Worst Fears Realized

9

KELLY RETURNED WITH DINO’S SON, Benedetto, a black-eyed six-year-old who looked like a tiny Sicilian prince, taking after his mother’s line. Dino dismissed Kelly, then gathered up the boy, sat him on his lap, and explained what had happened that afternoon.

“Why don’t you just have the guy capped?” the child asked.

Dino sighed and looked at Stone. “He spent the weekend with his grandfather.” He turned back to the boy. “Because, Ben, I am a police officer, and we don’t have guys capped. We arrest them and put them in jail, remember? Now you go and get washed up for dinner. Uncle Stone is going to join us.” The boy got down from his father’s lap and ran toward his room.

“Thanks, I’d love to,” Stone said.

Mary Ann excused herself and headed for the kitchen.

“Come on into my study,” Dino said. “Let’s have a drink.”

Stone followed Dino into the handsome little walnut-paneled room, where Dino produced Stone’s favorite bourbon and a scotch for himself. It was not the study or the apartment of a New York City police lieutenant, and the books on the shelves, mostly art history, history, and biography, revealed a broader Dino than most people knew.

Stone knew that Dino’s father-in-law had acquired the apartment for his daughter in circumstances that were murky, to say the least. It was in a white-shoe, East Side cooperative building that did not ordinarily entertain applications from people whose names ended in vowels, and Stone reckoned it would sell for somewhere between a million and a half and two million dollars on the open market. Stone knew that the apartment’s purchaser and his daughter’s ownership were protected behind a complex corporate veil, and he doubted if any other member of the NYPD had ever entered the place before today. He wondered what would happen if Dino ever became the target of some in-depth departmental investigation.

“You got any thoughts about all this?” Dino asked.

At first, Stone thought he meant the apartment, then he realized what the subject was. “Oh. Not really. Certainly, Mitteldorfer’s alibi is tight. I think I’d check out the nephew in Hamburg, to see if he’s really in Germany. Might be good to check out Mitteldorfer’s visitors list, too?” He allowed himself a grin. “If you can get it out of Captain Warkowski.”

Dino raised his glass in a little toast. “Fuck you,” he said.

Stone lifted his glass. “Thanks. Have you got any ideas?”

Dino shook his head. “Not really. It’s spooky how the perp looks like Mitteldorfer used to look, though.”

“Yes, it is. I think the Hamburg nephew is not a bad bet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d immigrated, or if he turns up on Mitteldorfer’s visitors list. I’d like to know if Mitteldorfer has any other relatives in this country, particularly any children he didn’t tell us about.”

“First thing tomorrow,” Dino said. “Well, one good thing about all this; it’s given you something else to think about besides your broken heart.”

“Give me a break, Dino,” Stone said wearily.

“Listen, Stone, I think you’re well out of the thing with Arrington.”

“I thought you liked Arrington.”

“I did. I do. I just think that if you’d married her, she might have run off with Vance Calder later, and that would have screwed you up even worse.”

“I am not screwed up, and, anyway, Arrington’s not like that,” Stone said. “I dropped the ball; I didn’t commit when I should have, and by the time I got around to it…”

“And when did you get around to it?”

“I was going to ask her to marry me when we went on the sailing trip; I’d made up my mind on the way down there. Then, when the snowstorm kept her in the city, and when Calder showed up… well, it was a good offer, and she had no reason to think I was going to make a better one.”

“So you blame yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Blame her; it won’t hurt as much. There’s nothing like being pissed off at a woman to make her absence easier.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” Stone said drily.

“You think there’s any chance she’d leave Calder?”

“None. She’s borne him a son, remember? She’s locked in.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time people with kids got a divorce.”

“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“Why don’t you just go out to LA and get her?”

“I had my shot at that; she made her choice. I’ll just have to learn to live with it.”

“You really believe the kid is Calder’s, not yours?”

“The tests were done, Dino; she wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Nah; women never lie.”

“I’m at peace with that part of it, at least. If the child had been mine, she’d have come back to me. That was our agreement. Why are you digging through all this?”

Dino shrugged. “I figured it might do you good to talk about it.”

“Well, now that you mention it, I do feel a little better having articulated the situation.”

“You sound like a fucking shrink.” Dino abruptly changed the subject. “I’m going to put a watch on you,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Sure it is. This guy followed you the night Susan Bean was killed, you know.”

“You have a point there.”

“It bothers me that he could recognize Mary Ann on the street.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“It means he’s been doing his homework, checking out our lives.”

“That’s pretty scary.”

“And for God knows how long. He may have plans for other people we know. You been seeing any girls at all?”

“No, nobody.”

“That’s not like you, Stone.”

“It’s just as well, though, isn’t it? At least I don’t have to call up women and tell them there’s a lunatic on the loose.”

“He is a lunatic, isn’t he?”

“This is hardly a sane thing to do, even if it is revenge.”

“Has it occurred to you that one victim didn’t even know you? That she just had the misfortune to live within sight of your house?”

“It has. Did anything come of checking out the residents of the buildings on my side of the block?”

Dino shook his head. “Nothing; all solid citizens.”

“He had to have seen her through her rear window,” Stone said. “She wasn’t chosen at random.”

“He wanted you to watch,” Dino said. “Maybe me, too.”

“It was the single worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I know how you feel.”

Dino picked up the phone at his side and pressed a speed-dial button. “This is Bacchetti; let me speak to Anderson. Andy? Tomorrow I want you to dig out the case file on a Herbert Mitteldorfer; killed his wife twelve, thirteen years ago. I want you to go back to the neighborhood where he used to live – in the old Germantown area, I think – the East Eighties. Talk to his neighbors, the shopkeepers, anybody who remembers him. See if any of them knows whether he had any family in this country, particularly a son or a nephew; find out who his friends were, and check with them. I want to know about everybody he knew. Check his former workplace, too. There’s a woman called Eloise Enzberg who worked or maybe still works there. Talk to her nicely, and maybe she’ll spill something. She’s been writing to Mitteldorfer at Sing Sing. Also, call the warden’s office and get a list of Mitteldorfer’s visitors for the past two years. Report back to me as you find out things; I want to know it all. Hang on.” Dino covered the receiver. “Can you think of anything else?” he asked Stone.

Stone furrowed his brow. “Have them find out who Mitteldorfer was friends with at Sing Sing and whether any of them has gotten out recently.”

“Good idea.” Dino gave the instruction to Anderson, then hung up. “I don’t know of anything else we can do, do you?”

Stone shook his head. “Not apart from being very, very careful.”