“Go right ahead.”
“Did you have dinner at the Mayflower last evening?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you encounter a man named Devlin Daltry?”
“No, I did not.”
“Do you know Mr. Daltry?”
“I’m afraid I do.”
“Did you do something to Mr. Devlin’s car, a white BMW?”
“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t even aware of such a car.”
“It was parked in front of the inn, and someone let the air out of two tires and threw a large rock through the windshield.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Stone said. “There was a parking attendant; didn’t he see anything?”
“No. He was parking another car.”
“And you suspect me of doing this?”
“Mr. Daltry suspects you. He made a report, so I had to look into it.”
“I understand, Harry. You should know that Mr. Daltry is unbalanced. He has been stalking the woman who is my house guest at the moment; she’s had to take out a TRO against him. He’s behaved in the same way with other women, and on one occasion, I’m told, tried to run down a man who was with one of them.”
“I’m very interested to know that, Stone,” the trooper said. “Would you say he was unbalanced enough to damage his own car and blame you?”
“I would. The NYPD suspects him of being the man who struck me with a car earlier this week, a hit-and-run that put me in the hospital and did this.” He held up the blue cast.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Stone. Are you feeling all right now?”
“Yes, except for this,” Stone said. He pulled back the robe to reveal his bruised leg.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t broken,” the trooper said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you with this, Stone. You leave Mr. Daltry to me. He’s ordered a flatbed truck to take his car back to New York; I’ll see that he leaves with it.”
“Thank you, Harry. I’d appreciate that.”
“Does he know where your house is?”
“I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be awfully hard for him to find out.”
“You might just be on alert for the next couple of hours; it’ll take that long for the truck to pick him up.” The trooper gave him a little salute, got back into his car and left.
Stone went back into the house and found Celia in the kitchen, making breakfast.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“That was our local constable, a state trooper. Someone damaged Daltry’s car at the Mayflower last night, and he blamed me.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I know the man. He’s seeing Daltry out of town.”
“He’ll come back,” she said.