Stone waited and watched; he could see her silhouetted against the lights of the house. She looked in a couple of windows, then he was astonished to see the front door open and Holly go inside. He could see her moving about from room to room. Stone waited for the alarm to go off, but nothing happened.
Holly left the house, came down the driveway, then trotted up the road to the Weatherby driveway and disappeared. Stone took deep breaths and tried to remain calm. He glanced at his watch; she had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes.
Suddenly the car door opened, startling him, and Holly got in.
“Okay, we can go now,” she said.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, putting the car in gear and starting down the mountain. “What the hell were you doing inside that house?”
“Well, somebody got here ahead of us and forced the front door-both front doors, in fact.”
“Yeah, I think duBois got here first.”
“I’m glad he didn’t get here simultaneously.”
“Me too.”
“What did you find inside?”
“Two unoccupied houses,” she said. “Three, with Robertson’s. The Pemberton place had men’s and women’s clothes and some canned food, but the Weatherby house, though it’s furnished, seems never to have been occupied at all.”
“Maybe they’re not in the country.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.
“Well, if they were in the country, there’d be signs that they’re living there.”
“Maybe,” she said again.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I don’t know what to think.”
“Go for the simple explanation: neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island.”
“Nor Robertson.”
“Can we go back to the inn and have dinner now?”
“I guess.”
At the bottom of Black Mountain Road, Stone turned toward the inn. “Holly,” he said, “if you say Robertson is not Teddy, and neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island, and if Teddy killed Croft, then neither Pemberton nor Weatherby could be Teddy. Or more likely, Teddy didn’t kill Croft, somebody else did.”
“Depressing, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Not really. If you think about it, the best possible outcome of this little jaunt would be that Teddy isn’t on St. Marks, that he has never been on St. Marks.”
“That’s what depresses me,” she said.
“It shouldn’t. Lance is just dying to be told that Teddy isn’t here. That would get him off the hook with the director, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Oh, I get it: you were hoping to cuff Teddy and deliver him to Lance with a big red bow on him.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, at least if Teddy isn’t here, you won’t have to kill him.”
“What makes you think I would kill him, if he were here? I don’t even have a gun.”
“You’re a trained killer; you don’t need a gun.”
“Well, what makes you think I would slip a stiletto into him, or garrote him? I’m not an assassin.”
“If we find Teddy, that’s what Lance is going to ask you to do-or, more likely, order you to do.”
“I won’t.”
“So you’ll just tell Lance to stick Teddy up his ass?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or resign from the Agency?”
“I don’t know; I’ll think about that when I have to.”
“You’d better think about it now. My advice is, tell Lance that Pemberton and Weatherby are not here, and you think somebody besides Teddy killed Croft.”
“But what if I don’t think that?”
“You’d better start reflecting on the consequences of not thinking that,” Stone said.
Holly didn’t speak for the rest of the way back to the inn.
50
Captain duBois sat at his desk the following morning and disconsolately went through a large stack of files containing all the information the police had on visitors to the island. The primary objects of his investigation had simply melted away as suspects: the Pepper couple were in custody at the time of the shooting; Pemberton and Weatherby appeared to be off the island, though he could find no record of their departure; Irene Foster’s friend’s alibi had been confirmed by Thomas Hardy; he was at the marina every day; plus Barrington’s and Heller’s backgrounds checked out in every detail, and they had been dismissed as suspects by no less an authority than the prime minister. He wished there were an underground political opposition, so he could arrest and torture them. He began casting around for some plausible theory of the assassination, and gradually an idea began to grow.
He picked up the phone, rang the prime minister’s office and requested an immediate appointment, in connection with Croft’s assassination. After a brief wait, he was told to come immediately. He put on a freshly pressed uniform and walked out of the building to his waiting, hated Land Rover, still formulating the presentation of his idea.
The prime minister sat, silent, behind his large mahogany desk and seemed to be reading and signing papers, while duBois stood at attention, his hat tucked under his arm, and waited.
Finally, the PM spoke. “Tell me who murdered Colonel Croft,” he said.
“Prime Minister, after a thorough review of all the existing evidence, and after investigating and/or interrogating all the foreign visitors, I believe I can say that Colonel Croft’s assassin arrived on the island surreptitiously by boat, probably from St. Martin, did his work and left immediately by the same means. And, by this time, he is back whence he came, beyond our reach.”
“And how did you come to that conclusion?” Sutherland asked.
“First, by a process of elimination of suspects and by deduction; second, by my knowledge of certain elements remaining in Haiti.”
“Tell me about your deductive process.”
“First, there is no political opposition of a violent nature on the island, and if there were, they would have no way of obtaining the weapon used-namely, a high-powered sniper’s rifle of great accuracy, fitted with a silencer; second, there is no foreign visitor on the island who possesses the motive, means and opportunity of accomplishing such a deed, and who has any background consistent with the shooting skills required to make that kill with a single bullet.”
“Now, tell me who in Haiti would go to the trouble of eliminating Croft.”
“Numerous people, Prime Minister. When Colonel Croft and I made our escape from Haiti, we only narrowly avoided assassination squads, and for more than a year afterward we had to exercise the greatest caution in our movements, because they were known to still be hunting us. It was only when we arrived at St. Marks, and after Colonel Croft made your acquaintance, that we began to feel safe.”
“Captain,” the prime minister said, “I am impressed with your deduction and your theory of the assassination, and I am pleased to see that you have the mental acuity to come to the same conclusions that I, myself, have.”
“Thank you, sir,” duBois said. “That being the case, I believe we can now reopen the country to free travel, and I think we should do so as a matter of urgency; the police have had many complaints from tourists and those in the
