Page 33 of Hero

She turned, snagged the strap and pulled it off the passenger seat, backed out, and closed the door. “Are we going to the station? I’d be happy to drive myself.”

“It’s not procedure in a case like this.”

“You have somebody to drive my car to the station?”

“That’s not procedure either. There’s a tow truck on its way. Don’t worry, one of the officers will wait for it so your car is safe.”

She went with him to his car and stood aside while he opened the backseat door. She had been expecting the back seat because of his tone. This was all going to be by the book. She extended her hand toward the seat belt, but then imagined the menagerie of microbes that were likely to be on the belt in the back of a police car and thought better of it.

Detective Kunkel said, “Seat belt, please.”

She tugged it across her body and clicked it in place. The tow truck was just coming up the street as they pulled away. She was fairly certain that this towing stuff was really about wanting to search her car without asking permission. There was nothing compromising in it, but this was another of several warnings that any of her dealings with the police could be adversarial from now on, and they were very good at making everything move fast and keeping people from objecting or even thinking clearly until things were accomplished.

She said, “Have your colleagues caught the shooter in my building?”

“Not yet.”

Justine knew that this meant they weren’t going to. He had been in the building, had fired his pistol about four times—no, five—and probably would have even broken down her door to get to her. If he had gotten out and eluded all the cops after that, how could they even recognize him if they saw him? She said, “Do they know the name of the victim?”

Detective Kunkel said, “I’m sorry to say it was your next-door neighbor, Mr. Grosvenor. That’s got to be kept quiet for now, because Mrs. Grosvenor isn’t home and doesn’t know yet.”

Justine admitted to herself that she had guessed it was him, but that her mind had not allowed him as a possibility because she wasn’t ready for it to be him. She was not going to allow that again. All she had was her brain, and there could be no delusions or she was not going to survive.

It was Art Grosvenor. Her killer had made Art open the door to get to Justine and then shot him through the skull. The Grosvenors were the benevolent older couple who had bought their unit at least a decade ago and knew everybody and could show her how to make things work. They invited any newcomer to dinners and barbecues so they could be introduced and feel welcome. That had been why Ally Grosvenor had been able to give a reporter her picture. In a way it had been the same impulse: Justine is such a nice young woman that you should know her too. Justine felt sorry for Art Grosvenor, and now she was also beginning to be heartbroken about Ally.

“Does that hit you hard?” Kunkel said.

“I liked him, and I like his wife. This is going to ruin her life.”

Kunkel paused, then said, “Look, I know you didn’t murder anybody. You were protecting the Pinskys. But we still have to ask you all the logical questions. It’s the way the system works. It’s intrusive and sometimes unpleasant, but it protects the rights of everybody equally. The only advice I can give you is that your answers have to be serious and, above all, complete and true.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have lied anyway.”

“I didn’t think so. It’s just that some perfectly fine people get nervous when the police ask questions, and then they make mistakes.”

“I guess I am nervous,” she said. “There are people hunting me. A man just ambushed me at my condo building, shot at me when I was running to get inside, forced my kind neighbor to unlock the door forhim, and then shot him to death anyway. I guess I’m not at my best. Do you think we should do this at another time?”

“I’m sorry, but I have orders to get this investigation going right away. And now it’s even more urgent. This is a new murder, and the killer is still loose and armed. We have to try to stop him while we still can. That’s to your advantage, the Pinskys’, Spengler-Nash’s, and the victims’.”

“What victims?”

“All the people who have been shot. It’s just a common term in a shooting investigation.”

“Ben Spengler was a victim. Art Grosvenor was a victim. The two men I shot weren’t victims. They were attackers. The common police term might be suspects. Something like that.”

Detective Kunkel nodded, but said nothing. That confirmed for her that he was recording their conversation.

For the rest of the ride to the police station she volunteered nothing. Whenever Kunkel made an attempt to get her to say something she would give him an answer that was as much for his recording as his question was.

“You know, you’re lucky I came in early enough to get your call,” he said. “What were you doing up so early?”

“I like the early morning sunshine.”

When they reached the station, she followed him into an elevator and up to the floor where he worked. The interrogation room was approximately what she had expected it to be—small, a table, cameras mounted in the upper corners, no windows. She supposed the idea was to use the sense of confinement to make the civilian want to get out, at first mildly and later desperately.

Kunkel, in a fair imitation of politeness, pulled out a chair for her, presumably to place her in the spot where she would be best seen in the video. He sat in the chair to her left. A large man came in wearing apale blue shirt and a tie that he wore without buttoning the top button of his shirt.

“This is Detective Wright.”

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