In Between by Kate Wilhelm Page A

stared at him, wide-eyed. “No way to prove or disprove any of that,” she said.
    â€œI know. But tell me again what that woman said about how Royce acted when he realized that it was Vicente who was shot.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “She said Alex was unnatural, that he turned white and froze. And she said Marilyn did the same thing, just froze. Royce was crazy. He even turned Vicente over, and nearly passed out on the spot. When he saw Alex, he jumped at him yelling it was his fault, that he should be dead. Two of the guys had to hold him back. She thought it was an accusation. They all thought that.”
    â€œNot an accusation at all,” Sam said. “He really believed that Alex should be dead. Maybe he thought he was seeing a ghost. Actually, you gave me the idea yourself. Remember? When we got here you said maybe Vicente was like us, hanging around. I began to think, like us, the wrong victim.”
    Lori’s eyes seemed to unfocus as if she were viewing something either very close or very distant. She shook her head a time or two, then began to nod. She turned toward Sam with a definite nod. “That’s the only thing that makes any sense. I kept thinking that no one acted as if getting rid of Vicente was anything but a catastrophe. They seemed genuinely panicked. But get rid of Alex? Yes. Absolutely.”
    â€œIt’s all speculation,” Sam said, troubled. “What if this or that, maybe, could have, might have.”
    â€œBut it makes sense. How do we prove it? Make someone else see it.”
    â€œNo idea,” Sam said. “How about you?”
    â€œNo. Let’s think about it. Spitball ideas.”
    For several minutes it was as if they both had developed dust-dry mouths. No spitballs. Finally Lori said, “How much do you know about Royce?”
    â€œNothing. Nada. No more than Alex mentioned. To more or less quote him, he’s a brown-nose, apple-polishing, back-stabbing prick. Smart enough to get around the rules, clever enough to keep on the right side of Vicente. Mendacious, salacious, hypocritical, sanctimonious, superstitious, dominionist, misogynist…”
    Lori put her finger on his lips. “I get the picture,” she said. “The question before the board is what would it take to make him blow it himself?”
    â€œNo idea. So we observe him. Meanwhile, I want to squirrel that manuscript to a safe place and skim through it. How damning is it, and who’s implicated in whatever it is that can’t be made public? Even getting it to a place with some privacy is going to be a bitch of a job.”
    â€œI know. We can’t carry it in the halls or through the lobby, anything like that. Remember how hard it was with only a few people on the scene. Here we have dozens.”
    They both turned their attention to the sprawling complex, with detectives here and there, housekeepers and their carts in the corridors, Alex sitting in a chair outside his room, apparently talking on his cell phone, detectives with metal detectors searching the lawn…
    For a long time neither spoke again. A limousine was waved down on the long driveway to the access road, then motioned on. It rolled forward and came to a stop near a state police car. A tall man with a briefcase emerged.
    â€œBet it’s the lawyer for the widow,” Lori said without much interest.
    â€œI’ll check him out,” Sam said. He rose and flitted to the hotel lobby where he waited for the tall man, who had been stopped by Captain Conkling. While he waited, Sam dropped in on the table of associates huddled in their corner booth. Royce was speaking.
    â€œIt’s a great honor,” he said. “I know I can’t do him justice, no one could, but I’ll do my best. I’ll have to rewrite much of it, of course, since it’s his first-person greeting, his personal congratulatory remarks for a remarkable year, and his