"Indeed he is. Did you speak to him?"
"I tried to… he's been giving me the slip." She added, "I think he knows something, John. As security chief of Plum Island, there's not too much that gets past that guy."
"Probably not."
She looked at me and asked, "Do you think he's a suspect?"
"He makes me suspicious, so he's a suspect."
She thought a moment, then said, "This is not very scientific, but he looks like a killer."
"He sure does. I have a whole class called 'People Who Look and Act Like Killers.'"
She didn't know if I was pulling her leg or not, which, actually, I wasn't. She said, "Anyway, I'm trying to run a background check on him, but the people who would have the most information-the FBI-are dragging their feet."
"Actually, they've already done what you're asking them to do, but they're not going to share any of it with you."
She nodded and said unexpectedly, "Fucked-up case."
"That's what I've been telling you." I asked her, "Where does Stevens live?"
"Connecticut. New London. There's a government ferry from New London to Plum."
"Give me his address and phone number."
She found it in her notes and started to write it out, but I said, "I have a photographic memory. Just tell me."
She looked at me, again with an expression of slight disbelief. Why doesn't anyone take me seriously? In any case, she told me Paul Stevens' address and phone number, which I tucked away in a crevice of my brain. I stood and said, "Let's take a walk."
CHAPTER 26
We went out back and walked down to the water. She said, "This is very nice."
"I'm beginning to appreciate it." I picked up a flat stone and skimmed it across the water. It made three skims before it sank.
Beth found a nice skimmer, cocked her arm, and let loose, throwing her whole body into the motion. The stone did four hits before it sank.
I said, "Hey, nice arm."
"I pitch. Homicide softball team." She took another stone and threw it at the piling at the end of the pier. It missed the piling by inches and she tried again.
I watched her chucking stones at the piling. What had turned me on, still turned me on. It was her looks, for sure-but also her aloofness. I love it when they're aloof. I think. Anyway, I was fairly sure that finding Emma in the house had embarrassed her and annoyed her. More important, she was surprised at how she felt, and maybe what she felt was competition. I said, "I missed your company. Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
She glanced at me between throws and said, "Then you're absolutely going to love me because this will probably be the last time you'll ever see me."
"Don't forget the party tomorrow."
She ignored that and said, "If I suspected one person out of all the people we spoke to, it would be Paul Stevens."
"Why?"
She aimed a stone at the piling again and this time hit it. She said to me, "I called him at Plum Island yesterday, and they said he was out. I pressed and they said he was home sick. I called his home, but no one answered." She added, "Another disappearing Plum Islander."
We walked along the stony shore.
I, too, was not satisfied with Mr. Stevens' last performance. He was a possible murder suspect. As I said, I could very well be wrong about Fredric Tobin, or it could be that Tobin was in cahoots with Stevens, or it could be neither. I had thought that when I had the motive, I'd have the murderer. But the motive had turned out to be money, and when the motive is money, the suspects are everybody and anybody.
We walked east along the shore, past my neighbors' houses. The tide was coming in and the water lapped over the stones. Beth had her hands tucked in the side pockets of her jacket, and she walked with her head down as if in deep thought. Every now and then, she'd kick at a stone or seashell. She saw a small starfish stranded on the beach, bent down, picked it up, and threw it back into the bay.
We walked in silence for a while longer, then she said, "Regarding Dr. Zollner, we had a pleasant chat on the phone."
"Why don't you call him in?"
"I would, but he's in Washington. He was summoned to give a statement to the FBI, the Department of Agriculture, and others. Then, he's on a traveling schedule-South America, England, a lot of other places that need his expertise." She said, "They're keeping him out of my reach."
"Get a subpoena."
She didn't reply.
I asked, "Are you getting interference from Washington?"
She replied, "Not me, personally. But people I work for are… You know how it is when your calls are not returned, things you ask for take too long, meetings you want are put off."
"I worked a case like that once." I advised her, "Politicians and bureaucrats will run you around until they figure out if you can help them or hurt them."
She asked me, "What are they really afraid of, and what are they covering up?"
"Politicians are afraid of anything they don't understand, and they don't understand anything. Just keep working the case."
She nodded.
I said, "You've done a very good job."
"Thanks." We turned around and began walking back to my house.
Beth, I reflected, seemed to enjoy the paperwork, the details, the little building blocks that made up the case. There were detectives who believed that you could solve a case by working with the known elements of forensics, ballistics, and so forth. Sometimes, that was true. In this case, however, the answers started coming out of left field, and you had to be there to catch them.
Beth said, "The lab has done a complete job on the Gordons' two vehicles and their boat. All fingerprints were theirs, except mine, yours, and Max's on the boat. Also, on the deck of the boat, they found something strange."
"Yes?"
"Two things. First, soil, which we know about. But also they found small, very small, slivers of wood that were decayed, rotted. Not driftwood. There was no salt in the wood. This was buried wood, still showing some soil." She looked at me. "Any ideas?"
"Let me think about it."
" Okay."
Beth continued, "I contacted the county sheriff, a fellow named Will Parker, regarding pistol permits he's issued in Southold Township.
"Good."
"I also checked with the county pistol license section, and I have a computer printout that shows that there are 1,224 pistol permits issued by the sheriff and by the county to residents of Southold Township."
"So, out of the twenty-some thousand residents of this township, we have about twelve hundred registered pistol license holders. That's a big number, a lot of people to call on, but not an impossible task."
"Well," Beth informed me, "the irony is that when the subject was plague, no task was impossible. But we're no longer pledging the whole police budget to solve this case."
"The Gordons are important to me. Their murder is important to me.
"I know that. And to me. I'm just explaining reality."
"Why don't I call your boss so I can explain reality to him?"
"Let it go, John. I'll take care of it."
"All right." In truth, while the county PD was turning down the flame on this one, the Feds were secretly working very hard looking for the wrong type of perp. But that wasn't my problem. I asked, "Is Mr. Tobin on the pistol license list?"
"Actually, yes. I scanned the list and pulled a few names I knew. Tobin was one."
"Who else?"
"Well, Max." She added, "He has an off-duty.45."
"There's your perp," I said, half jokingly. I asked her, "What does Tobin pack?"