Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

“I’m Stone Barrington, a friend of Adele’s, and this is Ben and Ann Wharton. Apparently, something is wrong in Adele’s apartment, and we’re waiting for the police.” As if on cue, the noise of an ambulance and a police cruiser could be heard approaching the building.

“Wrong? What do you mean?”

Stone explained what had happened, and as he finished the lobby became suddenly crowded with uniformed and plainclothes police officers and a pair of EMTs with a gurney. Dino was right behind them.

Stone introduced Dino to the dinner guests. “I’m glad to meet you all, and I’m sorry about the circumstances,” Dino said.

“Can you tell us what’s happened?” David Gunn asked.

“I will shortly,” he said. “You folks please have a seat over there,” he said, pointing at a seating area. “Don’t leave until a detective has taken your statements. Stone, you come with me.”

Stone excused himself from the group and followed Dino to an elevator, right behind the EMTs and two detectives. As the elevator went up, Dino introduced the two detectives as Salero and Bartkowski.

Dino led the way out of the elevator, with Stone hot behind. A woman in a white chef’s outfit was standing at an open doorway, holding a towel to the back of her head. “This way,” she called out, stepping back to let them in. “Mrs. Lansdown is in the dining room, to your right.”

An EMT stayed with her, checking her injuries, and Dino, Stone, and the detectives walked into the dining room. Adele Lansdown was lying on the floor beside an overturned chair and some scattered tableware. The detective Salero knelt beside her and held three fingers to her neck.

“No pulse,” he said. He lifted her head and looked under it. “At least one to the side of the head.”

“All right,” Dino said, “everybody in the living room, except you,” he said, pointing to the EMT. “Pronounce her and note the time. Salero, you go downstairs and get separate statements from the other dinner guests. But before you do that, call the ME.”

They went back into the living room, where the EMT was applying a bandage to the back of the cook’s head. “She needs to get checked out at the hospital,” he said. “We’ll put her in our ambulance.”

Bartkowski sat in the chair next to the injured woman. “Can you answer a couple of questions?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Your name?”

“Betty Hardesty. I’m Mrs. Lansdown’s chef.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I wa

s standing at the stove, cooking dinner, and then, next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor with my head hurting. I got to my feet and called out to Mrs. Lansdown, and when she didn’t answer, I went to look for her and found her on the dining room floor. I called downstairs, and then I went to the door to wait for somebody to come. Will somebody turn the stove off, please?”

“Stone,” Dino said, “will you do that?”

Stone walked past Adele’s corpse and into the kitchen, where something in a copper skillet was sizzling. He shut down the large Viking range and looked around. There was a door at the rear of the kitchen, closed. He opened it and found a back hall with a staircase and an elevator, then he returned to the living room.

The two EMTs were helping the chef onto a gurney.

“Bartkowski,” Dino said, “go downstairs and help Salero with the dinner guests’ statements. I’ll hold down the fort here until the ME arrives. When you’re done downstairs, if nobody sounds like a suspect, send them all home and come back up here.”

Stone took Dino to the kitchen and showed him the service entrance.

Dino checked the door. “Unlocked,” he said. “Anybody could have walked in.”

“Whoever walked in was pretty businesslike,” Stone said. “Took out the chef, then Adele.”

The ME arrived and started his work.

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.