The Alibi Man Read Online Free PDF

no murder scene, no evidence, no witness, no suspect, a dead body mutilated by an alligator. Say the word, Weiss. You can have this gem. And you can deal with Estes too. She’ll be so glad to cooperate with you, I’m sure.”
    â€œI don’t want it,” Weiss said. “I’m just saying. The call didn’t come through the channels.”
    â€œWell, you go tell the teacher on me,” Landry said sarcastically, as he went toward an evidence tech making a mold of the shoe print Elena had pointed out to him along the bank.
    â€œWhy’d she call you?”
    Landry looked over at him. “What’s the matter with you? She called me because she knows me. If you found a friend of yours dead—assuming you have any—who would you call? You’d call someone you know. You wouldn’t take your chances on getting the first incompetent moron up on the board.”
    Weiss puffed up. “Are you calling me incompetent?”
    â€œI’m calling you a pain in the ass. Just shut up for once and get your mind on the job. Jesus, you act like some jealous woman.”
    The shoe print. Landry looked down at it. Maybe it belonged to their perp. Maybe it belonged to some redneck who dumped his used motor oil into the water a week ago. It didn’t tell them anything, didn’t give them anything to go on. The only good it would do to have the cast would be once they had a suspect and could get a warrant to look in the guy’s closet.
    â€œLooks like a boot,” the evidence tech said without looking up. “A work boot. Round toe. Blundstones or something like that with a medium-deep tread.”
    â€œAre you doing the tire tracks?” Such as they were. A few ridges in the powdered shell along the other side of the canal. A stiff wind would blow them away.
    â€œGrant is on her way. She’s better with the fragile ones.”
    Landry jammed his hands at his waist and looked around. They had stretched the yellow tape across the road from his car to the bank. Behind the barrier was a bottleneck of white-and-green county cruisers, unmarked sedans, the ME’s van. News vans had rolled in to further choke off the only way in or out of this backwater shit hole.
    The reporters swooped in on a death scene almost as fast as the buzzards and were just as hungry and noisy. A corpse to feed on? Their favorite fodder. They didn’t get that many in the Wellington environs, though the statistic climbed a little each year. The area was growing fast. Construction was constant. And with the influx of people came an increase in every kind of problem, including crime.
    â€œThe natives are getting restless,” Weiss said, nodding at the growing crowd.
    â€œFuck ’em.”
    â€œHey, Landry,” another of the detectives called from farther up the bank and back into the scrub. “Got something here. A purse.”
    The bag was small, cylindrical, gold encrusted with rhinestones. Landry snapped a photo of it with his digital camera. The crime-scene photographer took half a dozen shots from varying heights and angles. One of the crime-scene guys took measurements from the purse to where the body was found, and from the purse to the boot print.
    When the evidence marker went down to mark the spot, Landry picked the purse up and opened it. A cherry-red lip gloss, a compact, an American Express gold card, three twenties, two condoms.
    â€œGuess we can rule out robbery as a motive,” Weiss said, loudly enough to catch the attention of a reporter or two on the other side of the canal.
    Landry gave him a look. “Girls don’t get dumped in canals because they carry too much cash.”
    â€œI’m just saying.”
    Weiss was always just saying. The man never had a thought cross his mind that didn’t fall out of his mouth.
    â€œThere’s no driver’s license,” Landry said. “No cell phone.”
    â€œHaitians have been stealing cell