“Did you or Dino tell them who the prints belonged to?”
“Yes, we did.”
“So they’re looking for Manning, now?”
“Yes. And we think he may be in Palm Beach.”
“Well, this is very good news, Stone.”
“It is. I hope they’ll have him in custody soon, which would prevent Manning’s trying to disrupt the wedding.”
“Why do you think he would try to do that?”
“Last night, while the yacht’s crew was off duty, and Dino and I were asleep on the yacht, somebody let go all her mooring lines and removed the gangplank. If Dino hadn’t woken up, the yacht would almost certainly have collided with a bridge south of here and done great damage; maybe even have sunk the yacht.”
“Jesus. And you think it was Manning?”
Stone avoided mention of Dolce. “He seems the likely candidate. It was hardly the prank of a roving band of juvenile delinquents.”
“And you think he might try to disrupt the wedding?”
“Yes. We’ve taken security precautions against that possibility.”
“So everything that can be done has been done?”
“Yes.”
Thad stood up. “Then I’m going to put it out of my mind.”
“Please sit down, Thad. I’m not finished.”
Thad sat down.
“The Houston PD is interested in Manning because one of his fingerprints was found on a bedside glass of a man they believe may have been poisoned.”
“So he killed somebody in Houston, too? Good God, the man’s a maniac.”
“That certainly appears to be so. But what’s important to us here, today, is that the man the police think may have been poisoned was Winston Harding, Liz’s late husband.”
Thad seemed to freeze in place. “Oh, my God,” he said, finally.
Stone felt he had finally made his point.
“The poor girl. This man has made her life hell, and now we learn he murdered her husband, too?”
Maybe he hadn’t made his point, after all, Stone thought. He was going to have to spell it out. “That is a very distinct possibility,” Stone said. “And it has implications for you.”
“You mean, you think Manning may try to kill me?”
Stone nodded. “It’s a possibility we can’t ignore.”
“But you’ve already taken security precautions.”
“Yes, but how long are you willing to live under those circumstances?”
“I see,” Thad said. “You mean that he might try to kill me at some time in the future?”
“Yes.” Stone was having trouble getting the rest of it out. “Thad, I think that, under the circumstances, you should postpone the wedding.”
Thad looked alarmed. “For how long?”
“Until Manning is caught and… interrogated.”
“Gosh, I don’t know if we could do that at this point without causing a major hullabaloo in town. We’ve already invited two hundred people from Palm Beach and all over the country. Some of them have already arrived.”
“Of course, Manning may be arrested today or tomorrow.”
“That would certainly solve the problem, wouldn’t it?”
Stone took a deep breath. “Not necessarily.”
Thad looked at him for a long moment. “You mean Manning might have help? An accomplice?”
“It’s a very real possibility.” Thank God, Stone thought, he’s got it at last.
“Do you have any idea who it might be?”
No, he hadn’t gotten it. “Thad, I want you to understand that what I’m about to say is conjecture, but it’s a conjecture that has to be made.”
“So, make it.”
“There’s only one person that we’re aware of who knows both Manning and you.”
Thad’s brow wrinkled, then his face relaxed, and his mouth fell open. “You can’t mean…”
“As I say, it’s only conjecture at this point. We won’t know more until Manning is arrested, and it’s entirely possible that he won’t say anything then.”
“But that’s completely crazy,” Thad said.
“You may be right. But ask yourself this: Who profited from Winston Harding’s death?”
“Well, Manning, I guess. In some way. Revenge against Liz, maybe.”
“That’s a possibility. But there’s only one person who actually profited from Harding’s death.”
Thad didn’t seem to be able even to think it.
Stone finally said it aloud. “That person is Liz.”
“No, no, no, no…” Thad’s voice trailed off.
“And if the two of you are married and anything should happen to you, she would profit a great deal more than she did from Winston Harding’s death.”
Thad’s body sagged as if air had been let out of it. He seemed unable to speak.
“So, I think you should postpone the wedding until all this has been resolved.”
Thad seemed to collect himself. He sat up straight. “No,” he said. “I love her, and she loves me. If I know nothing else, I know that. The wedding goes on as scheduled. Do what you can to protect us from Manning, but you are not to say a word about this to Liz, is that understood?”
“Thad…”
“Stone, you have to either do as I wish in this matter, or leave. There’s no in between. What’s it going to be? Are you with me?”
Stone sighed. “All right,” he said.
60
Stone watched Callie leave the main house and, with a man in tow, come toward the yacht. She looked particularly beautiful today, he thought, and he had missed seeing her the past few days, when she had been so busy with the wedding.
She came up the gangplank. “Stone, this is Jeff Collender of Right-guard Security Services. He’ll be helping us with the wedding, and I thought you’d better brief him.”
“Yeah, I know,” Collender said, shaking hands. “The name sounds like a deodorant; it was my wife’s idea.”
“Glad to meet you, Jeff. Have a seat.”
“I hear you’re throwing quite a shindig, here,” Collender said.
“That describes it very well,” Stone said.
“So, what do we need, here? You want us to keep out the gate-crashers, and like that?”
“Jeff, we may have more of a problem than gate-crashers,” Stone said.
“Oh? You expecting a lot of big drinkers, then? We’ve had experience with that. We know how to quietly eject the drunks.”
“Let me explain as fully as I can,” Stone said. “We have to be ready to handle an armed intruder.”
Collender blinked. “Armed? You mean with a gun?”
“Well, yes. You do have the capability of supplying armed security people, don’t you?”
“Sure we do, but we’ve never had to actually shoot anybody.”
“And I hope you won’t on this occasion, but we have to be prepared for anything.”
“Okay, we’ll be prepared.”
“Earlier, I had estimated that we’d need only a few armed men, but now I think they’ll all have to be armed. I assume your men have had some standard training?”
“Well, most of them are ex-law enforcement, so they’ve been trained by whatever department they worked for.”
“Are there any that haven’t had training?”
“Maybe one or two.”
“Let’s drop them. We need men who know how to handle weapons in a crowd.”
“Mr. Barrington, why don’t you tell me exactly who you’re expecting?”
“His name is Paul Manning. He’s tall and slender-six-three or -four, two hundred pounds, dark hair going gray.”
“Would you recognize him on sight?”
“Only by his size and shape. I haven’t seen his current face.”
“His current face?”
“We believe he’s had some cosmetic surgery.”
“So you don’t have a photograph?”
“No.”
“Ooookay, no photograph.”
“There aren’t too many people that tall. He should stand out in a crowd.”
“How big a crowd are we expecting?”
“About two hundred,” Callie said.
“There’ll be a tight guest list?”
“Pretty tight. If a guest wants to bring someone along, we’re not going to make a big thing of it.”
“And how many of these guests are likely to be armed?”