Stuart Woods - Fresh Disasters

“This it?” a man in a green lab coat asked.

“Yeah. You other guys start with the box outside.”

“You stay,” the M.E. said to the one who had cameras.

“Don’t touch the case any more than you have to,” Dino said.

“No kidding?” the M.E. said sarcastically.

“Sorry.”

The M.E. took out a pocket dictator and switched it on. He knelt beside the aluminum case and used a tape measure. “The object is inside an aluminum camera case with the trade name Halliburton affixed to it.” He recited the measurements of the container, then he flipped open the securing catches and opened the case. A small cloud of some sort was released.

He continued to dictate. “The case contains the human head of a female Caucasian; the hair is dark brown. The head is frozen and is packed in dry ice.” There was a rattling noise. “On lifting the head from the case I observe that it is wearing cosmetic makeup and the hair is neatly coiffed.” There was the rattling noise again. “I am returning the head to the case and closing it,” he said, snapping the case shut.

The M.E. stood up. “As soon as they’ve processed the exterior of the case I’ll take it to the morgue, and we’ll try to get a cause of death for you.”

“I think you’ll find,” Stone said, “that the cause of death is exsanguination as the result of a severed carotid artery and jugular vein, and that the implement used was a large, partly serrated hunting knife wielded by an enraged male unsub.”

“That’s pretty good,” the M.E. said.

“I’m quoting another doctor,” Stone replied. “The rest of her is in the custody of the M.E. of Morris County, New Jersey. The detective in charge is Lieutenant Charles Sample of Morristown.”

A tech came in and went to work on the aluminum case.

“Come on,” Dino said to Stone, “I’ll buy you some lunch.”

Stone stood up. “I’ll watch you eat,” he said.

Stone sat at a table in the back room of P. J. Clarke’s and watched Dino devour a steak. His own lunch was a single beer, which he sipped occasionally. “I don’t know how you can eat that,” he said.

Dino carved a chunk off the steak and stuffed it in his mouth. “Why? It’s a decent piece of meat. Not as good as the strip steak they used to serve, though; I don’t know why they took that off the menu.”

“I’m not talking about the quality of the steak.”

“Oh, come on, Stone. You and I have attended a passel of corpses and autopsies over the years; what’s the big deal with a head in a box?”

“I knew her, that’s the big deal. You knew her, too.”

“You’re like most people, I guess: You confuse the remains with the person. A corpse-or part of a corpse-is a shell, a husk that once contained a human being. It deserves respect but not sentimentality.”

“You’re getting awfully philosophical in your old age,” Stone said.

“That’s always been my philosophy. Haven’t we talked about this before?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry it took so long; you need this information.”

“Now that I have it I don’t feel any better.”

“That’s because you haven’t eaten anything. Have a bacon cheeseburger; that always improves your morale.” Dino waved at a waiter. “Bring my friend a bacon cheeseburger, medium, and tell the chef if it arrives well done I’ll take it back there and make him eat it; I don’t care about his product liability policy.” The waiter left. “Have you noticed that you can’t get a burger anything but well done these days? It’s not like Clarke’s ever gave anybody food poisoning. Drives me nuts.” He waved at the waiter again. “Bring him some fries, too; he needs the grease.”

“I had a thought,” Stone said.

“Well, that’s an improvement.”

“I thought I might go and see Eduardo.” Eduardo Bianco was Dino’s former father-in-law, before his divorce from Eduardo’s daughter, Mary Ann. Although a distinguished elder statesman of the city, he retained discreet connections to his Mafia past.

“Why? You want somebody capped?” Dino chuckled.

Stone said nothing.

Dino looked more serious. “Oh, I get it: You want to get Eduardo to get somebody to get somebody else to knock off Devlin Daltry, right?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Would that solve all your problems?”

“Pretty much.”

“That would never work, Stone.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have a conscience, and you take lawyering seriously. You believe in the system, and you won’t violate that.”

“I’ve violated it before; so have you.”

“My ethical system is based on something older than the law,” Dino said, “and besides, maybe I’ve done some things, but all you did was watch and keep your mouth shut.”

“That’s abetting, isn’t it?”

“Sure. You’re not above abetting if you don’t have to get your hands dirty. That’s why you want Eduardo to get somebody to get somebody else to whack Daltry, instead of doing it yourself. Of course, you’d be just as legally guilty and as morally reprehensible if you did that, instead of actually doing it yourself.”

“I guess.” The bacon cheeseburger arrived, and Stone took a big bite and chewed thoughtfully.

Dino inspected the burger and found it properly cooked. “Look, if you really want him dead, it would be a lot more fun to do it yourself.”

Stone swallowed and took a sip of his beer. “I grant you that, but there’s always the messy part about getting caught and arrested and tried and imprisoned and spending the rest of my life appealing a death sentence. It’s funny, but Celia told me once that she wanted Daltry dead, and I lectured her about the personal dangers involved in doing that, and now here I am giving myself the same lecture, instead of throwing caution to the wind and hunting the guy down and blowing his head off.”

“Well, if that’s what you want to do,” Dino said, “I’d advise against throwing caution to the wind.”

“You mean I should plan the perfect murder?”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Dino pointed out, “at least, not if you do it in my precinct. A friend on the force is better than a perfect plan. You know, witness statements get changed, evidence gets lost. Like that.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Sure. I’d even work the case myself, to make sure it gets done right.”

“And risk your career?”

“I don’t care about promotion, and, thanks to my divorce settlement, I don’t need my pension anymore.”

“The pension comes in handy, believe me. There are times when I would have gone belly up without mine.” Stone, having been involuntarily retired from the NYPD for medical reasons after taking a bullet in the knee, got seventy-five percent of his detective’s salary, tax free.

Dino shrugged. “I’ll do whatever you want. What do you really want?”

Stone thought about that for a minute, while wolfing down half a dozen fries. “What I really want is to see him caught, convicted and imprisoned forever.”

“Then let’s do that,” Dino said. “You call Charley Sample and get him to call me and make a formal request for NYPD assistance. That’ll give me an excuse to put some people on Daltry. We’ll see what we come up with.”

“I like that, Dino,” Stone said, brightening.

“You know what the best possible thing would be?”

“What?”

“If you could get Daltry to make a serious pass at killing you. Then we could catch him in the act and send him up for ten-to-twenty while we keep working on Celia’s death.”

“You mean, like, if I just go stand in the street he might try to run me down again?”