Shoot Him If He Runs

37

Holly drove quickly out of the inn’s grounds and toward the Peppers’ house.

“Slow down,” Stone said. “We don’t want to attract the attention of the police.”

Holly made a determined effort to drive more slowly.

“That’s better; we’re just a couple of tourists out for a drive.”

Ten minutes later Holly turned into the Peppers’ driveway. The small car was parked where it had been before, but this time the front door was ajar.

Holly and Stone got out of the car and approached the front door.

“I don’t know if we can eat this,” a woman’s voice said from inside.

“Just heat it up, it’ll be fine,” a male voice answered.

Holly rapped on the door. “Hello?”

Bill Pepper came into the living room with some sort of electronic device in his hand. When he saw Holly, he tapped an ear.

“Hi, Bill,” Holly said, “I’m Ginny Heller, a friend of your sister’s in Miami. She asked me to drop in on you and see how you were doing.”

“Hi, Ginny,” Pepper said, but his attention was on the device in his hand. He walked toward the telephone in the living room, picked it up and started unscrewing the mouthpiece.

“This is my friend Stone; we’re traveling together.”

“Hi, Stone.”

“Hi, Bill.”

Pepper took a small disk from the phone and held it up, then he put it on the stone floor and stomped on it. “There,” he said, consulting the meter on the device in his hand, “that’s the lot. Now we can talk.”

“Good,” Holly said.

“I hear we’re flying out of here tomorrow with you.”

“I’m afraid not. Sutherland has locked down the island; nobody leaves until Croft’s assassin is found.”

Annie Pepper came into the room. “Hello,” she said.

“Annie, this is Holly Barker and her friend Stone Barrington. You saw them at the inn earlier in the week.”

“Of course,” Annie replied.

“Annie and I had already left the police station when the Croft hit happened,” Pepper said. “I think we were in a cab by then. I didn’t hear about it until I called Lance.”

“Thomas Hardy told us,” Holly said.

“Thomas knows just about everything about everybody on this island,” Pepper said.

“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Annie asked. “I’m heating up last night’s dinner; I was arrested while I was cooking it, but it seems to be okay.”

“Sure, if it’s no trouble,” Holly said. “Bill, business first; did you get the housing applications for Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby downloaded before the cops came?”

“Yes, but they’re on my laptop, and they confiscated it. I forgot to demand its return when we got out of jail, so I was going to call Jim Tiptree and ask him to retrieve it.”

“Has he been released?”

“The ambassador is working on that now, I think. There’s no way they can make him complicit in Croft’s murder. The sergeant on duty heard Croft suggest to Jim that they go outside. I think maybe Croft’s office is bugged, too, like everywhere else.”

“Our cottage at the inn is bugged,” Holly said. “We were thinking of ripping them out, as you’re doing.”

“What the hell? Croft’s not around to listen anymore.”

The phone rang, and Pepper picked it up. “Hello? Hi, Jim; are you out? Good; I didn’t think they would have any reason to hold you. Listen, in our haste to get out of there, I didn’t get my laptop back from them; do you think you could handle that? There’s something on it that I need. Don’t worry, it’s encrypted; they’ll never be able to get into it. They caught me downloading the stuff from the government computer from their end. Great, Jim, and thanks; give me a call when you’ve got it, and I’ll come get it. Well, all right. Thanks again.” He hung up. “Jim’s going to send somebody over there for the computer and have it delivered here.”

“Great; do you know when?”

“Let’s have lunch, and maybe it will be here by the time we finish.”

They went into the kitchen, where Annie was setting the table, and Pepper opened a bottle of wine. They sat down to eat.

“Are we all family here?” Pepper asked as we sat down.

“Yes; Stone is a consultant to the Agency, and he’s aware of everything that’s going on.”

“Have you talked to Lance recently?”

“Not since earlier this morning.”

“You need to talk to him again; things are heating up.”

“How so?”

“I take it you think Teddy Fay might have killed Croft?”

“Yes, it’s like him, especially if he had some motive. My guess is he may have been paying off Croft, so that he could stay on the island.”

“Possibly,” Pepper said. “I only knew Teddy slightly. He outfitted me for a mission earlier in my career.”

“Did you get a look at the photos on the applications of Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby?”

“Yes, and one of them could be Teddy, if he’s as good at disguise as they say.”

“Do you think Sir Winston Sutherland might have any reason to suspect either of them?”

“I don’t know; it depends on how much Croft told Sutherland, but from what I know about the PM, he’s a hands-on guy, a control freak, so I can’t imagine there’s much Croft knew that Sutherland doesn’t. I think we have to assume that Sutherland knows everything Croft knew. Of course, he’s unlikely to know that one of the Brits is Teddy. He probably thinks that Teddy is dead, like the rest of the world.”

Stone spoke up. “Sutherland is not a stupid man; I’ve dealt with him before, and you should think of him as dangerous at all times.”

“Yeah, I heard about your trial here a few years back,” Pepper said, “and I tend to agree with you.”

“If Sutherland goes after Robertson, Pemberton or Weatherby, then we’ve got to get there first,” Holly said.

“Funny, that’s what Lance said, which means that’s what the director has said, too. He’s working directly for her on this, and I think Hugh English is royally pissed off about it. Something’s going to blow at Langley pretty soon.”

“How do you think this is going to play out?”

“Well, I don’t think Lance will want to work with English or vice versa, and I also don’t think Hugh will sit still very long with Lance poaching on his turf, so the director is going to have her hands full.” He toyed with his food. “There could be political implications, too.”

“I can see how there might be,” Holly said, “but I’m not mixing in that.”

Pepper sipped his wine. “I think that if we can prove that one of the three Englishmen is Teddy, one of us in this room is going to be asked to do something about him. You’d better be prepared for that when you talk to Lance.”

“My orders were to find Teddy, report back and get the hell out,” Holly said.

Pepper shook his head. “Everything has changed, with Croft’s killing. We’re all going to be getting new orders.”