Lucid Intervals (21 page)

HERBIE LOOKED AWFUL,
and the orange jumpsuit didn’t help. “Where have you been?” he demanded of Stone. “I’ve been in here for nearly a whole day!”

“I was several hundred miles away when I heard, Herbie. I got here as soon as I returned to town. Now tell me, what happened?”

“It was yesterday morning,” Herbie said. “Sheila and I had breakfast in bed, and we were watching some morning TV when we got into an argument about you.”

“About
me
?”

“Yeah. This is all your fault.”

“Herbie, calm down and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Stone. It was you who insisted.”

“Insisted on what?”

“On the prenup.”

“Ah, yes. I did insist, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. So I told Sheila to go and see you about it, and she went absolutely nuts: ranted and raved and started crying. It upsets me when she cries.”

“Does she … did she cry a lot?”

“Only when I tried to get her to do something she didn’t want to do, like not go shopping.”

“Or talk to me about a prenup.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you explain to her that she would need to see her own lawyer?”

“I thought all she needed was you,” Herbie said.

“Let me explain this to you, Herbie,” Stone said. “It would be unethical for me to represent both of you at the same time, so Sheila would have needed her own attorney. I would have insisted on that had she called me.”

“Even if we were going to get married?”

“Especially if you were going to get married. If she had signed a prenup without her own counsel and you later got divorced, she could get the prenup invalidated on the grounds that she was not properly represented.”

“Oh.”

“Now go on. What happened next?”

“Well, I couldn’t stand the yelling anymore, and I said I would talk to her some more about it after I went to the john, and I went to the john.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to read most of a magazine.”

“How many minutes, Herbie?”

“I don’t know … twenty minutes, half an hour. Who’s counting? So I got dressed, and when I came out of the bedroom, Sheila wasn’t there. I looked all over for her, but she was gone. I figured she was out doing some revenge shopping and she’d be back when she cooled off, so I sat down in the living room to watch some more TV. Then I heard all these sirens, and they would get louder and louder and then stop, like they were in front of the building. So I went out on the terrace—the sliding glass door was open—and looked over the, whatchacallit, the edge.”

“The parapet.”

“Yeah, like that. And there were a couple of cop cars and a fire truck down on the street, and people were running around. So I went back inside and watched some of
Ellen
. Maybe five minutes later, the doorbell rang, and there were these two uniforms standing there.”

“What did you tell them?”

“They asked me if I knew a woman that sounded like Sheila from their description, and I said yes, that sounded like my fiancée. They asked where she was, and I said I didn’t know for sure, but I thought she might have gone shopping. Then these two detectives arrived, and they asked me a lot more questions, and I started to get the idea something was wrong. Then they told me Sheila was down on the sidewalk. I ran to the …”

“Parapet.”

“Yeah, and I looked down, and the ambulance was driving away and the doorman was scrubbing the sidewalk. The four cops all followed me out, and I said I had to go to the hospital. A detective said there was no need to do that, since she was dead.”

“Did you tell them about your argument with Sheila?”

“Well, yeah. I told them everything I knew, then they arrested me and took me down here to the precinct.”

“Did they tell you why they were arresting you?”

“Yeah, they said for murdering Sheila. Honest to God, Stone, all I did was ask her to go see you.”

“Herbie, you said the sliding glass door to the terrace was already open when you went outside.”

“Right. Sheila closed it when we came in last night. We were going out to dinner.”

“You didn’t touch the door?”

“No.”

“Do you know when it was last cleaned?”

“Yesterday. The maid came.”

“Did you touch the sliding door after the maid came?”

Herbie thought about that. “No. Sheila opened it when we went out there for a drink, and she closed it when we came in.”

“Where did you go to dinner?”

“At that place you told me about, Sette Mezzo.”

“Did you have a good time there?”

“Oh, yeah. Sheila was in a great mood, which she wasn’t always in, but she was last night. We laughed a lot.”

“Herbie, during the argument, did you happen to hit Sheila?”

“No, no. I never hit her in my life.”

“What was she wearing when you went into the john?”

“Silk pajamas,” Herbie said.

“Okay, you sit tight. I’m going to see if I can cut this short, before they arraign you.”

“Okay, hurry back.”

“I’ll do my best,” Stone said, and left the interview room.

43

S
tone walked up to Dino’s office and was waved in and introduced to an attractive young woman who was sitting in one of Dino’s chairs.

“This is Carla Rentz,” Dino said. “She’s prosecuting your client, Mr. Fisher.”

Stone sat down and tried to look puzzled. “Prosecuting him? For what?”

“For murder,” the young woman replied.

“On what evidence?” Stone asked.

“Mr. Fisher was the only one present when she was thrown off the roof,” she said.

“Excuse me,” Stone said. “What evidence do you have that she was
thrown
off the roof?”

“Well, she’s dead.”

“Have you considered suicide?”

“Why should I consider suicide?”

“Because it’s one of two possibilities,” Stone said. “Either she was thrown off the roof, or she jumped.”

“What is her motive for suicide?”

“What is Mr. Fisher’s motive for murder?”

“I’m sure that will emerge.”

“Well, if a motive emerges, you
may
have cause to arrest Mr. Fisher but not now. Tell you what. Send a couple of Lieutenant Bacchetti’s detectives over to a restaurant called Sette Mezzo, on Lexington near Seventy-sixth. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Seidman had dinner there last night. Ask the headwaiter and their waiter what their demeanor was during dinner there. You’ll be told that they were very happy, enjoying each other’s company. You see, he was in love with her, and they planned to marry.”

“If they were so happy, why would Ms. Seidman commit suicide?”

“Anger is a motive for suicide; people kill themselves all the time, because they think it will hurt the people they’re mad at.”

“You say he was in love with her. Was she in love with him?”

“In my opinion, no,” Stone replied. “Ms. Seidman was a working prostitute who had serviced Mr. Fisher on a number of occasions, and when Mr. Fisher won a large sum in the New York State Lottery, her interest in him became more … acute, shall we say. And so did the interest of her employer.”

“You still haven’t given me a motive for suicide,” Ms. Rentz said. “Why was she angry?”

“She was angry because Mr. Fisher had asked her to sign a prenuptial agreement. She didn’t want to go back to her pimp and tell him that, so she was between a rock and a hard place. I had already spoken to her earlier about a prenup, and she became angry at the mention of it. She was uncontrollably angry before she jumped.”

“We didn’t find a prenup in the apartment,” she said.

“That’s because I hadn’t given it to Mr. Fisher yet. He asked her to go and see me about it.”

“Without her own attorney?”

“I would have insisted on that,” Stone said.

“Why didn’t you give Mr. Fisher the prenup earlier?”

“Because I’ve been out of town for a few days, in Maine. I just got back today. My secretary will be happy to give you a copy of the prenup I had prepared.” He gave her the address and Joan’s name.

“When the detectives arrived, Mr. Fisher feigned not to know that Ms. Seidman had … met her death. How could he have missed that?”

“Because he was sitting on the toilet, reading a magazine, when she jumped. When he was finished there, he got dressed and went to look for her, but she was gone. He thought she had gone shopping, because that’s what she usually did.”

“How can he prove that?” she asked.

“Mr. Fisher will agree to a colonoscopy,” Stone replied.

Dino burst out laughing.

“From speaking to Mr. Fisher a few minutes ago, I have reason to believe that your detectives, if they bother to check, will find that Ms. Seidman’s fingerprints will be on the sliding glass door to the terrace but not Mr. Fisher’s, because he didn’t touch it after the maid came and cleaned it yesterday.”

“We’ll look into that,” Ms. Rentz said.

“You may look into anything you like, and my client and I will cooperate with your investigation, but the fact remains that you don’t have enough evidence to arraign him, let alone convict him, and the other available evidence will support my client. For that reason, I’d like him released immediately.”

“Mr. Barrington has a point,” Dino said. “We can always arrest him later if new evidence comes up.”

Ms. Rentz looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. “All right,” she said to Dino, “spring Mr. Fisher.” She stood up and grabbed her briefcase. “But this isn’t over.”

Stone stood and offered his hand. “Let us know whatever else you need from us.”

She shook his hand and left.

“Nice work,” Dino said.

“You don’t think Herbie tossed her, do you?”

“Nah, but it’s good to see you break a sweat.”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
Stone was at Strategic Services promptly at eight and was shown into Hackett’s large corner office, where the man was polishing off a full Scottish breakfast. He sent the tray away and pressed a button on his phone. “Mike, join us, will you?” He hung up. “You remember Mike Freeman, Stone; we played tennis?”

“Of course.”

Freeman entered through a door between his office and Hackett’s and shook Stone’s hand, and the three men moved to a seating area by the window.

“Stone, we want to give you something of an overview of Strategic Services,” Hackett said. “Mike is my right-hand guy, and he’s here to tell you anything I forget.”

“Shoot,” Stone said.

“We’re best known for providing corporate security,” Hackett said. “We have a dozen offices around the world, and if we get a call from a client telling us he’s paying a visit to, say, Hong Kong, our people and vehicles are at the bottom of his jet stair when he arrives to greet him and take care of him while he’s there. That service is a big revenue producer for us, and we’ve never lost an executive yet, not to a kidnapping or a roadside bomb. Sometimes, though, an executive is kidnapped while not in our custody, and in that case we handle negotiations for his release.”

Freeman spoke up. “Or, if necessary, send in an extraction team. We employ large numbers of former Special Forces and Navy SEAL personnel, who are very good at that.”

Stone couldn’t place Freeman’s accent, and he must have been looking at him oddly.

“I’m Canadian,” Freeman said, smiling. “Montreal, so my English sometimes has a French inflection. You’re not the first to wonder.”

“Also,” Hackett continued, “we provide armed guards to government agencies both at home and abroad. The State Department is an especially good client.”

“Do you provide meals and domestic services for the armed forces as well?” Stone asked.

“No, I have no interest in the catering business, even on that scale. We’re strictly security. We also have a division that installs security systems in corporate and government offices, the most sophisticated systems in the world. The new HD cameras are just wonderful. We can now use facial recognition software on the images we get from a camera no bigger than a golf ball.”

“That’s impressive,” Stone said.

“Do you have a good security system at home?” Hackett asked.

“Yes, I have an ex-cop who does that work for me.”

“Good. Just remember, we’re here if you need us.”

Hackett continued through the morning, outlining to Stone the depth and breadth of his company, from the armored vehicle business to investigative services. “You may have noticed,” Hackett said, “we can find out just about anything about anybody. That is a particularly important service for corporate boards these days, as any hint of scandal in a potential executive’s life can turn up on the Internet at any moment.”

Finally, they broke for lunch, which was brought in on a rolling table.

“Everything all right for you at the Plaza?” Hackett asked.

“Just perfect,” Stone replied. “Thank you for the shelter.”

“Eduardo Bianchi is an old friend of mine,” Hackett said, “and it distresses me almost as much as Eduardo that his daughter is in such a state.”

Stone had been wondering how Hackett had known that he and Dolce had been briefly married, and now he knew.

“Did sight of my service record make any impression on Dame Felicity?” Hackett asked.

“I can’t comment,” Stone replied, “but it made an impression on me.”

AFTER LUNCH, STONE’S
briefing session continued until mid-afternoon. Hackett showed him to the elevators. “I’ll have an assignment for you before long. In the meantime, the Mustang is there if you need it.”

Stone walked back to the Plaza, enjoying the afternoon. At the hotel there was a message from the Assistant District Attorney, Carla Rentz, and he returned the call.

“We’ve completed our investigation of Sheila Seidman’s death,” she said, “and I agree that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute Mr. Fisher.”

“Insufficient evidence?” Stone asked. “You mean no evidence at all, don’t you?”