David Ellis - The Last Alibi

Jason looks at him like he is mentally impaired. “Yeah. Of course.”

“How did she get into the house, Jason? If she got there before you.”

Still scratching his hand. Now his forearm, too. Jason looks down in thought.

4:12:45. . 4:12:46. . 4:12:47. .

“Jason-”

“Front door, I guess.” Jason shrugs. “She’d just use her key, I guess.”

“Her key? Did Alexa Himmel have a key to your town house?”

4:12:55. . 4:12:56. . 4:12:57. .

At 4:13:04, Bradley John says, “If he remembers. It’s late, and it’s been a difficult night, to say the least. Most people would be asleep right now.”

“Understood, Counselor,” Cromartie replies with ice. “If he remembers.”

4:13:19. . 4:13:20. .

The jury is fixated on the tape, each of the jurors craned forward.

At 4:13:25, Jason looks up at Detective Cromartie and says, “Yeah, Alexa had a key.”

Stop tape.

Roger Ogren stands in front of the blank screen. “Detective Cromartie, did you find a set of keys on the person of Alexa Himmel that night?”

“I did.”

“And what, if anything, did you do with those keys, Detective?”

“I personally tested each of the keys on each of the doors to the defendant’s town house. The front door, the side door opening into the garage, and the back door.”

“And what did you find, Detective?”

“None of the keys on her key chain opened any of his doors. She had three keys. One was to her Prius. One we later determined was the key to her house, and the third was a key to her office at work. There was no key to the defendant’s house on that chain.”

“Well, Detective.” Roger Ogren angles slightly toward the jury, his hands open in wonder. “Maybe Ms. Himmel had such a key, but free of that key chain.”

“I considered that possibility, of course. We searched every inch of that town house and we searched the victim, Ms. Himmel. We combed the area outside the house. We turned every inch of the defendant’s property inside out. There was no freestanding key to the defendant’s house. The only keys to his house were on the defendant’s key chain.”

“Well, as far as you could tell, was there any way that Ms. Himmel could have gotten into the defendant’s locked house before he got home?”

“None.” The detective shakes his head. “She had no key and no garage-door opener. I couldn’t find any way that Ms. Himmel could have walked through a garage door or a locked front or back door. The windows didn’t provide any access, either-they were not reachable from the ground. The defendant’s statement didn’t wash.”

“Objection,” I say. “Move to strike.”

“The last comment is stricken,” says the judge, trying to unring the bell.

Ogren then moves back to the tape again, just at the point that he stopped.

“Alexa didn’t have a key, Jason,” says Detective Cromartie, leaning forward now, on the attack. “I checked. I checked every key on her key chain. She had no way of getting into your house without you letting her in.”

Jason, running his nails up and down his arm, squirming a bit in his chair, shakes his head.

4:13:44. . 4:13:45. . 4:13:46. .

“She didn’t have a key, son,” says Cromartie . “If she did, tell me where it is. Or tell me how else she could have possibly gotten inside your house. I’m trying to help you, Jason, but you gotta help me. Tell me how in God’s name she could have gotten into your house without you. Tell me how in the world she could have been in your home, dead or even alive, before you got home.”

Jason sucks his lips into his mouth. His hands fidget. He shakes his head absently. He drums his hands on the metal table. “We’re done,” he says to his lawyer, Bradley John.

“We’re done,” Bradley says to the detective.

“I have a lot more questions, Jason. A lot more. Like, where were you tonight that you didn’t get home until after midnight? Can anyone vouch for you? How did Alexa-”

“I said we’re done,” Bradley says again. “That means we’re done.”

Stop tape.

As Roger Ogren kills the DVD player, several of the jurors get aha looks on their faces, solemn nods, grim realizations. I imagine cartoon bubbles over their heads, displaying their thoughts, the words “That’s right, you are done”in bold letters.

Jason

My lawyers, Shauna sitting next to me and Bradley John next to her, scribble notes as they listen to the examination of Detective Cromartie. He’s done well on the witness stand. He’s a strong, assertive type, but he isn’t overplaying his hand, not coming on too strong. A good cop knows where to draw that line. Ray Cromartie, I’ve thought since that night, is a good cop. He was stringing me along pretty well before I abruptly terminated the interview. He scored one on the key for Alexa, with me shutting the interview down while I was on the ropes, and I’m sure he knew that, but he was clearly disappointed when I pulled the plug. He wanted what all of them want: a confession. He caught me in a couple of-ahem-inconsistencies, which is a nice consolation prize, but he didn’t get what he came for.

Shauna is spending too much time on her notes. She’s coping, I think. She’s forcing herself to stay clinical, to focus on questions and answers and not on the reality of what is happening here, and what happened that night. This is tougher on her than I expected, hearing all this and bearing the burden of keeping me out of prison. She’s one of the best lawyers I know, but she has almost no experience in a criminal courtroom. She mentioned more than once that we should consider some highbrow defense attorney, Gerry Salters or someone like that, but it had to be her. It had to be.

After some preliminary questions with the detective, Roger Ogren brings the television screen to life again, taking us back to the interrogation at a different point. Roger Ogren has decided to cherry-pick through this tape, playing various tidbits out of order, because some of the stuff on this tape will be shown to the jury through Cromartie and others through the Community Action Team squad officer. This part of the tape began around the sixth minute of conversation:

“You told me back at your house that you have a pretty good idea who killed Alexa,” Cromartie says. “Can you help me out with that? Who killed her, Jason?”

I don’t answer at first. Several seconds pass. I shake my head and wave a hand. “His name is Jim.”

“Last name?” Cromartie asks.

“Just Jim,” I say.

“Well. . what can you tell me about Jim?”

The way Cromartie says Jim , it’s like he’s dealing with a little kid who is obviously lying.

“He. . he has red hair,” I say. “He’s big, muscular. He wears glasses. He has a paunch, like, a gut.”

“Why do you think Jim would kill Alexa?”

“To get to me,” I say. “To get to me.”

“Why would Jim want to get to you, Jason?”

“I’m. . I’m not sure. I just know that he’s angry with me. I’m still trying to figure out why.”

“Did this. . Jim tell you that he was going to hurt Alexa? Or you?”

I shake my head. “Not in so many words. I wish he had. If he had, maybe I could have done something.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Cromartie says.

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer it. A nice motto of mine, stolen from my mentor, and a nice tool for dominating a conversation. But probably not so nice when your audience is a jury trying to decide if you’re a cold-blooded murderer.