Cold Paradise

14

Stone drove quickly, but not too quickly, through the streets of Palm Beach. It was well after midnight, now, and traffic was light, but he did not wish to attract the attention of a traffic cop at this moment. He swung into West Indies Drive and, shortly, into the driveway of Liz’s house. One of Thad Shames’s Mercedes convertibles was parked outside and, beside it, what was obviously an unmarked police car. The front door of the house stood wide open.

Stone walked quickly inside and looked around. No one was in sight. “Hello!” he called out.

“In here,” came a man’s voice through the living room and to his left. Stone followed the sound and arrived in the study. Shames and Liz, who appeared to be unharmed, and a man in a police officer’s uniform with stars on the shoulders stood in the center of the room, which was a mess. All the pictures on the mantel had been swept onto the floor, a large mirror on one wall had been shattered and much of the furniture had been overturned, reducing some small porcelain figurines to shards.

“What’s happened?” Stone asked.

“We’re not sure,” Shames replied. “Stone, this is Chief Dan Griggs of the Palm Beach Police Department. Chief, this is my and Mrs. Harding’s attorney, Stone Barrington.”

The chief offered his hand. “I thought I knew all the attorneys in town,” he said. “Good to meet you, Mr. Barrington.”

Stone shook the man’s hand. “And you, Chief. I’m based in New York; that’s why we haven’t met. What’s happened here tonight?”

Shames spoke up. “Liz and I arrived to find the front door open and the place a mess.”

“The whole place? The living room looked all right.”

“I’ve had a look around,” the chief said. “This is the only room that was disturbed.”

“Anything missing?” Stone asked.

Liz spoke up. “I can’t find anything gone, just broken.”

“What about the door? Was it forced?”

Griggs shook his head. “Either it wasn’t locked, or somebody had a key.”

“I’m afraid it may not have been locked,” Liz said sheepishly. “I tend to forget. Anyway, Chief Griggs and his men take such good care of us all that it hardly seems necessary.”

“I thank you, Mrs. Harding,” the chief said, obviously pleased, “but we’d really prefer you to lock your doors.”

“I’ll make a point of it from now on.”

“So this is vandalism?” Stone asked.

“Looks that way to me,” Griggs replied. “Nothing taken, only this room messed up; nothing else to call it.”

“Chief, have you had other incidents like this in town?”

Griggs shook his head. “We might get some spray paint on a building or a bridge sometimes-teenagers, you know-but I can’t recall an incident of vandalism in a private home, unless it was connected to a burglary.”

“No known perpetrators of this sort of thing around town?”

“None in our files.”

“Chief, why don’t you and I take a walk through the house. Liz, Thad, will you excuse us for a couple of minutes?”

“Of course,” they said together.

Stone and the chief left the room, and Stone led him toward the stairs. “Let’s take a look up here.”

Griggs followed him, but at the top, stopped. “I’ve already walked through here with Mrs. Harding,” he said.

“I know," Stone replied, ”but I wanted to make you aware of a situation.“

“Go right ahead,” Griggs said.

“Mrs. Harding was formerly married to a man named Paul Manning, a well-known writer. Her name was Allison Manning, at the time.”

“Why’d she change it to Elizabeth?”

“To get away from Manning.”

“And you think he did this?”

“Very possibly. The photographs on the mantel were of Mrs. Harding and her late husband. Looks like a jealous rage to me.”

Griggs nodded and wrote something in his notebook. “Mr. Barrington, your name is familiar. Were you ever on the police force in New York?”

Stone nodded. “For fourteen years.”

“I’ve got it,” the chief said. “The Sasha Nijinsky case.”

“That’s right. I retired about that time; disability.”

“You look pretty healthy to me.”

“Bullet in the knee.”

“Hope you got the son of a bitch.”

“My partner did.”

“Allison Manning,” the chief mused. “Something about an island?”

“That’s right. She was accused of murdering her husband, but, of course, he wasn’t dead.”

“Saw something about it on Sixty Minutes,”

“Yes. It got a lot of press at the time.”

“You’re a pretty high-profile lawyer up there, aren’t you?”

“Not when I can help it.”

“You got a card?”

Stone handed him one, and he pocketed it. “About this Paul Manning. You think we’re going to hear from him again?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You think he might harm Mrs. Harding?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Chief, I hope you’ll keep all this background information in confidence. I’m sure Mrs. Harding wouldn’t want people to connect her with a past incident that was very traumatic for her.”

“We have a lot of well-known people in Palm Beach, and I run a very discreet department,” Griggs said.

“I’m sure you do, and I appreciate your discretion.”

“Can we go back downstairs, now?”

“Yes, I just wanted to discuss all this with you privately.”

They started down the stairs.

“Tell you what,” Griggs said. “I’ll put a man on the house for a while. Nobody’ll notice him, not even Mrs. Harding.”

“I’d be grateful for that,” Stone said.

“Of course, I can’t keep people on this forever, if nothing happens.”

“I understand completely. I’m going to suggest to Mr. Shames that he invite Mrs. Harding to stay at his house. He’s going out of town for a while, but I’m sure his staff could make her comfortable there.”

“Good idea,” Griggs said.

“Maybe your man could stay in the house?”

“With Mrs. Harding’s permission, sure.”

“I’ll have a word with her.”

They reached the study.

“Liz is going to come back to the house with me,” Shames said. “She’ll stay with us, at least until I get back from the Coast”

“Good idea,” Stone said. “Liz, the chief would like to have one of his men stay in the house. Is that all right?”

“Oh, yes,” Liz said. “That would be wonderful.” She went to a desk drawer, found a spare key and gave it to the chief, along with the alarm code.

“Well, if you folks don’t need me anymore, I’ll be going,” the chief said. “I’ll have a man here in half an hour.”

Hands were shaken all around, and the chief departed.

“I’d better pack some things,” Liz said, and left the room.

Shames turned to Stone. “It’s this Manning guy, isn’t it?”

“Very likely,” Stone said. “This has none of the markings of a random crime-nothing taken, only one room disturbed.”

“So, he’s tracked her down.”

“It looks that way.”

“I’m glad you’re staying on for a while, Stone. I feel better knowing you’re here to take care of her.”

“I’ll let Woodman and Weld know.”

“I’ll call Bill Eggers and arrange everything.”

“Thank you.”

Shames was quiet for a moment. “Stone,” he said finally, “you think he’s going to try to kill her?”

“I think if that’s what he had in mind, he’d already have tried. This was obviously to frighten her.”

“It worked,” Thad said. “She was a mess for a few minutes after we got here. There are some guns on the boat. I’ll have Juanito make them available to you.”

“I hope I won’t need a gun,” Stone said. “But you never know.”

Stone followed Thad and Liz back to the house, and when they were safely inside, he walked back to the yacht and his cabin. His adrenaline was still a little high, and he got out of his dinner jacket and the rest of his clothes and into a hot shower. He was drying himself when he heard a soft knock at the cabin door. He got into a robe and went to answer it.

He opened the door to find Callie Hodges standing there, in a silk dressing gown, holding a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.