The Perfect Alibi (Robin Lockwood #2)(36)

“Whose fault is it?”

“I’m an addict, Detective Anders. I wasn’t thinking straight. You can see that, can’t you? I’m not a criminal. I’m sick and I need help.”

“Being an addict and being a criminal aren’t mutually exclusive, Jessica. The way I see it, you’re an addict who needs medical help and you’re a criminal who sold a shitload of heroin to an undercover agent. You’re facing a ton of jail time.”

“But you’d help me get into rehab if I told you something important, right? Mr. Jenkins says that we could make a deal.”

“That depends on what this important thing is.”

“This is all off the record until we have a deal?” Jenkins interjected.

Anders nodded. “I’m here to listen. If Miss Braxton has something useful to trade, I’ll work with her. So, Jessica, what do you want to tell me?”

“It’s about Blaine Hastings.”

“What about him?”

“It was a scam.”

“What was?”

“I wasn’t raped. His father paid me to say I was raped. He told me to say a guy named Ray did it, and he gave me a description of this Ray I was supposed to give to the cops.”

“You had a black eye and a split lip. How did that happen?”

“Blaine’s father did it. He said it would make the story more believable. He gave me a little extra. He called it combat pay.”

“Let’s back up here,” Anders said. “When did Mr. Hastings ask you to say you were raped?”

“Right after his kid was convicted.”

“How do you know the Hastingses?”

“I was working at his company and I got in a little trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I took some money to buy drugs, and he found out—so I had to go to a motel and work it off.”

“You had sex with Mr. Hastings so he wouldn’t call the police?”

“Yeah.”

“When was this?”

“About a year and a half ago.”

“Did you keep working for the company?”

“No, he fired me.”

“Did you see him after that?”

“Not until he called me after his kid went down. He said he would give me five thousand dollars if I told the cops I’d been raped. I was down on my luck and out of a job, so I said I would.”

“This doesn’t make sense. The DNA test showed a match to Blaine Junior’s DNA. How did they figure out a way for you to have sex with him while he was in jail?”

Braxton laughed. “It was simpler than that. Junior jacked off into a ketchup packet and slipped it to his dad when Senior visited him in jail. Then I put some of it inside me and wiped the rest on my panties.”

Anders stared at Braxton, dumbfounded. Then she started laughing, too. “A ketchup packet?”

Braxton nodded. “We sure fooled everybody.”

“You sure did,” Anders agreed.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


Rex Kellerman was reviewing the police report of Carrie Anders’s interview with Jessica Braxton when Les Kreuger walked into Judge Redding’s courtroom.

“What’s going on, Rex?” Kreuger asked when he walked through the gate that separated the bar of the court from the spectator section.

Rex suppressed an urge to gloat as he handed Kreuger a copy of Carrie Anders’s report. “There’s been a new development in Mr. Hastings’s case. Read that. Then we can talk.”

Kellerman watched Kreuger’s face. When he got to the paragraph where Braxton described the scam, Kreuger’s mouth opened and Kellerman grinned.

“Interesting, huh?” he said.

“A ketchup packet,” Kreuger said.

“Yeah, that’s everyone’s reaction.”

“You can do that?” Kreuger asked.

“We ran it by the people at the crime lab, and they agreed that it would work. One of the lab guys even remembered hearing about a perp in Milwaukee who ran the same scam about twenty years ago.”

“What are you going to do?” Kreuger asked.

“I’m asking the judge to revoke Hastings’s bail, of course.”

Rex checked his watch. “And speaking of Mr. Hastings, where is your client? It’s almost two.”

“I called his house as soon as you notified me about the hearing. I assume his folks are driving him down.”

“You didn’t speak to him?”

“I told Mrs. Hastings.” Kreuger looked at the clock on the courtroom wall. “He’s still got a few minutes.”

Rex was about to reply when the bailiff called the Court to order and Judge Redding took the bench.

The judge surveyed the courtroom and frowned. “Where is Mr. Hastings?” she asked Les Kreuger.

“On the way, Your Honor.”

“He’d better be.”

Kreuger took out his phone. “Let me check.”

At that moment, Gloria and Blaine Senior walked in. They both looked upset.

“Where is your son?” Judge Redding asked.

Senior looked flustered. “We don’t know, Your Honor.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”