Look Closer

“We had no physical evidence,” says Gully. “The knife didn’t yield any prints. We pulled a print off the wine bottle and found some female DNA on a wineglass, but the print didn’t get a hit in the NCIC or match Simon’s prints, and the DNA database was a dead end, too. It was probably a weapon of opportunity; a bottle of wine Ted had shared with a lady friend some time earlier. And other than that . . .”

“It’s not like we had the tools we have now,” adds Lieutenant Tarkington. “Simon had some old model car, so there was no GPS function, no memory to prove where he’d driven that night, or even if he’d driven the car that night. The interstate didn’t have POD cameras like now. If he stopped for gas, he didn’t use a credit card. And we checked, I’d bet, damn near all the security cameras of every gas station off the interstate between St. Louis and Chicago. Some had taped over the footage that night by the time we asked for it. Some didn’t really have functioning cameras, just used ’em for show. The ones that had working cameras and still had the footage—we never saw Simon Dobias in any of the footage.”

“We couldn’t disprove what he said, that he was home all night studying,” Rick Gully adds. “There was no way to show that wasn’t true. D.A. didn’t have a case.”

“He had a receipt, I think, for a pizza he ordered,” says Tarkington. “Right?”

Yes. Jane saw that in the case file they sent over.

“Yeah, shit, I’d forgotten all about that.” Gully laughs. “That’s how we got our time window. He signed a credit card slip for a pizza delivery at some specific time in the evening, early evening, like around five p.m. The pizza delivery guy confirmed that Simon Dobias answered the door and paid for the pizza. Left him a really big tip, too, I remember.”

Jane smirks. He left a big tip so he’d be memorable to the pizza guy.

“This guy is good,” whispers Andy Tate.

“So when we took that time and compared it against the time he showed up for his final exam the following morning at eight a.m.,” says Tarkington, “he barely had enough time to drive down to St. Louis, stab his father with a kitchen knife, and drive back up to Chicago and show up for that final exam. Just barely enough time.”

“Just about a perfect alibi,” says Gully.

“No other suspects?” Jane asks.

“None we could find. The dad had money, but there was no robbery. A lot of big companies probably hated him because he sued them and got huge awards, but big companies don’t murder plaintiff’s lawyers. They’d probably like to, but another one would just pop up and take his place.”