Absent Friends

Stone frowned, then brightened, as though remembering. “If someone knew Mark Keegan had been paid to kill Molloy, the payments might have kept coming to keep her quiet.”

“Her? You mean Sally? No. No possible way.”

“Can you think of another explanation?”

“I don't think that's my job, Ms. Stone.”

“No.” Stone sighed. “No, I suppose not. What would McCaffery's role in this have been?”

“Role? Jimmy? Even if that were what happened, which is insane, Jimmy would have had nothing to do with it.”

“How do you know?”

Levelly, Marian met the other woman's eyes. “I knew Jimmy.”

“You broke up with him shortly after Keegan died.”

“What happened between Jimmy and me has nothing to do with this!” Marian snapped. “And”—her voice chilled—“it's certainly none of your business.”

“I'm sorry.” Stone seemed mortified. “That's not what I mean. It's just, you'd broken up by the time the payments began. He'd moved to Manhattan. I just wondered how you can be certain what he was involved in.”

“You seem to know a lot about us.”

“It was in Mr. Randall's story and his background research. Do I have it wrong?”

“No. Not the facts. But the article twisted the facts. It was full of nasty innuendo. About Jimmy, about what he might have done. And by extension, about me.”

“That's why I'm here,” Stone said earnestly. “I'll be speaking to other people, of course, but I've come to you first because you have a stake in it.”

“What stake do you mean?” Too sharp, Marian admonished herself. Stay calm, keep control.

“The McCaffery Fund.” Stone sounded surprised that Marian might be thinking of anything else. “You stopped taking contributions.”

“A matter of form,” Marian replied. “To reassure contributors. Just until these absurd allegations about Jimmy are cleared up. Which I have no doubt will be soon.”

“Meanwhile, I'd like to give you the chance to correct any misunderstandings based on what Mr. Randall wrote.”

“Those were not misunderstandings. Those were a reporter's attempts to smear as many people as possible on the basis of extremely flimsy supposition. Especially in the face of these extraordinary times, that was unconscionable.”

Laura Stone asked, “Do you know what was in his papers?”

Oh, these twists and turns, they were wearying. “Whose papers? Harry Randall's?”

“No. James McCaffery's.”

Marian did not move; but her body suddenly felt ponderous, weighted down, as if the pull of gravity had doubled. “What do you mean? What papers?”

“McCaffery apparently left papers. Possibly about this. Harry was on his way to see them the day he died.”

In a corner of her mind, Marian registered: Harry. Not Harry Randall, not Mr. Randall. All pretense dropped.

Marian summoned strength. “Who said this?” she demanded. “That Jimmy left papers?”

“Someone told Harry about them.”

“Someone lied.” That was not enough. “And even if he left something, who's to say it has anything to do with Jack and Markie? Jimmy could have had any number of things on his mind.” Marian wondered if that sounded as hollow to Laura Stone as it did to her.

“Yes, of course,” said Stone, equally falsely. “It's just, the person who told Harry about the papers said they were ‘hot stuff.'”

“Hot stuff?”

Stone nodded.

Marian shook her head. “I don't believe it.”

But it could be true. Jimmy, just like Marian herself, had never liked lying; but his reasons were different. He'd always said the truth would refuse to be hidden—it would “burn through,” that was how he'd put it—and lies you told would trip you up. It was too hard, he always said, lying was too hard.

It could be that that was what Jimmy's papers were about. The truth, burning through.

All right. One thing Marian understood was the importance of cutting her losses, especially when the chance still existed to bear away some small victory. “I'm sorry,” she told Stone. She checked her watch, as though the time elapsed meant something. “I have another appointment. We need to bring this to a close.”

Stone's eyes rested on Marian, and Marian felt as though she were being probed for gaps, weaknesses where a trickle of water, introduced but barely noticed, could burst the wall, become a drowning flood.

Deep within herself, Marian felt the rumbling of a vast, awakened anger. Before it could gather and explode, however, Laura Stone was on her feet, packing her scattered notebooks and pens, the irritating tape recorder, smiling, thanking Marian for her time. “I can find my way out,” she said. Nevertheless Marian accompanied her down the hallway, shook her hand; not to do so would be rude. She closed the polished oak door behind the reporter and turned back toward her own office. As she asked Elena to please clear the table in the small conference room and leave the untouched plate of cookies by the coffee machine for the staff, she realized the only coffee gone from the carafe was what she herself had had.

PHIL'S STORY

Chapter 7

Breathing Smoke

October 31, 2001