Femme Fatale and other stories

had Googled him, found a photo on the Internet and e-mailed it to Trini, who subsequently had no problem picking him out of a lineup.
    From the first, Bill Carroll insisted that Heloise Lewis would establish his alibi, but he didn’t mention that their assignation was anything more than two adults meeting for a romantic encounter. Which it technically was, after all. No money had exchanged hands, at his insistence. Perhaps he thought it would be a bad idea, confessing to a relationship with one prostitute while being investigated in the murder of another. At any rate, Heloise corroborated his version. She told police that they had a date in a local hotel. No, the reservation was in her name. Well, not her name, but the name of “Jane Smith.” She was a single mother, trying to be careful. Didn’t Dr. Laura always say that single parents needed to keep their kids at a safe distance from their relationships? True, hers was the only name on the hotel register. He had wanted it that way. No, she wasn’t sure why. No, she didn’t think anyone on the staff had seen him come and go; she had ordered a cup of tea from room service after he left, which was why she was alone in the room at 11 P.M. She spoke with many a hesitation and pause, always telling the truth, yet never sounding truthful. That’s how good a liar Heloise was. She could make the truth sound like a lie, a lie sound like the truth.
    Still, her version was strong enough to keep police from charging him. After all, there was no physical evidence in his car and they had only two letters from the plate. Witnesses did make mistakes, even witnesses as articulate and positive as the wholesome young GW student. That was when Heloise told Bill she was prepared to recant everything, go to the police and confess that she had lied to cover up for a longtime client.
    “I’ll tell them it was all made up, that I did it as a favor to you, unless you promise to leave me alone from now on.” They were meeting in the Starbucks on Dupont Circle again, but the beautiful girl had the day off. That, or she had moved on.
    “But then they’ll know you’re a whore.”
    “A whore who can provide your alibi.”
    “I didn’t do anything.” His voice was whiny, put-upon. Then again, he was being framed for a crime he didn’t commit, so his petulance was earned.
    “I heard there’s a police witness who picked you out of the lineup, put you at the scene. And once I out myself as a whore—well, then it’s an established fact that you traffic in whores. That’s not going to play very well for you. In fact, I’ll tell the police that you wanted me to do something that I didn’t want to do, an act so degrading and hideous I can’t even speak of it, and we argued and you went slamming out of the room, angry and frustrated. Maybe that poor dead girl paid the price for your aggression and hostility.”
    He very quickly came to see it her way. He muttered and complained, but once he left the Starbucks, she was sure she would never see him again. Not even back in the suburbs, for she had signed Scott up for travel soccer, having ascertained that Bill Carroll’s son was not skilled enough to make the more competitive league. It was a lot more time, but then—she had always had time for Scott. She had set up her life so she was always there for her son. If there was a better gig for a single mother, she had yet to figure it out.
    Her only regret was the dead girl. Heloise’s debts to the dead seemed like bad karma, mounting up in a way that would have to be rectified one day. There had been that boy Val had killed for no crime greater than laughing at his given name—Valery. She had told the boy, a drug dealer, Val’s big secret and the boy had let it slip, so Val killed him. Killed him, then driven off in the boy’s car, just because it was there and he could, but it was the theft of the car that made it a death penalty crime in Maryland. And even as Heloise had soothed Val and carted shoeboxes of money to various lawyers, skimming as much as she had dared, she was giving Brad the information they needed to lock him up forever. She had used a dead boy to create a new life for herself, and she had never looked back.
    And now there was this anonymous girl, someone not much different from herself, whose death remained unsolved. If it had been Baltimore, Heloise could have leaned on Brad a little, pressed to know what leads the department had. But it was D.C. and she had