Shoot Him If He Runs

9

Stone and Holly walked into the dining room, took seats at the bar and, without looking around, ordered piña coladas. They made a point of gazing into each other’s eyes and touching a lot, then Holly turned toward the tables and leaned against the bar.

“See them?” Stone asked.

“Give me a minute,” she said. “It’s crowded.” She looked some more. “Don’t turn around, but I’ve got ’em. I think.”

“Well, is it they, or is it not?”

“Okay, it’s Irene. I’ve never seen the guy before.”

“Describe him.”

“Don’t know about height; he’s sitting down. Mid-fifties, reddish brown hair, gray at the temples. It’s like that color when men use something to cover the gray? I don’t know why they bother, it’s so noticeable. He’s heavier than Teddy.”

“People gain weight.”

“They don’t grow hair,” she said. “From here, it doesn’t look like a wig, and the first time I saw Teddy-both times, I guess-he was wearing wigs. But his colleagues at the agency said he had been going bald for years, and the last time they saw him, he was nearly completely bald on top.”

“Hair transplants?”

“On St. Marks? Before that, I don’t think he had the time; he was a busy fellow, killing people.”

“Did he really kill the speaker of the house, Efton?”

“The FBI thinks so, but there was no physical evidence to connect him to the crime. The Agency thinks he killed that Supreme Court justice, the young one who died in the auto accident.”

“The one who drove off a mountain in Maryland?”

“Right.”

“And a Secret Service agent was driving his car?”

“An SUV.”

“Why does the Agency think he was murdered? I never read anything about that in the papers. It was an icy road in the mountains.”

“It took nearly a year to figure it out, but the secret was in the chip that controlled the car’s electronic stability system.”

“A faulty chip?”

“Not faulty; altered.”

“Altered how?”

“The stability system works by applying the brakes selectively to the wheels when it senses a skid. It does it faster than a human can, and it can brake just one wheel. The chip had been altered so that when it sensed the skid, it applied the brakes not to the correct wheels but to the opposite wheel or wheels. So instead of defeating the skid, it made it immediately worse. The driver couldn’t keep up with it.”

“Are they sure it wasn’t a manufacturing fault?”

“No, but this sort of thing had never happened before.”

“That the chip company would admit.”

“Right.”

“Well, it’s a very clever way to murder somebody, but that kind of attempt would have a very low success rate. I mean, the killer would have to know that the car would be in conditions conducive to an accident.”

“It was public knowledge that the justice had a house in the mountains, and the weather report for the day is all the information Teddy would need.”

“Okay, I buy it. Can I turn around and look at these people now, please?”

“You can look at the guy up close; he’s headed this way.”

Stone turned and looked at the man, who had come up to the bar on the side opposite from Holly. She was right about his hair; colored, but real.

“Morning,” the man said to everybody.

“Good morning.”

“Bartender, do you have any Alka-Seltzer back there?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir.” A glass of water was placed on the bar and two tablets began to fizz.

“I’ve got to stop eating my own cooking,” the man said. His accent was mildly southern.

“You’re eating your own cooking on vacation?” Stone asked, grateful for the opening.

“I came in on a boat last night,” the man said. “Sailed it down from Lauderdale.”

“Singlehanded?”

“Yep. A lot of fun.”

“I’ve done a little of that. I sailed a fifty-footer from here to Lauderdale a few years back.”

“Mine’s smaller than that,” the man said. It’s a Hinckley Bermuda Forty.”

“Nice boat. Easy to singlehand?”

“Well, I improved the deck layout a little for singlehanding, and GPS sure makes the navigation easier.”

“How’d you pick St. Marks?”

“Well, I was going sailing, anyway, and…” He stuck out his hand. “By the way, my name is Harry Pitts.”

Stone shook the hand. “Stone Barrington.”

“Lady I used to go out with has a place here, so I dropped in to see her, thought I’d rest up for a week or two. Where you from?”

“New York.”

“I’m from a little town in Virginia you never heard of. What business you in?”

“Attorney. You?”

“I had a very nice home improvement business; sold it a couple of years ago and retired. Bored out of my skull, until I went sailing. A friend took me out on the Chesapeake, and I kind of went nuts about it. Excuse me.” He picked up the glass, drank the fizzy liquid, belched, and set the glass down. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’d better rejoin my lady. If you’re around later, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I’d like that,” Stone said.

“You staying here?”

“Yes, cottage number one, down on the beach. Why don’t you both join us for a drink around six?”

“That’s mighty nice of you; let me check with Irene, and I’ll get back to you.” He gave a little wave and went back to his table.

“What do you think?” Stone asked.

“He’s not Teddy, but that was good about asking them for a drink; at least we’ll get to talk to Irene. He’s waving at you.”

Stone looked over at the table. Harry Pitts was making a circle with his thumb and forefinger and nodding, then held up six fingers.

Stone gave an acknowledging wave and turned back to his piña colada. “It would be a plus if they didn’t turn out to be awful bores,” he said.

“I don’t see how anybody who rose as far in the Agency as Irene could turn out to be a bore,” Holly replied.

“Any way you slice it,” Stone said, “she was a bureaucrat.”