“Ed,” Stone said, “I know who Dick worked for, and it wasn’t the State Department.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. And why do you have all this security and why are you walking around in this lovely place with a Sig P220 in your hand?”
“Well,” Rawls said, “I reckon the folks who got Dick Stone might be coming for me, too.”
Chapter 10
STONE THOUGHT FOR a minute about what Ed Rawls had just said. “So you think Dick’s death was work related?”
Rawls nodded gravely. “Certainly.”
“Why?”
Rawls held up a finger. “One: This island has a population of fifty or sixty in the winter and maybe six hundred in the summer. All of them, local and summer folk, have known each other for years—generations, some of them—and the atmosphere on Islesboro is not the sort to engender grudges that end in multiple homicides. Two: Dick Stone was not the kind of guy that anybody could hold a grudge against. And three: I’m just guessing, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that there wasn’t a trace of any kind of evidence in the house. Am I right?”
“On all three points,” Stone said.
“And the weapon was silenced, right? This was a pro hit,” Rawls said, sitting back in his chair. “No doubt about it.”
“The weapon was Dick’s own,” Stone said.
“Well,” Rawls said, sitting back again, “if you were a pro staging a murder-suicide, you’d use the victim’s own gun, wouldn’t you? Lends plausibility.”
“That brings us to who sent the pro,” Stone said. “Any ideas, Ed?”
Rawls sipped his coffee contemplatively. “You make enemies in that line of work.”
“Which ones did Dick make?”
“Irish? Russian mafia? Islamics? Take your pick.”
“So you have no idea?”
“Not specifically.”
“Who would want to kill you, then?”
“Ah,” Rawls chuckled. “The field broadens. With me, you have to consider domestic sources.”
“Domestic? The Agency deals only in foreign matters, doesn’t it?”
“Well, not any more… not since 9/11, anyway. It did in my day, though, at least mostly.”
“You fear your own countrymen, then?”
“More than anybody else.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say that my countrymen were not always happy with the way I did my work.”
“I’ve heard your name before, haven’t I?” He knew he had, but he couldn’t place it.
Rawls shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Why would I have heard it, Ed?”