Stuart Woods - Worst Fears Realized

“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.”

STONE 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 be 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.