking at that last photo again with an audience. “She also has photos of Irina later in the evening at a birthday party at Players. Lisbeth left the party around one. Irina stayed.”
    â€œAnybody of interest at the party?”
    â€œA lot of wealthy men with shaky morals,” I said. “Jim Brody, who owns Star Polo. A couple of hotshot polo players. Paul Kenner, Mr. Baseball—”
    â€œSpitball,” he corrected me, scowling. Kenner had once hit on me, in front of him. Men.
    â€œâ€”A couple of Palm Beach rich boys. Bennett Walker.”
    Somehow I expected Landry to have a big reaction when I said that name, as if he would instantly know all about my history with Walker. Stupid. Landry hadn’t even been living in South Florida at the time. And I certainly hadn’t spilled my heart out to him about it. Our pillow talk had consisted of more current events.
    â€œBennett Walker,” he said. “He races boats, doesn’t he?”
    â€œI