One-Night Alibi

“He was found in the lake,” Sanchez said.

Hudson immediately went into detective mode. “Time of death?”

“This isn’t your case,” Knightly said. “We’ll ask the questions. You provide the answers.”

Hudson sighed. Knightly had been watching too many episodes of Dragnet. “You can’t honestly think I had anything to do with it.”

“You had a beef with him,” Sanchez said. “His body was found less than two miles from your house. And you don’t have an alibi.”

“I do have an alibi.”

“Whose name you’ve conveniently forgotten. Do you take so many women to bed that—”

“Her name is Liz.” Wow, Sanchez was certainly in a mood. So much for having his back. “I met her at a party. We came back here. She stayed until about four, then she had to leave because she worked in the morning.” That was sort of the truth.

“What kind of car did she drive?” Knightly asked, all business.

Sanchez, on the other hand, was getting personal. Years ago, long before they’d been partners, they’d slept together. Once. She’d wanted more; he’d realized it was a mistake. She’d been angry at the time but claimed to have put the matter behind her. Still, she never missed an opportunity to rag on him for his “indiscriminate sleeping habits,” as she called them.

“We took my car,” Hudson explained. “And she took a taxi home. Look, I’ll ask around, track her down. Give me a day or two. If I can’t find her, break out the rubber hoses and the hot lights and have at me.”

“In a day or two you could be on the other side of the world,” Sanchez said.

Knightly shook his head. “He isn’t going to run, Carla, or he would have done it already. He had to have known he’d be a suspect.”

“I didn’t know anything until five minutes ago,” Hudson couldn’t help but point out.

Knightly took off his mirrored sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Vale, we have to clear you from the suspect list. You understand that, right? People are going to ask questions, and we’ll have to have good, solid evidence that you couldn’t have done this. Give us a real alibi and we’ll get our job done.”

Hudson nodded. “I totally get that. And I will find the mystery woman. So unless you’re prepared to arrest me on the spot, y’all best back off and let me get to work.”

Knightly considered him for a few more seconds. “All right. Two days.” He turned and strode back to the car, jerking the driver’s door open.

“Hey, Sanchez,” Hudson said softly as his former partner turned away. “How long did it take for them to promote Knightly into my job?”

She lowered her voice. “The transfer to Major Crimes was already in the works. I requested to work with him. He might be a little humorless, but he’s a good cop. He knows the law. He follows protocol.”

Hudson knew he’d just been put down. But now was not the time or place to argue.

“You better go, before Mr. Rules-and-Regulations reports you for consorting with a suspect.”

“If I were you, I’d forget about Knightly and focus on finding the girl. If she exists.”

Hudson’s jaw dropped as Sanchez slid into the passenger seat. Did his own partner actually think he might have killed a man? Did she actually prefer working with that pompous ass?

Knightly had about a year’s seniority over Hudson. In fact, when Hudson had first made detective—assigned to juvie and missing persons—Knightly had shown him the ropes with a sort of big-brother attitude that was only slightly annoying. Hudson had assumed he was well-meaning.

But after a few months, Hudson had realized that Knightly relished his superior attitude. He had the state and local penal codes memorized word for word and wouldn’t hesitate to complain to the lieutenant if he thought any of his colleagues weren’t following the rules. He always wore a suit with razor-creased pants. He was always perfectly clean-shaven, his head freshly shaved every day to minimize the impact of his receding hairline.

When a position opened up on the Major Crimes squad, both Knightly and Hudson were considered. When Hudson got the nod, Knightly congratulated him and appeared to be a good sport, but Hudson always suspected Knightly felt cheated.

Hudson took a deep breath to steady himself. He couldn’t afford to let emotion cloud his thinking. This had gone way beyond salvaging his career. He was now a murder suspect.

His story about a woman with no last name who’d disappeared into the night with no trace did sound fishy. Hudson wouldn’t have bought it if some other suspect had told it to him during an investigation.

But she was real. He simply had to find her and get her to make a statement to the police. It might be embarrassing for her. But even as little as he knew about her, he believed she would do the right thing. She wouldn’t let him swing in the wind to save herself a little embarrassment. Or a lot of embarrassment if she turned out to be in a relationship. Which, he realized, he really hoped she wasn’t...and not just to make his alibi stronger.

Liz was a friend of Jillian’s. He didn’t have Jillian’s number, but Claudia would have it. Or someone at Project Justice, where she worked, would know how to get in touch with her. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Claudia, but only reached her voice mail, which meant she was probably in a session. He told her succinctly what he was looking for, confident his problems would soon be solved.

Thirty minutes later she returned his call. By then, he was sitting on his deck with a can of Mountain Dew in his hand, trying his best to let the view of the lake calm his nerves.

“I can give you Jillian’s number, but it won’t do you much good,” Claudia said. “She’s on her honeymoon.”

Crap. He could still try to call her. Maybe she would answer. It wasn’t cool to bother someone on their honeymoon, but getting Liz’s contact information would take only a couple of seconds.

Claudia already knew what he was thinking. “Even if you called her, it’s doubtful she’d pick up. They went to Patagonia.”

Double crap. “The only thing I really know about her is that she’s a social worker, and she works at a clinic of some kind. I guess I could call every clinic in the city and ask for her.” But if that was his only recourse—

“You should talk to Mitch.”

“Delacroix? The computer hacker at Project Justice?”

“We don’t call him that. He’s a computer data analyst. Tell him everything you know about Liz. Anything at all you remember. I bet he can find her for you in less than an hour. You’ve helped out Project Justice in the past. Now let them help you.”

* * *

IT TOOK LESS than an hour. In fact, it only took about seven minutes. With some prodding, Hudson had remembered that Liz had said free clinic. That narrowed down the possibilities considerably. With a little bit of fancy online footwork, Mitch had come up with three urban clinics in the Houston area with employees named Elizabeth.

Hudson decided to visit them in person, rather than try to get Liz on the phone. As skittish as she was—and as angry as she’d been with him when she’d fled his house—she might refuse his call or try to make him think she was the wrong Elizabeth. It would be easier to confront her in person and convince her she needed to come forward with her statement.

With addresses for the three clinics in hand, Hudson set out to find his alibi. It took a few minutes for him to realize that the tightness in his chest had little to do with his thorny predicament, and almost everything to do with the fact he couldn’t wait to see Liz again. He only wished his excuse for tracking her down wasn’t what it was.

Houston City Clinic was the first stop. It was a depressing storefront office crowded between a run-down bodega on one side and a pawn shop on the other. Hudson had a hard time picturing Liz spending every day at a place like this. It would say something about her character if she wanted to help people that badly.

He walked through the crowded waiting room, filled with snuffling adults, screaming toddlers and feverish babies and thanked God for the great health coverage he got through the sheriff’s department.

At least, for a while longer.

“Excuse me,” he asked the harried receptionist, “I’d like to see Elizabeth, please.”

“If you mean Dr. Eliza Eldridge, that’s you and everybody else in here.” She looked him up and down. He’d put on some decent-looking khaki pants and a polo shirt, wanting to appear his best when he encountered Liz again. He supposed he looked a little too well-heeled to be patronizing a free clinic, but people could fall into unfortunate circumstances anytime.

Or maybe the receptionist had simply pegged him as a cop. Some people had a sixth sense when it came to spotting law enforcement.

“Take a number,” the woman said.

“Maybe you can help me.”