Desperate Measures

40

First Stone heard the siren coming down Fifth Avenue, then it stopped outside. Another couple of minutes and he heard the elevator door open.

“In here,” he called out. “The door is open.”

The door opened the rest of the way, and a young man in a dark suit peered around it.

“I’m alone and unarmed,” Stone said. “Come in.”

The cop came in, gun out in front of him, followed by his partner.

“I’ve cleared the place,” Stone said. “There’s no one else here.”

“Are you a cop?” the detective asked.

“Retired. My gun and badge are on the bar, next to the flowers and the bottle of wine.”

The cop was still pointing his gun. “Stand up,” he said.

Stone stood, holding his arms away from his body.

“Hands on top of your head, fingers interlocked.”

Stone followed instructions and allowed himself to be handcuffed and thoroughly searched. The cop kept his wallet.

“A gun and a badge are over here,” the other cop said from the bar. “Detective First Grade.”

“Clear the place,” the first cop said.

“Will you uncuff me now?” Stone asked.

“You just stand right there. I’ll decide when to uncuff you.”

The other detective came back. “There’s a woman in the kitchen with a knife in her chest,” he said. “I called for the ME and a team. Otherwise, all clear.”

“Okay,” the younger man said, “you can sit down now.”

“Uncuff me first,” Stone said.

“I’m not concerned with your comfort, I just want answers.”

“Well, you’re not getting any until you’ve uncuffed me,” Stone said.

The older cop uncuffed him. “Have a seat, Mr.... ”

“Barrington,” Stone said, sitting down and picking up his drink from the side table. “And you?”

“He’s Detective Calabrese. I’m Muldoon.”

“I didn’t know there was a Muldoon left on the NYPD,” Stone said.

“We’re a rare breed,” Muldoon said.

Calabrese went to take a look at the corpse for himself, then came back. “Did you touch anything?”

“The phone on the wall. And I turned off two burners on the stove. Dinner was cooking.”

“Do you always walk around barefoot?”

“I took off my shoes when I was clearing the apartment. They’re in the kitchen.”

“I’ll get them for you,” Calabrese said.

“Why are you here?” Muldoon asked. Calabrese came back and tossed Stone’s shoes on the floor, and he put them on.

“I was invited to dinner,” Stone said. “I arrived at seven. She told me the intercom was broken, and she’d leave the door open for me. The desk man was absent, so I came upstairs. I put the flowers in some water and poured us both a drink, as she had asked me to. Then I went into the kitchen, and didn’t see her. I sat on a stool for a while, then I went to look for her and saw her legs sticking out.”

“One of them has an Ace bandage on the ankle,” Calabrese said.

“A sprain.” Stone told them how he and Cilla had met.

“You got a guess on a suspect?” Muldoon asked.

“The ex-husband, one Donald Trask. They’ve been divorced for two weeks. She gave him a lot of money to get out of the marriage, but maybe not as much as he would have liked.”

“You look pretty calm for somebody who’s found a corpse with a knife in it,” Calabrese said.

“I’ve seen more corpses than you have,” Stone replied.

“Maybe,” Calabrese said.

“Certainly,” Muldoon offered. “You got an address for this Trask?”

Stone checked his phone and gave him the address. “He moved in there a week ago Friday. He owns several guns, but his carry license may have been revoked. He failed to list a new purchase.”

“Was there any animosity between them?”

“Plenty, all on his part. He beat her up a couple of times, put her in the hospital once. You might want to talk to the attorney who represented her: Herbert Fisher, at this number.” He gave Muldoon his own card. “He’s my law partner.”

“If Trask has guns, why would he knife her?” Calabrese asked.

“No ballistics on a knife,” Stone said, rolling his eyes. “And you might check with the desk man to see if Trask announced himself. He may have come in while the man was away from his post, as I did, then left down the stairs to the garage.”

“You’ve got this all figured out, have you?” Calabrese asked.

“I had time to think about it while I was waiting for you to show up,” Stone replied.

“What time did you say you arrived?”

“Seven o’clock. You can check the log downstairs; I signed in.”

“Trask is a good lead,” Muldoon said. “We’ll follow it all the way.”

“If it doesn’t pan out,” Stone said, “then I haven’t got a clue. She never mentioned anybody else to me. They didn’t have any kids, and he wasn’t the sort to make fast friendships.”

“Do you know him personally?”

“He showed up at my office once, thinking I was her lawyer. I straightened him out, and he left. He called on another occasion; he was very angry. He was hanging around my block, but a friend of mine discouraged him, and I don’t think he came back. He did behave himself at the divorce hearing, I’m told. He’ll have a gun safe in his apartment.”

Then a parade of technicians began to enter the apartment and were directed to the kitchen. The detectives’ lieutenant arrived and listened to Stone’s story all over again, then told the detectives to go detain Trask. As they were leaving, the ME came out of the kitchen.

“The knife wasn’t the cause of death,” he said.

“I would have thought that would do it,” Muldoon said.

“She was shot first,” he said, “then stabbed, probably to cover up the gunshot wound.”

“Did you dig out a bullet?”

“We’ll do that in the lab. I’ll let you know. Oh, I’d put time of death at between six-thirty and seven PM.” The ME went back to the kitchen.

Muldoon shook Stone’s hand and left with Calabrese in tow. Stone recovered his gun and badge, tied his shoes, and followed them.

Downstairs, the desk man was back at his post.

“I logged in while you were away,” Stone said, turning the logbook around. “Did a man named Trask arrive to see Ms. Scott?”

“Nobody arrived,” the desk man said. “I saw your name in the log. She had said she was expecting you.”

“Tell it all to the cops when they get around to you,” Stone said, “and don’t leave anything out.”

He went outside, where it had begun to drizzle. The doorman managed to get him a cab.

“You a friend of Ms. Scott?” he asked as he opened the door for Stone.

“Yes,” Stone replied.

“We hardly got to know her,” the man said, then closed the cab door.

Stone rode home depressed. He needed another drink.