Wearily, Ellen closed her eyes. The day had been eventful enough without this added complication from Guy Adams. “I really can’t, Guy. I appreciate—”
Her other line flashed and rang. The button remained lit as Gail Freeman in the next office picked it up.
Guy Adams said, “You might not feel like eating something, that’s understandable. God knows, who does? But how about just a drink? We should talk. There’s this place—”
“What I really need is to get my mind off what’s happened,” she said firmly. “I think that’s best, and—”
“Ellen…she suspects me, Ellen. That detective.”
“Of course she does, Guy,” she soothed. “They have to suspect everybody. Don’t be upset.”
“Ellen? Change your mind.” His husky voice was soft.
“I really can’t.” She chose her words carefully, depressed and annoyed by the necessity: “It would give me a problem…in my personal life.”
He sighed. “I understand. Okay, I’ll call you later, check on you. Promise to call if you change your mind? Maybe you’d like to just get out of the building. I could—”
Gail Freeman had appeared in her doorway. In relief she interrupted, “It’s dear of you. Sorry, I do have to go.” She hung up and said to Gail Freeman, “Poor Guy, he’s so upset.”
“I know. He’s like that. He’ll never know how much Fergus Parker hated him—Guy simply can’t conceive of people like Fergus Parker.” He smiled. “That was our good detective on the other line.”
“Did she ask if Matt Bradford’s office was open this morning?”
He nodded. “It’s always open whether Matt’s here or not. The managers need access to those miniature mockups of our office designs, his material samples.”
She said wryly, “Detective Delafield has this fetish about closed doors.” She stacked several pages together. “I need you to sign last month’s overtime report. Philadelphia called this morning—it’s a week overdue.”
There was no answer; she looked up to see Gail Freeman staring at her, dark eyes lidded in thought. Then he smiled and walked to her, taking a gold Cross pen from the breast pocket of his jacket.
She remembered sitting across from Gail Freeman in his office moments after her introduction to Fergus Parker. “I know I’ve accepted this job,” she had said, “and as much as I’d like to work here, there’s no way I could work for that man. I don’t see how any woman could. I don’t even want to be in the same city.”
He had answered in a low firm voice and ticked off points on slender brown fingers tipped with lighter, well-cared for nails. “You’ll be working for me, not him. Short of murder, whatever you do is judged by me, not him. His management style offends everyone in the office, it’s not restricted to gender or color, and not all of that is necessarily bad. You’ll find the dynamics of this place fascinating.”
His intelligence and candor had impressed her in the first meeting, and she looked at his ascetic face with reawakened admiration. “Gail …” She hesitated, unaccustomed to addressing a boss by first name, and groping for tactful words to express her distress at Fergus Parker’s disdain for Gail Freeman, a contempt he had not bothered to conceal even in front of Gail Freeman’s new assistant. “Gail, he treats you…” Again she hesitated, then selected a word. “…shamefully.”
He steepled his graceful fingers. “A few years ago this company was grateful to have a promotable black man to push into a visible position. But now the climate’s changed. And I’ve changed—older, more cautious, more at stake.” He smiled, gestured to the family photo on the credenza. “Two years ago I could’ve walked out, pretty easily duplicated what I have here. But today—maybe not at all. Ellen, years ago I worked in a wheel factory. The memory’s just like yesterday. And that takes a lot of the independence out of your attitude, confidence from your step.”
He looked at her from thickly fringed, calm dark eyes. “It’s Fergus Parker’s mean little talent to pick out vulnerability, smell fear like a vampire smells blood. And he hates anything he considers alien.” He chuckled, a low, pleasant resonance. “Anything off-white, for example. Please stay, Ellen. I need your help. You won’t have a problem with Fergus Parker. Your independence is too obvious. Fergus Parker never plays a hand that’s not a sure winner.”
“I want to work for you,” she had told him. “You’re so straightforward, my first honest boss.”
“Let’s hear it for management,” he had said ironically.
Reflecting on this conversation, she watched Gail Freeman read and sign the overtime report. He said, “Our good detective also told me she’d interview Billie Sullivan tomorrow. Know what? I think she just wants to give Billie Sullivan another day on payroll.”
Ellen chuckled. “That doesn’t quite fit your ogre image of her.”
Gail Freeman looked penitent. “I made some flippant remark about her to her partner. I thought he’d pick me up by my tie and slam me against the wall. He told me Kate Delafield was one of the best cops and finest people he’d ever worked with and the citizens of this city should pray for a thousand more just like her. He did explain that she’s been recovering from the death of someone close to her. A flaming wreck on the Hollywood Freeway, a really God-awful accident.”
Her lover. Ellen knew it instantly. The image of Kate Delafield’s strong, suffering face filled her mind. Ellen gazed at her desk. “She’s very professional, very good at her job,” she murmured. She tried to push away her vision of Kate Delafield’s anguish, her unspoken, lonely grief.
Again there was no answer; again she looked up to see Gail Freeman staring at her. Hands in his pockets, he strolled back into his office.