Read The Alibi Man for Free Online Page B

and went back to his business.
    “I’m sorry, Lisbeth,” I said. “It’s true. And there is no good or gentle way to say it.”
    The girl put her hands over her face and slid down to the ground, her back against the stall door. She drew in a shuddering breath and said, “No,” the word weak and muffled. “No, you’re wrong.”
    “I’m not. I wish I were, but I’m not.”
    “Oh, my God!”
    I squatted down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m very sorry. You two were close?”
    She nodded and sobbed into her hands until she gagged.
    “Can we go sit somewhere?” I asked quietly.
    She nodded, pulled a dirty rag out of the cargo pocket of her shorts, wiped her face, and blew her nose. She held on to my arm as we rose. She felt as weak and shaky as an elderly person in poor health.
    “What happened?” she asked, hiccuping air between syllables. “Did she drive off the road? She’s a terrible driver.”
    “No,” I said, and said nothing more until we were seated on a bench at the far end of the barn.
    “It’s not clear yet what happened,” I said. “There was no sign of her car.”
    The girl looked at me, confused. “I don’t understand.”
    “Her body was dumped there. She was probably murdered.”
    I thought she might faint, she was so pale. But she got up from the bench, ran around the corner of the barn, and retched. I waited, feeling empty, drained from telling her and, in telling her, reliving that horrible moment of discovery.
    When she came back and sat down again, she put her head in her hands. She was shaking visibly.
    “I can’t believe this is happening!”
    “Me neither,” I said.
    “How can this be happening?”
    I would have told her that life is cruel and unpredictable, but she had just discovered that for herself.
    “Lisbeth, I need to know everything that happened Saturday night.”
    “We hit some clubs on Clematis. Had some drinks, danced.”
    “Any guys involved?”
    “Sure. We have this contest…to see which one of us can get the most free drinks.”
    “Did any of the men seem to think they should get something in return?”
    “Ha,” she said with very little strength. “All of them. They’re guys.”
    “Did Irina have any interest?”
    “No. ‘Boys,’ she would say, and make a face. She didn’t waste her time on boys.”
    “Did any of them take that news badly?”
    “All of them,” she said again. “They’re guys.”
    “I mean a guy who got pissed off, maybe made a threat, made you uncomfortable.”
    “No. Well…” She shook her head as if shooing away a thought she didn’t want to have.
    “Just say it. Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it isn’t.”
    “There’s this guy we run into a lot. Irina dances with him…kind of leads him on…. He always wants her to leave with him, but she never does.”
    “And Saturday night?”
    “He called her a name. We were leaving. Irina laughed at him. He didn’t follow us or anything.”
    “What did he call her?”
    “He told Irina she should go for a ride with him. She said he meant a ride
on
him and that she wasn’t interested in riding a pony.”
    “And he said what?”
    “‘You fucking Russian cunt,’ pardon my language. Irina just laughed and blew him a kiss.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Brad something. I don’t know. He wasn’t interested in me, I wasn’t interested in him.”
    “What club was this in?”
    She rubbed her hands over her face and shrugged. “Monsoon, maybe…or Deuce. I don’t remember.”
    “When you’d had the fun you could have at the clubs…”
    “We came back to Wellington and went to Players for a while. It was Mr. Brody’s birthday. There were a lot of people there. I left around one.”
    “And Irina?”
    “She was still there.”
    “With anyone?”
    “No one in particular.”
    “And no one was paying special attention to her?”
    The girl laughed, but her eyes were welling again. “Everyone paid attention to Irina. Every
man
.”
    Something