“Interesting word, ‘dispatched.’ I mean, he was ‘dispatched’ there, wasn’t he.”
“Lance, you clearly know everything there is to know about John Collins, so why do you keep asking me to find out more about him?”
“Just filling in the gaps, old sport,” Lance said.
“Why are there gaps in your knowledge of Collins?”
“Well, let’s just say that, during his summer there, he was not reporting as regularly as I would have liked.”
“I think we’ve pretty much scraped the bottom of that barrel, haven’t we?”
“Have we? I’d like to know.”
“Lance, why was Collins in Maine?”
Lance finished his coffee and set down the cup. “Because he wanted to kill somebody.”
“Anybody in particular?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Let me hazard a guess: a Russian?”
Lance thought about that for a moment. “Possibly.”
“Why?”
“Retribution, I should imagine.”
“Retribution for what?”
“For harming someone he was... fond of.”
“A female person?”
“Yes.”
“Was she CIA?”
“No, she worked at the UN for another country’s service.”
Before Stone could press him further, Lance was on his feet. “Must run,” he said. “Can’t waste that dose of caffeine.” And he was gone.
13
Stone thought about it, and he realized that there was someone else who had seen John Collins on Islesboro. He made the call.
“Hahlo!”
“Seth, it’s Stone.”
“How you doin’?”
“Very well, thanks, and I hope you are.”
“Yup.”
“Seth, you remember the gentleman who spent the night in the garage?”
“Of course.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
“Of course. How could I miss him?”
“Right. Had you ever seen him before?”
“Yup.”
“When and where?”
“I saw him in August. He was walking on the island. Noticed him because most of them from away drive their cars or golf carts.”
“Walking where?”
“Just walking.”
“I don’t mean his destination. I mean, where on the island did you see him?”
“Two or three spots, I reckon.”
“Where were they?”
“I saw him along the road from the ferry to the village, like maybe he had just gotten off the ferry. I saw him in the village, where he went into the store and bought an ice cream. I saw him, late in the day, walking back toward the ferry.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Casual, like all them from away: khakis, a shirt; had a sweater thrown over his shoulders, like he expected it to get cooler. Good idea! It gets cooler up here.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yup.”
“How long was he in the store?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe. More than enough time to get himself an ice cream.”
“Did you see him speak to anyone inside or outside the store?”
“When he come out, he gave a little wave to somebody behind him and said something. Couldn’t make out what from the distance.”
“Did he buy anything in the store except ice cream?”
Seth thought for a moment. “Yup. He bought a paper, maybe the New York one. Had it tucked under his arm.”
“Which way did he go when he left the store?”
“Toward the ferry.”
“Seth, is there a bar on the ferry, or liquor for sale?”
“Nope. You have to bring your own.”
“Was he carrying anything? A bottle or a hip flask?”
“Nope to the bottle. His pants were kind of baggy, so he might have had room for a hip flask.”
“Anything else you can remember about him?”
Seth went quiet for a minute.
“Seth?”
“Yup? Nope. Can’t remember anything else.”
“Thanks for your time, Seth.”
“Yup.” Seth hung up.
Stone ran the conversation again in his head and retained the pieces for further use.
Joan came in with some sheets of paper. “This was sent to you by Lance Cabot,” she said.
It was the Maine ME’s report on the Collins postmortem. Stone ran a finger down to “stomach contents” — lobster, coleslaw, alcohol, colorless, likely vodka, eight to twelve drinks — that spelled drunk.
So Collins had a lobster roll, widely available in the area, but vodka? Was liquor sold at the little market in Lincolnville? Very likely. But Collins was a nondrinker. What could have caused him to imbibe eight to twelve drinks? Or, perhaps, who? And where? On board the ferry? In a car? In a car on the way to the ferry?
Stone looked for the place on the form for cuts and bruises. One large bruise, recent, base of the skull. He would have been unconscious for a while afterward. That would account for how they got him into a car. Maybe how they had gotten the vodka into him.
Stone checked the photographs of the corpse. Fingernails intact and clean. He hadn’t tried to scratch or claw anybody. Left-hand knuckles bruised. A straight left to somebody’s nose, maybe. Right knuckles unbruised. A right to the belly or solar plexus? Bruises on both arms, just above the elbows. Somebody pinned his arms back? Maybe while pouring the vodka into him? None of this would count in a court of law, but it gave him a picture, albeit a fuzzy one.
He called Vanessa Morgan.
“Hi, there.”
“Hi. Did the Agency send you or give you a package or a bag of the contents of John’s pockets?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Could you bring it with you to dinner tonight?”
“Okay.”
“Six-thirty here?”
“Sure.”
“See you then.” They both hung up.
14
Vanessa appeared on time and Stone led her to his study, where he exchanged a drink for a ziplock plastic bag. “Do you mind if I look through these things now?” he asked her.
“Go right ahead.”
Stone emptied the bag onto the coffee table. “Have you been through this?” he asked her.
“Nope, they look just like the stuff he laid on the dresser top every night he was home.”
Stone poked through the contents. “There should be a wallet with his CIA ID,” he said.
“The guy who delivered the bag said they never found it.”
“Right.” Stone found a tiny cardholder with John’s Agency business cards; he kept one. There was a thick wallet, and Stone counted eight hundred and ten dollars. He handed it to Vanessa. “Here, go spend that.”
“Consider it done,” she said, dropping it into her handbag.
“Did he often carry that much cash?”
“It’s not unusual, for him.”
Stone took an assortment of credit cards from the wallet and spread them on the table: Amex, Visa, ATM card, and one that was blank except for a ten-digit number.
“That blank card is for a bank, isn’t it?” Vanessa asked.
“Could be. Did John do any banking outside the country?”
“Like where?”
“Like Macao, the Cayman Islands, Malta, Cyprus?”
“We went to the Caymans once. St. George’s, for three days.”
“Did John ever leave you alone when you were there? A couple of hours, maybe?”
“Yes, we were lying on a beach, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was gone, and he didn’t come back for another hour or more. I asked him where he’d been, and he said, ‘Just taking a stroll.’ ”
“When you went to the beach, did he take any sort of luggage with him?”
“He took a canvas duffel with his towel and sunglasses in it, that sort of thing. He was carrying it when he came back, but it looked emptier.”