Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

Change by Stephen Wasylyk

The man sprawled on the motel room bed had one of those softly rounded faces that never seem to age until they collapse one day into pouched eyes and sagging jowls, thin brown hair well on its way to disappearing completely. The trousers of the charcoal pinstripe were thrown on the chair over the neatly draped coat, leaving him in an open-collared white shirt with wine-colored tie pulled loose, white shorts, black silk socks, and black shoes.

The hole in the tie, centered like an obsidian tie tack, didn’t match up with the one in the bloodstained shirt.

Not long ago, Hoke Beckett would have stood there burning every detail into his memory banks. Now Nicholson took care of that with his video camera. And better. On tape, the room would remain forever exactly the way it was, every detail fresh whenever he wanted to look at it — in color, from every angle, panoramic and zoomed in and never blurred or distorted by what he might see afterward.

In the new-look Meridian County, that could be anything — so much of anything that it now took twelve detectives to chase it all down while he sat at a desk behind a door lettered CAPTAIN, shuffling papers like the bureaucrats in the county offices above him and giving advice, neither of which he felt born to do.

He stepped out of the room and unleashed Nicholson with a wave. Where once the forensic genius had done everything himself while happily humming Bach, even he had been forced to acquire assistants.

That Lincolnesque figure hesitated only long enough to glare at two of them as they started to follow. He, like Beckett, would have his five minutes alone with the corpse and remember slower, happier days.

Spocker, saved from being mistaken for a balding, gray-suited, slightly overweight businessman by the gold lieutenant’s badge clipped to his breast pocket, held up a blue-bordered plastic I.D. card.

“Nothing in his pockets except this, Hoke.”

The man was younger in the photo. His name was Cyrus Nelson. The company logo was a large M, a smaller T tucked under the v of the M.

“Meridian Technology. Three miles down the road,” said Spocker. “Can’t figure if it was overlooked or left behind so that we could identify him. Not that we needed it. We have his car.” He motioned toward a late-model dark blue Olds Cutlass. “Since he worked for MT, he lived around here, so why did he check into a motel room at ten in the morning as Peter Cornwall of New York?”

Punctuated now and then by the deafening roar of a straining semi, the rubbery whir of the cars passing on the highway was unending, high midday sun flashing from sloped rear windows as they entered a slight curve beyond the one story motel. It was one of a low budget, no frills chain which had no intention of competing with the towering Holiday Inn next door, catering instead to touring families stretching dollars and a host of sales reps making calls on the high tech firms in the new industrial parks in the area, a place to freshen up when they arrived and make phone calls from at the end of the day, and an opportunity to pad expense accounts.

“Who are you giving this to?” asked Beckett looking around.

Spocker seemed a little angry. “I’m taking this myself.”

Understandable, thought Beckett. No matter how well it was explained away, the story would always leave one thought with a great many hearers: Undressed, wasn’t he? Hah. Who do you think he was meeting there? His wife? The impression would never be completely eradicated, and to Spocker, destroying a man’s reputation was on the same level as killing him.

“People are in and out of this place like K-Mart during a sale,” said Spocker, “so I’m leaving Gina Dalmaccio here to make sure we don’t miss anyone while she checks out tag numbers—”

Beckett lifted a hand. “Tell me later. Tolley and I have a council budget meeting in half an hour.”

At two in the morning, the Municipal Building would have been a leisurely fifteen minutes away. At this hour, only the rotating light on his car roof would get him past the traffic piled up at each intersection in time. One day, he thought, we’re going to have a traffic jam that will spawn a hundred thousand T-shirts lettered “I survived the Great Meridian County Gridlock.”

Tolley was now called Chief of County Police Services. For a change, he was presenting his case to the county commissioners without raising his voice, getting red in the face, or waving his arms too much. His hair was grayer, his eyebrows shaggier, and he always ended his conversations with Beckett with, “One more year, Hoke, and I’m gone.”

The politicians had chortled as they considered the expanded tax base, but they’d ignored the costs — jammed roads and thinned-out services as the lush farm fields became asphalt plots and meadows sprouted condominiums and houses for the people who worked in the buildings on the asphalt plots, all constructed of dark brown brick with tinted windows in a conspiracy of bad taste and speedy construction that extended to the shopping malls. Enormous, undistinguished, windowless piles of brick plopped down in the center of enormous parking areas studded with grass islands where only weeds grew and saplings fell victim to teenage expressionism — yet none of it as bad as the businesses like the motels, restaurants, and car dealerships lining the highways.

Meridian County, once green and peaceful, was now a great deal less green, and peaceful no longer. Many of the birds were gone, along with the small animals — and a growing number of the large ones called humans who had originally moved here to escape what was now engulfing them. Like Crystal Carpenter, the retired diva, who had watched as bulldozers flattened the hilltop across the small valley.

I’m out of here, Hoke. Damned if I’ll spend my declining years looking at the rear of ugly brick buildings, screened by shrubbery or not. I’ll know they’re there. One last drink together, and come visit me because I’m surely not coming back to visit you.

Tolley had told the council again and again that the police in the small townships and boroughs were overwhelmed, because those birds and trees and wildflowers and small animals didn’t commit crimes — if you discounted moles destroying lawns and raccoons having a midnight ball with trash, neither of which were covered by the criminal code — and the county had to face up to its new responsibilities.

The politicians always pointed to last year’s statistics and said it really wasn’t all that bad now, was it. To be a politician, Beckett thought, you had to be born looking backward.

But the urbanization of Meridian County hadn’t driven Beckett to the sixteen hour days and sleeping in the office again. That had taken the departure of Toni Ewing — moving, oddly enough, away from peace and quiet to New York, teaching piano now at Juilliard instead of in her living room in the small house down the road from the diva’s estate.

Adding the largest stone of all to the pack on Beckett’s back. The one that had his knees quivering.

Tolley was finishing, about to turn it over to Beckett.

He considered beginning his presentation with, “Now listen, you stupid bastards—” but that just might be unwise. As far as he knew, they were all legitimate.

As the courthouse clock solemnly bonged the end of the working day, Spocker slumped in the chair in Beckett’s office looking like a glassy-eyed victim of too many Chamber of Commerce committee meetings.

“Nelson was vice-president-comptroller at MT. His wife said he left for work as usual, even though he’d been up half the night. He was in his office when his secretary, Miriam Abernathy, arrived at eight thirty. At nine thirty he left, carrying his briefcase — not an attaché, one of those big heavy ones. He didn’t say where he was going. She reminded him he had a company meeting at eleven.”

“So he checked into a motel a half hour later,” said Beckett. “Supposedly for a little relief from strain and tension.”

“Sure. For that he needed the briefcase. Even if that scenario had been handled better, few people at MT would have bought it. They’d seen how he reacted to the short, tight skirts waggling around the office. Never a flicker of interest. To him, a computer printout was more exciting. When he didn’t make the meeting, his secretary’s first thought was automobile accident. Dougherty, on the desk, took her call, but he had no way of knowing, of course, that the dead man in the motel was the one she was looking for.”

They sat silent for a few minutes.

“Something bothering you?” asked Beckett.

“The wife. Held up only long enough for a few questions. Luckily, I talked to the woman next door first and took her with me. The house is set well back, Hoke, but I could still hear her screaming when I reached the street. Not the first time, I know, but it always leaves you feeling you could have handled it better.”

“Anything from Gina?”

“No one noticed anything unusual. I’m not surprised. The men all talk, look, and dress alike, drive the same type car. The women too. Right down to what they wear when they jog before breakfast. To stand out, you’d have to wear a loincloth and have hair to your knees. You know what I mean.”

There had always been some sort of mold for people in a given occupation, but during the last few years, whatever little touches of individuality there once were had all but disappeared.

“That tells you something, anyway. No one heard the shot?”

“The slug is from a .32. Nicholson hasn’t identified the piece yet. No casing in the room, so the odds say it was a revolver. Wasn’t too loud, and if it was fired as a semi went by— The room on one side was empty. The family from Ohio who had the other were out to breakfast.”

“So Gina’s day produced nothing.”

Spocker grinned. “Not exactly. She has so many dinner invitations, she can eat free until Christmas.”

Beckett punched the extension number of Nicholson’s basement lab.

“Anything?” he asked.

“A hole in the man’s tie and shirt, created by the same bullet, and powder residue on his coat lapels.”

In the background, Beckett could hear an organ playing the inevitable Bach, the deep, vibrant notes probably showering dust from the steam pipes.

“If you don’t tell me something I don’t already know, I’m coming down there with the largest, most powerful magnet I can find and pass it over all your tapes.”

“No point in being nasty, Hoke. Were you aware it is impossible to remove a man’s pants without leaving fingerprints on a smooth leather belt? I have what appears to be a partial thumbprint that isn’t his. Not enough to go to the files, and useful only for comparison if you find someone. It is also, I suspect, not feminine. Now leave me alone. I have other things to ponder.”

Beckett told Spocker about the print.

“I still don’t get it,” said Spocker. “We’d have to be stupid not to suspect he was fully dressed when he was killed.”

“Maybe the killer made it up as he went along, one of these people who believe every man goes through life meeting hookers in motel rooms at all hours of the day and night.” Beckett leaned back in his chair. “I’m more concerned with the briefcase. Why wasn’t it there? Generally they hold nothing of value, are too much trouble to get rid of, and are a link to the killing. Something inside he wanted?”

Spocker rose. “I’ll talk to Miriam Abernathy again. A good secretary is supposed to know what her boss carries in his briefcase along with his lunch.”

Framed by the window, the blue sky called to Beckett, held captive in the office all day. Even a convict gets a turn around the yard.

“Go home to the wife and kids. I’ll talk to her. What kind of woman is she?”

“A nice lady. Couldn’t figure out why any man would divorce her.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but since I’ll be talking to her in her apartment, Gina’s coming, too.”

Gina was tall, more skinny than slim, a few strands of gleaming brown hair falling over her forehead, the rest parted and caught in the back with a barrette. In a blue suit and white blouse, all she needed was an attaché case to look like one of the female reps at the motel. Her face was bony, her nose a little too prominent, her soft brown eyes large and wide, her lips full. Contemplating those eyes and lips across a I small table could make a man forget what was on his plate, thought Beckett, which accounted for the dinner invitations.

Beside him in the car she sat silent, evaluating what the newest detective could or could not say to the captain.

“Go ahead,” he said. “All I can do is drop your evaluation report one notch.”

“Since the department frowns on overtime except in case of disaster, why am I here?”

“You are a female—”

“So I’ve been led to believe, but I’m surprised, captain. You don’t have that kind of reputation.”

“Lone male officers interviewing lone female witnesses in their apartments—”

“Ah. Just a shield against false accusations and litigious lawyers. And here I thought it was me. You don’t know what that does for my ego.”

Beckett grinned. “There is also the matter of vibes. Spocker says she’s a nice lady. So, probably, will I. You may think differently.”

She considered that as he turned into the apartment complex, waiting until he parked.

“Something tells me you don’t need any help at all in reading a woman, captain.”

“The gutters of history are filled with the bodies of men who thought they were good at it.”

Her voice scaled upward. “The gutters of history?”

“Say goodbye to ten points on your evaluation report,” he said.

Miriam Abernathy fitted the mold for executive level secretaries — the right height, the right weight, attractive without being too noticeable; late thirties, probably; radiating competence and good taste reflected in the apartment furniture and furnishings. She wore tight jeans and a loose sweatshirt, gold earrings dangling below the short, when-you-look-good-we-look-good blonde hair.

He couldn’t define or identify it, but something reminded Beckett of Toni Ewing as he sat across from her, Gina half turned toward her on the sofa.

The coffee in the cup was almost gone when he asked:

“Just exactly what does Meridian Technology do, Mrs. Abernathy?”

“We produce a very specialized component which is assembled into certain Air Force radar equipment by our parent company.”

“Any particular reason for the meeting this morning?”

“No. The weekly evaluation of the company’s progress.”

“Nelson plan to bring up anything special?”

She reached for his cup. “I wouldn’t know.”

Beckett sensed evasion and took her wrist. The skin was cold.

“I think you do.”

She didn’t move.

“The man left at nine thirty. He had to be back by eleven. Yet he took his briefcase along.”

“He always took his briefcase when he left the. office.”

“Not always. Only when he needed it. The briefcase held something he intended to show someone at a meeting — a meeting in a motel room to keep it secret from everyone in the company. When Lieutenant Spocker told you he was dead, you knew why, but you never said a word. I think you’re protecting someone.”

She stared down at the cup.

Gina rose and began pacing up and down behind the sofa.

“I’ll give you one candidate. You.”

Surprised, the woman turned to look up at her.

“Not easy,” said Gina. “You start by pounding a typewriter, and you slip in the specialized college courses at night and learn how to dress, and maybe you catch someone’s eye and you start moving up when he does. Along the way, you see and hear a great many things because of his position, but you’re expected to keep your mouth shut unless you want to go back to the typewriter, which is what you’re sure will happen if you tell us what it was all about. How many years go down the drain along with the nice salary?”

Her voice was a whisper. “Fifteen.”

“You’re sweating, lady. Generally when a boss goes, so does his secretary, but you could be hoping that if you demonstrate loyalty above and beyond the call of duty, someone there will make a place for you. You’re conning yourself into the sack, honey, even though you know that when this quiets down, you’ll be yesterday’s romance.”

Gina paused.

“No,” she said softly. “This is one time you can’t be kicked out of bed with a thank-you-ma’am. It has to be more permanent. Good item for the news... ‘and today, in a bizarre coincidence, Miriam Abernathy, personal secretary to Cyrus Nelson, the executive at Meridian Technology who was found shot to death in a motel room, died in...’ you fill it in. Car accident, suicide, apartment burglary, mugging. A great many things can happen to a woman living alone. Neither of us can afford to forget that.”

The woman’s face was as white as the porcelain coffee cup.

Beckett knew he couldn’t have talked to her like that. Not in that tone, not in that mutual viewpoint of the everyday world, two sisters beneath the skin.

He rose. “Now that we know what to look for, Mrs. Abernathy, we really don’t need you. I suggest you retain an attorney.”

Gina smiled at her. “In case you don’t know what he means, I’ll explain. I’ll be back with a warrant charging you with every damned thing we can think of in connection with Nelson’s killing. I’ll enjoy that. He probably treated you well, and I can’t stand a woman who rolls over in the name of financial security.”

She followed Beckett, turning at the door.

“Just hope I get back to you before the guy who killed your boss.”

She slammed the door.

Beckett led her a few feet down the corridor. “Take it easy. You’re dealing with a frightened woman. Right now you’re young enough to stand up and spit in anyone’s eye, mine included, without giving it a second thought. Twenty years from now, you may still spit, but you’ll think about it first.”

She cocked her head at him. “As I said, you really didn’t need me along. You had it worked out before we got here.”

“Not entirely. If he was killed for what was in the briefcase, she had to know it, so I wondered who she was protecting. It never occurred to me it could be herself.”

“Hurray for me, but it looks as though I screwed the whole thing up.”

He shook his head. “You simply hit her with too much too fast.”

He led her back to the apartment door. “Let’s try again.”

She pressed the bell.

Miriam Abernathy opened the door. Her eyes were red, her cheeks wet.

“I was about to call you,” she said.

They took her in so she could dictate her statement.

Nelson, she said, had waved a fistful of computer printouts at her and told her he’d come up with something that could send someone to jail. She had no idea what he was talking about and still didn’t. She thought he intended to bring it up at the meeting and was surprised when he walked out an hour later. When Spocker told her he’d been shot in the motel room, it never occurred to her he’d been killed for those printouts. After all, the computer could churn those out by the hundreds — until she realized that his set had to show notes he’d made. It finally dawned on her that to avoid an explosion at the meeting, he’d gone to the motel room to meet whoever he’d said could be going to jail to allow him to defend himself or resign in the true tradition of networking executives. But it was all theory. No proof. And since it implied someone at the company was a killer, in addition to somehow being dishonest — well, that was not only an insult to their exemplary executive staff but would surely bring in the FBI and Air Force investigators, and who knew what they’d come up with?

She’d be rocking the boat. Out. And jobs at her level at her age, particularly for boat rockers, were hard to find.

When she’d finished, Gina looked as though she’d swallowed something distasteful, but they couldn’t poke any holes in the story and Beckett asked who had been missing at ten o’clock from the plush, carpeted offices of the executive level.

Andrews, the president. And Gower, the vice-president in charge of production. Both had arrived shortly before eleven.

What she knew wasn’t that dangerous, but given the close relationship between a secretary and the man she worked for, the killer could assume otherwise. A uniformed man would remain outside her apartment all night.

Standing at his window, the office deserted except for Kern, who was catching phone calls, Beckett looked out at the virtually empty streets. The town was no longer the center of activity. That had moved to the malls, where parking was ample and free.

Due largely to Gina, they weren’t doing too badly. She and Spocker would pick it up again in the morning. If whoever killed Nelson was sleeping soundly, the chances were it would be the last time.

The briefcase had yet to make an appearance, but all the trash disposal companies were keeping an eye open as they picked up Dumpsters, and during his three hour stint, a popular local talk show host had urged his audience to do the same.

Beckett’s mind backslid into areas he’d been trying to avoid — like what he and Toni might be doing if she hadn’t left, dredging up memories that would never go away and could only be walked off like one too many shots of scotch. Damned if he’d go that route. He’d been down it after his divorce and before he met Toni and discovered he didn’t really like the taste of liquor, no matter how highly extolled as a panacea for anyone in that position.

As he passed through the office, Kern’s head with its closely cropped black hair lifted. “Finally through for the day, captain?”

“Going for a walk.”

“You’ll get mugged.”

“I hope so,” said Beckett.

Kern stroked a brown jaw and watched him go. Muggers weren’t noted for a high level of intelligence, but one who would try to mug Beckett since Toni had left was not only stupid but had run out of luck. Having been there himself, Kern imagined he could feel Beckett’s pain, left behind like the wake of a ship.

“Gower was sitting in a dentist’s chair,” said Spocker. “Andrews said his wife was away and he’d gotten off to a late start, had some things to do and was concerned only about being in time for the meeting.”

“He’s too dumb to be the man we want,” said Gina.

Spocker grinned. “What she means is we checked at his house. His wife is away all right, but Gina had a heart-to-heart with the housekeeper.”

“When his wife is away, he spends the night at his girlfriend’s apartment,” she said. “Her name is Keri with an i, and any man spending the night with her is bound to get a slow start in the morning. Some may be unable to move until noon.”

“Very humorous,” said Beckett.

“If you were in my shoes, you’d find it discouraging. I don’t doubt the dentist, but I could have trouble with someone named Keri with an i, whose real name is probably Delores. Without that—” She lifted her hands.

“Get a list of Nelson’s friends in the company from Mrs. Abernathy,” said Beckett.

Spocker nodded. “He may have told one of them something.”

“Maybe, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. We assumed it had to be someone on Nelson’s level or above because he met him in that motel room rather than drop a bomb at the meeting. Anyone below him wouldn’t have received so much consideration. Unless—”

“It was a friend,” said Gina. “I can see that.”

When Beckett looked up, they were gone. Four hours’ sleep last night. Five the night before. Yet his mind still functioned. He wondered if the police department in a small town somewhere could use a former captain of detectives who didn’t need sleep.

Finding him settled back in his chair, eyes closed, not hearing them enter the office, wasn’t new to Spocker. Neither were the pouched eyes, stubbled face, open collar, and loose tie. This was classic BBT — Beckett Before Toni. She’d gently eased him back into the human race, but with her gone, he was drifting out of it again.

He rapped on the desk. Beckett’s eyes opened.

“Don’t say it,” he said.

Spocker shrugged. “I save my lectures for my kids. They listen. We thought you’d like to know. The friends Abernathy gave us were all at their desks except one, and he went on vacation last week.”

Beckett placed his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. There were times when you knew damned well you were right no matter how many doors closed in your face. Before he’d dozed off, he’d been looking at a rap sheet, a fingerprint card stapled to the corner. It was still there, bracketed by his elbows.

“In order of rank,” he said, “you’re dumb, Gina; you’re dumber, Spocker, and I’m Chief Dummy. We all know the genius has a partial thumbprint and no one works at MT without being fingerprinted—”

He wasn’t asleep when Spocker called.

“Nicholson identified the print as belonging to the guy on vacation. Name is Millard Humble. He was a purchasing agent.”

“Was?”

“We’re at his apartment. His vacation became permanent when someone shot him last night with a .32, maybe two or three o’clock according to the M.E., and no, there’s no briefcase here.”

Spocker slumped in the chair as usual. Gina sat on the windowsill, jacket off, arms folded around her. Beckett reflected that she really wasn’t that skinny, after all.

“Too many loose ends,” said Spocker. “Nothing hangs together, Hoke, you know?”

There was always a sort of logic. Weird sometimes, but still there. You needed a key to understand it, the way you needed a formula to solve a math problem.

Nelson over Humble multiplied by .32, divided by computer printouts plus the briefcase equals — what? A piece was missing.

“Either of you want to hear something bothering me?” asked Gina.

“Physically, emotionally, or socially?” asked Beckett.

“Mentally. Like Miriam Abernathy. The fountainhead from which all information flows.”

She’d never made a secret of not liking Abernathy, but wasn’t that why he’d taken her along?

“All we have is her word for almost everything. What Nelson said. The computer printouts. The briefcase. What happens if we take all of that away?”

“We don’t have a damned thing,” said Spocker.

“No, lieutenant. We have an entirely new case. One built around what she told us as a cover for what really happened. I’d like to spend a few hours looking behind the front we’ve seen.”

Spocker, who had spent more time with her than Beckett, gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

“Go,” said Beckett.

As his body couldn’t be denied sleep indefinitely, neither could it be denied food. He sat in the restaurant across from the courthouse, sipping his second cup of coffee after the flounder fillet. Fish is brain food, they said. Okay. I can no longer walk these streets, drive these roads, sit parked staring at the house where Toni lived. I can no longer stay here or work here. It was as simple as that. Go to work, flounder.

Gina found him there.

“You can tell me to get lost until you’re finished, captain—”

“Sit down and have some coffee.”

He’d been right. Staring at those eyes and lips across a small table could make a man forget what was on his plate.

“Maybe the lieutenant should hear this. I don’t want him to think—”

“If he was your partner, yes. He isn’t. He took you along because you’re the newest on the squad and the odd man out. He won his spurs a long time ago, so he isn’t going to worry about sharing in any glory your freelancing might turn up. What’s the story on Abernathy?”

“I read her all wrong. She has about as much reason to worry about financial security as Princess Margaret, and even Meryl Streep would envy that acting she laid on us last night. I stopped when I reached a net worth of three hundred thousand. She didn’t inherit it, and she didn’t get it from her ex-husband, and anyone who believes she acquired it through frugality and wise investing is an ideal customer for junk bonds. Furthermore, no way she’s living a cloistered existence, so I asked who the office gossips had her down for. Try the recently deceased Millard Humble. Very odd she should have a close relationship with the two men we’ve found dead, so I asked the question no one thought to ask. Where was she yesterday morning at ten? No one seems to know. Then I called Peters, who played sentry outside her apartment last night. Could she have left through the service entrance? His exact words were, hey, I wasn’t in bed with her, you know. I didn’t tell him how lucky he was.”

They come along once in a blue moon, thought Beckett, the ones who hear the little warning bells and keep digging.

“Where is she now?”

“She was at the office all day, working with the man taking over for Nelson. I suppose she’s at her apartment now. I think the only reason she’s still here is because a sudden departure wouldn’t look good.” She pushed her coffee cup aside. “Ever since I heard it, I’ve had a very unladylike word for that story of hers.”

“Go ahead. I’m not easily shocked.”

A light danced in the brown eyes and her lips twitched.

“Hogwash,” she said.

Beckett smiled. “Stake out her apartment, but don’t spook her. If she walks out, bring her in, even if she says she’s going shopping. With that kind of money, she doesn’t have to take anything with her. She can afford to buy everything new.”

He called in Spocker and together they juggled the men around to concentrate on MT and Miriam Abernathy. Three hours later, after much grumbling by Tolley about the overtime, he pulled up behind Gina’s car and handed her a warrant.

“We put it together with the cooperation of the people at MT. Spocker will be here shortly with a search warrant, but since you zeroed in on her first, she’s all yours. I’ll be your backup.”

If the lights in the parking area hadn’t been on, her grin would have been a good substitute.

They walked toward the door.

“Just the two of us?”

“We’re not dealing with a crazed mass murderer here, just a greedy woman who set up a fake corporation that was issued checks for supplying nothing at all, and made it work because she was sleeping with the man who issued the purchase orders and was the secretary for the one who issued the checks. We think that Nelson realized what Humble was doing, but had no idea she was in on it, so when she asked him to meet Humble — give the light of her life a break — Mr. Nice Guy Nelson went along. As nearly as we can figure out, there was a period of about forty-five minutes when no one saw her in the offices. She probably went to the motel, even though no gate guard remembers seeing her leave. They have a bad habit of looking at the bumper parking permit instead of the car and the occupant. She probably wanted to be at the meeting, too. Humble killed Nelson and she very likely slipped out last night and killed Humble so he couldn’t blow the whistle on her before she took off with the money. I don’t think she’ll be any trouble. When you hand her the warrant, she’ll probably faint when she thinks of how close she came.”

“Not her,” she said grimly. “She’s never fainted in her life.”

Abernathy didn’t faint. She didn’t even turn white when Gina told her she was under arrest.

Beckett stepped forward with the handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t bother reading me my rights. I have to say this. He could have gone along, just let us resign. We’d have gone away and none of this would have happened. If it had been Andrews or Gower or one of the others, that’s what he’d have done. The corporation never prosecutes one of them. They’re simply let go. Bad publicity, they say. Destroys confidence in the corporation. Pushes down the price of shares. Penalizes the innocent stockholder. In reality, they’re simply protecting each other. Never call them dishonest or thieves. They’re guilty of bad judgment. The money wasn’t that important. Spread out over five years, it doesn’t begin to compare with the big bonuses and stock options they give each other and the golden parachute deals they arrange. I couldn’t see why what’s all right for them wouldn’t be all right for us, but no, he insisted he was going to prosecute.”

Gina glanced at Beckett before saying, “Probably all true, but think how much better it would have sounded from the witness stand if you hadn’t killed him. A jury of your peers might have even given you a round of applause. To make it worse, you had to kill Humble—”

“An accident,” she said. “The gun was supposed to be in the briefcase when he gave it to me. I wanted to keep them both in the trunk of my car because no one would ever look for them there—”

Except Gina, thought Beckett.

“—and when it wasn’t, I had to know why. He wanted to get rid of it himself, he said, but a plan is a plan. When I tried to take it from him, it went off.”

Flinty and sharp-edged, her voice suddenly turned dull and soft. “Why do you think I’m telling you all of this? With Millard gone, it no longer matters. I might as well be dead.”

Gina glanced at Beckett again.

“You must have known removing his clothes would fool no one,” he said. “Why bother?”

“Anything to add to the confusion.”

That hadn’t been the reason. Let the psychiatrists probe for the real one — something to do with love or hate she didn’t even realize herself. Want to make a man look ridiculous? Take away his pants — a situation always good for a laugh.

“You’d have been better off not mentioning the briefcase.”

She shrugged. “We all make mistakes. I thought it would add credibility to what I was telling you.”

The jacket to the skirt and blouse she was wearing was lying on the seat of a small chair, as though thrown there when she came in.

Beckett motioned toward it and stepped forward, the cuffs dangling from his hand. “Put it on.”

He’d known the .32 would turn up in the search of the apartment. He didn’t expect it to turn up in her hand as she spun. Damn!

He lunged, underhanding the cuffs toward her head, following through with his fist — hitting home just as she fired — scent she was wearing overwhelmed by burned gunpowder — breath gone in a huge gasp, lungs paralyzed as she catapulted back into the wall — legs suddenly rubbery — thinking as he fell that this might be the answer to everything.

He ended on his hands and knees, straddling her. His breath came back. Pain exploded. He grimaced at a white-faced Gina.

“Remember the gutters of history,” he said.

Fully dressed, he stood at the window. The hospital was new, built on a hill overlooking the valley, green lawn sloping toward a stand of trees beyond which five yellow brick condominium towers rose, the complex so huge that it wasn’t unusual for the people who lived there to have a ten minute walk to their cars. Explain the logic of that for fifteen hundred a month, he thought.

Gina appeared at the door, riding herd on the young nurse pushing the inevitable wheelchair.

“Take that thing away,” he said.

The nurse looked at Gina. “The rules—”

“Don’t give me a hard time, captain. I volunteered for this.”

Spocker had told him she’d insisted on it. Even though they’d both been caught flat-footed, someone else might have come to him weepy, apologetic, and with excuses. She hadn’t, but Spocker had also told him he’d tom up three resignations before convincing her he could destroy them faster than she could type them up.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you never to volunteer for anything? Let’s go.”

“Just follow,” she told the nurse. “We’ll scoop him up when he collapses.”

In the car, she said, “Thought you’d like to know. Abernathy won’t go to trial for quite a while now that the psychiatrists have hold of her.”

It might have been when he opened his eyes in the recovery room, or even the first day he’d sat up, but somewhere in there, he’d realized the pain of Toni’s departure was gone. He couldn’t buy the obvious — Beckett alive — Beckett on the brink — a grateful Beckett alive again with a new perspective. No, thank you. That wasn’t it.

He’d awakened one night in the quiet of the hospital, puzzled by the resurrected memory of a split second of satisfaction when his fist hit home. He lay there pursuing that — he’d never hit a woman in his life — couldn’t imagine doing it — much less enjoying it, even though he’d had no choice — until it came together in the silence and the dark. Not a resemblance to Toni, but the same scent; perfume or whatever. Not Abernathy putting a bullet into him. Not Abernathy he was hitting.

Toni Ewing.

Change was inevitable. He’d known he’d get over her, as much as one ever did, but Abernathy had accelerated the process the way the high tech firms had accelerated Meridian County’s, and if no one minded, he was just selfish enough to be grateful for one and not the other, thank you.

“Strange that I didn’t like her from the moment I saw her,” Gina said. “I’m not like that.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She did me a favor.”

“Oh, fine. Mind if I lodge a complaint here? You’ll probably never let me forget it was my fault you were shot, but she puts a hole in you and you become Mr. Forgiveness.”

“It wasn’t your fault, I forgive you, and shut up.”

She glanced at him. “You know, you look much better shaved, without those bags and those bloodshot eyes. The clean shirt doesn’t hurt, either.”

He smiled. “Buttering up the brass won’t help your evaluation report.”

She laughed. She had a good, solid, soft laugh. Not giggly or forced or harsh.

“Just remember the reason your men in the gutters of history ended there, Beckett.”