The Innocent Woman

there in the office, Amy’s too upset to talk, but she keeps pointing to the door. So I opened it.”
    “You polished that doorknob?”
    “Well, I wasn’t going to leave my prints.”
    “Or anyone else’s.”
    “I can’t help that,” Tracy said. “I couldn’t reach you. It was either call the police or get her out of there. Until you heard her story, I wasn’t going to turn her in.”
    “Great,” Steve said. “Was that the only surface you polished?”
    “Yeah, that’s it.”
    “The only evidence you destroyed?”
    “Hey, give me a break.”
    “I’m on your side. It’s the cops who take a dim view. Now, this feeling you have—you didn’t happen to lose your purse? Drop your keys on the floor? Perhaps leave a business card on the top of Fletcher’s desk?”
    “Look,” Tracy said. “This may surprise you, but I’m not enjoying this much.”
    “I’m not either,” Steve said. “I’m trying to jog your memory.”
    “Well, it’s isn’t working. I’m just getting rattled.”
    “So take your mind off it. Do something else.”
    “Like what?”
    “Call Mark Taylor. Get him down here.”
    “What should I tell him?”
    “Nothing specific. Just it’s an emergency and get his ass over here.”
    “What if he asks me why?”
    “You don’t have time to explain.”
    “He’s not gonna buy that.”
    “Well, it happens to be true.”
    Tracy went into the outer office, returned a few minutes later. “He’s on his way.”
    “What about you? You thought of anything yet?”
    “No.”
    “We are rapidly passing the point of no return, where it will be too late to do anything.”
    “I know that.”
    “Okay,” Steve said. He tipped back in his chair, rubbed his head. “Let’s try it the other way around. Forget the time pressure, let’s take it slow and easy, talk it out. Start from the beginning. You’re at home and you get the call.”
    Tracy took a breath. “Okay. She called. Right around eight, like I said. I was reading a book. The phone rang. It was Amy. Hysterical. She had to see you.”
    “This was the first time you called me?”
    “Right. She gave me a number to call back. I called it, told her I couldn’t reach you. She didn’t want to hear it. She wanted your number. I told her I just called your number. She didn’t care, she wanted it anyway, she was gonna call you.”
    Tracy pushed the hair out of her eyes. “So, there was no reasoning with her. I gave her your number.” She put up her hands. “I know I shouldn’t have.”
    “It’s okay,” Steve said. “The least of our worries. You gave her the number, she called up my machine, left a message. What next?”
    “She called back. Hysterical. You weren’t home. Well, she knew that. I’d just told her that. But she wasn’t rational. It was like she had to hear the answering machine herself to believe it. And when she couldn’t get you, she wanted to come to the office.”
    “She wanted you to go to the office?”
    “She thought I was at the office.”
    “Why would she think that?”
    “Because that’s where she called.”
    “What?”
    “Because of the trial,” Tracy said impatiently. “I had call-forwarding on. Because I wasn’t going to be here. I was gonna be in court. And there was no reason to come here after. I had the calls forwarded to my own phone and the answering machine on so I could pick ’em up when I got home.”
    “You don’t have to do that.”
    “Huh?”
    “You can pick up the calls from the office machine from your own phone.”
    “Yeah, I know. But sometimes it fucks up, and—”
    Steve held up his hand. “Hey. Sorry. I’m upset, and I’m not rational. Who gives a damn about the answering machine? Anyway, she wanted to meet you here.”
    “Right. I ran out the door and hopped in a cab.”
    “And?”
    “She was waiting right outside. When the cab pulled up, she actually ran up and opened the door. She said, ‘Did you reach him?’”
    “Oh?”
    “Yeah, right. Like I’d phoned you from inside the cab. I said, ‘No.’ She looked like I’d kicked her in the stomach. She said, ‘Oh god, what am I going to do?’”
    “Did the cab driver hear all this?”
    “I don’t think so. I had the money out and was paying him off when she opened the door.”
    “Then you got out and the cab drove off?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Before or after she said, ‘Oh god, what am I going to do?’”
    “Before. At least I closed the door before that. She asked me about you, I hopped