Stone sat them down and took care of that.
“We love the house and the way you’ve done it up,” Smith said.
“Doing it up was the work of Billy’s wife,” Stone replied.
“She did a wonderful job.”
“I’ll tell her you said so,” Billy said.
“Smith,” Stone said. “Do you know anything about the provenance of the house you’re buying?”
“Are you referring to the Stone twins?”
“I am.”
“Yes, I read about it in the papers, and I met one of the twins, Eben, a few minutes ago.”
“Oh? How did that come about?”
“I saw him sweeping his front porch, and I walked across the road and introduced myself. We had a nice chat.”
“About the house?”
“That and their previous legal problems. He told me they had grown up in the house and had tried to buy it without success. I offered to withdraw my offer to allow them to buy it, if they still wanted to, but he said they were very happy in their place and would have no hard feelings about our buying it. That’s about it.”
“Did Eben mention that they were suspects in other crimes, murders, and kidnapping?”
“I read about that in the papers at the time. Insufficient evidence, I believe.”
“That’s correct, but it doesn’t mean they’re innocent.”
Peterson shrugged. “It doesn’t mean they’re guilty, either.”
“And this was all friendly?”
“Very friendly. I didn’t meet his brother, who was upstairs working on some job or other.”
“Smith, if you’re at all uncertain about the house and your new neighbors, I’d be happy for you to withdraw your offer.”
“No, Stone, we won’t do that. I’ll hold you to your verbal acceptance.”
Stone opened the folder and signed both copies of the offer. He kept one and gave the other to Peterson. “There you are,” he said. “We’ll look forward to seeing you sometime, after you’ve moved in. We’ll be going back to New York in a few days, but we’ll get back later in the summer.”
The Petersons tossed off their drinks, shook hands, and left, tailed by Billy, who was looking very relieved.
48
Ed Rawls waited until well after dark, then took his rifle with the nightscope out of the house and across the road. He let himself into the old Stone house with a key that Primmy had given him and, without turning on any lights, walked upstairs to the master bedroom and looked out the front windows.
Across the road and up a bit he could see the twins’ bedroom, with its lights all on. The boys were pulling mattresses out of boxes and laying them onto the electric bed frames. They carried the old, charred frames and the old mattresses down to the floor below and piled them in the parking area near the front steps for trash pickup the next day.
Ed took the opportunity to sight in on various spots in their bedroom, dry-firing on each. Finally, the twins came back upstairs with arms full of linens and made their beds. He could have killed them both in a few seconds, but then he wouldn’t have an alibi.
Ed walked back downstairs and around the front yard, which was bordered by an old, chest-high boxwood hedge, probably planted by the twins’ grandmother. Finally, he went back inside and walked up two flights to a guest bedroom, over the master suite. There was no porch up here, but each of the two windows offered ideal perches for him, level with the twins’ bedroom. This would be his spot.
He went back downstairs and, after careful observation, trotted across the road, then walked back to his house.
“How’d it go, sweetie?” Sally asked.
“Couldn’t have gone better. They’ll wake up dead on Monday morning.”
“Perfect.”
“Perfect is good enough for me,” Ed said.
Stone, Primmy, and Carly sat up with their cognac and waved Dino and Viv off to bed.
“I was surprised,” Primmy said.
“At what?”
“That you didn’t try to talk the Petersons out of buying your house.”
“I thought I offered full disclosure,” Stone said.
“Legally, maybe, but morally? Shouldn’t you have told them about your certainty that the twins did everything they were suspected of?”
“They were not in a mood to hear that,” Stone said.
“Nevertheless...”
“Smith had had some doubts, I think, but his chat with Eben resolved them.”
“He bought everything Eden said?”
“Why not? Eben’s a charming young man who is thought to be innocent by half the people who know about him. He and Enos have been pardoned by the governor and had charges lifted a second time by the D.A. He was wholly convincing, Smith felt. And his wife looked as though she was accustomed to going along with his decisions on just about everything. It would have been churlish of me to deny them the house because of my own feelings.”
“As long as you feel you’ve done the right thing, I won’t worry about it anymore.”
Carly, who had been silent through all this, spoke up, “If there were a guillotine available for use, I would be happy to pull the lever.”
Stone laughed. “So everybody’s on board?”
“Oh,” Primmy said, “we’ve all been on board since the seaborne attack.”
“So, you’re both okay with finding a way to kill them?”
“I wouldn’t pull the trigger,” Primmy said, “but I wouldn’t have a problem watching it done.”
Stone laughed again. “I wouldn’t like to be judged by a jury that had you both as members.”
“If that should ever happen,” Primmy said, “please remember to be innocent.”
Finally, everyone went up to bed, except Stone, who poured himself a last, small brandy. He ran once more through the situation and its possible resolution. The Stone twins had put themselves in this situation, he reasoned. And the law, with all its power, had failed to make them accountable for their actions. They had painted Stone, as well as themselves, into a corner from which there were two ways out, and Stone had ruled out dying himself. That left the twins.
He tossed off the last sip of his brandy and went upstairs into the arms of Primmy.
49
Stone and Dino were enjoying a second cup of coffee the following morning, while the women were taking the sun on the dock, when the doorbell rang. Stone carefully used the peephole, then opened it. “Come in, Billy.”
Billy entered looking troubled.
“Coffee?” Stone asked.
“Sure, black, please.”
Stone poured a mug and handed it to him. “What’s on your mind?”
“Your house,” Billy said.
“Okay, which house?”
“The one you’re selling to the Petersons.”
“What troubles you about it?”
“The Petersons.”
“You think they haven’t got the cash to close?”
“Sure they have. You think I wouldn’t check that out on a sale this size?”
“Then what about the Petersons?”
“I don’t know.”
Dino spoke up. “Does the deal smell bad, Billy?”
“No, the Petersons.”
“Fishy smell?”
“No, there’s a cop expression when something’s not quite right about somebody.”
“What’s the expression?” Dino asked.
“That’s what I’m asking you. You’re the cop.”
Dino stared at the ceiling. “Hinky?”
“That’s it. There’s something hinky about them.”
“Dino,” Stone said, “can you run their names?”
“What are their first names again?”
“Smith and Coco.”
“Is Coco short for something?”
“Beats me. Nobody’s named Coconut. Can you run their names?”
Dino got out his iPhone and went to work with his thumbs.