Magda Hale checked her watch. “One more sequence and then the cooldown. You wouldn’t believe how hard we work to make this sound all New Age and professional, nothing at all like those futile exercise programs your mother went on when you were a kid. God, I don’t understand people sometimes. Especially women.”
“Step up. Step up. Step right. Step middle. Step left. Step middle. And breathe,” the blond woman said.
3
DESSA CARTER WAS THE fat one. Christie Mulligan was the extremely thin one. Virginia Hanley was the fortyish woman who looked like she ought to be presiding over the latest meeting of the local Junior League. When the class had finished their step routine to “Shake Your Body,” Magda Hale called a time-out and separated these three from the rest and called them over to talk to Gregor. Christie Mulligan’s friends didn’t like it. The one called Tara even threatened to call a lawyer, on the assumption that Christie was about to be questioned by a hostile government force who might suspect her of a crime and, therefore, needed the protection of official representation. When Christie herself turned this suggestion down, Tara moved as close as she could to the platform, so that she could listen to everything that was said. Gregor didn’t care if the entire class listened to everything that was said. He was, in fact, a little put off by the way Magda Hale had arranged things. It was all too organized. He didn’t want to come off as the school principal, ferreting out miscreants in the girls’ rooms.
Dessa Carter and Virginia Hanley sat on chairs. Christie Mulligan sat on the floor, her legs folded under her in a quasilotus position. All three women looked solemn, as if they were invited guests at a funeral. Virginia Hanley looked bored, too.
Now there’s somebody who wouldn’t surprise me if she turned out to be a serial killer, Gregor thought. Aside from looking bored and solemn, Virginia Hanley also looked smug. Serial killers were always smug.
Gregor leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. “What I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, “was something each of you said to the detectives doing the questioning yesterday afternoon. You may remember that I sat in on some of those interviews.”
“You sat in on mine,” Virginia Hanley said. “I didn’t like it. I almost registered a protest.”
Of course you did, Gregor thought. He said, “Yes. Well. What I want to do now is get more specific about just a single point. Each of you were talking about the period of time just around lunch, and you said you were on your way to the dining room—”
“We were late,” Christie Mulligan said crisply. “At least, I was. Tara and Michelle and I were in the bathroom so long, we missed the line.”
“I was late, too,” Dessa Carter said, looking tired. “I had to call home.”
Gregor looked at Virginia Hanley and Virginia shrugged. “I was probably late, too,” she said. “I stopped to look at the brochures about the new line of exercise clothes.”
“Fine,” Gregor said. “Fine. Did the three of you see each other when you were going upstairs?”
“We saw Dessa,” Christie Mulligan said. “She was on the landing ahead of us.”
“I heard them coming up behind me,” Dessa said.
“I didn’t see anybody,” Virginia said.
“All right,” Gregor told them, “now. From what I remember, Miss Carter, when you were asked if you heard or saw anything out of the ordinary, you said that the only thing you could fix on was a bird—”
“Oh,” Christie Mulligan said. “Did you hear that, too? Wasn’t that odd?”
“I didn’t hear a bird,” Virginia Hanley said.
Dessa Carter shifted her bulk around in her chair. She was almost fat enough to need two chairs. Gregor thought she would be much more comfortable in something without arms.
“It went koo roo,” Dessa said. “Like that. And then there was this odd metallic sound—”
“A clank,” Christie Mulligan put in.
“Right. A clank. And then this other sound that went whoosh. Like air being let out of a chamber.”
“That stuff didn’t sound like a bird,” Christie Mulligan said, “and that was what was so odd,, because every time you got the bird noises, you got the clank and the whoosh. As if they were connected somehow.”
“That’s right,” Dessa Carter said.
“Excuse me,” someone else said.
They all looked up—Dessa Carter, Virginia Hanley, Christie Mulligan, Magda Hale, and Gregor—to find the tall blond step aerobics instructor leaning across the rail to them. She looked pale.