The Stone Barrington Collection vol 2 Read Free Page B

used to do over there. Dick brought over me and my wife, Mabel—she’s new since you were here—when he built his house, and we live in a nice apartment over the garage. We’re comfortable there, but I don’t know what’ll happen to us now.”
    “Rest easy about that, Seth,” Stone said. “You’ll be kept on as always. Dick provided for that.”
    “How do you know about that?” Seth asked.
    “I’m Dick’s executor, and I’ll see that his wishes are carried out. He left me the use of the place for my lifetime and that of my heirs.”
    Seth nodded. “You married? You got any heirs?”
    “Not married, but I’ve got one heir, a boy. I hope you’ll get to meet him.”
    “We can still give a boy a good summer up here,” Seth said.
    They were quiet for a while. “Do you know what happened, Seth?” Stone asked finally.
    “I know what I saw, and I don’t put the same light on it that the sheriff does,” Seth replied. “I’ll tell you about it after we get everybody settled.”
    They drove through downtown Dark Harbor, which consisted of a few scattered houses and one business, a general store/real estate office/newsstand/ice cream parlor. It was astonishingly the same as it had been twenty years before.
    They continued on past the Dark Harbor Inn, took a right and shortly drove through the gates of Dick Stone’s property.

4
    T HE HOUSE WAS a perfect shingled New England dwelling with two front facades—one facing the front gate, the other facing the little harbor—with a garage wing big enough for four cars and a staff apartment and a guesthouse to one side of the main house.
    Seth drove over to the guesthouse and unloaded Lance’s and Dino’s luggage. “We’ll put the fellers here,” he said, “and the lady over in the main house. That okay?”
    Holly nodded. “Fine with me, Seth.” She glanced at Stone, who pretended not to notice.
    Seth showed Lance and Dino to neat little rooms, divided by a sitting room with a TV and a fireplace. “Mabel will have some lunch for you in half an hour,” he said.
    They got back into the wagon and drove the few yards to the main house. Seth carried the luggage upstairs and put Stone in what was, obviously, the master and Holly into an adjoining room, which seemed meant for guests. “Lunch is in half an hour in the kitchen,” Seth said. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”
    “I’ll come down with you, Seth,” Stone said.
    “You want to see where it happened?” Seth asked.
    “Didn’t it happen in the master bedroom?”
    Seth shook his head and beckoned. He led Stone down the hall to a large, pretty bedroom, full of stuffed animals and the detritus of childhood and the teen years. Everything was very neat. “For some reason, Barbara was in bed with Esme. They were both sleeping on their right sides, with their backs to the door. Somebody put two bullets in each of ’em’s head. It was like they never woke up, never moved.” He turned and led the way downstairs. They walked through a large living room with broad views of the harbor and into a smaller study.
    Seth walked over to the desk. “Dick was sitting here, and he had this tiny, little gun in his left hand, and it had what looked like a silencer on it, like you see on TV. There was a hole in his left temple, and it was all black around it. The bullet went all the way through and ended up here.” He tapped a hole in the leather desktop. “There was a lot of blood and brains.”
    “Who found them?”
    “Mabel did, when she came down to fix breakfast. It was about six-thirty in the morning. She screamed real loud, and I was down quick.”
    “Did either of you touch anything?”
    “No, sir. I’ve seen me enough Law & Order s not to do that.”
    “Why is there no crime-scene tape around the house, and why was Mabel allowed to clean up?”
    “The trooper told us we could do that after they took the bodies away,” Seth said. “By the way, he’s coming over, getting the two o’clock