“Pull over here,” Stone said to the driver. He opened the car door and turned to Cary. “Give me a couple of minutes, will you?” He flashed his badge at a uniform and crossed the yellow tape. A Checker cab was stopped at the intersection, and a small group had gathered around the driver’s open door. Stone saw Headly, from the detective squad.

Headly nodded. “Cabdriver caught one in the head,” he said to Stone. “Looks like he was stopped for the light, somebody pulled up next to him, and just popped him one.”

Stone glanced into the cab at the dead driver, sprawled across the front seat. There was a lot of blood. “You got it covered?” he said to Headly.

“Yeah,” the detective replied.

Suddenly the cab was bathed in bright light. Stone turned, shielding his eyes.

“Howdy, Stone,” Scoop Berman said, still operating his camera. “You on this one?”

“It’s Headly’s,” Stone said. “You can give him the hard time.” He stepped out of Scoop’s lights and bumped into Cary Hilliard, who was staring at the dead driver. He took her elbow. “You don’t want to see that,” he said, turning her toward their car. “How’d you get past the tape?”

“Press card,” she said, showing a blue, plastic shield on a string around her neck. She took it off and stuffed it into her handbag.

In the car they were both quiet for a block or two.

“You see a lot of that stuff?” she asked finally.

“Enough. More than I’d like to see. Did it upset you?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t get a good enough look, thank God. I faint at the sight of blood.”

They turned into Turtle Bay, and the car stopped.

“Wait for me,” Cary said to the driver.

They climbed the steps, and Stone opened the front door of the house.

“You’ve got the duplex?” Cary asked, surprised.

“I’ve got the house,” Stone replied. He flipped on the hall light.

“You are on the take,” she said, laughing. “No honest cop could ever afford a house in Turtle Bay.”

“Would you believe I inherited it?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I did. My Great-Aunt Elizabeth, my grandfather’s sister, married well. She always had a soft spot for my father, and she willed it to him. She outlived him, though, only died early this year at the age of ninety-eight, and so her estate came to me.”

Stone led her into the library.

“It’s a mess,” she said, looking around at the empty shelves, stripped of their varnish, the books stacked on the floor, the rug rolled up, the furniture stacked in a corner, everything under sheets of plastic.