She turned. “Yes, Thad?”
“Book us a table someplace gaudy tonight. We’ll celebrate my return.”
Callie nodded and went toward her cabin.
“Where have you come from?” Stone asked.
“California. I’ve been sort of barnstorming LA and San Francisco and Silicon Valley, talking up the new company.”
“I hope it went well.”
“It did. How are things going here?”
“It’s gotten complicated,” Stone said. “Let me bring you up to date.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Stone told him, in detail, everything that had happened in his absence. When he was through, he stopped talking and waited.
“And you still don’t know if this guy is really Manning?”
“No,” Stone said. “Not even Liz can be sure.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Shames said.
“So do I, but that’s the way it is. She saw him only briefly in Easthampton, and something about the way he moved made her think the man she saw was Paul Manning. But she can’t be sure that Paul Bartlett is Manning.”
“And this guy Bartlett is a friend of Frank and Margaret?”
“Yes, from Minneapolis.”
“And you think he killed his wife for her money?”
“It seems a strong possibility.”
Shames grinned. “Well, this has certainly turned out to be interesting, hasn’t it?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Stone said. “I’m sorry I don’t have any definite answers for you.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with them,” Shames said. “Well, Dino, welcome to Palm Beach. Callie told me you were coming, and I’m glad you could join us. Have you been made comfortable?”
“Yes, thanks,” Dino said. “She’s a beautiful yacht.”
“Thank you, I think so.” Thad stood up. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to my room in the main house and have a nap. I’ve been traveling for days, and I’m a little tired. I’ll bounce back for dinner, though.” He gave a little wave and left the yacht.
“He’s a pretty easygoing guy, isn’t he?” Dino said.
“He certainly is.”
“I mean, if I’d come aboard my yacht and found a stranger with a gun, I’d have freaked out, but he didn’t.”
“I thought he behaved very well, in the circumstances,” Stone said. “Looks like our goat-and-lion plan didn’t work. If anything, we’re worse off than we were this morning.”
“Well, there’s still dinner,” Dino said. “If we’re going someplace gaudy,
“In Palm Beach, you’re right.”
33
Callie’s choice of a gaudy restaurant turned out to be the high-ceilinged, chandeliered, tapestried, velvet-seated La Reserve. Thad seemed particularly pleased with the choice, and he swept the group to a round table at the center of the single large room, slipping the maitre d‘ a bill on the way, then ordering a Krug champagne for everybody.
“You have beluga, of course,” Thad said to the captain.
“Of course, Mr. Shames,” the man replied. “Fifty grams each?”
“Let’s start with half a kilo for the table,” Shames said. Glasses were filled, and Thad raised his. “To this group,” he said. “I’m happy to be back with you all.” He turned to Liz at his side. “Particularly you.”
Everyone drank. A moment later, a crystal bowl of caviar arrived, and the waiter went around the table spooning large amounts onto each plate.
Dino tried his.
“Well?” Thad asked.
“Well, wonderful,” Dino replied. “We don’t see a lot of beluga at the precinct.”
“I remember once when we tried,” Stone said. “Somebody on the squad busted up a smuggling outfit, and, among other things, there was a lot of caviar. Most of it disappeared immediately, but I remember a few small tins found their way to your desk and mine.”
“You’re right, Stone,” Dino said. “Funny, I remember busts involving drugs and money, but you remember caviar.”
Menus appeared and everyone pored over them. Eventually, decisions were made, and the captain took their orders. Thad lingered over the wine list. “Who’s drinking red?” he asked. Everyone’s hand went up. “Ah, good. We’ll start with a magnum of the Opus One,” he said to the sommelier. “The ‘eighty-nine.”
The sommelier scurried away and returned with the big bottle. Thad tasted it. “Marvelous! Go ahead and pour us a glass so it can breathe.”
“I like your friends,” Dino said to Stone, getting a laugh.
“Ah, Dino,” Thad said, “you have to spend more time in Palm Beach. The yacht is yours whenever you want it.”
“Nobody ever said that to me before,” Dino said, drawing another laugh.
Stone thought the evening was going particularly well. Then he looked up and saw Frank and Margaret Wilkes come into the restaurant, followed closely by a woman Stone did not know, and then, by Paul Bartlett. No one else at the table had seen them, but Stone caught Dino’s eye and nodded in their direction.
Dino watched the tall man hold a chair for his companion, then sit down. “I would never have made him as Manning,” Dino whispered. “He must have done something to his face.”
Stone slipped the little cell phone off his belt, cupped it in his hand to hide it as well as possible, and dialed Dan Griggs’s direct office number, which also rang at his home.
“Yes?” Griggs said.
“Dan, it’s Stone. I’m at La Reserve, and Bartlett is here with Frank Wilkes and his wife and another woman.”
“Have you talked to Lundquist?” Griggs asked.
“No.”
“The Minneapolis department arrested a known car thief and insurance scam artist who, for immunity, told them Bartlett had hired him to fix his wife’s seat belt. Apparently, they met in prison, during Bartlett’s earlier existence, and he’ll testify against Bartlett. Have they just sat down to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll get ahold of Lundquist and put some people together, and we’ll take him when they leave. I don’t want to cause a scene in the restaurant. Let me give you my portable number.”
Stone wrote it down.
“Call that number when they get their check. That way I won’t have to send people in to watch him. He’s pretty edgy; he might catch on to that.”
“I’ll do it,” Stone said. “I imagine you have a good hour and a half.”
“See you later.”
Stone put the phone away and saw Thad looking at him inquiringly. “It’s nothing,” he said.
Their dinner arrived, and everyone ate heartily, still in high spirits from the champagne. They had just finished their dessert, and their dishes were being taken away, when Stone looked up to see Lieutenant Ebbe Lundquist enter the restaurant, flash his badge at the maitre d‘ and take up a position at the bar. Stone looked at Bartlett. He had seen the badge and was now staring at Lundquist, who in his plaid polyester suit looked out of place in the
