Hard News (Rune 3)

It wasn't. It was a U.S. Army-issue fragmentation hand grenade. "Nade," the girl said and held it out in both hands.

"Holy Mary," the cop gasped.

The mother said, "There. Look at that, just laying on the street. We--"

He hit the fire alarm and grabbed the phone, calling NYPD Central and reporting an explosive device.

Then it occurred to him that the fire alarm wasn't such a good idea because the forty or fifty officers in the building could get out only one of three ways--a back exit, a side exit and the front door, and most were choosing the front door, not eight feet from a child with a pound of TNT in her hands.

What happened next was kind of a blur. A couple of detectives got the thing away from the girl and onto the floor in the far corner of the lobby. But then nobody knew exactly what to do. Six cops stood gawking at it. But the pin hadn't been pulled and they got to talking about whether there was a hole drilled in the bottom of the grenade and how if there was that meant it was a dummy like they sold at Army-Navy stores and in ads in the back of Field and Stream. But whoever had put the thing in the corner had left it so that you couldn't see the butt end and, since the Bomb Squad got paid extra money to do that sort of thing, they decided just to wait.

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 carefully dropping vests on the grenade one by one, each cop making a run, not knowing whether to cover his eyes 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.

chapter 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 anyway, 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 cop 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 from A 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 about Hopper's murder. 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 only three people? And only one 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.