“I take it you’re now the proud owner of a Maine house?”
“In a manner of speaking. I can’t seem to get used to the idea.”
“Oh, by the way, for your information, the three witnesses who signed the will, besides Seth Hotchkiss, were the pilot, copilot and flight attendant on the private jet that delivered the Stone family to Rockport the day before they died. Apparently, they were considering buying into some sort of fractional jet program, and the trip from D.C. to Rockport was a sort of test run.”
“Good to know.”
“There’s no interesting mail. Can I reach you at this number?”
“For all of today; tomorrow morning, try the cell. I’ll talk to you sometime tomorrow.
“Bye-bye.”
Stone hung up and turned to Lance in the little office. The printer was spitting out sheets of paper. “What are you learning?” he asked.
Lance picked up the papers and consulted them. “Our boy, Caleb, is married to the former Vivian Smith; two sons, Eben and Enos, who share a birthday. Caleb graduated Yale and Yale Law in the bottom half of both classes; he is employed by the Boston law firm of Marsh, Andrews, Fields and Schwartz. Note his name is not on the letterhead. He’s been with the firm since law school but took twelve
“He belongs to a couple of good clubs, lives in a respectable suburb of Boston, summers here, and from his tax returns and credit report, it appears that he lives at the very limit of his income while still managing to pay his bills on time. I think he will be very relieved when his boys finish Yale next year.”
“Any criminal record?”
“None. He appears to have trod the straight and narrow his whole life long.”
“If he’s as financially strapped as you say he is, he must have been very disappointed, indeed, when he read Dick’s will.”
“No doubt. I expect he’s reassessing his retirement plans as we speak. One good thing: Since he now has no hope of ever seeing Dick’s and Barbara’s money, he has no motive to kill you.”
“Yes, well…”
“Caleb has led the most boring of all lives, I expect,” Lance said. “One of quiet desperation, as the saying goes. I hope his family loves him, because it seems to me that’s about his only comfort.”
“My experience of him is that he’s not an easy fellow to love,” Stone said.
Seth Hotchkiss came into the room. “Anything I can do for anybody?”
“Seth,” Stone said, “let’s you and I have a talk.” Stone led the caretaker outside, and they took seats on teak furniture on the stone patio. The sun was pleasantly warm, though Stone knew that by nightfall there would be a chill in the air. After all, it was only June in Maine.
“What can I do for you, Stone?”
“Tell me what Dick’s and Caleb’s relationship was like.”
“Well, you remember what it was like when they were boys?”
“Yes.”
“It was pretty much like that, except that Dick seemed to do better in life than Caleb, had a better job and a nicer wife. Dick was able to build this house, while Caleb had to be content with propping up the old family place. Funny, I would have stayed on there out of loyalty, but Caleb fired me a week after his parents died in that car crash. Dick hired me the same day, and I’ve been very happy ever since.”
“Caleb inherited the house?”
“They both did, but Dick signed his half over to Caleb, said to me he didn’t want any part of it; the place was filled with unhappy memories for him.”
“Why did he stay on the island?”
“Oh, he loved the island, he just didn’t love the old house. I think he took some pleasure in sticking Caleb with it.”
“Have you ever heard Caleb express any animosity toward Dick?”
“Caleb’s whole attitude toward most everybody is animosity, I guess. He was nice to those folks he had to get along with, which were most of the summer people. After all, he wanted the yacht club and the golf club, so he was nice to the members. The year-rounders hated him pretty good; he had trouble keeping help and all that. When he wanted a new roof, he had to go to somebody on the mainland, which cost him more money. He puts away the booze pretty good, and so does his wife.”
“How did the locals feel about Dick and his family?”
“Oh, Dick was a sweetheart, and everybody knew it. Barbara and Esme, too. If Mabel and I weren’t doing this job, folks would be lined up to get it.”
“I expect there’s a pretty good grapevine on the island among the locals?”
“There is.”
“I’d like to know what you hear on it.”
“Folks are real interested in you, Stone.”
“Well, I don’t have any secrets, so feel free to talk. In particular, you might let it be known that I’m not very happy with the murder/suicide theory held by your state trooper.”
“Me, neither,” Seth said, “and nobody who knew Dick is going to put much stock in it. Folks start arriving tomorrow, and they’ll have seen about it in the Boston papers, so there’ll be a lot of curiosity.”
“Well, let’s not starve them for information, but don’t give anybody the impression that I think Caleb is in any way responsible. He and his family hadn’t even arrived on the island at the time, so let’s not hang it around his neck.” Then they got up and went back into the house.
THAT NIGHT, after dinner, the group enjoyed coffee and brandy before a crackling fire in the living room.
“Lance,” Stone said, “there’s a possibility we haven’t talked about.”
“What’s that?”
“Could these murders have been work related? Dick’s work, I mean.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve thought a lot about it. I’ve reviewed the threats Dick received in London over the years. There were more of them than you might think, but most from nuts or the ineffectual. Generally speaking, terrorist groups don’t tell you they’re going to kill you; they just kill you. Anyway, there was nothing in the file less than a year old. The other thing is that it just doesn’t happen that foreigners murder Agency personnel in the U.S. I can’t think of a single case when that’s happened. Add to that fact that Dick and his family were in, if not an inaccessible place, then one very difficult to access without being noticed.”
Dino spoke up. “We haven’t talked about the possibility of someone arriving in a small boat to do the job. A team, or even an individual, could have pulled a rubber dinghy out of the water less than thirty yards from this house.”
“I grant you that,” Lance said. “A commando-style raid, in the middle of the night, would have been the way to do it, if you wanted to do it, but nobody’s claimed responsibility, and these groups usually do. Nobody at the Agency has been able to detect the slightest sign that a group had or was about to conduct an operation of this sort. I’ve checked the weather that night, and there was thick fog all night and into the morning, and believe me, the fog gets really thick up here.
“Frankly, in my own mind, I’ve ruled out the possibility of an incursion from outside, and my report will so state. I’m more inclined to think that somebody local had it in for Dick.”
“Seth tells me that Dick and his family were very popular locally,” Stone said.
“And Caleb is accounted for,” Dino said. “We’re getting nowhere fast.”
“Well,” Holly said, “I’m going to turn in, I think.” She got up. “Good night all.” She headed for the stairs.
After a few more minutes of chat, the others headed for their rooms, too.
STONE WAS PLEASED to find Holly in his bed, and when he slid in beside her, even more pleased to find her naked. He snuggled up to her back and nestled between her cheeks. Holly reached back between her hands and fondled him, bringing him erect. “I thought you’d never come upstairs,” she said, guiding him into her. She rolled over on her stomach, pulling him with her, and they kept that position until they had both come. Finally, she turned
