Worst Fears Realized (Stone Barrington 5)

Dino took a padded box from a dresser drawer. “Here we go.” He opened the box. “Nothing expensive; looks European.”

“Probably her mother’s. Have you located her next of kin?”

“A nephew,” Dino said, “lives in Jersey. We found some correspondence with him. He came in late this morning; didn’t know anything; hadn’t seen her for months.”

“Let’s check the kitchen,” Stone said. The kitchen was well stocked with pots, pans, knives, and implements. “She was a pretty serious cook,” Stone said. He bent over and opened a cabinet door. As he did, half a dozen neatly folded shopping bags slid off a shelf to the floor. “Look at this,” he said, placing the bags on a countertop. “Chanel, Saks, Bergdorf’s, Ferragamo. They clash with the lifestyle, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say so,” Dino agreed. “Were there any payments to any of those stored in her checkbook or credit-card receipts?”

“No, nothing.”

“Then she’d have been paying with cash.”

“Or someone was paying for her.”

“Mitteldorfer? What would a prisoner in Sing Sing be doing with that kind of money?”

“Good question. Where did Mitteldorfer work? You remember?”

Dino took out his notebook and flipped through some pages. “Ginzberg and O’Sullivan, accountants, on West Forty-seventh Street.”

“Let’s talk to them.”

Dino picked up a phone and, consulting his notebook, dialed a number. “Hello, may I speak to Mr. Ginzberg? Yes? How about Mr. O’Sullivan? I see. I’m looking for information on someone who worked there more than a dozen years ago; is there anyone in who’s been around that long? I see. This is Lieutenant Bacchetti of the New York City Police Department; could I have his home address and number?” He scribbled it down and hung up. “The original partners sold out a few years ago and retired. O’Sullivan is still alive; he lives in the East Seventies; let’s go see him.”

Daniel O’Sullivan was a big, bluff Irish-American in his late seventies, with snow-white hair and a florid complexion, who still wore his weight well. He seemed glad to have visitors. He showed them into a spacious, beautifully furnished apartment that took up a whole floor of a brownstone, offered them a drink, and, when they declined, fixed one for himself.

“It’s not often I get visit

ed by the police,” he said, settling in a big armchair. “What can I do for you?”

“Mr. O’Sullivan,” Dino said, “do you remember Herbert Mitteldorfer?”

“Herbie? How could I forget him? He was the only one of my employees—that I know of—who ever murdered somebody.”

“Can you tell us what Mitteldorfer’s job was in your firm?”

“Sure; he was my top accountant.”

“Could you describe his duties? Did he do corporate work?”

O’Sullivan shook his big head. “No, no; we weren’t an ordinary accounting firm. We were personal managers to theater people—actors, producers, set designers—people at the top of their fields. We paid their bills, invested their money, got them bank loans and mortgages, sometimes loaned them money, when they had lean years.”

“And what part did Mitteldorfer take in the business?”

“Herbie did a little of everything. He started with us as a simple bookkeeper; but he was so good, so bright, that soon he was taking an active part in managing our clients’ accounts. By the time of the, ah, unfortunate incident, he was practically running the firm. My partner and I were thinking of retirement by then, and we’d expected to sell out to him. As it was, after he was arrested, we had to put our plans on hold. It took several years before we got two other men trained to do what Herbie did, and, finally, we sold out to them.”

Stone spoke up. “Did Mitteldorfer have any personal wealth?”

“His wife did,” O’Sullivan replied. “She was from a meat-packing family out of Chicago—not filthy rich, but she had some assets, which Herbie managed brilliantly. At the time of her death, I believe, together they may have had two, three million in assets, or so Herbie told me. The lawyers would have made a pretty good dent in that, but I’m sure that when he went to jail, he still had some money put away. Plus, there was a very nice apartment on lower Park Avenue that her family gave them as a wedding present. I believe that was sold.”

“But,” Stone said, “having murdered his wife, he wouldn’t have been able to inherit her wealth.”

“It had all been in Herbie’s name for years,” O’Sullivan said. “He made sure of that.”

“Do you remember another employee named Eloise Enzberg?”

“Sure, I do. Eloise was with us for better than twenty years, longer than Herbie. She was our office manager, the best-organized person you ever saw. Day in, day out, she made the place work. If you gave her a job to do, she’d handle it better than anybody, and she never dropped the ball, not once in all the years I knew her. I mean, if you said to Eloise, ‘I’m going to London for a week,’ inside an hour she’d made hotel and restaurant reservations and booked a car and driver to meet you at the airport. When you got to your hotel, you were in your usual suite, with extra towels and a bottle of wine waiting.”