“Now walk to the front of the car and put your hands on the grille.”
Stone did so, and the man walked over and frisked him from his neck to his ankles in a thoroughly professional manner.
The man backed away. “Now stand up straight, turn around and stand still.”
Stone did so.
“Why are you driving Dick Stone’s car?” the man demanded.
“Can I show you some I.D.?”
“Do it carefully.”
Stone produced a wallet with his badge and I.D.
The man snatched it away from him and read it carefully, keeping his aim with the gun. “Your first name is Stone?”
“Dick was my first cousin.”
“And you’re a retired cop?”
“Yes, and you seem to be, too.”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m Dick’s executor. I’m up here to settle his estate.”
The man lowered the gun but didn’t put it away. “Okay,” he said. “You ought to be more careful whose driveway you drive down.”
“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know it was a driveway; there was no sign or mailbox. I was just exploring.”
The man put the gun in his belt and held out a hand. “I’m Ed Rawls,” he said. He took a remote control from his pocket and pressed a button. The log ahead of Stone swung slowly out of his way. “Explore your way down to the end of the drive, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” he said, then he turned and disappeared into the trees.
The gate behind him was still closed, so Stone got into the car and drove another fifty yards before the drive ended at a sharp turn into a clearing. Stone noticed a large convex mirror mounted on a tree at the turn. Ed Rawls was a very careful man.
He got out of the car and approached a small, handsome, shingled cottage. As he stepped onto the porch, Ed Rawls opened the front door.
“Come on in,” Rawls said. “The coffee is already on.”
Stone stepped into a large room paneled in old pine, with a field-stone fireplace to his right. Two walls were covered in pictures, oils and watercolors of Maine and European scenes and landscapes. Rawls disappeared and came back with a coffee pot and two mugs on a tray.
“Have a seat,” he said. “You take cream or milk?”
“Black is fine.” Stone sat down in a leather chair.
“Good. I don’t have any cream or milk.” He poured them both a mug of coffee, handed one to Stone and sat down himself. “So you’re a retired cop? I wouldn’t have thought there was a cop in Dick’s family.”
“I’m from the black sheep branch,” Stone said. “Since I retired I practice law in New York.”
“You look pretty young to be retired.”
“A bullet in the knee retired me.”
Rawls nodded. “So you’re Dick’s executor? Why, is Caleb dead, too?”
“No.”
Rawls stared at him for a moment, then decided not to pursue that line of questioning. “You gonna be on Islesboro long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as it takes to what?”
“To find out who murdered Dick and his family.”
Rawls looked at him carefully. “And why do you think he was murdered?”
Stone shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of homicides and quite a few suicides, and I know the difference.” Stone sipped his coffee. “And what are you retired from, Mr. Rawls?”
“You call me Ed and I’ll call you Stone, all right?”
“All right.”
“I’m retired from the State Department,” Rawls said. “Dick and I used to work together.”
“Ed,” Stone said, “I know who Dick worked for, and it wasn’t the State Department.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. And why do you have all this security and why are you walking around in this lovely place with a Sig P220 in your hand?”
“Well,” Rawls said, “I reckon the folks who got Dick Stone might be coming for me, too.”
Chapter 10
STONE THOUGHT FOR a minute about what Ed Rawls had just said. “So you think Dick’s death was work related?”
Rawls nodded gravely. “Certainly.”
“Why?”
Rawls held up a finger. “One: This island has a population of fifty or sixty in the winter and maybe six hundred in the summer. All of them, local and summer folk, have known each other for years-generations, some of them-and the atmosphere on Islesboro is not the sort to engender grudges that end in multiple homicides. Two: Dick Stone was not the kind of guy that anybody could hold a grudge against. And three: I’m just guessing, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that there wasn’t a trace of any kind of evidence in the house. Am I right?”
“On all three points,” Stone said.
“And the weapon was silenced, right? This was a pro hit,” Rawls said, sitting back in his chair. “No doubt about it.”
“The weapon was Dick’s own,” Stone said.
“Well,” Rawls said, sitting back again, “if you were a pro staging a murder-suicide, you’d use the victim’s own gun, wouldn’t you? Lends plausibility.”
“That brings us to who sent the pro,” Stone said. “Any ideas, Ed?”
Rawls sipped his coffee contemplatively. “You make enemies in that line of work.”
“Which ones did Dick make?”
“Irish? Russian mafia? Islamics? Take your pick.”
“So you have no idea?”
“Not specifically.”
“Who would want to kill
“Ah,” Rawls chuckled. “The field broadens. With me, you have to consider domestic sources.”
“Domestic? The Agency deals only in foreign matters, doesn’t it?”
“Well, not any more… not since 9/11, anyway. It did in my day, though, at least mostly.”
“You fear your own countrymen, then?”
“More than anybody else.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say that my countrymen were not always happy with the way I did my work.”
“I’ve heard your name before, haven’t I?” He knew he had, but he couldn’t place it.
Rawls shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Why would I have heard it, Ed?”
Rawls shrugged again but said nothing.
“Come on, Ed. I can run a check on you half a dozen ways. Hell, I can probably get most of it by Googling you.”
“I suppose you could,” Rawls said. “I was running the Scandinavian station out of Stockholm some years back, looking forward to retirement. I got involved with a lovely Swedish creature who turned out to be a lovely Russian creature. This was before the fuckers all became democrats. They blackmailed me, and I gave them some fairly
