“How so?”
“We think one person killed Dick Stone and his family and another, unconnected person killed Janey Harris.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Stone said. “Do you have any ideas about who either of them is?”
Rawls spoke up. “Stone, I hope you’ll take this as reluctantly offered.”
“All right”
“We think Dick and his family were killed by Caleb Stone.”
Stone looked at the three men: They all looked dead serious.
“Tell me your reasons.”
“Money,” Mack said. “Dick’s wife’s money.”
“Money is always a good motive,” Stone agreed.
“Until Dick changed his will, we suspect that Caleb was his heir. Caleb’s never had a lot of money, and he has a reputation for living close to the line. He’s got two sons who’ve been educated expensively, a house in Boston and one here to run. He’s into his middle years with no hope of making much more than he is now.”
“All that seems to be true,” Stone said.
“And we guess he has a key to this house.”
“He doesn’t anymore; he gave it back to me.”
“After Dick and his family were dead?”
“That’s true.”
“He probably knows the security system code, too, unless Dick changed it,” Mack said.
Holly spoke up. “These are all good points, Stone.”
“Yes, they are. I’ll find out whether the security system code has been changed.”
“Why don’t you see if you can find out what was in Dick’s old will?” Harley asked.
“I suppose I can ask Caleb for it, but he’s under no obligation to give it to me.”
“Maybe you could ask him what caused Dick to change his will,” Rawls said. “Obviously, there was some sort of incident, some family breach for Dick to do such a precipitous thing. We’ve done some asking around on our own, but we haven’t been able to find out a thing. We suppose that it was something private, personal between the two brothers.”
“Again, I can ask, but I have no reason to believe Caleb would tell me.”
“It’s worth a try,” Rawls said.
“What about Janey?” Stone asked. “Why do you think her killer is a different person?”
“The crimes are very different,” Rawls said. “There was no sexual crime in the deaths of Barbara and Esme, and they were all simply executed, two of them in their bed. We think Janey’s murder was one of opportunity, and the murderer was your garden-variety rapist-killer. You can find those anywhere, and our guess is that, eventually, Sergeant Young is going to figure out who this one is.”
Harley spoke up. “We think Janey knew her killer and that she wrote something about him in her diary; that’s why it was stolen.”
“What about Don Brown? Who do you think killed him?”
Rawls looked uncomfortable. “We think it could be either the Stones’ killer or Janey’s. I’ll admit, we’re on shakier ground here, but we think the Stones’ killer is the more likely suspect, and that’s Caleb.”
“Frankly, Ed, I think your original idea of Don’s being killed because Janey had told him something is the better theory, and the theft of her diary supports that.”