“He was here with me last night.” Ellen Rogers had to shout to make herself heard above the music. “We sat at that table for hours and ordered several rounds of drinks. You must remember.”
The bartender, a hunky young man with a sleek ponytail and a silver hoop in his eyebrow, looked her over in a way that said she was remarkably forgettable. “I see lots of people. Night after night. I don’t remember all their faces. They sorta run together in my head, you know?”
A leggy blonde in a tight black dress undulated onto the neighboring barstool. The bartender reached across Ellen to light the blonde’s cigarette. “What are you having?”
“What’s good?”
He propped his elbows on the bar and leaned closer to her. “That all depends on what you’re after.”
“Excuse me,” Ellen interrupted. She wound up having to tap the bartender on the shoulder to regain his attention. “If he comes back—the guy I was with last night—call me. Okay?”
With little hope it would do any good, she pushed a slip of paper toward him. “Here’s the number of my hotel.”
“Okay.”
She watched him pocket the telephone number, knowing that his dry cleaner would probably find it in a couple of days. She had entered the club with the proud, purposeful stride of a crusader. She was a woman on a mission.
This morning, after the initial shock had worn off and she’d had time to pull herself together, she had determined to track down the lying son of a bitch and turn him over to the police.
When darkness fell, she had set out with the intention of canvassing every nightclub in Charleston if that’s what it took to find and expose him. This character had hustling down to an art. Looking back, she realized that he had been too smooth for her to have been his first victim. Nor would she be his last. Feeling heady and confident after last night’s success, her seducer would be on the prowl again tonight.
But now as she left the club, her zeal was already on the wane. She acknowledged how foolhardy it was to be traipsing around Charleston looking for a liar and thief she knew only as Eddie, which in all likelihood was an assumed name.
The new patent leather pumps she had bought especially for this vacation trip were pinching her toes, reducing her march to a hobble. She was hungry, but each time she had tried to eat today, her stomach had grown queasy from last night’s liquor consumption and this morning’s self-loathing.
Not that she could afford to eat at any decent restaurants, she reminded herself sourly. She had notified the credit card companies of the theft, but it would be days before she received replacement cards. Luckily she had remembered tucking some cash into the pocket of a blazer. It was a fraction of the amount Eddie had stolen, but if she was frugal it would see her home.
So why not just cut her losses and go?
Charleston had been spoiled for her. The sultry heat that had enhanced the city’s romantic appeal now made her irritable and headachy. If she stayed as long as planned, she wouldn’t be able to afford any tours or attractions. Fewer nights here would mean a smaller hotel bill.
Common sense told her to return to Indianapolis tomorrow. The airline would charge her for changing her ticket, but the fee would be worth it. In her safe little house, with her two cats and familiar belongings, she could retreat to lick her wounds until the fall semester began. Eventually work and routine would crowd the nasty incident from her mind.
In any case, slogging through Charleston searching for Eddie was a waste of time and effort.
On the other hand, even now, while she was limping along in her uncomfortable, blister-rubbing patent leather shoes, he was probably working his con on another lonely lady who would wake up tomorrow morning relieved of her pocketbook and her self-respect. The crime would go unreported because the victim was too ashamed to report it to the authorities. That’s why Eddie could do it with such arrogance—he could get away with it.
Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it this time. “Not if I can help it,” Ellen Rogers said out loud.
With renewed determination, she entered the next club.
* * *
Hammond slid into the booth across from Loretta. “What have you got for me?”
“No hello or how are you?”
“I’m fresh out of pleasantries today.”
“You look like shit.”
“You must be out of pleasantries, too.” Hammond smiled grimly. “Actually, that’s the second time today that it’s been noted how ragged I look. That’s how my day started out, in fact.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You haven’t got that much time. I’m running out of time myself, so do you have something for me, or not?”
“I called you, didn’t I?” she retorted.
He didn’t blame her for taking umbrage. He was acting like a jerk. His visit with Davee had left him more disconcerted than before. When he got in his car and used his cell phone to check for messages, he was only half glad to hear Loretta’s voice urging him to meet her as soon as possible at the Shady Rest Lounge. Seeing her meant extending a day he was ready to put to a close. Conversely, he was anxious to know what her probe had turned up.
Shaking his head and sighing heavily, he apologized. “I’m in a pisser of a mood, Loretta, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”
“You need a drink.”
“Your solution for everything.”
“Not for everything. Not by a long shot. But it can be a Band-Aid cure for a bad mood.” She ordered him a bourbon and water.
In less than a minute, he had the drink in his hand and was taking a sip. “You look good.”
She laughed around a swallow of club soda. “Maybe when viewed through the bottom of a highball glass.”
She had undergone noticeable improvements since Monday night. She was far better groomed, her clothes were clean and pressed. Correctly applied makeup had softened the lines in her face. Her eyes were bright and clear. Although she had tried to laugh off his compliment, he could tell she was flattered.
“I’ve cleaned up a little, is all.”
“Put some color in your hair?”
“Bev’s idea.”
“Good one.”
“Thanks.” Self-consciously she raised her hand and patted her rejuvenated hairdo. “She was happy to hear I had a job. I told her it was just temporary, but, well, she was still glad. She let me move back into the apartment, under the condition—she’s big on conditions, just like you—that I keep perfect attendance at the AA meetings.”
“How’re you doing?”
“I get the morning shakes, but I’m dealing with it.”
“That’s good, Loretta. That’s real good,” he said, meaning it. He paused, signaling the conclusion of that topic before moving on to the reason for the meeting. “What have you got for me?”
She winked. “The motherlode. You’ll probably recommend that I get a staff position with the solicitor’s office. You might even ask me to have your children.”
“That good?”
He set his drink aside. It wasn’t mixing well with the one he’d drunk at Davee’s party. Besides, he got the feeling that the information he was about to receive would be upsetting, and it would be better dealt with if his head were clear.
“I have a mole who shall remain nameless, a real computer geek—”
“Knuckle.”
“You know him?”
“Harvey’s my mole, too. He’s everybody’s mole.”
“Are you shitting me?” she asked, astonished and more than a little abashed and angry.
“You weaseled him, right?”
“Damn!” she said, slapping the tabletop. “I can’t believe that pompous little fucker made me feel guilty for twisting his arm and trying to get him to compromise his integrity.”
“He’s thoroughly corruptible. That’s why I didn’t go to him directly. He’s untrustworthy.”
Hammond wasn’t worried that Harvey’s delving into Alex’s records would be traced back to him. He believed Loretta when she vowed they would have to cut out her tongue before she would betray his confidence. But he wondered if anyone else had tried to coerce Knuckle for the same purpose. “When you approached him, did Harvey know anything about the case?”
“He didn’t appear to. But now I’m doubting him, as well as my own instincts. Why?”
Hammond raised a shoulder. “I’m just curious if anyone else asked him to run a trace on Dr. Ladd.”
“Like Steffi Mundell?”
“Or Smilow.”
“If Harvey is everyone’s mole, I guess that’s a possibility. But, honestly, Hammond, he acted surprised and pleased that I was including him on my investigation.”
Nodding, he indicated the letter-size envelope beneath her right hand. “Let’s have the scoop.”
She opened the envelope and removed several folded sheets of paper. From what Hammond could tell, they were typewritten notes. By now Loretta had reviewed the information so many times, she had practically memorized it. She referred to the typewritten data only to verify specific dates.
“Impressive,” he murmured as she enumerated Alex Ladd’s scholastic accomplishments, most of which he already knew. Any relief he felt, however, was short-lived.
“Hold on. I haven’t got to the good stuff yet.”
“By good, do you really mean bad?”
“She doesn’t have as impressive a record in Tennessee.”
“What happened there?”
“What didn’t?”
She then told him what Harvey Knuckle had mined from unmineable juvenile records. It didn’t make for easy listening. By the time Loretta finished, half an hour had passed and Hammond was wishing he hadn’t drunk any whiskey that evening. He was fairly certain he was going to see it recycled. Now he understood what Alex had meant last night about his being disillusioned, about explanations being painful. She hadn’t wanted to share, and now he knew why.
Loretta replaced the sheets of paper in the envelope and triumphantly handed it to him. “I didn’t find the link between her and Pettijohn. That remains a mystery.”
“I think—thought,” he amended, “that she was too classy to have any link to Lute. Apparently I was wrong.”
He slid the envelope and its incriminating contents into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. His dejection wasn’t lost on her. “You don’t seem very excited.”
“I couldn’t have asked for more thorough coverage. You should feel very good about the way you pulled yourself together and came through for me. You more than made up for past mistakes. Thanks.”
He scooted to the end of the booth, but Loretta reached across the table and seized his hand. “What is with you, Hammond?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I thought you’d be over the moon.”
“It’s good stuff, no question.”
“And it only took me two days.”
“Can’t complain about the short turnaround, either.”
“It definitely gives you something to work with, doesn’t it?”
“Definitely.”
“So why do you look so goddamn glum?”
“I guess I’m embarrassed.”
“By what?”
“This,” he said, tapping his jacket outside the breast pocket. “It indicates that I’m a lousy judge of character. I honestly didn’t think she was capable of…” His voice trailed off, leaving his complete thought unspoken.
“Alex Ladd, you mean?” He nodded. “You think she’s innocent? That Smilow is barking up the wrong tree? Has she come up with an alibi?”
“It’s weak. She says she went to a county fair in Beaufort. No corroboration.” It seemed lying came easily now. Even to trusted friends. “Anyway, in light of this information, an unsubstantiated alibi seems academic.”
“I could—”
“Excuse me, Loretta. As I said earlier, it’s been a rough day, and I’m exhausted.”
He tried to smile, but knew he failed. The gloomy interior of the bar was suffocating him. The smoke seemed thicker. The odor of despair more pervasive. His head was throbbing and his gut was churning. Loretta’s eyes were as sharp as boning knives. Afraid they would see too much, he avoided looking straight into them.
“I’ll get your fee to you tomorrow.”
“I turned over every stone I could, Hammond.”
“You did a terrific job.”
“But you were hoping for more.”
Actually he had been hoping for nothing, but certainly less than what he had got. “No, no. With this, I’ll be able to move the case forward.”
Pathetically eager to please him, Loretta gripped his hand tighter. “I could try digging even deeper.”
“Give me time to assimilate this first. I’m sure it’ll be sufficient. If not, I’ll be in touch.”
Without fresh air, he was going to die. He worked his hand out of Loretta’s damp grip, told her to stay sober, thanked her again for a job well done, and tossed a hasty goodbye over his shoulder.
Outside the Shady Rest, the air was neither fresh nor bracing. It was stagnant and thick and seemed to take on the properties of cotton as he sucked it into his lungs.
Even hours after sundown the sidewalk was emanating heat that burned his feet through the soles of his shoes. His skin was clammy. Like when he was a kid, sick. After a fever broke, his mother would remove his damp pajamas and change his bed sheets, assuring him that the sweat was a good sign. It meant he was getting better. But it didn’t feel better. He preferred the dryness of fever to the cloying moisture on his skin.
The sidewalk was congested with people milling from doorway to doorway but having no real place to go. They were looking for something interesting to do, which might include, but wasn’t limited to, getting drunk in one of the taverns, stealing something they needed, destroying or defacing property just for the hell of it, or satisfying a vendetta with bloodshed.
Ordinarily Hammond would have been attuned to the potential danger the neighborhood posed to one who obviously didn’t belong there. Both blacks and whites sneered at him with palpable prejudice and cultivated hatred. He was definitely a “have” in an area of “have nots,” and resentment ran high. At any other time, he would have been looking over one shoulder as he made his way back to his car, half expecting to find it stripped when he reached it. Tonight, preoccupation made him careless and indifferent to the hostile glances cast at him.
Loretta’s report on Alex had plunged him into a moral morass. The incriminating information was stultifying. The emotional impact of it severe. The whole of it was so devastating, he couldn’t separate individual aspects of it.
When Smilow learned her history—and it was only a matter of time before one of his detectives uncovered it—he would have wet dreams. Steffi would break out a bottle of champagne. But for him and Alex, professionally and personally, the discovery would be disastrous.
Disclosure was like a lead weight hanging by an unraveling filament just above his head. When would it drop? Tonight? Tomorrow? The next day? How long could he stand the suspense? How long could he wrestle with his own conscience? Even if the time of death eliminated her as the actual murderer, she must have been involved to some extent.
These thoughts were so dreary, so absorbing, they were almost immobilizing. He had lost all sense of where he was. He was thinking about disbarment, not dismemberment. When he reached the alley where he had left his car, he used the keyless door lock and opened the driver’s door without even glancing around to see if it was safe.
Startled by sudden movement behind him, he reacted quickly. He came around in a blur of motion, his arm raised, ready to protect and defend himself.
He came close to striking Alex before arresting the momentum of his arm.
“What the hell!” Reflexively he scanned the immediate area, only now becoming aware of the dark, menacing surroundings. “What the hell are you doing in this neighborhood?”
“I followed her here.”
“Who?”
Green eyes snapped angrily. “Who do you think, Hammond? The woman you hired to follow me.”
“Shit!”
“My sentiment exactly,” she said heatedly. “I thought it was strange that the same tourist came down my street twice in one day taking pictures of my house. First this morning, then again shortly after Smilow’s raiders left. On my way home from that humiliating interrogation this afternoon, I stopped at the supermarket. She was there, too, trying to look interested in watermelons. It finally dawned on me that I was under surveillance.”
“Not surveillance.”
“True. That would imply professionalism. While this is classless, gutless, ordinary spying.”
“Alex—”
“So I dodged her, doubled back, turned the tables, and started following her. I thought Detective Smilow must be behind it. Imagine my surprise when you showed up to meet her here.”
“Don’t put me on a level with Smilow.”
“Oh, you’re much lower than Mr. Smilow,” she said, her voice cracking with mounting emotion. “You’re sneakier. More underhanded. You sleep with me first.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really? Then what is it like? Which part is inaccurate? Is she a policewoman?”
“Private investigator.”
“Even worse. You paid her to snoop on me.”
“Okay, you caught me,” he said, his anger rising to match hers. “You’re a very clever lady, Dr. Ladd.”
“Did you two have a nice chat about me?”
“There wasn’t anything nice about it, but what she dug up on you was damned interesting. Especially the records from Tennessee.”
She closed her eyes and reeled slightly. But she recovered quickly, reopened her eyes, and told him to go to hell.
She turned on her heel, but Hammond caught her arm and brought her back around. “What she dredged up about you isn’t my fault, Alex. When I hired her, I thought I was doing us both a favor.”
“In God’s name, how?”
“I had hoped, stupidly, that she would find something exculpatory. But that was before you started lying to the police with every breath, and painting yourself into inescapable corners.”
“Would you rather I had told them the truth?”
She had asked him the same question when they accidently met in the elevator. He’d had no answer for her. But since then he had given it a lot of thought. “It doesn’t matter that we spent Saturday night together.”
“Then why haven’t you told them? When I was being put through that humiliating interrogation about my dirty laundry, literally, why did you just stand there? Why didn’t you tell them everything, including who broke into my house last night and stained my sheets?”
“Because it’s irrelevant.”
She laughed without mirth. “You’re delusional, Solicitor Cross. Even given your brilliance, I think you would have a hard time persuading anyone of its irrelevance. And while we’re on the subject, I explained away the blood. But there’s only one explanation for semen. Which wouldn’t have been there if you’d worn some protection.”
“I didn’t think about it.” Lowering his face close to hers, he added on an angry whisper, “And neither did you.” He knew he had scored on that round when she averted her face. “Besides, one has nothing to do with the other.”
She looked back at him. “I have trouble following that logic.”
“Our sleeping together has no bearing on the case.” If he could convince her, he might be able to convince someone else. He might even come to believe it himself. “I’ve been thinking about it. Last Saturday, you could have murdered Pettijohn before leaving Charleston.”
She sucked in a quick breath, and folded her arms across her middle as though a pain had just shot through her. “That’s what you’ve been thinking? You said the time of death didn’t fit.”
“Because I didn’t want it to.”
“And now you do?”
“You killed him, then finagled our meeting to establish an alibi.”
“I told you last night, I did not kill Pettijohn.”
“Right, right. Like you didn’t fuck him, either.”
Once again, she spun around to leave. Hammond’s arm shot out. This time, she put up more of a struggle. “Damn you! Let me go!”
He turned her around and trapped her in the wedge formed by the open car door. In order for her to escape she would either have to go around or through him. He was determined that she would hear him out first. “I don’t want to think that, Alex.”
“Well, gee, thanks. I’m so glad you don’t want to think of me as a slut and a murderer.”
“What else am I supposed to believe?”
“Believe anything you like, just leave me alone.”
“All along, even when it stretched credibility, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. Until tonight.” He opened his jacket far enough for her to see the envelope inside his breast pocket.
Suddenly she ceased to struggle. She stared at the envelope for a moment, and he saw her lips twitch with what looked like remorse. But to her credit, when she raised her eyes to his, they were defiant and proud. “Juicy reading?”
“Damaging. Very damaging. This is the ammunition they need to nail you.”
“Then why are you standing here talking to me?”
“Smilow will take this and run with it.”
“So call him up. Give him the lowdown. You got what you wanted, what you paid for.”
“I’m giving you a chance to explain it.”
“I rather imagine it’s self-explanatory.”
“So I’m supposed to take it at face value?”
“I don’t give a damn how you take it.”
“Okay. I’ll interpret it the only way I can.” He pressed his lower body against her. “It means you’ve come a long way, baby.”
Her composure and hauteur deserted her. With both hands, she pushed hard against his chest. “Get away from me.”
He didn’t yield. “What this indicates to me is that last Saturday night was more than a simple seduction.”
“I didn’t seduce you.”
“Like hell, but we’ve been through that before. You’re implicated in a felony crime, and you deliberately drew me in. Why, Alex? You intentionally created a conflict of interest for me as a prosecutor. You made me part of it—whatever the hell it is.”
“There is no ‘it.’ There never was. Not until Lute Pettijohn turned up dead.”
“Was he in on it?”
“Aren’t you listening?” she cried.
“Was I the target of his last scheme? Was he plotting my downfall when he was murdered?”
“I don’t know. His being murdered had nothing to do with me.”
“I wish I could believe that. Our meeting was not accidental, Alex. You’ve admitted that much.”
She tried to sidestep him, but he blocked her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“You’re not leaving until I get to the truth. How did you know I would be at that fair?”
She shook her head.
“How did you know?”
She remained stubbornly mute.
“Tell me, Alex. How did you know I was going there? You couldn’t have. The only way you could have known is if—” Suddenly he broke off. He gave her a hard, piercing look and gripped her shoulders tighter.
Her eyes spoke eloquently to his.
“You followed me there,” he said quietly.
She hesitated for what seemed an interminable time before slowly nodding her head. “Yes. I followed you from the Charles Towne Plaza.”