“You could argue that he didn’t get away with it,” Stone said. “He’s dead, after all.”
“Do you think the March Hare killed Charlotte Kirby?”
“We never saw a gun, did we? I certainly want to see the police report. Can you get it for me?”
“Better if Shelley does that,” Holly said. “She has an official reason to ask for it, and I don’t.”
Stone chuckled. “That doesn’t seem to stop you from getting what you want from the cops.”
“Better not to ask too often,” Holly said. She raised herself onto one elbow. “Stone, do you have any idea, any thoughts at all, about who the March Hare is?”
“No,” Stone said. “Not an idea, not a thought.”
“That’s depressing.”
“Tell me about it.”
46
Stone and Holly emerged from the bedroom to find Dino breakfasting alone. “Shelley had an early meeting,” he said. “Your breakfast is on the sideboard.”
Stone and Holly helped themselves from the hot dishes and sat down. “I wanted to ask her to get us the police report on Charlotte Kirby’s murder,” Stone said.
“I already thought of that. She’ll fax it over to us.”
“Good man,” Holly said, looking at him funny. “You seem depressed, Dino. Not your usual cheerful self.”
“Dino, cheerful?” Stone said, laughing.
“I thought we were out of here this morning,” Dino said. “We’re not.”
“That is depressing, isn’t it?” said Stone.
“I don’t mind having you two around,” Holly said. “You put a little fun into my humdrum life.”
“Humdrum my ass,” Dino snorted. “The stuff you get into at the Agency, you’re probably having too much fun!”
“I wish we had some sort of lead-anything,” Stone said. “I don’t know what to do next.”
“How about Fair Sutherlin’s cell phone?” Dino suggested. “It’s disappeared, and the murderer must have taken it.”
Holly spoke up. “The Agency has a program for cell phone searches,” she said. “Can I use your laptop, Stone?”
“Sure, it’s on the desk.”
Holly sat down at the computer and began typing. “I’m logging on to the Agency mainframe,” she said, “then I can access the program.” She stopped. “There. What’s her number?”
Stone got his iPhone, looked up the number, and read it out.
Holly typed in the number, then waited, looking at the computer screen. “It’s searching.”
“You could use that program at the NYPD, Dino,” Stone said.
“We’ve had it for years, or something like it. Comes in useful now and then.”
Holly checked the screen again. “Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s been removed from D.C.,” Stone suggested.
“No, this would find it anywhere in the world, unless it’s been smashed, the SIM card removed, or it’s where there’s no cell reception, like in a bomb shelter.”
“So much for Fair’s cell phone,” Stone said.
The fax machine on the desk rang and began spouting paper.
“It’s the Arlington PD’s report on Charlotte Kirby’s killing.” He picked up the small stack of papers.
“Charlotte was a federal employee. Why isn’t Shelley’s bunch handling that?” Dino asked.
“Maybe that’s only in D.C., not Virginia,” Holly said.
“So, Stone, what does it say?”
“Single gunshot wound to the head, probably self-inflicted. A Walther PPK/S .380 found at the scene.”
“I didn’t see a gun, did you?” Dino asked.
“No, and I went to the bedside and opened the table drawer, so I was close enough.”
“Maybe it fell off the bed or got tangled in the covers,” Holly offered.
“No evidence of the presence of another person in the room,” Stone said. “Looks like a straight-up suicide to me.”
“I’ll buy that,” Dino echoed.
Stone handed Holly the file, and she began to read through it. “Here’s something: they found a box of ammo in her underwear drawer, with six missing. The gun had five in the magazine, and there was a single empty cartridge on the bed.”
“There you go,” Dino said. “She did herself.”
“Do you think Charlotte knew more about the March Hare than she told us?” Stone asked.
“She poured out everything else,” Dino said. “Why would she hold back on that? She must have hated whoever it is.”
“Holly,” Stone said, “does it say anything about prints on the ammo box?”
Holly flipped through the reports. “Here it is: no prints on the box or on the ammo in the magazine or on the magazine. Charlotte’s prints were on the gun.”
“Now that’s interesting,” Stone said. “How did Charlotte load the gun and leave no prints on the magazine or cartridges?”
“Either she wore gloves, or she wiped them,” Holly said.
“Why would she do either of those things? After all, she was about to kill herself. Why would she care about her prints?”
“The March Hare would care,” Dino said, “pardon my rhyme.”
“All the others suffered blunt trauma,” Holly said. “Why is Charlotte different?”
“My guess is, the March Hare lay in wait for the others,” Dino said, “but she found Charlotte in bed and it was easier to shoot her.”
“Did they run the gun, Holly?” Stone asked.
Holly consulted the file. “Bought used, at a gunshop in Richmond, Virginia, the year before last. Buyer named G. B. Smith, whose address was a phony.”
“Virginia is notorious for phony gun
sales,” Dino said. “We see the results on the streets of New York all the time.”
“We’re knocking ourselves out for nothing,” Stone said. “The March Hare is careful, we already know that.”
“Tell you the truth, I thought Fair was our woman,” Dino said. “I didn’t like her attitude yesterday.”
“I never thought so.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dino said, “she was too nice.”
“No, just too straightforward. She had a full life-she didn’t have time to go around murdering people.”
“So,” Dino said, “we’ve got a very careful serial killer.”
“Looks that way,” Stone said. “And that’s all we’ve got.”
47
Teddy Fay and Lauren Cade lay naked on the beach at Gay Head, on Martha’s Vineyard. It was Sunday afternoon. Most of the other nudists, all locals, with beach parking permits, had gone. Teddy and Lauren had sneaked down the trail from the parking lot and had managed to blend in with the couples and families who had been enjoying the sun on their bodies. They had enjoyed a long weekend in a B and B in Edgartown.
They packed their dirty dishes into the picnic hamper, folded their blanket, then got back into their clothes. It was a bit of a hike up the cliffs, and they were puffing a bit when they got to the car.
Teddy got the rental started and they began driving to the airport.
“You know,” Lauren said, “this island might make a better place to live than D.C. It’s lovely here.”
“It is,” Teddy agreed, “but remember, it has a New England winter, and what with one airport and a ferry to deal with, it’s a hard place to get out of, should we have to leave in a hurry.”
“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s find a place that has a good climate year-round, and where escaping our pursuers isn’t such a problem.”
“We had a place like that in La Jolla,” Teddy said. “The San Diego weather was great year-round, but we were run out of there.”
“But you did say they aren’t pursuing us anymore,” Lauren pointed out.
“That’s what they agreed to,” Teddy said. “Now we have to find out whether they really meant it, and to do that without getting caught we have to be ready to move on a moment’s notice.”
“For how long?”
“A year, maybe.”
“Or we could just go now,” Lauren said.
“If we went now, where would you want to go?”
“How about Asheville, North Carolina?” she asked. “I was there once, and they seem to have a good year-round climate, not too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters.”