David Ellis - The Last Alibi

The man crosses the street, quick-stepping it toward Linda’s driveway. His back to me, I rise and try for a better view. He looks big enough, I guess. I can’t tell. It’s dark, and I don’t have his face.

“Joel, I’m coming around the south side.” Sounds like Halston’s voice.

“I’ve got the north, then,” Joel says. “Nobody answers the door.”

The man waltzes up the driveway and turns for Linda’s walk. He steps up on the porch and rings the doorbell. Halston, his gun drawn, shuffles along the south side of the house, approaching the front. The gate on the north side opens, Lightner with his gun facing upward.

“Count of three,” Joel says. “One. . two. . THREE!”

At once, the front-porch light goes on and both Joel and Halston are within a few yards of the front door, guns poised on the man as they shout at him and into my ear, their words-“ Show me your hands!” “Get the fuck down!” -echoing through my head in stereo.

The man, instantly shaken, drops the pizza and has a moment of What the fuck? before he drops to his knees, palms outward, head swiveling between the two armed men.

No, I instantly recognize.

My head shoots left-right, left-right, and then I stand, and then it happens, in my peripheral vision, movement to my right, we have startled each other simultaneously, just a quick flash of movement several houses down to my right, buried in the shadows.

A man turning and running?

I bolt from my position around the house and race to the fence leading to the backyard. I jump and climb it with some effort and don’t stop running until I hit the fence to the alley. I climb it and land hard in the alley, looking north.

The alley is motionless, quiet save for my heavy breaths.

Then a figure crosses my line of vision, from a house through the alley in a flash and then out of sight.

I run with everything I have. It was always what I did best, even more than my hands, that speed, fastest white guy I ever saw , my teammates at State said, and I forget my knee and I motor like I never have before.

“The alley. . across the street,” I shout into my headphone, far too late for anyone to assist me, the sounds of the ruckus in front of Linda’s house still playing in my earpiece, as these guys finally begin to realize that they’ve been baited every bit as much as we tried to bait “James.”

I reach the fork in the alley system where he crossed, eastbound, and start running again. I didn’t bring my gun. Why didn’t I bring my gun? I splash through a puddle, turning my ankle in a pothole, and then I hear a car’s ignition, somewhere forward and to my right. I run to the next alley, running north-south, and see the car speeding away down the alley, headlights showing the way. I run toward it, losing ground badly, hoping for a partial license plate or a make and model, a smaller car, something like an Accord or Camry-

It passes under an alley light, and I–I can’t make out a plate, the color is something light, white or silver, yes, it’s an Accord-

And then it bounces into a left turn, tires squealing, and it’s gone.

“Where are you, Jason?” Lightner calls out.

“He’s. . gone,” I say, my hands on my knees, panting. “He’s gone.”

Jason

Wednesday, July 17

We sit around Linda’s kitchen table for a while, frustrated and spent, having just witnessed over a week’s worth of preparation and stress, danger, and risk end without anything to show for it. The pizza’s not half bad, the two bites I took before my stomach said stop, pepperoni and garlic. Doesn’t go so well with the bottle of Scotch that is passed around freely, but no one’s complaining.

“Not even a partial?” Linda asks me. “Not even a single letter or number?”

I shake my head. “Didn’t see the license plate at all.”

“He’s smart,” says the guy named Halston, a big Irish redhead. “He played us well.”

“Screw him being smart ,” Joel says. “We were dumb . He tricked us with a prank we used to pull when we were kids.”

Maybe so, but Joel’s being too hard on himself. Everyone was so hyped up, and it was believable, a good ruse for a killer. Everyone answers the door for the pizza man, even if only to say, Sorry, wrong house .

“We should have played it out,” Joel says. “Answered the door, seen what he did. We had Linda covered six ways to Sunday. We should have given him a chance to make his move.”

Linda takes the Scotch and pours a few fingers into a glass. “We won’t get another chance like this,” she says.

Silence. Each of us believes what Linda just said. This was our chance, right here.

“On the bright side,” says Halston, “the pizza guy has a great story now.”

That gets a hard laugh, a release of nerves and tension. It feels good to laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed.

“The guy shows up to deliver a pie and suddenly he’s got guns in his face and he’s on his knees, begging for his life.” Lightner can hardly contain himself. “He must have been like, ‘What the fuck is happening?’” He buckles over in laughter.

“The poor guy wet his pants,” Linda gets out, wiping her eyes. “All he gets out of this is soiled underwear and a fifty-dollar tip. Is that how much you tipped him?” she asks Joel.

“I didn’t tip him,” he says. “I told you to tip him.”

“I thought you said you tipped him.”

“No, I said, ‘Tip him.’”

“So nobody tipped him?” I laugh. “We just sent him on his way? Did we at least pay for the pizza?”

Another round of laughter. Everyone at the table needs it. We let it linger, savor it, because the alternative is a lot more grim. Eventually it dies down, and we’re back to moody and bitter.

“A silver or white Accord,” Lightner says, shaking his head. “We’ll just run that through the DMV and we can narrow our list of suspects down to about two million people.”

“It’s something,” I say.

“It’s nothing. This guy’s a ghost. He’s nobody.”

I’m nobody.

I stir at the memory, just like that, like the snap of a finger, bursting from the fog of a conversation some six weeks ago. Something “James” said to me when he came to my office. A moment of self-pity, something like, I don’t matter to people , and then: I’m nobody to them. An odd thing to say, I recall thinking.

“I guess we go back to looking at old case files,” Joel says. “Anybody you prosecuted.”

I’m nobody to them.

And then, yes, I remember, clarity for once, finally, dark clouds parting ever so slightly and allowing in the sun: what he said to me when he left. He approached me, shook my hand good-bye, and said something odd again.

I hope I’m not nobody to you, Jason.

The last words he ever said to me, face-to-face.

I pop out of my chair.

I hope I’m not nobody to you, Jason.

You’re nobody to me.

“What?” Lightner asks me.

“We’ve been looking in the wrong place,” I say. “He’s not someone I prosecuted.”

“No? Then who is he?”

“He’s someone I interrogated .”

“Interr-You mean while you were on Felony Review?”

“Exactly.” I start pacing. Every assistant county attorney does a stint on Felony Review, where you’re assigned to a police station to approve warrant applications and arrests and, at least back when I was there, to interrogate suspects. It was a wild ride, those eleven months, working three days on, three days off, if you were lucky, working day and night with the detectives and patrolmen, hearing their stories, high-fiving them when there was a solve, making friendships, feeling like part of their team. “It was a line I used during interviews to intimidate suspects. I pulled it out when I needed it. ‘You’re nothing to me.’ ‘You’re nobody to me.’ Y’know, breaking them down.”