Now? Now, when they're pulling thousands of bodies in small pieces from smoking rubble around the corner? Now, when ash could mean anthrax, and loud sounds made you jump? Now, when Sally's not speaking to me and Kevin tells me Fuck off, Uncle Phil? Shit, lady. Now you could ask me if Eddie Spano was the Messiah, and I'd have to say it was possible. “I haven't thought about it.”
“What would you say if I told you Harry Randall didn't kill himself?”
“I'd say your paper already made it clear they don't think it was suicide.”
“There's evidence that points that way.”
“Not strong evidence.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If the police bought your theory, they'd be camping in my office.”
“Maybe they just haven't gotten around to you yet.”
“Around to me? I'd be the first.”
“You consider yourself a suspect in Harry Randall's murder?”
“I consider myself a successful criminal defense attorney. To some cops that makes me guilty of a lot worse things than murder.”
“Did you kill Harry Randall?”
He stared at her. “That's a hell of a technique. Does it work?”
“Sometimes.”
“I'm inclined to tell you to go to hell.”
“Go ahead, as long as you answer my question.”
“No.”
“No, you won't answer, or no, you didn't kill Harry Randall?”
“I didn't kill him. Is this what this is really about? The
“Harry Randall was murdered because he knew something.”
“Harry Randall was a drunk who jumped off the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.”
She shook her hair back from her face again. Phil was startled to see her eyes moisten. She blinked twice, and that was gone. Maybe he'd imagined it. But her voice seemed to quiver just slightly as she repeated, “Harry Randall was killed because he knew something.” The quiver vanished, though, as she went on. “One of the things he knew was that the money you've been giving to Mark Keegan's family came from, or at least through, James McCaffery.”
No surprise there. But what else did Randall think he knew? And how do
“But you knew James McCaffery?”
“Yes.”
“And it's true the money-from-the-State fiction was his idea?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he'd left papers behind?”
“Yes.”
The lifting of the brows again. But look: her eyes weren't the clear blue of the morning sky, as he'd thought, but the deeper, opaque blue of evening. Had he been wrong? Or did Laura Stone's eyes change, like Sally's, according to rules he would never understand?
“You know that?” Her voice took on a quick note, hope again. “Have you seen these papers?”
“No.” And because he could tell where she was going: “I only just found out.”
“Where from?”
Indirectly, from you, about an hour ago. “No comment.”
She gave him an appraising look. Well, let her figure it out.
“Do you know what's in them? McCaffery's papers?”
“No.”
“Any guesses?”
Yes. “No.”
“What if it's this whole thing—Keegan, Molloy, where the money came from?”
“Then we'll get McCaffery's thoughts on the matter.”
“Would that bother you?”
“Depends what he thought.”
