New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

“Let’s not refer to them that way, please,” Van Fleet said. “They are my friends, and, if they could hear you, they’d be very upset.”

“As you wish. How did you get, uh, meet these people?”

“Oh, here and there. You might say I picked them up around town. They’re all very interesting people who do interesting work. I find that interesting work makes an interesting person, don’t you?”

Stone realized that he had now solved the disappearance of Dino’s yuppies, not that it mattered much. “Sure, I think that’s true. But, somehow, I don’t think they make very interesting conversationalists at the moment.”

“You’re quite wrong,” Van Fleet said. “I know you think of them as dead, but they’re not, you know. In fact, I’ve given them a whole new kind of life. It’s a technique I’ve developed myself, over the years, one I refined both in my work at the funeral parlor and in my previous job, at the Museum of Natural History. They remain as supple as when they were alive, in the usual sense of the word.”

Stone could think of nothing to do but keep the conversation going. Besides, there was more he wanted to know. “Tell me about Sasha, Herb.”

“Ah, Sasha.” Van Fleet sighed. “She is the centerpiece of my little dinner party, of course. Everybody likes a celebrity at the table. Adds spice to the evening.”

“Was she alive when you brought her here?”

“I told you, they’re all alive,” Van Fleet said emphatically. “Please don’t make it necessary for me to mention that again, or I will terminate this conversation immediately.”

“I’m sorry,” Stone said. “I meant alive in the usual sense of the word. What I meant to ask was, after her fall and the ambulance wreck, what sort of condition was she in?”

“Well, when

I took her out of the wreck,” Van Fleet said, “she was in very poor condition, indeed. The fall had broken some bones, but, oddly, not the skin. The traffic accident had done somewhat more damage. It took me quite a long time to bring her back to her present condition.”

“Was she… breathing when you took her?”

“Amazingly enough, yes,” Van Fleet said. “In fact, I believe that, if not for the traffic accident, she might have continued to breathe. As it was, she lasted only a few days, in spite of the very excellent medical care she received from me.”

Stone winced at the thought of Sasha alive for days with this creep. His terminal velocity theory, though, had panned out, sort of. “Who wrote me the letter?” Stone asked.

“Oh, Sasha did – with my help, of course. She wrote me two letters, you know, when I first began writing to her, so we had something to help us with her handwriting.”

“Why did she have olive oil on her hands?”

“Oh, you noticed that, did you? Well, I wanted an agent that would make a good fingerprint, and, since I was in the kitchen at the time, the oil was handy.”

“Herb, we have to talk seriously now. We have to get you some help.”

“Help?” Van Fleet sounded surprised. “I don’t need any help. I’ve done all this work on these people alone, without any help at all. And it was pretty good work, don’t you think? Let me explain it to you. I’ll skip the technical parts, but have a look.” Van Fleet took hold of the table and dragged it until Stone was facing down the room, then he put a hand under Stone’s head and raised it, so he could see.

At the other end of the room was the object Stone had not been able to make out before. The body of a young woman hung by its heels, the fingertips just brushing the floor. She had been opened with one long incision from her pubic hair to her sternum, and the abdominal cavity had been emptied. “Oh, God.” Stone breathed. He turned his head away.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Van Fleet said, turning Stone back to his original position. “I was going to take you through the process, but if you’d rather not…”

“I’d rather talk,” Stone said. “When I said you needed help, I didn’t mean with your work.”

“Oh, you mean a psychiatrist. That was suggested to me once, a long time ago.”

“By Dr. Garfield?”

Van Fleet walked around Stone so that he could look at him. “What do you know about Garfield?”

“Oh, Dr. Garfield and I had a long chat about you the other day, Herb. He told me about your internship, about why you didn’t complete it.”

Van Fleet bristled. “This is not an amusing conversation,” he said. “I hope when you’re at the table you can find something more interesting to talk about.” He turned and walked out of Stone’s line of vision, then seemed to leave the room.

At the table? Stone began to sweat, then, almost immediately, to shiver.

Van Fleet returned. “Sorry, I had to get my instruments. Since you’re going to be such a boring conversationalist, I may as well start work on you now.”