“Bruce Goldsmith, please. My name is Stone Barrington.”
“Are you a client, Mr. Barrington?”
“No. An old acquaintance. Tell Mr. Goldsmith that it’s important that I speak to him right away.”
“Just a moment.”
There was a very long delay, time enough for Stone to get onto the West Side Highway, before Goldsmith came on the line.
“Hello, Stone, what can I do for you?” he asked, sounding in a hurry.
Stone remembered that Bruce Goldsmith had always been in a hurry. “Hello, Bruce; how have you been all these years?”
“I can’t complain. What can I do for you?”
“I can’t complain, either.”
“Stone, I don’t have much time; what is it?”
“You remember, about twelve years ago, a woman named Arlene Mitteldorfer came to see you about a divorce?”
There was a long silence.
“Bruce, you still there?”
“What’s this about, Stone?”
“I take it you remember her. You may also remember that she was murdered a day or two after you saw her.”
“How do you know about this?”
“I ask a lot of questions. What I want to know is, what did she say about her husband in that meeting?”
“I remember that you were the arresting officer. You know very well I can’t discuss that with you; the conversation was privileged; otherwise, I’d have called you at the time.”
“She’s been dead for twelve years, Bruce; privilege shouldn’t be a problem.”
“My notes from those days are in storage in Queens. It would take weeks to find them.”
“I don’t want your notes, Bruce; I just want to know what, you remember about that meeting. Mitteldorfer is out of prison, and I’m trying to find him. I’m hoping you can tell me something that might help.”
“I don’t remember much.”
“She was a beautiful woman, Bruce. I’m sure you remember the meeting very well.”
“I don’t see why I should violate a confidence to help you, Stone.”
“Let me give you a reason, Bruce: it appears that Herbert Mitteldorfer is going around New York City, killing people who have annoyed him in the past, and, sometimes, their friends. We’re at six bodies, and counting. If you gave her advice that might have been to his disadvantage, and I’m sure you did, then he might very well be annoyed with you.”
There was only a brief silence, and then Goldsmith was talking. “I took her to lunch; she was gorgeous, and I didn’t mind being seen with her. She told me her husband had appropriated the money her father had left her, and that she wanted to divorce him and get the money
back. She wanted to know if that was possible, and I told her it certainly was. My recollection is that we were talking about something in the range of three or four million dollars, plus an apartment her father had given them when they got married. She was worried that he might become violent. I advised her to move out of the house immediately and file for divorce. I told her I could get her the apartment back very quickly, and she’d be able to move back in during the proceedings. She said she’d get back to me. I never heard from her again.”
“Did you sleep with her, Bruce?”
“That’s hardly relevant to this conversation.”
“It is, if she told her husband about it. Spouses tend to spit out these things in the middle of domestic quarrels.”