“And if we don’t cooperate with them, we look guilty,” Kenner whined.

“If we do cooperate, we look guiltier,” Brody said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not going to prison because I got a blowjob on my birthday.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Ovada asked.

“Not a damn thing,” Walker said.

“Deny, deny, deny,” Foster chimed in. “What else is there? Tell them, oh, yes, we all had sex with her? No one would find that suspicious.”

Brody focused on Barbaro. “You’re awfully quiet, Juan. What are you thinking?”

Barbaro shrugged. “Only people who were at the after-party know what happened at the after-party. All of those people are in this room-except one. There is no reason to talk about it that I can see.”

No one said anything.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, pushing himself away from the chair. “I have a match to play tomorrow. I’m certain Mr. Brody would prefer me to be fresh for it.”

He walked out of the room and out of the house, stopping to stand on the front porch. Walker wasn’t far behind him.

“You need a ride home, friend?” Barbaro asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Did you kill her?”

Walker started, gave him a look that slid away too quickly. “No! I told you, no. She was dead when I found her.”

Barbaro just frowned and shook his head, looking out at the yard.

“What’s the matter with you?” Walker said. “You were at the party too. Did you kill her?

“You’re letting Elena poison you,” he said. “You’re pissing me off with that. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“Yes.”

“You’re as bad as that stupid little twat groom. You know Elena twenty-four hours and you believe her over me? What the hell is that? What kind of friend is that?” Walker demanded, his voice getting louder and louder.

Barbaro spread his hands and gestured for Walker to keep it down. “You need to calm down… friend.”

“Calm down? Do you have any idea what happens to my life if the media gets wind of me having anything to do with a murdered girl?” he asked. “It’s a fucking nightmare. They’ll dig up everything from back then, spin it around, make me look like Ted Bundy.

“And-and-what about Nancy?” he asked as an afterthought. “None of this is fair to Nancy.”

Barbaro arched a brow. “Somehow, my friend, I don’t believe your concern is for your wife.”

“Well, fuck you too, Juan,” Walker snapped. “You want to have your name put out there as a rapist?”

“No one said the girl was raped.”

“That’s what they’ll imply, that the girl was raped and killed, and it had to be me because-”

He caught himself short of saying it.

“Because you did it before?”

Barbaro stepped out of the way as Walker took a wild swing at him, lost his balance, and tumbled down the stone steps to the lawn, landing with a thud and a groan. When he struggled back up onto his knees, his lip was split and bleeding.

Barbaro descended the steps, put a foot on his shoulder, and knocked him sprawling again.

“Look at yourself,” he said with disgust. “You’re drunk, you’re pathetic. What kind of man are you?”

Walker came up on one knee and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He took a couple of deep breaths and composed himself.

“My father-in-law is pushing me to run for office,” he said, getting up. “Imagine that.”

“You seem a poor choice,” Barbaro said.

“It’s America, amigo. Anything can happen. Look at Bill Clinton. The guy nailed anything in a skirt, and he was a two-term president.”

“Was he also associated with a murdered girl?”

“You know,” Walker said with an edge in his voice, “the thing about this club is that no one is innocent. You’ve needed an alibi before.”

“No,” Barbaro said. “In fact, no, I have not. I have been an alibi many times. I have been your alibi many times.”

“Then once more won’t kill you,” Walker said. “We stick to our story. We left Players, went to my place for a nightcap. We didn’t see Irina after the party.”

“And if the detectives get a warrant and go into your home and find evidence the girl was there?”

Walker looked at his watch. “They’ll never get inside my house,” he said. “That’s what lawyers are for.”

Only slightly unsteady, he walked to his car and drove away into the night.

Chapter 33

I long ago ruined my ability to sleep like a normal human being. Prior to my accident, prior to my years working the streets as a Narcotics detective. Long before any of that.

Four or five hours-rarely consecutive, rarely restful, and jammed with complex dreams-had become normal for me. Post-accident, a certain level of chronic pain had made it even more difficult. And I refused (for a host of reasons, some good and some stupid) the kind of medication that would have eased the pain and allowed me to sink below consciousness.

A doctor once told me that my brain had decided sleep stages one, two, and five were essential to life, and that stages three and four were a waste of my time. My own theory was less industrious and more human: that after the dream stage, REM sleep, all I wanted was to escape what lay in my subconscious.

Whatever the theory, the upside of not sleeping is being able to accomplish more than the average working stiff.

I sat at the small writing desk in my living room, making notes. Just a couple of lamps on, Chris Botti’s smooth, sexy trumpet on the stereo, a glass of cabernet to sip at. It would have been a pleasant scenario, if not for the fact that I was investigating the murder of someone I knew.

If Irina had left Players with Bennett or with Jim Brody, where was her car? If she had driven herself to the after-party, where was her car? Landry had made no mention of it, which made me think he hadn’t found it yet.

I made a note: Car?

Had the killer used it to transport her body, then driven himself back to town? That would have been the smart thing. No evidence of Irina in his own car. But there would have been evidence of him in hers. The smarter thing would have been to run the car into a canal.

And where had they gone for the after-party? Out of town to Star Polo? Or across a few acres of manicured lawns and golf course to Bennett’s home in the Polo Club? They had all been drinking heavily. Quicker and easier to do the latter. Cops liked to prowl right around that intersection of South Shore and Greenview Shores around closing time, looking for some easy tickets. There would have been less risk of getting a DUI if they left the club and literally turned right in at the Polo Club’s west entrance.

I made a note: Cop Stop DUI?

The officer on patrol might have seen something-Irina’s car, Irina in someone else’s car, but no one was going to tell me about it.

I wanted to know where in the Palm Beach Polo Club Bennett lived. The homes in the development ranged from efficiencies for grooms, to condos, to town houses, to bungalows, to out-and-out mansions. Bennett would take the big house, because he could afford it, because it was a good investment, because he was spoiled and used to having nothing but the best. Because it was private.

If the party had moved to Bennett’s house, the partygoers had driven through one of the Polo Club’s two entrances, and their comings and goings would be on tape. Tape that I had no access to. But if I could find his house, I could check out his neighbors.

Maybe one of them would complain about a party Saturday night. Even money said Sean knew exactly where the house was.

I made a note: Sean-Bennett’s address?

I picked through the things I had collected from Irina’s apartment. The e-mails I had printed out from her computer were mostly in Russian. Some were order confirmations from online sources of horse equipment and veterinary supplies, things she would have ordered at Sean’s behest. A couple of them were from Lisbeth Perkins: a question as to whether or not Irina wanted to go to a karaoke bar with a couple of other girls. One about where and when they would meet Saturday night.