Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

Morris.”
    â€œHow do you do, gentlemen?” she asked.
    They all muttered greetings.
    â€œStone, forgive me,” Rawls said, “but we need to speak to you alone.”
    â€œRelax, Ed,” Stone said. “Holly is one of you; she works for Lance Cabot.”
    Ed’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
    â€œYes, and she’s helping me with our, ah, situation. Anything you can say to me, you can say to her.”
    The three men sat down around the table.
    â€œCan I get anybody anything? A sandwich? A beer?”
    â€œMaybe later,” Rawls said.
    â€œWhat’s up, Ed?”
    â€œWe’ve been over and over this thing, and we’ve come to some conclusions.”
    â€œI’m all ears,” Stone said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table.”
    â€œFirst of all, we think we’re dealing with two different people,” Harley said.
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œWe think one person killed Dick Stone and his family and another, unconnected person killed Janey Harris.”
    â€œI suppose that’s possible,” Stone said. “Do you have any ideas about who either of them is?”
    Rawls spoke up. “Stone, I hope you’ll take this as reluctantly offered.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œWe think Dick and his family were killed by Caleb Stone.”
    Stone looked at the three men: They all looked dead serious.
    â€œTell me your reasons.”
    â€œMoney,” Mack said. “Dick’s wife’s money.”
    â€œMoney is always a good motive,” Stone agreed.
    â€œUntil Dick changed his will, we suspect that Caleb was his heir. Caleb’s never had a lot of money, and he has a reputation for living close to the line. He’s got two sons who’ve been educated expensively, a house in Boston and one here to run. He’s into his middle years with no hope of making much more than he is now.”
    â€œAll that seems to be true,” Stone said.
    â€œAnd we guess he has a key to this house.”
    â€œHe doesn’t anymore; he gave it back to me.”
    â€œAfter Dick and his family were dead?”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œHe probably knows the security system code, too, unless Dick changed it,” Mack said.
    Holly spoke up. “These are all good points, Stone.”
    â€œYes, they are. I’ll find out whether the security system code has been changed.”
    â€œWhy don’t you see if you can find out what was in Dick’s old will?” Harley asked.
    â€œI suppose I can ask Caleb for it, but he’s under no obligation to give it to me.”
    â€œMaybe you could ask him what caused Dick to change his will,” Rawls said. “Obviously, there was some sort of incident, some family breach for Dick to do such a precipitous thing. We’ve done some asking around on our own, but we haven’t been able to find out a thing. We suppose that it was something private, personal between the two brothers.”
    â€œAgain, I can ask, but I have no reason to believe Caleb would tell me.”
    â€œIt’s worth a try,” Rawls said.
    â€œWhat about Janey?” Stone asked. “Why do you think her killer is a different person?”
    â€œThe crimes are very different,” Rawls said. “There was no sexual crime in the deaths of Barbara and Esme, and they were all simply executed, two of them in their bed. We think Janey’s murder was one of opportunity, and the murderer was your garden-variety rapist-killer. You can find those anywhere, and our guess is that, eventually, Sergeant Young is going to figure out who this one is.”
    Harley spoke up. “We think Janey knew her killer and that she wrote something about him in her diary; that’s why it was stolen.”
    â€œWhat about Don Brown? Who do you think killed him?”
    Rawls looked uncomfortable. “We think it could be either the Stones’ killer or Janey’s. I’ll admit, we’re on shakier ground here, but we think the Stones’ killer is the more likely suspect, and that’s Caleb.”
    â€œFrankly, Ed, I think your original idea of Don’s being killed because Janey had told him something is the better theory, and the theft of her diary supports that.”
    â€œYeah, that’s good,” Rawls replied, “but we have the similarities of the Stones and Don being killed under similar circumstances: I’m talking about being