“My best guess? Trini doesn’t like being dogged, and he decided to do something about it. From what I’ve heard about him from Holly, he wasn’t there today, because Holly’s alive. I guess he put a couple of his pals on her.”
“So the two guys outside your house weren’t Feds?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Stone had an idea. He picked up the phone and got the number for the New York State Police in Albany. He called, identified himself, and asked about the traffic stop on I-684 earlier that day. He was transferred to the relevant field office and, good luck, managed to get one of the traffic officers who had made the stop.
Stone identified himself. “You stopped a black SUV on 684 this morning?”
“Yes, we did.”
“I was the guy out front in the black Mercedes.”
“How fast were you going?”
“I’ll take the fifth on that, but I was transporting an officer on duty. Did you get an ID on the guys in the SUV?”
“Yeah. They were FBI, and they wouldn’t tell us what they were doing. I wrote ’em a ticket for grossly excessive speed.”
“Good for you. Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.” Stone hung up and turned to Ham. “Well, it looks like absolutely everybody is following us.”
“What’s your take on what happened in the park?” Ham asked.
“I think they wanted it to look like a mugging, and they didn’t want to attract anybody with the noise of a gunshot. They used a dart on Daisy, then tried to knife Holly. They would have knifed Daisy, too, once she was out. So somebody would have stumbled on a jogger and her dog, both dead.”
“Why not use a silencer on both?” Ham asked.
“Because it would then look like a professional hit. The dart thing is funny, though. It’s not the sort of thing mob guys would normally think of using.”
“This Trini guy is not a normal mob hood,” Ham said. “He’s a lot smarter and a lot worse. He would think of the dart.”
“Maybe so.”
“Good thing I came up here,” Ham said. “While I’m in New York, she doesn’t leave this house without me watching her back.”
“Sounds good to me,” Stone said.
“Oh, and you may as well move her back into your room,” Ham said. “I get the idea that’s where she wants to be.”
Stone gulped. “Up to her.”
29
HOLLY AND DAIS
Y slept straight through until the following morning. When they came down for breakfast Stone was scrambling eggs, and Ham was having coffee.
“Daisy looks like she had a few too many beers last night,” Ham said, rubbing her flanks.
“She’s fine, just a little groggy,” Holly replied.
Stone set three plates of eggs on the table and they all dug in.
“This is good, Stone,” Ham said. “What’s in it?”
“Smoked salmon and a little cream.”
“You’re going to make some girl a wonderful wife one of these days,” Ham said.
Holly spoke up. “I guess that means Ham approves of you, Stone. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to marry me off to you.”