by Stuart Woods
“No,” Stone said, “don’t get him started. You keep this up, Dino, and I’m going to start telling them the truth about you.”
Dino held up a hand. “Peace,” he said. “Anything else you girls want to know about Stone, you’re going to have to ask him.”
“Well, Stone,” Callie said. “Will you sit still for some personal questions?”
“As long as you don’t expect an honest answer,” Stone replied.
Juanito suddenly appeared, the cordless phone in his hands. “Miss Callie,” he said, then mouthed, “It’s for him,” pointing at Stone.
Callie took the phone. “May I help you? And who is this? I’m sorry, Mr. Barrington left this morning. I believe he was headed for California somewhere, before returning to New York. No, I’m sorry, I don’t have his schedule. Why don’t you call his New York office? Goodbye.” She punched the off button.
“Was it a woman?” Stone asked.
“No, a man. He wouldn’t give his name. He sounded a little like Paul Bartlett, but I can’t be sure about that.”
“That was a nice touch, about California,” Stone said. “I’ll have to remember what a good liar you are.”
“I was lying for a good cause,” Callie replied. “Dino needs help in keeping you alive.”
“Like Regis says, ‘I’m only one man,’” Dino said.
The phone rang again while still in Callie’s hand. “Here we go again,” she said. “Hello? Oh, yes, Chief, I’ll put him on.” She handed the phone to Stone.
“Hello, Dan.”
“Hi, Stone. Our friend from the frozen tundra, Lieutenant Lundquist, has arrived. Could we have a word with you tonight?”
“Sure,” Stone said. “Give me half an hour, then come over to the Shames house. We’re on the yacht moored out back.”
“See you then.”
Stone hung up. “Well, ladies, you’re going to have a couple more cops on your hands shortly.”
“I’d better finish dessert,” Callie said, rising and heading toward the galley.
“What cops?” Dino asked.
Stone explained about Griggs and Lundquist, and about Paul Bartlett’s sojourn in Minneapolis.
“God, I love catching murderers,” Dino said, “don’t you?”
“Not as much as you, Dino, but I’ll admit, it’s satisfying. What I don’t like about murderers is that time after you’ve figured out what they did but before you arrest them. They tend to be touchy during that period.”
“So you think Bartlett is dangerous?”
“I certainly do. Griggs has assigned somebody to keep an eye on him, but Lundquist has asked us not to crowd him just yet.”
“I hate not crowding them,” Dino said.
Callie returned to the table, followed by Juanito carrying a tray of flaming desserts.
“Something old-fashioned,” she said. “Baked Alaska. I thought, given the weather, we could use the extra warmth.”
“Mmmmmmm,” Dino said, plunging into his. “We may keep you on here.”
“Why, thank you, sir.”
Liz was toying with her dessert. “Stone,” she said, “am I ever going to be able to leave this boat again?”
“Sure you are, but right now is not a good time. Paul doesn’t know you’re here, at least not for sure.”
“We could stake her out, like a goat for a lion,” Dino said.
“Thank you, Dino,” Liz said. “That was so beautifully put.”
“Don’t mention it,” Dino said, grinning.
29
CHIEF DAN GRIGGS AND LIEUTENANT EBBE LUNDQUIST arrived, sharing a golf umbrella. They were both dripping wet.
“Sorry to get you out this late, Chief,” Stone said. “Couldn’t this have waited for better weather?”
“Lundquist, here, insisted,” Griggs replied.
Lundquist looked around at the yacht. “You live pretty well, Mr. Barrington.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but, unfortunately, the yacht is not mine. And please call me Stone.” Stone introduced everybody, and Callie got the visitors a hot toddy, while everyone else had brandy.
“It’s like this,” Lundquist said. “We dug Bartlett’s car out of a junkyard, where it was waiting to go into the compactor. Couple more days, it would have been gone. We have you to thank for that, Stone.”
Stone shrugged. “I just happened to get lucky.”
“The car was a 1991 Mercedes station wagon, and that year, a passenger-side air bag was an option, and Mrs. Bartlett, who owned the car, had not ordered the option. Everything about the car was normal, for one that had just collided with a tree, except that the seat belt latch had been tampered with.”
“Tampered with how?” Dino asked.
“There’s a steel eye that sticks up on a stalk, then there’s the receptor end that latches onto that. We opened up the receptor, and the spring inside had been deformed, compared with the driver’s side, so that it would not hook securely when fastened. Mrs. Bartlett would have heard a click when she put it on, but it would have come undone under pressure.”
“And colliding with a tree would certainly be enough pressure,” Stone said.
“This guy is very clever,” Lundquist said. “That was the sort of technical thing that would have gone completely unnoticed if you hadn’t given us a heads up to look for something.”
“This same guy once rigged an airplane engine to fail, killing all three aboard,” Stone said. “He’s not stupid, and he has some skills.”
“What?” Lundquist demanded. “He’s murdered three other people?”
“If he’s who I think he is,” Stone said. He explained Paul Manning’s background, not mentioning that he had been Liz’s husband.
“So we couldn’t charge him with those three killings, then?” Lundquist asked.
“No, he was tried and convicted. Then the authorities were bought off.”
“He might even have a pardon,” Liz said.
Stone looked at her. “Was his wife pardoned?”
“In a manner of speaking. She was given a piece of paper.”
“So, Lieutenant, do you have enough evidence to arrest him?”
“I can arrest him for obtaining a Minnesota driver’s license under a false name, and I can probably get him extradited, but I’m not sure we have enough evidence to convict him of murder. Still, I’d like to get him back to Minneapolis and question him thoroughly. Maybe he’ll even cop to it.”
“Not a chance,” Stone said. “He’d lawyer up in a heartbeat. I’d be willing to bet he’s got the number in his pocket right now, just in case. And it sounds like you’d have a hell of a time proving that he tampered with the seat belt. His attorney would paint it as damaged in the accident or defectively manufactured, and Bartlett as a grieving husband.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lundquist said, “but I’m waiting for a call from my office, and when they come up with just a little more evidence, I’m going to bust him. At the very least I can expose his false identity and let the world know who he is.”
“He’s not going to tell you who he is,” Stone said, “and that’s the only way you’re going to find out. The feds certainly aren’t going to admit that he was in their program.”
“If he’s Paul, I can identify him in court,” Liz said.
“I thought you were refusing to face him,” Stone replied.
“I won’t while he’s free, but I’d be happy to testify as to his identity, if it would help put him away.”
“I don’t know that it would,” Stone said. “Given the evidence we’ve got, I’d much rather defend him than prosecute.”
“This is very convoluted,” Dino said. “Not only do we not know if he was in the witness protection program, we don’t even know what name he was using before he went in.”
“I don’t understand,” Liz said.
“Okay, he gets out of being hanged in St. Marks, and he returns to this country. He’s not going back to using Paul Manning for a name, he’s going
to pick another one. Then he gets involved in whatever ends up getting him into the program, and he gives the feds that name, not Manning. They change it to another name, then he skips out of the program and changes it again. And there may be a couple of other name changes that we don’t even know about.”
“Holy cow,” Lundquist said. “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I came down here.”
“You probably wanted a little nice weather, like me,” Dino said. He waved an arm. “And look what we got.”
Lundquist gazed through the transparent curtains as lightning lit up Lake Worth. “I might as well have stayed in Minneapolis.”
“Well,” Chief Griggs said, “if it’s any consolation, I think we’ve got enough to run him out of Palm Beach.”
“You sound like an Old West sheriff,” Callie said.
“It’s a little different,” Griggs replied. “In the Old West, I’d have threatened to shoot him if he showed his face in town again. Nowadays, I’d just make sure the local and Florida papers heard the whole story, and once everybody had heard about it and gossiped about it, he wouldn’t be able to show his face in town again. We had a guy down here a few years back that had kidnapped his young kids when a divorce didn’t go his way. Established himself here under another name and stayed for years until his wife caught up with him. Now he’s persona non grata among the people he knew best. That, I can do to Bartlett, or whatever his name is.”
“It isn’t enough,” Liz said. “He could still try to kill me.”
Lundquist turned and stared at her. “Just when I thought I had a grip on this story . . .”
“Mrs. Harding was once married to Paul Manning,” Stone said. “We didn’t mention that before.”
“Oh,” Lundquist said, tonelessly. He was massaging his temples, like someone trying to hold on to his sanity.
“Maybe your lab will come up with something else in the car,” Stone said.
“Maybe, but I’m not going to count on it,” Lundquist replied. “We do have the fact that he got his wife to cancel the prenuptial agreement and make a new will. That’s motive.”
“Oh, you have both motive and opportunity,” Stone said, “but a good lawyer would make a conviction very difficult to obtain. It’s like this: I’m his lawyer, and I stand up in front of the jury. Ladies and gentlemen, my client had no criminal intent when he changed his name. Bad people were after him, and he had to protect himself. Why, it was the government itself that changed his name first. There’s no evidence that he put pressure on his wife to change her will. No, she did that out of love and affection for my client, who is a very lovable and affectionate fellow, crushed by the loss of his bride. My client doesn’t have the technical expertise to tamper with a finely made piece of German engineering, and after all, he was in the same car; he could have been just as easily killed. And on and on like that.”
“This is very depressing,” Lundquist said.
Dino spoke up. “It might help in court if you proved he was Paul Manning, who had already murdered three other people in St. Marks, even if he got away with it.”
“I could get his past ruled out as evidence,” Stone said, “on the grounds that it was irrelevant and prejudicial, and if I couldn’t, I’d say he was railroaded by a corrupt foreign government. No, Mr. Bartlett has crafted himself a very nice little box to live in. And, Dan, if you got him run out of Palm Beach, he’d just go to Palm Springs, or some other place with an inviting climate, and establish himself all over again under another identity. And now he’s got the money to make himself credible in a place like that.”
Everybody was quiet for a while.
Finally, Dino spoke up again. “Unless we staked out Liz like a goat for a lion, then waited to see what happened.”
30
THE FOUR OF THEM GOT OUT OF THE TWO CARS AT THE Breakers Golf Club and gave three bags of clubs to the attendant. The clubhouse was modest, in comparison to the grandeur of the hotel, Stone thought. The weather, as predicted, had cleared beautifully, and it was much cooler after the front had passed through.
“But I don’t play golf,” Liz complained. “What am I doing here?”
“Playing chauffeur,” Stone said. “You can drive a cart. Also, you’re playing the goat.”
“I don’t think I like the goat idea,” she said. “Not when Paul is the lion.”
“Dino’s right,” Stone said, “as much as I hate to admit it. This is the only way to smoke him out. We’re not having much luck any other way. If we see him, you can identify him; if not, then at least we’ll be seen, and word may get back to him that you’re still around.”
“All right,” Liz said.
“This is a pretty chilly paradise you got here,” Dino said, zipping up his jacket to the neck.
“In more ways than one,” Callie said, as another group of golfers inspected them as they passed, staring hard.
They signed in at the clubhouse, then got into carts and drove to the first tee, where the starter cleared them to tee off.
The course was mostly flat and uninteresting. “It’s not the most attractive golf course I’ve ever seen,” Stone said.
“Don’t worry—they’re about to rip the whole thing up and completely rebuild it to new design,” Callie said.
“Ladies first,” Dino said, motioning Callie to drive.
Callie took a few practice swings, displaying good form, teed up a ball and struck it solidly. It flew down the middle of the fairway.
“About two hundred and twenty yards,” Stone said. He teed up and sliced his drive into the next fairway.
“Take a mulligan,” Callie said.
Stone took the mulligan and got it in the fairway, a good twenty yards short of Callie’s ball.
Dino teed up and hooked the ball into the rough. “Mulligan,” he said, teeing up another ball. He swung at that, and it landed no more than a yard from his first ball.
“Your grip is too strong,” Callie said, showing him how to turn his right hand to the left. “That should cure your hook.”
“Don’t count on it,” Stone said.
They trundled off down the fairway in their carts, playing at a good pace, now and then crossing South County Road.
“This is the most urban golf I’ve ever played,” Stone said. “Usually, on a golf course, you don’t have to worry about being hit by a car.”
“The Breakers has another course west of here,” Callie said. “Maybe we’ll play that one next time.”
They played on, occasionally running into a foursome in which Callie knew someone. Two people knew Liz and chatted with her.
“Word’s getting out,” Callie said. “You shouldn’t even try to keep a secret in this town, but we’re advertising. Liz, you’re the subject of much conversation since being seen with Thad at his party.”
“Grand,” Liz said.
They finished their round, went back to the clubhouse, had a beer, stowed their clubs in the two cars and prepared to depart the Breakers. Stone opened his cell phone and tapped in a number. “Okay, Dan, we’ve made our appearance at the Breakers, and we’re ready to move on to part two of our plan.”
“My guys are parked just down the road,” Griggs said.
“Tell them not to crowd the girls. We don’t want Bartlett picking up on cops.”
“Bartlett left the Colony half an hour ago, and he’s having lunch on Worth Avenue.”
“They’ll go shopping, then,” Stone said. “Dino and I will wait back at the yacht.”
“Right,” Griggs said.
Stone ended the call. “Okay, ladies, you are sentenced to Worth Avenue shopping for at least two hours. Liz, if you recognize Paul, don’t let on, just tell Callie so she can confirm who he is. You’ve got my cell phone number if you need to reach me.”
“I’d feel better if you and Dino came along,” Liz said.
“He knows us both, so we can’t do that. We’d just scare him off.”
“Oh, all right,” Liz said, disconsolately.
She got into the car with Callie, and they drove off.
“There goes our goat,” Dino said. “But even if she makes him, Griggs isn’t going to have any grounds for an arrest.”
“Lundquist does, though. He can always bust him for the driver’s license, and that will at least get him out of our hair.”
“For the time being,” Dino said. “This guy ain’t going to go away easy.”
“You have a point,” Stone agreed.
They drove back to the yacht and waited. Dino got into a swimsuit and took up a strategic position on a chaise on the afterdeck, a rum and tonic at his elbow.
“You got anything to read?” he asked Stone.
Stone went into the saloon and came back with the novel Tumult that he had read a few days before. “Try this,” he said, handing it to Dino. “It’s very good.”
Dino was soon rapt, and Stone dozed on a nearby chaise, protecting his fair skin from the sun under an awning.
Stone woke up with Callie shaking him. “Huh?” he said, sleepily.
“We’re back,” Callie said.
Stone sat up. “Anything happen?”
“We saw him.”
“You did?”
“Coming out of Verdura, the jewelry store.”
Liz came up the gangplank.
“Liz, you saw him?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know if it’s Paul.”
“But you said you recognized him in Easthampton by the way he walked and his body language.”
“It was different this time,” she said. “Anyway, I only saw him for a minute.”
“Liz,” Callie said, “you had a very good look at him. I was there; I saw him, too.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Liz said crossly, “but I just can’t swear that he’s Paul. He may be and he may not be.”
Stone’s cell phone vibrated, and he opened it. “Hello?”
“It’s Dan Griggs. The two ladies got a real good look at the guy. What does Mrs. Harding say?”
“Inconclusive,” Stone said, walking away from the group.
