Strategic Moves

NINETEEN

Stone and Dino sat in the living room while the medical examiner did his work in the dining room. They had worked the apartment and found everything in perfect order, except the dining room. The criminalist arrived, did his work, and reported no physical evidence. Salero and Bartkowski came back from the lobby to report.

“Tell me,” Dino said.

“They all had the same story,” he said. “They arrived at about the same time, and when the doorman called up, nobody answered at first, then the cook called downstairs. They all say they were invited for dinner.”

“I can confirm that,” Stone said. “Adele called me about one this afternoon and asked me to dinner, then told me that she had invited a couple visiting from out of town and her nephew David Gunn and his girlfriend. The Whartons and I arrived simultaneously, Mia Meadow a couple of minutes later, and David Gunn a couple of minutes after her.”

Bartkowski scribbled all that in his notebook.

“Okay, fellas,” Dino said, “get back to the precinct and start working this. Confirm all the names and addresses. I’ll vouch for Barrington.”

The two men left, and Dino stared at Stone. “You don’t look so good, pal.”

Stone sighed. “It’s not every day that my dinner date gets murdered.”

“How well did you know her?”

“Met her last week at Jack Gunn’s daughter’s wedding, and we spent the weekend together in Maine.”

“You got a witness who can put you in Maine?”

“The caretaker and his wife. Oh, and Lance Cabot.”

“Lance was visiting you?” Dino knew Cabot from several meetings at Elaine’s.

“No, it was really weird: I hadn’t told anybody where we were going, but I got a call from Lance on Dick’s line to the Agency, which, I guess, is still working.”

“How did he know you were there?”

“I went out to the airfield to check on whether there was any snow accumulation on the airplane, and this black helicopter shows up with Lance aboard. He practically kidnaps me and takes me to a nearby island where his people are interrogating some Chinese spy.”

“Why the hell would he want you there?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe he was just impressing me with how he could keep tabs on me. Turns out, he had flown over Islesboro earlier and saw my airplane there. He invited himself to dinner, but I nixed that, then the chopper flew me back.”

“So that was the first time you’d spent any time with Adele?”

“We had dinner at the Four Seasons before we went to Maine.”

“Anybody you can think of has anything against Adele?”

“No. Of course, I didn’t know her long enough to meet any of her circle of friends. The only nexus we had was Herbie Fisher, who was marrying her niece.”

“The son, David—I read he was on a sailing trip when the blowup at his father’s business happened?”

“Yeah, I saw him interviewed on TV in the marina, after he got back to Miami. Actually, I’m told he was a suspect in the missing-money scandal, which turned out not to be a scandal at all, since there was no missing money.”

“Would he have anything against his aunt?”

“Not that I know of. If he wasn’t on good terms with her, why did she invite him to dinner, and why did he accept?”

“Makes sense,” Dino said. “What about the other couple?”

“She described them as old friends from out of town. I never even learned where they were from.”

Dino checked his notes. “Chicago. Neither of them was an investor of Gunn’s. How did Adele feel about Jack Gunn?”

“She liked him, trusted him. When the mess blew over she kept the proceeds of her husband’s estate with him, and recommended to me that I invest with him. No hard feelings there.”

“Late husband?”

“Yeah, she told me that she shot him, after he had blackened her eye and broken her arm. She was never charged with anything.”

“Lansdown,” Dino said, thinking. “Last year. I remember the case. They ran it by me, and I didn’t see any need for charges.”

“You think anybody had something against the cook?” Stone asked.

“If so, he would have shot her and hit Adele over the head, not the other way around.”

“Good point,” Stone admitted. “You know, security is pretty good in a building like this. Makes you wonder how somebody got in through the service entrance.”

The ME came in from the dining room, followed by two helpers and the corpse on a gurney. “Death by shooting, two in the head, small caliber, typical of a pro job. She’d been dead for less than an hour when I got here.”

“Fax me the full report,” Dino said. “Thanks, Doc.”

The man left.

“I think we’re done here,” Dino said, “and the smell of that food cooking makes me hungry.”

“Elaine’s?”

“Where else?” Dino said. “Let’s leave by the service entrance.” He led the way out the back, where Dino had another look at the door. “Doesn’t seem tampered with.”

“Probably when you live in a building like this, you think you can leave your door unlocked,” Stone said.

Dino rang for the elevator and it came quickly. “New elevator,” Dino said as they got on. “Probably faster than the building’s main elevators, unless they’re new, too.”

They got off on the ground floor, and Dino had a good look at the outside door and its lock. “Look at this,” he said, touching the door beside the lock and rubbing his fingers together. “Mucilage; looks like the bolt was taped back.”

The door from the lobby opened and a uniformed employee of the building stood there. “Oh, it’s you, gentlemen. Sorry to disturb you.”

“You got a camera back here?” Dino asked, looking around.

“Right up there,” the doorman said, pointing to a high corner.

“Let’s have a look at your tapes,” Dino said, and they followed him back to the front desk.

At Dino’s request, the doorman rewound the tape to seven-fifteen and pressed the play button. At seven twenty-two the door opened and a man in a dark hooded sweatshirt entered, his hands in the sweatshirt’s pockets. “Rewind and replay one frame at a time,” Dino said.

The doorman did so.

“The angle of the camera is too high. You can’t see the face,” Dino said.

The doorman made a note. “I’ll see to that.”

“All his clothes are dark,” Stone said. “I can’t see anything identifying.”

“Keep playing,” Dino said. “I want to see him when he leaves.”

The doorman played the tape forward at double speed. The man left the way he came, at seven twenty-six, and paused to pull a piece of tape off the door lock; then he was gone.

“You got an outside camera?” Dino asked.

“Not working,” the doorman said. “I called it in late this afternoon, but the repairman didn’t show yet.”

“Bad luck,” Dino said. “Let’s take a look at the street.” He led the way to the service entrance, and they stepped out onto Seventy-first Street. Dino pointed at a dumpster parked across the street, and he and Stone crossed to have a look in it.

“Give me a leg up,” Dino said. “You’re dressed too nice.”

“Sure,” Stone said, cupping his hands.

“It’s pretty full,” Dino said from above Stone. “Somebody’s renovating. Uh-oh.” He held up a black sweatshirt, then handed it to Stone. “Got some latex gloves, too.”

Stone held it by thumb and forefinger and checked the label. “Banana Republic,” he said. “Must be thousands of them on the street.”

Dino hopped down to the street, produced a large plastic bag, and stuffed the sweatshirt into it and the gloves into a smaller bag, which he placed in the larger bag. They walked around the corner to where Dino’s car was waiting and got in. Dino tossed the bag into the front passenger seat. “Take us to Elaine’s, then get that bag to Bartkowski and Salero at the precinct, and tell them to get it to the criminalist,” he said. “Sign the chain of evidence log, and I’ll do it when I get in later.” Dino called the precinct and told the two detectives to expect the sweatshirt and gloves, to check the gloves for fingerprints on the inside, and to get a copy of the videotape from the doorman at the building, then he sat back in his seat and sighed.

“Feels good when you’ve done everything you need to do,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

Stone agreed.