Stuart Woods - Shoot Him If He Runs

“I don’t know, maybe alarm systems, attack dogs, security cameras. All we need is to give duBois an excuse to rearrest us.”

Suddenly, lights came on in the Pemberton house.

“There you are,” Stone said. “Somebody’s home.”

Then lights came on in the Weatherby house.

“Did you notice,” she said, “that, in each house, three or four lights came on at once?”

“You’re thinking they’re on a timer?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Isn’t it odd that both houses came on almost simultaneously?”

“Not very odd,” Stone said, “if they’re both set to come on as it gets dark. Maybe, instead of timers, they work on light sensors. You want to hang around and see if they go off when the sun comes up? I’d rather go get some dinner and, eventually, some sleep.”

“You’d never make a CIA agent,” she said.

“What, doesn’t it say anything about dinner and sleep in the official spy handbook?”

“Come on,” Holly said, opening the car door.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to peek through some windows.”

“Do you have any memory at all of what I just said a minute ago about alarm systems and security cameras?”

“Oh, come on, Stone; don’t be such a wuss.”

“Tell you what, you do the spy thing, and I’ll play the part of the getaway driver. If any alarms go off, you run like hell for the car, and you might catch up with me.” Stone started the car, put it in gear, made a U-turn and stopped, keeping his lights off. “Don’t delay, or you might have to hoof it down this mountain.”

“You move from this spot and I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t give me that; you’re unarmed.”

“I’m a trained killer; I don’t need guns.”

“Hurry up!” Stone left the engine running.

Holly took a small flashlight from her handbag, got out of the car and trotted up the drive toward the Pemberton house.

Stone waited and watched; he could see her silhouetted against the lights of the house. She looked in a couple of windows, then he was astonished to see the front door open and Holly go inside. He could see her moving about from room to room. Stone waited for the alarm to go off, but nothing happened.

Holly left the house, came down the driveway, then trotted up the road to the Weatherby driveway and disappeared. Stone took deep breaths and tried to remain calm. He glanced at his watch; she had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes.

Suddenly the car door opened, startling him, and Holly got in.

“Okay, we can go now,” she said.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, putting the car in gear and starting down the mountain. “What the hell were you doing inside that house?”

“Well, somebody got here ahead of us and forced the front door-both front doors, in fact.”

“Yeah, I think duBois got here first.”

“I’m glad he didn’t get here simultaneously.”

“Me too.”

“What did you find inside?”

“Two unoccupied houses,” she said. “Three, with Robertson’s. The Pemberton place had men’s and women’s clothes and some canned food, but the Weatherby house, though it’s furnished, seems never to have been occupied at all.”

“Maybe they’re not in the country.”

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.

“Well, if they were in the country, there’d be signs that they’re living there.”

“Maybe,” she said again.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I don’t know what to think.”

“Go for the simple explanation: neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island.”

“Nor Robertson.”

“Can we go back to the inn and have dinner now?”

“I guess.”

At the bottom of Black Mountain Road, Stone turned toward the inn. “Holly,” he said, “if you say Robertson is not Teddy, and neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island, and if Teddy killed Croft, then neither Pemberton nor Weatherby could be Teddy. Or more likely, Teddy didn’t kill Croft, somebody else did.”

“Depressing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Not really. If you think about it, the best possible outcome of this little jaunt would be that Teddy isn’t on St. Marks, that he has never been on St. Marks.”

“That’s what depresses me,” she said.

“It shouldn’t. Lance is just dying to be told that Teddy isn’t here. That would get him off the hook with the director, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, I get it: you were hoping to cuff Teddy and deliver him to Lance with a big red bow on him.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, at least if Teddy isn’t here, you won’t have to kill him.”

“What makes you think I would kill him, if he were here? I don’t even have a gun.”

“You’re a trained killer; you don’t need a gun.”

“Well, what makes you think I would slip a stiletto into him, or garrote him? I’m not an assassin.”

“If we find Teddy, that’s what Lance is going to ask you to do-or, more likely, order you to do.”

“I won’t.”

“So you’ll just tell Lance to stick Teddy up his ass?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or resign from the Agency?”

“I don’t know; I’ll think about that when I have to.”

“You’d better think about it now. My advice is, tell Lance that Pemberton and Weatherby are not here, and you think somebody besides Teddy killed Croft.”

“But what if I don’t think that?”

“You’d better start reflecting on the consequences of not thinking that,” Stone said.

Holly didn’t speak for the rest of the way back to the inn.

Captain duBois sat at his desk the following morning and disconsolately went through a large stack of files containing all the information the police had on visitors to the island. The primary objects of his investigation had simply melted away as suspects: the Pepper couple were in custody at the time of the shooting; Pemberton and Weatherby appeared to be off the island, though he could find no record of their departure; Irene Foster’s friend’s alibi had been confirmed by Thomas Hardy; he was at the marina every day; plus Barrington’s and Heller’s backgrounds checked out in every detail, and they had been dismissed as suspects by no less an authority than the prime minister. He wished there were an underground political opposition, so he could arrest and torture them. He began casting around for some plausible theory of the assassination, and gradually an idea began to grow.

He picked up the phone, rang the prime minister’s office and requested an immediate appointment, in connection with Croft’s assassination. After a brief wait, he was told to come immediately. He put on a freshly pressed uniform and walked out of the building to his waiting, hated Land Rover, still formulating the presentation of his idea.

The prime minister sat, silent, behind his large mahogany desk and seemed to be reading and signing papers, while duBois stood at attention, his hat tucked under his arm, and waited.

Finally, the PM spoke. “Tell me who murdered Colonel Croft,” he said.

“Prime Minister, after a thorough review of all the existing evidence, and after investigating and/or interrogating all the foreign visitors, I believe I can say that Colonel Croft’s assassin arrived on the island surreptitiously by boat, probably from St. Martin, did his work and left immediately by the same means. And, by this time, he is back whence he came, beyond our reach.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?” Sutherland asked.

“First, by a process of elimination of suspects and by deduction; second, by my knowledge of certain elements remaining in Haiti.”

“Tell me about your deductive process.”