Foul Play

Four

Stone was getting dressed the following morning when his cell phone rang. He picked it up. “Speak.”

“It’s Dino. Listen, last night when we were at Shep’s apartment at the Carlyle, you remember that he said something about strolling in the park every morning?”

“Yeah. I was going to tell him not to stroll in the park at night, but I knew you’d be all over me for disparaging your department’s work at keeping the citizenry safe, and a bunch of statistics about how much safer it is in the park than it used to be.”

“All of that is perfectly true,” Dino said.

“Maybe, except for the ‘perfectly’ part.”

“Maybe you should have told him not to,” Dino said.

“What’s happened?”

“A park employee found him facedown in the grass, near the Bethesda Fountain. He’s at Lenox Hill now, still unconscious. They found your card and mine in his pocket. I guess they liked mine better, because they called me.”

“I’ll get right over there,” Stone said. He hung up and called down to Joan. “Get me a cab. I’ll be down right away.”

“Yes, sir!”

Stone presented himself at the ER desk a few minutes later. He gave the nurse his card. “You have a Shepherd Troutman here, with this card in his pocket. He’s my client. May I see him?”

A resident came out of the ER, and the nurse flagged him down. There was a whispered exchange between them, then the nurse said, “This is Dr. Seitz. He’ll take you up to Mr. Troutman’s suite.”

Stone followed the young man into the elevator, and they went to the top floor. The suite was one large room, with living room — type furniture at one end and Shep Troutman at the other, in a hospital bed, apparently asleep.

“These are pretty nice quarters,” Stone said. “Do you treat all your ER patients so well?”

“No,” the doctor said, “just the ones in custom-made suits with the police commissioner’s card in their pockets.”

“Right,” Stone said. “May I wake him?”

“He came to about an hour ago, and he’s been in and out since. Take a seat and wait for him to come around on his own. He might be having a nice dream.”

“What are his injuries?”

“Just one: a lump the size of a hen’s egg on the back of his skull. No fracture. The jury’s still out on brain damage.”

Shep’s eyelids fluttered and he made an effort to sit up. The doctor found the remote control and sat him up a little.

“Stone?” Shep said. “What are you doing here?”

Stone sat down next to him. “You first. Have a look around and tell me what you’re doing here.”

Shep looked around. “Did the hotel put me in another room?”

“No, this is a several-thousand-dollars-a-day suite at Lenox Hill Hospital.”

Shep made an effort to sit up further, then stopped. “Ow,” he said, and his hand went to the back of his head. “That’s quite a lump.”

“You should have seen it when you checked in,” the doctor said, “before we treated it.”

“Dino called me half an hour ago,” Stone said. “It seems you were found in Central Park this morning, unconscious, and his card was found in your pocket, along with mine. Not surprisingly the hospital called Dino, who called me. Do you remember how you ended up in the park this morning?”

The doctor gave Shep some water through a glass straw. “I usually go to the park, but I don’t remember doing that this morning.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Stone asked.

“I was in the park, but it was dark, so it must have been last night.”

“That makes sense. I should have warned you against walking in the park late at night.” Stone turned to the doctor. “May I see the contents of his pockets?”

The doctor pointed at the bedside table. “Top drawer,” he said.

Stone opened the drawer and took out a plastic bag. It contained a wallet, a key card from the Carlyle, a Mercedes car key, and a gold money clip with his name engraved on it, empty.

“Were you carrying any cash?” he asked Shep.

“Yes, maybe a thousand dollars.”

“How about a wristwatch?”

“Yes, a Rolex Submariner.”

“He won’t have any trouble pawning or selling that.”

“It wasn’t a standard Submariner,” Shep said. “It was the fiftieth anniversary limited edition.”

“How is that different from the standard Submariner?”

“It has a green bezel, and the numerals are a little larger.”

A voice came from behind Stone. “I’ll call it in.”

Stone jumped and turned around to find Dino standing behind him. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he said.

“Oh,” Shep said, “and it had my name engraved on the back. It was a gift from my father some years ago.”

“That’ll help,” Dino said, then made a call on his cell phone.

Stone turned back to the doctor. “What’s his prognosis?”

“Well, we’ll want to hang on to him for a couple of days. If he doesn’t die or have a grand mal seizure, then we can probably send him home.”

“That’s encouraging,” Shep said.

“Yes,” Stone said. “It’s always encouraging when the patient doesn’t die. I’ve had considerable experience with people who’ve been hit over the head. And none of them died, who didn’t have a fractured skull, at least. The hospital may just want to sell you this room for a couple more days.” He turned to the doctor. “You can have him one more night, then boot him out of here.”

“I confirm Stone’s diagnosis,” Dino said.

“Are either of you a physician?” the doctor asked.

“Of course not,” Dino said, with scorn. “We’re just cops. But together, we’ve seen more skull damage than you’ve had hot meals.”

“Possibly,” the doctor said, making a note on Shep’s chart.

Stone gave Shep another card. “Call me, and I’ll have Fred here with the car to take you home.”

A very attractive nurse came into the room with some medication.

Stone leaned over and whispered in Shep’s ear. “At these prices, it’s okay to hit on the nurses.”

“Gotcha,” Shep said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get some more sleep.” He lay back and did just that.

Dino and Stone rode down on the elevator together. “Dino...”

“I know. You’re going to ask me if there were any more muggings last night. Of course, there were, but none of them resembled this one, not the way the other two resembled each other.”

“So, this doesn’t count as another coincidence?”

“Of course not. Shep was practically acting on your instructions.”

Stone knocked Dino’s fedora off. “You dropped your hat,” he said.