“I am now,” she replied. “I had a case of the shakes for a while. A cop on horseback found me. I guess he heard the shot.”
“Can I leave you here for a couple of minutes?”
“Sure, we’re all right. Daisy’s going to have a hangover, but she’s not hurt.”
Stone got up, went back to the squad room, and found Briscoe. “She’s told me what happened. It was a good shooting.”
“Looks that way,” Briscoe said, “but I don’t have the final call on that.”
Stone noticed for the first time that Holly’s new Sig-Sauer was on Briscoe’s desk in an evidence bag, and her badge lay beside it. “She’s on duty,” he said. “She’s got a fugitive warrant.”
“I got that,” Briscoe replied. “That ought to cover it. We want to see the warrant, though.”
“It’s at my house. I’ll get it to you. Will you release her to me?”
“Oh, we’re not holding her. She can go. She can have her gun and badge back, too.” He handed them to Stone. “We took a sample round for the file.”
Dino burst into the room. “What happened?”
Stone told him.
“Are we all square here?” Dino asked Briscoe.
“Yes, Lieutenant. We need a phone number for her, and we want to see her fugitive warrant, but that’s it. It’s clearly self-defense.”
“You got an ID on the guy with the knife?”
“He had nothing on him but the knife, but we’ll run his prints.”
“What happened to the second guy?”
“He beat it out of there. The gunshot must have scared him off.”
“Thanks, Briscoe,” Dino said. He pulled Stone aside. “How’s Holly taking all this?”
“She’s okay, I think. She’s mostly worried about Daisy.”
“Where are they?”
“In an interrogation room back there. Are you in a car?”
“Yeah. Let’s get her back to your place, and I’ll pick up the fugitive warrant.” He gave Briscoe Stone’s number.
By the time they were back at the house, Daisy was walking, but slowly.
As they walked in the front door, Ham came down the stairs. He pointed at Holly’s jacket pocket. “Was the bullet going in or out?”
“Out,” Holly said.
Ham put an arm around her. “Let’s get you into bed.”
“Ham…”
” Tell me about it later.”
When Holly and Daisy were tucked in, Stone and Ham went down to the kitchen and had a beer.
“She can take care of herself,” Ham said.
“Apparently so.”
“What’s going on here, Stone?”
“My best guess? Trini doesn’t like being dogged, and he decided to do something about it. From what I’ve heard about him from Holly, he wasn’t there today, because Holly’s alive. I guess he put a couple of his pals on her.”
“So the two guys outside your house weren’t Feds?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Stone had an idea. He picked up the phone and got the number for the New York State Police in Albany. He called, identified himself, and asked about the traffic stop on I-684 earlier that day. He was transferred to the relevant field office and, good luck, managed to get one of the traffic officers who had made the stop.
Stone identified himself. “You stopped a black SUV on 684 this morning?”
“Yes, we did.”
“I was the guy out front in the black Mercedes.”
“How fast were you going?”
“I’ll take the fifth on that, but I was transporting an officer on duty. Did you get an ID on the guys in the SUV?”
“Yeah. They were FBI, and they wouldn’t tell us what they were doing. I wrote ’em a ticket for grossly excessive speed.”
“Good for you. Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.” Stone hung up and turned to Ham. “Well, it looks like absolutely
“What’s your take on what happened in the park?” Ham asked.
“I think they wanted it to look like a mugging, and they didn’t want to attract anybody with the noise of a gunshot. They used a dart on Daisy, then tried to knife Holly. They would have knifed Daisy, too, once she was out. So somebody would have stumbled on a jogger and her dog, both dead.”
“Why not use a silencer on both?” Ham asked.
“Because it would then look like a professional hit. The dart thing is funny, though. It’s not the sort of thing mob guys would normally think of using.”
“This Trini guy is not a normal mob hood,” Ham said. “He’s a lot smarter and a lot worse. He would think of the dart.”
“Maybe so.”
“Good thing I came up here,” Ham said. “While I’m in New York, she doesn’t leave this house without me watching her back.”
“Sounds good to me,” Stone said.
“Oh, and you may as well move her back into your room,” Ham said. “I get the idea that’s where she wants to be.”
Stone gulped. “Up to her.”
29
HOLLY AND DAISY slept straight through until the following morning. When they came down for breakfast Stone was scrambling eggs, and Ham was having coffee.
“Daisy looks like she had a few too many beers last night,” Ham said, rubbing her flanks.
“She’s fine, just a little groggy,” Holly replied.
Stone set three plates of eggs on the table and they all dug in.
“This is good, Stone,” Ham said. “What’s in it?”
“Smoked salmon and a little cream.”
“You’re going to make some girl a wonderful wife one of these days,” Ham said.
Holly spoke up. “I guess that means Ham approves of you, Stone. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to marry me off to you.”
“I never said-” Ham began.
“Oh, shut up, Ham. You’re transparent.” She turned to Stone. “Ham has suddenly decided it’s time I got married. I think he wants grandchildren.”
“Now, I-”
“Well, not much chance of that, Ham.”
“I can live without grandchildren,” Ham said. “You do what you want. That’ll make me happy.”
“I want Trini Rodriguez, and I don’t want to wait another couple of days for the FBI to spirit him out of town. You know they’re not going to hand him to me, don’t you, Stone?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Stone replied. “You got any ideas?”
“Well, I can canvas Little Italy for him again.”
