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Steffi said, “Do you deny anything he’s said so far?”
“You don’t have to answer that, Alex.”
Ignoring her solicitor’s advice, she met Steffi’s eager eyes head-on. “It all happened a long time ago, Ms. Mundell. I was a child.”
“You were beyond the age of accountability.”
“I made some bad choices when my only option was to make worse ones. The memories are ugly. Years ago, I expunged them from my mind and got on with my life. I made a new life.”
“Very good answer, Dr. Ladd,” Steffi said. “But in other words, no. You don’t deny anything he’s said so far.”
If Frank Perkins hadn’t intervened at that moment and warned Alex to say nothing more, Hammond would have warned her himself. She heeded her lawyer’s advice. Looking thoroughly disgusted with the whole proceeding, Perkins said, “Let’s get this over with.”
Smilow restarted the tape. Hammond shifted his weight from one leg to the other, ostensibly to work some of the soreness out of his left leg. In reality he was trying to keep himself from doing something very stupid, like grabbing Alex by the hand and dragging her out of there. Last night had proved she needed protection. He would guard her himself. He was almost ready to tell everything, get it out in the open, damn the torpedoes.
Almost. In this instance the adverb was a monumental qualifier.
The worst of the tale was yet to come, and it was that which bore an unsettling similarity to the present. According to Loretta’s report, upon leaving Florida with a theft rap and a loan shark hot on his trail, Bobby Trimble had dropped from sight. That he had resurfaced here in Charleston within days of a murder in which his half-sister was implicated was a damned uncomfortable coincidence.
It was certainly more than enough to increase Steffi’s and Smilow’s suspicions. Even though Hammond knew that it was virtually impossible for Alex to have killed Pettijohn and still arrive at the fair when she had, there were still inconsistencies, unanswered questions, that plagued him. Especially in light of her troublesome past.
Unarguably someone saw her as a threat that must be silenced. But what threat did she pose? As a witness? Or as a conspirator who had got cold feet? Until he knew with certainty that Alex was entirely guilty—or entirely innocent—of any wrongdoing, he was trapped between prosecutor and protector.
On the tape, Smilow was asking Trimble about the con game he had devised to bilk money out of his friends.
“It worked like this. I’d target somebody and start telling him about Alex, how she was maturing. I’d say she was itching to try out the new equipment, that she was in heat, things like that. I’d feed him little tidbits, get him to thinking about her and speculating on the possibilities. Sometimes it took a few days, other times only a matter of hours before he’d get really worked up.
“I had this knack, this sixth sense, about when the time was right to close the deal. I’d name our price. Know what? I never had one of those suckers try to haggle down the fee,” he said, laughing. “I’d set the time and place. They’d pay me, then it was up to Alex to do her thing.”
“What thing?”
“Whatever she had to do to get them… you know, vulnerable.”
“Aroused?”
“That’s a nice way of putting it. When they were good and aroused, I would rush in and demand all their money, or else.”
“Or else what?”
“I gave them some legal-sounding bullshit about molestation of a minor. If they balked or threatened us with the law, I’d say that it was our word against theirs, and who wouldn’t believe a twelve-year-old virgin? They kept quiet, all right. That’s how we stayed in business so long. None wanted to look like a jackass in front of his friends, so none ever admitted to being taken.”
“Your half-sister willingly participated?”
“What do you think? That I forced her? A woman loves showing off. Meaning no disrespect, Ms. Mundell. But I’ll bet Mr. Smilow here agrees with me, even if he doesn’t own up to it. All women are exhibitionists at heart. They know what they’ve got. They know men are panting after it. They love baiting us with it.”
“Thank you for that psychological insight.”
Steffi Mundell’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “I didn’t write the rules, Ms. Mundell. I’m only telling it like it is, and you know it.”
Smilow resumed the questioning. “You didn’t run out of suckers?”
“We spread into other neighborhoods. Alex looked so fresh and innocent that every mark thought he was the first one. That’s why I knew it would work with the older men, too.”
“Tell me about that.”
“Alex was the perfect lure. She knew how
to reel them in, too. That’s her specialty. She would act innocent and nervous. As a rule, we men can’t resist a woman who’s being coy. Alex can play hard to get better than any woman I’ve ever met before or since.”
