Worst Fears Realized (Stone Barrington 5)

Stone stood up, rubbing his wrists; then he hit Kelly squarely in the nose, sending him sprawling.

“All right,” Dino said, “everybody calm down.” Kelly was scrambling to his feet, blood streaming from his nose, heading for Stone. Dino hit him in the forehead with his open palm, knocking him down again. “I said calm down.” Kelly got up more slowly this time. Dino turned to Anderson. “Did you see any of that, Andy?”

“See what?” Anderson asked.

Dino walked over to Stone and examined his jaw. “You okay?”

“I’m okay now,” Stone said.

“You’re covered in blood; any of it yours?”

“No.”

“All right, everybody take a seat, and let’s find out what happened.”

The four men sat down at the table.

Kelly dabbed a handkerchief at the blood on his face. “I think he broke my fucking nose,” he said to nobody in particular.

“Good,” Stone said.

“Andy,” Dino said.

Anderson placed his notebook on the table. “Let’s start again,” he said. “Can I have your address, Mr. Barrington?”

Stone gave him his address, then began at the beginning, at Martin Brougham’s party, and brought everybody up-to-date. While he was talking, two uniformed cops arrived, along with two EMTs and somebody from the medical examiner’s office.

Anderson reached over to the bag of Chinese food, ripped off the check stapled to the bag, and handed it to a uniform. “Go over to this restaurant, find out who ordered this food and when, who picked it up and when, and get a description,” he said.

The cop left with the check.

Stone resumed his story.

Anderson waited for Stone to finish. “Is that it?” he asked.

“One other thing: I think the perp was still in the building when I got back with the food.”

“Why do you think that?”

“When I rang for the elevator, it was on the top floor, and this is the only apartment on twelve. The elevator moved down to six, stopped, then continued to the ground floor. Where was it when you got here?”

“On the ground floor,” Anderson said.

“Then, unless another tenant or a visitor used the elevator between the time I got to this floor and the time you arrived, the perp waited on six until the car stopped up here and I got out, then he rang for it again and rode it down to the ground floor.”

“Pretty cool,” Dino said.

“Yes, pretty cool,” Stone agreed.

The uniformed cop returned. “A Miss Bean ordered the food by phone; the time is written on the check, right here,” he said, placing the check on the table. “A man arrived to pick up the food half an hour later, waited five minutes, paid for it, and left. He was over six feet, blond hair, medium to heavy build, dressed in a raincoat.”

Anderson looked at the check and did some mental calculating. “That checks with your story, Mr. Barrington,” he said.

“Measure the water in the kettle,” Stone said.

“What?”

“When I left, Susan said she was going to make some tea. Let’s find out how long it takes for the same amount of water to boil. That might help with the time frame.”