Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

going to be living on the island for the rest of the summer, or until there’s an arrest for the crimes that have occurred here. We’ve had a telephone line installed.” He gave them the number, and many people wrote it down. “You can call us anytime, night or day, if you have anything important to report. Make that anything at all, whether it seems important or not; we need all the information we can get.
    â€œNow, I want to bring you up to date on our investigation, tell you what we’re doing. We’re running criminal record checks on everybody on the island, full-time and part-time residents, and yes, this means you, no exceptions. We’re particularly interested to know if anybody on the island has ever been arrested or convicted of a crime of a sexual nature, so if there’s something like that in your background or the background of a person you know, I urge you to come to me directly about it, rather than wait for the record to turn up.
    â€œWe’re also rechecking the ferry records to see who was and wasn’t on the island at the time of the first murders, those of Richard Stone and his wife and daughter. There are no records of which private airplanes were parked at the airstrip at that time, but a resident who lives within sight of the airport has told us what he remembers about who was here, so we have a pretty good list of owners. Tom and I are going to be visiting every single residence on the island, so you will be seeing us at your house pretty soon. We’ll be talking by telephone with those residents who have recently left the island to return to their homes.
    â€œWe are going to determine from these interviews the name of every single person who was on the island the day the Stone family died, the day Don Brown died and the day Janey Harris died, so we’ll be asking each of you about that, and believe me, we’re going to verify every statement you make, so I want the truth from everybody first time out. Anybody who lies to us will immediately be treated as a suspect.
    â€œNow, anybody have any questions? I’d rather you ask them now, because I don’t want to have to go over this again with every person I meet.” He looked around the room.
    A man raised his hand. “We heard that you had determined that Janey had been raped.”
    â€œThat’s true,” Young said.
    â€œDid you recover any DNA evidence during the postmortem examination?”
    â€œI can see you’ve been watching CSI on television,” Young said. “The answer is no, we didn’t. The body had been in the water for several hours, and that would have helped remove any superficial DNA evidence or hairs or fibers that could have been of use. We found no DNA internally, either, which could mean either that being in the water removed it or that the perpetrator used a condom.”
    Another man raised his hand. “Was there any connection between the firearm used to kill the Stones and the one used to kill Don Brown?”
    â€œNo,” Young replied. “They were each killed with their own weapons: the Stones with a .380 and Brown with a .45.”
    Another hand went up. “How did the killer achieve entry into the Stone and Brown homes?”
    â€œWe believe that both homeowners failed to secure their properties and that the killers just walked in. Mr. Brown didn’t have a security system in his house; Mr. Stone had a very good system, but he did not activate it that night. This should be a lesson to all of you who have security systems or who plan to have them installed. If you don’t arm them, they’re not security systems; they’re just a bunch of useless wires and keypads. I want every home on this island to have its doors and windows closed and locked at night, and every security system armed.”
    â€œDo you have any motive for any of these murders?” somebody asked.
    â€œAll we have now is supposition. If any of you has any reason to believe that any person had a motive in any of these killings, please see me after the meeting. That could be crucial information. There’s something else I want to talk to all of you about.” He looked around the room. “I’m aware that a number of you have applied for a license to carry firearms and that others of you have purchased weapons. Corporal Best is going to pass out a brochure to all of you that summarizes Maine law on the possession and use