Alibi (68 page)

“I have had a lifetime of people assessing me by my achievements, not in a bad way, but just because that’s the way it normally goes. But Jess, she saw beyond all that from the first moment we met, and the fact that she fell in love with me, well, that was the most amazing thing of all.”

Sawyer saw the irony in it, the fact that he was now in his very own line to get past the front security checkpoint at Boston’s Superior Court. Some crazy tourist had come in and pulled out her camera and started snapping away at the court’s interior steps because she thought they were the ones the lawyers came down in the TV show
Boston Legal
and she couldn’t wait to get all the way home to Topeka and give evidence to one and all of her serious brush with fame. Of course the camera—complete with shots of her entire East Coast over-fifties coach tour—was confiscated within seconds, leaving the woman beyond consolation and causing a hell of a backlog at the court’s front steps.

Ten minutes later the line started to move again and Sawyer put down his bag to be checked, while another guard ran him over with an electric prod.

“You here for the Matheson thing?” asked the guard. “Because it’s standing room only up there.”

“That’s okay,” said Sawyer. “I go to Deane,” he added, not wanting the guard to think he was one of those shameless voyeurs. “I’m friends with defense counsel,” he added.

“And I’m Tom Cruise,” said the guard. “And Katie sends her regards.”

Seconds later he was on his way and taking the stairs two at a time toward the elevators. He was late, but at least when the judge called for morning recess Sara would know he moved hell or high water to be here.

“Look, Dean,” said Joe over the noise. “The thing is, we can to-and-fro this thing until the cows come home but I really don’t need your permission.” Frank was at the wheel, the removable siren light now flashing on top of their unmarked sedan.

“We have a warrant and this is nothing more than a courtesy call. You want to meet us and show us the way to the dorm then that would be great. But either way we are going in.”

“Enter via the east gate,” said Johns after a pause. “There’s a garage down and inclined to your left. I’ll meet you there in ten,” he said before hanging up.

“Real charmer that one,” said Frank above the siren.

“Fucking university of pricks,” said Joe before rubbing at his forehead with his right hand.

“There are a million explanations for this, Chief,” said Frank at last.

“He was in that greenhouse, Frank.”

“Yeah, but maybe long before the girl died.”

And then Joe’s cell rang again and, expecting it to be Johns, he pressed “receive” quickly to say: “We’re almost there.”

But it wasn’t Johns; in fact, it was the last person in the universe Joe was expecting to hear from this morning.

“Lieutenant Mannix,” said the obviously distressed girl.

“Who is this?” asked Joe.

“It’s Barbara Rousseau, Lieutenant. And I need to speak with you urgently.”

“Everything they said was true,” said James without hesitation. The court was now reeling at this blatant admission. “Heath and H. Edgar, they are my best friends, and that night, at the bar, I was drunk and emotional and sick with grief.

“You have to remember that the last time I saw her we barely spoke. She still wanted to keep everything quiet, and that night, the last Friday before semester, she was with her girlfriends and I was with the guys, and considering we had made arrangements to hook up after the orientation the following day I never realized how much I would regret not being with her until . . .”

“It’s okay, James,” said David. “Tell us about that night at the university bar. Your friends said you confessed, and you just told us everything they said was true.”

“It was—in that I did say I felt responsible. The truth is, if I had been with her that night this would not have happened. I
had
held her only the day before, and then the next thing I knew she
was
gone, and there was nothing I could do.”

“And you expressed these feelings to your friends?”

“Yes.”

“Which they misinterpreted.”

“Yes. But it wasn’t their fault. Like I said, I was rotten drunk.” James looked at the jury as if asking their forgiveness for drowning his sorrows. “And when I look back on it now, I realize I
did
feel like I was the one who killed her.”

“In what way?” asked David.

“Well, I was her boyfriend and when it came down to it I was unable to protect her. I am sure it all came out the wrong way. I had, after all, misrepresented my relationship with Barbara, and then there was the thing with the shoes.” James took a breath.

“Okay, James,” said David at last. “We can see how your friends may have misconstrued your meaning when it came to your feelings of responsibility, but that last point you made, about Jessica’s shoes . . . I think the thing we all need to know, I think the question that most begs an answer, is how did you know about the shoes?”

He was losing her.

“Miss Rousseau . . .
Miss Rousseau.
Where are you calling from? You are breaking up.”

“I’m still in Paris, Lieutenant. I was meant to be on a plane to Boston hours ago, but didn’t . . . I couldn’t . . .”

This was useless, thought Joe as he waved at Dean Johns, who was now approaching from the other end of the garage and pointing at the entrance to the dorm. The dean joined them with a nod, obviously noting the cell now crushed to Joe’s ear. Johns gestured with his head for them to follow him into the building, and Joe and Frank were flanked by two newly arrived uniforms who brought up the rear.

“Miss Rousseau,”
yelled Joe into his phone. “I can hardly hear you. I am going to have to call you back on a landline. I’m gonna hand you to my partner who will take down your number so that I can call you in about ten minutes, okay? Did you get that, Miss Rousseau? Ten minutes. But right now I need you to sit tight.” Joe handed his cell to Frank.

“I need access to a landline,” said Joe, calling out to the dean who was a good ten paces ahead of him. The corridors were now filling with inquisitive students who were obviously wondering why their honored leader was paying them an impromptu visit—and why he was flanked by two men who could only be detectives, and two uniforms asking them politely to go back into their rooms.

“There is an RA’s office on every floor,” said Johns. “We’re headed for level three so you can use the phone up there.”

They opted for the stairs over the slow moving elevator and hit level three within seconds. They pulled open the stair exit door and turned left into the gray carpeted corridor, moving quickly, almost to the end, before Johns stopped in front of a green-painted door marked with the number 312.

“This is the dorm you are after,” he said.

“Open it,” said Joe. And Johns retrieved a single silver key to oblige.

The room was small and sparsely decorated, the bed a single, the wardrobe old and worn. The brown calico curtains were drawn back to reveal an impressive view of the university grounds beyond—the red-roofed gazebos now covered in snow, the odd squirrel tracks forming lines like a dot to dot puzzle linking tree to tree to tree.

“Where do you want me?” asked Johns after a time.

“Outside,” said Joe. “In fact, I want everyone outside apart from me and Detective McKay here.”

“Frank, you take the bathroom,” he said, turning to McKay and pointing to the tiny en suite. “And I’ll check things out in here.”

Despite its old age and small size, the room was extremely neat and reasonably comfortable as a living space for one. A computer desk sat snugly in the corner by the window, while a bedside table against the far wall held an alarm clock, a novel about the Sudan, and one of those skinny, bendable study lamps. Every second Joe searched, every time he opened a book or lifted a cushion or checked under a bed, he felt a small wave of relief—that he found nothing untoward, nothing but class notes or folded laundry or empty space in the case of the metal-framed bed.

Then he hit the closet, the oversized built-in that sat flush against the thin bathroom wall. It was one of those cheap formica structures with sliding doors that never remained on their tracks. The inside was incredibly well organized with shirts up top and pants down on the bottom and sweaters and T-shirts folded like they did in stores. The bottom held four pairs of shoes—shoes that looked small enough to be worn by a child. Two pairs of sneakers—one Adidas and one Nike, one set of dress shoes and a pair of rubber flip-flops, which sat one on top of the other with the heel part slotting into the thong.

In the far corner, under a hanging overcoat, sat a cardboard box that was only half shut, the top spouting what looked to be some old high school trophy and a rolled up certificate of sorts. Joe reached in to pull the box from its nook, the room’s only sign of dust now releasing itself as he slid it across the scratched wardrobe floor.

And then he saw it. There was an uneven board that hung in a concave slump having dipped under the pressure of the box. He moved his knees forward and crawled inside the closet, before retrieving a pen from his pocket and flicking the ballpoint up so that he could use it to prize the wobbly board free.

And it came up,
pop!
just like that—so that Joe could slide in even farther and reach down with his now gloved hand, and pull out a clear plastic bag and drag it out of the wardrobe and into the light to see that it contained a pair of small and narrow, plain black women’s shoes.