by Stuart Woods
He drove downtown and found a movie theater with a double feature playing and bought a ticket. He saw both movies twice. He didn’t want to be walking around town and risk being noticed by someone who could identify him later.
WHE N SUTHE R L AND L E FT the movie theater it was twilight, and he had forty minutes until he went to work. He drove back to the vacant lot, switching off his headlights before he turned down the dirt track. There had been lights on in the house when he passed and a car in the driveway.
He took a small flashlight from his tool kit, slipped it into his pocket, then opened the duffel and assembled the rifle, screwed in the silencer and loaded a magazine, though he expected to fi re only once. You never knew.
He found his way to his firing position behind the azaleas and sat down cross-legged behind the row of bushes. He checked the rifl e again, shoved in the magazine and racked the slide. He checked his watch: ten minutes to eight.
At five minutes to eight, the kitchen light went on, and a man walked to the refrigerator, took out a covered dish, put it into the microwave and pressed some buttons. He stood for two minutes while the dish warmed. Sutherland could have shot him then, but he would have had to break glass, which might distort the trajectory and even alert a neighbor.
Finally, the man removed the dish from the microwave, set it on the table, picked up a corkscrew and opened the bottle of wine left for him.
Sutherland rose to one knee, rested his elbow on the other knee and sighted through the space with the missing pane. It was a shot of only a little more than thirty feet.
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His subject sat down at the table, lifted his glass, took a sip and set the glass down.
Sutherland thumbed down the safety and squeezed off the round.
His subject took the bullet in his left temple, spraying blood and gore, and went down. Not even his wineglass was disturbed. Sutherland put the rifle on safety and made his way back to the car, where he unloaded and disassembled the rifl e and returned it to the duffel.
Half an hour later he drove into the darkened airport and parked the car where he had found it. He took a bottle of Windex and a cloth from his tool bag and wiped down every surface he might have touched, then shook out the fl oor mat to remove any dirt he might have tracked into the car. He took his tools and duffel and walked back to his own airplane.
EAR LY THE F O L L O W IN G morning, in the soft, green light of the predawn, Sutherland set down his airplane on the Everglades strip, taxied to the ramada, refueled the airplane, then got into the Jeep Wrangler he kept at the little house and drove home to Jupiter and his wife.
Later that day, an unmarked envelope containing a large sum of cash was left inside the front screen door of his house. 18 6
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STO N E WA S PA C K I N G his bags after a late breakfast when his cell phone buzzed. “Hello?”
“It’s Eggers.”
“Morning, Bill. I’m just packing for the return trip.”
“Unpack,” Eggers said. “You’re back on my dime.”
“What’s up?”
“Warren Keating’s attorney just called me. Early this morning, his housekeeper arrived and found him dead in his kitchen, shot in the head.”
“Suicide?”
“The lawyer didn’t have any other details.”
“This just gets weirder and weirder,” Stone said.
“Yes, it does. I want to know what’s going on, and I want you to find out for me. Take another week if you need to.”
“At my usual hourly rate?”
“I’ll spring for a generous flat rate. We’ll talk it over when you get home.”
“Okay, Bill. I’ll be in touch.” Stone hung up and walked out onto 18 7
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the front porch, where Dino was drinking a second cup of coffee.
“Ready for the latest?” Stone asked.
“Always.”
“Warren Keating has died from a gunshot to the head.”
“His own or somebody else’s?”
“That’s what I want you to find out. Call your buddy on the Connecticut State Police.”
Dino dialed the number and pressed the speaker phone button.
“Robbery Homicide, Lieutenant Dan Hotchkiss.”
“Dan, it’s Dino.”
“You again?”
“Me again. I heard about Warren Keating.”
“Are you still in Key West?”
“Yes. News travels fast in this modern age.”
“I want to know how you heard about it. The media don’t know yet.”
“Keating’s lawyer called a lawyer I know, who called the lawyer I’m down here with. I am not a suspect.”
“You are until I say you aren’t.”
“All I know is that he was shot in the head. Was it a suicide?”
“If it was, he managed to hide the gun after he was dead. Oh, and he removed a pane from the kitchen window so he could shoot himself through it without scattering glass everywhere and making a lot of noise. A very neat fellow, Mr. Keating. Quick on his feet, too.”
“So the shooter removed the window and popped him from outside?”
“From the azalea bed behind the house. We found some impressions, but nothing so good as to give us a usable footprint. He cleaned up his brass, too, though it was only one shell. Clean shot to the left temple.”
“Anybody hear a gunshot?”
“No, and it was dinnertime, so somebody in the neighborhood should have noticed. My guess is a silencer was used.”
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“Any other evidence?”
“Some tire tracks at a lot next door that was otherwise pretty clean, since a bulldozer had scraped it for a building site. Pirelli 210 snow tires that can be driven year round—expensive. The nearest Mercedes dealer is the only place anywhere around here who stocks them.”
“Dan, this is a little off the wall, but we had a shooter like that in Key West who took a shot at somebody who was pretending to be Warren Keating’s son. Didn’t kill him, though; that’s another story. The shooter left town in a bright red Cessna 182, headed north. You might check the local airports for an airplane like that.” Dino gave him the tail number.
“Okay, I’ll get it on the radio.”
Dino gave him his cell number. “I’d appreciate hearing about anything else you come up with,” he said. “Did you ever know Tommy Sculley, from the NYPD?”
“Yeah, I talked to him a couple of times.”
“He’s the lead detective on the investigation down here, so you might coordinate with him.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Oh, by the way, did you find a slug?”
“We did, embedded in the drywall behind where Keating was sitting. It’s in Hartford for ballistics tests.”
“I’m sure Tommy would appreciate it if you faxed him the report for comparison.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, Dan.” Dino hung up.
“It’s going to be from the same rifle,” Stone said. “The one in Vernon’s duffel.”
“You know what this sounds like?” Dino asked.
“What?”
“Sounds like the grandfather, Eli, hired somebody to off his son and his grandson, leaving him with all of the eight hundred million from the sale of the business.”
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“That’s nice and symmetrical, but what would a guy in his eighties do with eight hundred million?”
“Maybe he just hated his son and grandson enough to want them not to get any of it. It would be interesting to know who the money goes to if Eli kicks off soon.”
“I’ll ask Eggers next time we talk. Call Tommy and tell him about this.”
Dino made the call while Stone listened in.
“That’s an interesting turn of events,” Tommy said.
“Tommy,” St
one broke in, “were there autopsy photographs taken of the corpse you thought was Charley Boggs?”
“Yeah, I’ve got ’em in my desk drawer.”
“See if there’s a knife wound to the left rib cage.”
Tommy took a moment. “No, nothing visible. Why do you ask?”
“The guy we thought was Evan Keating had a knife wound treated at Key West Hospital. Annika was his doctor, and she said he was clean-shaven.”
“So the real Charley Boggs had been knifed, as well as shot?”
“Something else: he paid his hospital bill with a black American Express card.”
“I’ve never seen one of those,” Tommy said.
“It’s their most elite card, limited to subscribers who spend a lot on their Amex cards.”
“So?”
“The card was in Evan Keating’s name. Do you think Evan Keating, during his identity swap with Charley Boggs, would loan Charley his credit card, one with no limit?”
“Well, let me put it this way,” Tommy said. “If you and I swapped identities and I had one of those black cards, I think I’d hang on to it.”
“So would I,” Dino said.
“So I take it you’re thinking that Charley Boggs might be Evan Keating instead of Charley Boggs?”
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“It crossed my mind,” Stone said.
“Then why would he come in and confess to killing the real Charley Boggs, but say it was himself?”
“Because I told him that somebody might have put out a contract on him, and he apparently thought it was his father. Maybe he fi gured that if he was dead, his old man might save the money on the hit man.”
“That makes sense. Where is this guy now, do you know?”
“I do not. He checked out of this hotel three days ago.”
“So he had time to visit Connecticut?”
“I guess he did at that.”
Dino broke in and told Tommy about Dan Hotchkiss, and gave him his phone number. “Maybe you should consult with Dan,” Dino said.
“Consult I will,” Tommy said.
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STON E A N D D IN O were about to leave the hotel when a call came in.
“Hello?” Stone said.
“Stone, it’s Chuck Chandler, at the tennis club.”
“Hey, Chuck.”
“I ran across something yesterday that might interest you.”
“What’s that?”
“My old boat, which now has no name.”
“Where did you see it?”
“Out at Fort Jefferson.”
“Where’s Fort Jefferson?”
“It’s at the very end of the Keys.”
“I thought Key West was the very end of the Keys.”
“No, they run out to the west from Key West for about sixty miles—small, uninhabited islands with no fresh water at all. There was a fort built out on the last one during the nineteenth century—
that’s Fort Jefferson. It was used as a prison during and after the Civil War, and Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned for sheltering John 19 2
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Wilkes Booth and setting his broken leg, was sent there, where he performed heroically during a yellow fever epidemic.”
“What’s out there now?”
“Just the old fort, nicely preserved. There’s no landing for a boat there, but you can swim ashore or take a dinghy in. The funny thing is that my old boat still had her dinghy aboard, and there was no one on her. We swam ashore and had a picnic in the fort, and there was no one else there.”
“Well, if one took one’s boat out there and abandoned it, how would one get back?” Stone asked.
“One would take another boat or a seaplane; those are the only choices. But why would anyone leave a very nice boat out there, where it might be broken into and plundered?”
“Good question,” Stone asked. “And where would one get hold of a seaplane?”
“There are a couple for charter at the airport.”
“Any idea how long the boat has been there?”
“I don’t know, but I saw her three days ago, taking on fuel in Key West Bight.”
“Any sign that the boat had been broken into?”
“Not that I could tell. I blew my horn a couple of times and tried to raise them on the radio, but no response.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Chuck.”
“You and Dino want some tennis?”
“I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to be in town, but if we stay on, I’ll call you.”
“Take care, then.”
Stone hung up. “Did you hear any of that?” he asked Dino.
“Enough to wonder if those two kids are dead on that boat,” Dino replied.
“Let’s find out,” Stone said. He called Tommy Sculley and told him Chuck’s story.
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“I’ll call the airport and pick you up in fifteen minutes,” Tommy said.
THE HIRE D S E AP L A NE was an amphibian—it could land at the airport or on the water—and they were in the air within the hour. They flew west over the string of tiny islands, seeing only an occasional yacht anchored in the lee of one, its occupants picnicking or swimming. Stone, sitting in the copilot’s seat, spotted the outline of the fort in the distance, and as they grew closer, he could see a solitary boat anchored off the fort.
The pilot circled the little motor yacht. “You want me to land?”
he asked.
“Yeah, and taxi as close as you can to the boat,” Tommy said. “Do you have a dinghy?”
“No, just a life raft.”
“I’ll have to swim, I guess,” Tommy said, unbuttoning his shirt. Stone started getting out of his clothes, too. There wasn’t much wind, and the pilot maneuvered to within a few yards of the boat, which seemed deserted. Tommy and Stone jumped, naked, into the water and swam for the boat. Stone was there first and hauled himself aboard, then gave Tommy a hand.
The two stood, dripping wet, in the cockpit, looking through the locked doors to the cabin below.
“Tell you what,” Tommy said, “I’m worried that those kids are dead aboard, so I’m going to break in.”
“I agree,” Stone said.
Tommy found a boat hook and used it to pry the padlock hasp off the mahogany door. “They can send me a bill, if they’re alive,”
Tommy said, sniffing the air inside. “Nobody smells dead.” He started below, and Stone followed him.
Everything seemed to be in perfect order below, though it was 19 4
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hot. Tommy began opening the galley cabinets. “Let’s search the place, as long as we’re here.”
Stone pitched in, and the two of them searched the cabin thoroughly, taking care to leave it as neat as they found it. “Let’s take a look in the cockpit lockers,” Stone said, and they went back on deck.
Stone pointed at the stern locker, which was fastened with a combination padlock. “Odd,” he said. “The cabin door had an ordinary padlock, but this one has a combination.”
“Why is that odd?” Tommy asked.
“Maybe it’s so that someone who knew the combination could come aboard, leave something in the stern locker, then relock it and leave.”
“We’re going to need something more substantial than an aluminum boat hook to break into that,” Tommy said.
“There’s a tool kit below,” Stone said. He went down and came back with a large screwdriver. It took a couple of minutes to break into the locker. Stone opened the locker and stood back. It was packed with plastic bags, taped shut.
They were about to open one when there was a sudden blast from a boat’s horn. They looked up to find a small Coast Guard cutter standing a few yards off the port side.
“Ahoy, there,” a woman’s voice said on a loud hailer. “We’re boarding you.”
<
br /> Stone looked at Tommy. “We’re not dressed for the occasion,” he called back.
“There are some towels below,” Tommy said, ducking into the cabin and returning with two skimpy bath towels. The cutter’s crew deployed fenders, and the female captain, who was petite and attractive, stepped aboard, wearing a handgun and a name tag that read “Tabor.” A crewman stood on the boat’s upper deck with an assault rifle at port arms.
“Is this your boat?” Tabor asked them.
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“No, Captain Tabor,” Tommy said. “I’m Lieutenant Tommy Sculley, Key West PD.”
“I don’t see a badge,” she said, suppressing a smile.
“Right,” Tommy said. “It’s on our airplane.”
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
“We’re looking for the boat’s occupants,” Tommy said. “We got a report that the boat had been abandoned here, so we flew out for a look.”
She nodded toward the broken lock on the cabin door. “I suppose you have a search warrant?”
“No, we were concerned for the safety of the crew,” Tommy said,
“so we had a look around.” He opened the stern locker. “All we found was this.”
Tabor looked into the locker and whistled. “Tell you what, lieutenant: why don’t you swim back to your airplane and bring me some I.D. And if you try to take off, that seaman over there with the M16 will shoot you down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tommy said, dropping his towel. 19 6
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TOM M Y S WA M B A C K , holding his I.D. wallet out of the water, and handed it to the Coast Guard captain.
She looked at it suspiciously, then turned to Stone. “And who would you be?” she asked.
“My name is Stone Barrington,” he replied. “If you want to see me without the towel, I’ll swim back and get my I.D., too.”
Tabor blushed. “Okay,” she said, “don’t bother.”
“We’d like to leave now,” Stone said.
“We’re going to tow this boat back to our base in Key West and impound it,” she said. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“Call Lieutenant Sculley and Key West PD,” Stone said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He dropped the towel, hopped over the side and swam back to the airplane, followed by Tommy.
“Well,” Tommy said, “that was interesting. I guess she just wanted to see me naked.”