Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

Griggs nodded and examined Bartlett closely, picking up his weapon by its trigger guard and handing both guns to one of his officers.

Stone went to the Wilkeses, picking up a stray napkin along the way. He dabbed at the blood on Margaret’s face, and she barely seemed to notice.

“I want to get her home,” Wilkes said.

Stone turned to Griggs, who had heard, and nodded.

“Chief Griggs will want to talk to you in the morning,” Stone said.

“I saw it all,” Frank said. “Paul had a gun; it was all his fault.”

“Griggs and his men were waiting outside the restaurant to arrest him quietly, but the Minneapolis cop ruined it all.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, but he’s pretty bad. His office had called to say that they have a witness who says Bartlett hired him to fix the seat belt on the car, so that Frances would be unprotected. It doesn’t matter now, of course, but he would almost certainly have been convicted.”

“We’ll go, then.”

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I can manage.”

Stone watched them leave, then he crossed the restaurant to where Thad, Liz and Callie waited. “Everybody all right?”

They all nodded.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“See what?” Liz said. “I didn’t see anything. I just heard a lot of noise.”

“Paul shot a Minneapolis policeman, and Dino shot Paul. The cop is alive, but Paul is dead.”

“Which Paul?” she asked.

“Aren’t they the same?” Stone asked.

“I wish I knew,” Liz said.

“Thad, why don’t you take Liz and Callie home. Dino and I will need to give statements to the Palm Beach police. We’ll probably be quite late.”

“Sure,” Thad said. “I hope to God the guy is Manning.”

“We’ll see,” Stone said.

Thad ushered the women out of the restaurant, and Stone rejoined Dino and Griggs.

Griggs righted a table and motioned for Dino and Stone to pull up a chair. “You two are the best witnesses I’ve got. We might as well do this right now, then you two can go home.” He pulled a small tape recorder from a pocket, turned it on and set it on the table.

“Okay, Stone, you first.”

Dino stood up. “I’m going to go to the john. It’s better if you interview us separately.”

“Right,” Griggs said. “All right, Stone, tell me what happened, and don’t leave anything out.”

Stone began at the beginning, and when he had finished, Dino came and took his place. Stone waited at the bar and discovered that one of Bartlett’s rounds had hit some liquor bottles and the mirror behind the bar. A cop was digging it out of the wall behind the mirror.

When Griggs had Dino’s statement, they stood up, and Stone joined them. “Frank Wilkes saw the whole thing,” he said. “He’ll back us up on what happened.”