Stone looked at Willie. “I think the list of suspects is growing.”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “Anybody in the show could have done it; she’s been a perfect bitch.”
“What?” Carrie screamed. “You’re fired!”
“I don’t work for you, remember?” Willie seemed to have had enough.
“Stone, fire him this minute.”
“He doesn’t work for me,” Stone said, “and I don’t doubt for a minute that Willie is right.”
Carrie started to get out of the moving cab, but Stone and Willie held her down.
“You’re hurting me!” she shouted.
“No, you’re hurting you,” Stone said. “Stop it.”
Amazingly, she went both limp and silent. The cab arrived, and the three got out.
“I want to go to bed,” Carrie said. “I’ve got a rehearsal at ten.”
“You’re going to be late,” Stone said. “You’ve got to talk to the police before you can go anywhere.”
“The police? Why?”
“Because they take gunshot wounds seriously, and Lenox Hill Hospital has already reported this one to the police. We just happened to get out of the ER before they arrived.”
As they reached the top of the steps an unmarked police car pulled up, and two detectives got out. Stone didn’t know them.
“Carrie Cox?” one of them asked.
“Come on in, fellas,” Stone said, flashing the Brian Doyle badge. “Let’s get this done.”
Stone left the four of them in the living room and used the kitchen phone.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone. Can you get over to Carrie’s house?” He gave Dino the address.
“What for?”
“Somebody took a shot at her, only a graze. Probably her ex-husband. She’s supposed to open in the big show next week, and we don’t want it in the papers.”
“Any of our people there?”
“Two. I didn’t get their names.”
“Gimme fifteen minutes.”
Stone went back to the living room and sat down, knowing that Willie would have steered the conversation in his absence.
“You got anything to add?” one of the detectives asked Stone.
“Nope. I wasn’t here. I went to the hospital as soon as I heard.”
“Why didn’t you report this to the police?”
“I am the police,” Stone said. “You want to see my badge again?”