Death of a Blue Movie Star

in Times Square, had said, “Your name’s Sargant? My generation, they named kids weird things too. Like Sunshine and Moonbeam.”)
    Eddie glanced at it, shrugged. “You gotta use the stairs. Elevator’s broke.”
    Rune climbed to the third floor. The scorched smell assaulted her again and turned her stomach. She stepped through the door into what had been an office. She lifted the heavy camera and started shooting. The scene wasn’t what she expected, wasn’t like in the movies where you see a little smoke damage, chairs knocked over, broken glass.
    This was pure destruction.
    Whatever furniture was in the room had been blown to shreds of wood and metal and plastic. Nothing was recognizable except a blistered file cabinet that looked as if a huge fist had slammed into it. The acoustical tile on the ceiling was gone, wires hung down and the floor was a frozen black sea of paper, trash and chunks of debris. The walls were crisp bubbles of blackened paint. Heat still rose from piles of damp black cloth and papers.
    She panned slowly.
    This is where Shelly Lowe’s life ended. This is how it ended. In flames, and—
    A voice behind her asked, “What do you think?”
    The camera drooped and she shut it off.
    She turned and saw Sam Healy, standing in another doorway, sipping coffee from a blue deli cup. She liked that. Asking what he’d asked, rather than “What the hell’re you doing here?” Which is probably what he should’ve been asking.
    Rune said, “I think it looks like Hades, you know, the Underworld.”
    “Hell.”
    “Yeah.”
    Healy nodded toward the hallway. “Why’d he let you up here?”
    “I reasoned with him.”
    Healy walked up to Rune and spun her around slowly, looking at the letters on her back. “Cute. What’re you, impersonating a bus driver?”
    “Just shooting some tape.”
    “Ah. Your documentary.”
    She looked at a small suitcase on the floor next to him. “What’re you doing here? I thought the word was, keep your distance. Remember the
word?
”
    “I’m just a grunt. I collect the evidence. What the D.A. does with it is his business.”
    She looked at a number of plastic bags sitting next to his attaché case. “What kind of evidence’ve you—”
    Another voice cut through the room. “That’s her.”
    Eddie the cop.
    It was that kind of emphasis on
her
that Rune had heard before. It usually came from teachers, her parents and bosses.
    Rune and Healy looked up. Eddie was with another man, heavyset. He looked familiar. Yeah, that was it—at the first bombing, the theater: Brown Suit.
    “Sam.” He nodded at Healy, then said to Rune, “I’m Detective Begley. I understand you’re with the New York State Police. Could we see your ID again, please?”
    Rune frowned. “I never said that. I said I wanted to do some tapes
of
the state police. For the news.”
    Eddie shook his head. “She showed me a shield.”
    “Miss, you know it’s a crime to have a badge?”
    “It’s a crime for
some
people to have a badge.”
    Healy said, “Artie, she’s with me. It’s okay.”
    “Sam, she can’t go flipping shields around.” Begley turned to her. “Either open your bag or we’ll have to take you to the precinct.”
    “The thing is …”
    Eddie took the leopard-skin bag and handed it to Begley. He rummaged through the dull-clinking carnival of junk. He searched for a minute or two, then grimaced and dumped the contents out on the floor. There was no badge.
    Rune pulled out all her pockets. Empty.
    Begley looked at Eddie, who said, “I saw it. I know I did.”
    Healy said, “I’ll keep an eye on her, Artie.”
    Begley grunted, handed her bag to Eddie and ordered him to fill it back up.
    “She had a shield,” he protested.
    Begley said to Healy, “Got a positive ID on the body from dentals. It’s that Lowe woman all right. Nobody else hurt. And you were asking last night about her phone call?”
    Healy nodded.
    “The security guard doesn’t remember who the message was from. And the phone company’s still running pen registers, trying to find out who called who. As soon as we know anything else we’ll let you know.”
    “Thanks.”
    Begley left. Eddie finished refilling Rune’s bag. With a cold glance at Rune he too left.
    Rune turned and saw Healy reading her ID.
    “You spelled Sergeant wrong.”
    She reached for it and he lifted it above her reach.
    “Begley’s right. You get caught with this, it’s a misdemeanor. And wising off to a cop’ll get