by Stuart Woods
Stone walked over to the yacht club and found a little group of people boarding a small motor yacht at the end of the pier. Rawls, Harley Davis and Mack Morris were there, along with a couple and their teenaged daughter, who was in tears. Rawls introduced them.
“This is Ralph and Martha Harris and their daughter, Janey,” he said. “Martha is Don’s sister.”
The boat was Ralph’s, apparently, and he got the engine started. They motored out a ways, then Rawls and Martha said a few words, and she emptied the ashes into the water. Janey seemed more upset than anybody, Stone thought.
They returned to the yacht club, and Stone excused himself and returned home.
Peter was still copying lines from the book, and Arrington was seated by the fireplace, drinking coffee with Dino. Stone poured himself a cup and was about to sit down when the phone rang, and he went to the desk to answer it.
“It’s Lance. I’ve got the phone information.”
“Great.”
“On the day Don Brown died, he called the Agency WATS line a little after three p.m. and was connected to an Operations officer named Jake Burns. I tried to call Jake, but he’s left on an assignment and is unreachable. An office assistant said that Jake did a criminal records search for Don, but she doesn’t know the results or even who the subject was. That’s all I could get.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, indeed, and very frustrating, too.”
“I know. I left a message for Jake, but there’s no way of knowing when he’ll be able to respond to it. I wish there were something else I could do.”
“Thanks, Lance. I appreciate that.” Stone hung up, called Rawls and told him the results.
“Shit,” Rawls said.
“That’s pretty much how I feel about it, too.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait for Jake Burns to get back.”
“I guess so.”
“Thanks for coming this morning. Martha appreciated it.”
“I was glad to be there. Janey seemed particularly upset.”
“Yeah, Don was her favorite uncle; they were close.”
The fax machine rang and began to spit out pages.
“Hold on a minute,” Stone said. He went to the machine and retrieved two pages, then returned to the phone. “Sergeant Young faxed me Don’s phone records,” he said, looking over the pages.
“What’ve we got?”
“Not much. He called you a few times and a couple of other numbers.” Stone read them to Rawls.
“That’s Harley and Mack.”
“Then there’s the call to the WATS line, and that’s it for the past week.”
“Shit again,” Rawls said.
“Yeah. Do you have any idea at all whose criminal records Don could have been checking on?”
“Not a clue.”
“Do Harley and Mack have security systems in their houses?”
“Harley does. Mack’s having one installed today.”
“Good. Make sure they both use them, will you?”
“Don’t worry; they won’t need any prodding.”
“Talk to you later.” Stone hung up and returned to his coffee. Arrington was on her knees on the floor next to Peter.
“What are you copying, honey?” she asked.
“A book,” he said.
“Where did you get it?”
“I found it in a desk drawer in my room.”
“Can I see it for a minute?”
“Sure.”
Arrington picked up the book, which was bound in leather, and flipped through it slowly. “Peter, this is somebody’s diary.”
“It is?”
“Yes, and a diary is a very private thing. You shouldn’t be reading it.”
“I wasn’t reading it. I was just copying.”
“Well, I think you should find something else to copy.”
“All right.” Peter gathered up his papers and went upstairs.
Arrington handed the book to Stone. “It’s the diary of somebody called Esme Stone,” she said, handing it to him.
“That was Dick’s daughter,” he said.
“Perhaps you should put it away somewhere.”
Stone looked at the book. Esme’s name was stamped in gold on the cover. It had probably been a Christmas or birthday present from her parents. He flipped through it, marveling at the beautiful handwriting, then closed it. He shouldn’t be reading it any more than Peter should.
Stone went to the cupboard where the safe was, opened it, put the diary inside and closed it again. Next time they built a fire, he would burn it, and Esme’s secrets would be safe.
Chapter 29
AFTER LUNCH Stone remembered that he had not gone for the New York Times, and he asked Peter if he’d like an ice cream cone.
“I think I can handle that,” Peter replied.
Stone laughed. “I bet you can.”
They got into the MG and started for the village.
“I like this car,” Peter said. “What kind is it?”
“It’s called an MG,” Stone replied, “and it’s old. It was built a long time before you were born.”
“Where did you buy it?”
“I didn’t buy it. It belonged to my cousin Dick, and when he died, he left it to me.”
“My mom has a Mercedes SL 55,” Peter said, “and it’s very fast, but it’s not as…” He seemed to search for a word. “Elegant as this.”
“That’s a good word for it,” Stone said. “You have a very good vocabulary for a boy your age.”
“That’s what my teacher told me.” He pointed out the window. “What’s that pond?”
“It isn’t a pond, really. It’s a little cove, saltwater. A long time ago there was a resort hotel on the shore over there, and they built a kind of dam to keep water in the cove when the tide was out so the guests could swim. The hotel burned down, but the dam is still there.”
“Why did it burn down?”
“I imagine it was a wooden structure, covered in shingles, like most of the houses on the island, and it’s easy for them to catch fire.”
They were approaching the Dark Harbor Shop, and Stone could see three state police cars parked in front of it. He wondered what could possibly have happened on the island that would require three state police cars.
Stone and Peter went into the shop, and Stone set Peter on a stool at the soda fountain and told him to order whatever he wanted, then went to the rear of the shop to get a paper. Jimmy Hotchkiss’s office was crowded with state police officers, and Stone couldn’t hear what they were saying. He went back to the soda fountain. “What’s going on with the police?” he asked the girl behind the counter.
“A little girl has disappeared,” the girl said, “and I think they’re organizing a search party.”
Stone started to ask the little girl’s name, but it occurred to him that he wouldn’t know her or her family, in any case. He paid for his paper and Peter’s ice cream, and they got back into the car.
“Do you think they’ll find the little girl?” Peter asked.
“I expect so,” Stone said. “It’s not all that big an island; she probably just got lost in the woods.”
They drove on toward the house, and as they pulled into the driveway, Stone saw Ed Rawls getting out of his Range Rover.
“Hey, Ed,” Stone said, “have you met my… friend, Peter?”
“How are you, Peter?” Rawls said.
“How do you do?” Peter replied, offering his hand like a gentleman.
“I’ve got some news,” Rawls said to Stone, and he looked worried.
“Peter, you go on inside, all right? And don’t spill ice cream on the rugs.” The boy ran inside, and Stone turned to Rawls. “What is it?”
“You know the girl you met yesterday? Janey Harris?”
“Sure.”
“She didn’t come home from a friend’s house last night.”
“I was at the Dark Harbor Shop, and the soda jerk told me a little girl was missing
. There were a lot of state cops in Jimmy’s office, and she said they’re organizing a search party.”
“I’m worried about her,” Rawls said. “You saw how upset she was yesterday?”
“Yes, I noticed that. Even more upset than her parents. You said she and Don were close.”
“Right, but there was more going on, I think.”
“What was going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve been thinking about this since I got the call about Janey a few minutes ago, and I think her disappearance has to be connected to Don’s death.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Remember where you are, boy. Things like this just don’t happen on this island. There are no perverts kidnapping seventeen-year-old girls on Islesboro.”
“Right, and no hitmen murdering ex-CIA officers and their families, either. Do you have any details of the girl’s disappearance?”
“Her mother told me Janey went to a friend’s house for dinner last night, and when she wasn’t home by ten o’clock, Martha called the house, and they said Janey had been gone for over an hour. The houses are only a quarter of a mile apart, and Janey would have walked home along the road. She had a flashlight. The Harrises went looking for her, and they found her flashlight in the road. That was all they found.”
“I don’t suppose there are bears on the island?”
“Not since before World War Two, and I doubt if she was attacked by raccoons.”
“What could possibly connect Janey’s disappearance with Don’s death?”
“All I can do is guess. Maybe they both knew something about somebody that they shouldn’t have known.”
“But what could they possibly know?”
“Maybe they found out who killed Dick and his family.”
“That seems farfetched; if Don had known something about that, he’d have told you, wouldn’t he?”
“He would have, if he’d lived through the night,” Rawls said. “Remember, he wanted to meet the next day, said he had something to tell me.”
“Why didn’t he just tell you on the phone when he called?”
“People in our line of work have a nicely developed aversion to passing important information on the phone. It’s not that he would have thought his line was tapped; it’s just that he would have been uncomfortable discussing something like that, except face to face.”
“But how does Janey come into it?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Rawls said. “I’m going to talk to everybody who clapped eyes on Don and Janey the day Don died. I should have done it sooner.” He got into the Range Rover and drove away.
Stone went back into the house. He wasn’t about to mention this to Arrington.
Chapter 30
THEY HAD AN ESPECIALLY good dinner that evening: Seth had found some lobsters, and his wife had steamed them perfectly. There were clams, too, and corn on the cob, dripping with butter, and two bottles of a Beringer reserve chardonnay from Dick’s cellar.
After dinner they moved into the study, where Arrington removed a Scrabble board in a bookcase, and they played game after game until they were all sleepy. Arrington sent Peter to bed, and after a while, the adults drifted upstairs.
Stone and Arrington made wonderful love for nearly an hour, fueled by the good wine and good feeling from their evening, then they lay in each other’s arms, getting their breath back.
Stone stroked her hair and kissed her on the forehead. “You know,” he said, “we really ought to start thinking about making this a more permanent relationship.”
Arrington sat up in bed and tucked her legs under her. “I’ve thought about that a lot,” she said, “and it wouldn’t work.”
Stone said nothing, just waited for her to continue.
“First of all, I love you, Stone, and I always will, and I know you love me in the same way.”
“That’s perfectly true,” Stone said, “but somehow I don’t see that as an impediment to a relationship.”
“Think about our lives,” she said. “They’re completely incompatible.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Then I’ll explain it to you. Peter and I live in Virginia, and we both love it there. You wouldn’t last a month in Virginia. You need New York: You need Elaine’s and you need to earn a living, and New York is the only place you can do that. Sure, you could hang out a shingle in Virginia, but you’d hate the work, and although I’m certainly rich enough to support you in the style to which you’ve become accustomed, you’d never let me do that, and I’d have a lot less respect for you if you did.
“Peter is in a wonderful school that will take him right through high school, and when he’s ready for college he’ll be able to choose between the Ivy League and the University of Virginia, which is right down the road, in Charlottesville. I know you can raise children in New York, but I would never subject him to the tilings we’d have to do to keep him safe: limos to school, organized play groups, security guards. In Virginia he’ll be able to ride his terse every day, ride it to school in a couple of years. He has the fields and woods to roam and plenty of great, unspoiled kids his own age.”
“You don’t want to get married again, do you?” Stone asked.
“There’s that, too. I’ve been married, I’ve had my child and I enjoy my freedom. There isn’t a single thing that being married could do for me that I can’t do anyway. Then there’s you: You’ve been following your cock around since you were fifteen, and you’re not going to stop now.”
“You don’t think I could be faithful?”
“I’d give you three months, tops,” she said, laughing. “Then you’d meet some girl at Elaine’s, and you’d be in the sack in the blink of an eye. Look, I don’t mind that about you, at least not in our present relationship, but if we were married, it would piss me off royally, and we’d be divorced in no time.”
“I think we could make it work,” Stone said.
Arrington sighed. “There’s something else,” she said.
“What?”
“I wasn’t going to bring this up, at least not on this trip, but it would have come up eventually, so we’d better face it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re still not sure that I didn’t kill Vance.” Arrington’s husband had been shot dead in their home; Arrington had been suspected, but Stone had gotten her cleared. Another woman had been tried for the crime, but acquitted. The murder was still unsolved.
Stone knew he had to choose his words carefully. “Arrington, is there something you want to tell me?”
“That’s just the point, I don’t want to tell you anything, but maybe I should. It’s just that you are a very moral person, and if you thought I had killed Vance you’d never look at me the same way again.”
“You’re starting to worry me, Arrington.”
“I don’t want you to worry. Let’s just say that, if I had killed Vance, I would have done it for very good reasons and to protect myself and Peter. Could you believe that of me?”
“I believe that you would not murder your husband, but that if you did, there would have been some justifiable reason, yes.”
“More than justifiable,” she said. “Imperative. And if I had done that and the facts had been presented in court, I would very likely have been acquitted, but it would have destroyed Peter’s life. So my decision would have been between that and keeping quiet and risking conviction. That would have been an impossible situation.”
“What are you saying, Arrington?”
“I’m not saying anything, Stone. This is all hypothetical, don’t you see?”
“All right.”
“Then let’s leave it at that,” Arrington said. “It would not improve our relationship to go any further, and I don’t want anything to change.”
Stone thought about that. “As you wish,” he said finally. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Arrington crawled under the covers, snuggled close to Stone
and rested her head on his shoulder. “Then let’s never speak of it again,” she said, fondling him.
The phone rang.
“Shit,” Stone said.
“Who could that be at this hour?”
Stone reached over her and picked up the phone. “Hello?”