The Original Alibi

Chapter 12

I started the morning at the home of Robert and Melanie Yarbrough, the retired couple who had reported seeing Eddie Whittaker at Pea Soup Anderson’s restaurant in Buellton on the night of his fiancee’s murder. She was taller than her husband. Robert was stockier. Melanie had more hair, but they were tied as to who had more gray hair. I got to their house a few minutes after nine-thirty.

I would have arrived earlier except Axel wanted to talk about the case and be brought up to speed on what I had learned from Charles during our lunch at Mackie’s. And I wanted his read from watching Charles. That took about an hour. While we talked, I gave Axel another assignment. He had done a lot of computer work for the Warden and developed quite a reputation in prison as a computer guy, not so much as a technician, but a researcher for the warden. His assignment: dig into the retired middle school principal who also claimed to have seen Eddie in the restaurant. I told him for now to restrict his inquiries to the Internet. Later, based on what he learned or didn’t we’d decide how to proceed. I was hoping he’d find that former Principal Flaherty had some nasty habit which could have been used to leverage him into lying about seeing Eddie.

Robert and Melanie Yarbrough were each dressed in warm robes, sitting on their front porch, having coffee and sharing the newspaper. Their home faced east so they were enjoying the warmth provided by the morning sun. I introduced myself and we exchanged Merry Christmas greetings, and then I told them I was working on the death of Ileana Corrigan. The moment I mentioned her name, Melanie Yarbrough’s eyes got big, and she grasped the front of her robe as if it a cold breeze had sneaked inside. They had not forgotten the incident in the slightest. After a few more pleasantries I won’t bore you with, I dove into the water, so to speak. Well, my entry was more like a cannonball than a dive. I wanted to measure the size of their emotional splash.

“It’s been eleven years, folks. I know you lied about seeing Eddie Whittaker in Buellton. I just don’t know why you did. You are lawful citizens, honorable people. Why would you cheat justice and possibly help a murderer go free?”

“We saw him, Mr. Kile,” Robert Yarbrough said. “Just as we swore we did.” After he said it, he looked at his wife.

“We saw him, Mr. Kile. Just as my husband said.”

“The murder of this young woman, Ileana Corrigan remains unsolved. The murder of her unborn child remains unsolved. Neither mother nor child will rest easy until their killer is brought to justice. Folks, please, consider how you would feel if Ileana were your daughter and you were approaching yet another Christmas without knowing what happened.”

Neither of them said a word, but their body language screamed their discomfort. That and the numerous glances each made toward the other. Had they been telling the truth they would have resented what I said. Instead, it made them nervous and uncomfortable.

“Perhaps I should come back later and bring Ileana’s parents with me, the grandparents of the unborn child.”

They were ready to crack, but for now were holding firm. Their eyes flittered, their gazes everywhere but upon my eyes. Their claws dug into the lie that had lived for so long, hanging on desperately.

“Look at me! Damn it!” I hollered. “Look me in the eyes.” I sat still until they each had. “You are both grandparents. You have a grandson named Bobby. Can you imagine, just for a moment, enduring Bobby being murdered and the killer not being found for over eleven years. Imagine your living with that grief. That wound open. Come on!”

Melanie Yarbrough broke first. She covered her eyes and cried. Her husband slid his chair close so he could reach over and hold her. Her sobs temporarily drowned out by the scrape of the metal legs of his chair against the concrete porch. “Robbie, I can’t do this. I can’t do it any longer. This lie … I can’t. I just can’t. I’m sorry. We must tell the truth. Please?”

Robert Yarbrough patted the top of his wife’s hand. With his open palm against her face, his thumb gently wiped the stream of tears staining her cheek. “You’re right, Mel. The time has come. It should have come long ago.” They clutched each other’s hands and turned toward me, their eyes now on mine, looking for understanding, for forgiveness. Robert cut the core out of their lie.

“We never saw Eddie Whittaker in Buellton. We were told to drive up there and have dinner in that restaurant. We were to be there at nine at night and to stop and buy gas for the car on the outskirts of town as we left. Once we heard of the arrest, we were to go to the police and swear we dined in the Pea Soup, leaving around nine-thirty. And that we had seen Eddie Whittaker in the restaurant when we left.”

“We were to use a credit card to pay for the dinner,” Mrs. Yarbrough said, “and for the gas on our way out of town.” Robert nodded as if he had just recalled that part of their charade.

“And that’s what you did?”

“Yes,” she said while her husband nodded his head, his lips drawn tight; his eyes down.

“Why? How much money were you paid?”

“No, no. We received no money. We would not do such a thing for money, Mr. Kile.”

Until then I had been standing up. I leaned back against their wooden porch railing. “Then why?”

“Can we go inside?” Mrs. Yarbrough asked. “I’m getting chilled sitting here. It’s probably just the stress. Please?”

Mr. Yarbrough stood up. “Of course dear, Mr. Kile, please come inside. There is more you need to know.”

Their home was pleasant. Clean, neat, and big enough for two, and nicely furnished.

“Have a seat, Mr. Kile,” Mrs. Yarbrough said while fidgeting with her hands. Then she began to cry again. They sat on the couch. Mr. Yarbrough held her.

“How long have you folks been married?” I asked.

“Thirty-five years. A wonderful life together, except for this terrible thing. We are so ashamed.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Yarbrough, why did you lie?”

They had clearly lost their will to continue as they had for so long. The wrong of it had eaten through their resolve. Over the next half hour they told me of the morning when they walked their new puppy at the beach. The phone call Melanie received on her cell phone, the shot that had killed Snookie, and finally about the threat that stopped their hearts. “Do what you are told or my next shot will kill your grandson, Bobby.”

Robert continued to hold his wife, but now he also swiped at tears of his own. Then I asked, “A man? A woman?”

“A man,” Mrs. Yarbrough said, “a cold, heartless man, without feelings. How can anyone speak of killing a little infant, barely able to walk?”

“There are such people. Fortunately, they are few.” I didn’t tell them that the number of such people seemed to be increasing every year. Or maybe saying that would only have revealed my cynicism which had grown with time, and my knowledge of too many such people. I also recalled the general’s words about America losing its taste for swift and final justice.

“I know what I am about to ask you will not be easy. But believe me, it is necessary. Will you repeat everything you have told me into a tape recorder? I will not take it to the authorities without your permission.” After some resistance, they came to accept they had crossed a bridge this morning. That they could not put what they told me back into the darkness. They needed to do what they could to make amends for the pain and emptiness that filled the hearts of the parents of Ileana Corrigan.

I went out to my car and brought back the tape recorder. They asked if they could record it as well. I agreed. With two tapes running, Mr. Robert Yarbrough and his wife Melanie retold the horror of their morning eleven years ago, and the tribulations they had endured since. When they finished it was clear, they had never seen Eddie Whittaker anywhere except in the newspaper and on the news eleven years ago.

I drove back to Long Beach searching for the answer to the meaning of what I had learned. Someone had eliminated Cory Jackson, the only witness who had claimed seeing Eddie Whittaker at the scene of the crime. Oh, sure, Tommy Montoya could testify he was bribed to say he sold Eddie gas. But that only proved, especially with Cory Jackson dead, that no one knew where Eddie had been the night of the murder of his fiancee. The Yarbrough confession argued only that they had not seen Eddie in Buellton, not that he had not been there. Eddie says he went up there and nothing I had proved he hadn’t.

Fact: Someone had coerced Mr. and Mrs. Yarbrough into claiming they had seen Eddie in Buellton. Fact: Someone had bribed and threatened Cory Jackson and Tommy Montoya into providing the original evidence that led to Eddie’s arrest. Fact: Someone had sold that alibi to the general for two million dollars. Lies told by others, along with an unknown party bribing and threatening Mr. and Mrs. Yarbrough to tell those lies did not prove Eddie did anything. Not that he had dinner in Buellton. Not that he didn’t have dinner in Buellton. Not that he killed his fiancee. Not that he didn’t kill his fiancee. The rest was conjecture that could fit various theories. One being that Eddie killed his fiancee and then extorted money from his grandfather. Was he capable of such a bold and diabolical plan, including arranging for his own arrest and release? Could someone else have murdered Ileana and crafted both events as part of a plan to shake down the general?

We still had Principal Flaherty who claimed he also saw Eddie in the Pea Soup Andersen’s restaurant in Buellton. Maybe Axel had found something on Flaherty. If Flaherty, like the Yarbroughs, admitted not having seen Eddie in Buellton, I was still in the same position. Eddie either went to Buellton for dinner or he did not. At worst, that meant he lied about where he was. Not that he murdered Ileana. He could have been in bed with a married woman and lied to protect her secret. People lie about their whereabouts for many reasons, rarely to cover up having committed murder.

I needed to get in Eddie Whittaker’s face. Get a read on the guy. In a normal murder investigation, the immediate parties are among the very first to be interviewed. However, the case of the murder of Ileana Corrigan was eleven-years old. Eddie had been interviewed, and later interrogated after his arrest, so his opinions and reactions were a matter of record. I had read them in the police file. I had intentionally held off confronting the general’s grandson until I had immersed myself in the case and all the other players. For a little longer, I would leave Eddie to stew in his own juice. He knew I was coming. He just didn’t know when, or where, or what I might learn before I got him nose to nose.

*

My next stop was at the home of Ileana’s parents, Betty and Willard Corrigan. They lived modestly in San Fernando Valley. Their home appeared to be about twenty years old, with blue siding and a block and iron rail wall around the property. The pride of their front yard, a queen palm whose fronds rose above the composition roof.

I introduced myself at their door and they warmly greeted me into their home. Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan were recently retired, although Betty still worked some in real estate, sitting open houses for other agents. We chatted for a couple of hours.

When I asked how long they had been married, their memories included the general giving them an all-expense paid two-week cruise from Long Beach to Hawaii, roundtrip, for their last anniversary. “They don’t make men like the general anymore,” Mr. Corrigan said.

Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan did not recall their daughter having an old boyfriend who became incensed when Ileana chose Eddie Whittaker. That didn’t mean there was no such boyfriend. Only that after all these years, if there had been one, the Corrigan’s didn’t remember. Parents are often the last to know much about a daughter’s lovers. I asked the Corrigans about the expensive jewelry found where their daughter lived. They didn’t even know she had it. Faded memories are always a major problem when working old cases. That and real or possible witnesses having moved away or died, which I s’pose constituted faded memories to the max. Ileana’s parents did remember how their daughter had met Eddie Whittaker. Ileana had been out with one of her girlfriends, Karen Whittaker, and the two of them were with a group of bikers. They admitted that in those years Ileana was struggling with maturing and often took up with bad boys, like the bikers. That was why they were so pleased when she took up with a respectable boy like Eddie Whittaker. One of the bikers, the one who had introduced Ileana to Eddie Whittaker had been identified as General Whittaker’s chauffeur; Mrs. Corrigan said it like show-fer. They had remembered Cliff because, as a young man, Mr. Corrigan had been in the army and knew of General Whittaker.

*

I drove back to Long Beach wondering what role, if any, Cliff played in all this. Perhaps, the chauffeur’s connection to Eddie went beyond being the family driver. While I drove, I called Charles at the Whittaker home. He told me that back then Cliff had taught Eddie to ride a motorcycle and the two of them had hung around some. “Partying, they called it.” Charles further recalled that Eddie had trouble keeping his balance and eventually lost interest in his motorcycle.

“You have to understand, Mr. Kile, Eddie was very coordinated and most things physical came to him easily when he applied the effort. When something didn’t come easily he’d sour-grapes it and walk away.”

I asked Charles if the two men were still close.

“The only thing the two had in common was riding motorcycles, so once Eddie tired of that, as he eventually did nearly everything, he sold his motorcycle and they quit palling around.”

“How long ago did Eddie sell his motorcycle?”

“Right after Ileana died. Cliff found the buyer.”

Charles also said that Cliff still arrived each day on his motorcycle and while on duty kept it in the Whittaker garage. Charles explained that Cliff had an apartment in town, in addition to a small sleeping room upstairs over the garage.

I thanked Charles and hung up. So, Eddie and Cliff had been pals, but no longer. I needed someone to poke around and see what could be learned about Cliff’s dad and the other four old soldiers the general had taken care of in the assisted living facility. I called Axel. There would be lots of hits about the general on the Internet: his life and philanthropic activities, so maybe something would come up on his providing the care for those soldiers. I also needed someone with at least solid bookkeeping skills to go through the records to see how many years and how much the general had spent to care for the five men. I wasn’t certain if doing that would mean anything, but I wanted to have the information in the event I chose to follow it.

All this was likely a dead end, but so far the game only had the general, Eddie, Karen, Charles, and Cliff. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was playing poker with an empty chair at the table, a chair for a player who had yet to join the game.