A Safe House

28

Jenna tried to run to the car, but Stone held her back. “You can’t help Jamie,” he said. “She’s gone.” He got her back inside, with Ed’s help, and seated her on the sofa.

Stone poured her some bourbon, and she gulped half of it. “Try and be calm, Jenna,” he said. “Do you want to go upstairs and lie down until the authorities get here?”

“That will be some time,” Rawls said. “They’ll either have to take the ferry or fly in.”

“There are two already on the island,” Stone said.

“Jamie never hurt anybody,” Jenna said. “Look,” she said, pointing. “She left her handbag. She was always doing that. All she was trying to do was help me.”

Ed poured himself a drink and sat down in the chair across from her. “Do you think Jamie would still help you, if she could?”

Jenna took a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose. “Of course she would, if she could.”

Rawls picked up Jamie’s handbag, looked inside, and removed a .380 semiautomatic pistol from it and set it on the table, then he examined the other contents. “The usual ID,” he said, holding up a wallet and looking at the driver’s license. “The two of you look very much alike.”

Stone caught Ed’s drift. “Jenna, do you think Jamie would step into your shoes for a while, if she could?”

“Yes, she would. No doubt about it.”

“Then why don’t we let her do that?”

Jenna looked sharply at Stone. “What do you mean?”

Stone nodded at the front door. “That could have been you in the car. Does it belong to her?”

“No, it’s a rental. She was going to turn it in at Bangor airport before her flight.”

Ed went into the handbag again and found an airline ticket.

“The police will be here soon. I think it would be a good idea if you go upstairs and lie down while they’re here. I’ll tell them you’re too upset to talk to them now, that you’ll phone them later, when they’re back at their offices. You go be Jamie for a while.”

Jenna got it. “Do you think that would work?”

“No one can kill a person who’s already dead,” Ed said.

“It’s the safest possible solution,” Stone said. “We can sort it all out later, when this is over.”

“I think I would like to go upstairs and rest for a while,” Jenna said, standing.

“An excellent idea,” Ed said.

She took the Kleenex box and walked slowly up the stairs.

As she did, a helicopter flew in and hovered over the house and the smoking remains of the car for a moment or two, then flew off toward the airstrip.

Seth had been silently standing by.

“You understand about the names?” Stone asked Seth.

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell them Miss Jamie is resting upstairs.” He left to get the station wagon.

“Ed,” Stone said, “put everything back in the bag except the pistol and any ammunition.”

Ed saw to that and handed the weapon to Stone, who took it into Dick Stone’s office and put it into a drawer. The doorbell rang.

Stone greeted the two Maine State Police officers who lived on the island. “Sergeant Young, I believe the problem is obvious.”

“So, your worst fears have been realized?”

“Yes, they have.”

The sergeant nodded, and the two men walked carefully around the smoking hulk of the car and viewed the remains inside.

“The ME is on the chopper,” he said. “You said you saved that piece of glass that stopped a bullet the other night?”

“Over here,” Stone said, taking him over to where the damaged pane rested against the garage.

“That’s heavy-duty stuff, isn’t it?” the sergeant said.

“The replacement is even more impressive.”

“Do you think I could clear your MG out of the garage? The ME is going to need a place to do his preliminary examination.”

“Certainly,” Stone said, handing him the keys.

“I understand there’s a sister here.”

“Yes, she’s upstairs resting. She took a sedative, I think. You won’t be able to question her today, but I can have her call you tomorrow morning.”

“That’ll do,” Young replied, and went to move the MG, just as Seth returned from the airfield with the ME and his assistant.

They sat in the living room and sipped iced tea and ate some of Mary’s chocolate-chip cookies.

“Well,” the ME said, “time of death: four-forty-five pm, according to testimony and the stopped clock in the car. This date. Cause of death: explosion and fire. She died instantly from the shock.”

“We’ll remove the wreckage to our shop at base,” Young said. “And our explosives people will make their determination there. A truck with a crane is on the next ferry.”

As if on cue, a large truck pulled into the driveway.

“I’ve photographed her driver’s license,” Young said, laying it on the table. “It squares with her passport in her bag. J. B. Jacoby.”

They stood up. “We’ll load the wreckage and be on our way,” Young said. “I’ll get the ME back to the chopper.”

Stone showed them out and came back to the living room, where Rawls was pouring them a drink.

“Close enough on the name,” he said. “I think they bought it all.”

“That’s a relief. I think you can ship all those kids back to the Farm. Don’t tell them anything but the cover story.”

Lance knocked on the door and let himself in. “I take it all is well.”

“As well as can be,” Stone said.

“I’ll see that the story is circulated in the right places,” he said. “The media will be calling the senator today for comment.”

“What better way to announce it?” Stone said.