Reckless Abandon

28

HOLLY GOT INTO some sweat clothes, stuffed the Sig-Sauer into her jacket pocket, clipped on Daisy’s leash, and headed uptown.

She and Daisy walked briskly until they entered the park, then Holly started to jog, with Daisy easily keeping pace. They ran past the zoo, then the pond where people raced model boats, and the statue of Alice in Wonderland, then they cut cross-country. Somewhere north of Alice, Holly became aware of another jogger not far behind.

Everything was perfectly normal until Holly noticed that there was something red attached to Daisy’s back. She stopped to pull it off and discovered that what was in her hand was a dart. Daisy sat down, panting, then collapsed, and then something struck Holly in the head.

Stone was napping in a big wing chair in his library, a book in his lap, when the phone woke him. “Hello?”

“Is this Stone Barrington?” A man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is the desk sergeant at the Twenty-second Precinct in Central Park. There’s been a homicide in the park; I think you’d better get up here.”

“Who’s dead?”

“I don’t have that information. Just get up here, okay, Mr. Barrington?”

“I’m on my way. Will you get hold of Lieutenant Bacchetti at the one-nine and ask him to meet me there?”

“Okay.” The cop hung up.

Stone thought of waking Ham, but changed his mind. He ran outside and hailed a cab.

Stone walked into the precinct, and he was scared. He presented himself to the desk sergeant.

“Right,” the sergeant said. “See Detective Briscoe back there.” He nodded toward a door.

Stone walked into a small squad room and looked at the only detective there.

“Barrington?” the man asked.

“Yes. What’s happened?”

“You were a detective over at the Nineteenth, weren’t you?” the man asked.

“What the hell has happened?” Stone demanded.

“Are you acquainted with a cop from Florida named Holly Barker?”

“Yes, she’s staying at my house.”

“Come with me.” He got up and walked down a corridor with Stone at his heels. He opened the door to an interrogation room. “In here.”

Stone walked in and the door closed behind him. Holly was sitting at the table stroking Daisy, who was stretched out on the tabletop.

Holly looked up at him. “It’s okay,” she said. “She’s coming around.” She stroked Daisy’s head. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Just take your time. You’ll be all right in a minute.”

Stone sank into a chair and gave Daisy a pat. “I thought you were dead,” he said.

“No.”

“The desk sergeant who called me said there was a homicide.”

“There was a shooting-self-defense.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know; a guy. There were two of them. The second one ran when I shot the first one.”

“Why did you shoot him?”

“Because he was trying to kill me with a knife.”

“Where did all this happen? Start at the beginning.”

“Daisy and I were running, and she was shot with a dart, then somebody hit me upside the head, but not hard enough to put me out. I rolled over a couple of times and got hold of the gun Ham gave me. It was in my jacket pocket. The guy was walking toward me with the knife, as if he didn’t expect any opposition. I shot him.” She held up a corner of her jacket, where the bullet had gone through. “I didn’t have time to draw.”

Stone put a hand to her cheek. “You’re cold,” he said. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I am now,” she replied. “I had a case of the shakes for a while. A cop on horseback found me. I guess he heard the shot.”

“Can I leave you here for a couple of minutes?”

“Sure, we’re all right. Daisy’s going to have a hangover, but she’s not hurt.”

Stone got up, went back to the squad room, and found Briscoe. “She’s told me what happened. It was a good shooting.”

“Looks that way,” Briscoe said, “but I don’t have the final call on that.”

Stone noticed for the first time that Holly’s new Sig-Sauer was on Briscoe’s desk in an evidence bag, and her badge lay beside it. “She’s on duty,” he said. “She’s got a fugitive warrant.”

“I got that,” Briscoe replied. “That ought to cover it. We want to see the warrant, though.”

“It’s at my house. I’ll get it to you. Will you release her to me?”

“Oh, we’re not holding her. She can go. She can have her gun and badge back, too.” He handed them to Stone. “We took a sample round for the file.”

Dino burst into the room. “What happened?”

Stone told him.

“Are we all square here?” Dino asked Briscoe.

“Yes, Lieutenant. We need a phone number for her, and we want to see her fugitive warrant, but that’s it. It’s clearly self-defense.”

“You got an ID on the guy with the knife?”

“He had nothing on him but the knife, but we’ll run his prints.”

“What happened to the second guy?”

“He beat it out of there. The gunshot must have scared him off.”

“Thanks, Briscoe,” Dino said. He pulled Stone aside. “How’s Holly taking all this?”

“She’s okay, I think. She’s mostly worried about Daisy.”

“Where are they?”

“In an interrogation room back there. Are you in a car?”

“Yeah. Let’s get her back to your place, and I’ll pick up the fugitive warrant.” He gave Briscoe Stone’s number.

By the time they were back at the house, Daisy was walking, but slowly.

As they walked in the front door, Ham came down the stairs. He pointed at Holly’s jacket pocket. “Was the bullet going in or out?”

“Out,” Holly said.

Ham put an arm around her. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“Ham…”

” Tell me about it later.”

When Holly and Daisy were tucked in, Stone and Ham went down to the kitchen and had a beer.

“She can take care of herself,” Ham said.

“Apparently so.”

“What’s going on here, Stone?”

“My best guess? Trini doesn’t like being dogged, and he decided to do something about it. From what I’ve heard about him from Holly, he wasn’t there today, because Holly’s alive. I guess he put a couple of his pals on her.”

“So the two guys outside your house weren’t Feds?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Stone had an idea. He picked up the phone and got the number for the New York State Police in Albany. He called, identified himself, and asked about the traffic stop on I-684 earlier that day. He was transferred to the relevant field office and, good luck, managed to get one of the traffic officers who had made the stop.

Stone identified himself. “You stopped a black SUV on 684 this morning?”

“Yes, we did.”

“I was the guy out front in the black Mercedes.”

“How fast were you going?”

“I’ll take the fifth on that, but I was transporting an officer on duty. Did you get an ID on the guys in the SUV?”

“Yeah. They were FBI, and they wouldn’t tell us what they were doing. I wrote ’em a ticket for grossly excessive speed.”

“Good for you. Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.” Stone hung up and turned to Ham. “Well, it looks like absolutely everybody is following us.”

“What’s your take on what happened in the park?” Ham asked.

“I think they wanted it to look like a mugging, and they didn’t want to attract anybody with the noise of a gunshot. They used a dart on Daisy, then tried to knife Holly. They would have knifed Daisy, too, once she was out. So somebody would have stumbled on a jogger and her dog, both dead.”

“Why not use a silencer on both?” Ham asked.

“Because it would then look like a professional hit. The dart thing is funny, though. It’s not the sort of thing mob guys would normally think of using.”

“This Trini guy is not a normal mob hood,” Ham said. “He’s a lot smarter and a lot worse. He would think of the dart.”

“Maybe so.”

“Good thing I came up here,” Ham said. “While I’m in New York, she doesn’t leave this house without me watching her back.”

“Sounds good to me,” Stone said.

“Oh, and you may as well move her back into your room,” Ham said. “I get the idea that’s where she wants to be.”

Stone gulped. “Up to her.”