by Stuart Woods
“All right,” Stone said.
“Meet me down there at nine sharp tomorrow morning, and don’t tell me where you plan to be in the meantime. If they try to subpoena you, I can deny knowledge of your whereabouts.”
“See you at nine in the morning,” Stone said. He hung up.
“What’s up?” Dino asked.
Stone explained the situation to him.
“I wish we could wrap this up before you have to testify,” Dino said.
“So do I.”
There was a knock on the door, and Andy Anderson came in.
“Sit down, Andy, and tell me what’s happening,” Dino said.
Anderson took a seat and got out his notebook. “Okay,” he said, “first, the apartment. We took it apart, but there wasn’t much there, except one more rent receipt in Erwin Hausman’s name—no IDs, no notes of any kind, only two sets of fingerprints, Erwin’s and one more.”
“Nothing at all that would help us find Mitteldorfer?”
“Nothing. If there had been a phone, we could have checked the records for numbers called.”
“That’s why there was no phone,” Stone said. “Mitteldorfer is very smart.”
“Now, on fingerprints,” Andy said. “Interpol got a match for Erwin. He had been arrested half a dozen times, all over Europe, for participation in violence at international soccer matches. He’s one of a lot of repeat offenders. The Hamburg police confirm this, and, more important, they confirm that he has a younger brother who has also been arrested a number of times for the same thing, name of Peter Hausman. I’m running the other set of prints with Interpol now, on the supposition that they belong to Peter. The only other sibling is Ernst, who works at the cigarette factory and who is, apparently, a solid citizen. The boys’ mother is named Helga, and she refused to speak more than a few words with the police. She wouldn’t answer any questions about the boys’ father, who, apparently, doesn’t live in the house with them.”
“Bingo,” Dino said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Where are we getting?” Stone asked. “What have we learned that will help us find Mitteldorfer, or Hausman, or whatever his name is?”
“I checked the Hausman name against utility records,” Andy said. “There are only two Hausmans in New York City: one is an elderly, retired machinist who lives in Queens, and the other has been a cab driver for the past sixteen years.”
“Then we’re back to the pictures in the paper,” Stone said, “and we’ve had only the one report.”
“And it was on Hausman, not Mitteldorfer,” Dino said. “Andy, talk to the local TV stations and get both the photograph of Mitteldorfer and the sketch of Hausman on the air tonight, but have the Hausman sketch altered to show very short hair.”
“Right,” Andy said. “Anything else?”
“Concentrate on getting that done; we’re short of time.”
“Actually, Lieutenant, there’s something else I want to tell you.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s about the Bean murder; it didn’t seem important until now, and, well, Mick Kelly asked me not to bring it up. There didn’t seem to be any reason to, so I didn’t.”
“What is it?” Dino asked.
“When the three killings—Bean, Stone’s secretary and the Hirsch woman—happened so close together, I thought they were all connected.”
“We all did,” Dino said.
“Well, now I don’t think Bean is connected to the other two. First of all, Hausman denied any knowledge of her, and he seems credible, in the light of his confessing to six other murders.”
“Good point,” Dino said. “You got another suspect?”
Stone spoke up. “Not me, I hope.”
“Not you, Stone,” Andy said. “Tell me, is there any reason why someone in the DA’s office might want Susan Bean to be shut up?”
Stone sat up straight in his chair. “Very possibly,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you remember that Mick and I got to Bean’s apartment pretty fast after you called it in?”
“Yes,” Stone replied.
“That’s because we were right around the corner when we got the call.”
“Why?” Dino asked.
“Mick had wanted to meet somebody at a little bar on Lexington. I drove him there, and he got out and went in. He was in there, maybe, three minutes; I had a cramp in my leg, and I got out to walk it off. You know, there’s a little window that’s required for every bar; it was mandated a long time ago so that women looking for their husbands could see inside.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dino said.
“Well, I looked inside to see if Mick was about done, and I saw him talking to somebody.”
“And who might that have been?” Stone asked, thinking he might know the answer to his own question.
“It was Tom Deacon, from the DA’s Office,” Andy said.
“And that’s what, a thirty-second walk from the Bean apartment building?” Stone asked.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “I’m really sorry I didn’t bring this up before, Lieutenant, but it didn’t seem pertinent at the time. I asked Mick what he was seeing Deacon about, and he said he was angling for a job in the DA’s investigative division. He asked me not to mention it to anybody, because he didn’t want you to know that, after a pretty short time in the precinct, he was looking to get out.”
“Dino,” Stone said, “When Susan and I were walking to her place that night, she told me she wasn’t happy about how they had won the Dante case, and she was thinking of getting out.”
“I remember your saying that,” Dino said.
“I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I’ve learned from a source that Deacon may have fabricated or altered the surveillance-tape evidence that Marty Brougham used to get the Dante conviction.”
“You think Brougham knew about it?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Stone said, “but I think I’ll find out tomorrow morning.”
Dino turned to Andy. “See if you can get a search warrant for Deacon’s residence.”
“What am I going to tell a judge we’re looking for?”
“The murder weapon, or anything else you can think of. I know it’s thin; try Judge Haverman; she’s always been cooperative.”
“I’m on it,” Andy said.
“You’ll never get the warrant,” Stone said. “Why don’t you just get Deacon in here and brace him? He doesn’t know we know he was near the scene; maybe he’ll make a mistake.”
“At this point,” Dino said, “I’m willing to try anything.”
57
S TONE WENT BACK TO DOLCE’S PLACE AND packed his things. He was out of clean clothing, and he figured, what with the death of Erwin Hausman, it might be safe to go back to his own house. He left a note for Dolce, but after a moment’s thought, he kept the key she had given him.
Back in his own street he cruised the block a couple of times, looking for vans or other suspicious vehicles, but he saw nothing that alarmed him. He used his remote to open the garage door, drove inside, closed the door, took his things out of the trunk, and went upstairs.
The place was in good order. Helen had, apparently, with no instructions from him, continued to come in. It occurred to him that that might have put her in danger, and he winced at the thought that he had forgotten to tell her.
He threw his dirty clothing into a hamper and put away his cases. He was about to lock the 7.65 automatic in the gun safe, but he reflected that someone, probably Peter Hausman, was still out there, so he kept the pistol in its shoulder holster. He went down to his office and checked his machine for messages. There were a dozen or so, but none terribly urgent. Since settling his personal injury suit, there had been nothing much on his docket. There were three hangups recorded on the machine, and he wondered about that. He punched up the list of calls on his caller ID box and compared them to the messages. The three hangups were from a Brooklyn number that he didn’t recognize. The thought that it might b
e Eduardo Bianchi crossed his mind, but Eduardo had probably known where he was. He shrugged it off; if it was important, the caller would try again.
The upstairs doorbell rang. Stone started to answer it through the phone system, but instead, he opened the street door to the office and peeked up at the front stoop. A slickly dressed man in his mid-thirties stood there, tapping his foot impatiently.
“Hello,” Stone called out. “Can I help you?”
“You Stone Barrington?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
The man came down the steps and walked to the office door. “I tried to call you a couple times, but you weren’t answering the phone. My name is John Donato; does that mean anything to you?”
“I don’t think so,” Stone said, then, just as the man spoke again, he remembered.
“Funny, it ought to, since you been screwing my wife.”
“Ah, yes,” Stone said. “I know who you are, and you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“I know Dolce,” Donato said, “and I ain’t jumping to any conclusions. You’re screwing her, all right, and I thought I would warn you just once before I stick a gun in your ear and blow your brains out.”
Stone snapped, throwing aside his lawyerly restraint. “Now, you listen to me, you dumb goombah,” he said. “I know exactly who you are; you’re the cheap, two-bit hood who used to be married to a girl who was way above you, and while you were married to her you spent most of your time screwing around with other women, so don’t come around here bitching to me about your marital rights.”
Donato took a step back, then he unbuttoned his jacket and opened it so that Stone could see the pistol under his arm. “You see that?” he asked.
“Yeah, I see it,” Stone said, unbuttoning his own jacket. “You see this?”
Donato blinked and stepped back again.
Stone took out his badge and flashed it. “And do you see this? It means that I can have half a dozen cops on your case with a single phone call. How would you like that? Or would you like to have the feds crawling all over your concrete business? I can arrange that, too. Are you beginning to get the picture?”
Donato looked a little shaken. He turned and walked back to the sidewalk. “You just remember that, as long as I’m around, Dolce is a married woman,” he said. Then he crossed the street, got into a waiting car, and drove away.
Stone went back inside, slamming the door behind him. His residence phone was ringing, and he pushed that button on his desk phone. “Hello?” he said, irritably.
“Well, don’t bite my head off,” Dolce said.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I got your note, and I’m very sad; I wanted you here when I got home.”
“Dolce, I really needed to get home. Good news: the man who has been trying to kill Dino and me and everyone we know, is dead. He was shot while in police custody.”
“That is good news,” she said. “Then it’s all over?”
“No, we haven’t got Mitteldorfer, and there appears to be one other man involved. Watch the six o’clock news.”
“Can I come over there and watch it?” she asked, her voice low.
“Sweetheart, I need a night off. I’ve got a grand-jury appearance first thing in the morning, and I need to think about my testimony.”
“Stone,” she purred, “just because you had a problem last night doesn’t mean you’ll have one tonight. Why don’t I come over and cook you something?”
At the mention of cooking, Stone weakened. “Okay, let me give you the address.”
“I have the address,” she said. “I’ll bring groceries, you do the wine.”
“What time?”
“Give me an hour or so.”
“Take your time; I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know you’re not,” she said.
Stone returned a few phone calls, then went to the cellar and chose some wines. That done, he went upstairs and changed into comfortable clothing, switching on the bedroom TV. The story was all over the tube, with the photograph of Mitteldorfer and a modified sketch of the second Hausman. He hoped to God they would get some more calls from that. The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Dino; you’re back in your own house?”
“Yeah, I figure with Erwin dead and Mitteldorfer’s picture on TV, the bad guys are in disarray, so it’s safe here.”
“I’m glad to see you out of the witch’s bed and back into your own.”
“Dino, Dolce is on her way over here right now, and I want you to stop saying all these terrible things about her.”
“I haven’t said anything that wasn’t true.”
“I like her, Dino; I’ll grant you, she can be a little overbearing at times, but I like her. I like her father, too. You may as well know that it was he who found out about the doctored tape used in the Dante trial, so we both owe him.”
“I don’t want to owe him,” Dino said.
“Well, that’s tough; you do, anyway, and I, for one, am glad to have all the help he can give us. I want my life back, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m trying to figure out whether to bring Mary Ann and Ben home.”
“Not yet; let’s be cautious for a few more days. Maybe the TV news story will produce some calls.”
“By the way, we got the warrant on Deacon’s place; Andy’s going to execute it tomorrow morning, as soon as he’s out of his apartment.”
“What do you expect to find?”
“Probably nothing; the guy’s not stupid enough to take the knife home. But we’ve got to make the effort. The fact that he was around the corner when Susan was killed isn’t enough.”
“Why don’t you brace Mick Kelly, too?”
“Good idea; I’ll have him picked up at the same time as Deacon.”
“Tomorrow morning, call me on my cell phone if you find out anything; I’d like to have as much ammunition as possible when I testify.”
“Sure.”
“Oh, by the way, Johnny Donato was here this afternoon.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Dino said. “You see what happens when you ignore my advice?”
“Tell me what you know about the guy, Dino.”
“Well, he’s not just a soldier, but he’s not a capo, either, though the word is, he might be one of these days, if somebody doesn’t pop him.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Who knows? He might call a hit on you, if he thought he could get away with it. In my judgment, he wouldn’t have the guts to do the job himself.”
“He showed me his gun, and I showed him mine.”
Dino laughed. “That’ll keep him off the block, anyway. Guys like Donato aren’t used to dealing with people who are as well armed as they are. You ought to be grateful to the guy, Stone; he’s a buffer between you and Dolce. As long as he’s alive, she can’t do anything permanent.”
“What makes you think she’d want to do anything permanent with me?” Stone asked.
“I don’t know, Stone. Eduardo apparently thinks highly of you, and he doesn’t have a history of admiring Dolce’s boyfriends.”
“And where are you getting this?”
“From Mary Ann, where else?”
“Dino, you’re making way too much of all this.”
“Just make sure you don’t shoot Donato; it wouldn’t be in your best interests.”
“Goodbye, Dino,” Stone said, and hung up. A moment later, the front door buzzed. Stone picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Your dinner has arrived,” Dolce said.
58
D OLCE WALKED IN CARRYING TWO LARGE bags filled with groceries. She pecked him on the lips, handed him the bags, then walked around the living room, assessing the place. “This is nice,” she said, finally. “A little gloomy, maybe; could use some color, but it has good bones.”
“Let me show you the kitchen,” Stone said, leading the way.
She liked the kitchen better. “A girl could do go
od work here,” she said. “You got all the right appliances; how’d you know about that?”
“I cook a little,” Stone replied, setting down the groceries. “Can I get you a drink?”
“A little Strega, maybe.”
“Ah, I don’t have any Strega, I’m afraid.”
“Stone, you’re seeing an Italian girl, now; stock up.”
“I do have some very good olive oil.”
“Never drink it; how about a good single-malt scotch? Is that whitebread enough for you?”
“I’ve got a Laphroaig,” Stone said, looking through the kitchen liquor cabinet, “or a Glenlivet, or a Dalwhinney.”
“The Laphroaig, please; no ice, just a little cold water.”
Stone did as she asked.
She sipped the drink, then came into his arms. “Very good,” she said, kissing him. “When do I see the bedroom?”
“First food, then love,” Stone said, wondering why he had said “love” instead of “sex.”
“Fair enough,” she said, grabbing an apron from a hook and starting to unpack groceries. “By the way, you haven’t heard anything from a Johnny Donato, have you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“He’s been bothering me, but I think he’s too smart to bother you. He’s my husband.”
“He bothered me this afternoon,” Stone said. “He came to the house.”
Dolce closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. She turned and looked at Stone, contrite. “I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stone said. “I think I scared him off with talk of the cops and the feds. I think he probably feels that he’s out of his depth.”
Dolce put some water on to boil and began chopping garlic. “Johnny has always been out of his depth,” she said, “on this side of the East River. He’s a Brooklyn boy, and he should never leave.”
“He is handsome,” Stone said. “I can see how your ad might have been turned at nineteen.”
“Trouble is, Johnny is still nineteen.” She began chopping prosciutto. “He does crazy things, then wants to be forgiven. He’s kind of a split personality—one moment, a sweet little boy, the next, a screaming maniac.”
