Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

But then somebody noticed it was in the sun and they thought that maybe that might set it off. They got into an argument because one of the cops had been in Nam, where it was a hundred and ten degrees in the sun and their grenades never went off but, yeah, this might be an old one and unstable…

And if it did go they'd lose all their windows and the trophy case and somebody was bound to get fragged.

Finally, the desk sergeant had the idea to cover the thing with a half-dozen Kevlar bulletproof vests. And they made a great project out of dancing up and carefully dropping vests on the grenade one by one, each cop making a run, not knowing whether to cover his eyes or ears or balls with his free hand.

Then there they stood, these large cops, staring at a pile of vests until the Bomb Squad detectives arrived fifteen minutes later.

It was about then that the concerned mother and the little girl, who nobody had noticed walk past the desk sergeant and into the file room of the deserted precinct house, slipped outside through the back door, the mother shoving some papers into her ugly leopard-skin shoulder bag.

Holding her daughter's hand, she walked through the small parking lot full of blue-and-whites and past the cop car gas pump then turned toward Columbus Avenue. A few cops and passersby glanced at them, but no one paid her much attention. There was still way too much excitement going on at the station house itself.

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.