Rune returned to the report.
I'd just come back from Zabars. I walked past my living room window. I see these two men standing there. Then one pulls out this gun… There was a flash and one of the men fell over. I ran to the phone to dial 911, but I'll admit I hesitated – I was worried it might be a Mafia thing. All these witnesses you hear about getting killed. Or a drug shooting. I go back to the window to see if they were just kidding around. Maybe it was young people, you know, but by then there's a police car…
The report contained the names of three people interviewed by the police. All three lived on the first floor of the building. The first two hadn't been home. The third was the woman who'd given the report, a clerk at Bloomingdale's, who lived on the first floor of Hopper's building, overlooking the courtyard.
That was all? The cops had talked to onlythree people? And onlyone eyewitness?
At least thirty or forty apartments would open onto the courtyard. Why hadn't they been interviewed?
Cover-up, she thought. Conspiracy. Grassy knolls, the Warren Commission.
She finished the report. There wasn't much else helpful. Rune heard Healy's car pull into the driveway and hid the file. She looked in on Courtney. Kissed her forehead.
The girl woke up and said, "Love you."
Rune blinked and didn't speak for a moment then managed, "Like, sure. Me too." But Courtney seemed to be asleep again by the time she said it.
"Funny thing," Sam Healy was saying the next morning.
"Funny?"
"This practice grenade disappeared from the Bomb Squad and, next thing, there's a report of one found on the street near the Twentieth."
"Funny."
He'd just come in from mowing the lawn. She smelled grass and gasoline. It reminded her of her childhood in the suburbs of Cleveland, Saturday morning, when her father would trim the boxwood and mow and spread mulch around the dogwoods.
"Don't think I heard anything about it on the radio" Rune offered.
"The report said a young woman and a baby found it. I seem to remember you stopping by the Bomb Squad yesterday, didn't you? You and Courtney?"
"Sort of, I think. I'm not too clear."
Healy said, "You're sounding like those defendants. 'Yeah, I was standing over the body with the gun but I don't remember how I got there.'"
"You don't thinkI had anything to do with it?"
"Occurred to me."
"You want my solemn word?"
"Will you swear on the Grimm Brothers?"
"Absolutely." She raised her hand.
"Rune… Didn't you think it was dangerous for a child to pull a stunt like that?"
"Not that Idid walk around with a grenade but if I had I would've made sure it was a dummy."
"You could get me fired. And you could get arrested."
She tried to look miserable and contrite and unjustly accused at the same time. He popped open two Pabsts.
He was stern when he said, "Just don't forget: You've got more to think about than yourself."
Which gave her a little thrill, his saying, Remember me? I'm in your life too. But he tromped on that pretty fast by nodding toward the bedroom and saying. "Think about her. You don't want her to lose two mothers in one month, do you?"
"No."
They sipped the beers in silence for a minute. Then she said, "Sam, I got a question: You ever do any homicide?"
"Investigations? No. When I was in Emergency Services we ran crime scenes a lot but I never did the legwork. Boring."
"But you know something about them?"
"A little. What's up?"
"Say there's somebody killed, okay?"
"Hypothetically?"
"Yeah, this guy is hypothetically killed. And there's an eyewitness the cops find and he gives a statement. Would the cops just stop there and not interview anybody else?"
"Sure, why not? If it's a solid witness."
"Real solid."
"Sure. Detectives've got more murders than they know what to do with. An eyewitness – which you hardly ever get in a homicide – sure, they'd take the statement and turn 'em over to the prosecutor. Then on to another case."
"I'd think they'd do more."
"An eyewitness, Rune? It doesn't get any better than that."
The sites of tragedy.
It had happened three years ago but as she placed each foot on the worn crest of a cobblestone – slowly, a mourner's hopscotch – Rune felt the macabre, queasy pull of Lance Hopper's killing. It was eightp.m., an overcast, humid evening. She and Courtney stood in the courtyard, at the bottom of the four sides of the building. A square of gray-pink city-lit sky was above them.
Where exactly had Hopper died? she wondered. In the dim triangle of light falling into the courtyard from the leaded-glass lamp by the canopied doorway? Or had it been in the negative space – the shadows?
Had he crawled toward the light?
Rune found that this bothered her, not knowing exactly where the man had lain as he died. She thought there should be some kind of marker, some indication of where that moment had occurred – the instant between life and no life. But there was nothing, no reminder at all.
Hopper would have to be content with whatever his gravestone said. He'd been rich; she was sure it was an eloquent sentiment.
Rune led Courtney into the stuccoed lobby. An entryway of a medieval castle. She expected at least a suit of armor, a collection of pikes and broadswords and maces. But she saw only a bulletin board with a faded sign, Co-op News, and a stack of take-out menus from a Chinese restaurant.
She pressed a button.
"What a cute little girl. You're young to be a mother."
Rune said, "You know how it is."
The woman said, "I had Andrew when I was twenty-six; Beth when I was twenty-nine. That was old for then. For that generation. Let me show you the pictures."
The apartment was irritating. It reminded Rune of a movie she'd seen one time about these laser beams that crisscrossed the control room in a spaceship and if you broke one of them you'd set off this alarm.
Here, though, no laser beams, but instead: little china dishes, animal figurines, cups, commemorative plates, a Franklin Mint ceramic thimble collection, vases and a thousand other artifacts, most of them flowery and ugly, all poised on the edges of fake teak shelves and tables, just waiting to fall to the floor and shatter.
Courtney's eyes glinted at these many opportunities for destruction and Rune kept a death grip on the belt of the little girl's jumpsuit.
The woman's name was Miss Breckman. She was handsome. A born salesclerk: reserved, helpful, organized, polite. Rune remembered she was in her late fifties though she looked younger. She was stocky, with a double chin (handsome though it was) and a cylindrical frame. "Have a seat, please."
They maneuvered through the ceramic land mines and sat on doily-covered chairs. Rune tamped down her pride and complimented Miss Breckman on her fine collection of things.
The woman glowed. "I got them mostly from my mother. We had the same thoughts about decoration. Genetic, I suppose."
From there they talked about children, about boyfriends and husbands (Miss Breckman's had left her ten years before; she was, she said, "currently in the market").
Mostly what Miss Breckman wanted to talk about, though, was the news.
"So you're a real reporter?" Her eyes focused on Rune like a scientist discovering a new kind of bug.
"More of a producer, really. Not like a newspaper reporter. It's different in TV news."
"Oh, I know. I watch every news program on the air. I always try to work the day shift so I can be home in time to watchLive at Five. It's a bit gossipy, but aren't we all? I don't care for the sixp.m. report – that's mostly business – so I fix my dinner then, and I watch theWorld News at Seven while I eat." She frowned. "I hope you won't be offended if I tell you your network's nightly news isn't all that good. Jim Eustice, the anchorman, I think he's funny-looking and sometimes doesn't pronounce those Polish and Japanese names right. ButCurrent Events is simply the best. Do you know Piper Sutton? Sure you do, of course. Is she as charming as she seems? Smart… sweet…"