Maternal Instinct

Sometimes she wished Kim did remember.

In the station parking garage, Nell leaped out of her Subaru and raced across the concrete floor toward the elevator.

Disheveled and breathing hard, she slipped into the room just as the captain began to speak. He saw her, gave her a hard look. A flush of embarrassment joined the heat rushing had already brought to Nell’s cheeks.

Captain Fisher sent the patrol officers out first, then brought the Joplin Building crew up to date, ending with, “Granstrom and McLean, you’ll be with the detectives today. Everyone…do your jobs and do them carefully.”

Had Hugh pulled strings after all? Nell wondered, waiting for him out in the hall.

“What’s up?” she asked quietly, when he joined her.

His jaw flexed. “John chose us,” he said curtly.

“You don’t sound happy.”

His icy eyes met hers. “I’ll do my job, either way.”

She had to scuttle to catch up with his long stride. “Hey!” He didn’t slow down. “Why do you have a burr up your—”

Hugh stopped so suddenly she slammed into the hard wall of his back. He swung around, teeth set, and gripped her upper arms. Eyes glittering, he said, “I knew exactly what you’d think. No, I didn’t ooze up to my brother and beg to be given a choice detail. He came to me. End of story.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You thought.” He released her so suddenly she staggered.

“We have a briefing,” he said unemotionally, and stalked off.

Profane and even obscene descriptions of her new partner presented themselves for her tongue’s pleasure, but she had the self-control not to speak a one. Instead, she marched behind him into a smaller conference room, where John McLean and his partner had charts spread over the large table. Others were crowding in, too.

“Welcome Officers Granstrom and McLean,” Hugh’s brother said, with a brisk nod. “Okay, here’s where we’re at, folks. Four hundred and forty-two people work in the Joplin Building. We’ve managed so far to talk to fifty-four. We need detailed recollections, before they’ve all watched so damn much TV they start telling us what they heard and not what they experienced themselves.”

More nods; everyone knew the tricks memory played.

“We’ve broken them down by where they worked in the building, so that by luck you can track the son of a bitch’s progress down the hall, spot any anomalies. Did he backtrack? Why? It would be good to know whether he targeted individuals, or just shot whoever showed up in his path. Did he track anyone down? If you get someone who wasn’t at her desk, get the story, then pass it on to whichever officer is handling the part of the building where she was during the shooting. Meet here at the end of the day and report anything interesting. Questions?” He looked around. “Then let’s hit the road, folks.”

Nell was getting tired of playing the little woman trailing her man down the halls, but saw no alternative short of making a scene. Why, of all the officers on the Port Dare force, had Fisher assigned her to work with Hugh McLean?

Okay, he was more complex than she’d guessed when she first developed a dislike for him. That didn’t mean she liked him one iota better.

In the car, her riding shotgun again as though it were a given—me man, me belong behind the wheel—he reached for the ignition, then let his hand drop.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I was a jackass up there.”

Okay, he’d surprised her again. “Yes, you were,” Nell agreed.

He gripped the steering wheel, fingers flexing. “I didn’t sleep well.”

With a woman friend, she would have asked why. With him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Nell only nodded.

“I guess you hit a raw nerve, suggesting I’ve gotten where I am because of my brothers’ influence.”

Nell bowed her head and stared fixedly at her hands on her lap. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she admitted. “I was just being…bitchy.”

His glance was tinged with humor. “I bring that out in you?”

Among other things. Heat touched her cheeks again. “Apparently.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll try not to.”

“I’ll do better, too.”

He gave a brief nod, started the car and backed out. She stole a look at his face while he was preoccupied with checking over his shoulder. The earlier tension was missing; his mouth was relaxed, his eyes a more vivid blue than the wintry hue chilled by anger.

How like a man, Nell thought. Situation dealt with, he was satisfied and had moved on. All forgiven and forgotten.

Including, she wondered, the drunken, bawdy interlude in the back seat of his SUV? Had it occurred to him that he hadn’t used a condom? Or did he assume such worries were hers?

Worry did indeed stir like a coiled asp, necessitating a few slow, deep breaths to calm herself. Fate couldn’t be that cruel. She wouldn’t be pregnant. Focus on the job, quit agonizing over nothing.

Thank God on bended knee that Kim never would know how foolish her mother had been. If she ever found out…Nell shuddered. All of those talks about maturity, impulse control, looking to the future, might as well have been given to herself in the shower, to swirl down the drain with the water that had been sluicing her body.

Of course, those very same—no, not lectures, she tried hard not to be autocratic—those very same mother-daughter talks, might be useless anyway. Teenage love, lust and sense of invincibility were powerful opponents to a mother’s word and common sense. What if, right this minute, Kim was letting Colin slip his hand inside that skimpy bikini top, his mouth hot and hungry on hers, his urgently whispered, “Come on, we love each other,” filling her heart with a glorious need to show him how much she loved him?

Nell must have moved, because Hugh asked, “Something wrong?”

She surfaced to see that they were turning into a neighborhood she knew well from patrolling.

“No…yes. I don’t know.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “You were a teenage boy. If you had a girlfriend, did you respect her desire to wait for sex until—oh, not marriage, but until she was older?”

“Respect her for wanting to wait? Maybe.” The car paused at a stop sign, and his eyes met hers. “But I still tried to get down her pants. That’s what teenage boys do.”

She whimpered.

“Your daughter?”

“She’s sixteen. I told you that, didn’t I? She seems to be spending every day with her boyfriend this summer. What can I do?” Nell begged.

“Cuff her and lock the door.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly. “I thought about sending her away to summer camp, but she’s a little old for that.”

“Isn’t she working?”

“Part-time at the library. She’s a page during the school year, too. She didn’t want to quit that to work full-time at some fast-food joint, and I figured, hey, she’s still a kid, let her enjoy one last summer.”

“There was your mistake.” He frowned. “Damn it, I thought Vista Drive was right here.”

She shook her head. “Another couple of blocks. I patrolled this neighborhood for a year.”

“All rentals?” he asked.

“Yup. I got on-the-job training in domestic disturbances. Couple a night, sometimes.”

Not that the neighborhood was a slum. The houses were decent but low-end in price, which meant they were starters for young couples or owned by landlords. Clearly thrown up by one builder, the ranch and split-level houses varied little except by color and orientation—garage doors might be on one side or the other so that bedroom windows didn’t line up. Lawns were already turning brown in a neighborhood where homeowners didn’t bother sprinkling. Most were too busy trying to scratch out a living.

A kid in baggy cargo pants burst from between parked cars on his skateboard. Hugh braked and muttered a curse as the boy gave one push with his foot and rocketed away without any realization of how close he had come to getting hit. Nell saw up the next cul-de-sac that a group of older kids was playing basketball with a backboard on wheels, while younger girls threw pebbles and took turns with a chalk hop-scotch grid drawn on the sidewalk. Now that she was paying attention, there weren’t many adults around, but there were plenty of children: skateboarders in the next cul-de-sac soaring over a jump erected in a driveway, more girls jump-roping, a war with squirt pistols on a front lawn.

Mostly latch-key kids, Nell guessed. Rather like Kim had been for too many years. As she herself had been. Family patterns that played themselves out, generation after generation.

Please not the next one, she prayed.

“Here we go,” Hugh said with satisfaction, pulling to the curb in front of a ranch house with a row of rosebushes blooming beside the driveway.

“I didn’t look at who we’re interviewing,” Nell said. “What floor did we get assigned?”

Hugh showed her the map of the wing of offices on the fourth floor. “Gann’s last stops. We’re to interview everyone working along this hallway, and then the people upstairs where the last victim was, too, if we finish these in time.”

Nell nodded.

On the walk up to the front door, she paused to inhale the heavy fragrance of a huge, fiery red bloom.

The interior of the house was shadowy, but a tinny woman’s voice cried, “How could you? I trusted you!”

Over the ring of the doorbell, the man’s deeper murmur was indistinguishable. Music cued dramatically, followed by the familiar jingle of a television commercial.

A young woman came to the door immediately. She was pretty, no more than twenty-one or -two. A blonde who wore her hair in a ponytail, she wore shorts and a skimpy tank top that outlined high, full breasts.

“Officers. Please, come in.” Her smile wavered. “They said you’d be coming.”

“Thank you.” Narrow-eyed, Nell stole a glance at her partner. He’d damn well better not be checking out their interviewee, who reminded Nell uncomfortably of Kim.

But he only nodded courteously and gestured for Nell to go ahead. Ladies first. She had mixed feelings about his gentlemanly instincts. She was counting on him being chivalrous enough to keep his mouth shut. On the other hand, cops with old-fashioned attitudes generally didn’t like the idea of the little woman under gunfire. Frowning, Nell reminded herself that they’d functioned like a well-practiced team in the Joplin Building.

Watching the young woman turn off the television set, Nell rubbed her temple. A headache, and well deserved. Why in hell was she obsessing about Hugh McLean, she wondered irritably. They were stuck together temporarily. That was all. They could stand each other for a few months. Who cared what made him tick, or what he thought about her?

Stick to your real worries, she advised herself. The unprotected sex she’d had, and a teenage daughter with overactive hormones.

Like her mother’s, apparently.

Nell winced before realizing that Hugh was looking at her.

He raised his eyebrows.

She gave her head a small shake before smiling at the young woman. “You’re Carla Shaw?”

“Yes. I don’t know that I can tell you very much.” She swallowed and then squeezed her hands together. “Um, would you like to sit down?”

“Thank you.”

They chose opposite ends of the couch, facing the TV, while Ms. Shaw sat in an old upholstered rocker.

She rushed into speech, her voice tight with anxiety. “I didn’t actually see very much, you know.”

“That’s fine,” Hugh said, more gently than Nell would have guessed him capable. “We just want to know when you figured out someone was shooting, what you did, whether you saw him at all.”

“I…” She shivered, her face pinched. “I got a phone call from a friend downstairs. Becca is in Accounting. You know, down on the third floor? We’re roommates. Her bedroom is at the end of the hall.” She gestured vaguely. “Only she’s in the hospital. Doctors say she’ll live, but…” A shudder rolled through her body. “Excuse me, I think I’ll get a sweater. I thought it was going to be a hot day, but…” She jumped up and ran from the room.

“Should I follow her?” Nell whispered.

“I think she’ll be back.” Hugh shifted. “It’s already stifling in here.”

Nell nodded. Mid-July, she almost wished the police department had summer-weight uniforms, like the post office did. Except that an officer of the law wouldn’t garner much respect if a pair of shorts showed knobby knees.

Carla came back, looking small inside a baggy sweatshirt. “I’m sorry.”

Hugh’s smile warmed and softened his saturnine face. “Don’t be. You’re still in shock.”

“Maybe.” She bit her lip.

“So, your friend called,” he prompted.

Nell held her pencil poised to take notes.

Carla Shaw’s friend Becca had called and said she heard gunshots and screams and she didn’t know what was happening. She’d let Carla know more when she did. Carla had hurried to the nearest office to tell other people, but she stayed in earshot of her phone. Only Becca didn’t call back. Everybody discussed whether they should phone 911 or what, and finally one of the claims adjusters, a man, of course, had stood.

“Hell, I think I’ll go down there and check it out.”

“I tried to stop him,” Carla said, staring at them with big, haunted eyes. “But he wouldn’t listen. He had to be macho. He went down the stairs. And…um—” her mouth worked “—now he’s dead.”

Nell dropped her notebook and went to the young woman, not so much older than her daughter. Kneeling, she covered her hands with her own. “I’m sorry.”

Tears filled Carla’s eyes. “He was kind of a jerk. But mostly just a guy. You know?”

Nell nodded wordless agreement.

“Why would somebody shoot him?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

Carla freed one hand from Nell’s and wiped her wet cheeks. “We couldn’t really hear anything. Only then the elevator doors opened, and everybody stuck their heads out of the offices, because we thought it must be Kyle.” She was shivering uncontrollably now. “Only it wasn’t. It was that man. He was shooting as he walked out. I had just the one glimpse, and then I ran back in my office and locked the door and squeezed behind some filing cabinets. I don’t know how I was strong enough to move them.”

“Did he come into your office?”

“The glass insert in the door exploded, and I think maybe a spray of bullets hit the filing cabinet, because it jerked—really, almost jumped, like somebody had slammed into it. But I couldn’t see out, and later, when the police came, the door was still locked. So I guess he didn’t bother coming in, even though he could have just reached in and opened the door.”

Her eyes showed that she wondered why. Had she hidden so cleverly he thought no one was in there, or did he not want to bother hunting? Had her prayers to God been answered? Or had she just been lucky?

Nell remembered a story she’d heard once about a soldier in Vietnam who’d awakened one morning and discovered that his entire platoon lay dead around him. Every single man had had his throat slit during the night. Every one but him. He spent his life haunted by the question: why? Why him? Why not the friend who had slept beside him, or the guy he didn’t like, or the captain? Why was he chosen to survive? Did his life have some yet unknown purpose? Or had he been chosen at all?

Carla and all the others would live with some of the same questions.

Hugh did the note-taking. They got the names of the others she had clustered with, two of whom had died under the barrage of submachine-gun fire within seconds. Nell comforted as best she could once they had wrung everything Carla knew from her.

In the end, they left her staring at a soap opera on television, still huddled inside her sweatshirt as though the temperature was sixty instead of eighty inside the small house. Walking silently down the driveway under the hot sun beside a tall, grim Hugh, Nell smelled again the heavy scent of the roses.

They would hear this story again, and again, Nell realized. Today, tomorrow, perhaps for weeks. She knew from experience that by the end of the day, they might be able to hear it and minutes later climb into the car and crack a joke, or talk about dinner plans, or a movie one of them had seen last weekend. They might even think themselves inured, but the horror would be lurking deep in their psyches, the reminder of the sprawled bodies, the acrid scent of blood, the remembered terror on every face.

How would she get through this summer, working this horrific case, worrying about her daughter, worrying about herself? she wondered in a kind of daze. Partnered with a macho jerk who could smile like that?

A man who, insane though the very idea was, would be the father of the unborn child she might be carrying, if the fates chose to teach her a lesson.

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