“Why’d she change it to Elizabeth?”
“To get away from Manning.”
“And you think he did this?”
“Very possibly. The photographs on the mantel were of Mrs. Harding and her late husband. Looks like a jealous rage to me.”
Griggs nodded and wrote something in his notebook. “Mr. Barrington, your name is familiar. Were you ever on the police force in New York?”
Stone nodded. “For fourteen years.”
“I’ve got it,” the chief said. “The Sasha Nijinsky case.”
“That’s right. I retired about that time; disability.”
“You look pretty healthy to me.”
“Bullet in the knee.”
“Hope you got the son of a bitch.”
“My partner did.”
“Allison Manning,” the chief mused. “Something about an island?”
“That’s right. She was accused of murdering her husband, but, of course, he wasn’t dead.”
“Saw something about it on Sixty Minutes.”
“Yes. It got a lot of press at the time.”
“You’re a pretty high-profile lawyer up there, aren’t you?”
“Not when I can help it.”
“You got a card?”
Stone handed him one, and he pocketed it. “About this Paul Manning. You think we’re going to hear from him again?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“You think he might harm Mrs. Harding?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Chief, I hope you’ll keep all this background information in confidence. I’m sure Mrs. Harding wouldn’t want people to connect her with a past incident that was very traumatic for her.”
“We have a lot of well-known people in Palm Beach, and I run a very discreet department,” Griggs said.
“I’m sure you do, and I appreciate your discretion.”
“Can we go back downstairs, now?”
“Yes, I just wanted to discuss all this with you privately.”
They started down the stairs.