New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

Stone held out his hand. “Thank you very much for this information, Mr. Duncan,” he said. “You may be sure that we’ll check this out thoroughly.”

Dismissed, Duncan retrieved his trench coat from Dino’s desk and made his way out of the room, giving the leering black man a wide berth.

“Cat’s out of the bag, huh?” Stone said to Dino.

“I think a more appropriate description of the situation is that the shit has hit the fan,” Dino said. “Leary wants to see us.”

“At least we’ve got some sort of lead,” Stone said. “Let’s call Minute Man first.”

After a long wait for the information, Stone was told that a Minute Man car had picked up a Ms. Balfour at the Algonquin Hotel at six thirty and had delivered her to an East Sixty-third Street address. Stone scribbled it down. “The Algonquin is right down the block from the Harvard Club; the car must have been stopped in traffic when Duncan mistook it for his.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dino said.

Armed with their new information, the two detectives faced Leary, who was an unhappy man. “I hope to God this is no fuckin’ wild-goose chase,” he said, when he had heard their story. “The chief of detectives has already been on the phone this morning, and I’m expecting a call from the mayor any minute.”

As if on cue, the phone rang. Leary put his hand on it. “Get out of here and run down that lead,” he said. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

Stone and Dino sat in their car outside the address, an elegant town house on East Sixty-third Street.

“I’m scared,” Dino said.

“I know how you feel,” Stone replied.

“You know how much we need this to be something, don’t you? I’d like to get a shot at the balls of the guy who leaked to the papers. I’d cut’em off and make him eat’em.”

“I’d hold him down while you did it,” Stone said. “All right, let’s go.”

They trudged up the front steps and rang the bell, then watched through iron grillwork as a uniformed maid approached the door.

“Yes?” she said, opening the door slightly.

Stone showed his badge. “My name is Detective Barrington. Is there a Ms. Balfour at this address?”

“Just a minute,” the maid said, closing the door and shutting them out. She went to a telephone in the entrance hall, spoke a few words into it, then returned and opened the front door wide. “Please come in,” she said. “Mrs. Balfour will be right down.”

As they entered, Stone saw half a dozen pieces of matched luggage piled to one side of the front door. The detectives were shown to a small sitting room, and, as they sat down, the maid opened the door to another man, who began removing the baggage.

A moment later, there was the click of high heels on the marble floor of the entrance hall, and Sasha Nijinsky walked into the sitting room.

As the detectives got to their feet, Stone was swept with an overwhelming sense of relief that made him light-headed.

“I’m Ellen Balfour,” Sasha Nijinsky said. “How may I help you?”

Something is wrong here, Stone thought. Relief began to be replaced by panic.

“Well?” the woman said into the stunned silence.

“Aren’t you…” Stone couldn’t get the words out.

“Oh, I see,” the woman said, nodding her beautiful head gravely. “It’s the third time this week I’ve been mistaken for her.”

“Oh, shit,” Dino said, involuntarily, then recovered himself.

The woman turned and looked at him.

“Excuse me, please,” Dino pled.

“I wonder, Mrs. Balfour, if you have some personal identification?” Stone said, hoping against hope that this woman was Nijinsky and hiding it. “Something with a photograph?”