“Is there anything else, Bill?”
“No.”
“Then I bid you good day.” Stone got up and headed for the door.
“Let me know if you hear anything about that secretary,” Eggers called after him.
38
When Stone arrived at home his housekeeper, Helene, was picking up her paycheck from Joan. “I got your bedroom back like it was,” Helene said.
“Thank you, Helene.”
“Except for those things in the bedside drawers,” she sniffed.
“I’ll deal with that, thank you.”
“You must have had some weekend upstairs, to get it like that.”
“Helene, I was in Connecticut this weekend. Somebody got into the house and did that as a joke.”
Helene muttered something Stone didn’t quite hear, then left for home.
“She was really pissed off,” Joan said.
“I was pretty pissed off, myself. The guy who had this done just apologized to me in Bill Eggers’s office, though.”
“This was about a girl, wasn’t it, Stone?”
“Don’t go there, Joan. It was Harlan Deal’s mistake; let’s leave it at that.”
“He didn’t stop payment on his check, did he? Because I’ve already paid the bills.”
“No, he didn’t, and if he does…”
“Sorry I brought it up,” she said.
Stone went into his office and checked his desk for messages. None. He sat down and concentrated on making his anger go away. It took time, but he got there.
Stone was about to leave his desk for the day when Bob Cantor called. “I got news,” he said.
“What?”
“Something interesting on Charlie Crow’s phone.”
“Already?”
“The tap had been in for less than an hour when this call was made: Listen.”
Stone heard electronic noise, then a woman’s voice. “This is the office of Mr. Charles Crow. He’s sending a van to pick up a piece of furniture from his storage unit tomorrow morning at eight A.M. It’s locker three-two-zero.”
“Yes, ma’am,” a man’s voice said. “I’ll put it on the list.”
The call ended.
“I can’t believe we got that lucky,” Stone said. “But wait a minute. We don’t know where she called.”
“Yes, we do. The number is listed for Sutton Moving and Storage. It’s downtown, near the South Street Seaport.”