by Stuart Woods
Caleb looked down at the table. “Family business.”
“Tell me about it, please.”
Caleb shook his head.
“This is important, Caleb. If you don’t tell me about it, then you’re going to have to tell the police.”
“It had nothing to do with his death, if that’s what you mean.”
“Caleb, immediately after you saw him, Dick changed his will, excluding you. I have to infer that his action was a result of your conversation with him on that occasion.”
“It was deeply personal and not relevant to the investigation,” Caleb said. “I won’t discuss it with you, and if you’re in touch with the state police, you can tell them that I won’t discuss it with them, either. Ever.” Caleb stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Stone. Lunch is paid for.” He left the table and walked out the door.
As Caleb left, the commodore of the yacht club entered the club, deep in conversation with another man. They spoke to other people, and whatever they were talking about seemed to spread around the room.
Stone got up, walked over to the commodore, shook his hand and asked what was going on.
“There’s been another murder,” the man replied.
Chapter 39
HOLLY LET HERSELF INTO Dick Stone’s hidden office, inserted her data card into the computer and logged on. There was an encrypted e-mail waiting for her, asking her to contact Lance Cabot soonest. She called the Barn, the code name her unit used for their offices, and was told that Lance was out until 3:00 p.m. and was not available on his cell phone. She asked that he call or e-mail her when he returned.
With Stone gone for lunch, she had nothing pressing to do, so she changed clothes, strapped on her 9 mm and went for her daily run. Since Lance was not reachable by cell phone, she left her own in the study.
She did her stretching exercises, then turned left out of the Stone driveway and began running at a steady clip, keeping to the left, so that she faced oncoming traffic.
As she warmed up, she increased her pace, taking longer strides and breathing deeply. Holly was not a big fan of running, but it seemed to be the only thing that would keep both her ass tight and her weight down.
She came around a curve into a straight stretch and saw a car coming toward her. She had allowed herself to stray in to the middle of the road, and she moved left to give the car plenty of room to pass.
Oddly, the car seemed to follow her movement. She moved off the pavement to continue running on the firm dirt of the shoulder until the car passed. It appeared that it was going to come uncomfortably close to her, and it was slowing. The sun was reflecting off the windshield, and she could not see the driver.
Holly put her hand on her gun holster for reassurance and continued to run. The car came within a couple of feet of her as it passed, and she was conscious of someone beginning to lean out the window.
Then, as she began to turn to look over her shoulder, she heard the squeal of brakes, and something hard struck her in the head.
STONE RETURNED FROM the yacht club to the house to find Holly gone and reckoned she was out running. After the news he had been given, he hoped she had remembered to go armed. The doorbell rang.
“Afternoon,” Sergeant Young said when Stone opened the door. “Have you heard the news?”
“Yes, but no details. Come on in.”
The two men went into the study and sat down.
“Tell me,” Stone said.
“Two young housewives, Joan Peceimer and Terry Brown, played golf together late yesterday afternoon and left in the same car, telling someone they were having dinner together at Brown’s house. This morning, Brown’s car was found abandoned in a dirt lane, and we started a search. Joan Peceimer’s body was found in the water, in Dark Harbor, much like Janey Harris’s.”
“And the other woman?”
“Still missing.”
“Good God. Two of them?”
“Just between you and me, I don’t think there’s much chance of seeing Terry Brown alive again.”
“Then what we’ve got here is a full-blown serial killer,” Stone said.
“No doubt about it,” the sergeant replied. “And he’s accelerating the pace of killings.”
“They had to know him,” Stone said.
“You think so?”
“Otherwise it would have been very difficult for him to kidnap two women. They must have recognized him when he approached them.”
“Well, that’s not a startling conclusion, given that everybody on this island knows just about everybody else.”
“What steps are you taking?”
“Peceimer’s body is on its way to the M.E. in Augusta. My partner has organized a search party of volunteers, and they’re covering every inch of the island. I’ve got half a dozen more sergeants on the way here. There’s not much more I can do.”
“I had a conversation with Ed Rawls and his buddies yesterday,” Stone said. “They think that Dick’s family and Don Brown were killed by one man, and Janey Harris by another. They have a point.”
“That had occurred to me,” Young said. “If you accept that premise, then it seems to me that the idea of the Stone family’s murder is probably related to Dick’s work.”
“I don’t know, Sergeant. It’s hard for me to accept that we’ve got some European assassin and a serial killer on this small island so close together in the time line.”
“I’ve seen weirder, and I expect you have, too,” Young replied. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think, and my superiors in Augusta are all over me. The papers are going to have a field day, too; there’s already a reporter from Boston here, and we can expect TV crews when word gets out about these two women.”
“The Old Farts’ principal suspect is Caleb Stone,” Stone said. “I’ve just had lunch with him, and we went through his alibi thoroughly.” Stone read Young his notes, then tore out the page and handed it to him. “If you can substantiate all this, then Caleb is in the clear.”
Young read through the notes again. “We already have substantiated it,” he said, “point by point. Caleb’s in the clear, as far as I’m concerned.”
“If the alibi checks out, then I’m with you,” Stone said. “Nothing about Caleb strikes me as guilty. The only thing he wouldn’t talk about was his last meeting with Dick, when Dick was passing through Boston on his way back to Washington. He says it was family business and deeply personal, and he wouldn’t talk about it. He told me to tell you he wouldn’t talk about it to you, either.”
“Do you think what they talked about might be relevant to all these killings?”
“I can’t think of anything they might have said that would precipitate the situation we have now. Certainly not the murders of Janey Harris and Joan Peceimer and possibly Terry Brown.”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Young said. He got up. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Thanks for having a go at Caleb; you’ve saved us some time. Where’s Holly?”
“Out for her run, I expect.”
Young’s eyebrows went up.
“Don’t worry, she’s armed, and she’s very, very capable of taking care of herself.”
“She gives that impression,” Young said.
They shook hands, and the sergeant left.
Chapter 40
STONE SAT DOWN in the study with a book to await Holly’s return. Over the years he had found that if he distracted himself from a problem for a while, his subconscious seemed to work on it in the background, and it would become clearer.
He read on for half an hour, then became drowsy. He rested his head on the back of the chair for a moment, and shortly he was sound asleep.
When he awoke, the shadows were long outside, and he looked at his watch: nearly seven o’clock. Mabel Hotchkiss came into the room.
“Excuse me, Stone, but will you and Holly be dining in tonight?”
“Yes, I think we will,” Stone said, standing up and stretching. “I was asleep for a while. Did Holly come back
from her run?”
“I’ve been in the kitchen, so I haven’t seen her,” Mabel replied.
Stone sat down, picked up the phone and pressed the page button. “Holly? Are you in the house?” He could hear the echo of his voice around the place. “Holly?”
He hung up, then picked up the phone again and called her cell phone. He was shunted immediately to her voice mail.
“It’s Stone,” he said. “I’m worried about you. Please call me the minute you get this message. If I’m not in, try my cell phone.” He hung up.
Holly had been gone way too long, he reckoned. He grabbed his cell phone from the desk, then went and backed the MG out of the garage. At the end of the driveway, he stopped and wondered which way she had gone. A right turn would take her toward the village; he turned left, assuming she would want empty roads.
He drove along the road at a steady twenty miles an hour, checking every driveway as he passed. As he came around a curve he saw Holly down the road, running toward him, apparently just returning home. Where the hell had she been?
He slowed to a stop and pulled over, letting her run on toward him, vaguely angry with her for having worried him. As she ran, she pushed her sweatshirt hood off her head, and she wasn’t Holly. She was a teenaged boy. He flagged the boy down.
“Evening,” he said. “My name is Stone Barrington.”
“Oh, yes,” the boy said, “from the Stone house. I’m Tyler Morrow.” They shook hands. He appeared to be sixteen or seventeen.
“Have you seen another runner along your route?” Stone asked.
“A couple of them,” Tyler replied. “A man and a woman; I didn’t know either of them, which is unusual around here.”
“Were they together?”
“No. I saw them separately.”
“Can you describe the woman?”
“Oh, let’s see: mid-twenties, dark hair, five-three or -four, slim.”
Not Holly. “Are you sure you didn’t see another woman? I’m looking for a friend of mine who runs out this way.”
“Nope. Just the two.”
“Thanks very much, Tyler. If you should encounter a woman in her late thirties or early forties, five-nine, a hundred and thirty pounds, medium brown hair, will you please ask her if her name is Holly, and if it is, ask her to call Stone on his cell phone right away?”
“Sure. Be glad to.” With a wave, Tyler Morrow continued on his way.
Stone put the car in gear and began his search anew. He drove all the way to the southern tip of the island, checking every side road and driveway, seeing no sign of Holly. He turned the car around and got out his cell phone. No signal, low battery.
On his way back he turned down every side road and checked it, and by the time he got back to the house it was dark and lights were on inside. He garaged the car and let himself in. “Holly?” he yelled. “Are you home?”
Mabel came out of the kitchen. “I was just upstairs putting away some linens, and she wasn’t anywhere up there,” she said.
“Thank you, Mabel.”
“What time will you want dinner?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to eat until Holly is back. Can you put dinner in the fridge for us, and we’ll heat it up later?”
“It’s beef stew,” she said. “You can heat it in the microwave.”
Stone went to the phone and called Sergeant Young.
“This is Sergeant Tom Young,” a recorded voice said. “Please leave a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I get in.”
“Sergeant, this is Stone Barrington. Holly Barker has not returned from her run, and I’m very concerned. I’m not sure exactly how long she’s been gone, but it’s several hours, and she’s never stayed out this long when running. I think you should let your search parties know about her. Please call me at your first opportunity.” He hung up, and his eyes came to rest on the coffee table. Holly’s cell phone was there. He picked it up and saw that it was switched off. She had no way to communicate.
He put the phone down and called Ed Rawls.
“Rawls,” the big man drawled.
“Ed, it’s Stone. You’ve heard about the two missing women?”
“They’re not missing any more,” Rawls said. “They found the first body this morning. I’ve just come back from working with one of the search parties. Somebody in a boat who was patrolling the beach found the second body in the water a hundred yards out early this evening.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Stone said.
“Why did you call?”
“Holly is missing. She went out for a run hours ago and never came back. At least, I assume she went running; she didn’t take a car.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Rawls said..
Chapter 41
STONE SAT IN THE darkening study, waiting for Sergeant Young to call him back. Lance. He should call Lance. He dialed his cell phone number and immediately got Lance.
“I’m out of the office,” Lance’s voice said, “and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to return calls for a day or two. You can leave a message, if you like.”
“Lance, it’s Stone. Holly is missing, has been gone for several hours. This is very alarming because two women were murdered on the island yesterday. I’ve notified the state police, who are conducting a search of the whole island anyway. If you get a chance, call me and tell me if you have any ideas.” He hung up.
Stone heated up some of the beef stew Mabel had prepared, but he couldn’t eat much. He wanted a drink or some wine with dinner, but he felt he had to keep a clear head. But for what? Young hadn’t called him back, he couldn’t reach Lance, and Holly might be out there somewhere, dying. He couldn’t imagine how someone could take her, armed and prepared as she was. He called Ed Rawls.
“Ed, Holly still isn’t back, but something occurred to me.”
“Tell me.”
“Sergeant Young believes that whoever took the two women yesterday was known to them. It occurs to me that, since Holly was armed, she may have know her kil… her abductor. She’s not the sort of person to be taken easily.”
“Makes sense to me,” Rawls said. “Who’ve you got in mind?”
“I don’t know; that’s the problem. She hardly knows anybody on the island.”
“Who, exactly, does she know?”
“She knows Seth and Mabel Hotchkiss, but they’re not candidates for this. She knows Sergeant Young, and he’s not a candidate, either. And she knows…” Stone stopped.
“Who, Stone?”
“Hal Rhinehart.”
“Who?”
“The cabinetmaker north of the village.”
“Oh, yeah. I knew his old man. You think he’s a candidate?”
“He has a criminal background,” Stone said. “Dino and I busted him for a string of burglaries years ago, and he did four years or so.”
“Have you told this to Young?”
“No, he hasn’t returned my call. I can’t get hold of Lance, either.”
“Why don’t you and I pay Rhinehart a visit? I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
“Okay, and bring your shotgun.” He hung up.
Stone armed himself, put on a jacket and waited at the end of the driveway for Rawls, who turned up quickly in his Range Rover. He got into the car.
“Tell me about this guy,” Rawls said.
“Master burglar, very sharp mind.”
“How’d he meet Holly?”
“I took her to his workshop; she wanted to meet him for herself. We both eliminated him as a suspect after that visit. The guy has a successful business, which he inherited from his father, and he has a wife and a baby. He seemed stable and happy with his circumstances.”
“Is he strong enough to overpower Holly?”
“Yes, if he could neutralize her before she could get hold of her weapon.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Rawls said.
They had passed through the village and were headed north. “There’s the sign up ahead,” Stone said. “Drive on past, and
we’ll work our way back.”
Rawls drove past the house without slowing and, when he saw a narrow road to the right, cut his lights and turned in, using his gears to slow the big vehicle so as not to use his brakes, thus turning on the brake lights. Through the trees on their right they could see both the workshop and the house. The workshop was dark, but lights burned in the house windows.
