Free St. Patrick's Day Murder by Lee Harris Page A

said, “Something about borrowed money.”
    “They were friends. Jean McVeigh doesn’t think Ray did it. I didn’t really think I’d talk to you and come up with something the police missed, it just seemed to be something I ought to do.”
    “I know what you mean. In Gavin’s case—”
    The front door opened as she was speaking, and a man called, “Sharon?”
    “Hi, honey. I’m in here.”
    A strapping, good-looking man came into the living room. He was in jeans and a sweatshirt, but the gun on his belt told me he was a police officer.
    “This is Joe Farina,” Sharon Moore said. “This is Chris …”
    “Bennett,” I said, shaking his hand.
    “Chris is a friend of Scotty McVeigh’s. She wanted to know if there was a connection with Gavin.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Farina said. “You’re not the only one looking for a connection. Wish I could help you.” He turned to Sharon. “I need a nap.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Good luck,” he said to me, and went upstairs.
    “We’re friends,” Sharon said. “We live together. It’s been almost three years since Gavin died.”
    “He seems very nice,” I said.
    “He is.” She shook off her embarrassment. “What I was saying about Gavin. I think he got careless. They had a plan every time they went out. There was a back-up team, they knew where they were going, they had a timetable. You want to know what I think happened? I think he had to take a leak. He got shot in a little park that was sort of on the way to where he was going. He probably stopped because he had to pee. I never knew anyone who had to go as much asGavin did. They think it was a bunch of kids who killed him. They don’t have enough to charge anyone, and everybody’s keeping quiet. One of these days one of those guys’ll make a mistake and he’ll give them a name and plead down his case. I really miss Gavin. He was a funny, sweet guy. You do that kind of work, you have to have a sense of humor or you go crazy. We had a lot of fun together. If he’d had a better set of kidneys, he’d probably be alive today.”
    I caught Jack before he left for law school and told him about my interviews. He seemed cheered that the grocery had offered something to Jean and assured me you couldn’t believe anything a used-car dealer told you. He also thought that the story about Gavin Moore rang true, and he agreed with Sharon Moore’s assessment of how the killer would eventually be found. The name Joe Farina rang a bell when I mentioned it. They had known each other at some point, but Jack wasn’t sure where.
    “I’ve gotta run,” he said finally, “but I picked up some scuttlebutt today. Someone I know knows someone in IAD and the word is, there’s a lot more to the D.A.’s case than the loan and the fight.”
    “Is that it?”
    “That’s all I heard. I’ll keep trying.”
    I had half of my first Uglifruit at dinner and it was truly a treat. Greenish-yellow and misshapen on the outside, the inside was glorious, juicy and a pale orange color. Without much difficulty I could become a gourmet. If I could afford it.

9
    On Wednesday morning I drove to Queens to see what I could find out about Harry Donner. His house was not far from the Nassau County border, the start of Long Island, so it wasn’t surprising that he did his shopping there. Long Island has shopping centers with convenient parking and a lower sales tax than the city. His house was small and unassuming, with the usual tidy lawn, nice shrubs, and a still-dormant dogwood tree spreading its branches delicately. It didn’t seem likely that the people who had bought the house from Donner’s estate would have known anything about him, so I tried the house next door on the right. No one was home. Two doors down I found a young mother who had moved in two years ago and knew nothing about Donner. I walked back to the house to the left of his and tried again.
    A plump older woman opened the door and asked what I wanted.
    I