“Yeah, and if I arrest him, I want to get a conviction, not get the case thrown out for an illegal search.”
“He’s scheduled to leave at ten this morning,” Stone said. “You want to stick around and see what he has to say for himself?”
“Sure, I’ll do that.”
“You fellows want some coffee?” Paul DePoo asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“Tell you what,” Paul said, “I won’t pull his airplane out of the hangar; that’ll delay him for half an hour while we move the two others blocking him.”
They all walked back into the air-conditioned building and got coffee.
“Are you guys always this lucky?” Tommy asked. “’Cause I’m not. You stroll into an airport hangar a few hours after a shooting and find a guy who landed with a rifle case and a handgun case in his backseat? That never happens to me.”
“Then you’re not working hard enough, Tommy,” Dino said. “I find that the harder I work, the luckier I get.”
“Just how much work have you done this morning, Dino? You and Stone had a chat over breakfast and decided to amble out here? That kind of work?”
“There’s a certain amount of instinct involved, too,” Dino said, blandly.
Tommy burst out laughing. “It’s a pity vaudeville is dead,” he said. “You’d make a great duo on the stage.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Stone pointed out.
“You didn’t need to; I was supplying all the straight lines.”
DePoo’s desk phone rang. “Yes? Did he mention what hotel he’s in? Okay, thanks.” He hung up. “This Ted Larson, or whoever he is, just called and said he’d be staying a day or two longer.”
“Please ask her to describe the man,” Stone said. DePoo called back to the desk, asked and hung up. “White guy, middle-aged, medium height and weight, wearing a yellow baseball cap.”
“Well,” Tommy said, “I choose not to wait for him to show up or to institute a manhunt for a guy answering that description. Paul, will you call me the minute he shows up?”
“Sure,” DePoo answered. He wrote down Tommy’s cell number.
“Take mine, too,” Stone said, handing him a card. The three men walked outside to the parking lot.
“You two sticking around?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah, for a few days,” Stone said.
“You really think you’re on to something here?”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait until Evan Keating gets shot at again before we’ll know for sure. I hope he doesn’t get dead in the process.”
“I’d put a police guard on him, if he didn’t have the lovely Gigi to watch his back,” Tommy said.
“At least she knows how to shoot back,” Dino said.
“Tommy,” Stone said, “do you know if Evan is being discharged this morning?”
“Looks like he’s going to be there another day,” Tommy replied.
“Apparently, he’s running a fever, and they’ve got him on intravenous antibiotics. Best guess now is tomorrow. My uniformed guy is still on him, though, so he’ll be okay.”
“See you later, then,” Stone said, and they went to their respective cars.
“So you want to go looking for Ted Larson or Frank Harmon or whatever his name is?”
“What’s the point? If I were a hit man, I’d fly in here and give a false name, then register in a hotel under another false name and give anybody I met another false name.”
“I’m glad he doesn’t know who we are,” Dino said.
34
STONE AND DINO went back to the Marquesa, and Stone got into a shower, thinking about the events of that morning. When he came out onto the porch, Dino was at the pool with a vividly colored drink in his hand, chatting with two young women. Stone was about to join him when his cell phone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“It’s Eggers.”
“Good morning. How’s it going up there? And by ‘up there’ I mean Connecticut.”
“Well, let’s see: Eli has filed a lawsuit against Warren Keating, asking that he be barred from any participation in the sale of the company and that the disposition of the proceeds be put in Eli’s hands. That ought to keep Warren busy for a while, I guess. What’s going on down there?”
“Warren has been busier than you think. The day before yesterday he apparently called a Miami P.I. of my acquaintance and inquired about having some slightly illegal work done.”
“What kind of slightly illegal work?”
“My acquaintance hung up on him before he could spit it all out, but the trend of the conversation seemed toward the hiring of somebody to kill his son.”
“C’mon, Warren’s not that stupid.”
“No? He’s not only stupid but fast-acting. Last night Evan Keating was shot while sitting in his boat, anchored off Key West.”
Eggers made an odd noise.
“That was pretty much my reaction, too.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, just shot through a shoulder. He’s in the local hospital under police guard, in case the hit guy tries again. He should be out tomorrow, if his fever goes away.”
“I’m having a pretty hard time getting my mind around this,”
Eggers said. “I can’t believe Warren is that evil.”
“You can’t? The man is under suspicion for having murdered his brother by poisoning, he locked up his healthy father in a nursing home on phony grounds, and he’s tried to cheat both his father and his son out of their rightful share of the proceeds of the business sale. Isn’t that evil enough for you?”
“Okay, I’ll admit it. I misjudged the man. Even when I was prying Eli out of that home, I never thought Warren had poisoned his brother, but now I’ve reconsidered. I think I should go to the police.”
“I understand the Connecticut State Police are already investigating him, and I’m sure they’ll get around to you eventually. Just sit tight.”
“Are you coming back to New York soon?”
“No, not for a few days. Evan has hired me.”
“For what?”
“He says for a negotiation, but I have no idea what that means. I intend to ask him again as soon as he’s out of the hospital.”
“Well, I guess we’re enough legally clear of Warren for that to be all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said.
“Can you find out how the investigation of Warren is going?”
Eggers asked. “You seem to have an in.”
“I’ll ask questions of somebody who can ask questions, that’s all I can do.”
“Keep me posted,” Eggers said, then he hung up. Stone strolled over to where Dino was sitting. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but can you call your guy in Connecticut and fi nd out what’s happening?”
“I guess,” Dino said. “Excuse me a minute, ladies.”
The girls tittered and wandered away.
Dino dialed the number and put his phone on speaker.
“Robbery Homicide.”
“Lieutenant Dan Hotchkiss, please.”
“This is Lieutenant Hotchkiss.”
