Nelson DeMille - Plum Island

She ignored that and said, "If I suspected one person out of all the people we spoke to, it would be Paul Stevens."

"Why?"

She aimed a stone at the piling again and this time hit it. She said to me, "I called him at Plum Island yesterday, and they said he was out. I pressed and they said he was home sick. I called his home, but no one answered." She added, "Another disappearing Plum Islander."

We walked along the stony shore.

I, too, was not satisfied with Mr. Stevens' last performance. He was a possible murder suspect. As I said, I could very well be wrong about Fredric Tobin, or it could be that Tobin was in cahoots with Stevens, or it could be neither. I had thought that when I had the motive, I'd have the murderer. But the motive had turned out to be money, and when the motive is money, the suspects are everybody and anybody.

We walked east along the shore, past my neighbors' houses. The tide was coming in and the water lapped over the stones. Beth had her hands tucked in the side pockets of her jacket, and she walked with her head down as if in deep thought. Every now and then, she'd kick at a stone or seashell. She saw a small starfish stranded on the beach, bent down, picked it up, and threw it back into the bay.

We walked in silence for a while longer, then she said, "Regarding Dr. Zollner, we had a pleasant chat on the phone."

"Why don't you call him in?"

"I would, but he's in Washington. He was summoned to give a statement to the FBI, the Department of Agriculture, and others. Then, he's on a traveling schedule — South America, England, a lot of other places that need his expertise." She said, "They're keeping him out of my reach."

"Get a subpoena."

She didn't reply.

I asked, "Are you getting interference from Washington?"

She replied, "Not me, personally. But people I work for are… You know how it is when your calls are not returned, things you ask for take too long, meetings you want are put off."

"I worked a case like that once." I advised her, "Politicians and bureaucrats will run you around until they figure out if you can help them or hurt them."

She asked me, "What are they really afraid of, and what are they covering up?"

"Politicians are afraid of anything they don't understand, and they don't understand anything. Just keep working the case."

She nodded.

I said, "You've done a very good job."

"Thanks." We turned around and began walking back to my house.

Beth, I reflected, seemed to enjoy the paperwork, the details, the little building blocks that made up the case. There were detectives who believed that you could solve a case by working with the known elements of forensics, ballistics, and so forth. Sometimes, that was true. In this case, however, the answers started coming out of left field, and you had to be there to catch them.

Beth said, "The lab has done a complete job on the Gordons' two vehicles and their boat. All fingerprints were theirs, except mine, yours, and Max's on the boat. Also, on the deck of the boat, they found something strange."

"Yes?"

"Two things. First, soil, which we know about. But also they found small, very small, slivers of wood that were decayed, rotted. Not driftwood. There was no salt in the wood. This was buried wood, still showing some soil." She looked at me. "Any ideas?"

"Let me think about it."

" Okay."

Beth continued, "I contacted the county sheriff, a fellow named Will Parker, regarding pistol permits he's issued in Southold Township.

"Good."

"I also checked with the county pistol license section, and I have a computer printout that shows that there are 1,224 pistol permits issued by the sheriff and by the county to residents of Southold Township."

"So, out of the twenty-some thousand residents of this township, we have about twelve hundred registered pistol license holders. That's a big number, a lot of people to call on, but not an impossible task."

"Well," Beth informed me, "the irony is that when the subject was plague, no task was impossible. But we're no longer pledging the whole police budget to solve this case."

"The Gordons are important to me . Their murder is important to me.

"I know that. And to me. I'm just explaining reality."

"Why don't I call your boss so I can explain reality to him? "

"Let it go, John. I'll take care of it."

"All right." In truth, while the county PD was turning down the flame on this one, the Feds were secretly working very hard looking for the wrong type of perp. But that wasn't my problem. I asked, "Is Mr. Tobin on the pistol license list?"

"Actually, yes. I scanned the list and pulled a few names I knew. Tobin was one."

"Who else?"

"Well, Max." She added, "He has an off-duty.45."

"There's your perp," I said, half jokingly. I asked her, "What does Tobin pack?"

She glanced at me and said, "Two pieces — a 9mm Browning and a Colt.45 automatic."

"My goodness. Is he afraid of grape rustlers?"

"I suppose he carries cash or something. You don't need a lot of reasons to get a pistol permit in this township if you're tight with the sheriff and the chief."

"Interesting." Concealed weapons were closely regulated in New York State, but there were places where it was a wee bit easier to get a permit. Anyway, having two pistols didn't make F. Tobin a killer, but it was suggestive of certain personality types. Freddie, I thought, fit into the mild-mannered type who, as Emma suggested, was not physically or verbally violent, but who would put a bullet through your head if he felt in the least bit threatened by you.

As we approached my piece of the shoreline, Beth stopped and turned toward the water. She stood there, looking at the bay — a classical pose, I thought, like some oil painting titled, Woman Gazes at the Sea . I wondered if Beth Penrose was a spontaneous' skinny-dipper, and decided she was definitely not the type.

Beth asked me, "Why does Fredric Tobin interest you?"

"I told you… well, it turns out he was closer to the Gordons than even I realized."

"So what?"

"I don't know. Please continue."

She glanced at me again, then turned from the bay and continued walking. She said, "Okay. Next, we searched the wetlands to the north of the Gordons' house, and found a place where a boat may have been dragged into the bulrushes."

"Really? Good work."

"Thank you." She said, "It's quite possible someone came that way in a shallow draft craft. High tide Monday was at 7:02 p.m., so at about 5:30, it was near high, and there was almost two feet of water in the wetlands beside the Gordon house. You could pole a shallow-draft boat in through the reeds, and no one would see you on the boat."

"Very good. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're spending time thinking of wiseass remarks."

"I actually don't think about them."

She continued, "I'm not saying for certain that a boat was in those reeds, though it appears there was. There are recently broken bulrushes." She added, "The muck shows no signs of compression, but we've had eight tides since the murder, and that may have erased any marks in the mud."

I nodded. "Boy, this is not like a Manhattan homicide. I mean, bulrushes, wetlands, muck, tides, big deep bays with bullets at the bottom. This is like Sergeant Preston of the Yukon."

"You see what I mean? You're a total wiseass."

"Sorry -

"Okay, I spoke to Max on the phone, and he's very annoyed at you for putting Fredric Tobin through the wringer."

"Fuck Max."

She said, "I have smoothed things over for you with Max."

"Thank you so much."

She asked me, "Did you learn anything from Fredric Tobin?"

"Did I ever. Leaf spread. Maceration of the skins with the juice in the barrels. What else…?"