Stone Barrington 06-11

table.
    “What are you doing here?” Stone asked. “Can’t you see I’m trying to seduce this woman?”
    “Introduce me,” Dino said.
    “Tiff, this is Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, commander of the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct. Dino, this is Tiff Baldwin, the new U.S. Attorney.”
    “I heard about you on TV,” Dino said. “Why are you trying to crucify Martha Stewart?”
    Tiff buried her face in her hands and pretended to weep.
    “It’s not her fault, Dino,” Stone said, “now go find another table.”
    “Okay, okay, I know when I’m not wanted,” Dino said, getting up. “By the way, I talked to my guy who’s heading the investigation of the shooting the other night. He thinks you were the target, not Billy Bob. See ya.” And with a wave, he went and sat down with somebody else.
    “Somebody’s shooting at you?” Tiff asked.
    “Ignore Dino,” Stone said. “He’s making it up.”
    “Are you really trying to seduce me?”
    “Not yet.”
    Tiff dropped Stone off at his house at midnight.
    “You going to be around this weekend?” he asked.
    “Yep, I’m apartment-hunting all day Saturday.”
    “You’ll be tired when you’re done; why don’t I cook you some dinner that night?”
    “Sounds great; I want to see your house.”
    “And I want to show it to you.”

8
    STONE WOKE to the smell of absolutely nothing—no steak, no bacon. Maybe Billy Bob and his girl were sleeping in. Then, as he got out of bed, he noticed a sheet of his stationery on top of the pile of luggage at the foot of his bed. He picked it up.
    “Hey, Stone,” it read. “I got to go to Omaha right away to set up a deal. Tiffany is going to her place. I’ll be back at the Four Seasons tomorrow night. Let me buy you some dinner. Billy B.”
    There was no date or time on it. He got himself together and went down to the kitchen for some breakfast, this time, his usual bran cereal. Helene, his Greek housekeeper, was tidying up.
    “Good morning, Mr. Stone,” she said, in her heavily accented English.
    “Good morning, Helene. You can clean the big guest room; the occupants have checked out.”
    “Yes, sir,” Helene said, and she went about her work.
    Stone was halfway through his cereal when he heard her scream. He ran toward the back stairs and met her halfway up, coming down.
    Helene seemed unable to speak, but she was pointing up the stairs.
    Stone ran all the way up to the top floor, which was more exercise than he had planned on that morning, and into the guest room. Tiffany was lying on her back in the bed, and he didn’t have to look for a pulse to know she was dead. Her eyes and mouth were open, and there were big bruises on her throat. When he felt for a pulse she was cold.
    Stone stepped back and looked at her, then around the room. Nothing was in disarray; her clothes were hanging neatly in the closet, and the guest bathrobe she had worn at breakfast the day before was thrown over a chair. He found her handbag under the robe but didn’t touch it. He went back to his own bedroom and called Dino.
    “Bacchetti.”
    “It’s Stone.”
    “Whatsamatter? You sound funny.”
    “Billy Bob’s girlfriend is dead in my guest room; looks like she was strangled.”
    “Did you screw with the scene?”
    “Of course not.”
    “I’ll be there with troops.”
    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, there were cops, crime-scene analysts and EMTs all over his house. Stone sat in his study, answering questions from two cops, Morton and Weiss, while Dino watched and listened.
    “Where is the note?” Morton asked.
    “In the trash basket next to my bed, where I threw it after I read it.”
    “Where is this Billy Bob guy?”
    “The note said he had gone to Omaha. He’s doing some kind of deal with Warren Buffett.”
    “How do you know that?” Dino asked.
    “First, he told me so; second, he’s had two phone calls from Buffett, on successive days. I checked out the first one, and it originated from Buffett’s residence in Omaha.”

    “You check it out, too,” Dino said to the two detectives. “And talk to Buffett. We got a time of death, yet?”
    “The ME is upstairs working on it,” Weiss said.
    As if on cue, the ME came into the room, and he didn’t waste any time. “Preliminary conclusions, death by strangulation, between nine and eleven, last night.”
    Stone breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Where were you between nine and eleven?” Morton asked.
    “At Elaine’s.” He pointed at Dino. “He can