Tami Hoag - The Alibi Man

“So maybe some Haitians followed her out of a club, grabbed her…”

Landry tuned him out. Another couple of sentences and Weiss would be into his theory that Castro was behind the influx of criminal types from the islands to South Florida. Maybe he was, but Landry didn’t want to hear about it. He had to deal in the present, the here and now, the corpse du jour. The anti-crime unit could worry about Castro.

He opened a little zippered compartment in the purse. Inside was a foreign-looking coin. The girl was Russian. It was probably something from the old country to bring her luck.

The ME’s people came past with the body bag.

So much for that theory.

“All right,” he said on a sigh. “I’m going to go deal with these people and get it over with.”

As he made his way to the other side of the canal, he dug in his pants pocket, came up with a couple of extra-strength Excedrin and choked them down without water, shuddering at the bitter taste left in his mouth.

Like hogs at a trough, the reporters tried to muscle one another out of the way for the honor of being the first to stick a microphone at him.

“Detective!”

“Detective!”

“Detective!”

The pushiest was the blonde from the NBC affiliate in West Palm. “Detective, what can you tell us about the victim? What can you tell us about the murder?”

“I can’t tell you anything about the victim, and we don’t know yet that this is homicide,” he said. “The ME will determine cause of death.”

“But clearly the body was dismembered,” the woman said.

“We don’t know when that happened. We don’t know how long the body has been in the water.”

“Are you saying this is another alligator attack?”

Excitement swept through the group, raising voices, as if some poor soul being eaten alive by a giant reptile was a better story than a regular person-on-person murder. The media seemed to want to promote the idea that the alligators were conspiring to take back their habitat, like something from a bad horror movie.

Three area residents had recently died in separate incidents with gators. One swimming in a pond, one walking a dog on a jogging path along a canal, and a drunk who had the misfortune of passing out on the bank of another canal within easy striking distance for the predator. Even if he’d been conscious, the drunk probably wouldn’t have gotten away. An alligator can charge short distances as fast as thirty-five mph, nearly as fast as a thoroughbred racehorse running full out.

“No, I didn’t say that,” Landry said.

“But it could have been?”

It could have been aliens, he wanted to say, but sarcasm was not looked on with a sense of humor in the sheriff’s office.

“I can’t speculate as to the cause of death” was what he said. “At this point we have no idea how the young woman died or how she came to be here. The sheriff’s office will be releasing a sketch of the victim later today, and we’ll ask for help from the public in trying to ascertain her whereabouts the last few hours of her life.”

“A young woman?”

“How old?”

“Who was she?”

“Have you found the murder weapon?”

“Was she sexually assaulted?”

“We won’t know that until the autopsy is complete,” Landry said.

The blonde leaned ahead of the pack. “Who found the body?”

“A local resident.”

“Will you release his name?”

“No.”

“When will you be able to give us more information?”

“When we have some,” Landry snapped. “Now you’ll have to move the vehicles so we can get on with it. We’re burning day-light.”

The SUV in the photo of the tailgating party had vanity plates, STAR POLO 1.

The best polo in the world is played in Wellington, Florida, during the winter months. Big-money-sponsored teams. Players with rock-star status. The ultrarich, the ultrapowerful, the ultrafamous filled the stands at the International Polo Club every Sunday. Early rounds of tournaments were played all week long on the fields stacked one after the next behind the main stadium.

I had a passing familiarity with the sport, having dated several completely inappropriate men involved in it back in the days when pissing off my father was a priority in my life. By reputation, polo players are wild, passionate, aggressive, hot-tempered, unfaithful, and their riding skills are not limited to polo ponies.

There were plenty of women in Wellington who believed a mad hot affair with a polo player was just the thing to spice up life. Perhaps Irina had been one of them.

Not interested in sticking around for the arrival of Landry and his team, I got in my car and drove into town, still in my riding clothes and smelling of stale sweat and horses. No one would look at me twice. Half the population of the town went around that way every day during season.

Still, I felt vulnerable and self-conscious, as if anyone looking at me would know instantly what had gone on that morning. I jammed a black baseball cap on my head and put on a pair of dark sunglasses and went into the Tackeria.

The Tackeria, located in a strip mall on Wellington Trace, was a tack shop and social hub where horse people of all disciplines went to shop for essentials and catch up on the latest gossip. The specialty of the store was polo, with several aisles dedicated to polo equipment and clothing.

I was known there, stopping in from time to time to pick up the odd thing for Sean or to buy myself a pair of breeches. One of the clerks at the counter looked up and said hello as I approached.

“What can we help you with today, Elena?”

So much for my disguise.

“Just a question. I need to go out to Star Polo, but I’m not exactly sure where it is.”

“In the back,” the clerk said. “Jim Brody. He’s the owner. Your lucky day.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

I went toward the back of the store but turned down one of the aisles of polo gear. Too many years as a narc. I always want to know what I’m walking into. Conversations were going on around me. Somebody was complaining about the price of gas. A woman wanted to know if the store carried a particular brand of gloves. Three people were in a discussion about the prognosis of an injured polo pony.

“… tore up the deep flexor tendon, right hind.” Voice number one. Strong, with the potential for bluster.

“How long will that take?” Voice number two. Quieter. Even.

“Too long. The season is over for her.” Voice number one again. “She may not come back at all.”

“What a shame.” Voice number two.

“The team is so deep, you’ll never miss her.” Voice number three. A smooth Spanish accent.

“Barbaro scored a lot of goals off her.” Voice number two.

“Barbaro could score off a donkey.” Voice number one.

I moved to the end of the aisle and checked them out while I pretended to look at horse halters. A big guy with a red face and a Tommy Bahama shirt. Fifty-something, gray hair, good-looking forty pounds ago. A tall, lean man in denim with a narrow face that looked to be carved from old leather. And a neat, tanned man in pressed khakis and a pink polo shirt with the collar turned up, his black hair slicked straight back. Handsome. In his fifties. Probably Argentinian. White-white teeth.

The tall man worked in the back, repaired equipment, fitted saddles. I had seen him back there different times when I was in the store, but I didn’t know his name. That made Tommy Bahama the owner of Star Polo: Jim Brody. I didn’t recognize him from any of the tailgating photos. The third man had been in the background of one of the shots, laughing, raising a glass of champagne, a cute twenty-something blonde at his side.