Dino reached for his pants.
Stone walked into the apartment and found Dino there with his detective. There was a technician dusting surfaces for prints, but no sign of Herbie.
“Stone Barrington, Viv DeCarlo,” Dino said. “Stone and I were partners in the squad about two hundred years ago.”
The two shook hands.
“Where’s Herbie?” Stone asked.
“On his way to Lenox Hill,” she replied. “You know him?”
“We’re with the same law firm. Give me the tour.”
“We couldn’t raise anybody, so the doorman took us up. We found Fisher unconscious on the sofa with his fly undone and his penis out. I couldn’t wake him, so we called an ambulance.”
“Did you talk to the girl?”
“Yes, that’s how I got into this. She was in the ER at Lenox Hill, complaining of being raped, but the doctor thought she might be lying.”
“What’s her name?”
“Carson Cullers. Lives a few blocks up Park.”
Stone nodded. “Getting any prints?” he asked the tech.
“Two sets on the glass,” he said.
Stone turned back to DeCarlo. “Fisher has an arrest record, so you can pull his prints. Might be a good idea to see if the girl’s prints are on file. It would save you a trip to her place.”
The tech opened a laptop and went to work feeding the prints through a scanner. “Okay, I’ve got hits on both,” he said. “They match the ones on the snifter, and they’re both on the martini glass, too.”
“Herbie makes her a martini and pours himself a brandy,” Dino said. “He hands her the martini glass, so both their prints are on it. But why are both their prints on Herbie’s snifter?”
“What was the girl arrested for?”
“Possession of a controlled substance-cocaine,” he replied. “She got a suspended sentence and rehab.”
“We got cocaine here,” Dino said, pointing at the coffee table, “but it looks undisturbed.”
“Well,” Stone said, “we know Ms. Cullers knows how to buy the stuff.”
“That’s quite a lot to leave behind,” Viv said. “I wonder why she didn’t take it with her.”
“Because she wanted us to find it,” Dino said.
Viv showed them the panties in an evidence bag and explained her theory about them.
“I want to know what’s in that brandy glass,” Dino said.
The tech opened another briefcase and went to work on a computer analysis of the liquid in the glass.
“How the hell did Herbie get mixed up in this?” Stone asked.
“Who knows?”
“She is a very beautiful girl,” Viv said. “Lots of guys would have gotten mixed up with her.”
“Hey,” the tech said, “I’ve got a hit on the analysis. There’s Ambien mixed with the brandy. It’s a sleeping pill, and it looks like a hefty dose. He drank most of it, too.”
“I’m going to the hospital,” Stone said.
“Me too,” Dino replied. “Viv, you pick up the girl on suspicion of filing a false report. Take her back to the precinct and milk her dry before she can lawyer up. I’ll be over there later.”
“Yes, boss,” Viv replied, then left.
Dino and Stone took a good look around the apartment.
“Nice place,” Dino said. “I didn’t know Herbie had taste, except maybe in clothes.”
“Herbie packs a lot of surprises,” Stone said. “He made senior associate at the firm in two years. Never been done before.”
“Come on, we’ll take my car,” Dino said.
At Lenox Hill they found Herbie in an ER cubicle, being attended by a young female resident. Dino made the introductions. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s still out. We’ve sent blood and urine to the lab, but we may not have results for a while.”
“He was drinking brandy, heavily laced with Ambien,” Dino said.
“Are you sure about that?”
“We can run that test on the scene these days.”
“In that case, I know what to give him. I’ll be right back.” She left the cubicle.
Dino peered at Herbie. “Sleeping like a baby,” he said.
“Drooling like one, too,” Stone said. He picked up a tissue from a box at bedside and wiped Herbie’s mouth.
The resident returned with a hypodermic. She unbuttoned Herbie’s sleeve, swabbed a vein, uncapped the hypo, and injected it. “Watch this,” she said, recapping the hypo and tossing it into a disposal unit.
Herbie’s eyelids began to flutter, and in a moment he opened his eyes and looked around. “Holy shit,” he said. “This looks like a hospital.”
“That’s because it is,” the resident said. “You’re in the ER at Lenox Hill.”
“How are you feeling, Herbie?” Dino asked.
“A little fuzzy around the edges,” he said. “Last thing I remember, a beautiful girl had her face in my lap.”
Even the resident had to laugh.
33
Herbie sat in the backseat of Dino’s car. “Okay,” he said, “what the hell happened? How’d I go from getting a blow job to the ER?”
“The girl drugged you,” Stone said. “She put more than one Ambien in your brandy glass, then she went to the ER and said she’d been raped.” Stone told him the rest of the story. “Who is Carson Cullers?”
“She’s Dink Brennan’s girlfriend,” Herbie said. He told Stone and Dino how she came to be in his apartment.
“Dink had to have sent her,” Stone said. He explained to Dino who Dink was.
They parked in Herbie’s garage and went upstairs.
“There was an ounce or so of cocaine on the coffee table,” Dino said. “My tech took it into evidence.”
“I don’t remember anything about cocaine,” Herbie said. “I never touch the stuff.”
“You were set up, pure and simple,” Stone said.
“Listen, Herbie,” Dino said, “you get some sleep. Stone and I are going to the precinct and see what the girl is saying.”
Herbie showed them out. He was starting to undress for bed when he remembered something. He got dressed again.
Stone and Dino were sitting in an observation room, watching through a one-way mirror while Viv DeCarlo questioned Carson Cullers.
“I told you, he hit me in the mouth, and he ripped off my panties and raped me.”
“Let me tell you the problems I have with your story,” Viv said. “First of all, there isn’t a mark on you anywhere, including your mouth. There was no semen inside you. Fisher was drugged with Ambien. Nobody believes you, Carson, not the doctor who examined you, not my boss, and not me. Now, you’re looking at some serious charges here, and if you want to walk away from this without doing time, you’d better start telling me the truth. Let’s take it from the top: why did you go to Herbert Fisher’s apartment?”
The door to the observation room opened, and Herbie walked in.
“I told you to go to bed,” Dino said. “Let us handle this.”
“Has she told you anything?” Herbie asked.
“Yes, a lot of lies.”
“Have you got a VCR in this joint?” Herbie asked.
“Right over there,” Dino said, “under the TV screen.”
Herbie walked over to the machine, inserted a tape into it, and pressed the play button. They all watched as a split screen came up.
“I forgot about this: Mike Freeman’s people installed cameras when they did my security system. It’s motion-activated.”
Each screen displayed a different view of the living room, so they could see two different angles. “I’ve cued it from when she arrived,” Herbie said, “and I’ve got a tape of her phone call, too.” He turned up the volume, and they watched and listened as Carson arrived. Herbie waited until she had left the apartment, then the screen went dark. A moment later it came up again as Viv DeCarlo and her partner entered the apartment.
“She’s nailed,” Dino said. “Rewind that, and we’ll show it to her.” He picked up the phone and pressed a button. In the interrogation room Viv picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Watch the TV,” Dino said. “We’ve got the whole thing on tape.” He walked over to the equipment and fiddled with it, then the screen in the interrogation room came alive. They watched Carson’s face dissolve from anger to fear to tears.