Maternal Instinct (32 page)

"Except it did irk me that you always insisted on driving."

"You didn't argue much."

"I was humoring you," she told him with dignity. "Saving my energy for important battles."

"Did we have any?"

"I guess not," she admitted. "I expected to, though. Didn't you?"

"Mm," Hugh agreed. "Here. He pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and handed it to her. "Last page. What's the address? Wasn't it one of those new apartment houses on
Deerborne
?"

She navigated, he drove. Irene Macy lived on the second floor of an apartment block painted in shades of teal to distinguish it from the one next door, done in blue, and the one beyond that in coral. Each formed a U around a small, kidney-shaped swimming pool.

Inside, the hallway was clean and still had the smell of a new building. "She's expecting you?" Nell asked, as they looked for C223.

"She said she wasn't working today."

The young woman came immediately when he knocked. A petite, sweet-faced girl not that much older than Kim, she did look familiar to Nell.

"Oh!" she said, standing back to let them in. "You're the two officers who came that day. You were so nice. I was afraid to crawl out." She looked from one to the other of them. "Do you remember?"

"You weren't alone," Hugh said with a note of humor. "Nobody with any sense was eager to hop out of hiding just because a strange voice told her to."

"Sit down." She bit her lip. "The futon is more comfortable than it looks. I'm sorry! I don't have much furniture yet. The rent is all I can manage, even with a roommate. Um—" she tilted her head like a bird "—I was surprised no one has come to talk to me before this. I almost called."

"We didn't know you were there," Nell explained. "People got away the day of the shooting before we could take names. From then on, everybody apparently forgot that they'd had a temp that day. Or assumed we knew. And we helped so many people out of the building, we didn't remember everyone individually to correlate later with names."

The dark-haired young woman nodded. "Somebody from Greater Northwest just called to offer me a job last week. I put in an application, like, in June. I guess lots of people have quit?" She made it sound like a question. "But I don't know…"

"They've put in a metal detector at the front door and hired security guards." Hugh flipped open his notebook and took out a pen. "It's probably the safest place in Port Dare to work these days."

"Maybe." She wrinkled her nose, looking even younger. "But still…"

But still, Nell wouldn't have gone back there, either, and she wouldn't have let Kim. The company should have made a fresh start by moving.

"What do you want to know?" asked Irene. "I've been reading everything I could find about that day in the paper. I even bought
Time
magazine when they did an article. It was strange. I kept thinking,
I
was there."
She gave her head a small, bemused shake. "The guy is dead, right?"

"Right," Hugh agreed. "We're just … filling in the blanks. Being sure we know exactly what he did and when. But also—" his expression became grave "—we have some questions about the death of Jerome Ryman. That's where we're hoping you can help us."

Her forehead wrinkled. "Jerome Ryman. He was the grumpy guy in the second office on the left, right? Oh! I mean, am I right? Because left-right sounds funny, doesn't it?"

"We understood you," Nell said with a smile. "And, yes, that was Mr. Ryman's office. Did you speak to him that day?"

"He was mad because I lost a caller." Her expression was that of a small girl who had broken her mother's favorite vase. "You know. I put the person on hold and then hit the wrong button and she was gone. And I don't know if she called back or not. He—I mean, Mr. Ryman—didn't say anything that mean. It was just his voice." She shivered. "It was so … icy. That was one of my first jobs, and they have all these lines, and transferring calls is hard!"

"Did anybody else hear him chewing you out?"

Her face brightened. "Ms. Bissell. She was super-nice, then. She gave him this
look.
It was weird, actually. I didn't feel like she even knew I was there. I mean, I realized she wasn't being nice because I felt bad. It was more like she wanted to get a dig in at him. You know what I mean?"

They agreed that they did.

"So I was surprised when I saw her go to hide in his office." Her forehead crinkled again. "Maybe she trusted him, even if she didn't like him."

There it was, as casual as every meaningless bit of information had been, but this one contradicted an alibi.

So it was Margaret!
Nell thought. Jubilation mixed with the perplexity and even sadness she felt every time she made an arrest. Foolishness she understood; evil, she didn't.

Even without touching Hugh, she felt his muscles harden. His voice had a thread of new tension, even vibrancy, when he said, "Let's back up. Start with the phone call Denise
Peirson
received. Did she tell you about it before she went to
Wen
Gresch's
office to raise the alarm?"

Irene nodded. "I mean, kind of. I heard this note in her voice, and I was looking at her when she hung up. She stood and said, 'That was a friend of mine who works downstairs. She says somebody walked in with a gun and is shooting people.' I followed her."

Irene told much the same story they'd heard before. "Nobody knew what to do, and they kept saying the same things over and over again. You know, like, 'We should evacuate. Better safe than sorry.'" In mimicry, her voice had become portentous. She bit her lip. "About the fourth time somebody made some suggestion—I don't remember what—Mr. Ryman snorted and said, 'I am going to get some work done. The rest of you can suit yourselves.'" She made a face. "He sounded so … so…"

"Scathing?" Nell suggested.

"Yeah! Like that."

"Did you happen to notice anyone's expression in response?" Hugh asked.

"Well, I looked at Ms. Bissell, because of what happened earlier, and she was staring after him like she
hated
him! My mom always says, 'If looks could kill…'" The young woman stopped, horror spreading on her face. "Are you saying … that Mr. Gann
didn't
shoot him?"

"I'm afraid so," Nell said gently.

"Then, later…"

Hugh reined her in, insisting on a chronological progression. The elevator had made that soft dinging sound you hardly ever notice, Irene told them, but this time was as loud as a gunshot.

"People just ran! I went back to my desk, but then I realized how dumb that was, because it's right out there in the foyer. You know? But the elevator doors were opening, and it was too late." Suddenly she was shaking, her gaze fixed just past Nell's shoulder. "I'm crouching under there, thinking, What can I do? I don't hear footsteps or anything. I'm thinking nobody got off after all, and then suddenly, Bang!" Her body jerked as if she were there again. "It was practically on top of me. I thought … I thought maybe I'd been shot. Then I thought, if Denise had gone to her desk,
she'd
been shot. And … and I couldn't stand it!" At last her eyes focused on Nell and then Hugh. She seemed to be begging for understanding. "I know it was stupid, but I just crawled out from under the desk and ran. I thought I'd rather be shot than keep crouching there waiting. I couldn't stand it for another second!"

Hugh made a noise that she seemed to take for encouragement.

"I went like halfway down the hall and into the first open door I saw. I didn't look back until then. I couldn't see the elevators…"

Or Jack Gann's body, Nell realized.

"But I saw Ms. Bissell come out of her office with her purse clutched in her hands. And I thought, I should have grabbed my purse." Irene laughed, a sound on the edge of hysteria, as if even then she had realized the absurdity of such a banal regret. "I thought she must not have found a good place to hide. She went right across the hall to Mr. Ryman's office. I was just backing into the office where I was when I heard another gunshot." The young temp spoke with the eerie matter-of-factness Nell had heard before in survivors. "I hid then. I thought she must be dead, that she shouldn't have shown herself like that. And I wondered why he hadn't gotten me."

Both police officers sat in silence for a moment. Hugh, voice charged, was the first to speak. "Will you testify in court to what you saw?"

"She shot him, didn't she?" Irene Macy looked in bewilderment from one to the other. "That's what I heard. She had a gun in her purse."

"And she took her purse out with her," Nell said, a memory unearthing itself. "I noticed and thought, Women and their purses. But I didn't remember until now."

Hugh stared fiercely at their savior. "Will you testify?"

She gave a small nod. "She shouldn't get away with something like that. He wasn't a very nice man, but to kill him!"

"No," Nell said quietly. "It's not right."

"Miss Macy," Hugh said, "you have been an enormous help. You are by far the most observant witness we've yet interviewed. If I were an employer, I'd hire you in a heartbeat."

Her smile blossomed. "Thank you."

"We'll be in touch." He held out his hand, which she solemnly shook. "I am asking that you not tell anyone what you've told us until we give you permission. Not your mother, your best friend. Nobody. Can you do that?"

She could.

Hugh was exultant
on the drive back to the station. They'd done it! Unbelievable, he thought. He felt his lips pull back from his teeth in a feral grin that probably scared the hell out of his wife, who kept darting glances at him.

At the station, he and Nell met with John and the captain. Nell was excused and sent back to the Evidence Room, to Hugh's regret.

"I shouldn't have let her go with you today. She can't be in on an arrest," Fisher said, shaking his head. "You'd both have to testify in court. I can't have Officer and Officer Mrs. McLean both in the box. Nell … sorry."

She smiled wryly and made her exit.

A warrant to search Margaret Bissell's person, home and office was signed by a judge, and she was shortly found to have been arrogant enough to keep, in the drawer beside her bed, the gun Hugh knew in his gut she had used to murder Jerome Ryman.

As the arresting officer, Hugh went back to the Interrogation Room where she had been left while her house was searched.

She sat in one of the hard-backed chairs with all the possession of the successful businesswoman she was. Her attorney was murmuring in her ear, but her nods were sharp, dismissive.

When faced with what they'd found, she said in the same, frosty voice she'd used since the arrest, "Certainly I possess a gun! I live alone and consider it wise."

"Ballistics will make the determination whether the weapon is the same one used to murder Jerome Ryman," he said easily.

Her lips, pressed together, were white, her face pinched, but she didn't even flinch.

Her attorney interrupted with a blustering insistence on their releasing Ms. Bissell in the absence of evidence suggesting she would commit such a heinous crime. "It's far more likely," he said derisively, "that police incompetence explains the lack of weapon to match the bullet that killed Mr. Ryman. For you to make an arrest based on some foolish young woman's confused testimony is the height of absurdity!"

"Nonetheless," Hugh interrupted, "I'm going to ask Ms. Bissell to again tell me about her movements from the time Denise
Peirson
received the phone call from downstairs. For the record."

Eyes flashing, she lifted her head and said, "I have been cooperative from the beginning and will continue to be, despite this … insane turn of events."

She acknowledged her awareness that she was being
audiotaped
and also that she had the right to remain silent. The original Ice Queen, she repeated the story he had heard before, which included no mention of a detour across the hall to Jerome Ryman's office.

"I might add," she concluded coldly, "that I recall the young woman who claims to have seen me. I rescued her from Jerome's wrath, but could hardly blame him for being annoyed. I dislike the practice of hiring temps, which generally means teenagers barely out of high school—doing them the kindness of assuming they graduated. They have few if any useful skills, and are more trouble than they're worth. In this case, she annoyed a customer. I felt a little sorry for her, until she later fumbled several calls that should have been directed to me." Her nostrils flared. "As flustered as she became then, I cannot believe she did anything but panic once that elevator door opened."