Free The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag Page A

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.
    “Estes,” he said. “I feel I know that name for some reason.”
    I shrugged. “Well, you don’t know me.”
    “I 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.
    “What 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.”
    “You knew her.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “She was found dead today.”
    “I 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.
    “You knew her well?” I asked.
    “Not well. Casually. At a party, to say hello, to exchange small talk. And you?”
    “We worked together,” I said. “I found her.”
    “Madre de Dios,”
he whispered. “I’m very sorry for that.”
    “Me too.”
    The bartender brought him a drink without being asked, and he took a long sip of it.
    “This was the last public place anyone saw her,” I said. “Do you remember seeing her that night?”
    “It 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.”
    “About what?”
    “Party talk.” He gave me a long, curious look. “For someone who works in the stables, you sound very much like a policewoman.”
    “I watch too much television.”
    “Lisbeth said Irina was murdered,” he said. “Is that true?”
    “That’s what the detectives think,” I said.
    “Murder. 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.
    “A girl was murdered at the show grounds last year,” I said.
    “Smothered facedown in a horse stall during an attempted sexual assault.”
    “Really? 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?”
    “No. They’re not,” I said.
    “You knew that girl also?”
    “Yes, 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.”
    “I don’t think so, Miss Estes,” he said, taking gentle hold of my left hand. He raised it for closer examination of my naked ring finger.
    The band was warming up again. The respite was over. Barbaro glanced at them, frowning.
    “Come with me,” he said, moving away from his bar stool. My hand was still in his.
    “That wouldn’t be very wise of me,” I said. “Considering there is a killer running loose.”
    “I’m not taking you anywhere