New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

Delgado merely nodded.

Waldron turned to the detectives. “I want to forget what I’ve read in the reports and what I’ve read in the papers. I want to hear from you every step that has been taken in the Sasha Nijinsky investigation, from day one. From minute one. And don’t leave anything out.”

Goddamn Leary, Stone thought. If he’d given them a few hours’ notice he could have put together some kind of presentation. Now he would have to wing it.

“From minute one,” Waldron repeated. “Go.”

“Sir,” Stone began, “I was proceeding on foot down the west side of Second Avenue at approximately two A.M. on the night of the… occurrence. I was off duty. I happened to look up, and I witnessed the… Ms. Nijinsky’s fall.” He was still having trouble calling the event a crime and Nijinsky a victim.

“This actually happened?” Waldron interrupted. “The papers got it right?”

“Mostly, sir.” He continued to relate the events of that night. When he got to the collision of the ambulance with the fire engine, Waldron started shaking his head.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, “that’s the

goddamndest worst piece of luck I ever heard of.”

“My sentiments exactly, sir,” Dino said.

Leary and Delgado laughed.

“Go on,” Waldron said.

Stone took the man through his and Dino’s actions for the rest of the night, then asked Dino to describe the subsequent investigation by the detective squad. Neither detective referred to his notebook.

When they had finished, Waldron spoke again.

“Detectives, have you left any avenue uninvestigated?”

“Sir,” Stone said, “the detective squad of this precinct interviewed sixty-one witnesses, co-workers, and friends of Ms. Nijinsky and made more than eight hundred telephone calls, all within thirty hours of the occurrence. Since that time, Detective Bacchetti has reviewed each of the interview reports, and he and I have conducted a search of the home and business premises of the possible suspect, Van Fleet.”

“Is Van Fleet still a suspect?” Waldron asked.

“Officially, of course, sir. But we haven’t got a thing on him, except that he wrote Ms. Nijinsky a great many very polite letters.”

“Do you have any other suspects?” Waldron asked.

“No, sir,” Stone replied.

There was a brief silence in the room. Nobody seemed to have anything else to say.

Except the FBI man, Everett. “Why didn’t you call the FBI?” he asked.

Stone turned to face Everett; he had felt this coming. “Because no federal crime has been committed,” he replied. “As far as we know.”

“How about kidnapping?” Everett asked.

Chief of Detectives Delgado spoke up. “The lady took a twelve-story dive,” he said laconically. “What’s to kidnap?”

“Good point,” Waldron said.

Everett leaned forward. “Perhaps Detective Barrington would tell us about his terminal velocity theory,” he said encouragingly.

Stone felt color creeping up his neck into his face.

“His what theory?” Delgado asked sharply.

“Terminal velocity,” Stone said, clearing his throat. “It’s just a theory, sir. There’s nothing really to support it.”