Tami Hoag - The Alibi Man

“Kayne Jackson.”

“Kayne Jackson. My God, you’re a soap star waiting to happen,” I said. “Kayne Jackson, I’m Elena Estes.” I took a sip of the drink, savored it, and sighed. “It’s a wonderful pleasure to meet you. Were you working here Saturday night?”

“Yeah, why?”

I had downloaded and printed the photos from Lisbeth Perkins’s cell phone. I showed him the one of Irina sitting between Jim Brody and Bennett Walker. “Did you see this girl here?”

“Yeah. That’s Irina. She’s a regular with that crowd. Hot babe, but she wouldn’t look at me twice.”

“Do you think she had a problem with her eyesight?”

“I think I don’t have a big enough wallet.”

“Ahhh… One of those. Looking to snag herself a rich husband?”

He shrugged.

“Did you happen to see when she left?”

“No. I couldn’t say. It was Jim Brody’s birthday. It was a zoo in here. Why?” He looked a little suspicious. “Are you a cop or something?”

I took another sip of the drink, another drag on the cigarette. “Or something… Did she seem to be having a problem with anyone?”

“No. She was having a good time,” he said, then checked himself. “She and Lisbeth Perkins got into it about something out in the hall. Lisbeth looked pissed and left. Must have been around one.

“With anyone?”

“Alone.”

The band had decided to give it a rest. More people came to the bar. Kayne Jackson excused himself and went to serve people who wouldn’t make him work so hard for his tip.

“Are you enjoying my cigarette?”

The voice was smooth and warm like a fine brandy, almost seductive, a little amused, accented. Spanish.

I looked at him from the corner of my eye as I exhaled a stream of smoke. “Why, yes, I am, thank you. Would you like one?” I said, offering the pack to him.

His dark eyes sparkled. “Thank you. You are too generous, senorita.”

“Senorita. You could give Junior here a lesson or two. He called me ma’am.”

He looked shocked and disapproving. “No, no. This is unacceptable.”

“That’s what I said.”

He smiled the kind of smile that should require some kind of permit to use, because of the impact it could have on unsuspecting women. “I haven’t met you.”

I offered my hand. “Elena Estes.”

He took it gently, turned it over, and brushed his lips across my knuckles. His eyes never left mine. “Juan Barbaro.”

Barbaro. The great man. Mr. Ten-Goal Polo Star. I didn’t react, just to see how he would take it. He seemed not to care. The raw sexual magnetism that was his aura didn’t diminish in the least.

“Estes,” he said. “I feel I know that name for some reason.”

I shrugged. “Well, you don’t know me.”

“I do now.”

Eye contact. Direct, consistent, very effective. His eyes were large and dark, with luxurious black eyelashes. Many a Palm Beach lady paid six hundred dollars a pop every month to have an aesthetician glue on lashes like that-one hair at a time. He was tanned, with unruly black hair that fell nearly to his shoulders.

“What brings a beautiful woman here alone on such a boring evening?”

I looked down at the photos I had brought with me, losing the will to play anymore. “I’m looking to make sense of something senseless,” I said.

I held up a photograph to show him, as if it were a tarot card.

Barbaro’s broad shoulders sagged a little, and he looked sad as he reached out and took the picture from me. “Irina.”

“You knew her.”

“Yes, of course.”

“She was found dead today.”

“I know. Our groom Lisbeth told me. They were very good friends. Poor Beth is devastated. It’s hard to believe something so violent, so terrible, could happen to a person we know. Irina… so full of life and fire, so strong in her character…”

He shook his head, closed his eyes, sighed.

“You knew her well?” I asked.

“Not well. Casually. At a party, to say hello, to exchange small talk. And you?”

“We worked together,” I said. “I found her.”

“Madre de Dios, ”he whispered. “I’m very sorry for that.”

“Me too.”

The bartender brought him a drink without being asked, and he took a long sip of it.

“This was the last public place anyone saw her,” I said. “Do you remember seeing her that night?”

“It was the birthday party of my patron, Mr. Brody. Everyone was having a very good time. The kind of good time that makes memories vague,” he admitted. “But I know that Irina was here. We spoke.”

“About what?”

“Party talk.” He gave me a long, curious look. “For someone who works in the stables, you sound very much like a policewoman.”

“I watch too much television.”

“Lisbeth said Irina was murdered,” he said. “Is that true?”

“That’s what the detectives think,” I said.

“Murder. These things… They should not happen in Wellington.”

Wellington, Palm Beach, the Hamptons-the little Camelots of the East Coast wealthy. Where every day and evening should be filled with entertainment and pleasantry and beauty. Never anything so ugly as murder. Violent crime was a stain on the fabric of polite society, like red wine on white linen.

“A girl was murdered at the show grounds last year,” I said.

“Smothered facedown in a horse stall during an attempted sexual assault.”

“Really? I don’t remember hearing of it, but then, my world is elsewhere. What goes on off the polo fields, I do not know. The crimes may be related, you think?”

“No. They’re not,” I said.

“You knew that girl also?”

“Yes, actually. I did.” Jill Marone. A nasty pig-eyed girl. Liar, petty thief, shoplifter. A groom also.

Barbaro arched a thick brow. “That is a very strange coincidence.”

I forced a half smile, though my mind had taken a sudden turn off the track. “You may want to rethink becoming acquainted with me.”

“I don’t think so, Miss Estes,” he said, taking gentle hold of my left hand. He raised it for closer examination of my naked ring finger.

The band was warming up again. The respite was over. Barbaro glanced at them, frowning.

“Come with me,” he said, moving away from his bar stool. My hand was still in his.

“That wouldn’t be very wise of me,” I said. “Considering there is a killer running loose.”

“I’m not taking you anywhere there won’t be witnesses.”

He led me out into the hall and down the stairs to the restaurant, where at ten-thirty there were still several tables of diners. Everyone recognized Barbaro. I had no doubt that one of the many framed caricatures of famed polo stars on the walls was of him.

We went out onto the terrace. He whispered something to a waiter, and the waiter scurried away.

“This is better, yes?” he said, holding a chair for me. “All that noise seems suddenly very inappropriate.”

“Yes. It’s surreal, watching other people having a good time. My tragedy hasn’t touched their lives.”

“No,” he said. “They cannot help their ignorance. A happy place isn’t meant for mourners.”

The waiter returned with a bottle of Spanish red and two glasses.

“Not Argentine?” I asked.

“No. And neither am I. I am a Spaniard through and through.”

“That’s interesting in a sport dominated by South Americans.”

He smiled. “The Argentines do not find it so interesting. Pompous bastards.”

“As I’m sure they would say of all Spaniards.”

He grinned. “I have no doubt.”

I sipped the wine. Very good. Warm, smoky, smooth, with a long, soft finish. “Where in Spain? The south? Andalusia?”

“The north. Pedraza. Castilla.”