Lucid Intervals

54

The state police had been there for an hour when Captain Scott Smith came out of the house and onto the porch, where Stone was waiting. Hackett’s body was being removed.

Smith held up a small, plastic bag with a slug in it. “This went through Hackett’s body, right past your head as you were rocking”-he pointed at the hole next to Stone’s chair-“through the exterior wall of the house and ended up imbedded in a plaster wall in the living room.”

“Wow.”

“It’s a 30-06, probably a special load, given the velocity and penetration. A pro’s weapon. Who do you think did this?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said. “Hackett had just begun to talk to me about his situation when he was hit. He was up here because he feared for his life.”

“Did he tell you whom he feared?”

“He didn’t have time,” Stone lied. His cell phone rang. “Excuse me. Yes?”

“It’s Dan Phelan. We’re rolling with two passengers.”

“Thanks, Dan.” He hung up. “I have a couple of guests arriving here by airplane in an hour or so; I’ll need to meet them at the airfield.”

Captain Smith nodded. “Might these people have anything to do with Hackett?”

“One of them, Mike Freeman, works with him, but I don’t think he knows anything about this. I talked with him before he got here.”

“Be sure you come back here; I’m not finished with you yet.”

“All right. We’ll go to my house, next door.”

“I’ll come over there when I’m finished here.” He looked Stone up and down. “You might want to change those clothes.”

“I’ll do that now,” Stone said, and then went upstairs. After he showered and changed, he called his caretaker and informed him of guests to come. He put his bloody clothes in the liner of the room’s wastebasket and then took it downstairs. “You want these clothes?” he asked Captain Smith.

“Thanks,” Smith said, taking the bag and handing it to a subordinate. “Log this,” he said. “Mark it ‘clothing of the witness.’ ”

“Have you had any luck finding the boat?” Stone asked.

“No, and no luck with an airplane out of place at any local airfield. If I were the killer, I’d have dumped the rifle in the bay, motored to a cove nearby and anchored for the night, maybe longer. We’re not going to find him, unless we get very, very lucky.”

Stone packed his bag and put it into Hackett’s car, then drove to the airfield. He preferred waiting there to waiting at the house, where he was only in the way. He sat in the car, numb, wondering how this had happened and if the fault somehow lay with him. He didn’t see his airplane until it whooshed in over the trees and settled onto the runway. Phelan taxied over to where he was parked and shut down the engine.

Stone opened the airplane’s door and helped Felicity down the air stair. Mike Freeman was right behind her, and he shook Stone’s hand. Stone went to the luggage compartment and began removing their bags, and Freeman followed him.

“Where’s Jim’s body?” he asked.

“The police removed it from the house more than an hour ago. It will be on the mainland and on the way to the morgue in Augusta by now.”

“Any sign of the perpetrator?”

“I think he was in a boat moored in the harbor, maybe two fifty, three hundred yards away. Not a difficult shot in no wind and with the right weapon, scope and ammo.”

Freeman nodded. “Where are we going now?”

“To my house, next door to where Jim was staying.”

“I’ve got a hundred phone calls to make to clients before they hear about this on the news,” Freeman said.

“You can use my phone,” Stone said.

He shook Phelan’s hand and thanked him. Phelan got back into the airplane and started the engine. Driving down the road toward his house, he saw his airplane take off and turn to the southwest.

Stone drove to the house, which Seth, the caretaker, had already opened and where he had made rooms ready. Stone showed Freeman where he was sleeping, then led Felicity to the master suite, her second visit there.

“I gather this Mike Freeman worked for Hackett,” she said.

“His number two.”

“He hardly said a word from the time we met.”

“He has a lot on his mind. I expect he’s already phoning clients around the world to tell them what’s happened. He has to protect the business now.”

She nodded and sat down on the bed. “Tell me what you and Hackett talked about.”

Stone laid it all out for her. When he had finished, he asked, “Did you know about the two kids?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I remember when it happened, but I didn’t know the full story until recently. That’s when I threatened Palmer with exposure.”

“Hackett predicted that, if they killed him, they’d go after you, too,” Stone said, “because they’d be afraid you’d talk.”

“I’m about to do that now,” she said. “Can I use this phone?” One line was already lit up.

“Yes, use the next line. You’re sure you want to do this?”

“The only way I’ll know I’m safe is if everybody else knows what I know.”

“You may have a hard time proving it,” Stone said.

“I don’t have to prove it,” she replied. “They’ll probably never go to prison, but I want it hung around their necks.”

“Are you going to resign?”

“No, but I’ll bloody well see that Palmer and Prior do. I’ll go to the prime minister if I have to.”

“I’ll be downstairs.” He turned to go, but she stopped him.

“Stone, did Hackett admit that he was Whitestone?”

“He wouldn’t confirm or deny it,” Stone said. “He kept referring to Whitestone in the third person. Still…”

“I think he was Whitestone. That’s what I’m going to put out. I want an end to all this.”

“You would know better than I how to handle it in London,” he said. The light went out on the phone. Downstairs, Stone found Mike Freeman talking to Captain Scott Smith, and he joined them.

“You can’t think of any business reason why anyone would want to do this?” Smith was asking Freeman.

Freeman shook his head. “I’ve been going over this in my mind since Stone called me, and I can’t see how it could be business-related,” he said.

“Surely, yours is the kind of business where a man could make enemies,” Smith said, sounding skeptical.

“You’d have to understand Jim,” Freeman replied. “He was a charming man, and he went out of his way to treat people decently, even those who didn’t like him. He worked hard not to make enemies.”

“How about a competitor? Surely, he would be resented by people who had lost contracts to him.”

Freeman thought about it. “I think that, in his early days, he went after business pretty hard, but for the ten years I’ve been with him, he pretty much sat back and let the business come to him. He was a very popular man.”

“Was he married?”

“Divorced, many years ago, in England.”

“Has he been seeing someone else’s wife?”

Freeman shook his head. “That wouldn’t be Jim. He loved beautiful and accomplished women, but they were all single.”

“Jealous boyfriend of one of his women?”

Freeman shrugged. “If so, he never mentioned it.”

Stone spoke up. “He would have to be a jealous boyfriend who was a pro at this sort of thing.”

“Agreed,” Smith said. “Should I talk to the lady upstairs about this?” he asked.

Stone shook his head. “She’s a friend visiting from London. She wouldn’t contribute anything to your investigation.” God knows, he thought, that’s true.