Page 197 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

“Please do. Napoleon’s alibi may depend on it. Next is Alexander
Simulian. He was a hundred miles away Friday night, having driven
out to the state penitentiary in Los Olvidados to visit Sherman in the
afternoon. You have a good paper trail: motel and café receipts,
ATM cash withdrawal at a gas station, sign-in at the prison. Plus a
large number of witnesses identifying his photograph from a
selection of mug shots including all his known criminal associates, so
he couldn’t have pulled a switch on the men shadowing him. He
returned Saturday, about noon. How was he able to leave town after
you restricted the Simulians’ movements, Duncan?”
“Special permission had been given by our department for this
visitation. He knew we would be on his tail, and that he would have
to be on good behavior. No way for him to commit this crime.”
“I will take that as probable for now. Hannibal again said he spent
the entire night inside his dwelling, and our scanner again showed
that he spent some of it elsewhere. This time your team followed him
after he sneaked through his neighbor’s yard and came out on a side
street. He was on foot, and your men were in their van.”
“What could we do, Lieutenant?” I felt my neck and face getting
warm. This really was a screw-up. But all’s well that ends well, and I
had no doubt that all my hard work would pay off. “He might have
had a car parked away from his house; he might have arranged for
someone to pick him up at an agreed-upon time and place; he might
even have phoned for a taxi—or flagged one down somewhere close
by.”
“Nevertheless, you lost him again.”
“A man on foot in his own neighborhood can easily escape
pursuers in a vehicle, we both know that. I was contacted
immediately and we set up a cordon with every available unit, as best
we could in that densely populated area with dozens of through
streets. Hannibal’s own car remained parked in front of his house, so
we did not know how to identify his mode of transport.”
“Again he returned on foot, after being out of our sight from
midnight to six a.m. We stopped him before he got to his front door
and asked a few questions. This time he had no explanation other
than a desire to take a walk in the middle of the night. Monday, when
I quizzed him again about Beryl Creighton’s death, he must have
known he was on the hot seat. He was considerably less confident

196