by Stuart Woods
“That makes sense. Be sure and tell the sergeant about the call.” Rawls nodded. “This sort of stuff isn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “You do your work for thirty-five or forty years and you retire, and you’re out of it. Nobody comes looking for you five or six years later.”
“Don found out something,” Harley said. “God knows what.”
“Any of you know how Don spent his day yesterday?”
Jimmy Hotchkiss spoke up. “I know he was here at lunchtime, because I send the papers out to him every day.” He looked around him. “And don’t you other fellers get any ideas; I’m not running a paper-delivery service, except for a couple of people, like Don, who couldn’t get in the store easy.”
“So we need to know what he was doing between lunchtime and bedtime.”
Sergeant Young had appeared in the front doorway. “Hilda says he got in his car and went out about one o’clock. He had this way of getting his scooter in and out of the trunk. We’ll ask around, see if anybody saw him around the island.”
“You need us anymore?” Stone asked.
The sergeant shook his head. “I’ll call you if I think of anything.”
Stone and Dino got into the MG and headed down the drive.
“Dino,” Stone said, “I think it would be good if you moved into the house, into Esme’s bedroom. Arrington can bunk with me, and there’s another bedroom for Peter.”
“Why move? To cover your ass?”
“That and because there’s no alarm system in the guest house.”
“Oh.”
Chapter 26
TWO DAYS LATER, Stone stood on the tarmac and watched the Centurion Studios’ Gulfstream IV land at Rockland Airport. Peter was the first down the airplane’s stairs, at a run. He was six now and taller than when Stone had last seen him the year before. His mother followed, carrying her overnight case, and the two pilots then dealt with the luggage.
There were hugs, then Stone loaded their luggage into his airplane. “Peter, I think we’ll let you be copilot today, and your mother can be the passenger.”
The boy was delighted. Soon Stone had them buckled in and was running through his checklist, giving Peter a running commentary.
“I hope this isn’t going to be like the last ride with you,” the boy said.
Stone laughed. On their last ride Stone had been at the controls of a helicopter, a machine he hadn’t known how to fly, had made a very rough landing, and they were both lucky to be alive. “I think you’ll find this a smoother trip; shorter, too.”
They lifted off and turned out over Penobscot Bay. “There’s our island,” Stone said, pointing. “Can you see it, Arrington?”
Arlington could hear and speak from the rear through her headset. “Yes, it’s beautiful.”
“There’s our landing strip,” Stone said to Peter.
“It looks a lot shorter than the one we just landed on,” Peter said.
“It is, but my airplane is a lot smaller than the Centurion jet, so it can use shorter strips.” Stone lined up for the runway, announced his intentions over the radio and looked for traffic. A moment later they were on the runway and braking. Dino sat in the station wagon, waiting for them.
They stopped at the Dark Harbor Shop for the papers and an ice cream cone for Peter, then continued to the house.
“It’s lovely, Stone,” Arrington said. “How did you find it?”
“I’ll tell you the story later,” Stone said. He took them into the house and got them settled. Peter ran out to the dock to have a look at the boats, and Arrington relaxed in the study.
“So, tell me why you bought a house in Maine,” she said.
Stone sat down beside her. “It belonged to my first cousin, Dick Stone, who died recently and left me the house. Well, the use of the house for my lifetime and that of my family.”
“How old a man was Dick?”
“My age.”
“Heart attack?”
“Not exactly.”
“Stone, I’m beginning to get the feeling that I’m not going to like the rest of this story.”
“Dick and his wife and daughter were murdered a couple of weeks ago.”
“Not in this house, I hope.”
“Dick was at his desk, over there; his wife and daughter were in Dino’s room.”
“Who murdered them, and why?”
“Dick was CIA; the murders seem to be related to his work.”
“Seem to be related to his work?”
“There’s evidence to suggest that and no evidence to suggest otherwise.”
“Am I going to find his wife’s clothes in my closet?”
“All their personal effects have been removed. It’s my house now.”
“Why is Dino sleeping upstairs instead of in the guest house?” Arrington didn’t miss much.
“There’s no security system in the guest house.”
“And why do we need a security system on this tiny island?”
“It’s only a precaution. Another man, this one a retired CIA officer, was killed in a fashion similar to the way Dick was killed a couple of days ago.”
“Has anyone tried to kill you yet?”
“No, and there isn’t the slightest reason to suppose that anyone might.”
“Stone, every time I see you somebody is trying to kill you or trying to kill me.”
“Those incidents were not my fault.”
“No, it’s never your fault; it just seems to happen to you.”
“I have that history, but I believe we’re all quite safe here.”
“How good is the security system?”
“It was designed and installed by the CIA. By the way, don’t go downstairs at night before I disable the system. There are motion detectors downstairs.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.”
Peter came running back into the house.
“Peter, don’t run indoors,” his mother said.
“I’m sorry. The boats are neat, Stone. Can we go out in one of them?”
“Sure, we can. Which one would you like to go out in?”
“The sailboat.”
“All right, we’ll go out after lunch.” Stone glanced at Arrington. “I think there’s a life jacket just your size on board, Peter.”
Arrington nodded approvingly.
AFTER LUNCH IT TOOK an hour for Stone to get familiar enough with the yacht to be comfortable, and to get the engine started and check the chart for deep water and hazards to navigation, before they were skimming smoothly over small waves in a good breeze, with Peter steering the boat from Stone’s lap. Dino stretched out in the cockpit and went to sleep, a beer still clutched in his hand, while Arrington sat quietly next to Stone and Peter, taking in the scenery.
Stone felt eighteen again, except that his son was along for the ride. He and Arrington had had an affair years before, when she had chosen to marry Vance Calder, the movie star, not knowing that she was already carrying Stone’s child. It had taken a long time for her to admit to Stone, if not to herself, that Peter was his son.
Stone wondered if Peter would ever know. He saw a small island coming up and showed the boy how to tack the boat. He hoped to show him a lot more while they were here.
As Peter was turning the boat and Dino was hauling in on the jib sheet, a motorboat appeared from nowhere, dousing them with spray and making their ride bumpier.
Dino laughed. “I think you’ve just had sand kicked in your face, Stone.”
Stone watched the boat disappear toward the yacht club. The two occupants were Caleb Stone’s twin sons.
THAT NIGHT, after Peter was sound asleep in his room, Stone lay in bed and watched Arrington undress. Her body had changed little with childbirth, and she obviously took very good care of herself. She switched off the bedside lamp and got into bed, snuggling close to him.
“This is why you wanted me here, isn’t it?” she asked, flicking his ear with her tongue. “You were just randy.”
“I’m alway
s randy when you’re around,” Stone said, kissing her and cupping a breast in his hand. “But that’s not the only reason I invited you.”
“We can discuss the other reasons in the morning,” she said, taking him in her hand and kneading gently.
Stone responded instantly. He rolled on top of her, and she guided him in.
“It’s not the only reason for me, either,” she said, her hips rising to meet him. “But I love it all the same.”
Chapter 27
THE FOLLOWING MORNING a fax came from Sergeant Young of the state police. Stone read the report, and as he did, the phone rang.
“It’s Ed Rawls,” the gruff voice said. “Did you get the report?”
“I’ve just read it,” Stone said. “It’s nice that Young didn’t call it a suicide.”
“I think you and Dino saw to that,” Rawls said. “I’m glad you were there, because none of the rest of us has any credentials that would make Young take us seriously.”
“I would have thought that your careers would have been enough.”
“We don’t talk about that to civilians,” Rawls said.
“A state cop is a civilian?”
“Everybody who isn’t Agency is a civilian.”
“What about me?”
“You’re kind of a semipro, because of your relationship with Lance Cabot.”
“Thanks.”
“The fellows and I pasted together Don’s day, before he died,” Rawls said.
“And?”
“He had lunch at the yacht club, picked up his mail and went home. He had dinner alone, called me, then got himself murdered.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. If he’d been anywhere on the island, he’d have been seen.”
“Did he talk to anybody anywhere, except at the yacht club?”
“Nothing more than to say hello.”
“Who’d he have lunch with?”
“He had lunch alone, talked to anybody who dropped by, nothing important.”
“And then he called you and said he’d found out something?”
“After thinking about it all day.”
“Was he alone at home when he called?”
“Until he was joined by his murderer later in the evening.”
“Did he make any phone calls?”
There was a brief silence.
“I’d like to see his phone records,” Stone said.
“He had that caller ID thing,” Rawls replied.
“Then there might be a log of the calls he received.”
“Yeah, but not the calls he made.”
“Can we get into the house?”
“I’ve got a key, and Harley and I are his executors. Fifteen minutes?”
“See you there.” Stone hung up.
RAWLS WAS ALREADY at Don Brown’s house when Stone arrived. He let them into the house, and they went into Brown’s den.
“Here we go,” Stone said. The phone was a Japanese-made combination of answering machine and cordless phone with other features. Stone looked at the buttons carefully, pressed a couple, then a number appeared on the little screen. “Looks like he received only one call.” It was an 800 number.
“That’s an Agency WATS line,” Rawls said. “It’s unpublished, of course, but it’s one of the lines that Agency people can call in on from outside or, of course, receive calls from.”
“Any way to tell who called?” Stone asked.
Rawls shook his head. “Nope. Anybody with an extension from the main switchboard can pick up a phone, dial a number and get a dial tone, then call anywhere in the world.”
“There must be an internal record of which extension used the WATS line,” Stone said.
“I expect there would be.”
“Do you have any way of checking on it?”
“The best way would be through Lance; he’s active, and most of my friends are retired.”
“I’ll call him,” Stone said.
“You can use this phone.”
Stone dialed Lance’s cell number.
“Yes?”
“It’s Stone. Bad news from up here.”
“Don Brown? I heard. This is not a good development.”
“Lance, Don received a call from Langley in the late afternoon on the day of his death. Whoever called used an Agency WATS line. Can you find out who made the call?”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to ask the state police to get Don’s phone records, so we can find out who he might have called at Langley.”
“I don’t think that will work,” Lance said.
“Why not?”
“Because he would have called in on the WATS line and asked for a name or an extension. All the Agency would have would be a record that he called in, not which extension he asked for. It’s a deficiency, I know, and it’s being corrected, but it hasn’t been done yet.”
“Whatever you say.”
“That’s not to say that Don might not have made local calls in Maine that might be significant, so I’d ask the cops for his local records.”
“Thanks. When will you get back to me about the WATS line?”
“Later today, if I can.” Lance hung up.
Stone called Sergeant Young and asked for Don Brown’s phone records, and Young promised to fax them to him.
“I guess that’s all we can do for the moment,” Rawls said.
“A thought,” Stone said. “Did Don have an ex-wife who hated him?”
“No, his wife died less than a year ago. They were married for more than fifty years, and I don’t think she had learned to hate him yet. I’ve got a couple who hate me; so does Harley. Mack is a lifelong bachelor.”
“What was the medical condition that required Don to use the wheelchair?”
“It was some complication of diabetes, I think,” Rawls said. “He could get around a bit, not much more than a few steps. I mean, he could get to the bathroom at night, and he could get his scooter in and out of the trunk of his car.”
“Do you know where he kept the .45 that was used to kill him?”
“Bedside table drawer,” Rawls said.
“So it wouldn’t have been hard to find. The murderer could have come in with another gun and found it easily.”
“Yeah, especially if Don tried to go for it.”
“Who knew this house well, besides his housekeeper?”
“Harley, Mack and me; we played poker over here one night a week. Probably a few locals: repairmen, those sorts of folks.”
“So we don’t have any more to go on than we had with Dick’s murder.”
“Looks that way, don’t it.”
“Maybe Lance will be able to tell us something.”
“You’re grasping at straws,” Rawls said, “but then, that’s all we’ve got to grab at.”
“I know.”
“We’re having a little ceremony to scatter Don’s ashes at the yacht club tomorrow morning at ten, if you’d like to join us. I think Don would like that.”
“I’ll be there.”
Chapter 28
AFTER BREAKFAST the following morning Stone made a few phone calls and worked on Dick’s estate. He was clearing the desk when Peter came into the room and flopped down on the rug. He opened a book and began to laboriously write on a pad.
Stone came over and looked over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I’m practicing my calligraphy,” Pete said. "I’m copying this book, see?“
Stone glanced at the book, which seemed handwritten in a beautiful copperplate. “Do you study calligraphy at school?”
“I don’t take a class in it or anything, but I was having trouble with my handwriting, and my teacher said it would help if I copied from a book, just for practice.”
“That’s a great idea,” Stone said. “I have to go out for a while; when your mother gets up, please tell her I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Okay.” The boy went back to work.