Rashid? How was Adrian planning on getting into the compound in St. Albans?'
'I don't know,' I admitted. 'Maybe he was working on a plan to lure Rashid out. I know he wasn't there when Rashid was killed. He spent the evening with'—I checked my notebook—'Henry Berghash and DeWitt Palmer.'
'A judge and a college president? I'd say it's a damn shame the cardinal couldn't join them. I don't suppose the three of them wound up at a leather bar on West Street.'
'Dinner at Christ Cella's, fifth-row seats for the new Stoppard play, and drinks afterward at Agin-court.
A notation in his calendar, backed up with a credit card receipt and a ticket stub.'
'That's just perfect,' he said. 'You managed to find him a rock-solid alibi for the one murder Will didn't commit.'
'I know.'
'You think he set it up that way? He knew Scipio was going to do it and made sure he covered himself?'
'I think it was coincidence.'
'Because it's hardly incriminating, having an alibi.'
'No.'
'Any more than it's incriminating not having an alibi for the other two murders.'
'True.'
'But we've left one out, haven't we? The abortion guy. Except he'd hate to be called that, wouldn't he?
I'm sure he'd much rather be known as the anti-abortion guy.'
'Protector of the unborn,' I said.
'Roswell Berry. Killed not here in nasty old New York but halfway across the country in the tele-marketing capital of America.'
'Omaha?'
'You didn't know that about Omaha? Whenever there's an ad on a cable channel, a twenty-four-hour eight hundred number for you to order a Vegematic Pocket Fisherman CD of Roger Whittaker's greatest hits, nine times out of ten the person who takes your order is sitting in an office in Omaha. Did Adrian have an alibi when Berry got killed?'
'Yes, he did.'
His eyebrows went up. 'Really? That sinks your whole theory, doesn't it?'
'No,' I said, 'it's the closest thing I've got to hard evidence, and it's strong enough to have brought me here tonight. See, Adrian did have an alibi for Berry's murder. And it's full of holes.'
* * *
'He went to Philadelphia,' I said. 'Rode down and back on the Metroliner, had a seat reserved both ways in the club car. Charged the ticket to his American Express card.'
'Where'd he stay in Philly?'
'At the Sheraton near Independence Hall. He was there three nights, and again he used his Amex card.'
'And meanwhile Roswell Berry was being murdered in Omaha.'
'That's right.'
'Which is what, two thousand miles away?'
'More or less.'
'Don't make me dig,' he said. 'This would appear to clear Adrian.
How does it implicate him?'
'Here's what I think he did,' I said. 'I think he went to Philly and checked into the hotel and unpacked a bag. Then I think he took his briefcase and caught a cab to the airport, where he paid cash and showed ID in the name of A. Johnson. He flew to Omaha via Milwaukee on Midwest Express. He registered at the Hilton as Allen Johnson, showing a credit card in that name when he checked in but paying cash when he left. He got there in plenty of time to kill Berry and he got out before the body was found.'
'And flew back to Philadelphia,' Ray said. 'And packed his bag and paid his hotel bill and got on the train.'
'Right.'
'And you've got nothing that places him in Philadelphia during the time that our Mr. Johnson was either in or en route to Omaha.'
'Nothing,' I said. 'No phone calls on his hotel bill, no meals charged, nothing at all to substantiate his presence in the city except that he was paying for a hotel room.'
'I don't suppose there was a maid who would remember if the bed had been slept in.'
'This long after the fact? The only way she'd remember is if she slept in it with him.'
'Matt, why'd he go to Philly? You'll say to set up an alibi, I understand that much, but what was his ostensible purpose?'
'To keep some appointments, evidently. He had four or five of them listed on his desk calendar.'
