Absent Friends

LAURA'S STORY

Chapter 9

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Turtles in the Pond

October 31, 2001

A ratta-tat-tat, and the newsroom looked up: Leo's sapphire signet ring on the glass.

Everyone followed the line of Leo's pointing finger, breathed, and went back to work. Except for the person the finger pointed at. That reporter, lifted by a tractor beam, rose and was carried through the newsroom to Leo's office along the most direct route.

Laura picked up her head momentarily, saw the decree was not for her (the chosen was Del Leffler, a cop reporter confederate of Hugh Jesselson's; his beat was Vice), and immediately snapped back to work. Organizing, outlining, getting ready: she wanted to show her work to Leo, as soon as the searchlight of Leo's focus found her.

Before that she would have to sit through the end-of-day meeting, of course. If a reporter was missing, morning or afternoon, Leo had better know why, and Laura had no reason good enough. No reason at all, except the pounding of her head at the thought of reporters and editors crowding the conference room. Some would watch her with curiosity they wouldn't bother to disguise: they were reporters, Harry's death was a story, and Laura was a part of it. Others would slide their eyes right past her. They would find fascination in their yellow pads and the caps of their pens if she spoke: she was a young woman, she'd lost her lover, and polite people don't pry. Which would be worse? Laura wasn't certain.

At five-thirty precisely, Leo lumbered toward the conference room looking neither left nor right. He did exactly this every morning and every afternoon; the first time Laura had seen him do it had been her first morning at the Tribune. Personnel had instructed her to be in by eight-thirty sharp, but she had arrived before eight, with the cardboard box she'd packed up in St. Paul. She was putting her drawers in order, transferring computer files and phone records, unpacking her Rolodex and her coffee cup, everything she'd brought, everything she had. At eight-thirty she looked up to see Leo pushing past her desk in his march through the newsroom. Every other reporter stood and followed, like a school of fish. Laura watched, uncertain (what is this? does it include me, should I go, too, should I wait to see?), until Harry Randall, the last to file through the conference room door, stuck his head back out and tapped his watch. Laura jumped up and headed in, grabbing a notebook and pen in case she needed to take something down, or to look as though she did.

That meeting, like all but the most extraordinary since—the morning meeting on September 12 for example—lasted exactly twenty minutes. Everyone briefed Leo (Leo had a strict definition of brief) on the stories they were working and their plans for the day. Everyone took quick suggestions from one another and growled orders from Leo. Everyone rose at ten to nine and went back to work.

The afternoon was the same, with twenty minutes truncated to fifteen. Now, when they assembled, fast reporters as usual filled the chairs and slower ones leaned on walls. Leo pointed, people began to talk, and Laura didn't listen.

In the past she always had. She'd concentrated hard. She'd wanted to know. What were the stories, what were the angles? Could she contribute? Become part of it? Think of a different way, a new way, a way so unexplored and promising as to bring Laura Stone's abilities to the attention of senior colleagues who might, next time, think to include her when the story was big? Today, though, she was busy. Busy not noticing people not noticing her, busy returning the stares of the starers. She felt Georgie's mournful, helpful gaze, but she didn't look at Georgie. She was busy not seeing the chair Harry was not sitting in, the wall against which he was not slouching.

But not so busy that she didn't respond when Leo called her name.

“Stone.”

“The Harry Randall homicide.” Instantly she answered. She'd practiced this in her head, over and over through the day, through the night as she lay awake on the pull-out couch in her unrecognized apartment. (What had she been thinking, buying this carpet? Didn't those curtains ever shut out the light? Did the refrigerator always hum and stop like that? It must be the noise, that must be why she couldn't sleep.) The Harry Randall homicide. She worked on this phrase with the precision and persistence she brought to all her writing. Words, she had always believed, made thoughts visible. Nothing was so gossamer or so incarnate, so transitory or so steadfast, that words could not reveal its secrets. Even the incomprehensible, even the unfathomable. Even this, Harry's death, could be made comprehensible by the right words.

“I was on Staten Island this afternoon,” she said, “to talk to a couple of people.”

“You have anything new?”

Leo wanted a piece. Laura's heart skipped. “I will by deadline, Leo.”

Raised eyebrows and traded looks told her how intensely the group was following this exchange. Within minutes of her leaving Leo's office yesterday, the substance of their meeting and its outcome had flash-flooded through the newsroom: Stone has a crackpot theory that Randall didn't jump. But Leo signed on; what the hell does that mean? He's probably just humoring her. Because, you know, of her and Harry. Leo? You must be crazy. Then Jesselson's piece ran this morning, and agnosticism replaced atheism: might be something there, I mean, Leo's got Jesselson on it, too, let's see what comes next.

Leo grunted, a sign he'd heard Laura and that was all for her. But before he could draw down on his next target, words from the other side of the room: “Laura? Write this down.” Hugh Jesselson, rumpled in gray slacks and wrinkled white shirt, propped up the far wall. “Angelo Zannoni. Sergeant, retired, 124.” Glancing at a three-by-five card in his hand, he pounded out a phone number. Laura scribbled it down, then looked at him inquiringly. “Arresting officer,” he said. “Mark Keegan, 1979. Expecting your call.”

Laura smiled. “Thanks, Hugh.”

Jesselson shrugged. “Thanks for yesterday.”

A snicker wiggled around the room. Laura flushed. Jesselson's mouth turned up at the corner, which didn't help.

It had been Laura's idea to run this morning's story on the investigation of Harry's death under Hugh Jesselson's byline. “We can make it look like the cops care. Maybe scare someone out of the woodwork. Let Hugh have it,” she'd argued to Leo. He sat lodged behind his desk, rendered as close to wordless as she'd ever seen him by the spectacle of a reporter offering a front-page byline to someone else.

Jesselson, summoned by sapphire, read her copy. “Doesn't sound like me,” he'd objected.

“Rewrite it,” ordered Leo.

So he had, and Hugh Jesselson, after eight years with the New York Post and six at the Tribune, had finally made the front.



Meeting concluded, reporters and editors went back to work. Laura dropped into her chair and dialed the number Jesselson had given her.

Four rings, then a growled “Hello.”

“Angelo Zannoni?”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Mr. Zannoni, I'm Laura Stone of the New York Tribune. Hugh Jesselson suggested I call you—”

“He suggest you call me at suppertime?”

Laura glanced up to the newsroom clock. The hour hadn't occurred to her, and in the face of the important work she was trying to accomplish, she was surprised to find time mattering to anyone.

“I'm sorry if—”

“Yeah, sure. You want to come out here?”

“Yes. Yes, if that would be—”

“1491 Fitzgerald, Pleasant Hills. Think you can find it?”

“Yes, I—”

“I'm here.”

Laura took the receiver from her ear, replaced it on its console. She might as well; Zannoni had already hung up.