New York Dead (Stone Barrington 1)

“What is it?”

She clutched the front page to her breast. “You aren’t at fault here,” she said. “You have to get that through your head. This is not your fault.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He tugged at the newspaper, and she gave it up reluctantly.

SUSPECT IN NIJINSKY CASE IS APPARENT SUICIDE

Henrietta Morgan, a makeup artist for the Continental Network who police sources say was implicated in the fall of television anchorwoman Sasha Nijinsky from the terrace of her East Side penthouse apartment, last night apparently took her own life in her Greenwich Village apartment.

Ms. Morgan, who was known as “Hank” and who was active in gay and lesbian rights issues in the city, had been questioned about Ms. Nijinsky’s fall, then last week was arrested and charged with possession of an unlicensed pistol. She had been released on bail, but sources in the New York Police Department had told the press that Morgan was the chief suspect in the Nijinsky case.

In a late-night statement from City Hall, Deputy Police Commissioner Lawrence Waldron announced that the death of Ms. Morgan had effectively closed the investigation into Ms. Nijinsky’s fall. Waldron said that Ms. Nijinsky’s disappearance after an ambulance collided with a fire truck while on her way to a hospital was still being investigated by the F.B.I., who are treating her incident as a kidnapping, which is a federal crime.

Stone felt ill. He rubbed his face briskly with his hands and tried to fight back the nausea.

“It’s not your fault,” Cary said again, rubbing the back of his neck.

He got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold water onto his face. Then he thought about the unmarked car downstairs. He went back into the bedroom and got back into his robe. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

He trotted downstairs to the main hall, retrieved a flashlight from the utility closet, and unlocked the basement door. It took him a minute or so to find the main telephone junction box, and only seconds to find the wires leading from it to a small FM transmitter a few feet away. Angrily, Stone ripped out the wires, then smashed the transmitter with the heavy flashlight. He walked back up to the main floor, then took the elevator up-stairs.

“What’s the flashlight for?” Cary asked. “It’s broad daylight.”

“I needed it to find the phone tap,” Stone said.

“Somebody’s tapped your phone?”

“ New York ’s Finest,” Stone said. “Two of them are sitting out in the street in an unmarked car, waiting either to follow me whe

rever I go or to record my telephone conversations.”

“Why?”

“Because they think that when I hear about Hank Morgan’s death, I might start talking to the press.”

“Stone, I’m confused. If you want me to understand what you’re talking about, then you’d better fill me in.”

Stone took a deep breath. “This is not something you can discuss with anybody at work.”

“Of course not,” she said indignantly.

He went back to his and Dino’s initial questioning of Hank Morgan and told her everything that had happened since.

“I see,” she said when he had finished. “So you think Hank had nothing to do with Sasha’s fall.”

“Nothing whatever.”

“But the NYPD and the DA’s office were going to try and railroad her for it?”

“Not exactly; they knew they would never get a conviction. They just needed a strong suspect to take the heat off the department. Somebody’s been telling a reporter or two that Morgan really did it, but they didn’t have enough evidence against her for a conviction.”

“So everybody would think Hank did it, even though they couldn’t prove it?”

“Right. Except it worked out even better than they had planned. They didn’t know that she wouldn’t be strong enough to handle the suspicion and the publicity; they couldn’t predict that she would finally break and kill herself.”

“So what happens now?”

“Nothing.”