The Last Alibi

29

Jason

Thursday, June 20

Another night of fitful, interrupted sleep, the sensation of shadows looming large behind me, nightmares of serial killers removing bodily organs with steak knives. I avoid the bathroom mirror entirely and, on the drive to the office, actually look down to ensure that I am wearing pants.

My stomach is empty and grumpy this morning, a dull ringing in my ears as I sit in my office, rereading everything in the news reports on the four dead women. By eleven, I finish a first draft of a response brief to a Santiago proffer, a case in federal court where prosecutors are trying to link my client with a dozen other gang members in a drug conspiracy so they can use his statements in court without that pesky rule against hearsay. I have trouble focusing for any number of reasons. First, because I’m going to lose this argument; Judge Royster is going to declare this one gigantic conspiracy and throw the hearsay rule out his twentieth-story window. Second, because I can’t get my redheaded client out of my mind. And third, even I can tell, in rare moments of clarity and self-confrontation, that I am not right in the head these days, that I am slipping.

“Knock, knock.” It’s Joel Lightner, gently rapping on my office door.

“Hey.” I sigh. “What’s up?”

“In the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by.”

“Did you put the tail on James?”

“Yeah, we did. Yesterday, he left work and went home. This morning, he got up and went to work. So far, nothing else.”

I sit up straight. He didn’t come all this way to tell me that. “You found James’s mother?”

“Yep. Yep, yep.” He takes a seat across from me and grimaces. “She’s at the corner of Nicholas and Artisan Avenues, out west. Part of the Saint Augustine campus?”

I grab a notepad, stationery Shauna got for me, the name TASKER amp; KOLARICH in royal blue at the top, then JASON KOLARICH, ESQ., below it in a subdued font.

“Saint Augustine has a nursing home?” I ask.

“Saint Augustine has a cemetery,” Joel says. “James Drinker’s mother is dead.”

“Dead?” I drop my head into my hands, my elbows on my desk.

“She died this March. Just a few months ago. So your client lied to you,” he says. “Is that the first time a client has lied to you?”

I shake my head with wonder. “But-why even come to me, then? He comes and tells me all these scary murders are happening and then lies about his alibi? To me, his defense lawyer? It’s not like he’s been charged or anything. This whole thing is so. .”

“Unsolicited?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly.”

“So he’s a sick fuck.”

Right. That fits him. A sick fuck.

“Saw on the news there was a fourth murder on Tuesday night,” Lightner says. “You’ve probably seen the papers. It’s all over television, too. This thing is getting hot, Jason. They’re calling him the North Side Slasher. The police superintendent is telling women to lock their doors, that kind of thing. We. . have. . a. . serial killer. Nobody’s denying it anymore.”

I’d seen some of the coverage, probably not as much as Joel. But he’s right. The police are now openly warning that there is a killer of women in our fair city.

I look at Joel. He stares back. Down the hall, Marie is laughing at something Bradley said. Inside this office, there is silence, heavy and dark.

“Is he our offender?” Joel asks carefully.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I think he is.” That was all it took, I guess, that one confirmed lie about his mother, to validate the notion that has swirled through me all along.

“You’re sworn to secrecy, right?” he asks me, knowing the answer already.

“Of course I am. Unless I know for certain he’s going to do it again.”

I scratch at my hand, searching in vain for that indefinable itch, until I draw blood.

Joel makes a face as he stands up. “Heavy lies the crown, my friend,” he says.