Page 11 of No Safe Place

“I heard you left the city,” she said. “Florida, was it?”

“Yep, first Florida then the Bahamas,” I said. “I lived down there for a bit but I, um... I live out West now. I’m actually back East here for a New England fishing vacation my son set up for me. The Farmington River behind the coffee shop here is actually world-famous. See, it’s got this special water that comes out of these aquifers up in the Berkshires that give it this not too hot, not too cold temperature that’s perfect all year round for the fish. And what fish! You have to see these trout.”

“You still with the fishing,” Colleen said, smiling as she shook her head. “Some things never change. I remember you with your dad out along the train tracks at the lake in Van Cortlandt Park. You had to be five years old. You were the cutest thing, you and Connor, in your red plaid ties and freckles.”

“I think we both know, out of the two of us, who the cutest thing in the neighborhood was,” I said.

“Mike Gannon,” she said, shaking her head as she looked at me with those pale angel eyes.

“So, what are you working on up here?” I said.

Colleen gestured across the street with her coffee.

“The death of a student at Beckford College. A girl from the city, Olivia Ramos. She was a scholarship kid. She died from a drug overdose last year. Twenty years old and an only child. I’m here to look into it.”

“No! Those damn opioids,” I said.

“You said it,” Colleen said. “Every year they kill more young people than Vietnam ever did. Makes you sick more isn’t being done.”

“Sure does,” I said, sipping my own coffee. “So, you’re here on an insurance thing? The parents are suing the school?”

“Kind of,” Colleen said, looking across the road again. “Or who knows. Maybe. We’re not there yet. Beckford College is small, but it’s a minor Ivy with a giant Final Four basketball program and has deep pockets. They have an endowment of thirty-four billion dollars so they actually settled really quickly for a million-plus to keep it out of the news.”

“So, where do you fit in?”

Colleen sat up and placed her coffee cup down onto the garden table.

“The girl’s parents were divorced and the father was in prison when the mother signed off on it. The dad was released last year and wants us to look into it for him to see what it was all about.”

“He win the lottery or something?” I said. “That sounds like it would cost plenty.”

“No, not at all,” Colleen said. “The opposite. It’s a pro bono thing. The father was actually wrongfully convicted for a robbery in Times Square and one of the firm’s senior partners was his lawyer at the time. He blew it, so he’s trying to make amends. You have to see this poor guy. He doesn’t even seem to care that he’s been exonerated. He just wants me to see what happened to his daughter.”

“Wow. You get thrown in prison for something you didn’t do, then your twenty-year-old kid ODs while you’re inside. That’s about as rough as it gets,” I said.

Colleen nodded, looking down at the table.

She suddenly raised her coffee cup.

“To Irish reunions,” she said with a sigh.

12

Colleen Doherty arrived at the Beckford College guard booth at eight forty-five and followed the guard’s directions to the administration building. She parked and went inside and down a set of stairs.

The campus security office was just to the right of the lower-level door she pulled open, and inside of it the bright fluorescent light gleamed off a high metal-and-glass check-in desk and the white subway tiled walls. A half dozen flat screens hung from the dropped ceiling showing security camera feeds.

Very high-tech, Colleen noted. It was some setup for such a small school, she thought. She’d seen police precincts that were less elaborate.

Behind the Star Trek console of a desk was an alert-looking young Hispanic woman in khakis and a red campus safety polo shirt. She smiled as she clicked the pen in her hand.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Good morning,” Colleen said, finally smiling back as she took her notebook from her bag. “I’m here to see Campus Security Director Roy Travers. Is he here?”

The young woman paused, blinked as if wondering if she should admit it.

“One moment please,” the guard said, lifting a phone. “Your name?”

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