“Ossining, New York.”
“Yuck; sounds like an awful place.”
“Many of the people who reside there think so.”
“Why are we stopping there?”
“I want to ask a man some questions.” Stone pulled onto the West Side Highway and left the thick traffic behind. He put his foot down and felt himself pressed into his seat as the car accelerated.
“My goodness,” Sarah said.
“Yes, indeed.” Stone looked into the rearview mirror at the small dot that was the detectives’ car. He punched a programmed button on the car telephone.
“Krakauer,” a voice said.
“Thanks, Krakauer,” Stone said. “I’ll take it from here. You can tell Lieutenant Bacchetti that you got me out of town alive.”
“Right,” Krakauer replied. “Try not to come back.”
Stone punched off the call, flipped on the radar scrambler, and concentrated on driving and watching for cops. In what seemed like half the usual time they were on the Saw Mill River Parkway, headed north. He crossed the Hudson on the Tappan Zee Bridge and picked up the New York State Thruway.
“There’s a little wind noise around this window,” Sarah said. “I would have thought that at, what, seventy miles an hour we wouldn’t hear that.”
“We’re doing a hundred and ten,” Stone replied.
“Oh. Are we going to be arrested?”
“Probably not.” He spotted a state trooper going in the opposite direction and slowed down, watching the car make a U-turn across the meridian. By the time the trooper was up to speed, Stone was at sixty-five. He could see the man fiddling with something on his dashboard, looking confused. A moment later, the trooper made another U-turn and drove off to the south. “Zap,” Stone said aloud.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“I just zapped his radar.”
“I thought his radar was supposed to zap you.”
“That’s the way it used to be.”
A little later Stone pulled into the visitor parking lot at Sing Sing and approached the guardhouse.
“Can I help you?” the guard asked.
“I’d like to speak to Captain Warkowski.”
“Just a minute.” The guard picked up a phone, said something into it, then handed it to Stone. “He’s on the line.”
“Hello, Captain,” Stone said. “This is Stone Barrington; I was up here with Lieutenant Bacchetti.”
“How could I forget?” Warkowski replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to see Herbert Mitteldorfer again; just a few questions.”
“I’m afraid you’ve missed him.”
“Missed him? Is he in town, running errands?”
“Herbie got out yesterday.”
“I see.” This didn’t come as a complete surprise. “Can I have his release address?”