“I’m with him, and he’s dead. A sniper got him no more than ten minutes ago, and I’ve already called the state police. Can you get into a cab without being seen?”
“I’ll try.”
“My airplane is at Teterboro, where Jim kept his. Felicity Devonshire is being flown up here. If you get there in a hurry, you can come with her. She’ll be in the crew lounge with the pilot, whose name is Dan Phelan.”
“Will do.”
“Watch your ass-these people may not be finished.”
“Will certainly do.”
Stone called Felicity and told her to wait for Freeman; then he hung up and looked at Jim Hackett’s corpse. It shouldn’t have ended this way, he thought.
54
The state police had been there for an hour when Captain Scott Smith came out of the house and onto the porch, where Stone was waiting. Hackett’s body was being removed.
Smith held up a small, plastic bag with a slug in it. “This went through Hackett’s body, right past your head as you were rocking”-he pointed at the hole next to Stone’s chair-“through the exterior wall of the house and ended up imbedded in a plaster wall in the living room.”
“Wow.”
“It’s a 30-06, probably a special load, given the velocity and penetration. A pro’s weapon. Who do you think did this?”
“I don’t know,” Stone said. “Hackett had just begun to talk to me about his situation when he was hit. He was up here because he feared for his life.”
“Did he tell you whom he feared?”
“He didn’t have time,” Stone lied. His cell phone rang. “Excuse me. Yes?”
“It’s Dan Phelan. We’re rolling with two passengers.”
“Thanks, Dan.” He hung up. “I have a couple of guests arriving here by airplane in an hour or so; I’ll need to meet them at the airfield.”
Captain Smith nodded. “Might these people have anything to do with Hackett?”
“One of them, Mike Freeman, works with him, but I don’t think he knows anything about this. I talked with him before he got here.”
“Be sure you come back here; I’m not finished with you yet.”
“All r
ight. We’ll go to my house, next door.”
“I’ll come over there when I’m finished here.” He looked Stone up and down. “You might want to change those clothes.”
“I’ll do that now,” Stone said, and then went upstairs. After he showered and changed, he called his caretaker and informed him of guests to come. He put his bloody clothes in the liner of the room’s wastebasket and then took it downstairs. “You want these clothes?” he asked Captain Smith.
“Thanks,” Smith said, taking the bag and handing it to a subordinate. “Log this,” he said. “Mark it ‘clothing of the witness.’ ”
“Have you had any luck finding the boat?” Stone asked.
“No, and no luck with an airplane out of place at any local airfield. If I were the killer, I’d have dumped the rifle in the bay, motored to a cove nearby and anchored for the night, maybe longer. We’re not going to find him, unless we get very, very lucky.”
Stone packed his bag and put it into Hackett’s car, then drove to the airfield. He preferred waiting there to waiting at the house, where he was only in the way. He sat in the car, numb, wondering how this had happened and if the fault somehow lay with him. He didn’t see his airplane until it whooshed in over the trees and settled onto the runway. Phelan taxied over to where he was parked and shut down the engine.
Stone opened the airplane’s door and helped Felicity down the air stair. Mike Freeman was right behind her, and he shook Stone’s hand. Stone went to the luggage compartment and began removing their bags, and Freeman followed him.
“Where’s Jim’s body?” he asked.