The Innocent Woman

out, slammed the door, said, ‘No.’”
    “And she said, ‘Did you reach him?’”
    “Right.”
    “Is that exactly what she said?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Are you sure she said him ? Or did she use my name?”
    “No.”
    “What about yours?”
    “Huh?”
    “Did she say ‘Tracy’? Or ‘Miss Garvin’?”
    “No. All she said was, ‘Did you reach him?’”
    “That’s a break. What happened then?”
    “I was going to bring her up here, but she didn’t want to come. I said, ‘Why?’, but she wouldn’t say. She was acting real funny. They she says she wants me to come with her. I say, ‘Where?’, but she’s so upset that she can’t talk. She’s practically shaking. She just kind of gestures to me, says, ‘Come on.’”
    “She took you to the office?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Showed you the body?”
    “Uh huh.”
    “She led you right to it? She knew it was there?”
    “Oh yes. She didn’t say anything, but she knew.”
    “Were the doors unlocked?”
    “The downstairs door was unlocked. The upstairs door was ajar.”
    “Just the way I found it?”
    “Right.”
    “Because that’s how you left it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Okay, give me the rest of it.”
    Tracy took a breath. “Okay, we’re in there, we’re in the room, and I’ve seen it and I’m not really feeling great. But I pull myself together and I ask her what happened.”
    “And?”
    “She can’t talk. She starts blubbering, grabs my arm, drags me out of the room. I had to grab her, slap her, try to get her to calm down. All she says is, ‘I, I—’ And she’s gone again.”
    “You ask her if she did it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “She answer?”
    “Not so you could notice.”
    “So when she wouldn’t answer your questions, you got her out of there?”
    “Yeah.”
    “After cleaning up first?”
    “Just the doorknob.”
    “Nowhere else?”
    “That’s the only place I touched.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “That’s all I remember.”
    “What about the petty cash drawer?”
    “What about it?”
    “Did you see it?”
    “No.”
    “Amy didn’t point it out?”
    “She never mentioned it. First I heard about it was when you asked her.”
    “So you were never around that part of the desk. Good. The worst case scenario was somehow or other you left a fingerprint there.”
    “Well, I didn’t. Of course, Amy probably did.”
    “It doesn’t matter. That’s the beauty of sending her back. It accounts for her fingerprints.”
    “Yeah.”
    Steve looked at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “It’s been long enough.”
    “For what?”
    “To kiss it off. Going back there, I mean. We’re at the point where the risks outweigh the advantages. It’s probably more dangerous now to try to cover something up than just let it be. Unless it was really major. Like you suddenly remember leaving the murder weapon next to the body with your fingerprints on it.”
    “What murder weapon?”
    “Exactly. You didn’t happen to roll the body over, did you?”
    “Not that I recall.”
    “Well, neither did I. He’s lying face down, the wound’s in the chest. I didn’t see it, but most likely it’s a gunshot wound. In which case, where’s the gun?”
    “The murderer took it.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    “Are you kidding? The gun can hang him. The smart move is to drop the gun.”
    “Some killers aren’t smart.”
    Steve shook his head. “Bad premise. You start with the idea the killer’s stupid, your theories all collapse. You start using it to explain away everything: maybe he just didn’t think of it; maybe he’s stupid; maybe he had a reason we don’t know about; maybe it made sense to him. Bullshit. You want to figure it out, it’s gotta make sense to you.”
    Tracy stuck out her chin. “Hey, I’m not a first year law student. Spare me the lecture.”
    “Then help me think it out. Why does the killer take the gun?”
    “Because he’s not wearing gloves, so his fingerprints would be on it.”
    “Why doesn’t he just wipe it off?”
    “He doesn’t want to take the time. He’s fired the gun, he’s afraid the sound of the shot will attract someone, he gets the hell out of there.”
    Steve nodded. “Much better. Or, he did ditch the gun, and it’s lying under the body.”
    “There’s a thought. You like that?”
    “Actually, not really. I mean, you shoot a guy, he starts to fall, you realize you killed him, so you throw down the gun under the body before it hits the floor.”
    “That is a bit of a