Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 14

tried to hang her.”
    â€œThanks for reminding me,” Holly said drily. “Will you call Ham and find out how Daisy is doing?”
    â€œHolly, the Central Intelligence Agency doesn’t do dog checks.”
    â€œCan I call him on the satphone?”
    â€œOh, all right.”
    â€œTalk to you tomorrow.” She hung up and called her father in Orchid Beach, Florida.
    â€œThis is Barker,” he drawled.
    â€œHey, Ham.”
    â€œHey, girl; how’s it going?”
    â€œPretty well, I guess; tell Ginny I’m enjoying being her. I lost fifteen pounds for the job.”
    â€œThat couldn’t hurt.”
    â€œWatch it, Ham. How’s Daisy?”
    â€œHappy as a clam; she goes fishing with me every day and helps by lying down on the foredeck and falling asleep.”
    â€œShe’s eating well?”
    â€œYou ever know her to turn down a meal?”
    â€œWell, you know, I miss her.”
    â€œBy the way, somebody was sniffing around the flight school, asking questions about Ginny.”
    â€œOh, God, I hope Ginny wasn’t there.”
    â€œShe was giving a flying lesson at the time. It was a black guy in a suit and tie, with some sort of accent, and being that dressed up is pretty rare around here.”
    â€œWho’d he talk to?”
    â€œThe secretary/bookkeeper in the office. She told him Ginny was out of the country on vacation, like she was supposed to.”
    â€œThat’s a relief to hear. We found out our cottage was bugged, and it’s interesting to know that somebody’s checking on us.”
    â€œWell, you watch your ass, girl; I don’t want to have to come down there and bring your corpse home.”
    â€œRelax, Ham; nothing like that going on. I gotta go. You give Daisy a big, wet kiss for me.”
    â€œYeah, sure. I’ll give Ginny one, instead.”
    â€œBye.” She hung up and went back out to the beach.
    â€œWhat’s the word?”
    â€œI’ll call Lance tomorrow at ten for the results of the background check. There’s something else, though.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œA black man in a suit with an accent visited Ginny’s flying school and asked questions about her.”
    â€œOh, shit.”
    â€œFortunately, he didn’t see Ginny; she was flying. And the lady in the office gave him the ready story. I hope that satisfied him.”
    â€œSo do I,” Stone said. “I hope that’s an end to it.”

21
    E verybody was dressing for dinner, and Stone was ready first. “I’m going to go up to the inn and see what Thomas knows about this Robertson character; I’ll meet you in the bar.”
    â€œOkay,” Holly said, switching on her blow dryer.
    Stone slipped into a linen jacket and walked up to the inn. Thomas was behind the bar, in conversation with a customer, a black man in a black suit. A very nice suit, Stone thought, but an odd choice for the tropics.
    Thomas waved him over. “Stone, I’d like you to meet one of our more prominent citizens,” he said. “This is Colonel Croft, of our home office. Colonel, this is an old customer, Mr. Stone Barrington, from New York.”
    The colonel swiveled on his stool and smiled a broad smile with many teeth. “How do you do, Mr. Barrington?” he said.
    He was wearing gold-rimmed dark glasses with reflective lenses, so Stone could not see his eyes, which he found a little disconcerting. “How do you do, Colonel? I didn’t know St. Marks had an army.”
    â€œIt’s a police title,” the colonel explained. “Since joining the Home Office I’m no longer a policeman, exactly, but the rank seems to have stuck. Everyone calls me Colonel.”
    â€œI’m a retired policeman myself, like Thomas,” Stone said.
    â€œYou look awfully young to be retired,” the colonel replied.
    â€œMedical reasons,” Stone said. “I took a bullet in the knee after fourteen years on the NYPD.”
    â€œAnd what was your assignment on the force?” the colonel asked.
    â€œI was a detective, mostly investigating homicides.”
    The colonel smiled again. “Well, Mr. Barrington, you would have been unable to earn a living in St. Marks; we have so little violent crime and hardly any homicides.”
    â€œYou are to be congratulated,” Stone said. “It takes good police work to keep crime at such low levels.”
    â€œWe do our