Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

“They all had the same story,” he said. “They arrived at about the same time, and when the doorman called up, nobody answered at first, then the cook called downstairs. They all say they were invited for dinner.”

“I can confirm that,” Stone said. “Adele called me about one this afternoon and asked me to dinner, then told me that she had invited a couple visiting from out of town and her nephew David Gunn and his girlfriend. The Whartons and I arrived simultaneously, Mia Meadow a couple of minutes later, and David Gunn a couple of minutes after her.”

Bartkowski scribbled all that in his notebook.

“Okay, fellas,” Dino said, “get back to the precinct and start working this. Confirm all the names and addresses. I’ll vouch for Barrington.”

The two men left, and Dino stared at Stone. “You don’t look so good, pal.”

Stone sighed. “It’s not every day that my dinner date gets murdered.”

“How well did you know her?”

“Met her last week at Jack Gunn’s daughter’s wedding, and we spent the weekend together in Maine.”

“You got a witness who can put you in Maine?”

“The caretaker and his wife. Oh, and Lance Cabot.”

“Lance was visiting you?” Dino knew Cabot from several meetings at Elaine’s.

“No, it was really weird: I hadn’t told anybody where we were going, but I got a call from Lance on Dick’s line to the Agency, which, I guess, is still working.”

“How did he know you were there?”

“I went out to the airfield to check on whether there was any snow accumulation on the airplane, and this black helicopter shows up with Lance aboard. He practically kidnaps me and takes me to a nearby island where his people are interrogating some Chinese spy.”

“Why the hell would he want you there?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe he was just impressing me with how he could keep tabs on me. Turns out, he had flown over Islesboro earlier and saw my airplane there. He invited himself to dinner, but I nixed that, then the chopper flew me back.”

“So that was the first time you’d spent any time with Adele?”

“We had dinner at the Four Seasons before we went to Maine.”

“Anybody you can think of has anything against Adele?”

“No. Of course, I didn’t know her long enough to meet any of her circle of friends. The only nexus we had was Herbie Fisher, who was marrying her niece.”

“The son, David—I read he was on a sailing trip when the blowup at his father’s business happened?”

“Yeah, I saw him interviewed on TV in the marina, after he got back to Miami. Actually, I’m told he was a suspect in the missing-money scandal, which turned out not to be a scandal at all, since there was no missing money.”

“Would he have anything against his aunt?”

“Not that I know of. If he wasn’t on good terms with her, why did she invite him to dinner, and why did he accept?”

“Makes sense,” Dino said. “What about the other couple?”

“She described them as old friends from out of town. I never even learned where they were from.”

Dino checked his notes. “Chicago. Neither of them was an investor of Gunn’s. How did Adele feel about Jack Gunn?”

“She liked him, trusted him. When the mess blew over she kept the proceeds of her husband’s estate with him, and recommended to me that I invest with him. No hard feelings there.”

“Late husband?”

“Yeah, she told me that she shot him, after he had blackened her eye and broken her arm. She was never charged with anything.”