Page 204 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

I could not believe where she was headed. “But—but, a Simulian
committed those crimes and Hannibal is the logical suspect.”
“Not so,” replied Labelle, driving down a street I recognized from
my repeated trips to interview the principals in the case. But I was
too distracted to realize exactly which one. “Your first error was in
assuming Hannibal’s account of his dispute with Shonda Khaleria
was mendacious, that he had probably killed her and disposed of the
body. These foreign-born people are indeed less likely to terminate
relationships in the casual manner of natives, and their feuding in a
language other than English may be misunderstood by us as more
sinister than it really is. I took his tale of acrimonious separation as
possibly describing the beginning of a renegotiation of the terms of
their alliance. If it has in fact continued, then sneaking out of his
house late at night indicates a desire on his part—or hers—to
maintain a new level of privacy in their affairs. Your inability to trace
a man on foot and the fact that he always appeared to walk back
home point to her new location being close by. While you were at
lunch I completed checking new rental registrations for the area
within a one-mile radius of Hannibal’s place, and found Shonda
Khaleria in a new apartment building ten blocks away.”
I must have closed my eyes by then, because I don’t recall where
we were when I heard the rest of it.
“She has an unlisted telephone number, which I obtained and
called. The lady was very helpful, and explained the situation.
Hannibal’s family does not approve of her because she is part Gypsy.
She wanted him to acknowledge the liaison in some public way, at
least in her community. That caused the rift. To heal it, at least for
the short run, he set her up in a much nicer place. But he would not
tell anyone, including you, about it for fear word would get back to
the other Simulians. It is a building with security cameras, so I
presume his presence in the lobby can be established with temporal
precision.”
I grasped at straws. “Then the others must have done it in rotation.
I’ve got to get my notes and see where their alibis break down.”
“No, it doesn’t work out that way, Duncan. After the first juror’s
death, the family must have known we would be following them
night and day—or at least trying to do so. As they all did not get
together after April 6, they would have had to plan the entire

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