Three Stone Barrington Adventures

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Three Stone Barrington Adventures Page 17

by Stuart Woods


  “Herbie, you said the sliding glass door to the terrace was already open when you went outside.”

  “Right. Sheila closed it when we came in last night. We were going out to dinner.”

  “You didn’t touch the door?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know when it was last cleaned?”

  “Yesterday. The maid came.”

  “Did you touch the sliding door after the maid came?”

  Herbie thought about that. “No. Sheila opened it when we went out there for a drink, and she closed it when we came in.”

  “Where did you go to dinner?”

  “At that place you told me about, Sette Mezzo.”

  “Did you have a good time there?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sheila was in a great mood, which she wasn’t always in, but she was last night. We laughed a lot.”

  “Herbie, during the argument, did you happen to hit Sheila?”

  “No, no. I never hit her in my life.”

  “What was she wearing when you went into the john?”

  “Silk pajamas,” Herbie said.

  “Okay, you sit tight. I’m going to see if I can cut this short, before they arraign you.”

  “Okay, hurry back.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Stone said, and left the interview room.

  43

  Stone walked up to Dino’s office and was waved in and introduced to an attractive young woman who was sitting in one of Dino’s chairs.

  “This is Carla Rentz,” Dino said. “She’s prosecuting your client, Mr. Fisher.”

  Stone sat down and tried to look puzzled. “Prosecuting him? For what?”

  “For murder,” the young woman replied.

  “On what evidence?” Stone asked.

  “Mr. Fisher was the only one present when she was thrown off the roof,” she said.

  “Excuse me,” Stone said. “What evidence do you have that she was thrown off the roof?”

  “Well, she’s dead.”

  “Have you considered suicide?”

  “Why should I consider suicide?”

  “Because it’s one of two possibilities,” Stone said. “Either she was thrown off the roof, or she jumped.”

  “What is her motive for suicide?”

  “What is Mr. Fisher’s motive for murder?”

  “I’m sure that will emerge.”

  “Well, if a motive emerges, you may have cause to arrest Mr. Fisher but not now. Tell you what. Send a couple of Lieutenant Bacchetti’s detectives over to a restaurant called Sette Mezzo, on Lexington near Seventy-sixth. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Seidman had dinner there last night. Ask the headwaiter and their waiter what their demeanor was during dinner there. You’ll be told that they were very happy, enjoying each other’s company. You see, he was in love with her, and they planned to marry.”

  “If they were so happy, why would Ms. Seidman commit suicide?”

  “Anger is a motive for suicide; people kill themselves all the time, because they think it will hurt the people they’re mad at.”

  “You say he was in love with her. Was she in love with him?”

  “In my opinion, no,” Stone replied. “Ms. Seidman was a working prostitute who had serviced Mr. Fisher on a number of occasions, and when Mr. Fisher won a large sum in the New York State Lottery, her interest in him became more . . . acute, shall we say. And so did the interest of her employer.”

  “You still haven’t given me a motive for suicide,” Ms. Rentz said. “Why was she angry?”

  “She was angry because Mr. Fisher had asked her to sign a prenuptial agreement. She didn’t want to go back to her pimp and tell him that, so she was between a rock and a hard place. I had already spoken to her earlier about a prenup, and she became angry at the mention of it. She was uncontrollably angry before she jumped.”

  “We didn’t find a prenup in the apartment,” she said.

  “That’s because I hadn’t given it to Mr. Fisher yet. He asked her to go and see me about it.”

  “Without her own attorney?”

  “I would have insisted on that,” Stone said.

  “Why didn’t you give Mr. Fisher the prenup earlier?”

  “Because I’ve been out of town for a few days, in Maine. I just got back today. My secretary will be happy to give you a copy of the prenup I had prepared.” He gave her the address and Joan’s name.

  “When the detectives arrived, Mr. Fisher feigned not to know that Ms. Seidman had . . . met her death. How could he have missed that?”

  “Because he was sitting on the toilet, reading a magazine, when she jumped. When he was finished there, he got dressed and went to look for her, but she was gone. He thought she had gone shopping, because that’s what she usually did.”

  “How can he prove that?” she asked.

  “Mr. Fisher will agree to a colonoscopy,” Stone replied.

  Dino burst out laughing.

  “From speaking to Mr. Fisher a few minutes ago, I have reason to believe that your detectives, if they bother to check, will find that Ms. Seidman’s fingerprints will be on the sliding glass door to the terrace but not Mr. Fisher’s, because he didn’t touch it after the maid came and cleaned it yesterday.”

  “We’ll look into that,” Ms. Rentz said.

  “You may look into anything you like, and my client and I will cooperate with your investigation, but the fact remains that you don’t have enough evidence to arraign him, let alone convict him, and the other available evidence will support my client. For that reason, I’d like him released immediately.”

  “Mr. Barrington has a point,” Dino said. “We can always arrest him later if new evidence comes up.”

  Ms. Rentz looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. “All right,” she said to Dino, “spring Mr. Fisher.” She stood up and grabbed her briefcase. “But this isn’t over.”

  Stone stood and offered his hand. “Let us know whatever else you need from us.”

  She shook his hand and left.

  “Nice work,” Dino said.

  “You don’t think Herbie tossed her, do you?”

  “Nah, but it’s good to see you break a sweat.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Stone was at Strategic Services promptly at eight and was shown into Hackett’s large corner office, where the man was polishing off a full Scottish breakfast. He sent the tray away and pressed a button on his phone. “Mike, join us, will you?” He hung up. “You remember Mike Freeman, Stone; we played tennis?”

  “Of course.”

  Freeman entered through a door between his office and Hackett’s and shook Stone’s hand, and the three men moved to a seating area by the window.

  “Stone, we want to give you something of an overview of Strategic Services,” Hackett said. “Mike is my right-hand guy, and he’s here to tell you anything I forget.”

  “Shoot,” Stone said.

  “We’re best known for providing corporate security,” Hackett said. “We have a dozen offices around the world, and if we get a call from a client telling us he’s paying a visit to, say, Hong Kong, our people and vehicles are at the bottom of his jet stair when he arrives to greet him and take care of him while he’s there. That service is a big revenue producer for us, and we’ve never lost an executive yet, not to a kidnapping or a roadside bomb. Sometimes, though, an executive is kidnapped while not in our custody, and in that case we handle negotiations for his release.”

  Freeman spoke up. “Or, if necessary, send in an extraction team. We employ large numbers of former Special Forces and Navy SEAL personnel, who are very good at that.”

  Stone couldn’t place Freeman’s accent, and he must have been looking at him oddly.

  “I’m Canadian,” Freeman said, smiling. “Montreal, so my English sometimes has a French inflection. You’re not the first to wonder.”

  “Also,” Hackett continued, “we provide armed guards to government agencies both at home and abroad. The State Department is an especially good client.”

  “Do
you provide meals and domestic services for the armed forces as well?” Stone asked.

  “No, I have no interest in the catering business, even on that scale. We’re strictly security. We also have a division that installs security systems in corporate and government offices, the most sophisticated systems in the world. The new HD cameras are just wonderful. We can now use facial recognition software on the images we get from a camera no bigger than a golf ball.”

  “That’s impressive,” Stone said.

  “Do you have a good security system at home?” Hackett asked.

  “Yes, I have an ex-cop who does that work for me.”

  “Good. Just remember, we’re here if you need us.”

  Hackett continued through the morning, outlining to Stone the depth and breadth of his company, from the armored vehicle business to investigative services. “You may have noticed,” Hackett said, “we can find out just about anything about anybody. That is a particularly important service for corporate boards these days, as any hint of scandal in a potential executive’s life can turn up on the Internet at any moment.”

  Finally, they broke for lunch, which was brought in on a rolling table.

  “Everything all right for you at the Plaza?” Hackett asked.

  “Just perfect,” Stone replied. “Thank you for the shelter.”

  “Eduardo Bianchi is an old friend of mine,” Hackett said, “and it distresses me almost as much as Eduardo that his daughter is in such a state.”

  Stone had been wondering how Hackett had known that he and Dolce had been briefly married, and now he knew.

  “Did sight of my service record make any impression on Dame Felicity?” Hackett asked.

  “I can’t comment,” Stone replied, “but it made an impression on me.”

  AFTER LUNCH, STONE’S briefing session continued until mid-afternoon. Hackett showed him to the elevators. “I’ll have an assignment for you before long. In the meantime, the Mustang is there if you need it.”

  Stone walked back to the Plaza, enjoying the afternoon. At the hotel there was a message from the Assistant District Attorney, Carla Rentz, and he returned the call.

  “We’ve completed our investigation of Sheila Seidman’s death,” she said, “and I agree that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute Mr. Fisher.”

  “Insufficient evidence?” Stone asked. “You mean no evidence at all, don’t you?”

  “All right, all right, no evidence. Her prints, not his, were on the sliding door, and that did it for my investigators. Mr. Fisher is off the hook.”

  “I’ll let him know,” Stone said. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Would you like to have dinner sometime?” she asked.

  Stone was stopped in his tracks for a moment. “I have a guest in town at the moment, but maybe in a week or two.”

  They exchanged cell numbers.

  44

  The Plaza was boring. Felicity sent to her office for a computer system, and after it arrived at the hotel she was mostly fully occupied while Stone watched old movies on TV and talked to Joan on the phone.

  “Herbie came by,” Joan said. “He was pitifully grateful to you for getting the murder charge dropped.”

  Stone sighed. “Well, that’s what he pays me for. I thought he was a fool for giving me such a large retainer, but I’m beginning to suspect I’m going to earn every buck.”

  “Nothing unfair about that,” Joan said.

  “Seen anything of Dolce?” Stone asked.

  “If I had, she’d be dead,” Joan replied. “I’ve been to the range a few times to practice my shooting.”

  “Please do not shoot anybody,” Stone said, “not even Dolce.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a lot more trouble than not shooting anybody. Talk to you later.” Stone hung up.

  Across the room Felicity was just finishing a call. “Well,” she said, hanging up, “we found Hackett’s old colonel just as you said, at his cottage in Sussex.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “He remembers hosting Hackett at lunch one day and drinking a lot of port, but he doesn’t remember giving him the dossier; maintains he was too drunk.”

  “He admitted being drunk at lunch, but wouldn’t admit giving Hackett his dossier?”

  “My man believed him about being too drunk,” she said. “Looks like we’re at a dead end.”

  “Are you convinced now that Hackett is not Whitestone?”

  “Not entirely,” she said.

  “I think it would be best if we both proceeded on the premise that Hackett is Hackett and Whitestone is dead,” Stone said.

  “That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it?” she said archly.

  “It would be realistic for both of us,” Stone replied. “May I now be released from the bondage of your investigation?”

  “Not quite,” she said. “I still expect you to report any new information that arises from your working relationship with Hackett.”

  “That would be a conflict of interest,” Stone pointed out.

  “Not when you took the work at my suggestion, so I could find out more.”

  “You are a spider,” Stone said, “who toys with her victims mercilessly.”

  “That’s an inappropriate metaphor,” she said. “I am simply tenacious where my work is concerned. The safety of my country depends on it.”

  The phone rang, and Stone picked it up.

  “It’s Jim Hackett.”

  “Hello, Jim.”

  “You’re in the clear; Dolce appears to have left town.”

  “How could you know that?” Stone asked.

  “We’ve been watching her bank accounts but, regrettably, not her bank. She went into the head office yesterday and cashed a check for half a million dollars. The manager knew her personally and said she arrived and was taken away in a chauffeured black car. Said she was taking a vacation. When our computer caught the transaction I spoke to the manager.”

  “Why do you think she left town?”

  “Because she bought one-way airline tickets to Hong Kong, Rome, Johannesburg and Dubai, using her credit card, and all those flights arrived before we learned about it. I had each of them investigated, and a woman answering her description was on each flight.”

  “So she still could be in New York?”

  “I think we’ve made things too hot for her here,” Hackett replied. “It seems more likely that she was actually on one of those flights; we just don’t know which one.”

  “So you think it’s safe to return to my house?”

  “I do. I’ll send a car for you.”

  “Don’t bother; I’ll take a cab,” Stone replied. He thanked Hackett, hung up and reported the conversation to Felicity.

  “All right,” she said. “If you think it’s safe, we’ll go. I’ll pack and send someone over for the computer.”

  AN HOUR LATER Stone walked into his house. Everything seemed perfectly normal, and Joan was in her office. Felicity had taken another cab to her office.

  “Did you have a nice vacation?” she asked.

  “I suppose so,” Stone replied.

  “Herbie came by again to thank you.”

  “Don’t let him know I’m home, please. I don’t want to be thanked again.”

  “Will you be home for a while now?”

  “I believe so; it seems Dolce has left the country.” He told her about his conversation with Hackett.

  “I don’t buy it,” Joan replied, “and I’m not letting down my guard.” She took the .45 from her drawer and placed it on her desk. The phone rang, and she picked it up. “It’s Felicity,” she said to Stone.

  Stone went into his office and picked up the phone. “Well, hello, there. Long time no speak.”

  “I’ve just had a call from London,” Felicity said. “My document-recovery people at Camberly have found James Hackett’s service record.”

  “You mean he has two service records?”

  “Since no soldier does, I very
much doubt it.”

  “What does it contain?”

  “A solid mass of sodden pages, now one.”

  “So it can’t be read?”

  “No, it cannot, but there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The photograph attached to the dossier is just barely legible, and it is not the one of the young James Hackett on the dossier he furnished.”

  “So Hackett is Whitestone?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “You’re confusing me.”

  “That’s not surprising, since I am confused myself,” Felicity admitted.

  “Do you want me to confront Hackett with this information?” Stone asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” she replied. “I’ve got to think about that. I’ll be working late tonight on this, so don’t count on me for dinner. If I finish in time, I’ll drop by Elaine’s.”

  “Okay, see you there,” Stone said. He hung up and tried to sort through everything he knew about Hackett, tried to make sense of it.

  It didn’t work.

  45

  Stone joined Dino at Elaine’s.

  “What’s the matter?” Dino asked, sipping his Scotch.

  “Why do you think something’s the matter?” Stone asked.

  “It’s obvious,” Dino said. “You think I can’t read you by now?”

  Stone told him about the latest development in the Hackett/ Whitestone saga.

  “Now I know why you look the way you do,” Dino said. “I’m baffled, too.”

  “So are Felicity and her people,” Stone replied. He looked up to see Herbie Fisher walk into the restaurant with a young woman, very pretty, very nicely dressed.

  “You see what I see?” Stone asked.

  “I do,” Dino replied. “I guess the tradition in the Fisher family is abbreviated mourning.”

  “I guess,” Stone agreed.

  Herbie stopped by their table. “Hey, Stone. Hey, Dino. I’d like you to meet Stephanie Gunn, with two n’s. Stephanie, this is Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti.”

  “How do you do, Stephanie,” Stone said.

  “I’m very well, thank you. And you?”

  “Very well. So is he.” He nodded toward Dino.

 

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