The 24th Letter

FORTY-ONE

The college-aged, front desk clerk asked, “Are staying with us only one night?”

O’Brien finished the registration. “Yes, one night only.”

The clerk read the card. “Mr. Snyder, would you like to leave a credit card imprint for incidentals?”

“No thanks.”

“There’s a mini bar in your room.”

“I won’t need it.”

“Yes sir. You’ll need to prepay for the one night, though.”

O’Brien opened his wallet and counted the money. “How do I get to the room?”

“Go back out front and follow the drive around to the right. Top of the steps. Room twenty-nine. Mr. Snyder, do you need assistance with your luggage?”

“No thanks. Packed light.”

The clerk nodded and dropped the registration card on the stack next to his half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

O’Brien parked on the opposite side of the building from his room. He picked up the case file and walked to a Seven-Eleven next to the hotel. He bought a pre-packaged ham sandwich, large coffee, and a Snickers bar to take to his room. During the short walk back to the hotel, he scanned the parking lot, the shadows in the alcoves and the license plate of a new car that wasn’t there when he had left for the store. Ron Hamilton had gone home for the night. He hoped Ron would never have to admit or deny that he knew what was about to happen.

He unlocked the room door and flipped on the lights. The odor was like opening the trunk of a car with old clothes in it. The smell had the faint trace of bleach. O’Brien locked the door, placed the Glock on a nightstand next to the bed and sat at a small table to eat while he read the case file.

As he read his own words written eleven years ago, the visuals of Alexandria’s death came back in graphic detail. He remembered the interrogation he had conducted with Judy Neilson, Alexandria’s roommate. He recalled questioning her at the crime scene. The sobbing, blotches of red on her neck and face. The incoherent, disconnected sentences, the shock of finding her best friend dead from knife wounds to the chest.

It was the second time he questioned Judy Neilson that her demeanor had changed. She was controlled, unwavering in the facts as she knew them surrounding Alexandria’s life and her death. And she had the hard edge of retribution in eyes that could cry no more. The sheer horror of it had deeply affected her. O’Brien read Judy’s words and remembered her sitting in the MPD interview room, her blond hair pulled back, striking face, no make-up, and manicured hands folded in her lap, shoulders straight back. Her tone was resolute, her expression was one of controlled restraint and yet compassion for a friend who was murdered. “Alex was one of the most loving, gracious people I’ve ever known. I think she still loved Charlie, but she felt it wasn’t going to work. His ego was in the dumps. He kept coming around like a cat that finds its

way back to your doorstep at night. It was because of Alex’s big heart that she always took him in. They’d fight and make up. Eventually, he stopped coming back.

“After he was gone for most of the summer, when she had time to compare him to some of the creeps that came around, I guess Charlie was looking better. She told me she’d always have a place in her heart for Charlie…she just needed time to figure it all out. That possessive manager of hers, Jonathan Russo, he was over at the condo more than I wanted to see him. Alex swore there was nothing between them, but you could tell, he kept her on a short leash. She hated going to his club, but Alex did have her weaknesses-she was only human. She liked the celebrity scene and all the fame she was getting. Russo got her hooked on cocaine…and that’s when she started depending on him in a sick kind of way. Charlie got wind of it. Came back from North Carolina and had words with Russo. Alex told me Russo threatened to kill Charlie if he ever came in his club again. I know Charlie hated to see Alex spiraling down. Charlie did have a drinking problem, but in my heart-of-hearts, I find it hard to believe he went off the deep end like that. I know Russo had people watching the condo. Sometimes I’d see one of his goons sitting in a car and just watching. Used to give me the creeps.”

O’Brien bit into his ham sandwich and washed down the stale taste with coffee. He flipped through to the transcript of Jonathan Russo’s interrogation. He remembered Russo’s demeanor well, the slouch in the chair, the peaks of anger tapered by feigned boredom mixed with arrogance. He remembered the tanned face with a spider’s web thin scar etched on the bridge of his nose. Thick lips. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. A diamond stud winking in his right ear. He wore an thousand dollar olive-green Armani suite and kept a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour legal beagle at his side.

“Why would I kill Lexie, huh? She was one of my top-billing talents. Besides, I was over at my friend Sergio Conti’s condo when you said the coroner estimated her time of death. We picked up a jug of chardonnay, a few pounds of stone crabs from the marina, ate them and tossed the shells off the balcony onto the sand below, it was raining friggin’ crabs. Threw the shells and a little crab meat down to the beach for the birds to enjoy in the morning. I’ve learned to recycle those natural things best I can. Crabs are always washin’ up on the beach anyway. Scavengers.”

O’Brien lifted the case folder and turned to a photograph of Alexandria Cole. He remembered the crime scene photographer using a stepladder to get a higher angle over the bed. The image was of a young woman lying on her back with seven stab wounds in her naked chest. Breasts pierced with deep holes. The killer brought the blade down so hard he split her sternum. Blood had soaked into the sheets and dried like dark shadows below her outstretched arms giving the body an illusion of scarlet angel wings.

O’Brien looked at the photo and said, “I’m sorry, Alexandria. I’m sorry you suffered like this and the man who did it is living his life. Although I’m eleven years late, I’ll do my best to make up for lost time…for you and for Charlie Williams.”

O’Brien closed the folder, picked up his Glock, wedged it under his belt, and walked out the door into the night.