Page 203 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

charges of murder one; further, that I would take along Labelle
Gramercy, who had just returned from her Caribbean excursion, as
my back-up. Go to it, Sergeant Donat, he said. I could see that he
was greatly impressed by my take-charge attitude and effective police
work in solving the case—or at least was relieved that he could take
some positive news back to the chief and the press. He gave me the
warrant he had been holding in his desk and shook my hand.
Labelle was ready to go when I got back to my desk.
“I’ll drive,” she said. Still her prerogative. Soon to be mine, I was
positive.
We headed out of the motor pool and I received my first surprise.
“This isn’t the way to Hannibal’s place,” I said, wondering if she
had forgotten the man’s address.
“We’re not going there. Mr. Simulian will retain his freedom for
the time being.”
My eyes bugged. “What! I just got confirmation that his medical
excuse is phony.”
“I never doubted you would.” She kept her eyes on the road,
oblivious to my mounting distress. “It was the fabrication of an
unsophisticated mind; no defense attorney worth his salt would use it
in a court of law. Hannibal couldn’t have hoped for it to be taken
seriously in a capital case of this gravity.”
I began to feel my scalp and stomach tighten. “Maybe so, but he
did not give us a better story. And he was the only one of the five
who had no unassailable alibi for at least one of the killings: Pershing
was covered for the first, Rommel for the second, Napoleon the third
and Alexander the fourth. All of Hannibal’s stories were flimsy, and
the last three unraveled once we discovered his secret door.”
“Duncan, you assumed only one person was responsible. You let
your early suspicions of Hannibal blind you to other conclusions.”
“Such as what?” I was starting to whine, but couldn’t help it.
“Although it is true that none of the family except Hannibal could
have killed all four jurors, many of their accounts had flaws. You did
not follow every lead, chase every elusive assertion or unresolved
contradiction to its origin or resolution. I will not go into detail now
about those questions surrounding the Simulians’ precise location
during each of the fatal time frames. They are not relevant to our
major concern, arresting the murderer.”

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