"However, we want your a.s.surance that if he gives you a statement, nothing he tells you here will be used to prosecute him."

McCord leaned back in his chair, idly tapping his pencil on the yellow pad he'd carried into the interview room, until Roswell squirmed in his chair and looked uneasily at his attorney. "Just what does he think we would prosecute him for?" McCord said finally. "Other than withholding information and leaving the scene of an accident."

"He didn't leave the scene of the accident, he brought the victim to a safe location and asked someone to phone for help. As far as withholding information goes, his Fifth Amendment rights allow him to withhold information that might be self-incriminating. He's here now because Mr.

Manning was found murdered, and it's been on the news that you thought there could be a connection between the murderer and whoever found Mrs. Manning that night and then disappeared."

"What is it that he's afraid we will prosecute him for?" McCord repeated implacably.

The attorney cleared her throat. "For operating a motor vehicle without a valid New York driver's license on the night of November twenty-ninth."

In comparison to the things Sam had been imagining, that was such a minor offense it was nonsensical, and she pressed her lips together to hide a wayward smile. Even McCord's voice lost its edge. "Since that offense was not committed within my jurisdiction, I can't guarantee that. However, I can guarantee that I will not feel inclined to report what I now know to the local authorities in the Catskills or to the state police. Will that suffice?"

The lawyer looked at her client and nodded rea.s.suringly. "Go ahead, Wilbur, tell them what happened that night."

Roswell nervously twisted his cap in his callused fingers and switched his gaze from McCord's face to Sam's because he obviously found her less intimidating. "I was driving down the road that night at a little after eleven, but I hadn't been drinkin'-not a drop, I swear it." He raised his right hand, for emphasis. "It was snowing real hard, and I saw this big dark lump on the side of the road, kind of hanging partway over a snowdrift. I pulled over to drive around it, and I seen it was a body."

He looked down at the table. "I wasn't supposed to be driving because my license got suspended for driving under the influence, so I decided not to stop, but I-I couldn't just leave her there to freeze to death. So I pulled over and got her into my car; then I drove her down the mountain to a motel. I woke up the night manager, and he helped me get her into a room in the motel. He thought I should stay until the cops or an ambulance arrived, but I knowed-knew-if the cops came, they'd ask for my name and address and my driver's license. So I told the manager to stay with her in the room while I got her stuff out of my car, but I took off instead."

Since he'd spoken directly to her and avoided McCord, Sam took over. "You helped her, even though you knew you were taking a risk," she summarized with a smile. "That says a lot about the kind of man you are, Mr. Roswell."

After living with six brothers, Sam knew the difference between a male who was simply embarra.s.sed by a compliment and one who felt guilty because he knew he didn't deserve it. The moment Roswell's gaze shifted away from hers, she knew he fell into the latter category and that her original hunch about his story was right. Without changing her mild, encouraging tone, she asked a question. "You said that the reason you stopped was because you couldn't leave her on the side of the road to freeze to death?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes, ma'am."

"It was dark, and it was snowing. How did you know that 'big, dark lump' was a woman's body, instead of a man's?"

"I-I didn't until I got up close."

"But when you pulled over to help, you did know that the person lying on the road was still alive, didn't you? That's why you had to stop to help, why you couldn't leave her there to freeze to death, isn't it? You have a drinking problem and you lost your driver's license because of it, but you're basically a decent man, even a brave man, aren't you?"

"I don't know as anyone's ever called me decent or brave," he said uneasily.

"And I don't know as anybody's ever had call to say I was."

"I have a very good reason to say that, Mr. Roswell. When you stopped to help Mrs. Manning and drove her to that motel, you weren't just worried that the police might find out you were driving without a license. You were afraid they'd look at your car, realize that you were in that accident, and even blame you for it. You risked a great deal that night in order to help Mrs. Manning, didn't you?"

His face turned ashen. "I-" he began, but his attorney put her hand on his sleeve to stop him. "Don't say anything else, Wilbur, not another word."

To Sam she said, "Mr. Roswell has told you everything he knows about that night."

Sam ignored her and looked at Wilbur Roswell. With a gentle voice and soft smile she said, "Then let me tell him something that he doesn't know. Mrs.

Manning admitted to us that she had slowed her vehicle almost to a stop that night-on a hazardous blind curve-in extremely dangerous weather conditions.

I've seen the curve myself, and if I'd been driving Mr. Roswell's car that night, I wouldn't have been able to stop either. If anyone is responsible for that accident, I would say it was probably Mrs. Manning."

"Nevertheless," the attorney said sternly, "my client has nothing more to say.

If he was driving the other car involved in that accident-and that is not my understanding-then your a.s.surance that the accident was Mrs. Manning's fault doesn't mean a thing. She could disagree, she could try to sue him in civil court, and you could try to prosecute him for leaving the scene of an accident, at the very least."

Sam propped her elbows on the table and perched her chin on her folded hands. "Your attorney is right, Mr. Roswell. However, if you weren't drinking that night-"

"I wasn't and I can prove it!"

"I believe you. And if you can prove it, I will testify in your behalf in any civil suit Mrs. Manning might bring that the accident was unavoidable.

Furthermore, I know Mrs. Manning, and I really don't think she's the sort of person to sue the man who saved her life and risked going to jail in order to do it. Also, she doesn't need money, so there's no point in suing you. If you can provide proof that you weren't drinking, I think I can extend Lieutenant McCord's earlier promise not to notify any other law enforcement agencies of what you've told us here or to prosecute you for leaving the scene, or anything else." Sam had been so intent until that moment that she'd virtually forgotten McCord was present or that she might need his cooperation. She looked at him then, her eyes begging him not to be a hard-a.s.s. "Would you agree to that, Lieutenant?"

To her shock, McCord smiled a little and his smile became conspiratorial when he transferred it to Roswell. "I don't know about you, Wilbur, but I have a hard time saying no to any woman who looks at me like that, don't you?"

Wilbur hesitated; then he grinned at McCord. "She sure is pretty. And she's real nice, too."

The only one with reservations about all this was his attorney, which was appropriate. She frowned. "Was that a 'yes,' Lieutenant McCord? Are you agreeing to extend your promise not to prosecute Mr. Roswell if he admits to driving the other vehicle in that accident?"

"As long as he can prove he wasn't drinking that night. If he was, all bets are off."

"I wasn't! I was at Ben's Place all night drinking c.o.kes, and shooting a little pool. Ben will say so and so will everybody else I was with."

"Good for you!" Sam said. "Now, here's why it's important that we stop beating around the bush and you tell us straight out if you were driving the other car in the accident that night: We've all been thinking that the same person who killed Mr. Manning might have also tried to kill Mrs. Manning by running her off the road. If that was just an accident, then we need to drop that theory and start looking for other suspects right away, before we lose any more time."

Wilbur Roswell straightened in his chair and slapped his hat on the table. "It was just an accident," he proclaimed. "I was driving that night. You can look at my car and see how bad it got wrecked."

Sam nodded and stood up. "I'll find someone to come in here and take down your statement." She walked around the table and held out her hand to him. "I was right about you," she said with a smile. "You're a good and decent man. And a brave one."

She shook Julie Cosgrove's hand next. "Thank you for encouraging Mr.

Roswell to come here today. It was the right thing to do."

Sam was wending her way across the squad room when McCord emerged and joined Shrader and Womack at the two-way window. Shrader looked at McCord and chuckled. "When's the last time you charmed a witness, then shook hands with him and his lawyer?"

"I don't believe I have that much charm," McCord said wryly.

"She's one smooth talker," Womack put in. "She had that lawyer eating out of her hand."

"Which isn't surprising," McCord replied, "since Littleton practically spelled out for her that Mrs. Manning was more to blame for the accident than her client. As we stand here, that lawyer in there is mentally drafting a letter to Leigh Manning's insurance company demanding money for damages to her client's vehicle, et cetera, et cetera."

Shrader came to Sam's defense. "Littleton's brand-new at the job. Give her time to learn that it's usually a mistake to volunteer any information in interviews. She slipped up a little, that's all."

McCord gave him a skeptical look. "Littleton didn't slip up. She did it on purpose."

CHAPTER 37.

"Did you do it on purpose?" McCord asked her when they were in his car on the way to Jason Solomon's apartment on West Broadway in SoHo.

"Roswell and his attorney were ent.i.tled to know what information Mrs.

Manning gave us in her first statement about the accident. You saw how he was dressed. I'll bet he can't afford to repair his car, and I'm sure it was badly damaged from the accident. Shrader and I saw where the accident happened, and I drove the route myself. It's a blind curve, and she was virtually stopped in the road. The miracle is that he didn't go over the embankment with her. Besides,"

Sam finished with a shrug, "I'm sure Mrs. Manning's insurance will cover whatever claims Roswell files."

McCord shot her a puzzled glance. "Did you think my question was some sort of criticism?"

That's exactly what Sam had thought. She looked at him in surprise. "No, not at all. Why?"

"I don't know. I just get the feeling you're..." McCord started to say "p.i.s.sed off at me"; then he quickly squelched the absurd impulse. There was no way he was going to let her think it mattered a d.a.m.n to him if she was p.i.s.sed off at him.

And the truth was, it didn't matter to him, because he would never allow it to matter.

Littleton's jaunty wit amused him, her mind fascinated him, and her elegant, fine-boned face and soft mouth were pleasing to his eye. Each of those a.s.sets interested him on an impersonal, almost intellectual level, but combined, they created a package that, on another level entirely, he found to be disconcertingly desirable. Even so, he was much too wise, too jaded, and too experienced to ever let a woman like that discover that she could get under his skin-most particularly at work.

She'd chosen a career in law enforcement; that meant she had to carry her own weight, deal with her own problems, work her own leads, and open her own doors. He knew how to do his job; she needed to learn how to do hers. She was his partner-temporarily-but she was not his equal.

He knew she'd taken his question about Roswell as a criticism, but that was her problem to deal with, not his. He was also certain she was upset with him about something, but even if he felt some inappropriate impulse to clear the air with her, he also knew it would be a total waste of time. Sam Littleton was a beautiful woman who would try to play women's games. That meant that if he asked her if she was upset with him about something, she would do what women all do at such times: She would deny that anything was wrong, then continue acting as if something was wrong, in hopes that he would do what men always do at such times-beg for an explanation, agonize over the answer, ask for hints, and then agonize a little more. Unfortunately for her, when it came to those kinds of games between the s.e.xes, Sam Littleton wasn't his equal there, either.

He'd already played them all, and they weren't a challenge anymore; they were predictable and boring. They were also dangerous and out of place at work.

There was a parking spot very close to Solomon's building, and he pulled into it, his attention on parking the car.

Beside him, Littleton had noticed that he hadn't finished the sentence he'd started and she courteously repeated it for him, making him feel as if she thought he was one hundred years old and forgetful. "You get the feeling I'm what?"

He glanced at her heavily lashed brown eyes and noticed for the first time the flecks of gold in them. "I get the feeling you're p.i.s.sed off at me about something," he said, and then could not believe he'd said it! Disgusted with himself, he waited for the inevitable denial.

"I am," she said quietly.

"Really?" He was so shocked that she'd admitted it, and without any rancor, that he stared at her in silence.

After a moment, she smiled a little and gave him another helpful conversational nudge. "Would you like me to tell you why?"

A grin tugged at his mouth. "Let's hear it."

"I'm very aware that I'm a neophyte, and that I'm extremely lucky to be working on this case with you. I didn't really expect to be impressed with you that first day, but I was. Besides being highly organized," she said with a quick smile, "you struck me as a leader who actually deserves to be one. Not only that, but I honestly thought you were going to turn out to be one of those rare leaders who is also a team player."

McCord would have been more flattered by her remarks if he hadn't instantly realized that she was deliberately inflating his ego and pumping up his pride because she wanted to be sure he hit the ground really hard when she punctured them. She was really quite skilled at this game, he decided sardonically. "And now, for some reason, you realize I'm a complete jerk?"

"Not at all," she said, her gaze direct and disconcertingly honest. "But you're a guy who plays guy games, just like all the other guys try to play with me. And I'm just a woman who unfairly expected you to be bigger and better than that."

"Just what the h.e.l.l did I do to drop so far in your estimation?"

"You knew Valente was with Leigh Manning the night we told her we'd found her husband dead, but you didn't tell me. That was an important piece of information, but you withheld it and let me stumble on it by accident the next day."

"I wanted you to discover it yourself."

"Why?" she said. "So you could be right and I could be misguided and naive about Leigh Manning for an extra twenty-four hours?"

"I wanted you to discover for yourself that you had been misguided and naive."

"Really?" she said flatly. "Does that strike you as an effective leadership technique on an important homicide investigation? Would you have done that to Shrader? "

"No," he said shortly.

"Would you have done it to Womack?"

He shook his head.

"Then I can only a.s.sume you did it to me because I'm a girl and you wanted to 'teach me a lesson' in order to 'keep me in my place.' "

He looked at her so long that Sam began to think he wasn't going to answer.

When he did answer, she was speechless. "I did it to you because I've never seen a more promising detective than you are. You have more talent, raw intuition, and"-he hesitated, searching for the right word, and came up with one that seemed unsuited to the discussion-"and more heart than I've ever encountered.

I wanted you to learn a hard, but painless lesson, about letting yourself get emotionally entrapped by anyone you're investigating."

He paused and then said, "However, that doesn't change the fact that you are right, and I was wrong, in the way I went about it. I would never have done that to another male detective. I would have told him when we left the building that night that he'd just witnessed a convincing act by a woman whose lover was hiding in the next room."

She looked at him in surprised admiration as if he were some kind of hero for admitting he was wrong, and to McCord's displeasure, he discovered he rather liked having her look at him that way. "I apologize," he said almost curtly. "It won't happen again."

"Thank you," she said simply; then she flashed him a sudden, embarra.s.sed smile. "Actually, I think I may have made too much out of it. I didn't expect you to be so fair and reasonable."

He laughed as he reached for the handle on the car door. "Accept the apology, Sam, and don't backtrack. You won fair and square."

He got out of the car and so did she. He was so pleased with the outcome of the discussion that he didn't realize he'd called her Sam until they were walking down the sidewalk side by side. Even so, that didn't mean anything, he told himself. Everything was fine now; everything was exactly as it had been.

Nothing had changed in those few minutes of honest conversation. They were detective partners, nothing more.

When they arrived at Solomon's building, he reached around her from behind and politely pushed the heavy door open for her.

CHAPTER 38.

Manning Development's suite was on the fifteenth floor, directly off the elevator, behind a pair of imposing double doors that opened into a s.p.a.cious, circular reception area with offices and conference rooms surrounding it. Groupings of curved sofas and rounded chairs in shades of plum and blue were situated between ornamental stainless steel columns.

When Sam and McCord arrived, the reception area was empty except for a receptionist at a semicircular desk to their far right. She directed them to an office on the opposite side, where Shrader and Womack were interviewing the staff.