"Usually around seven."
"And this woman you didn't recognize. Describe her."
"About forty. Black. Very slender, gray hair, sort of curly."
"Tall? Short? What?"
He shrugged. "Medium."
Herb said, "That's not much. Can you give us anything else?"
Sanders hesitated. He thought about it. "No. I didn't really see her." "Close your eyes," Fernandez said.
He closed them.
"Now take a deep breath, and put yourself back. It's yesterday evening. You have been in Meredith's office, the door has been closed for almost an hour, you have had your experience with her, now you are leaving the room, you are going out . . . How does the door open, in or out?"
"It opens in."
"So you pull the door open . . . you walk out . . . Fast or slow?"
"I'm walking fast."
"And you go into the outer room . . . What do you see?"
Through the door. Into the outer room, elevators directly ahead. Feeling disheveled, of balance, hoping there is no one to see him. Looking to the right at Betsy Ross'r desk: clean, bare, chair pulled up to the edge of the desk. Notepad. Plastic cover on the computer. Desk light still burning.
Eyes swinging left, a cleaning woman at the other assistant desk. Her big gray cleaning cart stands alongside her. The cleaning woman is lifting a trash basket to empty it into the plastic sack that hangs open from one end of the cart. The woman pauses in mid-lift, stares at him curiously. He is wondering how long she has been there, what she has heard from inside the room. A tinny radio on the cart is playing music.
"I'll fucking kill you for this." Meredith calls after him.
The cleaning woman hears it. He looks away from her, embarrassed, and hurries toward the elevator. Feeling almost panic. He pushes the button.
"Do you see the woman?" Fernandez said.
"Yes. But it was so fast . . . And 1 didn't want to look at her." Sanders shook his head.
"Where are you now? At the elevator?"
"Yes."
"Can you see the woman?"
"No. I didn't want to look at her again."
"All right. Let's go back. No, no, keep your eyes closed. We'll do it again. Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly . . . Good . . . This time you're going to see everything in slow motion, like a movie. Now . . . come out through the door . . . and tell me when you see her for the first time."
Coming through the door. Everything slow. His head moving gently up and down with each footstep. Into the outer room. The desk to the right, tidy, lamp on. To the left, the other desk, the cleaning woman raising the
"I see her."
"All right, now freeze what you see. Freeze it like a photograph." "Okay."
"Now look at her. You can look at her now."
Standing with the trash basket in her hand. Staring at him, a bland expression. She's about forty. Short hair, curls. Blue uniform, like a hotel maid. A silver chain around her neck-no, hanging eyeglasses.
"She wears glasses around her neck, on a metal chain."
"Good. Just take your time. There's no rush. Look her up and down." "I keep seeing her face . . ."Staring at him. A bland expression.
"Look away from her face. Look her up and down."
The uniform. Spray bottle clipped to her waist. Knee-length blue skirt. White shoes. Like a nurse. No. Sneakers. No. Thickerrunning shoes. Thick soles. Dark laces. Something about the laces.
"She's got . . . sort of running shoes. Little old lady running shoes." "Good."
"There's something funny about the laces."
"Can you see what's funny?"
"No. They're dark. Something funny. I . . . can't tell."
"All right. Open your eyes."
He looked at the five of them. He was back in the room. "That was weird," he said.
"If there was time," Fernandez said, "I would have a professional hypnotist take you through the entire evening. I've found it can be very useful. But there's no time. Boys? It's five o'clock. You better get started."
The two investigators collected their notes and left.
"What are they going to do?"
"If we were litigating this," Fernandez said, "we would have the right to depose potential witnesses-to question individuals within the company who might have knowledge bearing on the case. Under the present circumstances, we have no right to interrogate anybody, because you're entering into private mediation. But if one of the DigiCom assistants chooses to have a drink with a handsome delivery man after work, and if the conversation happens to turn to gossip about sex in the office, well, that's the way the cookie crumbles."
"We can use that information?"
Fernandez smiled. "Let's see what we find out first," she said. "Now, I want to go back over several points in your story, particularly starting at the time you decided not to have intercourse with Ms. Johnson."
"Again?"
"Yes. But I have a few things to do first. I need to call Phil Blackburn and arrange tomorrow's sessions. And I have some other things to check on. Let's break now and meet again in two hours. Meanwhile, have you cleaned out your office?"
"No," he said.
"You better clean it out. Anything personal or incriminating, get it out. From now on, expect your desk drawers to be gone through, your files to be searched, your mail to be read, your phone messages checked. Every aspect of your life is now public."
"Okay."
"So, go through your desk and your files. Remove anything of a personal nature."