“What’s that?”
“A black man in a suit with an accent visited Ginny’s flying school and asked questions about her.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Fortunately, he didn’t see Ginny; she was flying. And the lady in the office gave him the ready story. I hope that satisfied him.”
“So do I,” Stone said. “I hope that’s an end to it.”
21
Everybody was dressing for dinner, and Stone was ready first. “I’m going to go up to the inn and see what Thomas knows about this Robertson character; I’ll meet you in the bar.”
“Okay,” Holly said, switching on her blow dryer.
Stone slipped into a linen jacket and walked up to the inn. Thomas was behind the bar, in conversation with a customer, a black man in a black suit. A very nice suit, Stone thought, but an odd choice for the tropics.
Thomas waved him over. “Stone, I’d like you to meet one of our more prominent citizens,” he said. “This is Colonel Croft, of our home office. Colonel, this is an old customer, Mr. Stone Barrington, from New York.”
The colonel swiveled on his stool and smiled a broad smile with many teeth. “How do you do, Mr. Barrington?” he said.
He was wearing gold-rimmed dark glasses with reflective lenses, so Stone could not see his eyes, which he found a little disconcerting. “How do you do, Colonel? I didn’t know St. Marks had an army.”
“It’s a police title,” the colonel explained. “Since joining the Home Office I’m no longer a policeman, exactly, but the rank seems to have stuck. Everyone calls me Colonel.”
“I’m a retired policeman myself, like Thomas,” Stone said.
“You look awfully young to be retired,” the colonel replied.
“Medical reasons,” Stone said. “I took a bullet in the knee after fourteen years on the NYPD.”
“And what was your assignment on the force?” the colonel asked.
“I was a detective, mostly investigating homicides.”
The colonel smiled again. “Well, Mr. Barrington, you would have been unable to earn a living in St. Marks; we have so little violent crime and hardly any homicides.”
“You are to be congratulated,” Stone said. “It takes good police work to keep crime at such low levels.”
“We do our best for a small country. I understand you now practice law; in fact, I’ve heard that you have actually practiced in St. Marks, on a previous visit.”
So the colonel knew who he was; Stone was hardly surprised. “I had that honor,” he said, “but quite by happenstance. Your distinguished prime minister bested me handily in court.” Stone thought it best to spread the flattery on thick.
“Yes, your client was hanged, I believe.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I was chief of police in Markstown at that time,” the colonel said, “so I was not involved in the investigation, but, of course, everyone knew of the incident.”
“Yes, I believe the trial gained some notoriety in the United States as well.” Couldn’t hurt to remind him that treating Americans badly engendered bad publicity. “I hope your tourist trade was not affected.”
“On the contrary,” the colonel said, “the notoriety seemed to give us a shot in the arm, as it were, and our tourist trade has grown steadily since then, benefitting many St. Marksians, as Thomas can readily testify.”
“I can,” Thomas said. “My home island has been very good to me.”
“I hear rumors of a big expansion in tourism to come,” Stone said, “with the arrival of casinos.”
The colonel abruptly stopped smiling. “Oh? And where did you hear that?” he asked, and he seemed genuinely interested in an answer.