Hammond waited in the corridor until he saw Harvey Knuckle leave his office at precisely five o’clock. The computer whiz conscientiously locked the door behind him, and when he turned around, Hammond was crowding him. “Hey, Harvey.”
“Mr. Cross!” he exclaimed, backing up against the office door. “What are you doing here?”
“I think you know.”
Knuckle’s prominent Adam’s apple slid up, then down the skinny column of his neck. His hard swallow was audible. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the vaguest.”
“You lied to Loretta Boothe,” Hammond said, playing his hunch. “Didn’t you?”
Harvey tried to disguise his guilty nervousness with petulance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What I’m talking about is five-to-ten for computer theft.”
“Huh?”
“I could get you on several counts without breaking a sweat, Harvey. That is unless you cooperate with me now. Who asked you to check out Dr. Alex Ladd?”
“Pardon?”
Hammond’s eyes practically nailed him to the office door behind him. “Okay. Fine. Get yourself a good defense lawyer.” He turned.
Harvey blurted, “Loretta did.”
Hammond came back around. “Who else?”
“Nobody.”
“Har-veee?”
“Nobody!”
“Okay.”
Harvey relaxed and wet his lips with a quick tongue, but his sickly smile folded when Hammond asked, “What about Pettijohn?”
“I don’t know—”
“Tell me what I want to know, Harvey.”
“I’m always willing to help you, Mr. Cross, you know that. But this time I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Records, Harvey,” he said with diminishing patience. “Who asked you to dig up Pettijohn’s records? Deeds. Plats. Partnership documents, things like that.”
“You did,” Harvey squeaked.
“I went through legal channels. I want to know who else was interested in his business dealings. Who asked you on the sly to go into his records?”
“What makes you think—”
Hammond took a step nearer and lowered his voice. “Whoever it was had to come to you for information, so don’t stall, and don’t try and bullshit me with that phony innocent, quizzical expression, or I’m liable to get angry. Prison can be tough on a guy like you, you know.” He paused to let the implied threat sink in. “Now, who was it?”
“T-two different people. At different times, though.”
“Recently?”
Harvey nodded his head so rapidly his teeth clicked together. “Within the last couple of months or thereabout.”
“Who were the two?”
“D-detective Smilow.”
Hammond kept his expression unreadable. “And who else?”
“You ought to know, Mr. Cross. She said she was asking on your behalf.”
* * *
A news junkie by habit, Loretta Boothe watched the early evening newscasts, flipping back and forth between channels and comparing their coverage of the Alex Ladd story.
She was dismayed to see Hammond facing TV cameras looking the worse for wear, his arm in a sling. When had he got hurt? And how? She had seen him just last night.
About the time the news ended and Wheel of Fortune began, her daughter Bev came through the living room dressed for work. “I made a macaroni casserole for my lunch, Mom. There’s plenty left in the fridge for your supper. Salad makings, too.”
“Thanks, honey. I’m not hungry just yet, but maybe later.”
Bev hesitated at the front door. “Are you okay?”
Loretta saw the worry in her daughter’s eyes, the wariness. The harmony between them was still tentative. Both wanted desperately for things to go well this time. Both feared that they wouldn’t. Promises had been made and broken too many times for either of them to trust Loretta’s most recent pledges. Everything depended on her staying sober. That was all she had to do. But that was a lot.
“I’m fine.” She gave Bev a reassuring smile. “You know that case I was working on? They’re taking it to the grand jury next week.”
“Based on information you provided?”
“Partially.”
“Wow. That’s great, Mom. You still have the knack.”
Bev’s compliment warmed her. “Thanks. But I guess this means I’m out of work again.”
“After this success, I’m sure you’ll get more.” Bev pulled open the door. “Have a good evening. See you in the morning.”
After Bev left, Loretta continued watching the game show, but only for lack of something better to do. The apartment felt claustrophobic this evening, although the rooms were no smaller today than they had been yesterday or the day before. The restlessness wasn’t environmental; it came from within.
She considered going out, but that would be risky. Her friends were other drunks. The hangout places she knew were rife with temptation to have just one drink. Even one would spell the end of her sobriety, and she would be right back where she had been before Hammond had retained her to work on the Pettijohn case.
She wished that job weren’t over. Not just because of the money. Although Bev made an adequate salary to support them, Loretta wished to contribute to the household account. It would be good for her self-esteem, and she needed the independence that came with earning her own income.
Also, as long as she was working, she wouldn’t notice her thirst. Idle time was a peril she needed to avoid. Having nothing constructive to do made her crave what she couldn’t have. With time on her hands, she began thinking about how trivial her life really was, how it really wouldn’t matter if she drank herself to death, how she might just as well make things easy on herself and everyone associated with her. A dangerous train of thought.
Now that she thought about it, Hammond hadn’t specifically told her he no longer needed her services. After she gave him the scoop on Dr. Alex Ladd, he had fled that bar like his britches were on fire. Although he had seemed somewhat downcast, he couldn’t wait to act upon the information she had provided, and his action must have paid off because now he was taking his murder case to the grand jury.
Contacting Harvey Knuckle today had probably been superfluous. Hammond had seemed rushed and not all that interested when she passed along her hunch that Harvey had lied to her this morning. But what the hell? It hadn’t hurt her to make that additional effort.
Despite Hammond’s injuries, whatever they were, his voice had been strong and full of his conviction when he addressed the reporters on the steps of police headquarters. He explained that Bobby Trimble’s appearance had been the turning point of the case.
“Based on the strength of his testimony, I feel confident that Dr. Ladd will be indicted.”
Conversely, Dr. Ladd’s solicitor, whom Loretta knew by reputation only, had told the media that this was the most egregious mistake ever made by the Charleston P.D. and Special Assistant County Solicitor Cross. He was confident that when all the facts were known, Dr. Ladd would be vindicated and that the powers-that-be would owe her a public apology. Already he was considering filing a defamation suit.
Loretta recognized lawyerese when she heard it, although Frank Perkins’s statements had been particularly impassioned. Either he was an excellent orator or he was genuinely convinced of his client’s innocence. Maybe Hammond did have the wrong suspect.
If so, he would be made to look like a fool in the most important case of his career thus far.
He had alluded to Alex Ladd’s unsubstantiated alibi, but he hadn’t been specific. Something about… what was it?
“Little Bo Peep Show,” Loretta said mechanically, solving the Before and After puzzle on Wheel of Fortune with the t’s, the p’s, and the w still missing.
A fair on the outskirts of Beaufort. That was it.
Suddenly on her feet, she went into the kitchen where Bev stacked newspapers before conscientiously bundling them for recycling. Luckily tomorrow was pickup day, so a week’s worth was there. Loretta plowed through them until she located last Saturday’s edition.
She pulled out the entertainment section and quickly leafed through it until she found what she had hoped to. The quarter-page advertisement for the fair provided the time, place, directions, admission fees, attractions to be enjoyed, and—wait!
“Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening through the month of August,” she read out loud.
Within minutes she was in her car and on her way out of the city, driving toward Beaufort. She didn’t know what she would do when she got there. Follow her nose, she supposed. But if she could—by a stroke of luck or an outright miracle—shoot a hole in Alex Ladd’s alibi, Hammond would forever be in her debt. Or, if the psychologist’s alibi held up, at least he would be forewarned. He wouldn’t be unpleasantly surprised in the courtroom. Either way, he would owe her. Big time.
Until he officially dismissed her, she was technically still on retainer. If she came through for him on this, he would be undyingly grateful and wonder what he had ever done without her. He might even recommend her for a permanent position in the D.A.’s office.
If nothing else, he would appreciate her for seizing the initiative and acting on her own razor-sharp instincts, which not even oceans of booze had dulled. He would be so proud!
* * *
“Sergeant Basset?”
The uniformed officer tipped down the corner of the newspaper he was reading. When he saw Hammond standing on the opposite side of his desk, he shot to his feet. “Hey, Solicitor. I have that printout you requested right here.”
The CPD’s evidence warehouse was Sergeant Glenn Basset’s domain. He was short, plump, and self-effacing. A bushy mustache compensated for his bald head. Lacking aggressiveness, he had been a poor patrolman, but was perfectly suited for the desk job he now held. He was a nice guy, not one to complain, satisfied with his rank, an affable fellow, friendly toward everyone, enemy to none.
Hammond had called ahead with his request, which the sergeant was flattered to grant. “You didn’t give me much notice, but it was only a matter of pulling up the past month’s records and printing them out. I could go back further—”
“Not yet.” Hammond scanned the sheet, hoping a name would jump out at him. It didn’t. “Do you have a minute, Sergeant?”
Sensing that Hammond wished to speak to him privately, he addressed a clerk working at a desk nearby. “Diane, can you keep an eye on things for a minute?”
Without removing her eyes from her computer terminal, she said, “Take your time.”
The portly officer motioned Hammond toward a small room where personnel took their breaks. He offered Hammond a cup of the viscous coffee standing in the cloudy Mr. Coffee carafe.
Hammond declined, then said, “This is a very delicate subject, Sergeant Basset. I regret having to ask.”
He regarded Hammond inquisitively. “Ask what?”
“Is it within the realm of possibility—not even probable, just possible—that an officer could… borrow… a weapon from the warehouse without your knowledge?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s not possible?”
“I keep strict records, Mr. Cross.”
“Yes, I see,” he said, giving the computer printout another quick scan.
Basset was getting nervous. “What’s this about?”
“Just a notion I had,” Hammond said with chagrin. “I’ve turned up empty on the weapon that killed Lute Pettijohn.”
“Two .38s in the back.”
“Right.”
“We’ve got hundreds of weapons in here that fire .38s.”
“You see my problem.”
“Mr. Cross, I pride myself on running a tight ship. My record with the force—”
“Is impeccable. I know that, Sergeant. I’m not suggesting any complicity on your part. As I said, it’s a delicate subject and I hated even to ask. I simply wondered if an officer could have fabricated a reason to take a weapon out.”
Basset thoughtfully tugged on his earlobe. “I suppose he could, but he would’ve still had to sign it out.”
Nowhere. “Sorry to have bothered you. Thanks.”
Hammond took the records with him, although he didn’t think they would yield the valuable clue he had hoped they might. He had left Harvey Knuckle on a high, having got the computer whiz to admit that both Smilow and Steffi had coerced him into getting them information on Pettijohn.
But now that he reflected on it, what did that prove? That they were as interested as he in seeing Lute get his comeuppance? Hardly a breakthrough. Not even a surprise.
He wanted so desperately for Alex to be innocent, he was willing to cast doubt on anyone and everyone, even colleagues who, these days, were doing more to uphold law and order than he was.
Despondently, he let himself into his apartment, moved straight into the living room, and turned on the TV. The anchorwoman with the emerald green contact lenses was just introducing the lead story. Masochistically, he watched.
Except for the arm sling, his bandages were covered by his clothing, but his complexion looked waxy and wan in the glare of the leeching TV lights, making his day-old beard appear even darker. When asked about his injury, he had dismissed the mugging as inconsequential and cut to the chase.
Being politically correct, he had complimented the CPD for an excellent job of detective work. He had dodged specific questions about Alex Ladd and said only that Trimble’s statement had been a turning point in the investigation, that their case was solid, and that an indictment was practically ensured.
Standing just behind his left shoulder, lending support, Steffi had nodded and smiled in agreement. She photographed well, he noted. The lights shone in her dark eyes. The camera captured her vivacity.
Smilow also had been swarmed by media, and he received equal time on the telecasts. Unlike Steffi, he had been uncharacteristically restrained. His remarks were diluted by diplomacy and more or less echoed Hammond’s. He referred to Alex’s connection to Bobby Trimble only in the most general terms, saying that the jailed man had been integral to making a case against her. He declined to reveal the nature of her relationship to Lute Pettijohn.
He never referenced her juvenile record, but Hammond suspected that this omission was calculated. Smilow didn’t want to contaminate the jury pool and give Frank Perkins grounds for a change of venue or mistrial, assuming the case made it to trial.
Video cameras captured a granite-jawed Frank Perkins ushering Alex out. That segment was the most difficult for Hammond to watch, knowing how humiliating it must have been for her to be in the spotlight as the prime suspect in the most celebrated homicide in Charleston’s recent history.
She was described as thirty-five years old, a respected doctor of psychology with impressive credentials. Beyond her professional achievements, she was lauded for her participation in civic affairs and for being a generous benefactor to several charities. Neighbors and colleagues who had been sought for comment expressed shock, some outrage, calling the speculation on her involvement “ludicrous,” “ridiculous,” and other synonymous adjectives.
When the anchorwoman with the artificially green eyes segued into another story, Hammond turned off the set, went upstairs, and drew himself a hot bath. He soaked in it with his right arm hanging over the rim of the tub. The bath eased some of the soreness out of him, but it also left him feeling light-headed and weak.
In need of food, he went downstairs and began preparing scrambled eggs.
Working with his left hand made him clumsy. He was further incapacitated by a dismal foreboding. When remembered in posterity, he didn’t want to be a dirty joke. He didn’t want it to be said, “Oh, you remember Hammond Cross. Promising young prosecutor. Caught a whiff of pussy, and it all went to hell.”
And that’s what they would say. Or words to that effect.
Over their damp towels and sweaty socks in the locker room, or between glasses of bourbon in a popular watering hole, colleagues and acquaintances would shake their heads in barely concealed amusement over his susceptibility. He would be considered a fool, and Alex would be regarded as the piece of tail that had brought about his downfall.
He wanted to lash out at those imagined gossips for their unfairness. He wanted to lambast them for making lewd remarks about her and their relationship. It wasn’t what they thought it was. He had fallen in love.
He hadn’t been so doped up on Darvocet last night that he didn’t remember telling her that this was the real thing for him, and had been from the first. He had met her less than a week ago—less than a week—but he had never been more sure of anything in his life. Never before had he been so physically attracted to a woman. He had never felt such a cerebral, spiritual, and emotional connection to anyone.
For hours at that silly fair, and later in his bed at the cabin, they had talked. About music. Food. Books. Travel and the places they wanted to visit when time allowed. Movies. Exercise and fitness regimens. The old South. The new South. The Three Stooges, and why men loved them and women hated them. Meaningful things. Meaningless things. Endless conversations about everything. Except themselves.
He had told her nothing substantive about himself. She certainly hadn’t divulged anything about her life, present or past.
Had she been a whore? Was she still? If she was, could he stop loving her as quickly as he had started? He was afraid he couldn’t.
Maybe he was a fool after all.
But being a fool was no excuse for wrongdoing. He and his guilty conscience were becoming incompatible roommates. He was finding it increasingly difficult to live with himself. Although he hated to give his father credit for anything, Preston had opened his eyes today and forced him to confront something he had avoided confronting: Hammond Cross was as corruptible as the next man. He was no more honest than his father.
Unable to stomach the thought, or the scrambled eggs, he fed them to the garbage disposal.
He wanted a drink, but alcohol would only have increased the lingering muzziness in his head and left him feeling worse.
He wanted his arm to stop throbbing like a son of a bitch.
He wanted a solution to this goddamn mess that threatened the bright future he had planned for himself.
Mostly, he wanted Alex to be safe.
Safe.
A safe full of cash at Alex’s house.
An empty safe in Pettijohn’s hotel suite.
A safe inside the closet.
The closet. The safe. Hangers. Robe. Slippers. Still in their wrapper.
Hammond jumped as though a jolt of electricity had shot through him, then fell impossibly still as he forced himself to calm down, think it through, reason it out.
Go slow. Take your time.
But after taking several minutes to look at it from every conceivable angle, he couldn’t find a hole in it. All the elements fit.
The conclusion didn’t make him happy, but he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on that now. He had to act.
Scrambling from his chair, he grabbed the nearest cordless phone. After securing the number from directory assistance, he punched in the digits.
“Charles Towne Plaza. How may I direct your call?”
“The spa, please.”
“I’m sorry, sir, the spa is closed for the evening. If you wish to make an appointment—”
He interrupted the switchboard operator to identify himself and told her with whom he needed to speak. “And I need to talk to him immediately. While you’re tracking him down, put me through to the manager of housekeeping.”
* * *
It didn’t take long for Loretta to decide that coming to this fair was a bad idea.
Fifteen minutes after parking her car in a dusty pasture and going the rest of the way on foot, she was sweating like a pig. Children were everywhere—noisy, rowdy, sticky children who seemed to have singled her out to annoy. The carnies were surly. Not that she blamed them for their querulous dispositions. Who could work in this heat?
She would have sold her soul to be inside a nice, dark, cool bar. The stench of stale tobacco smoke and beer would have been a welcome relief from the mix of cotton candy and cow manure that clung to the fairgrounds.
The only thing that kept her there was the constant reminder that she might be doing Hammond some good. She owed him this. Not just in recompense for the case she’d blown, but for giving her another chance when no one else would give her the time of day.
It might not last, this season of sobriety. But for right now she was dry, she was working, and her daughter was looking at her with something other than contempt. For these blessings, she had Hammond Cross to thank.
Doggedly she trudged from one attraction to another.
“I just thought you might remember—”
“You nuts, lady? We’ve had thousands o’ people through here. How’m I s’posed to remember one broad?” The carny spat a stringy glob of tobacco juice that barely missed her shoulder.
“Thank you for your time, and fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now move it. You’re holding up the line.”
Each time she showed Alex Ladd’s photograph to the exhibitors, ride operators, and food vendors, the response was a variation on a theme. Either they were outright rude like the last one, or they were too frazzled to give her their full attention. The shake of a head and a curt “Sorry” was the usual answer to her inquiries.
She canvassed long after the sun went down and the mosquitoes came out in force. After several hours, all she had to show for her trouble was a pair of feet that the humidity had swollen to the size of throw pillows. Analyzing the tight, puffy flesh pressing through the straps of her sandals, she thought it was a shame that this carnival didn’t have a freak show. “These babies would have qualified me,” she muttered.
She finally acknowledged that this was a fool’s mission, that Dr. Ladd had probably lied about being at the fair in the first place, and that the likelihood of bumping into someone who had been there last Saturday and who also remembered seeing her was next to nil.
She swatted at a mosquito on her arm. It burst like a balloon, leaving a spatter of blood. “I gotta be at least a quart low.” It was then she decided to cut her losses and return to Charleston.
She was fantasizing about soaking her feet in a tub of ice water when she walked past the dance pavilion with a conical ceiling strung with clear Christmas lights. A scruffy band was tuning up. The fiddler had a braided beard, for crying out loud. Dancers fanned themselves with pamphlets, laughing and chatting as they waited for the band to resume playing.
Singles lurked on the perimeter of the floor, checking out their prospects, assessing their competition, trying to appear neither too obvious nor too desperate to link up with someone.
Loretta noticed that there were a lot of military personnel in the crowd. Young servicemen, with their fresh shaves and buzz haircuts, were sweating off their cologne, ogling the girls, and swilling beer.
A beer sure would taste good. One beer? What could it hurt? Not for the alcohol buzz. Just to quench a raging thirst that a sugary soft drink couldn’t touch. As long as she was here, she could show Dr. Ladd’s photo around, too. Maybe someone in this crowd would remember her from the weekend before. Servicemen always had an eye out for attractive women. Maybe one had taken a shine to Alex Ladd.
Telling herself she wasn’t rationalizing just to get near the beer-drinking crowd, and wincing from the sandal straps cutting into her swollen feet, Loretta limped up the steps of the pavilion.