The Last Alibi

74

Jason

“We call Detective Molly Hilton,” says Katie O’Connor.

Molly Hilton is a short woman with frizzy blond hair and a hard look about her. I’ve never met her, but Lightner apparently knows her ex-husband from when he was a cop in Marion Park. These cops are a whole community unto themselves.

“My assignment,” Hilton says, “was to piece together the sequence and timing of events on the day of Ms. Himmel’s death, for both Ms. Himmel and Mr. Kolarich.”

Oops, Katie forgot to tell her to call me the defendant.

“Anything else?” asks O’Connor.

“I also wanted to figure out where Ms. Himmel was staying at the time of her death, whether she was living at Mr. Kolarich’s house or her own.”

“In the course of undertaking this assignment, Detective, did you review phone records?”

“I did.”

Katie O’Connor refers again to Alexa’s phone records on the day of her death, Tuesday, July 30, previously admitted into evidence:

CALL DETAIL RECORDS FOR CELL PHONE OF ALEXA M. HIMMEL

Tuesday, July 30

Time

Destination

Length of Call (minutes)

Originating Cell Site

6:14 PM

555-0150

1

221529

8:16 PM

Kolarich Home

2

221529

“Detective Hilton, do you see the first line on this chart, a phone call made from Ms. Himmel’s cell phone at 6:14 P.M. on the day of her death?”

“I do.”

“Did you track down that phone number?”

“I did.”

“And whose phone number is that?”

She says, “It’s the phone number for Mario’s Pizzeria in Overton Ridge.”

“I see. And did you investigate this phone call any further?”

“Yes, I did. We subpoenaed credit card records to review any transactions that might have taken place on that date,” she says.

“And did you find anything?”

“Yes,” she says. “Ms. Himmel used her Visa card that evening to buy a small pizza and chef’s salad from Mario’s. We obtained from Mario’s a copy of the delivery receipt.”

“Is this the receipt?” Katie O’Connor shows the witness a yellow receipt from Mario’s Pizzeria, for a charge of $19.62, plus tip, with Alexa’s signature on it.

“That’s the receipt,” says the detective. O’Connor admits the receipt into evidence without objection.

“Does the receipt have a date and time indicated, Detective?”

“Yes, it does,” says Hilton. “A small pizza and salad from Mario’s Pizzeria were delivered to Ms. Himmel at 7:02 that evening.”

I have to stifle a smirk. I look down and control my expression.

“What other information did you pursue, Detective?”

“We looked at her cable television bill for the month of July,” says Hilton.

“Is People’s Twenty-five a true and accurate copy of that bill?”

“Yes, it is.”

O’Connor admits that bill into evidence, too.

“As you can see,” says the detective, “on the evening of her death, Tuesday, July thirtieth, Ms. Himmel ordered the movie Doctor Zhivago on pay-per-view television at 7:07 P.M.”

Just after the pizza arrived. A pizza and a movie-a three-hour classic at that, a film that would run past ten o’clock that evening. Not the behavior of someone living at my house. But more important, much more to the point, not the behavior of someone who was planning on dropping by my house, either. It’s the behavior of someone who was kicking up her feet and settling in for a quiet night at home.

Or someone who very much wanted it to appear that way.

Oh, Alexa. How did I underestimate thee? Let me count the ways.