by Stuart Woods
Their eggs Benedict came, and they ate hungrily.
When the check came, Stone paid the waiter, then looked Cary in the eye. “Sometimes, in cases like this, the person waits a long time to come forward. Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing.”
She kept his gaze for a moment, then looked down at his jacket and frowned. “Where do you buy your clothes?”
She wasn’t going to talk to him; not yet, anyway. He glanced at the brown herringbone. “Different places. There are a couple of discount places downtown that have nice stuff, sometimes.”
“I said I’d help you furnish the house; I think I’d better start by furnishing you.”
“Okay,” Stone said, “I guess I could use some furnishing.”
“Come with me.”
Stone followed her out of the restaurant. She led him briskly around the block to the corner of Seventy-second and Madison and into a handsome stone building. He had seen the place, but he had never been in. It wasn’t the sort of place cops bought their clothes.
The store was a wonderland of beautiful things. She led him to the third floor, where she found a rack of tweed jackets. In seconds she had extracted one and helped him into it.
A salesman sidled up. “Our forty-two long fits you perfectly,” he said. “That jacket won’t require the slightest alteration.”
Stone felt for the tag, but Cary ripped it off and handed it to the salesman. “Never look at price tags,” she said. “That’s not the way to shop. Buy what’s right for you, and worry about the money later. That’s what credit cards are for.”
She found another jacket, then some trousers, then she started on the suits. He managed to hold her to two, but they were beautiful, he had to admit, and they did fit him perfectly. She shook his wallet out of the old jacket and handed the garment to the salesman. “Send this,” she said. “He’ll wear the plaid one.”
“I guess I should get some shirts,” Stone said.
“Downstairs,” the salesman said, handing him a credit card chit to sign.
Stone followed instructions and didn’t look at the amount. He tried to stop in the shirt department, but she pulled him away.
“They’re wrong for you,” she said. “We’ll get those elsewhere.” She hailed a cab. Shortly, they were in a Fifth Avenue department store; she guided him to a shop within the store. “These are English,” she said, hauling out a stack of shirts from a shelf, “and they suit you.” A dozen shirts later, they were in an Italian shoe store, trying on loafers and featherweight lace-ups.
By the time they reached Central Park, Stone felt like a new man. The mimosas still buzzed in his veins, and the clear, autumn air elated him. Autumn always seemed like the beginning of the year to Stone; New Year’s was an anticlimax.
“You look wonderful in that jacket,” Cary said.
“I feel wonderful in it,” he replied. “I feel wonderful with you.”
“That’s the way you’re supposed to feel,” she said. They walked north along the Fifth Avenue side, enjoying the color in the trees, and, at Seventy-ninth Street, she led him from the park. “My place,” she said.
The doorman didn’t seem to recognize him. On her floor, he glanced at Sasha’s door.
“Don’t think about that,” she said, pulling him into her apartment.
The place was a mirror image of Sasha’s, and it was beautifully put together – feminine, without being cloying, beautiful fabrics, good pictures, expensive things. “This is wonderful,” Stone said. “You’re hired as my decorator.”
“You know the best thing about this apartment?” Cary asked.
“What’s that?”
“It has a bedroom. And a bed.”
“Oh. I’d better have a look at that.”
“Yes, I think you’d better,” she said, unbuckling his belt.
Later, when they fell asleep, exhausted, it was with his soft penis in her hand. He liked sleeping that way.
When he got home, the following evening, the Saturday mail awaited him. There was a letter from his bank:
Dear Mr. Barrington:
Just a reminder to let you know that your note is due at the end of the month. The note is, of course, adequately collateralized by your house, and I will be happy to renew it, but I must tell you that, with the softening market in large properties, the bank’s new lending policy will require a substantial reduction of the principal when renewing. I might be able to persuade the loan committee to accept a reduction of $25,000. And, of course, there will be $4800 interest due.”
The letter hit him like a blow to the belly. He’d borrowed the money to renovate the house, but the banker had promised to keep renewing until he had a buyer. Then he had another thought. He dug out the receipts for the clothing he had bought. The total came to nearly four thousand dollars.
Stone went into the bathroom and lost his lunch.
Chapter 18
Stone was twenty minutes late to work. When he walked into the squad room, the place went quiet. Dino stood up from his desk and waved Stone toward the stairs.
“What’s up?” Stone asked as they trotted up the steps together.
“Leary wants us in the conference room. There’s brass here.”
“Oh, shit,” Stone said.
Down one side of the long table were arrayed the detective squad commander, Lieutenant Leary; Chief of Detectives Vincent Delgado, a slim, rather elegant man in his fifties; and an imposing black man Stone recognized from his photographs, who was wearing the well-pressed uniform of a deputy commissioner. Deputy commissioners were mayoral appointees. Stone didn’t know the other man, who looked like a banker, in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and sober necktie.
“Chief, you already know Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said.
Delgado nodded, managing a tight smile.
“Commissioner Waldron, these are detectives second grade Barrington and Bacchetti,” Leary said unnecessarily.
“I’m glad to meet you, men,” Waldron said. “I’ve heard a lot about both of you.”
“Oh, shit,” Dino said under his breath, not moving his lips.
“Right,” Stone whispered back. Waldron had been a hot assistant DA when he had joined the campaign staff of the mayor, and, after the election, he had been the mayor’s first appointee to a law enforcement position. It was said Waldron had mayoral ambitions of his own, since the mayor had let it be known that he would not be running for a third term. Waldron had a reputation for meddling in police investigations.
“And, Detectives,” Leary continued, “this is John Everett, special agent in charge of the New York office of the FBI.”
Everett, expressionless, nodded sleepily.
“If you’ll forgive me, gentlemen,” Waldron said to Leary and Delgado, “I’ll tell the detectives why we’re here.”
“Of course, sir,” Leary said.
Delgado merely nodded.
Waldron turned to the detectives. “I want to forget what I’ve read in the reports and what I’ve read in the papers. I want to hear from you every step that has been taken in the Sasha Nijinsky investigation, from day one. From minute one. And don’t leave anything out.”
Goddamn Leary, Stone thought. If he’d given them a few hours’ notice he could have put together some kind of presentation. Now he would have to wing it.
“From minute one,” Waldron repeated. “Go.”
“Sir,” Stone began, “I was proceeding on foot down the west side of Second Avenue at approximately two A.M. on the night of the… occurrence. I was off duty. I happened to look up, and I witnessed the… Ms. Nijinsky’s fall.” He was still having trouble calling the event a crime and Nijinsky a victim.
“This actually happened?” Waldron interrupted. “The papers got it right?”
“Mostly, sir.” He continued to relate the events of that night. When he got to the collision of the ambulance with the fire engine, Waldron started shaking his head.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, “that’s the
goddamndest worst piece of luck I ever heard of.”
“My sentiments exactly, sir,” Dino said.
Leary and Delgado laughed.
“Go on,” Waldron said.
Stone took the man through his and Dino’s actions for the rest of the night, then asked Dino to describe the subsequent investigation by the detective squad. Neither detective referred to his notebook.
When they had finished, Waldron spoke again.
“Detectives, have you left any avenue uninvestigated?”
“Sir,” Stone said, “the detective squad of this precinct interviewed sixty-one witnesses, co-workers, and friends of Ms. Nijinsky and made more than eight hundred telephone calls, all within thirty hours of the occurrence. Since that time, Detective Bacchetti has reviewed each of the interview reports, and he and I have conducted a search of the home and business premises of the possible suspect, Van Fleet.”
“Is Van Fleet still a suspect?” Waldron asked.
“Officially, of course, sir. But we haven’t got a thing on him, except that he wrote Ms. Nijinsky a great many very polite letters.”
“Do you have any other suspects?” Waldron asked.
“No, sir,” Stone replied.
There was a brief silence in the room. Nobody seemed to have anything else to say.
Except the FBI man, Everett. “Why didn’t you call the FBI?” he asked.
Stone turned to face Everett; he had felt this coming. “Because no federal crime has been committed,” he replied. “As far as we know.”
“How about kidnapping?” Everett asked.
Chief of Detectives Delgado spoke up. “The lady took a twelve-story dive,” he said laconically. “What’s to kidnap?”
“Good point,” Waldron said.
Everett leaned forward. “Perhaps Detective Barrington would tell us about his terminal velocity theory,” he said encouragingly.
Stone felt color creeping up his neck into his face.
“His what theory?” Delgado asked sharply.
“Terminal velocity,” Stone said, clearing his throat. “It’s just a theory, sir. There’s nothing really to support it.”
“I’d like to hear it anyway,” Delgado said.
“So would I,” echoed Waldron.
Leary rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Stone briefly explained what terminal velocity is and what part it might have played in Sasha Nijinsky’s fall.
No one spoke. No one took his eyes off Stone.
“Of course,” Dino interjected suddenly, “the lady’s gotta be dead. You don’t fall twelve stories and write about it in your memoirs.”
“We’ve treated this as a homicide from the beginning,” Stone said.
“But you’ve no evidence of a homicide,” Everett said, a little too smoothly. “In fact, the available evidence – the diary – points to a suicide attempt.”
“In any case, the lady’s dead,” Delgado said irritably.
“But Detective Barrington doesn’t think so,” Everett replied. “Do you, Detective?”
Everybody turned back to Stone.
“I think it’s… just possible she may be alive,” Stone said uncomfortably.
“I think Detective Barrington thinks it’s more than just possible,” Everett said. “But what counts is, was she alive when she was taken from that ambulance?”
“She may have been,” Stone said.
“We know she was alive at the scene of her fall, because of the videotape evidence Detective Barrington has told us about,” said Everett, spreading his hands, the picture of reason. “And the ambulance collision occurred only minutes later.”
“It’s possible,” Delgado said, glaring at Stone.
“All that matters to me, gentlemen,” Everett said, “is that she may have been alive when she was taken. Kidnapped. Kidnapping, in the United States of America, is a federal crime.”
“Granted,” Waldron said. “But, surely, you see our position in treating this as a homicide?”
Everett nodded. “I’m not here for a jurisdictional dispute, Commissioner; honestly, I’m not. But your own chief of detectives has just admitted that Nijinsky may have been alive when she was taken, so I’m calling it kidnapping, for the purposes of investigation, and the FBI is, from this moment, on it. Any objections?”
No one said anything.
Everett stood up. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, my purpose here is accomplished. I have an investigation to conduct.” He shook hands with those on his side of the table, nodded to the two detectives, and left.
When Everett had gone, Delgado turned to Stone. “Nice going,” he said. “Now we’ve got the feds on our backs.”
“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Stone said, “I’m glad to have them in. Maybe they’ll stumble on something we haven’t.”
“That’s all we need.”
Waldron spoke up. “I’m inclined to agree with Detective Barrington,” he said to Delgado. “If this case isn’t solved, we can share the, uh… credit.” He turned back to Stone and Dino. “Detectives,” he said seriously, “I think you’ve done a first-class job on this, and I want you to know you have my support. Is there anything you need for your investigation? Anything at all? Just name it.”
“We need a break,” Dino said.
Chapter 19
Dino snatched a file off his desk. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Stone.
Stone waited until they were in the squad car before speaking. “What do you think?”
“I think we’re in the shit,” Dino said.
“I don’t know; Waldron seemed to be on our side. Said we’d done a first-class job, remember?”
“You trust Waldron?” Dino asked incredulously. “You’re so fucking naive sometimes, Stone.”
“Look, among the deputy commissioners, Waldron is the best of a bad lot. I mean, we could have drawn that guy who was in advertising before the mayor made him a DC.”
“Waldron’s a politician, and that makes him dangerous. And I can tell you Delgado is not happy with us for being involved in something that gets Waldron’s attention – plus, he blames us for the FBI.”
“Come on, Dino, how can he blame us for that? We’re lucky we got this far in our investigation without the feds stepping in. Delgado knows that.”
“Delgado’s Italian, like me,” Dino said. “When there’s bad news, Italians shoot the messenger, remember? Right now, ‘Messenger’ is tattooed right across your forehead and mine, buddy.”
Stone shook his head. “I think you’re overreacting. If we’d made some huge blunder in the investigation, then I think we really would be in trouble, but we haven’t done that; we’ve run it by the book – well, mostly by the book – and we’ve covered all the bases.”
“Well, we haven’t covered our asses,” Dino said. “The only way we can do that is by making a bust.”
“By the way,” Stone said, “where are we going?”
“To the network,” Dino said, handing him the manila file. “Out of all the interview reports, this is the only one that looked worth doing again.”
“Hank Morgan,” Stone read from the file. “Makeup artist.”
“Look down at the bottom of the sheet.”
Stone read the last line. “Subject was nervous, wary, and gave only the briefest answers to questions, without elaboration.” Most innocent people, Stone knew, tended to blabber to the cops when questioned, not clam up. There were those who didn’t like cops, who were short with them, but this was interesting. “Did you call to say we were coming?” Stone asked.
“Nope,” Dino replied.
“Good.”
Hank Morgan was casually but elegantly dressed: Italian loafers, brown tweed trousers, a striped silk dress shirt open at the throat, a green cashmere sweater draped over the shoulders, the arms hanging loose. The hair was carefully barbered, the skin tan, the teeth white and even. A handsome character, Stone thought. And a woman, though just barely.
“I’
ll be the bad cop,” Dino said through his teeth, as Morgan led them down the hall. “I hate dykes.”
Morgan led them into a room lit by rows of small bulbs around a large mirror. A barber’s chair was the only furniture.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“We’re investigating the Sasha Nijinsky matter,” Stone said. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“I’ve already talked to two policemen,” Morgan said combatively. “I don’t feel much like talking anymore.”
Dino was on her like a tiger. “Well, we didn’t like your answers, lady,” he snarled at her, “and I don’t much care if you feel like talking or not.”
“Dino…,” Stone began.
“This is an investigation into the disappearance, maybe the death of a human being that you knew and worked with, and we intend to find out what you knew about it,” Dino continued, unabated. “We can do it up at the precinct, if you like.”
Morgan appeared to wither under this barrage.
Stone tugged at an earlobe.
Dino caught the signal. “Where’s the men’s room?” he said to Morgan.
“Down the hall to your left,” she replied.
“I thought you’d know,” Dino shot back as he left the room.
When he had gone, Stone closed the door. “I’d like to apologize for my partner’s conduct,” he said to her gently. “He’s under a lot of pressure on this case – we both are – and he sometimes gets a little worked up.”
Morgan looked relieved. “I understand,” she said. “It’s been a strain on me, too.”
Has it? Stone wondered. “I take it you knew Sasha quite well,” he said. He had no reason to suppose that; it was a shot in the dark.
Morgan nodded, but did not speak.
“Did…” Stone stopped. Another stab. “Were you in love with her?” he asked softly.
Morgan nodded again, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Stone said. “I know how hard all this must have been for you.” Yet another stab. “Was Sasha in love with you?”
