“I’m sorry about this,” Stone said.

“It’s not your fault, Stone.”

They didn’t speak again until morning.

Chapter 31

BY MID-MORNING THEY were off the Islesboro landing field and headed southwest. An hour and a half later they touched down at Teterboro, New Jersey, and taxied up to Atlantic Aviation, next to a chartered jet waiting for Arrington and Peter.

“I wish you’d stay longer,” Stone said to Arrington as her luggage was being transferred.

“Peter wants to get back to his pony,” she said, “and I’m redesigning the gardens at the main house, so there’s lots of work for me to do.” She kissed him. “Take care of yourself.”

Stone knelt and gave Peter a hug and watched them board the jet, then walked with Dino through the terminal building to the parking lot, where Joan, his secretary, was waiting with his car. Half an hour later, they were back at Stone’s house.

He went to his office and wrote a check to the Samuel Bernard Foundation and gave it to Joan, along with the file on Dick’s estate and a letter to his old mentor. “Please have this hand-delivered to Sam Bernard,” he said. “I want it to pass through his hands on the way to the foundation. Then book a table at Elaine’s and call Lance Cabot and tell him I’d like to have dinner with him and Holly Barker.”

ELAINE’S AND ELAINE were as ever. Stone and Dino shook some hands, then sat down at their usual table, waiting for Lance and Holly.

Elaine came over and sat down. “So, you couldn’t stand it up there any longer, huh?”

“It was very nice up there, but I had to fly Arrington back.”

“So, you couldn’t stand it up there with Arrington, huh?”

“You’re not gonna win this one,” Dino said.

“I give up,” Stone said, raising his hands in surrender. “I just couldn’t stand it up there any longer.”

“That’s what I thought,” Elaine said, then moved on to another table.

Lance and Holly arrived, they ordered drinks, then Stone got down to business. “It looks as though our theory of a work-related death for Dick and his family may have been wrong.”

“I’m not convinced of that,” Lance said.

“There’s more news. After Don Brown’s death, his niece, a seventeen-year-old named Janey Harris, was kidnapped, raped and murdered on the island. Ed Rawls thinks the two deaths are connected, that Janey told Don something that got both of them killed. Ed thinks it’s local, and I have to agree with him.”

“And how about the Stone family’s deaths. Does he think those are connected, too?”

“Dick’s daughter was eighteen, and the two girls had to have known each other. Maybe whatever Janey told Don she had told Esme Stone, too.”

“And the killer wiped out the whole family to protect himself?”

“It makes more sense than the Russian mob theory,” Stone said.

Lance seemed unconvinced. “For somebody who used to be a cop, it’s odd that you would form a theory on so little evidence,” he said. “This is an air theory, like air guitar is making music.”

Dino spoke up. “I’ve seen solutions of a lot of murder cases that were based on less, in the beginning. An investigator needs a theory, if only to have it proved wrong. You have to work with the evidence you’ve got, even if it’s thin.”

“Lance,” Stone said, “have you heard anything from your friend at Langley about who Don Brown wanted the background check on?”

“Not yet,” Lance said. “It could be days or weeks before I hear from him.”

The waiter brought menus, and they ordered.

When they were halfway through dinner, Lance spoke up again. “My people are not going to buy your local theory.”

“It’s Ed Rawls’s theory,” Stone said.

“That won’t matter to them. They’re not going to be distracted by the deaths of Don Brown and his niece. They won’t be inclined to believe that a high-ranking officer like Dick was killed by some information shared between two teenaged girls.”

“Lance, the facts surrounding what happened to Dick and his family are not going to be shaped by what Langley believes. They are what they are, and you need to explain that to them.”

“You obviously haven’t had much experience with large bureaucratic organizations,” Lance replied.

Stone laughed. “I worked for the NYPD for fourteen years.”

Lance laughed. “Touche.”

“Too many murder investigations are shaped by what the hierarchy wants to believe,” Dino said, “especially in high-profile cases. When you’re working a case, you have to ignore that, or you’ll come up with the wrong result.”

Holly spoke for the first time. “Who has motive?” she asked.

“Nobody,” Stone replied.

“How about Dick’s brother?”

“Caleb didn’t have a motive.”

“Our background check showed he was perpetually short of cash. That’ll do it in most murders.”

“Yes, but Caleb didn’t inherit from Dick, who changed his will.”

“Did the brother know Dick had changed his will? I mean, you only got the new will a couple of days before Dick’s murder.”

“You have a point,” Stone said. “It came as a surprise to Caleb when I told him. I’ll grant you he had motive, and he had a key to the house, so I’ll give you means, too, but he didn’t have opportunity. The state police put him in Boston at the time of the murders; he and his family didn’t arrive on Islesboro until the day after.”

“And how good are the state police? They didn’t do such a hot job on the first investigation of Dick’s murder, did they?”

“Again, you have a point,” Stone said.

Holly turned to Lance. “You know, we have an ex-Boston cop, Bob O’Neal, in our group. Why don’t I ask him to use his contacts at the Boston PD to reinvestigate the brother’s alibi? Maybe Caleb is smarter than we’re giving him credit for.”

“Good idea,” Stone said.

“All right,” Lance said, “but tell Bob not to make a career of it.”

“Are you going back up to Maine, Stone?” Holly asked.

“Not until I get more to go on,” Stone replied. “I’ve got to make a living, after all.”

“If you go back, maybe Lance will give me some time to go with you. I’d really like to get my teeth into this one.”

“Maybe,” Lance said. “You want to use vacation time?”

“Remember, the Agency has a stake in this.”

“Oh, all right. Get your desk cleared."

“I’m happy to have all the help I can get,” Stone said, thinking he’d be happy to have Holly up there, in any case.

Chapter 32

STONE WAS AWAKENED by the telephone too early. He glanced at the bedside clock: 6:30 a.m. He picked up the phone. “Hello?” he croaked.

“It’s Ed Rawls.”

“And good morning to you, Ed.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. You better get back up here, Stone.”

“What’s going on?”

“All hell has broken loose, that’s what.”

Stone pressed the button that raised the head of his bed and rearranged himself. “What do you mean?”

“The people on the island, both locals and summer folks, are up in arms. They had a meeting at the yacht club yesterday.”

“And what happened at the meeting?”

“Mostly they just aired their complaints.”

“About what?”

“Lack of police protection, mostly. They’ve sent the state police a request to have officers stationed on the island round the clock until this situation is resolved.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“What’s not a good idea is they’re arming themselves. Sergeant Young told me they’ve had something like a couple of dozen applications for carry licenses, the most ever in one day from one town, and this is a village. Several carloads of people went over to Ellsworth yesterday afternoon.”

“Is there something ominous about Ellsworth?”

“No, it’s just that the only gun shop in this part of the state is in Ellsworth, a place called Phil’s. There are more guns than people in Maine, but for some reason, not very many gun shops.”