about the possibility that the police were capable of just showing up that afternoon regardless of Popper’s work, and in the end they compromised on Thursday afternoon. Popper’s voice came over the line as brisk to the point of coldness. She made no pretense at being upset over her employee’s death; made no bones about the fact that she had neither liked nor much respected him.
“Frankly,” she told Kate, “I think he would’ve quit before too much longer. Either that, or I’d have been forced to fire him. Oh, he was good enough at his job, but he was one of those men who just can’t deal with having a woman giving him orders. He’d alternate between trying to flirt and trying to treat me as one of the guys—you know, a dirty joke to see what you’ll do and then getting all righteous if you don’t laugh. I didn’t know about his history until I’d been here a couple of weeks, and it made sense. It also made me very nervous, wondering what he’d do if he got angry at me. I know that if he’d shown up at my house one night, I sure as hell wouldn’t have let him in. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”
Kate thanked the woman for calling back, and went back to typing up the endless reams of reports and interviews that constitute investigative work. Half an hour later, her phone rang. She picked it up, thinking it would be another reporter wanting a quote (although interest was beginning to wane, thank God).
“Martinelli,” she said brusquely.
“Kate? Oh, God, I’m glad I—oh, Kate, I don’t know what—”
“Who is this?” Kate demanded. Her voice cut through the woman’s panic like a knife.
“Roz. This is Roz. Oh, Kate, look. I really need you. Need to talk to you, I mean. Can you—”
“Roz, what is it? Has something happened to Maj—or the baby?”
“No, no,” she snapped impatiently, as if Kate were being rather stupid. The cool annoyance made a startling contrast to her agonized voice an instant before. “It’s really too much to go into on the phone. Can you come here?”
“Now? Where are you?”
“At the church. Kate, can you come?”
Kate stifled a sigh.
“Okay, Roz. Let me just finish what I’m doing and I’ll be there within an hour.”
“Thanks,” she said, and hung up. Kate stared at the phone, wondering what would reduce calm, competent Rosalyn Hall to a state of gibbering rudeness.
It was not panic—Kate saw that the instant she walked into the church office fifty minutes later. She had never before seen Roz Hall consumed by fury, so she did not at first recognize the body language of the people in the outside office as fearful, merely seeing the tension in their faces and the apprehension in the white-eyed glances they cast at the closed door. A raised voice in monologue came from Roz’s office, and Kate paused to ask the young man sitting at the desk marked (humorously, Kate hoped) secretary if she could go in.
“If you really want to,” he said ominously.
“What’s happened?”
“Oh, she’ll tell you,” he replied.
One of the cluster of women in the other corner muttered, “You mean there’s someone in the City who hasn’t heard yet?” The comment sparked a flare of nervous and quickly damped-down laughter. Kate marched over to the closed door, rapped on it briskly and, without waiting for permission, turned the knob and walked in.
Roz Hall stood bent over the telephone on her old wooden desk, wearing her clerical collar, a suit that meant business, and a clenched look of absolute rage. She jerked upright at Kate’s unceremonious entrance, dragged her fingers through her hair, and barked into the phone, “Never mind. I’ll take care of it myself,” before slamming it down on the base.
Roz glared down at the quivering phone for several intense seconds. Then, with an enormous effort, she gathered up the energies that were racing through her and turned them on Kate—who very nearly stepped back under the impact of Roz’s concentrated outrage until the minister suddenly and unexpectedly smiled, and all the murderous antagonism in the room flipped back on itself and slipped away into its box. Kate even caught herself smiling back, and wondered at the ease with which Roz had switched off the stream of fury in full spate to invite Kate instead to join her in a little self-deprecating humor.
Machiavellian, Roz had described herself? Oh, no—Machiavelli had nothing on Roz Hall.
But still Kate smiled, in uncomprehending but true sympathy, and Roz shook her head at herself and said, “What time is it? Not even four? God, I need a drink. Join me?”
“No thanks.”
“Coffee then. Grab a seat.” She circled her desk, reaching out in passing to give Kate’s arm a quick squeeze that managed to express apology, affection, and gratitude all at once, and walked out the door. Kate pulled a chair away from the desk, and as she was lowering herself into it, she glanced out into the next room and saw Roz with her arms around the “secketary,” wrapping him in a long hug. After a long minute, she released him and went to the others, giving each of them the benediction of her embrace. The level of tension in the building plummeted, the faces started to beam again.
When each person had been given a hug, Roz stood back. “I’m sorry, everyone. I’m a bitch and I don’t deserve your help. Look—why don’t you all go out and have something to eat? I don’t know if it’s lunchtime or dinnertime, but you must need something after the kind of day I’ve put you through. Just stick the answering machine on and get out of here. And Jory, would you be a dear and put on a fresh pot of coffee before you go? Thanks. All of you.”
She hit just the right note to let her acolytes know that she was okay, that they were safe, and that whatever problems they had been facing would resolve themselves. Tight mutters gave way to relieved chatter, and Roz came back in and walked over to a cabinet.
“Have a seat, Kate. You sure you don’t want something stronger than coffee?”
Kate shook her head at the proffered bottle. Roz splashed a generous amber inch in the bottom of a glass, tipped it down her throat in a single gulp, and shuddered as it hit. After a moment she poured another inch in the glass, capped the bottle and put it away, and took her drink over to the three tall filing cabinets that stood shoulder to shoulder against the wall. With a minimum of searching she pulled out a well-filled ma-nila folder, handed it over to Kate, and then dropped into a comfortable chair across from her guest, who sat waiting for an explanation before committing herself to the folder.
Roz took a sip from her drink, put it on the low table between them, and reached up irritably to peel off the stiff clerical collar. She dropped the curling tongue-depressor shape of white plastic onto the table, loosened the collar of the shirt itself, and sat back with a sigh, rubbing her throat with her eyes shut. It was all done so naturally, Kate couldn’t tell if Roz even knew it was deliberate, this clear declaration that although the lesser beings in the outer office could be given a pat and dismissed as the worshipers they were, Kate was to be considered a near- equal.
A near-equal she wanted something from.
“Do you remember last week I told you about an Indian girl?” Roz asked.
Kate thought back; a week ago at dinner, it seemed like a lot longer. “Someone came to talk to you about the situation while you were at the women’s shelter,” she remembered. “Amanda something.”
“Yes. The Indian girl died last night. They’re treating it like an accident, although her husband has a history of violent behavior.”
“Roz, what are you talking about?” Kate asked sharply.
“He burned the child to death,” Roz said, her face as bleak as her voice. “It’s done all the time in India, and now they’ve done it here. Look at the file, Kate. It’s all there.”
Now Kate looked at the folder, which bore the label
Eight months later the bride was showing no signs of pregnancy, the television was on the blink, and her in- laws were demanding that the dowry be increased by three hundred rupees and a refrigerator. The girl’s parents had gone heavily into debt to pay for the wedding and the agreed-to dowry; they would be very lucky to pay off
