“Don’t go in there,” Dino muttered to himself. “They’ll have an excuse to shoot you.”
Rawls disappeared into the house, and they stood waiting for something to happen. Rawls appeared on the second-floor balcony and walked its length, looking into rooms, then he disappeared back inside. He was gone for two or three minutes before he emerged on the front porch again, shaking his head. He walked over to where they stood. “Nobody home,” he said.
“Is there a basement?”
“Yeah, and I checked it. Empty, except for mechanicals. I think our next stop is the Jacksons’ place.”
They got back into their respective vehicles and turned down the Jacksons’ driveway. The front door was ajar.
“Where’s their car?” Dino asked.
“Billy put it in the barn,” Stone said.
They all left their cars and walked into the Jackson house. They searched room by room, upstairs and down but found nothing. The barn contained the Jacksons’ station wagon, but little else.
“The boathouse,” Rawls said.
“That’s where they kept her,” Stone replied.
The path had been cleared and the walkway repaired. As they approached, the boathouse looked inviting, with its fresh coat of paint.
“Second floor,” Stone said, and they went upstairs gingerly. The rooms were unfurnished, but clean. There were new kitchen appliances. “Not here,” Stone said.
“Let’s check around the dock,” Ed suggested, and they went back downstairs. Still nothing.
They went back to the house, and as they entered Stone saw, down the center hallway, a flash of green drove past on the road.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Could have been the MG, but I couldn’t see the occupants,” Dino replied. “It was too fast.”
“Come on!” They got back into their vehicles, got turned around, and headed down the road to the village. They were past the store when Stone saw the MG turn into his driveway. He skidded through the turn and followed it.
When they arrived at the house, Primmy and Carly were climbing out of the MG, cheerfully waving at them.
“Where the hell have you two been?” Stone asked, exasperated.
“Wherever the hell we wanted to go,” Primmy replied in the same tone.
“Everybody calm down!” Viv said. “We’ve been searching for you, Primmy, and we were scared.”
“We went down to see Ed for a while,” Primmy said. “Then we drove down to the point and took a walk. It’s nice down there.”
Stone took a deep breath. “Primmy,” he said, “new rules.”
“What are they?”
“No one leaves the house without either Dino or me,” he said. “And we all go armed. Come inside. We have some things to tell you.”
They marched into the living room, where Mary was setting the table for lunch.
“First, the Snickers bars,” he said.
“Snickers bars? You’ve gone absolutely bonkers,” Primmy replied.
43
Everybody was quiet at lunch, until Primmy spoke up, interrupting everybody’s half-nap. “Why are Ed and Sally not joining us?” she asked.
“In the circumstances,” Stone replied, “he wants to stick close to home.”
“Why is he safer there than here?” she asked.
“There, he knows that when he walks through the front door, there won’t be two guys with shotguns waiting for him.”
“I see. What’s Ed’s story? I heard you or somebody say ‘ex-CIA,’ but that’s all.”
“That’s correct. Ed had thirty years or so, as an operative and station head. One of the best, by all accounts. Then he made a mistake.”
“I’ll bet ‘mistake’ is spelled ‘w-o-m-a-n.’”
“You’d win money on that bet.”
“Details, please. And dirt, too.”
“Okay, after a long and extraordinary career, Ed was serving his out-the-door-and-into-his-pension posting as station chief in Stockholm.”
“Uh-oh, Swedish woman.”
“That would have been too smart,” Stone replied. “Ed took up with a senior Russian diplomat’s wife, true love and all that.”
“Oops.”
“You betcha, oops. They were caught in flagrante delicto in a hotel suite that had thoughtfully been equipped by the KGB with high-definition video and audio equipment. Although I’m told the footage was highly complimentary of Ed’s skills, the Russians were more interested in what he knew while operating vertically, and they pressed him hard for that. Ed was too smart to give them anything but what a secretarial intern might have, but the Agency turned one of the KGB boys in Stockholm and he brought along Ed’s home movies as a bargaining chip, as well as for the entertainment value. The Justice Department was inclined to go easy on Ed. But he, inevitably, had made a few enemies at the Agency on his way up the ladder, and they wanted him to take a hard fall, rather than have a soft landing.”
“Poor Ed.”
“Indeed. He got twenty years. Fast-forward a few, and he performed — from prison, mind you — services of considerable value to the country. Plus, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Moscow station got a look at what the KGB had got from Ed, and it was laughable, almost a service to the country. There was a move afoot for a new trial, but that would have taken a long time, so the president gave him a full pardon. His time-in-service was restored, as was his pension. And though he still had enemies at Langley, he made a new life for himself. His marriage was gone, of course, but he managed very well. The Agency sometimes still employs him for special-mission stuff.”
“Is that what he’s doing now?” Carly asked.
“Let’s just say that my cousin Dick Stone was a highly valued intelligence operative and executive who was about to move into the deputy director for operations job, the second highest in the Agency, and they did not take the murder of their fairest-haired boy lightly. They do harbor a vengeful streak that, at times, rears its head.”
“Did the twins murder Dick Stone?” Carly asked.
“Without conclusive evidence to back me, I take the view that they did. Nothing I learned at the time or since has made me doubt my conclusion for a moment.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Primmy said. “I’m aboard. Do with me as you will.”
“Same here,” Carly said.
“I understand that you two and Ed Rawls have already made a plan.”
“We have nothing to say about that,” Carly replied.
“Well, before you two go charging off into the Valley of Death, I’d like to know if you are fully aware of the dangers attendant to so doing. I mean, it’s not called the Valley of Death for nothing.”
“We are fully aware,” Primmy said, “and we are confident of walking away from this with our heads firmly attached to our shoulders.”
“Cannon to the left, cannon to the right,” Stone said.
“Nevertheless, neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night will stay us from the swift conclusion of our appointed duties.”
“That is a misquotation and a horribly chosen metaphor,” Stone said. “But I’ll take your word, such as it is, and trust Ed Rawls to keep you alive.”
44
As bedtime was approaching, there was a ring of the front doorbell. Stone checked the peephole. Ed Rawls stood there, a rifle slung over his shoulder and Sally at his side. Stone let them in.
“Sorry to drop by so late,” Ed said. “But something’s afoot with the twins.”
Stone hustled them into the house and gave them each a drink. “What’s up?”
“The twins. We drove into the village to get some ice cream, and when we left, their boat was tied up at their dock.”
“Is that somehow sinister?” Stone asked. “Am I missing something?”