“Which of you is driving?” Stone asked.
“Ebert.”
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Stone said, “if you listen to me, you can still walk.”
“What are you talking about?” Eben asked.
“There’s a way out of this, if you’ll just listen.”
“Start talking.”
“I’m not your lawyer; I want to emphasize that. But, you can still walk on an insanity plea.”
“We’re not insane.”
“When they question you, tell them you hear voices, and the voices told you to do what you did.”
“Nobody’s going to buy that.”
“They will, if you agree on a story and stick to it. There’ll be a psychiatric examination, but if you stick to your story, you’ll get through it. You’ll do a couple of years in a mental hospital, and then you’ll walk.” He could see the two boys talking, arguing. Still the Cessna’s prop spun.
“Open the rear door, Dino,” Stone said. “Do it slowly, and if they run, go after them, but remember, they’re probably armed.”
“Right,” Dino said.
Stone could hear the Cessna engine get louder as Dino opened the door.
“Will you represent us, Stone?” Enos asked.
“I can’t do that; any judge would remove me for a conflict of interest. I’m Dick’s heir. But I’ll get you the best defense lawyer in the country.”
“If you don’t get out and move your airplane, we’re going to start shooting,” Eben said.
Stone could see Enos talking, gesturing, while Eben looked stonily ahead.
“Come on, boys,” Stone said. “This will work, believe me.”
They argued some more, and then the Cessna’s prop wound down and was still. The twins sat, slumped in their seats, looking defeated.
Stone turned and looked over his shoulder. “Before you get out of the airplane, you all heard me tell them I’m not their lawyer, right?”
“Right,” everybody said.
Holly spoke up. “We all heard you tell them to act like they’re crazy, too.”
“Right,” Stone said. “And don’t forget that when you testify. Now, let’s go get them. Me first.”
“No,” said Sergeant Young. “Me, first.”
Chapter 61
THE FOLLOWING DAY they sat around the living room at the house, their luggage piled at the door, waiting for Sergeant Young to call from Augusta. It was three in the afternoon.
“Lance,” Stone said. “It’s a good thing they’re sending an airplane for you, because we’d never get off the ground with all this stuff.” He had refueled at Rockland before returning to the island.
Seth came into the room. “You folks ready to go?”
“Not until we hear from Sergeant Young,” Stone said.
As if on cue, the phone rang. Stone pressed the speaker button. “Hello?”
“It’s Tom Young.”
“Yes, Tom. We’re all here. What’s going on?”
“First of all, Caleb Stone’s wife is dead.”
“What? How?”
“Sleeping pills. We’re not sure if it was intentional. When my people arrived at her house, they found her. She had apparently been drinking all night, and in her condition, if she had taken even a couple of pills, that might have done it.”
“What about the boys? Have they said anything?”
“They did their ”we hear voices’ routine, then, gradually, they told us everything,“ Young said. ”They murdered seven women in New Haven before any of the Islesboro killings.“
“Good God! Did they confess to all the Islesboro crimes?”
“Yes. It helped that I told them we had Esme’s diary. Have you heard anything about that from Lance’s people?”
“Lance had a call from Langley. They’ve recovered a lot of writing that we thought was unrecoverable. It would nail them for the Islesboro murders, even without the confessions.”
“Good. Funny, they didn’t even ask for a lawyer; they asked for a psychiatrist.”
“I don’t think the Supreme Court would require you to give them a shrink,” Stone said. “And their crazy act won’t hold up when you testify that you heard me suggest it to them.”
“That was a good move, Stone.”
“It was either that or get shot at, and I was in the front seat. Did they say how they got into Dick’s house?”
“That was easy; their father had two keys, and he only returned one to Stone. They knew the alarm code, too. Caleb had sent them over there once to pick up something he’d left in the house.”
“It sounds like you’ve wrapped it up then.”
“I believe we have.”
“Do you need us here for anything else?”
“No, I’ll be in touch when I do.”
“Then we’re off to New York in a few minutes.”
“Your airplane engine all right?”
“It did fine on the flight back from Rockland.”
“Then have a safe flight. Goodbye and thank you again.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Bye.” Stone hung up. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to his assembled group.
“You had enough of Maine?” Ed Rawls asked.
“For this summer,” Stone replied, shaking his hand. “Maybe I’ll be back next summer, if nobody is getting dead up here.”
Two minutes later, Stone locked the door, got into the station wagon with Dino, Holly and Lance and was driven away.
