“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.”

“Nothing?”

“The investigation into Sasha’s fall is over. Hank’s suicide was as good as a confession.”

“But they still don’t know what happened to her, do they?”

“No, but the FBI very kindly stepped in and took responsibility for that part of the investigation, so the department is out of it.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“What can I do?”

“Go to the press. I can arrange for you to talk with one of our investigative reporters.”

“It wouldn’t work. There’s just enough substance to the evidence against Morgan to justify the department’s actions. I mean, I can’t prove that she didn’t do it.” He picked up the bedside phone and dialed a number.

“Hello?” Dino said. He had obviously been asleep.

“Dino, it’s Stone; I want you to give Leary a message for me.”

“What?” He was waking up now.

“Tell him I found the phone tap, and it’s now in several pieces, so there’s no need to come back for it.”

“Stone, what are you talking—”

“Also tell him”—Stone glanced at the bedside clock—“that it’s nine forty-five now, and at ten o’clock I’m going to go downstairs and look up and down the street. If the police car is still sitting out there—or if I ever see any cops taking an interest in me again at any time—I’m going to take a fullpage ad in the New York Times and publish my complete memoirs. Did you get that?”

“Yeah, but—”

Stone hung up the phone and put his face in his hands.

Cary sat up and began massaging his shoulders. “Just take it easy now; you told them off, and that’s it. They won’t bother you again, and none of this is your fault.”

“You don’t understand,” Stone said.

“Understand what? It’s not your fault.”

Stone could not look at her, but he told her what he had been telling himself over and over again. “I would have gone along with it,” he said. “If they had let me stay on the force, I would have stood by and let them pillory Hank Morgan. I would have done anything to keep my job.”

Cary put her cheek against his back. “Oh, baby,” she said. “Oh, my poor, sweet baby.”

Chapter

31