The Last Alibi

46

Jason

Tuesday, July 2

Under the new rule that I can’t go anywhere alone, Alexa escorts me all the way to my office before leaving me. Inside, my law firm is a barren wasteland, with Shauna and Bradley John out on a trip to Arangold Construction as they prepare for trial. I walk into my office, poorly lit and overly air-conditioned, and pass the seat where the man who called himself James Drinker once sat and spewed all his bullshit to me.

I put my head back against the seat, thinking about everything that’s happening, and for some reason I feel a little better about things. Surely, I can figure some way out of this mess. There’s nothing that this asshole can do to me that would make the police believe that I’m a killer, right? What could he possibly have on me?

I almost jump out of my chair when my phone buzzes. I’m thinking James Drinker every time that phone goes off these days. When I check the caller ID, it reads Unknown.

Yep. It’s him.

I answer the call but don’t speak. I don’t need to speak.

“Should I assume you’re paying attention now, Jason?” he asks. He is speaking slowly, without inflection, but it’s not hard to hear the satisfaction in his voice. A game to him. I just wish I knew what the game was.

“I’m paying attention. Why don’t you stop by and we can talk about it?”

“Oh. . I don’t think I’m going to do that. I was just wondering when you plan to turn yourself in to the police. So you can tell them you’re innocent, but somebody’s framing you.”

I don’t answer. He’s reminding me that this is exactly what I told him to do, to go to the authorities and explain that he thought he was being set up.

“You’re not going to the cops, are you?” he asks. “You won’t follow the same advice you gave me.”

“You had a reason for calling,” I say. “Why don’t you just get to it?”

“I just did,” he says. “I want you to turn yourself in to the police and explain that this is all a misunderstanding, that you were set up. Framed! I’m sure they’ll believe you, Jason.”

I don’t say anything.

“Tell them that a guy came into your office wearing a disguise and giving a fake name. They’ll believe that.”

I close my eyes.

“And tell them you violated your oath as a lawyer and gave up that guy to the cops. What was it you did, by the way? An anonymous phone call to the hotline, your voice concealed? An anonymous note like you see in the movies, with words cut out from a newspaper?”

I don’t say anything.

Then I do: “You better hope the police catch you before I do.”

“Oh, I do hope that,” he says. “For me, it’s the difference between exoneration and death. But it’s the same result for you, Jason. Either way, you go down for five murders.”

“Do I?” My heartbeat kicks up. If he has something on me, I need to know what. But I can’t seem too eager. I have to let him come to me.

“You’re wondering what it is, aren’t you? You’ve been scrambling your brain trying to figure out what’s going on. Just play it out, Jason. I mean, you’re the one who advised me on how to frame somebody, aren’t you?”

I do a slow burn, thinking back to when we talked the first time, so ridiculous in hindsight, when he asked me how I would frame somebody and I laid out a list for him.

Motive, I told him. Close enough-I met all of the victims, or at least was in the same area with them; if I then became obsessed with them, which is what the theory would probably be, there’s my motive. People have killed for less.

Opportunity, I recall saying. Check. I was home alone each of the five nights the women were murdered.

Means. The killer used a knife. I don’t know what kind, but I’d be willing to bet it was something ordinary. Something anybody could easily purchase.

What else did I say to him? I’m not thinking clearly these days. I haven’t been thinking clearly for months. I try to focus back to that conversation and come up with fuzz.

On the other end of the phone, it’s dead air. “James” is actually considering telling me, I think. That’s more than I expected. More than Go fuck yourself or Use your imagination.

“What evidence do I have against you? Just some souvenirs I collected from you,” he says. “Nothing you’d miss. Remember, Jason, you left me alone in your office for a few minutes.”

I move in my chair. The office around me comes alive, as if animated, no longer a place where I work but a crime scene of sorts. And now I remember another piece of advice I gave him during that conversation.

I told him that someone framing him would leave clues at the crime scene, things that belonged to James, or some trace evidence from his house or workplace.

He’s right, too. I remember now, during our meeting, taking a trip to the men’s room so I could pop an Altoid in private.

He stole things from my office and planted them at the crime scenes. Nothing too obvious, like a piece of my office stationery, or the police would already be at my door. But something effective. Something with my fingerprints, or better yet my DNA. Strands of my hair off my couch in the corner. A water bottle I drank out of. A pen-

Oh, shit.

A pen cap I chewed. It comes back to me now, a white-hot blast up my spine. I’d been chewing on a cheap Bic pen while we talked. I refused to use that nice pen my brother had given me, refused to waste expensive ink on “James Drinker,” so I went with the cheap Bic.

And I couldn’t find that pen when I returned to the office.

He took my fucking pen. It would have bite marks and saliva. He could make good use of that. The story would be that it fell out of my pocket during a struggle. Nothing I would have noticed, while I was butchering poor Holly Frazier or Nancy Minnows or Samantha Drury. The cops would do a DNA search and come up empty, because my DNA isn’t in the system. But if someone handed them the name Jason Kolarich, it would be a simple matter of obtaining a DNA swab from my cheek and pulling my dental records, and suddenly I have a lot of explaining to do.

And that’s probably not all. I spend half my life in this office. I wipe my nose, I sleep on the couch, I have extra shoes and ties. Hell, he could have emptied my wastebasket into his bag while I was out of the office. There could be ten used tissues for him to strategically place. He could have ripped the label off one of my extra ties hanging on my door, something that wouldn’t mean anything to the police-until they got my name, searched my office, and found a tie with a missing label.

It could be anything. Anything anything anything-

But I’ll never know what he took. I’ll never know.

“If the cops find me, I give them you,” he says. “Maybe directly, or maybe anonymously. If you find me and kill me, I have a last will and testament that will direct the authorities to a safe-deposit box filled with all sorts of fun facts about you. It will be a step-by-step guide to the prosecution of Jason Kolarich.”

“I will find you,” I say. “And I’m going to kill you.”

“You might. But I doubt it. But here’s the thing, Jason. There’s one very easy way to stop the murders of these poor women. Turn yourself in to the police. Pitch your story to them. It’s totally up to you. Maybe you’ll be able to talk your way out of it.”

Maybe so. But I’d bet everything I own that he’s lined up enough evidence against me that I couldn’t talk my way clear.

“So the ball’s in your court,” he says. “Are you willing to risk your ass to save innocent young women?”