“Was he alone at home when he called?”
“Until he was joined by his murderer later in the evening.”
“Did he make any phone calls?”
There was a brief silence.
“I’d like to see his phone records,” Stone said.
“He had that caller ID thing,” Rawls replied.
“Then there might be a log of the calls he received.”
“Yeah, but not the calls he made.”
“Can we get into the house?”
“I’ve got a key, and Harley and I are his executors. Fifteen minutes?”
“See you there.” Stone hung up.
RAWLS WAS ALREADY at Don Brown’s house when Stone arrived. He let them into the house, and they went into Brown’s den.
“Here we go,” Stone said. The phone was a Japanese-made combination of answering machine and cordless phone with other features. Stone looked at the buttons carefully, pressed a couple, then a number appeared on the little screen. “Looks like he received only one call.” It was an 800 number.
“That’s an Agency WATS line,” Rawls said. “It’s unpublished, of course, but it’s one of the lines that Agency people can call in on from outside or, of course, receive calls from.”
“Any way to tell who called?” Stone asked.
Rawls shook his head. “Nope. Anybody with an extension from the main switchboard can pick up a phone, dial a number and get a dial tone, then call anywhere in the world.”
“There must be an internal record of which extension used the WATS line,” Stone said.
“I expect there would be.”
“Do you have any way of checking on it?”
“The best way would be through Lance; he’s active, and most of my friends are retired.”
“I’ll call him,” Stone said.
“You can use this phone.”
Stone dialed Lance’s cell number.
“Yes?”
“It’s Stone. Bad news from up here.”
“Don Brown? I heard. This is not a good development.”
“Lance, Don received a call from Langley in the late afternoon on the day of his death. Whoever called used an Agency WATS line. Can you find out who made the call?”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to ask the state police to get Don’s phone records, so we can find out who he might have called at Langley.”
“I don’t think that will work,” Lance said.