Worst Fears Realized

by Stuart Woods

  “Sure, I’ll call her. I think it’s a hell of a settlement. What’s wrong?”

  “Alma was attacked on the street last night, after leaving work; she died this morning.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Stone, I’m so sorry. I know how close you were.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty shaken. I think I’m just going to shut down the phones and take the day.”

  “You do that. You want me to find somebody to help you out with the work? I can speak to our personnel director.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” Stone said. “But don’t send anybody until tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Again, I’m sorry, Stone. You take it easy.”

  “Thanks, Bill.” Stone hung up. He should have been elated at the settlement and a rich fee, but he felt nothing but depression. Two women he knew, one of whom he had been very close to, had been murdered within twelve hours of each other. He switched on his answering machine and recorded a new message. “This is Stone Barrington. I won’t be taking any calls today, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll return your call tomorrow.”

  He trudged back upstairs, switched off his phone, and fell into bed, exhausted.

  5

  S TONE GOT UP AS DARKNESS WAS FALLING. He got into some khaki trousers, a shirt, and some moccasins, then went to the kitchenette in the master suite and made himself a cup of tea, with a large dollop of honey. He took the mug down one floor to his study and sat in one of a pair of wing chairs before the window overlooking the garden. The doorbell rang; Stone picked up the phone beside his chair. “Yes?”

  “It’s Dino.”

  “Come on in; I’m in the study.” He pressed the button on the phone that opened the front door.

  Dino walked into the study and threw his coat on the sofa.

  “Hi. Want a cup of tea?”

  “I want a cup of scotch,” Dino replied.

  “Help yourself.”

  Dino went to the little wet bar concealed behind a panel and fixed himself a scotch on the rocks, then came and sat down in the chair next to Stone’s. “How about some lights?” Dino said.

  “I like it this way at dusk,” Stone replied. “Leave it for a few minutes.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like somebody worked me over with a baseball bat.”

  “You went to the hospital?”

  “Yeah; it was Alma. Sorry, I forgot to call and tell you.”

  “A citizen found her handbag in a wastebasket a couple of blocks away. There was over a hundred bucks in it, plus her credit cards.”

  “Nothing at all taken?”

  “Not that we can figure.”

  “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know.”

  “She was such a happy person,” Stone said. “Didn’t matter if I was having a grumpy day; she just took it in stride. Always managed to cheer me up.”

  “She was a nice lady,” Dino said. “I always liked her.”

  They sat quietly for a while, watching the garden grow dark and the lights come on in the other houses in Turtle Bay, all of which backed up onto the same garden.

  “Stone,” Dino said finally.

  “Yeah?”

  “You see any possible connection between these two killings?”

  “I thought about that; the only connection is me.”

  “I thought about that, too,” Dino said. “Think for a minute: Is there somebody out there who hates you enough to want to kill people you know?”

  “I thought about that, too; couldn’t think of anybody.”

  “Neither could I.”

  “They can’t be connected,” Stone said. “It’s just an awful coincidence.”

  “I think you’re right; I just had to explore the other possibility.”

  “I know.”

  “When you’re a cop, or when you’ve been a cop, it’s always hanging over your head.”

  “What is?”

  Dino sighed. “The other possibility. The idea that somebody you’ve busted and sent up will come back to haunt you, to get even. I think that, after getting killed in the line of duty, it’s every cop’s worst fear.”

  “I never thought about it until this minute.”

  “Stone, what did you and Susan Bean talk about last night? We never got into that.”

  “Just first-date chitchat,” Stone said. “What do you do? Where are you from? Like that. She didn’t seem to be happy in her job.”

  “How so?”

  “She said she was thinking of leaving the DA’s Office.”

  “From what Martin Brougham told me last night, she was on her way up.”

  “She said that, but it didn’t seem to matter. I think she was just disillusioned with the system; she didn’t like the way she had to do her job.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know; it was just something she said. We never had time to go into it. You know how it is, Dino; a lot of idealistic people don’t like an up-close view of how the justice system works. It takes a pretty thick skin to live with it every day.”

  “Yeah; I had a hard time with it at first, too.”

  “You? I’m surprised.”

  “What? You think I’ve always been the tough-but-honest, cynical cop you see before you? I had to grow a thick hide, just like you had to.”

  “If you say so.”

  Across the garden a light came on in a house directly opposite Stone’s, and a woman in a business suit walked into a room framed by a large picture window.

  “Watch this, Dino,” Stone said.

  “Watch what?”

  “The woman across the way.”

  “What about her?”

  “Just watch. I think you’ll find this interesting.”

  The woman, who was tall with long red hair, began to undress.

  “You’re right,” Dino said, “this is interesting.”

  “Just keep watching,” Stone said.

  The woman carefully hung up her suit, then stepped out of her half-slip, unhooked her bra, and slid out of her panty hose and panties. She dropped the underwear into a hamper. Now she was completely naked, exposing a slender but shapely body with high, firm breasts.

  “Wow,” Dino said softly.

  “She’s something, isn’t she?”

  Now the woman went to a closet, took out a vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, and began to vacuum the room.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” Dino asked.

  “She’s vacuuming. She does this two or three times a week; she comes home from work, takes off her clothes, and vacuums her bedroom. Then she disappears for a while. I guess she’s vacuuming her whole apartment. The she comes back into the bedroom, puts away the vacuum, and disappears again. Sometimes she gives a little wave.”

  “You mean she knows you’re watching her?”

  “I expect half the neighborhood is watching her,” Stone said.

  Dino abruptly sat up straight in his chair. “Look at that,” he said.

  “I am looking at it,” Stone replied.

  “No; there’s a guy.”

  “Where?”

  “Standing in the bedroom door.”

  Stone looked. Dino was right; a shadowy figure stood in the half darkness of the doorway. “Her boyfriend, maybe?”

  “No; not the way he’s standing. She doesn’t know he’s there.”

  “She hasn’t seen him, and she can’t hear anything over the vacuum noise.”

  The woman continued to vacuum, turning toward the window. The man began to move toward her. He was short and slender, with bushy, dark hair—almost an Afro, though he was white.

  “Oh, shit,” Dino said. “He’s got a knife.”

  Stone saw that Dino was right. The man walked up behind the woman, snaked an arm around her neck, and yanked her backward, pulling her chin up.

  Dino was on his feet, unlocking the window, shoving it open, grabbing the pistol at his belt. “Don’t you do it, you son of a bitch!” he screamed.

  Stone sat, r
iveted to his chair. The man was looking directly at them.

  Dino raised his pistol and fired twice. Two holes appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the window.

  “You’ve got his attention,” Stone said.

  It didn’t seem to matter that he knew he was being watched. The man drew the knife’s blade across the struggling woman’s neck, and blood began to spill down her naked body. She collapsed, but he held her up with the hand under her chin, widening the wound in her neck.

  “Let her go, and I’ll shoot you where you stand, you bastard!” Dino screamed.

  Instead, the man began to walk backward toward the door, dragging the dying woman, holding her up as a shield. Then he dropped her and left the room.

  “Call nine-one-one!” Dino said, grabbing his coat. “I’m going over there; do you know the address?”

  “I don’t know the number; you’ll have to guess,” Stone replied, picking up the phone.

  “Wait here and make sure he doesn’t leave the house through the garden,” Dino said, running for the door.

  “Dino!” Stone shouted, stopping him in his tracks.

  “What?”

  “I know the guy,” Stone said. “I know the killer.”

  “Later,” Dino said, running down the stairs.

  Stone reported the homicide, then unlocked a cabinet, took out a pistol, and stood, watching the back of the house. Maybe he could get a shot at the guy. Two minutes passed, then Dino appeared in the woman’s bedroom, followed by a uniformed officer. He gave the uniform some instructions, and the officer left the room. Dino picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  Stone saw the light on his phone flash. He picked it up. “Dino?”

  “Get over here,” Dino said, then hung up.

  Stone stuck the pistol in his belt, grabbed a coat, and ran out of the house.

  6

  S TONE JOGGED QUICKLY AROUND THE BLOCK, looking at every person he passed, hoping to see the frizzy-haired perpetrator. Finding the house was easy; two black and whites were double-parked outside, their flashers working. A uniformed cop stood guard at the top of the house’s steps. Stone flashed his retired officer’s ID and was admitted to the house.

  He could see by the mailboxes that the original town house had been divided into apartments; the door to the ground-floor unit stood open, and he walked in, breathing hard. Two uniformed patrolmen stood in the entrance hall. “Is Lieutenant Bacchetti upstairs?” Stone asked, flashing his ID.

  “Yeah,” one of the men said.

  Stone ran up the stairs. He was met by another uniform and by the two detectives he had met at Susan Bean’s, Andy Anderson and Michael Kelly.

  “What are you doing here?” Kelly demanded.

  Stone ignored him and walked toward the rear of the house. He was on the upper floor of a ground-floor duplex, handsomely decorated. He emerged from a hallway toward the woman’s bedroom. Her body lay on the floor in the doorway, uncovered, her skin dead white, her throat gaping.

  Dino looked up. “It’s a lot like the way Susan Bean was done,” he said to Stone. “Right-handed perp, knife drawn from left to right, very deep.”

  “Any luck on finding him?” Stone asked. “He didn’t come out the back, and I didn’t see him on the street on the way over here.”

  “No,” Dino said, picking up the dead woman’s handbag from a chair and stepping over the body into the hallway, taking care not to step on the blood-soaked part of the pale carpet. “Come in here for a minute,” he said, leading the way down the hall and into a study. The room had bookcases on one side and was hung with good pictures on two other walls. An antique desk faced the second-story windows, looking out onto the street. “Sit down,” Dino said, opening the handbag.

  Stone took a seat. “What’s her name?” he asked.

  Dino was looking in her wallet. “Miranda Hirsch,” he said, handing Stone her business card. “Executive VP in charge of loan operations at the Manhattan Bank.”

  “Big job,” Stone said, looking at the card.

  “Did you know her at all?”

  “Only what I’ve seen of her through the window,” Stone said.

  “While you were playing Peeping Tom, did you ever see a man in the place?”

  Stone shook his head. “Not until tonight. After the performance with the vacuum cleaner, she always closed the curtains.”

  “Downstairs, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times did you watch her undress?”

  “A dozen, fifteen, I guess.”

  “You’re lucky I was with you tonight,” Dino said, “or Kelly and Anderson would be pulling you in, making a case for how you were overcome with passion by her performance.”

  “That’s not a bad line to pursue,” Stone said. “They should be canvassing my side of the block; the perp could be living over there, and I’ll bet there were other witnesses.”

  “Could be, but nobody called it in. You said something before I left your house; you said you knew the perp?”

  “I do, but I’m damned if I can remember where from.”

  “Come on, Stone, think.”

  “I am thinking,” Stone replied testily. He looked at his feet. “We were together on it, I think.”

  “On what?”

  “On this guy. We arrested him for something, I’m sure. A long time ago.”

  “Well, come on, give me a hint.”

  “I just can’t put it together,” Stone said. “Give me a minute, will you?” The two were quiet for a moment.

  “Mitteldorfer,” Dino said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Mitteldorfer; that was his name. Accountant; killed his wife.”

  “Herbert Mitteldorfer!” Stone exclaimed. “How the hell did you remember that?”

  “He cut her throat,” Dino said. “That’s how I remembered. How long ago was that?”

  “Eleven, twelve years ago,” Stone replied. “There was no death penalty then; he got life.”

  “There was no life without parole, either,” Dino said. “He’s been in long enough to get paroled.”

  “Where was he sent?”

  “I don’t remember. Dannemora, Attica?”

  “I don’t remember either. Find out.”

  Dino got out his cell phone and started dialing, then stopped. “Stone, are you sure it was Mitteldorfer? I’m damned if I can remember exactly what he looked like.”

  “He looked just like the perp, that’s what he looked like.”

  Dino resumed dialing. “This is Bacchetti. Dig up a record on a Herbert Mitteldorfer.” He spelled it. “Sent up eleven or twelve years ago for murder. I want to know what joint he was sent to and what his current status is. I’ll hold.” He looked up at Stone. “Two’ll get you ten he was paroled last week.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Stone said.

  “You remember much about this guy?” Dino asked.

  “Not much. Not very big; tightly wound; borderline psycho, I’d say.”

  “But what the hell would he have against you?”

  “I arrested him, remember?”

  “Yeah, but so did I, and so far, he isn’t out there killing people I know.”

  “So far,” Stone said.

  Dino’s face fell. “Oh, Jesus,” he said.

  Stone muttered something.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘worst fears realized.’”

  7

  D INO WAS DOING A LITTLE OVER A HUNDRED miles an hour on the New York State Thruway when the flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror. Stone reflected that Dino always drove as if he’d just stolen the car.

  “Well, shit,” Dino said. He dug into the glove compartment for his flasher, set it on the dashboard, and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. When he saw the flashing light, the state trooper turned on his whoopers.

  Dino slammed on his brakes, nearly causing a rear-end collision, then, in a spray of gravel, ground to a halt on the shoulder. He got ou
t his badge, rolled down the window, and waited for the trooper to come to him. The man was on the radio, obviously checking Dino’s plates.

  “Dino,” Stone said wearily, “the speed limit on the thruway is sixty-five miles an hour. Why can’t you drive seventy-five or eighty, like a normal human being?”

  “Like you never drive fast,” Dino replied.

  The beefy young trooper appeared in the driver’s window.

  Dino held up his ID. “And what the fuck do you want?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I want your driver’s license and your registration,” the trooper said, not quite as pleasantly.

  “You’re looking at the only ID you’re going to get from me,” Dino said. “If you can read, you’ll see that I’m a lieutenant in the New York City Police Department. I’m on my way to Sing Sing on official business.”

  “Your license and registration, and don’t make me ask you again,” the trooper said through gritted teeth.

  Dino reached into an inside pocket for his cell phone, causing the trooper to jump back and put his hand on his pistol. “Tell you what,” he said, “let’s just call Colonel Joe O’Brien at the Poughkeepsie station and tell him that Trooper”—Dino squinted at the man’s name tag—“Warkowski is impeding a triple-homicide investigation of the NYPD by acting like a rookie asshole.” Dino started punching in a number.

  “All right, all right,” the trooper said, holding his hands out in front of him. “Just slow it down, okay?”

  “Tell you what, Warkowski,” Dino said. “You wait right here for a couple hours and you’ll see me going south again at a hundred and twenty.” Dino slammed the car into gear and left the trooper standing in a cloud of dust at the roadside.

  “You really know how to make friends, Dino,” Stone said. “I’ve always said that about you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dino said, watching the needle on the speedometer pass a hundred.

  “Do you really know a Colonel O’Brien in Poughkeepsie?”

  “He spoke at a dinner I went to last year. We didn’t quite meet.”

  In Poughkeepsie they made their way to Sing Sing Prison, showed their ID at the gate, and were directed to a parking spot.