David Park opens his briefcase. He has the records.
"Mr. Crawford was in Los Angeles on that date," David says, sliding a page across the desk. "He attended a board meeting at Crawford Group headquarters. There are six witnesses and a recorded minutes document."
Kahale takes the page. Reads it. Makes a note.
"Did you have any contact with Metz in the weeks before his death?"
"Not that I recall."
"Phone calls? Emails?"
"No."
"Did you have any knowledge of who might have wanted to harm Mr. Metz?"
My father looks at Kahale steadily. "Carl Metz ran criminal operations out of Maui for twenty years. I imagine the list of people who wanted to harm him was substantial."
Kahale almost smiles. "Fair point." He writes something down. "Mr. Crawford, I want to be direct with you. This is a preliminary conversation. You're not being charged with anything. We're speaking with a number of people who had contact with Metz during that period." He closes his legal pad. "I may need to speak with you again."
"Of course," my father says. "David will coordinate scheduling."
Kahale stands. He takes his recorder off the desk and puts it in his jacket pocket with the same deliberateness he brought to placing it there. He looks around the study once—the books, the photograph on the wall—and then he thanks us for our time and David walks him out.
My father and I sit in the study and listen to their footsteps walk down the hall. The front door. A car starting in the circular drive.
My father picks up his coffee and drinks it cold.
"The alibi holds," I say. It’s not a question.
"Yes."
"David prepared it before today."
"Yes."
I look at the study door, still open, the hallway beyond empty. "You knew this was coming."
"I suspected it was possible," he says. "When Richard's position became clear, I considered what evidence he might have and what uses he might make of it." He sets the cup down. "This is one option."
I look at my father across the desk. Sixty-two years old, straight-backed, the white shirt barely creased despite the hour and the morning he just had.
"Come back tonight," he says. "After dinner. We'll talk."
I spendthe afternoon at the office, not working. I sit at my desk and look at the cascade analysis and the board member files and don't read any of it. Nathan brings me three things that need decisions and I make all three without remembering any of them afterward.
At five I call Jade.
"How was your day?" she asks. It's what she asks when she already knows the answer and is giving me the opening to say it.
"Long," I say. "I'll be home late. Don't wait up."
A pause. "Phoenix."
"I'll tell you when I'm headed back. I promise."
She's quiet for a moment. "Okay," she says, and I hear in it everything she's not asking, all the questions she's learned to hold until I'm ready to hand them over.
I hang up and sit in my office until the city outside goes from gold, to gray, to dark. Then I drive back to my parents’ house.
