by Stuart Woods
“Go on,” Stone said.
“Her new co-anchor, who else? The estimable Mr. Barron Harkness, prizewinning television journalist, squarejawed, credible, terribly vulnerable Barron Harkness.”
“I take it you don’t like Mr. Harkness.”
“Who does, dear boy? He lacks charm.” Barker said this as if it were the ultimate crime. “Sasha would have blown him out of the water in less than a year. His ratings had slipped badly, you know – after a winning streak last year, he has slipped to a point or two behind Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather, and he’s still sinking. He’s already worked at ABC and NBC, and neither would have him back; and I know for a fact that Larry Tisch despises him, so that shuts him out of CBS. Then here comes Sasha, hipping him over at the anchor desk, loaded for bear. A power struggle began the day the first rumor hit the street about Sasha’s new job, and, if Harkness lost, where would he go? He’d be making solemn pronouncements on Public Radio, like Dan Schorr, and his ego would never accept that. No, sir, Barron Harkness is a man with a motive.”
“I think I should tell you,” Stone said, looking at his watch, “that Barron Harkness got off an airplane from Rome just about an hour ago.”
Barker’s face fell. “I’m extremely sorry to hear it,” he said. “But,” he said, brightening, “if I were you I’d make awfully sure he was really on that plane.”
“Don’t worry,” Stone said, “that’s been done. Tell me, would it violate some journalistic ethic if you gave me a list of the people you interviewed about Miss Nijinsky?”
Barker shook his head. “No. I’ll do even better than that; I’ll give you a paragraph on each of them and my view as to the value of each as a suspect.”
“I’d be very grateful for that.”
The writer turned sly. “It’ll have to be a trade, though.”
“What do you want?”
“When you find out what’s happened to Sasha and who is responsible, I want a phone call before the press conference is held.”
Stone thought for a moment. It wasn’t a bad trade, and he needed that list. “All right, you’re on.”
“It’ll take me a couple of hours.”
“You have a fax machine?”
Barker looked hurt. “Of course.”
Stone gave him a card. “Shoot it to me there when you’re done.” He got up.
Barker rose with him. “I’m having a few friends in for dinner this evening, as you can see,” he said, waving a hand at the dining room. “Would you like to join us?”
“Thanks,” Stone said, “but until I’ve solved the Nijinsky problem, there are no dinner parties in the picture.”
“I understand,” Barker said, seeing him out. “Perhaps another time?”
“Thank you,” Stone said. While he waited for the elevator, he wondered why Hi Barker would ask a policeman to dinner. Well, he thought, as he stepped from the elevator into the lobby, if he solved this one, he would become a very famous policeman.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait that long. A skinny young man with half a dozen cameras draped about him was arguing with the doorman when he turned and saw Stone. “Right here, Detective Barrington,” he called, raising a camera.
The flash made Stone blink. As he made his way from the building, pursued by the snapping paparazzo, he felt a moment of sympathy for someone like Sasha Nijinsky, who spent her life dodging such trash.
Chapter 8
Stone had almost an hour and a half to kill before his appointment with Barron Harkness at the network. Rush hour was running at full tilt, and all vacant cabs were off duty, so he set off walking crosstown. He reckoned his knee could use the exercise anyway. He was wrong. By the time he got to Fifth Avenue, he was limping. He thought of going home for an hour, but he was restless, and, even though he had another interview to conduct, he wanted a drink. He walked a couple of blocks north to the Seagram Building and entered a basement door.
The Four Seasons was a favorite of Stone’s; he couldn’t afford the dining rooms, but he could manage the prices at the bar. He climbed the stairs, chose a stool at a corner of the big, square bar, and nodded at the bartender. He came in often enough to know the man and to be known, but not by name.
“Evening, Detective,” the bartender said, sliding a coaster in front of him. “What’ll it be?”
“Wild Turkey on the rocks, and how’d you know that?”
The man reached under the bar and shoved a New York Post, in front of Stone.
The photograph was an old one, taken at a press conference a couple of years before. They had cropped out Stone’s face and blown it up. DETECTIVE SEES SASHA’S FALL, the headline said. Stone scanned the article; somebody at the precinct was talking to a reporter.
“So, what’s the story?” the bartender asked, pouring bourbon over ice. He made it a double without being asked.
“What’s your name?”
“Tom.”
“When I find out, Tom, you’ll be among the first to know. I’ll be here celebrating.”
The bartender nodded and moved down the bar to help a new customer, a small, very pretty blonde girl in a business suit.
The bar wasn’t the only reason Stone liked the Four Seasons. He looked at the woman and felt suddenly, ravenously hungry for her. Since his hospital time and the course of libido-dampening painkillers, he had given little thought to women. Now a rush of hormones had him breathing rapidly. He fought an urge to get up, walk down the bar, and stick his tongue in her ear. COP IN SEX CHARGE AT FOUR SEASONS, tomorrow’s Post would say.
The bartender put a copy of the paper in front of her. She glanced at it, looked up at Stone, surprised, and smiled.
Here was his opening. Stone picked up his drink and shifted off the stool. As he took a step, an acre of black raincoat blocked his view of the girl. A man built like a pro linebacker had stepped between them, leaned over some distance, and pecked the girl on the cheek. He settled on a barstool between her and Stone. The girl leaned back and cast a regretful grimace Stone’s way.
Stone settled back onto his stool and pulled at the bourbon. His fantasy raged on, out of control. A five-minute walk to his house and they were in bed, doing unspeakable things to each other. He shook his head to clear it and opened the paper, looking for something to divert him. His view of the girl was now completely obliterated by the hulk in the black raincoat. Stone suppressed a whimper.
The Post was the first paper to get the Nijinsky story in time for a regular edition, and they had made the most of it. There was a retrospective of photographs of Sasha, from tot-hood to The Morning Show. There were shots of her as a schoolgirl, as a teenager in a beauty contest, performing as an actress at Yale, on camera as a cub reporter – even shots of her at the beach in a bikini, obviously taken without her knowledge.
Sasha looked damn good in a bikini, Stone thought. He wondered where that very fine body was resting at the moment.
He read the article slowly, trolling for some new fact about her that might help. When the bourbon was finished, he looked at his watch, left a ten-dollar bill on the bar, in spite of the bartender’s wave-off, and walked down to the street. The worst of rush hour was past, but rain was threatening, and half a dozen people were looking for cabs at the corner. The light turned red, and an off-duty cab stopped. Stone flipped open his wallet and held his badge up to the window. The driver sighed and pushed the button that unlocked the doors.
“ Houston Street and the river,” Stone said, and leaned his head back against the seat. Heavy raindrops began pounding against the windows. If he had been off women for a while, Stone reflected, he had been off booze, too, and the double shot of 101-proof bourbon had made itself felt. He dozed.
Chapter 9
Stone was jerked awake by the short stop of the cab. He fumbled for some money, gave the cabbie five dollars, and struggled out of the cab. It was pouring rain now, and he got across the street as quickly as he could with his sore knee. A uniformed security guard sat at a desk,
and Stone gave him Cary Hilliard’s name. Before the man could dial the number, an elevator door opened, and a young woman walked out.
“Detective Barrington?” she asked, offering a hand.
“That’s right,” Stone replied, thinking how long and cool her fingers were. All of her, in fact, was long and cool. She was nearly six feet tall, he reckoned, slim but not thin, dressed in a black cashmere sweater that did not conceal full breasts and a houndstooth skirt that ended below the knee.
“I’m Cary Hilliard,” she said. “Come on, let’s go up to the studio. Barron will be on the air in a few minutes, and we can watch from the control room.” They turned toward the elevator. “By the way, a Detective Bacchetti called and left a message for you. He said, and I quote, ‘Your man was where he was supposed to be’ and ‘Tell Detective Barrington that I’ve been detained, and I’ll see him tomorrow.’”
“Thank you.” Detained, my ass, Stone thought. Detained by some stewardess, maybe.
She led him upstairs and through a heavy door. A dozen people worked in a room that held at least twenty-five television monitors and thousands of knobs and switches. “We can sit here,” she said, showing him to a comfortable chair on a tier above the control console.
The whole of the top row of monitors displayed the face, in close-up, of Barron Harkness, “the idol of the airlanes,” someone had called him, stealing Jan Garber’s sobriquet. Tissue paper was tucked into his collar, and a woman’s hand entered the frame, patting his nose with a sponge. “You’ve got a good tan, Barron,” a voice said. “We won’t need much of this.”
Harkness nodded, as if saving his voice.
“One minute,” somebody at the console said.
“I’ve got a thirty-second statement before the music,” Harkness said into the camera.
“Barron,” a man at the console said, “it’s too late to fit it in; we’re long as it is.”
“Cut the kid with the transplant before the last commercial,” Harkness said.
“Barron…,” the man nearly wailed.
“Do it.”
Someone counted down from ten, and stirring music filled the control room. Barron Harkness arranged his face into a serious frown and looked up from his desk into the camera. “Good evening,” he said, and his voice let the viewer know that something important was to follow. “Last night, a good friend of this newscast and of many of us personally was gravely injured in a terrible accident. Sasha Nijinsky was to have joined me at this desk tonight, and she is badly missed. All of us here pray for her recovery. All of us wish her well. All of us look forward to her taking her place beside me. We know you do, too.”
Music swelled, and an announcer’s voice heralded the evening news. Stone watched as Harkness skillfully led half a dozen correspondents through the newscast, reading effortlessly from the TelePrompTer and asking an occasional informed question of someone in Tehran, Berlin, or London, while the control room crew scrambled to squeeze his opening statement into their allotted time.
During a commercial break, Cary turned to Stone. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Very impressive,” he said, looking directly at her.
She laughed. “I meant about the newscast.”
“Not nearly as impressive.”
“Well, Barron’s a little self-important,” she said, “but nobody does this better.”
“Read the news?”
She laughed again. “Oh, come on, now, he’s reported from all over the world; he doesn’t just read.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
The newscast ended, and she led Stone out another door and down a spiral staircase to the newsroom set. A dozen people were working at computer terminals.
“They’re already getting the eleven o’clock news together,” Cary said.
Barron Harkness was having the last of his makeup removed. He stood up and shook Stone’s hand firmly. “Detective,” he said.
To Stone’s surprise, Harkness was at least six four, two twenty, and flat bellied. He looked shorter and fleshier on camera.
“Come on, let’s go up to my office,” Harkness said.
They climbed another spiral staircase, entered a hallway, and turned into Harkness’s office, a large, comfortably furnished room with a big picture window looking down into the newsroom. Harkness waved Stone to a leather sofa. “Coffee? I’m having some.”
“Thank you, yes,” Stone said. He could use it; he fought off the lassitude caused by the bourbon and the newscast.
Cary Hilliard disappeared without being told, then came back with a Thermos and two cups. Both men watched her pour, then she took a seat in a chair to one side of Harkness’s desk and opened a steno pad. “You don’t mind if I take notes?” she asked Stone.
“Not at all,” he replied. “Forgive me if I don’t take any; I remember better if I do it later.” He turned to Harkness. “Mr. Harkness-”
“Please call me Barron; I’d be more comfortable. And your first name?”
“Stone.”
“A hard name,” he said, smiling slightly.
“I’ll try not to be too hard on you.”
“Where is Sasha Nijinsky? What hospital?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any information on that.”
Harkness’s eyebrows went up. “I understood you were in charge of this investigation.”
“That’s nominally so, but I’m not the only investigator on the case, and I don’t have all the information.” That wasn’t strictly true; he did have all the information there was; there just wasn’t much.
“I trust somebody knows what hospital she’s in. Certainly nobody at the network does.”
“I expect somebody knows where she is,” Stone said. “I understand you were traveling last night?”
“Yes, from Rome. I expect you’ve already checked that out.”
“What time did you arrive at Kennedy?”
“Four thirty or five.”
Stone nodded. “Mr. Harkness, did Sasha Nijinsky have any enemies?”
Unexpectedly, Harkness broke into laughter. “Are you kidding? Sasha climbed over half the people at the network to get where she is, and the other half are scared shitless of her.”
“I see. Did any of them hate her enough to try to kill her?”
“Probably. In my experience, lots of people kill who have less cause than Sasha’s victims.”
That was Stone’s experience too, but he didn’t say so. “Who among her enemies do you think I should talk to?”
“Christ, where to begin!” Harkness said. “Oh, look, I’m overstating the case. I don’t think anybody around here would try to kill Sasha. Do you think somebody kicked her off that terrace?”
“We have to investigate all the possibilities,” Stone said.
“Well, I can’t imagine that, not really. Maybe she caught a burglar in the act? Something like that?”
“It’s possible,” Stone said. It was, too, given that the doorman spent his evenings sound asleep. “We’re looking at known operators in her neighborhood.”
“On the other hand,” Harkness said, “Sasha was one tough lady; I don’t think a burglar could get the best of her. I’ll tell you a story, in confidence. After the last elections, Sasha and I left this building very late, and, before we could get to the car that was waiting for us, a good-sized black guy stepped out of the shadows. He had a knife, and he said whatever the ghetto version of ‘your money or your life’ is these days. Before I even had time to think, Sasha stuck out her left arm, straight, and drove her fist into the guy’s throat. He made this gurgling noise, dropped the knife, and hit the pavement like a sack of potatoes. Sasha stepped over, kicked the knife into the river, and said, ‘Let’s go.’ We got into the car and left. Now that is what Sasha can be like. She’d been studying one of those martial arts things, and, when most people would have turned to jelly in the circumstances, she used what she knew. Me, I’d have given the guy anything he wanted.” Harkness put his feet on h
is desk. “Now, do you think a burglar – or anybody else, for that matter – could heave somebody like that over a balcony railing?”
“You could be right,” Stone said. You could be the guy who heaved her over the edge too, he thought. You’re big enough and in good enough shape to handle a woman – even one who had martial arts training. “That brings us to another possibility. Did Sasha strike you as the sort of person who might take her own life?”
Harkness looked down at the carpet for a moment, drumming his fingers on the desk noisily. “In a word, yes,” he said. “I think there was something of the manic-depressive in Sasha. She was high at a lot of times, but she was down at times, too. She could turn it off, if she was working; she could look into that camera and smile and bring it off. But there must have been times, when she was all alone, when it got to her.”
“Did you ever see it get to her?”
“Once or twice, when we were doing The Morning Show together. I remember going into her dressing room once, five minutes before airtime, and she was in tears over something. But when we went on the air, she was as cheerful as a chipmunk.”
“Do you know if she ever saw a psychiatrist?”
“Nope, but I’d bet that, if she did, she didn’t tell him much. Sasha plays her cards very close to that beautiful chest.”
Stone nodded, then stood up. “Well, thank you, Mr. – ah, Barron. If anything else comes up, I hope I can call you.”
“Absolutely,” Harkness said, rising and extending his hand. “Just call Cary; she always knows where to find me.”
“Come on, I’ll walk you down,” Cary said, leading the way. Passing through the outer office, she tossed her steno pad on a desk and grabbed a raincoat from a rack. On the elevator, she turned to Stone. “Well, now you’ve had the Harkness treatment,” she said. “What did you think?”
Stone shrugged. “Forthright, frank, helpful.”
She smiled. “You got Barron’s message.”
The elevator reached the lobby, and, when the doors opened, they could see the rain beating against the windows.
