Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 661 & 662, September/October 1996

A New Life by Edward D. Hoch

© 1996 by Edward D. Hoch

A decade ago, the best of the Leopold stories appeared in a volume published by Southern Illinois University Press entitled Leopold’s Way. Since author Edward D. Hoch has allowed his character to age, the Leopold we see today is different in many respects from the police captain of those early stories. One thing about Leopold hasn’t changed though, and that’s his ability to crack a case.

Casper Stone had come to appreciate every little break in the sodden routine of his life behind bars. A trip to the dentist could liven up an entire week, and even a trial on an unresolved charge of bail-jumping brought a break in the endless days. He didn’t even mind that they handcuffed his wrists and chained his ankles, so long as they took him away from the clamor and clash of the cellblock.

The trial, in the old courthouse on Seward Street, attracted a fair amount of media attention. Casper Stone had been convicted of man-slaughter just five months earlier, and there was a general belief that the relatively light sentence he received — four to eight years — had caused the District Attorney to press the bail-jumping charge. There were two holding cells in the old courthouse where the trial was being held. They were really cages of heavy wire mesh, not designed to hold prisoners for more than a few hours at a time. There was a sink but no toilet, and a single low stool for sitting. When Casper Stone was placed in the cell, it was nine-thirty in the morning; the trial was scheduled for ten.

The first thing Stone noticed about the holding cell was the wire mesh screen that covered a small square hole beneath the sink. It was on an inside wall and apparently provided access to the plumbing fixtures. He gave it a kick and was startled when it moved. The screws fastening it to the wall had not been tightened. What a joke it would be if he could squeeze through that opening somehow and escape!

The guards had left him alone in the cell. His lawyer would be arriving soon, but right now he had a few minutes alone. He dropped to his knees and tugged at the screen. It came off at once, as if the screws were too small for their holes. Sticking his head into the opening, Stone could see that it ran to a similar screen some three feet away, apparently giving-access to another room. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door being unlocked and quickly pulled his head from the opening, replacing the screen.

His lawyer, a handsome young man named Thomas Griswald, appeared in the doorway with a uniformed guard. He carried a dark blue suit, complete with shirt and tie, on a hanger. “How you feeling, Casper?”

Stone shrugged. “It breaks the monotony. What do you think my chances are?”

The sandy-haired lawyer didn’t answer directly. “This is the suit I bought you for the first trial. Put it on with the shirt and tie, and comb your hair. We want to get you looking good for that jury. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” The guard unlocked the heavy mesh door and Casper Stone accepted the suit with a nod of thanks.

When they were gone, he changed quickly into the shirt and suit, carefully knotting the tie and brushing his hair. Then he laid the prison uniform neatly on the low stool and dropped to the floor. With the screen off he had no trouble fitting through the access hole beneath the sink. Then he stretched out full length until he could touch the wire screen at the other end of the short tunnel. As he suspected, it too was loose. He pushed himself forward into the darkness.

The other room proved to be a closet containing mops, brooms, and buckets. The unlocked door led to a corridor in the courthouse. He turned on the closet light just long enough to check his appearance, brushing some dust from the blue suit. Then he opened the door a crack, saw that the coast was clear, and stepped out into the hallway. In two minutes he was mingling with a stream of people entering and leaving the building. In five minutes he was hurrying along the street a block away, a free man.

This time there’d be no mistake. He’d been given a new life and this time he’d get it right.

It felt good to be “Captain” Leopold again, even if he had been called out of retirement only to fill in while Fletcher recovered from a gunshot wound. That first morning in the office, it seemed as if he’d never been gone. There were one or two new faces, of course, but Lieutenant Connie Trent quickly introduced him to those he didn’t know. He’d been especially reluctant to use Fletcher’s glass-enclosed cubicle, which once had been his own. Connie understood that and suggested he take one of the empty desks in the squad room. It had been twenty-two years since she joined the department as a rookie cop, and she’d worked with him during most of that time. She was a lieutenant now, and still on her way up. Leopold and Fletcher and Connie Trent had been a team, and a damn good one.

On the third morning of his return, while he was still familiarizing himself with the current caseload, Connie took a call from the courthouse. “They’ve had an escape from the holding cell. They’re notifying us because the escapee is a convicted killer.”

Leopold looked up. “Anyone I know?”

“Casper Stone. It was after you retired but maybe you remember it.”

“Refresh my memory, Connie.” The name was familiar but he couldn’t quite place it.

“He was a small businessman with an auto repair service who claimed he’d been swindled by a financial consultant named Rich Easton—”

“Of course!” Leopold’s wife Molly had been involved in the case briefly, until she passed it on to a young lawyer in her office. It had upset her so much he was surprised he hadn’t remembered.

“—and one day about a year ago he bought a gun and went up to Easton’s office.”

“It was your case, wasn’t it, Connie?”

She nodded, smiling grimly. In her early forties, Connie Trent was still an attractive woman. Leopold knew she’d had relationships with men over the years, but she’d never married. Fletcher had a wife and family, and Leopold had married for the second time six years before his retirement. With Connie it was different. She was, as they say, married to her job. “It was my case,” she agreed. “Stone showed up at Rich Easton’s office and pulled his gun, demanding to see Easton. A secretary phoned 911 while an employee named Earl Frank tried to disarm him. They struggled over the gun and Stone killed him. He was overpowered by two patrolmen who arrived just seconds after the shooting.”

Leopold nodded. “That was when Molly came on board as his attorney. He argued that he hadn’t meant to kill Frank, that the shooting had been accidental. She asked for bail, pleading that he had roots and a business in the community, and the judge granted it. That was when he skipped town. Molly was pretty upset about it. After they recaptured him she resigned from the case and turned it over to Tom Griswald in her office.”

“The jury and judge both gave him a break at the trial last winter. He was only convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to four to eight years in prison. That’s when the D.A. decided to press the bail-jumping charge and get him some extra time behind bars. He was at the courthouse for the beginning of the trial when he escaped from the holding cell.”

“Get on the phone to Easton and warn him that Stone’s on the loose. I’ll swing by his office and then go on to the courthouse.”

Connie frowned, her hand on the phone. “Do you really think he escaped so he could have another try at Easton? When he jumped bail he just headed out of town.”

“We’d better not take chances,” Leopold said.

Rich Easton had a reputation around the city as something of a ladies’ man. Into his forties, with jet black hair and perfect teeth, he’d built a business as a financial advisor and money manager. Casper Stone was not the first person to feel cheated by his advice, and he probably wouldn’t be the last; but while dissatisfied clients filed lawsuits, Easton was most likely at his club with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Some said he’d settled down following his marriage to Belinda Haskins, a local socialite, but others felt she was merely the latest in his series of women betrayed. Rumors of secret bank accounts in other cities persisted, and there were charges that money from people like Stone, meant for sketchily described mutual funds, had ended up in these accounts.

Easton rose from behind his desk as Leopold was ushered into the office. “Good morning, Captain. Lieutenant Trent phoned to say you’d be stopping by. What in God’s name happened at the courthouse? How could they let that man escape?”

“We’re looking into it,” Leopold assured him. “Lieutenant Trent handled the previous case and she filled me in on the circumstances. If you intend to spend the day here at the office I can have a uniformed patrolman on duty outside.”

“You think he’s coming here?”

“I have no idea. Obviously it would be better if you laid low for a few days. It may not even take that long. We hope to have him back in custody by this afternoon.”

Rich Easton seemed to ponder Leopold’s advice. “You may be right. I’ll phone my wife.” He dialed a number while Leopold glanced around the office. After a moment he spoke into the phone. “Honey, there’s a little problem. Nothing serious, but I think I’ll drive down to the beach house for the rest of the day. Want to meet me there? Fine — about an hour.”

Leopold waited till he’d hung up and then asked, “Is the beach house a safe place?”

“Well, it’s safe mainly because it’s on the Sound and I don’t think he’d look for me there.”

“Does Stone know about it?”

Easton thought about that. “Yes, he was there once. Belinda and I had a clambake two years ago for some of my clients. I remember Stone’s being there because he tripped and fell off the dock. I had to give him some of my clothes to wear the rest of the day while his dried.”

“Was he angry about that?”

“No, no. We were good friends until his investments started going bad. Then he accused me of mismanaging his account. The final straw was a large investment I’d made for him in an upstate winery. The business collapsed utterly and he lost over a hundred thousand. I tried to tell him that these things happened occasionally, that it was no one’s fault. That’s when he came after me with the gun and killed poor Earl.”

There was something a bit too slick about Rich Easton, and Leopold could understand why an unlucky investor might boil over with rage at him, especially on being told that “these things happened.” It didn’t excuse the killing of Earl Frank, but the jury must have felt it made Casper Stone’s actions understandable. The question was whether that same rage existed today.

“If he knows about the beach house it may not be the best place to go,” Leopold cautioned.

“I have a licensed revolver. If he shows up I’ll be ready for him.”

“All right,” Leopold said with some reluctance. “Give me the address and I’ll have a patrol car keep an eye on it.”

He left Easton’s office and went back to his car. On a hunch he decided to drive by the consultant’s city home. It was on the north side, in one of the more fashionable areas, and he was pleased to see a police car parked just down the street, obviously on the lookout for Casper Stone. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman was unloading groceries from a minivan in the driveway and he pulled in behind her. She glanced up from her task, startled, and watched as he approached.

“I’m Captain Leopold,” he said, showing his badge and identification. “Are you—?”

“Belinda Easton. My husband phoned me about the escape, just after I’d heard it on the news. Is there any sign of Stone yet?” She was a handsome woman who’d made no attempt to hide the few extra pounds and gray hairs that middle age brought.

“Not yet, but we’ll get him. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Do you think the beach house will be safe?”

“Beach house?” She looked at him blankly. “I rarely go there. The summer sun is bad for my skin.”

“I must have misunderstood your husband. I thought he said he’d be going to his beach house.”

She picked up the last bag of groceries from the backseat of the minivan. “Rich often takes a ride down there by himself, just to check the place out. I was up for the weekend earlier this month.”

“We’ll keep a patrol car here all night, unless Stone’s apprehended in the meantime. If you hear any odd sounds, dial 911.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

He left her and got back into his unmarked car, wondering who was meeting Rich Easton at his beach house.

Molly was already home when Leopold pulled in the driveway later that afternoon. There was a car he didn’t recognize parked on the street and he prepared himself for the unknown visitor. It was Tom Griswald, Molly’s young associate and Casper Stone’s attorney of record. Griswald was not yet thirty, only a few years out of law school, but he’d done well on a couple of high-profile cases. One of his triumphs, of course, had been getting Stone off with a manslaughter conviction and a four-to-eight-year sentence.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Molly said, greeting him with a light kiss on the cheek, apparently for Griswald’s benefit. “Tom and I were just talking over Casper Stone’s escape.”

Leopold shook hands with the young attorney. “Did you see your client this morning?”

Tom Griswald nodded. “I brought him a suit of clothes to wear in court. When I came back to discuss the case he was gone.” His rumpled blond hair and a deep cleft in his chin made him seem attractively boyish. Leopold decided it probably didn’t hurt him these days when juries often had a majority of women serving.

“Apparently he escaped through a maintenance tunnel that led to a storage closet,” Leopold said. “Once he was there, wearing a suit and tie like everyone else, it was easy for him to mingle with the crowd and leave the building.” He smiled and added, “Anyone who noticed him probably took him for a lawyer.”

Griswald flushed a bit and Molly hastened to assure him it was just Leopold’s idea of a joke. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

“Sorry, I can’t. Big date tonight. Thanks for the offer, though.” He stood up. “Good seeing you again, Captain. I shouldn’t say this, but I hope you get my client back behind bars in a hurry.”

“I hope so too.”

When they were alone Molly said, “He’s got a great future with the firm, but he’s still young. He came here to ask me what he should do about Stone. He remembered that I dropped him as a client after he jumped bail and wondered if he should do the same.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That it was his decision. The man is certainly going to need a lawyer when he’s back behind bars.”

“You knew Stone. You talked to him immediately after the shooting in Easton’s office. How did he seem to you? Is this thing an obsession with him, Molly?”

“You mean, is he likely to have another try at Rich Easton? I’d say yes.” She studied him, then asked, “You really like being back on the job, don’t you? Even though it’s just till Fletcher recovers?”

“I love it, Molly. It’s like a new life and I guess that’s what everyone wants at some time or another.”

Later that night, when they’d been in bed about an hour, the phone rang. It was Connie, talking fast. “There’s a fire at Easton’s beach house. A neighbor phoned it in. I’m on my way there now.”

“And I’m right behind you.”

He could see the blaze lighting the night sky as soon as he turned onto Shoreline Drive. Fire engines from the city and suburbs were on the scene, and though it was well after midnight dozens of neighbors had come out in their nightclothes to watch the flames as they sputtered and died. He spotted Connie Trent at once, arguing with a white-coated fire marshal who was trying to hold her back from the smoking water-soaked embers.

“What is it, Connie?”

“The firemen saw two bodies. I’m trying to get in for a look.”

The fire marshal shook his head. “You can’t help them now.”

“Where are the bodies?” Leopold asked.

“Looks like they were in bed, probably a man and woman but we can’t even be sure of that.”

“Smoking?”

“Not the way that bedroom went up. I’ve got someone from the arson squad on the way.” The fire marshal turned away, shouting orders to redirect a hose.

Connie looked drained of emotion. “Do you think Casper Stone did this, Captain?”

“We don’t even know what was done yet. Do you have men searching the area?”

She nodded. “But they won’t find much in the dark. We’ll have to come back in the morning. Do you think it might be Easton and his wife?”

“Not his wife. You’d better go break the news to her. Tell her neither body has been identified.”

Leopold returned home for a few hours’ sleep but was up before dawn. Molly rolled over in the big bed and asked, “Are you going back out there?”

“I have to. Maybe you should phone Tom Griswald and tell him what’s happened.”

By daylight the beach house was a scorched and dripping mess. The police photographer had done what he could and two body bags were being carried out as Leopold drove up. Connie was already on the scene with a couple of other detectives, sifting through the wreckage. “You must have gotten less sleep than I did,” he said by way of greeting.

She was in the garage, studying a small motorboat resting on sawhorses. “Looks like he was burning off the paint with this propane torch.”

“Could that have started the fire?”

“Lenny from the arson squad says it was gasoline poured on the bed. Since they didn’t jump up or try to run, we think they were dead already.”

Leopold got his first look at her tired eyes. “You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”

“Captain, when you were my age you’d have done the same thing. Besides, I wasn’t exactly here the entire time. I drove in to Easton’s house.”

“My God!” He’d forgotten about the wife. “How’s she taking it?”

“Bad. She called a neighbor to be with her.”

“What about the second body?”

Connie made a face. “Mrs. Easton mentioned a name. Monica Raines. Until recently she was a paralegal who worked on Casper Stone’s first trial. She took a statement from Easton and that’s how they met.”

“Who was she working for? The defense?”

Connie nodded. “Molly must know her.”

Leopold didn’t like any of it. “Did Belinda say her husband and this woman were having an affair?”

“She didn’t say. When I told her there were two bodies she just mentioned the name. She was pretty broken up. It was hard to get anything out of her. We checked the address of a Monica Raines in the phone book but no one was home.”

“I’d better phone Molly. Let me have that address.” He went out to the car and used the cell phone. He caught her at the house just as she was leaving.

“What is it?” she asked, catching the gravity in his voice.

“We’ve got two unidentified bodies out here at the beach house. Mrs. Easton mentioned the name Monica Raines.”

He heard Molly’s sharp intake of breath. “It couldn’t be Monica.”

“She was a paralegal at your office?”

“If it’s the same Monica Raines, she quit a few months back. After the Casper Stone verdict came in.”

“She worked on that case?”

“Yes. First for me, then for Tom. I don’t know what she’s doing now. There was a rumor she might be over at Salomon’s office.”

“Was there ever any talk about her and Rich Easton?”

“Not that I heard. She may have taken a preliminary statement from him.”

He read her the address Connie had given him, and after checking her book she confirmed that was correct.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll call you as soon as we have anything.”

Leopold waited through the day for the medical examiner’s report, spending part of the time reviewing Stone’s prison records. Connie reported there was no trace of Monica Raines and friends confirmed that she’d been friendly with Easton. When the M.E. called to say that identification would be impossible without dental records, Connie contacted Easton’s dentist and an hour later managed to locate the Raines woman’s dentist as well. “It was tough,” she told Leopold. “The girl’s family is down South somewhere. We still haven’t reached them.”

It was one of those cases where each passing hour made the ultimate identification more likely. By early afternoon neither Easton nor the Raines woman had surfaced, and Connie was designating them as the likely victims. “What do you think, Captain? Did Casper Stone find them there, kill them both, and set fire to the house?”

“That’s certainly the most likely scenario, but let’s wait for the official identification.”

Finally, at twenty minutes to four, the medical examiner called, suggesting Leopold come down to the autopsy room. Connie went along, though she hated the sights and smells of the place. Dr. Potter was new since Leopold’s time, but Fletcher spoke highly of the man. In court he was clear and concise, always an excellent witness for the prosecution.

“I’ve heard nothing but good things about you, Captain,” Potter said, taking Leopold’s hand. “Glad to have you back with us until Captain Fletcher is healed.”

“What have you got, Doctor?”

Potter gestured toward the adjoining autopsy tables where plastic sheets covered the bodies. “A male and a female, both badly burned, with some indication of trauma to the faces as well. The man’s jaw was broken. There was virtually no skin remaining on the faces or hands, so identification had to be made through dental records. In the case of the male it was quite easy. This was Mr. Easton’s beach house, after all, and his records show a full set of false teeth, both upper and lower plates.” He picked up a clear plastic evidence bag and showed them to Leopold and Molly — the perfect set of teeth reminded Leopold of Rich Easton’s perfect smile. “You’ll notice the dentist’s mark is visible on each plate.”

“What about the woman?” Leopold asked, secretly wondering if Easton’s hair had been as phony as his teeth.

“Just two fillings and no false teeth or crowns. Not much to go on, but they do match the dental chart of Monica Raines. Since the body is the right size I think we can safely say it’s hers.”

“What if the dental records hadn’t been available?” Connie Trent wanted to know.

“These days science has come up with a variety of identification techniques. For example, female pelvic bones often bear parturition scars, a notch for each child born. I can tell you that this victim has borne one child. Does that fit with Monica Raines?”

“I have no idea,” Leopold said, “but we’ll check it out.”

It was Connie who asked the crucial question. “What was it that killed them, the fire or the blows to the head?”

“Actually they were both shot. They were already dead before the trauma or the fire.”

Leopold nodded. “Thanks for the information. Send us the usual copies of your report.”

As they turned away the doctor asked, “Captain Leopold, don’t you want to look at the bodies?”

“I’ve already seen the pictures. That’s enough.”

Molly phoned him a short time later. “Have you identified the bodies yet?”

“We have their dental records. It’s Rich Easton and Monica Raines, as we thought.”

“I can’t believe it about Monica. She was a brilliant paralegal with a sharp mind. I urged her once to consider law school.”

“Why did she leave the firm?”

“I don’t know. She just said she wanted a change. I think the Stone case took a lot out of everyone.”

“But she continued working on it after you resigned from it.”

“Tom needed her experience when he took over for me.”

“One more thing. Did she ever have a child?”

“I think she did. She mentioned that she’d dropped out of college because she was pregnant. Perhaps she put it up for adoption.”

“All right. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

He hung up and made a note on his pad, then went over to Connie Trent’s desk. “It’s time I spoke with Belinda Easton. Maybe you should come along.”

They drove out to the Easton home, through a warm afternoon that bathed the streets in mellow sunshine. It was not a day to talk of death, but as they pulled up behind a string of cars in front of the Easton house it was obvious that friends and relatives had come to do just that.

Someone opened the door for Connie and Leopold, thinking they were family. Belinda Easton paled at the sight of them. “Does this mean you’ve identified the body?”

“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Easton. It is your husband.”

She sagged at the words, though she must have expected them. A tall man with an angular face moved quickly to get a grip on her. “Sit down, Belinda. Here!”

When she was seated on a straight-backed chair he said, “I’m her brother, Albert Haskins. This has been a terrible blow to the entire family.”

Leopold glanced into the living room where a half-dozen others were watching in silence. “Is there a place where we can speak to your sister in private?”

“Through here.” He led the way into a study that Easton had apparently used as an office; “All these people — I just got here myself and found the house full.”

Belinda Easton seated herself facing them. “Those are my neighbors. They came as soon as they heard the news of the fire.” Then, “Tell me how he died. Did he suffer?”

Leopold cleared his throat. “Both victims were shot to death. Your husband was also hit across the face with enough force to break his jaw and do other damage. Then the bodies were doused with gasoline from a can in the garage and set on fire.”

“My God!” She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to see him like that!”

“You won’t have to. A visual identification would not be possible. But we do have to find this man Casper Stone who escaped from custody. Right now he’s our most likely suspect.”

“He said Rich cheated him. I knew he was trouble from the beginning. I even warned Rich about him.”

“Has there been any recent communication from him?”

“No.” Then the full import of Leopold’s earlier words seemed to penetrate. “You said both victims. She was with him, then?”

“Belinda—” Her brother tried to interrupt but she persisted.

“Was it Monica Raines?”

“We believe so, yes. Did you know her?”

“I met her before Stone’s trial. How any law firm could defend such a man is more than I can understand.”

“It’s our legal system, Mrs. Easton. Pardon me for asking this, but was your husband romantically involved with Monica Raines?”

“I knew they were seeing each other. I asked him about it and he said she was giving him advice on some of his legal problems with these investors.”

“She wasn’t a lawyer. Such advice would have been foolish and possibly illegal.”

Belinda Easton smiled sadly. “I imagined their meetings had other motives.”

“You suspected she was with him last night.”

“Yes. She went with him to the beach house frequently.”

“And Casper Stone? Did you see him or anyone lurking around this house last night?”

“No. I retired early. I was asleep when Lieutenant Trent here woke me with news of the fire.” A woman poked her head in then to say she had to leave, and Belinda hurried out to speak with her.

Leopold turned his attention to her brother. “She seems to have recovered from the shock of her husband’s death.”

Albert Haskins agreed. “They’d had their troubles in recent years, as you might have gathered. Rich was in way over his head as a financial adviser. It’s a wonder Stone was the only one who came after him with a gun. And from what I hear, instead of trying to set things right, he was busy romping around with that Raines girl.”

“Why didn’t your sister leave him?” Connie Trent asked.

“I suggested it more than once, but she always hoped he’d straighten out.”

Belinda returned then, long enough to say she really couldn’t tell them any more just now. “Perhaps tomorrow things will be less hectic and I’ll have my wits about me.”

Her brother grunted. “And maybe by then you’ll have caught that bastard.”

There was a radio call for Leopold when they returned to the car. Tom Griswald had phoned in to report that the fugitive Casper Stone had contacted him about surrendering.

They drove directly to Griswald’s office, on the same floor and just down the hall from Molly’s office with the firm. She was there with him when Connie and Leopold were ushered in, studying the fax message on his desk without touching it, as if somehow the fugitive’s fingerprints might have been transmitted through the telephone line with his words.

“It came in just over an hour ago,” Molly told him. “Tom asked me what to do and I said you had to be notified at once.”

The message had been sent from a fax machine at Copies & More, a commercial copy center a few blocks away that offered mailing and fax services as well. “Did he know your fax number?” Leopold asked Griswald.

“It’s on my letterhead.”

“I’ll get on the phone to this place,” Connie said. “They should remember the guy from an hour ago.”

The brief message had been hand-printed on one of the Copies & More forms. It read: Mr. Griswald. I’m in terrible trouble. I need your help. Meet me at the bus station at ten tonight. Don’t bring the cops. I’ll talk to them later. Casper.

“Why didn’t he just phone me?” Tom Griswald wondered.

“Because a call can be traced,” Molly suggested.

“This can be traced too. It came from Copies & More!”

Connie Trent got off the phone and answered Griswald’s objection. “He paid for the fax but told them to wait fifteen minutes before they sent it. Then he left.”

“What’s the description?” Leopold asked.

“Medium height and weight, still wearing the suit and white shirt but without the tie. He had on a baseball cap with a Yankees logo, pulled down over his eyes. He barely opened his mouth, only mumbled a few words.”

“Dark hair?” Leopold asked.

“As much as the clerk could see, under the cap. She said the suit looked dirty, stained. She thought he’d been in a fight.”

“It’s got to be Stone,” Griswald said.

Connie agreed. “We’ll have that bus station surrounded.”

“Wait a minute! I’m still his attorney. He contacted me. I assume he wishes to surrender, but I have to talk to him first.”

“He’s right,” Molly said. “Tom has to speak with his client first. Naturally we hope he’ll surrender, but that decision is his.”

Leopold didn’t like it. There seemed too many ways that Casper Stone might slip through their fingers. “All right,” he said after a moment’s thought, “but we’ll be waiting a block away.”

Later, when Leopold was alone with Connie Trent in the car, she opened up. “Captain, excuse me, but you can’t do this! I know it’s Molly’s law firm but you can’t risk letting a double murderer — a three-time murderer really — slip through our fingers if he decides he doesn’t feel like surrendering!”

“The fax he sent says nothing about killing Easton or the woman, Connie.”

“It wouldn’t, would it?”

Leopold sighed. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. Check the bus schedules and find the first bus leaving after ten o’clock. You can have a couple of cars ready to stop it a few blocks from the station. If he won’t surrender and hops a bus, we’ll take him.”

“On a bus crowded with innocent people?”

“We don’t know that he’s armed.”

Connie shook her head. “No, Captain! I won’t buy that! You told me Easton had a licensed revolver at the beach house and we haven’t found it. The logical assumption is that Stone used it to kill them and still has it with him. He’s got nothing to lose by keeping the murder weapon, since he’s already been convicted of one murder.”

“Manslaughter, Connie,” Leopold corrected.

“Captain, if we let him get on a bus carrying a revolver there’ll be hell to pay!”

He knew she was right. “All right. Surround the station. Put someone inside undercover. Just keep your men out of sight till he talks to his lawyer.”

Shortly before nine-thirty that night Leopold sat in the front seat of his car with Tom Griswald. They were parked a block from the bus station with a good view of its comings and goings. “What time should I go in?” the young lawyer asked nervously.

“About a quarter to ten,” Leopold decided, “unless we spot him going in earlier.”

“Mind if I smoke?” Griswald took out a pack of cigarettes.

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not used to meeting murderers in bus stations.”

“It hits you a bit personally when you know the victims.”

He nodded. “Especially Monica. She worked with me on Stone’s first trial.”

“Molly said she’d left the firm. What happened there?”

“Just a better offer from Salomon. People change jobs all the time.”

Leopold watched a stout black woman approach the bright facade of the bus station and disappear inside. “Did she get along well with Casper Stone?”

“I guess she did. I never thought much about it. She probably only met him two or three times.” He smirked a bit. “It’s obvious now that she got on better with Rich Easton. Why do you ask?”

“Well, did Stone kill her for a reason or just because she was there?”

“I understand Monica and Easton were in bed together. If the room was dark he probably didn’t even recognize her.”

“That’s true.”

At twenty minutes to ten Leopold said, “Maybe you should start in now. Study the schedule or something. Act like you’re waiting for a bus.”

“What if he pulls a gun?”

“He won’t do that. You’re his lawyer.”

Tom Griswald opened the car door and exited with some reluctance. “I’ll try getting him to surrender. For God’s sake don’t do anything rash that’ll get me killed!”

Leopold smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “Molly would never forgive me.”

He watched Griswald walk quickly across the street and enter the bus station. The front windows were all glass and it was possible to see virtually everyone in the terminal. Right now there was only a slender gray-haired man at the ticket window. Two white women sat together against the back wall and the black woman sat alone near the front window. Leopold knew the next bus arrived at 9:55. Casper Stone had chosen the meeting time with care, when the station would be crowded with arriving passengers. Though the night had turned cool, Leopold opened the car windows to clear out the smoke from Griswald’s cigarette. He glanced down the side street for Connie and the others, but they were well out of sight. Finally he called her on the radio. “Connie, Griswald has gone into the bus station. No sign of our man yet.”

“We’ll be ready,” she responded.

The bus came almost on schedule, and for a few moments the station and the platform around the side were alive with people. He lost sight of the young lawyer, then spotted him again moving toward the men’s room. Something was wrong. He wouldn’t go in there at this crucial time, not unless he’d spotted Casper Stone.

“I’m going in, Connie,” he said over the radio.

“I’ve got Sergeant Marlowe in there already, Captain!”

“But Sergeant Marlowe’s a woman and Griswald just went into the men’s room.”

Connie was sprinting from her car by the time Leopold reached the bus station. The crowd had thinned out already but Griswald hadn’t emerged from the men’s room. Sergeant Marlowe, the black woman who’d been seated alone, was on her feet. “He went in there.”

“I know,” Leopold said. Connie was behind him with two detectives. Leopold pushed open the men’s room door and entered, one hand on his pistol.

Tom Griswald was standing in the doorway of one of the toilet stalls, holding a blue suit coat and pants. “He was here, Captain! He was here and now he’s gone.”

“Did you speak with him?”

He shook his head. “I saw this man at the ticket window wearing a blue suit but I couldn’t see his face and didn’t recognize him. He went into the men’s room just before the bus pulled in. There were lots of people coming and going but I didn’t see him come out. I went in after him and finally when the place cleared out I checked the stalls and found these.”

“Is this the suit you bought him for the trial?”

“That’s it. The store label’s still in it. He wore it at the first trial too.”

Leopold turned the material inside out, pausing to examine what looked like dried blood.

Connie Trent stood at the open door. “Was he here?”

“Here and gone, Connie.” He glanced around at the station, nearly empty now. The two Women were still there chatting, along with a gray-haired toothless man who stood by the door waiting to be picked up. “Let’s talk to that ticket clerk.”

The clerk was a woman behind thick glass who spoke through a crackling microphone. She studied the mug shot of Casper Stone that Leopold held up. “I don’t remember him.”

“We think he was at this window ten minutes ago.”

“Maybe. I never look at their faces, just their hands and the money through the slot.”

“Where’d he buy a ticket for?”

“Hartford, maybe. Only tickets I sold tonight were for Hartford. Bus just pulled out.”

“Is that the first stop?”

“Sure. It makes a stop out at the shopping mall to pick up more passengers but then it goes right to Hartford.”

Connie hesitated, looking to Leopold for a decision. “We could have it held at the mall, Captain.”

“No, he’s not on board. That would be too risky.”

“But he changed out of the blue suit. There must have been a reason for that.”

“A reason, yes.” And suddenly Leopold knew what it was. “What fools we’ve all been!” He turned back toward the waiting room and saw the gray-haired man just going out the door. “Stop him!” he shouted to the detectives.

The man was out the door, breaking into a run, when Sergeant Marlowe hit him from behind, knocking him sprawling to the sidewalk. Then Connie Trent was on him with pistol drawn. They wrestled him into submission and Connie cuffed his hands behind his back. She looked up at Leopold with some surprise and said, “Captain, this isn’t Casper Stone!”

“No, it’s Rich Easton, back from the dead and ready to start a new life. He just looks different without his teeth.”

All Easton would say on the way downtown was, “I want a lawyer.”

Connie Trent had much more to say, and ask, once they were back in the squad room. “If that’s Rich Easton, whose body was in the beach house?”

“Our escaped murderer, Casper Stone. Let’s get Easton into the interrogation room as soon as his lawyer shows up and I’ll go over the whole thing.”

The lawyer was a man named Rankovich who was working on Easton’s financial problems. He was obviously uncomfortable with the turn his client’s fortunes had taken. “I don’t believe he should make a statement tonight,” he told Leopold.

“Fine. I just want him to listen to what we have against him so far.”

When they were settled around the interrogation table, Leopold began talking. “Casper Stone escaped from the courthouse holding cell yesterday morning. He tracked you to your beach house, Mr. Easton, and went there last night to kill you. We don’t know exactly what happened then, but somehow you killed Stone with your gun. The whole plot must have come to you in that instant. You were in great financial difficulties with your business, facing several lawsuits over your handling of clients’ money. Staring down at the body, you must have realized that you and Casper Stone were the same size. I never knew him in life, but you told me yourself that you loaned him your clothes after he fell off your dock during a clambake. So you had to be around the same size.”

“What about the other victim, Monica Raines?” Connie asked.

“After he got the idea of substituting Stone’s body for his own, he had two reasons for killing Monica — to keep her quiet about the substitution and to heighten the illusion that the body was his. He arranged them in bed together as if they’d been sleeping or making love—”

“No!” Rich Easton shouted, suddenly on his feet. The lawyer tried to quiet him, but he brushed him away. “Stone killed her, not me! I was out in the garage last night, working on my boat, when he got into the house. They must have struggled over my gun and he killed her just like he killed Earl Frank in my office last year. I heard the shot and found him standing over the body. I hit him with the propane torch I was carrying and then picked up the gun and shot him. He wasn’t getting away with another murder. That’s when I got the idea about switching identities.”

His lawyer struggled to be heard. “Rich, you really shouldn’t—”

“I don’t want them thinking I killed Monica. I loved her.”

“I suppose the propane torch you were using to remove the boat’s paint gave you part of the idea,” Leopold continued. “You changed clothes with Stone, taking the suit his lawyer had provided, and placed both bodies on the bed. You noticed that Casper Stone was missing most of his teeth. Prison records show he’d had recent dental work. That gave you the rest of the idea. You pulled out his remaining teeth. Then you burned the face and hands with the torch, making visual and fingerprint identification next to impossible. You removed your complete set of false teeth, with your dentist’s mark on both plates, and put them into the dead man’s mouth. They didn’t fit perfectly, of course, so you broke his jaw to cover the poor fit, and jammed them in. That was your big mistake, and when it finally dawned on me at the bus station tonight I knew the truth.”

“What mistake?” Easton asked.

“The jaw was broken, the face was burned beyond recognition, yet this upper and lower plate were in perfect condition. They couldn’t have been in the dead man’s mouth when his jaw was broken and he suffered the worst of the burns. If the teeth, the only means of identification, were added by the killer later, there was a good chance the identification was false. And if the body wasn’t yours it was most likely the missing Casper Stone.”

“But why did he risk showing up at the bus station tonight?” Connie wanted to know.

Leopold looked at Rich Easton. “For the same reason he faxed that message to Stone’s lawyer rather than phone him. He must have known Griswald would respect lawyer-client privileges and not immediately report the call to the police. But he couldn’t phone Griswald because he couldn’t fake Casper Stone’s voice well enough to fool the lawyer. The whole business with the message and the bus station was simply to strengthen the idea that Casper Stone was alive and on the run. I assume he went to the bus station with the blue suit over the pants and shirt he’s wearing now. He’d added gray to his hair, and without the teeth he looked like a different person. Leaving the suit in the men’s room where it was sure to be found and identified, he figured we’d go after the bus and the trail would come to a dead end. Meanwhile he’d slip out of town some other way and link up with that missing money. It might have worked, but when I noticed that toothless man I remembered the perfect set of false teeth. I remembered the man who sent that fax while hardly opening his mouth. And then the whole thing came to me.”

Easton’s attorney moistened his lips. “We’ll plead self-defense. You’ve got no case.”

“That’s for a jury to decide.”

Later, back in the squad room, Connie said, “It’s after one. You’d better go home, Captain. Molly will be wondering what happened.”

“What happened was that a couple of tries at a new life didn’t work out. Casper Stone is dead and Rich Easton is in a cell.”

He went out to the car, thinking that his own new life was about the same as the old one had been.