hers and his collection would be 100 percent up-to-date. Just the way he liked it.
CHAPTER 46
IT TOOK STONE SOME EFFORT, but he managed to lose the men tailing him. He immediately went to an abandoned home near the graveyard that he used as a safe house. He changed clothes and headed to Good Fellow Street. He passed DeHaven’s house and then Behan’s. There were reporters camped outside Behan’s manse obviously waiting for an appearance by the unfortunate and humiliated widow. The damaged home across the street appeared to be empty.
As he watched the Behan house from the corner while pretending to consult a map, a large furniture van pulled up in front of the home and two burly men got out. A maid opened the front door as the reporters tensed. The men went inside and a few minutes later came out carrying a large wooden chest. Even though the men were obviously very strong, they struggled with the weight. Stone could sense the thoughts of the reporters: Mrs. Behan was hidden in the chest to escape the media. What a scoop that would be!
The cell phones came out, and a number of the journalists leaped into their cars and followed the van as it pulled down the road. Two cars covering the rear of the house zoomed in from the block behind the Behans’. However, a few reporters remained behind, obviously sensing a trick. They pretended to move off down the street but took up positions just out of sight of the Behans’. A minute later the front door opened again and a woman in a maid’s uniform appeared, wearing a big floppy hat. She climbed into a car parked in the front courtyard of the house and drove out.
Again Stone could sense the reporters’ collective thoughts. The furniture van was a decoy, and the missus was disguised as the maid. The remaining journalists ran for their vehicles and followed the maid’s car. Two more journalists came from the next street over, no doubt alerted to this development by their colleagues.
Stone promptly walked around the corner and down to the next block that abutted the rear of the Behans’ property. There was an alleyway here, and he waited behind a nearby hedge. His wait was a short one. Marilyn Behan appeared a few minutes later, wearing slacks, a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. When she got to the end of the alley, she cautiously peered around.
Stone stepped out from the cover of the hedge. “Mrs. Behan?”
She jumped and looked around at him.
“Who are you? A damn reporter?” she snapped.
“No, I’m a friend of Caleb Shaw’s. He works at the Library of Congress. We met at Jonathan DeHaven’s funeral.”
She seemed to be searching her memory. From her demeanor she seemed a little stoned, he thought. There was no smell of liquor on her breath, though. So was it drugs?
“Oh, yes, I remember now. I made my little quip about CB understanding instant death.” She suddenly coughed and reached in her handbag for a tissue.
“I wanted to offer my condolences,” Stone said, hoping that the woman wouldn’t remember that Reuben, her husband’s alleged killer, had also been in their group.
“Thank you.” She glanced back down the alley. “I guess this seems a little odd and all.”
“I saw the reporters, Mrs. Behan. It must be a nightmarish situation for you. But you did fool them. That’s not easy to do.”
“When you’re married to a very wealthy man who stirs up controversy, you learn how to duck the media.”
“Could I talk to you for a few minutes? Maybe over a cup of coffee.”
She seemed flustered. “I don’t know. This is a very difficult time for me.” Her face screwed up. “I just lost my husband, damn it!”
Stone remained unperturbed. “This concerns your husband’s death. I wanted to ask you about something he said at the funeral.”
She froze and then asked suspiciously, “What do you know about his death?”
“Not nearly as much as I’d like to. But I think it might have some connection to Jonathan DeHaven’s death. It seems very mysterious, after all, that two next-door neighbors should die under such . . . unusual circumstances.”
She suddenly looked very calculating. “You don’t think DeHaven died of a heart attack
They had coffee at a nearby deli. Sitting at a back table, Stone said bluntly, “Your husband mentioned something to you about DeHaven’s death, didn’t he?”
She sipped her coffee, pulled her hat down lower and said quietly, “CB didn’t believe he’d had a heart attack, I can tell you that.”
“Why not? What did he know?”
“I’m not sure. He never really said anything directly to me about it.”
“Then how do you know he had doubts?”
Marilyn Behan hesitated. “I’m not sure why I should tell you anything.”
“Let me be honest with you in the hopes that you’ll return the favor.” He told her about Reuben and why he was in the house, though he tactfully didn’t mention the telescope. “He didn’t kill your husband, Mrs. Behan. He was only there because I told him to watch the house. There are a lot of strange things going on, on Good Fellow Street.”
“Like what?”
“Like the person in the house across the street.”
She said nervously, “I didn’t know anything about that. And CB never mentioned it. I know that he felt that
