Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

Rune, however, wasn't looking at the man who'd stopped her. It was the badge and the ID card in the battered wallet that got her attention. He was a U.S. marshal.

Neat, she thought before she decided she ought to be nervous.

"My name's Dixon."

He looked just like what a casting director would pick for a federal agent. Tall and craggy. He had a faint Queens accent. She thought about Detective Virgil Manelli and how he'd worn a suit. This guy was wearing jeans and sneakers, a black baseball jacket: bridge-and-tunnel clothes--meaning: from the outer boroughs. He wouldn't get into Area, her favorite after-hours club, wearing this kind of outfit. Trimmed brown hair. He looked like a contractor.

"It's just Rune. Not Ms."

He put the badge away and she caught a glimpse of a huge gun on his hip.

Awesome ... That's a Schwarzenegger gun, she thought. Man, that would shoot through trucks.

Then remembered she should be nervous again.

He squinted, then gave a faint smile. "You don't remember me."

She shook her head. Let the door swing shut.

"I saw you the other day--in the apartment on Tenth Street. I was part of the homicide team."

"In Mr. Kelly's apartment?"

"Right."

She nodded. Thinking back to that terrible morning. But she didn't remember anything except Manelli's close-together eyes.

The shot-out TV.

Mr. Kelly's face.

The blood on his chest.

Dixon looked at a notebook, put it back in his pocket. He asked, "Have you been in touch with a Susan Edelman recently?"

"Susan ... Oh, the other witness." The yuppie with the designer jogging outfit. "I called her yesterday, the day before. She was still in the hospital."

"I see. Can I ask why you called her?"

Because somebody's got to find the killer, and the cops couldn't care less. But she told Dixon, "Just to see how she's doing. Why?"

Dixon paused for a moment. She didn't like the way he was looking at her face. Assessing her. He said, "Ms. Edelman was killed an hour ago."

"What?" she gasped. "No!"

"I'm afraid so."

"What happened?"

Dixon continued. "She was walking past a construction site. A scaffolding collapsed. It might have been an accident but, of course, we don't think so."

"Oh, no ..."

"Has anyone threatened you? Or have you noticed anything suspicious since the killing on Tenth Street?"

"No." She looked down for a moment, uneasy, then back to the marshal.

Dixon examined her face closely. His expression gave away nothing. He said, "For your sake, for a lot of people's sake, I need you to tell me what your involvement with this whole thing is."