New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

ng of her rights. “You aren’t handcuffing me!”

“If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you,” Stone concluded. “I’m sorry about the cuffs; it’s department policy.” He took her raincoat from a hook on the wall and placed it over her shoulders. “Don’t worry, no one here will see them.”

“Let’s go, lady,” Dino said.

“I want to call my lawyer,” she said shakily.

“You can call her from the precinct,” Dino said. “Let’s go.”

Stunned into silence, Hank Morgan accompanied the two detectives out of the building and into their car.

“Is there anything you want to tell us before we get to the station?” Stone asked her.

Morgan shook her head. “I want my lawyer,” she said.

“Uh, oh,” Dino said as they pulled up to the entrance of the 19th Precinct. “What’s this?”

“Leakiest precinct in the city,” Stone said, slamming his fist against the dashboard in frustration.

A knot of reporters crowded the sidewalk. Television lights went on. Stone and Dino got Morgan out of the car and hustled her into the building, shoving the shouting reporters out of the way.

“No comment,” Dino kept yelling.

“I want to call my lawyer,” Morgan said, when they were safe from the howling mob.

“Just as soon as we’ve fingerprinted and photographed you,” Stone said, unlocking her handcuffs.

She gave the fingerprints without further protest, then, while Stone had her photographed, Dino hand-carried the prints upstairs. Stone took Morgan into the squad room and put her in an empty cubicle, away from the stares of the other detectives.

Morgan put her face in her hands. “This is so humiliating,” she said.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way,” Stone replied, “but you’ve made it harder on yourself by refusing to cooperate.”

“I want my lawyer now,” she said.

Stone handed her the phone, and, hands shaking, she dialed a number. Stone noted that she didn’t have to look it up. He wondered how many innocent people knew their lawyers’ phone numbers off the tops of their heads.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Dino came breathlessly into the cubicle and hauled Stone out.

“Listen to this,” he said.

“Was one of her prints in Sasha’s apartment?” Stone asked. It would be too good to be true.

“Better than that, pal – we’ve got a palm print – and on the outside of the sliding glass door to the terrace. We can put her on the terrace!”

A weak, warm feeling flooded through Stone. “Jesus Christ!” He exhaled. All the work, all the sweat had been worth it. He had not realized until that moment how afraid he had been of this case and what it might do to him. “Let’s have another shot at her before her lawyer gets here,” he said, heading back for the cubicle.

Morgan was sitting rigidly in the steel chair, her hands clenched in her lap.

“Listen to me, Ms. Morgan,” Stone said, pulling up a chair. “You’ve already admitted to me that you and Sasha were having an affair, and that she was also having an affair with a man; that would make you pretty jealous, wouldn’t it? We’ve got canceled checks showing that Sasha paid you twenty thousand dollars in less than two months; your palm print was found on the terrace that Sasha fell from. We’ve got all that, Ms. Morgan, and we’re going to get more. Now, don’t you think it’s time you told us about it?”

Morgan’s shoulders began to shake, and tears rolled down her face.

Stone thought it was the only moment she had looked feminine since he had met her.

“Oh, God!” she moaned, “I want to tell you…”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a rumbling voice said from behind them.