New York Dead

“Okay, you take the car, and I’ll get a cab.”

As Dino drove away and Stone looked for a cab, he drew deep breaths of fresh, polluted New York City air into his lungs. From now on he’d have different memories when he caught the scent of formaldehyde.

Chapter 7

Stone went to the Vanity Fair offices in midtown and, after a phone call was made, he was given Hiram Barker’s address. As he entered the lobby of United Nations Plaza, he remembered a line about the apartment house from an old movie: “If there is a god,” a character had said, “he probably lives in this building.” After another phone call, the deskman sent him up to a high floor.

“I can just imagine why you’re here,” Barker said as he opened the door.

He was larger than Stone had expected, in both height and weight, a little over six feet tall and broad at the middle. The face was not heavy but handsome, the hair sleek and gray, slicked straight back.

“I’m Hi Barker,” he said, extending a fleshy hand. He waved Stone into a spacious, beautifully furnished living room with a view looking south toward the United Nations.

Stone introduced himself. He heard the tinkling of silver in the background; he saw a woman enter the dining room and begin to set the table.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Barker asked solicitously.

Stone was thirsty. “Perhaps some water.”

“Jeanine, get the gentleman some Perrier,” Barker said to the woman.

She left and returned with a heavy crystal glass, decorated with a slice of lime.

“Sit you down,” Barker said, waving at one end of a large sofa, while flopping down at the other end, “and tell me what I can do for you.” He cocked his head expectantly.

“You can tell me where you were between two and three this morning,” Stone said.

Barker clapped his hands together and threw his head back. “I’ve been waiting all my life for a cop to ask me that question!” he crowed.

Stone smiled. “I hope I won’t have to wait that long for an answer.”

“Dear me, no.” Barker chuckled. “I got home about one thirty from a di

Stone didn’t doubt it.

“Am I a suspect, then?”

“A suspect in what?” Stone asked.

“Oh, God, now I’ve done it! I’m not even supposed to know there’s a crime!”

“Is there?”

“Well, didn’t somebody help poor Sasha out into the night?”

“I’d very much like to know that,” Stone said, “and I’d like to know why you think so.”

“She wasn’t the sort to take a flying leap,” Barker said more seriously.

“That’s why I’ve come to see you, Mr. Barker.”

“Hi, please call me Hi. I’ll be uncomfortable if you don’t”

“Hi it is then.”

“And why is it you’ve come to see me?”

“Because of your Vanity Fair piece. I’ve read it, and it seemed extremely well researched.”

“That’s a very astute observation,” Barker said. “Most people would have thought it produced from gossip. No, I spent a good six months on that. I was researching it even before Tina at the magazine knew I wanted to do it.”

“And you talked with Miss Nijinsky at some length?”

“I did, a good six hours over three meetings.”

“Did you make any tape recordings?”

“I did, but when I finished the piece I returned the tapes to her, as agreed.”

“You didn’t, perhaps, make a copy?”

Barker’s eyes turned momentarily hard. “No. That’s not the way it’s done.”

“How well did you know her before you began research for the article?”

“We had a cordial acquaintance. We’d been to a few of the same di

“You can do that in six hours of conversation?”

“If you’ve done six months of research beforehand, and if nobody else knows the person at all.”

“She had no close friends?”

“None in the sense that any normal person would call close.”

“Family?”

“She hardly ever saw them after she left home to go to college. I think she was close to her father as a young girl, but she didn’t speak of him as a confidant, not in the least.”

“Did she have any confidants?”

“Not one, as far as I could tell. I think by the time we had finished, she thought of me as one.” Barker shook his head. “But no, as well as I got to know her, she never opened up to me. I took my cues as much from what she didn’t say as what she said. There was a sort of invisible, one-way barrier between that young woman and the rest of the world; everything passed through it to her, but very little passed out.”

“Do you think she was a possible suicide?”

“Not for a moment. Sasha was one tough cookie; she had goals, and she was achieving them. Christ, I mean, she was on the verge of the biggest career any woman ever had in television news. Bigger than Barbara Walters. That sort of person commits suicide only in trashy novels.”

“All right,” Stone said, “let’s assume murder.”

Barker gri

“Who?”

Barker crossed his legs, clasped his hands behind his neck, and stared out at the sweep of the East River. “Two kinds of people might have murdered Sasha Nijinsky,” he said. “First, people she hurt on the way up – you know, the secretary she tyra

“What’s the other kind of person?” Stone asked.

Barker gri

“That’s an interesting notion,” Stone said, and he meant it. “Who did you have in mind?”

“I’ll tell you,” Barker said, turning to face him, “but if you ever quote me, I’ll call you a liar.”

Stone nodded. “It’ll be just between us.”

“Well,” Barker said, drawing it out. “There’s only one person in the world I can think of who would suffer from Sasha Nijinsky’s future success.”

“Go on,” Stone said.

“Her new co-anchor, who else? The estimable Mr. Barron Harkness, prizewi

“I take it you don’t like Mr. Harkness.”

“Who does, dear boy? He lacks charm.” Barker said this as if it were the ultimate crime. “Sasha would have blown him out of the water in less than a year. His ratings had slipped badly, you know – after a wi

“I think I should tell you,” Stone said, looking at his watch, “that Barron Harkness got off an airplane from Rome just about an hour ago.”

Barker’s face fell. “I’m extremely sorry to hear it,” he said. “But,” he said, brightening, “if I were you I’d make awfully sure he was really on that plane.”

“Don’t worry,” Stone said, “that’s been done. Tell me, would it violate some journalistic ethic if you gave me a list of the people you interviewed about Miss Nijinsky?”