David Ellis - The Last Alibi

A half hour later, I slip out and crawl, in the darkness, to the staircase. I take dark stairs to the bottom level and sneak out the back door of my house. There is a small area there for barbecuing and not much more, then a high gate. I unlatch the gate and sneak into the alley, where a car is waiting for me. It’s Joel Lightner.

I duck into the backseat and stay down. Joel navigates the interior alley system, making a couple of turns until we come out two blocks away from my house.

Unless this guy is magical, he didn’t see me leave my house.

“Time to party,” Joel says, gunning the engine as we drive toward Linda’s house.

Jason

Wednesday, July 17

Linda Sparks lives in a single-family bungalow on the northwest side that she inherited from her parents. It’s the third house from the corner, on a quarter-acre lot that backs into an alley. She has a six-foot plywood fence around the back and sides of her property, making access from the rear difficult but not impossible. The front of her house, a small lawn and walk-up, has no restrictions on access. Her driveway leads into a two-car garage.

Across the street is pretty much the same story, bungalows backing into alleys, most with fences up in the back of varying degrees of difficulty. This is where Joel saw “James” last night, on the side of the house across the street from Linda’s place. He must have entered through the alley, jumped the fence, and walked along the side of the house. He would have to jump another fence to get to the front, but last night he wasn’t interested in doing that, apparently. He just wanted to scope out the house.

Next door to the south, the house closest to Linda’s garage door, the neighbors have extensive shrubbery circling around their front porch. A good place to hide for an ambush. The papers, and Joel’s source at Area Three, have said that they believe the North Side Slasher likes to ambush women as they enter their houses. One of the women was jumped getting out of her car, presumably because the entryway to her home was too exposed, but the idea is the same. He likes to get them when their guards are down, where they feel safe, having arrived home. Too bad more people don’t realize that this is when they’re most vulnerable.

“If it were me, I’d sit in those bushes to the south, by her garage,” I say into my headphone. “When she pulls into the garage, I rush inside before the door comes down.”

“Why don’t you just announce your position, shoot a flare up or something,” Lightner whispers through my earbud, his tactful way of telling me to put a lid on it.

There are five of us covering Linda, which basically constitutes the entirety of Joel Lightner’s operation. One guy is in the car with her, sitting low in the backseat; one is in her garage right now; one is in her house right now; Joel is watching the alley behind her house; and then there’s me, across the street from Linda’s house, lying flat behind a row of bushes that aren’t very high but will do the trick as long as I stay horizontal.

“I’m five minutes away.” Linda’s voice in my earbud. “Any sign?”

“No sign,” says one of the guys, probably the one inside the house, where it’s safest to speak.

“You want me to keep coming?”

“Keep coming,” Joel whispers, his voice steely. We’re all feeling that way, the butterflies, our senses heightened now. We all figured that “James” would arrive early for the ambush, not being certain down to the minute of Linda’s arrival. Linda’s actually a little later than usual, by design, wanting to give “James” all the time he needs.

The air is thick and moist. The street is quiet, calm, only a handful of cars passing, a residential street filled with blue-collar workers, midweek. Up the street, a gaggle of children, probably middle-school age, are shooting a basketball against a backboard over the garage door, but already parents are calling their children inside. The street lighting is minimal, casting only a very pale yellow interrupting the darkness that hovers like a fog over the house. Linda’s house, in particular, lacks any lighting. The light over her garage and the front-porch light are both off, again by design, making the target more inviting.

My skin is starting its familiar itch, my stomach swimming. I’m overdue on my happy pills, but I need to keep my wits about me. I can feel it, I’d say if I were in a movie. But that sums it up. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to be tonight. And if it’s going to be tonight, it’s going to be now.

“Two blocks away,” Linda says into my ear. “Anybody see anything?”

Nobody answers. I wiggle my toes, clench and release my calves, my thighs.

“Do you pull into the left side or the right side of the garage?” asks one of the guys, presumably the one in the garage.

“Left side,” she says.

“Well, pull into the right tonight. I’m in the left corner.”

“Roger that. Don’t accidentally shoot me, Halston. I’m removing my headset.”

Linda’s Grand Cherokee pulls up to her house, turns, and bounces onto the driveway as the garage door opens. Our guy Halston, in the left corner, is exposed, but only because I know to look for him. If someone’s about to charge into the garage, Halston will see him before he sees Halston.

Linda gets out of the car as if nothing is unusual, doesn’t rush but doesn’t dawdle, either, fishing for something in her purse. My eyes dart left-right, left-right, looking for any movement, any signs of something wrong. Linda walks the long way around the car, toward the driveway, exposing herself as much as she possibly can, walking slowly but not breaking stride, not being obvious about it.

Left-right, left-right, something, anything.

And then she curls around the car and walks up to the interior door and disappears inside.

The garage door grinds back down. Only then, I assume, will the guy hiding in the back of her SUV get out, and the guy in the corner of the garage move.

“And here I was hoping this would be my last night sleeping on Linda’s couch,” one of them says-the guy inside the house.

“Stay in role,” Lightner whispers harshly. He’s right. This may not be over. If he’s watching, he can’t see a bunch of silhouettes in the house along with Linda.

Everything goes quiet again.

My mind races. Have we missed something? Didn’t we think of everything? Has he outsmarted me again? I find myself ascribing superhero traits to our killer: He’s on the roof, rappelling down into her bedroom. He’s hiding in the dirt and will pop out of the soil like Rambo. He managed to evade Linda’s alarm and is hiding inside, beneath her bed.

Five minutes. Ten minutes.

We were wrong, I think to myself. He’s not here.

Then a red beater Toyota turns down the street, the car slowing, and pulls to a stop across from Linda’s house. Kills the headlights. Kills the engine.

A boxy sign atop the car. Can’t make out the name, but it’s a pizza place.

The car’s rear hatch pops open. The driver emerges, wearing a baseball cap. I can’t make him out from my position. Decent-sized man, dark hair I think, best I can do.

“Heads up, heads up,” I whisper, later than I should have. “Car stopped by me.”

“This our guy?” someone asks, breathless.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Did anyone order a pizza?”

The man pulls something out of the hatch. A pizza, it’s gotta be, carried in one of those thick warming covers.

“After we shoot this fucker, can we keep the pizza?”