Hard News

17

Rune filled Sam Healy's kitchen basin with water and gave Courtney a bath. Then she dried the girl and put on the diaper she wore to bed. By now she'd gotten the routine down pretty well, and, though she wouldn't admit it to anybody, she liked the smell of baby powder.

The little girl asked, "Story?"

Rune said, "I've got a good one we can read. Come on in here."

She checked outside to make sure Healy's Bomb Squad station wagon wasn't back yet. Then they walked into the family room and sat on an old musty couch with tired springs. She sank down into it. Courtney climbed into her lap.

"Can we read about ducks?" Courtney asked. "The duck story is really crucial."

"This is even better," Rune said. "It's a police report."

"Excellent."

The girl nodded as Rune began to read through sheets of paper, stamped "Property of the 20th Precinct." There were some photos of Hopper's dead body but they were totally gross and Rune slipped them to the back before Courtney saw them. She read until her throat ached from keeping her voice in a child-entertaining low register. She'd pause occasionally and watch Courtney's eyes scan the cheap white paper. The meaning of the words was totally lost on the child, of course, but she was fascinated, finding some secret delight in the abstract designs of the black letters.

After twenty minutes Courtney closed her eyes and lay heavily against Rune's shoulder.

The subject of the reading matter apparently didn't matter much to Courtney; ducks and police procedures lulled her to sleep equally quickly. Rune put her into bed, pulled the blankets around her. She looked at the U2 poster that Healy's son Adam, had bought Healy for his birthday (a great father, the cap had immediately framed and mounted it in a nice prominent location). She decided to sink some money into a Maxfield Parrish or Wyeth reproduction for Courtney's room on the houseboat. That's what kids needed: giants in clouds or magic castles. Maybe one of Rackham's illustrations fromA Midsummer Night's Dream.

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…"

If you only knew, lady…

Rune began steering toward the Boggs story, not quite sure how much to say. If Rune was right about Boggs's innocence, of course, she was pretty much calling Ms Figurine here a liar, and – come to think of it – a perjurer too. She opted for the indirect approach. "I'm doing a follow-up story on the Hopper killing and I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"I'd be happy to help. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. I was in that courtroom and there was this killer right there and he was looking at me." Miss Breckman closed her eyes for a moment. "I was pretty darn scared. But I did my duty. I was kind of hoping that after I came out of the courtroom there'd be all these reporters shoving microphones at me – you know, I love those microphones with the names of the stations on them."

"Uh-huh. Maybe I could set up my equipment?"

While Rune did that, Miss Breckman hoisted Courtney into her lap and rattled on nonstop. Bringing the little girl was a great idea – she was like a pacifier for adults.

When the portable light clicked on and the red dot on the Ikegami flashed, Miss Breckman's eyes took on an intense shine to a degree Rune figured they would never reach ringing up an American Express charge in Junior Sportswear.

Rune said, "Could you move over there." Nodding at a Queen Anne chair upholstered in forest-green needle-point.

"I'll sit wherever you like, honey." Miss Breckman moved and then composed herself for a moment.

"Now, could you tell me exactly what happened?"

"Sure." She told the camera about the murder. Coming home from shopping, seeing the men argue. The gun appearing. The muffled shot. Hopper falling. Running to the phone. Hesitating…

"You saw him pull the trigger?"

"Well, I saw this flash and the gun was right up against the poor man's body."

"Could you see what kind of gun it was?"

"No, it was too dark."

"And you couldn't hear what they were saying."

"No." Her head turned, eyes gazing into the courtyard. "You can see…"

Beautiful shot! Rune zoomed past her and focused on the cobblestones.

"… it's pretty far away."

Rune dug into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. She looked at it then said, "The police report said you weren't interviewed until the day after the shooting. Is that right?"

"Uh-huh. The next night, two men showed up. Detectives. But they didn't look like Kojak or anything, though. I was kind of disappointed."

"You didn't contact them right away?"

"No. Like I told you, I was pretty shaken by the whole thing. I was scared. What if it was a drug killing? You know what you see on the news? Practically every day, mothers and children are being murdered because they're witnesses. But the next morning I saw a news report onWake Up With the News that said they'd arrested this drifter. Not a hit man or anything. So when the detectives came to me I didn't hesitate to tell them what I saw."

"It also says that the police asked you if you'd seen anything and you said, Tm sorry I didn't talk to you sooner but Idid see it. I mean, I saw the shooting.' And the detective asked, 'Did you see the man who did it?' And you answered, 'Sure I did. It was Randy Boggs.' Was that pretty much what you said?" "Nope, not pretty much at all. That'sexactly what I said."

Rune just smiled and resisted an urge to say, No further questions.

She suddenly felt a shadow over her didn't like the vibrations. Rune looked sideways to see what angel of death was hovering over her in the newsroom and found she was staring into Piper Sutton's eyes.

"Hi," Rune said.

Sutton didn't answer.

Rune's eyes skipped around the room, wondering why exactly the woman was frowning so intensely.

Rune said, "Guess what I've got." She touched the tape. "I talked to the witness and-"

The flash of anger was like a fast shutter on a camera. And so Fiene and brutal that Rune gasped. Then Piper Sutton regained control though her eyes were still cold. "You've got a little bit to learn about life." She seemed to swallow something at the end of the sentence, probably: young lady.

Rune began, "What did I-?"

Then it hit her – oh, shit. The London assignment.

"Nobody's forcing you to work for a network like ours." Now, the temper was once again on the move – the patented Sutton temper. It was rolling downhill, an avalanche, and Rune was about to get buried. "You have your choice. But if you're going to work here, goddammit, you've got to behave like an adult, or-"

"I was going to tell you about the London job. I'm sorry."

"-you can go pick up paychecks at some fucking restaurant!" The voice dropped threateningly. "I take you out to dinner, where you and that urchin of yours embarrass the hell out of me and I make you a proposition that no one your age hasever been offered before!" Now the screeching began. Rune blinked and sat back, her eyes wide. "And do you even give me the courtesy of an answer?"

Heads perked up Throughout the studio, no one dared look and no one didn't listen.

"I'm sorry."

But Sutton cranked up a few more decibels. "Do you even show me the respect you'd show a cabdriver? Did you say, 'Thank you, but I've decided not to accept your offer'? Did you say, 'Piper, could you please give me a few days to think about it some more?' No, you goddamn well didn't. What you did was say… zip. That's what you said. And then you went on your merry way."

"I'm sorry." Rune heard herself whining and didn't like it. She cleared her throat. "I got caught up in the story. I was going to tell you-"

Sutton waved her hand. "I hate apologies. It's a sign of weakness."

Rune wanted to cry but sat hard on the tears.

Sutton was speaking to the ceiling."Everything about this story has been wrong. I knew it was a mistake. Stupid of me. Stupid, stupid."

Rune swallowed. She touched the file. "Just let me explain, please. What happened was I talked to the witness."

Sutton smiled coldly and shook her head, exaggerating her lack of comprehension. "What witness?"

"The one who convicted Randy."

"Oh, sure, that explains your behavior." Sutton's sarcasm was thick.

"No I can prove that she didn't see Randy Boggs."

"How?"

"She's a real, like, newshound."

"A newshound? What the fuck is that?"

"She watches all the news programs every day. She didn't give any description of Boggs untilafter she'd seen him arrested on TV. When the-"

Sutton's hands raised like a martyr's. "What exactly are you getting at?"

"Listen. When the police showed up to interview her she said, 'I saw who did it and it was Randy Boggs.'"

Silence. Pin-resounding silence. Sutton gave a short bark of a laugh. "That's your proof?"

"You can't see into the courtyard clearly from her place – it's too dark. Miss Breckman saw Randy on thenews. She saw him being arrested. That's where she got the description – from TV. Otherwise, how would she know his name? She didn't describe him first. She said, right off, 'It was Randy Boggs.'"

Media circus…

Sutton considered this with a splinter of interest. But then she laughed. "Keep at it, honey. You've got a long way to go."

"But doesn't this prove that she's a bad witness?"

"A piece in the puzzle. That's all it is. Keep digging-"

"I thought-"

"That we'd go with it?"

"I guess."

A brittle nail leveled at Rune's face like a bright red dagger. "This is the big time. You keep forgetting that. We don't run a story untilit's completely buttoned up." She walked stridently through the newsroom on her clattering heels while employees moved quickly but unobtrusively as far out of her way as they could.