Page 34 of Hero

The man nodded and mumbled, “Miss Poole.” He sat across from her, making her feel hemmed in left and center.

Justine had been thinking since she’d learned that Kunkel wanted to talk to her about what this moment would be like. So far, she had been right. Next, she thought they would say, “Could you please tell us about the night when you went to the Pinskys’ house?”

The answer she wanted to give was, “I know what you’re doing. You’re supposed to lock me into telling the story to record my exact words and then compare those words with the words I used on the night of the attempted home invasion right after it happened, and then if there is the tiniest difference you can say I’m lying now, or that I was then, depending on which words are worse for me. Let’s skip that and just play over the first recording.” She would not say that. It would change their crafty, subtle manipulation into open hostility in an instant, and the next sixteen hours would be as hellish as they could make them in front of the cameras.

Wright said, “I’m pleased to meet you. The average person never gets into a situation where he has to take on the biggest risk to protect somebody else, so they don’t know what it’s like.” He studied her face. “What happened today?”

She said, “I guess you both know that the night after the thing at the Pinskys’, my boss Ben Spengler got murdered. I’m pretty sure the one they were looking for was me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because since then, a man has been stalking me. He was at the Spengler-Nash building when the night shift—my shift—ended onemorning, broke into my condo and the one belonging to my next-door neighbors the Grosvenors, and turned up at the hotel where I was staying because I was afraid to sleep at home and he tried to follow me. This morning when I went to my condominium building to get some fresh clothes and things, he shot at me. I made it into the lobby and shut the door, so this man forced Art Grosvenor to open the lock so he could get at me and then killed him, probably because he was a witness.”

Kunkel said, “Do you know who this man is?”

“No,” she said. “But I have a picture of him from a surveillance camera mounted in the Spengler-Nash garage. It’s a light-enhanced camera, so it’s a little odd, but I recognized him right away when I saw him.”

The cops looked at each other. Wright said, “Were you planning to show it to us?”

“Of course.”

“When?”

“This morning is my first chance. Until a few minutes ago I was busy trying to live through his latest attempt on my life, so it wasn’t the first thing I thought of. It’s on my computer.”

“Where is your computer now?”

“I don’t need it. I can send the picture to you on my phone.” She reached into her purse.

Kunkel held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”

She sat still.

“What?” he said.

She said, “Since this started, the police have asked for and I’ve given them everything I had to protect myself. They took my firearm—okay, you needed it for the ballistic tests. That was legit. They took my workphone, which not only had all my work information but also lots of other things, including the numbers of people who might be willing to help me stay safe—work friends, clients, and so on. Now you’re working up to taking my personal phone. That will put me in even more danger and you know it. That’s the part that disturbs me—that you know it. Without my phone, I could die today.”

“Send me the picture,” Kunkel said. He sat back in his chair with his arms folded.

Justine found the email with the photographs attached. “What’s the number you want to receive it?”

He recited the same number that was in her phone. After a moment she said, “There. You should have the pictures.”

He took out his cell phone, looked at the first image, scrolled to the next and the next, stood up, and went out of the room, still looking at it.

Justine sat with her purse on her lap for a minute, then dropped the phone into it and set it on the floor by her feet.

Wright said, “Just to be clear, that picture is the same man who shot Mr. Grosvenor this morning?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“And the one who has turned up at other places and followed you.”

“Yes.”

Kunkel seemed to be taking a long time. She glanced at her phone again, then put it back in her purse. She had noticed that the screen said it was twenty-eight minutes after ten. She wondered what could be keeping Kunkel, and then she supposed that could be another police tactic too. It didn’t matter what time it was. Time was theirs, not hers.

The door opened and Detective Kunkel came back in holding a folder, but he did not come to the table or sit down. He kept the door ajar. He said to Justine, “Your attorney just showed up. He’s waiting outside.”He looked down at his folder, as though there were something written on it, but there wasn’t. “What are you waiting for? You’re free to leave. This interview is over.”

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