“Ernie’s the lead detective on the burglaries.”
Stone and Cantor took chairs, and Dino moved a stack of files to the middle of his desk, not a high stack, because each of them was thin, containing only a sheet or two of paper.
“Stone,” Dino said, “three of the eight burglary victims made the Dryer guy. Turns out they all met him at the same party, which took place in one of the burgled residences.”
Stone nodded; he wasn’t surprised.
Dino continued. “He was with Arrington Carter on that occasion; she introduced him around.”
“Were any of the other victims at the same party?”
“No. But we’re going to have to talk to Arrington. You want to bring her in?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Stone said.
Martinez sat up, bristling. “You don’t think it’ll be necessary! Since when does anybody give a shit what you think is necessary, Barrington?”
“Shut the fuck up, Ernie,” Dino said. “For starters, I care what he thinks. I’ll get to you in a minute.” He turned to Stone. “Talk to me about Arrington.”
“I talked to her at length this morning about Dryer, so right now I know what she knows; that’s why it won’t be necessary to get her in here.”
“So what does she know?”
“Not a whole lot; this Dryer character is real good at not letting anybody know anything about him that counts. Arrington did take him to some parties, though; several of them.”
“Could you ask her which parties, in which apartments?”
“I’ll get a list, and we can compare them to the files. My hunch is they’ll match up.”
“Okay, I want you and Bob to take a look at each of these files, and I will, too.” Dino passed out the files, and they all read each of them, which didn’t take long, since each consisted of a burglary report and a list of stolen items.
“Money and men’s jewelry,” Cantor said. “Three watches out of eight hits.”
“Arrington says he likes watches, that he had three or four,” Stone said.
“He could be wearing yours on his charm bracelet right now,” Martinez said.
“Probably not,” Stone said. “It had my name engraved on the back, so he’s probably tossed it. He’s too smart to get caught with that. Same thing with Arnie’s watch; he didn’t take that either.”
“Arnie’s watch?” Martinez asked.
“That’s another case,” Dino said. “Don’t you worry about it; stick to burglary.”
“All the entries were through the front door,” Cantor said, “and alarms didn’t stop him, so the guy’s a mechanic.”
“Not much doubt about that,” Martinez said.
“Did you dust anything, Ernie?” Stone asked.
Martinez grimaced. “You know we don’t have time for fingerprinting at small-time jobs like this.”
“One of them wasn’t so small time,” Stone said. “He lifted thirty-five thousand dollars in cash from a wall safe.”
“That, I dusted,” Martinez said. “Nothing there but the owner’s prints.”
“The watches were all Cartiers,” Cantor said. “Two Tank models and a Panther. The guy’s got taste.”
Dino spoke up. “Anything else to ask Ernie, Stone? Bob?”