Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

thirty paces away, and they avoided walking on the path, looking for footprints.
    â€œGot a good one here,” Dino said, pointing.
    â€œDeck shoe,” Stone said. “See the little ridges? That narrows the suspect list to everybody on the island and everybody on the coast of Maine.”
    â€œBig deck shoe,” Dino said. “Size eleven or twelve. There are other partials here, going in both directions, but just this one good one.”
    â€œThat’s more than the cops found at Dick’s house,” Stone said. “I’d consider that a break.” He walked down to the rocky beach and pointed. “Some scrapes on the stones here; our man arrived by boat and pulled it ashore, but only a foot or two.”
    â€œMust have been a sizable boat,” Dino said. “Not just a whatchamacallit…?”
    â€œDinghy.”
    â€œYeah.”
    They walked back up toward the porch, and Dino pointed: “Sand and dirt on the porch.”
    â€œThat’s about it,” Stone said. “Let’s take a look out front.”
    They walked around the house.
    â€œToo many cars and people here to find any usable footprints,” Dino said, “but I’m satisfied the killer came by boat.”
    Stone walked up to the porch, where the Old Farts and Jimmy Hotchkiss had sat down. “Where’s the nearest house?”
    Rawls pointed. “Over there, a couple of hundred yards.”
    â€œThe cops will want to know if anybody heard the shot.”
    â€œWhy? We know he was shot.”
    â€œFix the time of death,” Dino said.
    â€œOh, yeah.”
    â€œAnybody got any thoughts about this killing?” Stone asked the group.
    â€œWe’ve all got the same thought,” Harley Davis said.
    â€œDon and Dick were of different generations,” Stone said. “Would they have ever worked together on something?”
    â€œNot recently,” Rawls said. “Don’s been retired for, I think, six years.”
    â€œWhere was his last posting?”
    â€œBerlin.”
    â€œAnd where was Dick at the time?”
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    â€œCould it have been Berlin?”
    Rawls shrugged. “Everybody based in Europe got to Berlin sooner or later.”
    Stone and Dino sat down on the front steps, and everybody fell silent.
    An hour later a state police car drove up, and four men got out. Sergeant Young was the driver. “Good morning,” he said.
    â€œNo, it ain’t,” Rawls replied.
    â€œWhat have we got here?”
    Stone and Dino took him into the house and showed him the corpse in the bedroom, then told him what they had observed since arriving, including the footprint. “Nearest house is a couple of hundred yards over there,” Stone said, pointing. “They should have heard the shot.”
    â€œIt’s a whole lot like the other killing, isn’t it?” Young asked.
    â€œSure is,” Stone replied.
    â€œWhat did Dick Stone and Don Brown have in common?”
    Stone spoke up. “They both lived on the same island, and they both worked for the same government agency. Brown retired six years ago.”
    Stone and Dino left the sergeant and the crime-scene people to their work and went back to the front porch.
    â€œEd, when did you last talk to Don?”
    â€œLast night, after supper, about nine.”
    â€œWhat did you talk about?”
    â€œDon called me, wanted to have lunch with the three of us tomorrow, that is, today. Said he had something to tell us.”
    â€œAny hints about what he wanted to tell you?”
    â€œNo. Don liked to think things over before he spoke.”
    â€œYou think it had anything to do with Dick’s murder?”
    â€œMy guess is yes. He asked me to call Harley and Mack, and I did.”
    The other two men nodded.
    â€œHe wouldn’t have made a lunch date if he’d intended to shoot himself,” Rawls said.
    â€œThat makes sense. Be sure and tell the sergeant about the call.”
    Rawls nodded. “This sort of stuff isn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “You do your work for thirty-five or forty years and you retire, and you’re out of it. Nobody comes looking for you five or six years later.”
    â€œDon found out something,” Harley said. “God knows what.”
    â€œAny of you know how Don spent his day yesterday?”
    Jimmy Hotchkiss spoke up. “I know he was here at lunchtime,