Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

news?”
    â€œYes, but no details. Come on in.”
    The two men went into the study and sat down.
    â€œTell me,” Stone said.
    â€œTwo young housewives, Joan Peceimer and Terry Brown, played golf together late yesterday afternoon and left in the same car, telling someone they were having dinner together at Brown’s house. This morning, Brown’s car was found abandoned in a dirt lane, and we started a search. Joan Peceimer’s body was found in the water, in Dark Harbor, much like Janey Harris’s.”
    â€œAnd the other woman?”
    â€œStill missing.”
    â€œGood God. Two of them?”
    â€œJust between you and me, I don’t think there’s much chance of seeing Terry Brown alive again.”
    â€œThen what we’ve got here is a full-blown serial killer,” Stone said.
    â€œNo doubt about it,” the sergeant replied. “And he’s accelerating the pace of killings.”
    â€œThey had to know him,” Stone said.
    â€œYou think so?”
    â€œOtherwise it would have been very difficult for him to kidnap two women. They must have recognized him when he approached them.”
    â€œWell, that’s not a startling conclusion, given that everybody on this island knows just about everybody else.”
    â€œWhat steps are you taking?”
    â€œPeceimer’s body is on its way to the M.E. in Augusta. My partner has organized a search party of volunteers, and they’re covering every inch of the island.
    I’ve got half a dozen more sergeants on the way here. There’s not much more I can do.”
    â€œI had a conversation with Ed Rawls and his buddies yesterday,” Stone said. “They think that Dick’s family and Don Brown were killed by one man, and Janey Harris by another. They have a point.”
    â€œThat had occurred to me,” Young said. “If you accept that premise, then it seems to me that the idea of the Stone family’s murder is probably related to Dick’s work.”
    â€œI don’t know, Sergeant. It’s hard for me to accept that we’ve got some European assassin and a serial killer on this small island so close together in the timeline.”
    â€œI’ve seen weirder, and I expect you have, too,” Young replied. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think, and my superiors in Augusta are all over me. The papers are going to have a field day, too; there’s already a reporter from Boston here, and we can expect TV crews when word gets out about these two women.”
    â€œThe Old Farts’ principal suspect is Caleb Stone,” Stone said. “I’ve just had lunch with him, and we went through his alibi thoroughly.” Stone read Young his notes, then tore out the page and handed it to him. “If you can substantiate all this, then Caleb is in the clear.”
    Young read through the notes again. “We already have substantiated it,” he said, “point by point. Caleb’s in the clear, as far as I’m concerned.”
    â€œIf the alibi checks out, then I’m with you,” Stone said. “Nothing about Caleb strikes me as guilty. The only thing he wouldn’t talk about was his last meeting with Dick, when Dick was passing through Boston on his way back to Washington. He says it was family business and deeply personal, and he wouldn’t talk about it. He told me to tell you he wouldn’t talk about it to you, either.”
    â€œDo you think what they talked about might be relevant to all these killings?”
    â€œI can’t think of anything they might have said that would precipitate the situation we have now. Certainly not the murders of Janey Harris and Joan Peceimer and possibly Terry Brown.”
    â€œDoesn’t seem likely,” Young said. He got up. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Thanks for having a go at Caleb; you’ve saved us some time. Where’s Holly?”
    â€œOut for her run, I expect.”
    Young’s eyebrows went up.
    â€œDon’t worry, she’s armed, and she’s very, very capable of taking care of herself.”
    â€œShe gives that impression,” Young said.
    They shook hands, and the sergeant left.

40
    S TONE SAT DOWN in the study with a book to await Holly’s return. Over the years he had found that if he distracted himself from a problem for a while, his subconscious seemed to work on it in the background, and it would become