Worst Fears Realized

by Stuart Woods

  “And I rate a visit from a lieutenant?”

  “We wouldn’t send out a patrolman to talk to a distinguished small businessman,” Dino said. He waved a hand. “This is your place?”

  “It is.”

  “Tell me, how’d you swing the capital to open up? This is a pretty good location.”

  “I wasn’t broke when I went in,” Darcy said. “I pleaded to the charge, so the lawyers didn’t take everything.”

  “How much did you have when you went in?” Dino asked.

  “Not a whole lot; a few thousand dollars and some personal property—car, furniture, like that. I sold all my stuff.”

  “And the money grew while you were inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Herbie Mitteldorfer was your investment advisor?”

  “He was helpful, yes.”

  “How did you meet Mitteldorfer?” Dino asked.

  “We had the same work assignment—same department, that is.”

  “What department?”

  “The prison office. Later, I ran the shoe shop; Herbie got me transferred.”

  “Herbie could do that?”

  “He wanted somebody with computer experience.”

  “He wanted?”

  “Herbie sort of ran the office.”

  “Where’s Herbie now?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea. I saw his picture in the paper; I don’t believe a word of it. Herbie would never hurt anybody.”

  “He killed his wife.”

  Darcy shrugged. “So did I, but I wouldn’t hurt anybody, either. You don’t know how crazy a wife can make you.”

  “When was the last time you talked to Mitteldorfer?” Stone asked.

  “The day I was released from prison.”

  “Darcy,” Dino said, “do you want to go back to Sing Sing? I can arrange it.”

  “I haven’t done anything to get sent back,” Darcy said.

  “I could arrange for you to do something.”

  “All right, I understand that you can do anything you want, but I’m telling you, I don’t have any information at all about Mitteldorfer. Herbie would never contact me, anyway.”

  “Why not?” Stone asked.

  “He considers me his social inferior,” Darcy said. “After all, I’m only a cobbler. Herbie would never mix with me; he’s a terrible snob.”

  “Then why did he help you invest your money?” Stone asked.

  “Because I paid him a percentage of my profits,” Darcy replied. “So did the others.”

  “Which others?”

  “There were half a dozen prisoners who had some money outside, that I knew about.”

  “Who were they?”

  Darcy counted them off on his fingers. “Middleton, Schwartz, Alesio, Warren, and me.”

  “That’s only five.”

  “Okay, about half a dozen. Plus the prison staff, of course.”

  “Of course. How many of them were there?”

  “Half a dozen, or so.”

  “Who’s out besides you and Alesio?” Stone asked.

  “Alesio’s out? I didn’t know. I guess we’re the only ones; the rest are still inside.”

  “You in touch with any of them?”

  “I’ve had a couple letters from Schwartz; he wants to go into business with me when he gets out next year.”

  “What has he said about Mitteldorfer?”

  “Only that he hasn’t heard a word from him since Herbie got out. According to Schwartz, Herbie went around and said goodbye to them and told each one that he wouldn’t be hearing from him again, that they were on their own. He told them they’d have to find a broker.”

  “Who had Mitteldorfer used for a broker?”

  “I’m not even sure he had one. He had some way of trading on the computer, I think; he could do it right from the prison office, but then he started working outside the pen. When I got out, he had my assets transferred to my local bank. I don’t even know how he did it. He kept twenty-five percent of my profits for his fee.”

  “Who else was he friendly with inside?” Stone asked.

  “Friendly? He wasn’t friendly with anybody. I told you, he was a snob. I mean, he was polite, in his way, but he didn’t suffer fools gladly, not even Warkowski. He even had a cell to himself, the only guy I knew who did.”

  Back in the car, Dino gave his driver another address. “All right, let’s go see Alesio,” he said.

  “I have the feeling he’s not going to be any more help than Darcy was,” Stone said. “Mitteldorfer is far too smart to stay in touch with anybody he was in jail with. Anyway, I think Darcy’s comment about his being a snob is right on the money. He wouldn’t associate with ex-cons.”

  “We’ve got to try,” Dino said.

  Alesio turned out to be an elderly man, nearly seventy, Stone thought. They tried his apartment house and were referred to a senior citizens day center, where they found their man playing chess. He looked up at them and laughed.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  “Oh? How’s that?” Dino replied.

  “Ever since I saw Herbie’s picture in the paper. You’re never going to find him.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because he’s not stupid, that’s why I think-and this is only a guess; I don’t have any real knowledge of it-that Herbie already had himself set up as somebody else, even before he got out.”

  “If you don’t have any knowledge of it, why do you think that?” Stone asked.

  Alesio shrugged. “Herbie was like a good chess player,” he said. “He always thought several moves ahead. You could see it in the way he handled the prison staff. If he asked for something and didn’t get it, he’d have another request ready, and if he didn’t get that, he’d want something else, until finally, they gave him that. After a while, they just gave him whatever he wanted. After all, he was making money for them.”

  They got back into the car.

  “The precinct wants you,” Dino’s driver said to him.

  Dino got on the phone. “When? Where?” He turned to Stone. “We’ve got him.” He went back to the phone. “Nobody, but nobody talks to him until I get there, which will be in twenty minutes.” He hung up.

  “Mitteldorfer?” Stone asked.

  “No, the other guy The picture in the paper worked; somebody called it in from a dry cleaners on Third Avenue.” Dino grinned. “He’s missing part of an ear.”

  52

  S TONE AND DINO HURRIED INTO THE precinct and up the stairs to where the detective squad worked. Andy Anderson was using a computer terminal at a desk in the center of the room.

  “Okay, Andy, tell me,” Dino said.

  “The guy went to take some dry cleaning to a place on Third Avenue in the Seventies, and the manager recognized him from the picture in the Times and called it in. There was a black and white half a block away, and the two patrolmen jumped him as he left the place. He was carrying a 9mm automatic and a large switchblade, so we can hold him on weapons charges no matter what.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Cooling his heels in the lockup.”

  “Set up interrogation one for video and audio,” Dino said.

  “Already done.”

  “Anybody read him his rights?”

  “The two patrolmen.”

  “Okay, you go in, read him his rights again, and tell him the interview is being recorded.”

  “Uh, Lieutenant,” Anderson said hesitantly.

  “What?”

  “There may be a problem; he hasn’t spoken a word since he was picked up.”

  “Is he a mute?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go do what I told you,” Dino said.

  “Dino,” Stone said, “we need a lineup first.”

  “I’ll get Mary Ann in here, and we’ll do that,” Dino replied.

  “No, we need a lineup now, before we see the guy. We need that for court; we’re both witnesses to one of the murders.” />
  “Oh, right,” Dino said. “Thanks, Stone. Andy, get a lineup together; use other prisoners or other people Stone and I won’t recognize. This has to be good for court; I don’t want any mistakes.”

  Anderson went to do as he was told.

  “This had to be how it would end,” Stone said. “Somebody would just call in, and it’s over.”

  “It won’t be over until we have Mitteldorfer in a cell and a solid case against him,” Dino replied.

  Dino went into the lineup first, then left by another door. When Stone came into the little room, he made the man immediately, then went out to find Dino waiting for him.

  “Any doubts?” Dino asked.

  “None; it’s him.”

  “Come on, let’s take a closer look at him before we go in.”

  Stone followed Dino into the viewing room next door to interrogation room one. The two were separated by a one-way sheet of plate glass, with a mirror on the interrogation side. Anderson sat in the room alone with the man, who made smoking motions. Anderson shook his head slowly.

  “Mary Ann was right,” Dino said with some satisfaction. “She clipped his ear.”

  “He looks remarkably like the younger Mitteldorfer,” Stone said. “Got to be a relative.”

  “Okay, I’m going in,” Dino said. “You’ll have to observe from here; I don’t want to do anything that a lawyer could pounce on.”

  “I want to question him, too, Dino. What grounds would a lawyer have to object?”

  Dino thought about it. “Okay, but don’t say anything unless you think I’ve forgotten something. Leave it to Andy and me.”

  “All right.” Stone followed Dino into the room, then pulled a chair behind the man and to his left, out of his direct line of sight. Dino took a chair beside Anderson, across the table from the suspect.

  “Okay,” Dino said to Anderson, “have you read this gentleman his rights?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know this interview is being recorded?”

  “I’ve told him; I don’t know if he understood me.”

  Dino turned to the man. “Can you hear me?”

  The man nodded.

  “Do you understand English?”

  He nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  The man sat impassively, not moving.

  “You run his prints, yet?” Dino asked Anderson.

  “Yes; no results yet.”

  “You know,” Dino said to the suspect, “we’ll know who you are as soon as your fingerprints come back.”

  The man motioned for something to write with.

  Anderson shoved a legal pad and a ballpoint across the table.

  “You’d rather write your answers?” Dino asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Okay, what’s your name and address?”

  The man sat motionless.

  “I’ll go check on the prints,” Anderson said, then left the room.

  Dino sat, looking at his suspect. “Why did you kill those people?” he asked suddenly.

  The man began to write. He turned the pad so that Dino could read it.

  “It seemed a good idea at the time?”

  The man nodded vigorously.

  Anderson came back and sat down. When Dino looked at him, he shook his head.

  “Nothing?” Dino asked.

  Anderson shook his head again.

  Dino turned back to his suspect. “Write down the names of the people you killed.”

  The man began writing, then turned the pad around.

  Dino read aloud. “Three women, doorman, cop, lawyer.”

  “How did you kill the three women?” Dino asked.

  The man made a motion as if to hit himself on the head, then drew a finger across his throat.

  Stone held up four fingers, behind the man, so that he wouldn’t see.

  “There were four women,” Dino said. “How’d you kill the other one?”

  The man made the hitting-on-the-head motion again.

  Dino shook his head.

  Stone suddenly had an idea. “Herr ober!” he said sharply.

  The man’s head snapped around in Stone’s direction.

  “We know about your German accent,” Stone said. “There’s no reason not to speak.”

  The man thought about that for a moment. “Ach,” he said softly.

  53

  T HEY ALL SAT STILL, SAYING NOTHING FOR a long moment. Then Dino seemed to realize that the man was speaking, and that, moreover, he was talking.

  Stone got out the first question. “Herr Mitteldorfer?” he said.

  The man looked at him and laughed. “Nein,” he replied. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  “Not really,” Stone said. “Your name is Mitteldorfer, though, isn’t it?”

  “No,” the man replied.

  “Then what is your name?”

  “You are not needing to know,” he said. His accent was thickly German.

  “But you are his son, aren’t you?”

  The man smiled but said nothing.

  Dino took charge; he shoved the pad back to the suspect. “Write down the names of the people you killed.”

  “I am not knowing all these names.”

  “Write down the ones you know.”

  The man began writing, then stopped and read aloud from the pad. “The secretary—I am not knowing the name; the Hirsch lady, naked with the machine—ah, the cleaner.”

  “The vacuum cleaner,” Dino said.

  “Ja. Yes.” He continued. “Fräulein Enzberg; the man of the door on Fifth Avenue and the policeman; and the lawyer, Herr Goldschmidt.”

  “Goldsmith.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you kill Fraulein Enzberg?”

  The man shrugged.

  “Surely, she was Mitteldorfer’s friend; why would he want her dead?”

  “Who is this Mitteldorfer you keep saying?” the man asked, smiling a little.

  “You know perfectly well who he is,” Dino said.

  “He’s your father,” Stone interjected.

  “I am orphan,” the man said, smiling.

  There was another German name Stone could try, but he couldn’t remember it.

  Andy Anderson spoke up. “Why did you kill Susan Bean?” he asked.

  The man looked genuinely puzzled. “Bean? This is a person?”

  “The woman in the penthouse apartment in the East Sixties,” Anderson said. “You followed Mr. Barrington there and killed her when he went out. Why did you kill her?”

  “I am not knowing about this,” the man said.

  Stone remembered the name. “Herr Hausman,” he said, “are you telling us you don’t know who Susan Bean is?”

  The man turned and looked at Stone, exasperated. “I am not knowing…”

  He stopped.

  “Hausman is your name, isn’t it?” Stone asked.

  The man shrugged.

  “Your Christian name is Ernst, isn’t it?”

  The man laughed.

  “I got it,” Dino said. “The nephew in Hamburg, the one who works at the cigarette factory.”

  The suspect shook his head. “No,” he said. “Ernst is being in Hamburg still.”

  “And your mother is still in Hamburg, isn’t she?” Stone asked.

  The man turned and glared at Stone but said nothing.

  “Let’s get back to Susan Bean,” Anderson said. He read out her address from his notebook. “You were at this address?”

  “No,” the man said. “I am not knowing this place.”

  Stone took the legal pad from the table, tore off a sheet of paper, and wrote on it. “Check to see if Ernst Hausman is still in Hamburg. Find out his address and his mother’s name. Find out if there are any siblings.” He handed it to Dino, who looked at it, then handed it to Anderson. Anderson left the room.

  “I don’t understand,” Dino said. “You’ve admitted killing all these people, but you deny killing Susan Bean. Why?”

 
“You must be listening better,” the man replied. “I am not knowing this lady.”

  Anderson returned to the room. “It’s being done,” he said, handing Dino a note.

  Dino read it and handed it to Stone.

  Stone read it aloud. “No fingerprint record in this country. Have sent request to Interpol.”

  “How long have you been in this country?” Dino asked.

  The man shrugged. “Few weeks, I think.”

  “Did you enter the country legally?”

  “Oh, yes,” the man said. “I am being very legal always.”

  “Except when you are killing people.”

  “Except at this time.” He smiled.

  “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” Dino asked.

  The man shrugged.

  “Let me acquaint you with a point of the law in the state of New York,” Dino said. “We have the death penalty here. You understand the death penalty?”

  The man shrugged and said nothing.

  “They take a needle,” Dino said, pointing at his arm, “and put it here, in the vein. That’s all; lights out; kaput.”

  “In Deutschland is being no death,” the man said. “Deutschland is being civilized.”

  “Well, here, we’re still barbarians, I guess,” Dino replied.” Here we still put murderers to death, and you are a murderer. You have confessed to killing seven people.”

  “Six only,” the man said. “Not this lady Bean.”

  “Bad news,” Dino said. “Six is enough for the death penalty, the needle. Of course, before that happens, you’ll spend many years in a small cell, talking to nobody. We have prisons like that in this country. Dangerous people like you are put into special cells where they see nobody, talk to nobody for twenty-three hours a day. One hour a day, you get to exercise alone. Once a week, you get to shower. Then, after a few years, when you’re already crazy from being alone, they take you to a little room and they put the needle in your arm, you understand?”

  The man said nothing, but his face had become grim.

  “Now,” Dino said, “maybe there is a way for you to live. You see, we know that you did these murders because Mitteldorfer wanted you to. You had nothing against these people, right? Maybe Mitteldorfer made you kill them. If you tell us about that, if you testify to that in court, then maybe we can ask the district attorney not to go for the death penalty.”