Free The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag Page B

“I haven’t met you.”
    I offered my hand. “Elena Estes.”
    He took it gently, turned it over, and brushed his lips across my knuckles. His eyes never left mine. “Juan Barbaro.”
    Barbaro. The great man. Mr. Ten-Goal Polo Star. I didn’t react, just to see how he would take it. He seemed not to care. The raw sexual magnetism that was his aura didn’t diminish in the least.
    â€œEstes,” he said. “I feel I know that name for some reason.”
    I shrugged. “Well, you don’t know me.”
    â€œI do now.”
    Eye contact. Direct, consistent, very effective. His eyes were large and dark, with luxurious black eyelashes. Many a Palm Beach lady paid six hundred dollars a pop every month to have an aesthetician glue on lashes like that—one hair at a time. He was tanned, with unruly black hair that fell nearly to his shoulders.
    â€œWhat brings a beautiful woman here alone on such a boring evening?”
    I looked down at the photos I had brought with me, losing the will to play anymore. “I’m looking to make sense of something senseless,” I said.
    I held up a photograph to show him, as if it were a tarot card.
    Barbaro’s broad shoulders sagged a little, and he looked sad as he reached out and took the picture from me. “Irina.”
    â€œYou knew her.”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    â€œShe was found dead today.”
    â€œI know. Our groom Lisbeth told me. They were very good friends. Poor Beth is devastated. It’s hard to believe something so violent, so terrible, could happen to a person we know. Irina…so full of life and fire, so strong in her character….”
    He shook his head, closed his eyes, sighed.
    â€œYou knew her well?” I asked.
    â€œNot well. Casually. At a party, to say hello, to exchange small talk. And you?”
    â€œWe worked together,” I said. “I found her.”
    â€œMadre de Dios,”
he whispered. “I’m very sorry for that.”
    â€œMe too.”
    The bartender brought him a drink without being asked, and he took a long sip of it.
    â€œThis was the last public place anyone saw her,” I said. “Do you remember seeing her that night?”
    â€œIt was the birthday party of my
patrón,
Mr. Brody. Everyone was having a very good time. The kind of good time that makes memories vague,” he admitted. “But I know that Irina was here. We spoke.”
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œParty talk.” He gave me a long, curious look. “For someone who works in the stables, you sound very much like a policewoman.”
    â€œI watch too much television.”
    â€œLisbeth said Irina was murdered,” he said. “Is that true?”
    â€œThat’s what the detectives think,” I said.
    â€œMurder. These things…They should not happen in Wellington.”
    Wellington, Palm Beach, the Hamptons—the little Camelots of the East Coast wealthy. Where every day and evening should be filled with entertainment and pleasantry and beauty. Never anything so ugly as murder. Violent crime was a stain on the fabric of polite society, like red wine on white linen.
    â€œA girl was murdered at the show grounds last year,” I said.
    â€œSmothered facedown in a horse stall during an attempted sexual assault.”
    â€œReally? I don’t remember hearing of it, but then, my world is elsewhere. What goes on off the polo fields, I do not know. The crimes may be related, you think?”
    â€œNo. They’re not,” I said.
    â€œYou knew that girl also?”
    â€œYes, actually. I did.” Jill Marone. A nasty pig-eyed girl. Liar, petty thief, shoplifter. A groom also.
    Barbaro arched a thick brow. “That is a very strange coincidence.”
    I forced a half smile, though my mind had taken a sudden turn off the track. “You may want to rethink becoming acquainted with me.”
    â€œI don’t think so,