The Alibi Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Marilyn Baron and…

  The Alibi

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Tear tracks stained his face. Blood stained his white T-shirt. His eyes were glazed over. He appeared to be in shock. He looked like hell.

  “Director, are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Director Baintree,” I shouted, “are you hurt?” My raised voice blew him out of his stupor and back into battle mode.

  “What the hell does it look like? No, I’m not all right. I need you to take me home.”

  “Where’s Miss Braddock? Does she need a ride somewhere?”

  “Miss Braddock?” The director appeared confused.

  “Savannah Braddock. The woman who lives here.”

  “She’s gone,” he said simply, deflated, his face crumpling.

  I don’t know what prompted me to do this, but I walked around him and ran from room to room. There weren’t many places to look in that tiny apartment. Apparently, all it needed were the basic necessities—a kitchenette, a bathroom, and of course, a bedroom. That’s where I found her, half naked, sprawled out on the bedspread, a pool of blood soaking the white eyelet duvet cover. And the handle of an oversized kitchen knife sticking out of her abdomen.

  I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. I began hyperventilating. I was going to be sick—I knew I wouldn’t make it into the bathroom.

  “For God’s sake, stop.” The director walked into the bedroom. He rounded on me, and my breathing calmed, but I continued to stand there, immobilized, staring at the once perfect, now bloody and lifeless body of Savannah Braddock.

  Praise for Marilyn Baron and…

  STUMBLE STONES

  “Modern characters find themselves thrown into a mystery that spans generations, and to discover the answers, they have to look to the past. Marilyn Baron perfectly blends that laugh-out-loud humor of a new romance with the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by the Holocaust. Touching and beautifully written with marvelous attention to setting and history.”

  ~Jennifer Moore, author of Change of Heart

  ~*~

  “Marilyn Baron brings a unique style to her quirky and fast-paced stories that keeps readers turning pages.”

  ~New York Times Bestseller Dianna Love

  ~*~

  UNDER THE MOON GATE

  “A surefire blockbuster…a treasure trove of mystery and intrigue. It sparkles with romance.”

  ~Andrew Kirby

  “Historical romance at its best.”

  ~TripFiction

  The Alibi

  by

  Marilyn Baron

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  The Alibi

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Marilyn Baron

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Historical Rose Edition, 2017

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1611-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1612-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  My working title for this novel was “My Year In Prison” because it was sparked by my imagination after the time I spent as an Information Specialist for the Florida Department of Corrections soon after I graduated college. From my first day on the job—when there was an escape from the women’s correctional institution—to my last, my time there was action-packed and prepared me with the skills I’d need for the rest of my career.

  Prologue

  When I read about the director’s tragic death on the Internet, I ran into my home office and took out a dusty, laminated ID card from a desk drawer I hadn’t opened for years, not since I’d left the prison system. I blew off the dust and detritus and examined my picture. Was that really me? I looked pretty good there all those years ago. So fresh and hopeful and thin! Then the world was full of possibilities.

  That was before all the secrets and lies, secrets I’d hoped to take to the grave. Secrets I had kept, until now. Secrets that informed my life and all the decisions I’d made up until this point, from where I lived to who I’d marry. And I’m the worst about keeping secrets, as my kids like to remind me.

  But now the director was dead, killed in the crash of the small plane he was piloting, along with his wife, Miss Julia.

  What is that expression, Dead people can’t tell tales? Maybe it was time for the truth to come out. The truth I’d kept bottled up inside me for years. The truth about the brutal death of Judge Savannah Braddock, still an unsolved case, as far as I could tell. I’d never told anyone about it or the part I’d played in the cover-up. And not a day in my life went by that I didn’t see her partially clothed, beautiful but bloody body lying there on the bed and think about what had happened that morning.

  The director’s glowing obituary spoke of lower recidivism rates and prevention and his department’s stellar institutional and community-based programs to foster academic and vocational education, to assist offenders by providing substance abuse prevention services and other support services such as transitional housing. Willard Ware Baintree was credited with many of the cutting edge programs of the day.

  The article speculated about the director’s sudden, unexplained retirement from the Department at the height of his career, but they couldn’t have guessed the reason. Only three living people knew the real reason, and I was one of them. They reported, rightfully, that the director was a visionary. But they left out one important fact. The illustrious, much beloved, and universally revered Willard Ware Baintree, one-time head of the criminal justice system in Florida, was himself a criminal.

  I sank into my seat. Swiveling in my office chair, I couldn’t help but travel back to my first day on the job, and the first time I’d met Willard Ware Baintree.

  Chapter One

  I wasn’t alone in that first meeting with the director. My future direct boss, Peggy Springer, was also there. I’d soon learn that Peggy was never very far from the director’s side. Whatever the director needed, Peggy would make it happen.

  The director was an imposing man, standing or sitting—tall and lanky, with a sturdy body an
d a killer tan on a face that made me want to reach out and touch it. Blond, broad-shouldered, one could even say handsome, for a middle-aged man, he had a definite commanding presence. He was the kind of man who was used to issuing orders he expected people to follow. So I could understand why Peggy Springer, and every other woman in the Florida correction system—not many in those days—were under his spell. Talk was that one woman in particular, Judge Savannah Braddock, was having a torrid affair with the director.

  Peggy was a hyperactive chain smoker who didn’t believe in delegating, because, I soon found out, she believed no one could do the job better than she could. She was like the original Energizer Bunny combined with Speedy Gonzalez on steroids, a spinning top that never stopped, a hummingbird too busy fluttering to light, and a Category Five super storm headed on a collision course for the coast.

  Peggy was phenomenal in an emergency, forceful and quick on her feet. I could learn a lot from her. And I wanted to. In contrast to my fairly low-key personality, Hurricane Peggy was totally overwhelming, not to mention domineering, but she generously took me under her wing and immediately commanded my loyalty.

  Peggy knew a lot about loyalty. She worshipped at the feet of the director of the Division of Corrections, Willard Ware Baintree, of the landmark Supreme Court case, Wiggins v. Baintree that had something to do with defendants’ rights. The case my boyfriend, Daniel Krantz, was currently studying in his Criminal Procedure class (which he called Crim Pro) in law school at the University of Virginia, the first stop on his way to a prestigious law firm to follow his dream of becoming a partner. A dream that apparently no longer included me.

  Daniel and I had dated seriously throughout college, but while all of my girlfriends were getting married or engaged, I was trying to find a job. Were we still together? That was unclear. What was clear was that he was impressed when I told him I had interviewed for my first job out of college with the Willard Ware Baintree. I actually sat across the table from the director a few weeks after I graduated college.

  Daniel predicted I would never get a job in public relations in the current economic climate. I was determined to put my college education to good use and to prove him wrong. He wasn’t saying anything my father hadn’t said. My dad had encouraged me to go into teaching, one of the only ways a woman could really make a living.

  I majored in public relations and minored in criminology. My senior project had been working with a task force of citizens in Alachua County, trying to convince the voters to approve the funds to build a new jail. When I found out Daniel had been accepted to law school at UVa, without even asking me if I wanted to marry him, which I did, I found myself at a crossroads. I didn’t want to live with my parents. I wanted to spread my wings and find a job in my field.

  Which is how I found myself sitting across the desk from Willard Ware Baintree, a criminal justice superstar, appointed by the governor after having served as warden of a state correctional institution for fifteen years.

  Willard Ware Baintree was the head of the prison system back when a prison was still a prison and not a correctional institution. When a guard was still a guard and not a correctional officer. A warden was still a warden and not a superintendent. And a prisoner was still a prisoner and not an inmate. During my first year in the prison system, under Director Baintree’s reign, things would change dramatically, to more politically correct terminology. The Division of Corrections would eventually become the Department of Offender Rehabilitation. And the director would become the Secretary. Peggy would work for the Office of the Secretary in the Office of Communications and was eventually promoted to Director of Public Affairs. Now I understand they’ve come full circle and are calling it the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) and that the new Secretary is a woman. And if that don’t beat all, as they would say in the South.

  “Merritt,” the director began the interview, fastening his gaze on my legs, which in those days were encased in stockings and actually worth looking at. I tugged the short hemline of my dress down as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far, and wished I could adjust my girdle. Was my dress too short? Or too tight? Was I showing too much cleavage? It was the only dress I owned. I’d lived in jeans the past four years.

  I was just a Jewish girl from Miami. What did I know about criminal justice? Only that when my mother used to tease her friends about their matzoh ball soup, she would say, “You should taste Shirley’s matzoh balls. They’re hard as a rock, not light and fluffy like mine. It’s criminal what that woman does to those matzoh balls.”

  At the Division of Corrections, the director was next to God. I thought I should genuflect, but what was the proper way for a Jewish girl to recite the Trinitarian formula? In Nomine Potroast et Filii et Spiritus Sancti?

  The director cleared his throat. “Why do you want to work for the Division of Corrections?”

  My palms were sweaty. My throat was parched. There was no bottled water back then. This man was going to decide my fate, my future, my career.

  Why did I want to take a job with the biggest good-old-boy network in the state? And why did I want to live in the middle of nowhere? Because a job was a job. We were in the middle of a recession, and there weren’t that many jobs in journalism or PR. The state was a stable employer, and at the time, the prison system was Florida’s largest state agency. I had college loans and a car loan to pay off, and I needed to support myself. Because, back then, I had no plan. I wasn’t engaged, and I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had nowhere else to go unless I wanted to move back to Miami and move in with my parents. Somehow I didn’t think that was the answer he was looking for. I had majored in PR and wanted a career in my profession, so if not now, cuándo? as they say in Miami. Should I cite statistics about recidivism? He had probably forgotten more than I’d ever learned in college about the subject.

  So I explained to him about my senior project and showed him the work product from the campaign in a thick black binder—the press releases, news clippings, recommendations from the task force, and the end product, communicating that we had succeeded in getting the county to supply the funds to build a new jail.

  He seemed suitably impressed, and within the week, I had accepted a job as an Information Specialist I. I was in. Little did I know what I was in for.

  So I got in my jade green Thunderbird with the white leather roof, which I was still paying off monthly, and headed for Watertown, Florida.

  Watertown was located between Tallahassee and Florida State Prison, home of the electric chair, otherwise known as Old Sparky.

  The infamous Old Sparky was built in 1923 to carry out executions. Executions had ceased in 1964, and resumed in Florida in 1979 as a result of a Supreme Court overturning its ruling and upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty. I’ve since heard that they built a new electric chair made of oak and that the only thing new about the current electric chair is the wooden structure of the chair itself. The apparatus that administers the electric current to the condemned prisoner is the same as the one used for years, and I’ve been assured it is regularly tested to ensure proper functioning. I doubt whether the inmates waiting on Death Row cared about the new “farm style” look of the chair’s outer structure.

  When the director took over, he convinced the legislature to move his headquarters to unincorporated Watertown to be closer to the correctional pulse and the prison population. And closer, rumor had it, to Savannah Braddock.

  Watertown was a misnomer, because there wasn’t a body of water anywhere in sight. I soon learned Watertown was in the middle of Downtown Nowhere, the dictionary definition of a sleepy town—a town that was practically in a coma—where the Spanish Moss grew thick and the Southern accents thicker.

  Watertown, which wasn’t even officially a town, was inappropriately advertised as the “Best Town on Earth,” with some less than stellar eating establishments lining the wide parkway that led up to the courthouse square. Sprawled
along the road were Sandra’s Beauty Nook, Fenster’s Hardware, Shelley’s Seafood, Watertown Bed and Breakfast, and Pizza Napoli. I hadn’t been to many towns outside of Miami, but that slogan seemed like either deceptive advertising or the most hopeful attempt to, as they say in the South, put lipstick on a pig. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life in Watertown. Still, we were in the middle of a recession, and I was happy to have a job.

  When I got the job at the prison system, I endured the expected incarceration jokes.

  “How long are you in for?” my father asked.

  “Why does the prison system need Public Relations?” my mother wondered.

  “So should I tell my friends that my girlfriend is doing time in the Big House?” Daniel teased.

  No matter how many times I told them I was doing PR, not time, I continued to be teased mercilessly.

  Like every journalism major, I had visions of writing the Great American Novel. Mine would be entitled “My Year in Prison.” Which meant I had to stay on the job for at least a year. Just enough time for my next employer to see that I had staying power. A sense of commitment. A trait my boyfriend was definitely lacking. It turns out I could have written a blockbuster about what I’d seen there. But, as I said, I was determined to carry my secrets to the grave, so my blockbuster exposé never materialized.

  Chapter Two

  Peggy swore me to secrecy when we stopped by Savannah Braddock’s apartment on my first day on the job. Our purpose was to pick up the director in DC 1, the license plate of the premiere white car in the division motor pool fleet. We were driving him to the women’s correctional institution nearby. Four female prisoners had escaped, and the director, being a hands-on leader, like Peggy, wanted to make his presence known on the scene.

  “We’ll catch them soon,” Peggy assured me from the driver’s seat, as we watched the tender moment between the director and Savannah play out on the doorstep. “Most escapees are found within four miles of the prison, still in their orange jumpsuits. Or on their way to the house of a family member.”