A is for Alibi

sweetly. "We had to paint a rose on a hanky for Mother's Day and I thought it was dumb so I quit."
    He didn't smile. "You can use Lieutenant Becker's office," he said when the files arrived. "And stay out of trouble."
    I went into Becker's office.
    It took me two hours to sort through the mass of paperwork but I began to see why Con had been reluctant to let me look because just about the first thing that came to light was a series of Telexes from the West Los Angeles Police Department about a second homicide. At first, I thought it was a mistake – that communiques from another case had been inadvertently sandwiched into the wrong file. But the details nearly leapt off the page and the implications made my heart go pitty-pat. An accountant named Libby Glass, Caucasian, female, age twenty-four, had died from ingesting ground oleander four days after Laurence Fife died. She had worked for Haycraft and McNiece, a business-management firm representing the interests of Laurence Fife's law firm. Now what the hell was that about?
    I flipped through copies of investigators' reports, tying to piece together the story from terse departmental memorandums and penciled summations of telephone calls flying back and forth between the Santa Teresa and West Los Angeles police departments. One memo noted that the key to her apartment had been found on the key ring in Laurence Fife's office desk drawer. A lengthy interview with her parents didn't add anything. There was an interview with a surly sounding ex-boyfriend named Lyle Abernathy, who seemed convinced that she was romantically involved with a "certain unnamed Santa Teresa attorney," but no one had pinned it down much beyond that. Still, the connection was ominous enough and it looked like Nikki Fife's alleged jealous rage might have included the object of her husband's philanderings as well as the man himself. Except that there wasn't any proof.
    I made notes, jotting down last-known addresses and telephone numbers for whatever good that might do after all these years, and then I pushed my chair back and went to the door. Con was talking to Lieutenant Becker but he must have known what I wanted because he excused himself, apparently satisfied that I hadn't missed the point. I leaned on the doorframe, waiting. He took his sweet time ambling over.
    "You want to tell me what that was about?"
    His expression was bemused but there was an air of bitterness about it. "We couldn't make it stick," he said flatly.
    "You think Nikki killed her too?"
    "I'd be willing to bet on it, " he snapped.
    "I take it the D.A. didn't see it that way."
    He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I can read the California Evidence Code as well as the next man. They called off my dogs."
    "The stuff in the file was all circumstantial," I said.
    "That's right."
    I shut my mouth, staring off at a row of windows that badly needed to be cleaned – I didn't like this little turn of 'events at all and he seemed to know that. He shifted his weight.
    "I think I could have nailed her but the D.A. was in a big hurry and he didn't want to jeopardize his case. Bad politics. That's why you didn't like being a cop yourself, Kinsey. Working with a leash around your neck."
    "I still don't like that," I said.
    "Maybe that's why I'm helping you," he said and the look in his eyes was shrewd.
    "What about follow-up?"
    "Oh, we did that. We worked on the Libby Glass angle for months, off and on. So did the West LAPD. We never turned up anything. No witnesses. No informants. No fingerprints that could have placed Nikki Fife at the scene. We couldn't even prove that Nikki knew Libby Glass."
    "You think I'm going to help you make your case?"
    "Well, I don't know about that," he said. "You might. Believe it or not, I don't think you're a bad investigator. Young yet, and sometimes off the wall, but basically honest at any rate. If you turn up evidence that points to Nikki, I don't think you'd hold that back now, would you?"
    "If she did it."
    "If she didn't, then you don't have anything to worry about."
    "Con, if Nikki Fife has something to hide, why would she open this whole thing up again? She couldn't be that kind of fool. What could she possibly gain?"
    "You tell me."
    "Listen," I said, "I don't believe she killed Laurence in the first place so you're going to have a hell of a time persuading me she killed someone else as well."
    The phone rang two desks over and Lieutenant Becker held up a finger, looking over at Con.