“Of course,” Hewitt replied. “Come into the house, Stone.”
Stone breathed a sigh of relief and followed him into the study.
Hewitt arranged himself behind his desk. “Now, what is it?” he asked, in the manner of a man who didn’t have much time for whatever Stone wanted of him.
Stone placed the file folder before him. “Leslie, I know you plan to give the opening and closing statements, but I put some thoughts together on how you might proceed, and I’d appreciate it if you’d read the two statements I’ve prepared. There might be something there you can use.”
“Of course I’ll read them,” Hewitt replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my garden.”
“Do you think you could find time to read them now?” Stone asked. “You might have some questions for me.”
“No, no, not now,” the man said. “I’ll read them this afternoon after my nap; I’m more alert then. Now, I’ll see you in the courtroom.” He walked out of the room, leaving Stone standing there alone.
Stone followed him as far as the back door and watched as Hewitt knelt down and began digging in the earth behind the low hedge again, seemingly oblivious to Stone’s presence. Finally, Stone shook his head and returned to the car. As he was about to turn toward English Harbour, he had another thought and turned left instead, toward the airport.
He drove through the gates and down the approach road, with the runway and the single hangar in full view. He pulled up in front of the hangar and got out. The mechanic who had testified at the inquest was working on an engine of the DC-3 that belonged to the St. Marks government. Stone couldn’t remember his name, but he walked over to the airplane.
“Excuse me,” he said to the man. “I’m Stone Barrington; I heard you testify at the inquest.”
“Righto,” the man said. “You’re the lawyer fellow, aren’t you? The one who’s defending that lady?”
“That’s right. I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute. What’s your name again?”
“Harvey Simpson,” the man said, turning away from the airplane and wiping his hands with a cloth. “What can I do for you?”
“I was just noticing that the hangar has an overhead door, like a garage,” he said, pointing at the ceiling, where the door was retracted.
“That’s right; there it is,” Simpson said, following his gaze.
“Do you close that every night and lock up?”
Simpson shook his head. “Not unless the weather looks like it’s turning bad. That door is a pain in the ass; sticks all the time. I keep meaning to do something about it, but I never seem to get around to it.”
“Was the hangar door closed the night before Chester’s crash?”
Simpson thought for a minute. “No, we haven’t had no bad weather for a while now.”
“So anybody could have come in here where Chester’s airplane was?”
“That’s right, I guess.”
“How about your tool cabinet over there,” Stone said, pointing to a large, double-doored cupboard. The doors were open, exposing an array of spanners, screwdrivers, and socket wrenches.
“I never lock it,” Simpson said.
“Don’t your tools get stolen?”
Simpson shook his head. “Everybody who might steal them knows that my tools are American gauge, for working on the American-built airplanes. All the cars on the island and all the other machinery are metric gauge, so my tools wouldn’t be worth much to anybody.”
“So somebody could have come in here the night before the crash, taken some tools out of your cabinet, and done something to an engine?”
Simpson gazed into the middle distance for a moment before answering. “Yessir, I guess somebody could have done that. But there isn’t no one on this island who would want to do that to Chester.”
“How about to his passengers?”
“I can’t speak for the white lady, but I knew the black one well, and everybody liked her. Anyway, if somebody wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t kill Chester doing it.”
“Is there anybody on guard out here at night?”