Double Jeopardy

58

The following morning, while the others were packing the Ford, Stone drove over to Ed Rawls’s house. To his surprise, both gates stood open. Stone paused long enough to be identified on a monitor, then drove in and parked.

Ed and Sally were lazing on the front porch, sharing the Times. “Hey,” Ed said.

“What’s with the open gates?” Stone asked. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“Today there is no threat,” Rawls replied, then took a pencil from behind his ear and wrote something on the crossword.

“Have the packages been disposed of?” Stone asked.

Rawls lifted an eyebrow. “What packages?”

Stone nodded. “We’re off to New York this morning,” he said. “We’re going to drop Carly at the New Haven airport to pick up her car and get packed, then she’s driving to the city. She starts tomorrow morning at Woodman & Weld.”

“They’ll be lucky to have her, if they can stand her,” Rawls said.

“Well, there is that.”

“Can you get five people and their luggage off the ground in that Cessna?”

“Getting off the ground isn’t the problem. It’s getting off the ground before you run out of runway. That’s solved by having only half fuel aboard.”

“Right.”

“The G-500 will meet us at Rockport.” Stone sighed. “I wish I could say it’s been fun, Ed, but it’s been unusual. I’ll give you that.”

Rawls grinned. “It has been, hasn’t it?”

Sally got up, gave Stone a hug and a kiss, then sat down again.

“When will we see you in New York?” Stone asked.

“We’ll stop in for a few days on the way to Virginia, at the end of the season.” Rawls got up and gave him a bearish hug. “Fly safe.”

The Cessna did get off the ground, with runway to spare, and they dropped Carly off, then made for Rockport. As they lined up to land, they could see the Gulfstream waiting for them.

“I don’t see a small plane,” Primmy said.

“We’re taking the large one, right there,” Stone said, pointing.

“That beats the 1938 Ford,” she said.

“You betcha.”