“Gorgeous. The leaves have started to turn.”
“Not here, yet.”
“Soon. Trust me.”
“What did you find out up there?”
Stone gave him a rundown of his activities in Connecticut, including their housebreaking adventure.
“You’re not sneaky enough to be a burglar, Stone.”
“Exactly what I told Holly.”
“If you don’t watch it, I’m going to be bailing you out of some country jail.”
“I hope not. Have you spread the word about the secretary among your colleagues in blue?”
“I have, discreetly.”
“And a photo?”
“Yes. Otherwise they wouldn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. They’re cops, not readers of antiques magazines.”
“Granted. I’ve got to look into the other member of Barton’s outfit who seems a candidate for all this. Can you do a search on arrests and convictions for a Charles Crow?”
“The real estate guy?”
“There’s a real estate guy named Charles Crow?”
?
?You don’t ever read the papers, do you?”
“Every day.”
“Not the Times, the Daily News and the Post.”
“Dino, I know you consider those rags newspapers, but there’s nothing in them that I need to know.”
“If you read them, you’d know about Charlie Crow.”
“What would I know?”
“Crow is this hotshot real estate… speculator, I guess you’d say. Made a bunch of money, got himself a trophy third wife and a publicist to get him on Page Six. You know what Page Six is?”
“Of course, Dino.” Page Six was the Post’s gossip page.
“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Crow make an appearance there at least once a week, every day during the trial.”
“Trial?”
“Yeah, he got caught in some sort of property swindle, but he got off. Cost him a couple of million in legal fees, though.”
“That could put a dent in a fellow’s wallet, couldn’t it? Especially if he has a trophy wife and a publicist to support.”
“I guess so. Charlie Crow was in Barton’s outfit?”
“Yeah, and Barton says he was a wheeler-dealer even then.”