How I Spent My Summer Vacation Read Online Free PDF Page B

however. “Who is—who was he?”
    “Somebody named Jesse Reese, they said.”
    I looked at Mackenzie. “What happens next?” I whispered.
    He was shaking his head and blinking hard, trying to wake up fully. He mumbled a catalogue of procedures, all the while getting out of bed. Preliminary examination. Middle of the night. Probable delays. Arraignment. Bail. He left the room.
    Obviously, a lot had to happen, and all of it would take time. “So let me get this straight. They think you came in and murdered this guy? What time?” I heard the shower run in the bathroom.
    “Around nine or ten.” Sasha’s voice was dull, mechanical. “They say I cleaned myself up and left, then came back again around eleven and pretended to be shocked by what I found.” She sounded exhausted.
    “But you have an alibi, Sasha! Did you tell them?”
    “What is it?”
    She was really not herself. Her brain had frozen. “Your date—Cary Grant!” I tried not to sound impatient.
    “Dunstan?”
    “If that was his name. You were with him, weren’t you?”
    Only silence on the line.
    Having completed the world’s shortest shower, Mackenzie reentered the bedroom during this frustrating exchange. He looked at me quizzically. I looked back at him, but not quizzically. I looked at the man’s long and lovely body, wrapped in a towel, and I mourned the minivacation we were now not going to have. Worst of all, I couldn’t even blame the ruin of this one on him.
    “Not exactly,” Sasha finally said. “The evening didn’t go all that terrifically. He turned out to be pretty boring.”
    “Listen, I don’t care about your romantic life. I care about your neck . He can get you out of this mess.”
    “Don’t bother.”
    “What is he, another one hiding out from the cops like your dead Dimples? Another big- or small-time hoodlum?”
    “No. He’s a photographer. Like me. But he wasn’t with me the whole time. After dinner, we walked awhile, then we split. I went back to our hotel, and he said he was going back to Trump’s.”
    “When exactly did you separate? How long was he with you?”
    “Mandy, was I ever the kind to watch the clock? I don’t know. That’s the problem. Maybe nine o’clock, maybe later. I walked, then I stopped in the bar and kind of made a date with Frankie the bartender.”
    “God, Sasha, your frenetic social life is literally killing you!” I hadn’t meant to be that loud or sharp, but I must say it felt good to be openly angry about her stupidities and excesses. “Okay, then, did Frankie go upstairs with you?”
    Mackenzie raised an eyebrow at the name switch.
    “I told you,” Sasha said. “Nobody did. We were going to meet later on. He was working two shifts.”
    “Even so, if Dunstan was with you till near nine—and maybe it was actually later—and Frankie a while later, maybe between them we could establish that you were not in the room. Where can I find Dunstan? What’s his whole name? Is he in the book?”
    Mackenzie was almost dressed, and flashing me looks that said I should do the same.
    “I don’t know his last name or address,” Sasha said, “and don’t you dare say a word. You don’t know the first name of somebody you’ve been seeing for a year!”
    I held my tongue—an extremely painful activity. I didn’t say that it was not the same thing at all. I did hope, however, that it was not the same thing at all.
    “When I met him three weeks ago, he was at the next table. We were both with groups of other people. It was all very flirty. A fifties movies thing. No data, just patter. Fun, you know?”
    I grudgingly admitted that I did know. It could happen. Last names would have weighted down the bubble.
    “I was coming back down for this job,” Sasha said, “so we planned to meet again, same place, which is what we did. He either remembered, or he’s always there. We ate in the casino, at Ivana’s—you’d think he’d have changed that name to Maria’s, wouldn’t