Absent Friends

“The reporter on the original story,” Laura said. “The one who died. He was a friend of mine.”

“Good friend?”

“Yes.”

Zannoni stared into the distance. Probably, Laura thought as she blinked back tears, the view from where he sat had not suddenly started to shimmer and melt.

He said, “Jesselson says you think someone killed him.”

Laura answered, “That's true.”

“Any idea who?”

She shook her head. Zannoni, still watching the water, answered his own question. “Well, me either.”

“I didn't—”

“Just wanted to make sure, in case that's what you came for. I'm not going to guess. Speculate. Any of that bullshit. But back then.”

“That's why I came,” Laura said. “To hear about back then.”

At that Zannoni turned to her. Laura sat still and returned his look.

“I was a detective at the 124 then,” he said. “Later got transferred to the Bronx. Christ, what a schlep. Those days, right after the Knapp Commission—you heard of that?—they didn't have this community policing thing, like now. They wanted you to live outside your precinct. Keep down graft. Pile of crap. Cops running all around the goddamn city, damn waste of time. I retired eight years ago.”

Zannoni took a gulp of tea. A fresh breeze blew in from the Narrows, got trapped in the cul-de-sac of the balcony. It lifted a page from Laura's notebook; it brought with it the scent of the sea.

“Officers responded to a shots-fired, found Molloy,” Zannoni said. “Called in me and my partner, Jeff Miller. Jeff retired fifteen years ago. Condo in Tucson. Died there last year. The desert, Jesus.” He looked toward the water and shook his head. “Keegan showed up half an hour later. Said he did it, ran because he lost his head but came back to do the right thing. You know the story—Molloy and Keegan?”

“I know what the papers reported.”

Zannoni waited. Laura went on. “They were drinking in a house under construction. Jack Molloy got wild, waved a gun around, and Mark Keegan shot him by mistake.”

“Helluva mistake,” said Zannoni. “Right through the heart.”

Laura said, “Couldn't it still be an accident?”

Zannoni shrugged. “Close your eyes and squeeze, likely to hit something as something else. That's how the defense played it, anyway.”

“Phillip Constantine?”

“That was him, the lawyer. But he came later. Right then Keegan said it himself: I was scared, he shot twice, I just pointed and pulled the trigger. Never figured I'd hit him. I'm not real good with guns, he kept saying.”

“But you think there's something wrong with that?”

Zannoni turned back to Laura. “What the hell was he carrying it for?”

“People carry guns. Especially young punks that age.”

“Mark Keegan wasn't a punk. Grew up with Molloy, but nothing we had said he was connected. Far as I could see, he had no enemies. Everyone liked him. From what people said, even Molloy did, far as he liked anyone, crazy fuck that he was. 'Scuse my language.”

“Don't worry about it.”

Zannoni didn't look worried. “Auto mechanic with a wife and kid. 'Seventy-nine, guns weren't as easy to get as now. Today, okay, everyone has one, same as sneakers, gotta look good. Back then, gangbangers all over the Bronx, yeah, but a mechanic out here, family man? Why'd he have a gun?”

“Do you have an answer?”

“Yeah. He didn't.”

“It wasn't Mark Keegan's gun?”

“Not his, and he wasn't carrying it.”

Lights flashed on the distant flank of a tanker. Carefully, Laura said, “The gun was someone else's? Someone else was there?”

“Always thought so.”

“Who?”

“Never knew.” Zannoni cupped his tea with both hands. “That investigation, it wasn't what you'd call thorough. They pulled me and Jeff off it the second Keegan took the plea. Not like we minded. Plenty of open cases on our books. Guy pleads, hell with it, that one's closed.”

“But you didn't like it?”

For a moment, she didn't think he'd answer. Then he said, “They came out there with a six-pack, Keegan said. We didn't find a single can. Keegan said he picked them up when he ran, in case of prints.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“I went back the next day. Before they pulled us, you know? I went back in the light. I found two plastic ring tops. In the dirt near the foundation. Like someone tossed them over the edge. Molloy's prints on one, nothing we could make out on the other. I asked Keegan, how many six-packs did you say? He said, Yeah, I don't remember, maybe two. Seemed like a weird thing to me, guy can't remember how many six-packs he cracked open. Especially, he picked up the cans.”

“He'd have to have been flustered. Couldn't one of those tops have been from another time?”

“Keegan said that, too. Backpedaling. Um, um, um, could be a couple of nights before, um, um, we go over there a lot. So maybe it's one, maybe it's two, maybe from last night, maybe last week. Great. Anyway, it was a pretty clean site. No other trash. Strange that a ring top would have stayed, from last week.”

“And you think . . . ?”