The Alibi Read Online Free

too."
    Miraculously she had no difficulty hearing Hammond's
    softly spoken words above the carnival noise.
    She didn't look at him, but he saw her smile, heard
    her light laugh of embarrassment.
    "So you did? Notice me?"
    She raised one shoulder in a small shrug of concession.
    "Well, good," he said on a gust of breath that overstated
    his relief. "In that case I don't see why we're
    limiting our entire county fair experience to a single
    dance. Not that it wasn't great. It was. It's been ages
    since I enjoyed a dance that much."
    She raised her head and gave him a retiring look.
    "Hmm," he said. "I'm dorking out, right?"
    "Totally."
    He broke a wide grin just because she was so goddamn
    attractive and because it was okay with her that
    he was flirting like he hadn't flirted in twenty years.
    "Then how's this? I'm sorta footloose this evening,
    and I haven't been this unscheduled--"
    "Is that a word?"
    "It suffices."
    "That's a fifty-cent word."
    "All this to say that unless you have dinner
    plans ... ?"
    She indicated with a shake of her head that she
    didn't.
    "Why don't we enjoy the rest of the fair together?"
     
    Rory Smilow, staring into Lute Pettijohn's dead
    eyes, asked, "What killed him?"
    The coroner, a slightly built, thoughtful man with
    a sensitive face and soft-spoken manner, had earned
    something extremely hard to come by--Smilow's respect.
    Dr. John Madison was a southern black who had
    earned authority and position in a consummately
    southern city. Smilow held in high regard anyone
    who accomplished that kind of personal achievement
    in the face of adversity.
    Meticulously Madison had studied the corpse as it
    had been found, face down. It had been outlined, then
    photographed from various angles. He had inspected
    the victim's hands and fingers, particularly beneath
    the nails. He had tested the wrists for rigidity. He had
    used a tweezers to pull an unidentifiable particle from
    Pettijohn's coat sleeve, then carefully placed the
    speck in an evidence bag.
    It wasn't until he had completed the initial examination
    and asked assistance in turning the victim over
    that they uncovered their first surprise--a nasty
    wound on Pettijohn's temple at the hairline.
    "Did the perp hit him, you think?" Smilow asked,
    squatting down for a better look at the wound. "Or
    was he shot first, and this happened when he fell?"
    Madison adjusted his eyeglasses and said uneasily,
    "If it's difficult for you to talk about this, we can discuss
    it in detail later."
    "You mean because he was once my brother-in-law?"
    When the medical examiner gave a small nod,
    Smilow said, "I never let my private life cross over
    into my professional life, and vice versa. Tell me
    what you think, John, and don't spare me any of the
    gory details."
    "I'll have to examine the wound more closely, of
    course," Madison said, without further comment on
    the relationship between the victim and the detective.
    "However, my first guess would be that he sustained
    this head wound before he died, not postmortem. Although
    it's certainly ugly. It could have caused brain
    trauma of several sorts, any one of which could have
    been fatal."
    "But you don't think so."
    "Truly, Rory, I don't. It doesn't appear that traumatic.
    The swelling is on the outside, which usually
    indicates that there's little or none on the inside.
    Sometimes I'm surprised, though."
    Smilow could appreciate the coroner's hesitancy
    to commit to one theory or another before an autopsy. "At this point, is it safe to say that he died of the gunshots?"
    Madison nodded. "But that's only a first guess.
    Looks to me like he fell, or was pushed or struck before
    he died."
    "How long before?"
    "The timing will be harder to determine."
    "Hmm."
    Smilow gave the surrounding area a quick survey.
    Carpet. Sofa. Easy chairs. Soft surfaces except for the
    glass top on the coffee table. He duckwalked over to
    the table and angled his head down until he was eye
     
    level with the surface. A drinking glass