34
STONE AND DINO went back to the Marquesa, and Stone got into a shower, thinking about the events of that morning. When he came out onto the porch, Dino was at the pool with a vividly colored drink in his hand, chatting with two young women. Stone was about to join him when his cell phone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“It’s Eggers.”
“Good morning. How’s it going up there? And by ‘up there’ I mean Connecticut.”
“Well, let’s see: Eli has filed a lawsuit against Warren Keating, asking that he be barred from any participation in the sale of the company and that the disposition of the proceeds be put in Eli’s hands. That ought to keep Warren busy for a while, I guess. What’s going on down there?”
“Warren has been busier than you think. The day before yesterday he apparently called a Miami P.I. of my acquaintance and inquired about having some slightly illegal work done.”
“What kind of slightly illegal work?”
“My acquaintance hung up on him before he could spit it all out, but the trend of the conversation seemed toward the hiring of somebody to kill his son.”
“C’mon, Warren’s not that stupid.”
“No? He’s not only stupid but fast-acting. Last night Evan Keating was shot while sitting in his boat, anchored off Key West.”
Eggers made an odd noise.
“That was pretty much my reaction, too.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, just shot through a shoulder. He’s in the local hospital under police guard, in case the hit guy tries again. He should be out tomorrow, if his fever goes away.”
“I’m having a pretty hard time getting my mind around this,” Eggers said. “I can’t believe Warren is that evil.”
“You can’t? The man is under suspicion for having murdered his brother by poisoning, he locked up his healthy father in a nursing home on phony grounds, and he’s tried to cheat both his father and his son out of their rightful share of the proceeds of the business sale. Isn’t that evil enough for you?”
“Okay, I’ll admit it. I misjudged the man. Even when I was prying Eli out of that home, I never thought Warren had poisoned his brother, but now I’ve reconsidered. I think I should go to the police.”
“I understand the Connecticut State Police are already investigating him, and I’m sure they’ll get around to you eventually. Just sit tight.”
“Are you coming back to New York soon?”
“No, not for a few days. Evan has hired me.”
“For what?”
“He says for a negotiation, but I have no idea what that means. I intend to ask him again as soon as he’s out of the hospital.”
“Well, I guess we’re enough legally clear of Warren for that to be all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said.
“Can you find out how the investigation of Warren is going?” Eggers asked. “You seem to have an in.”
“I’ll ask questions of somebody who can ask questions, that’s all I can do.”
“Keep me posted,” Eggers said, then he hung up.
Stone strolled over to where Dino was sitting. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but can you call your guy in Connecticut and find out what’s happening?”
“I guess,” Dino said. “Excuse me a minute, ladies.”
The girls tittered and wandered away.
Dino dialed the number and put his phone on speaker.
“Robbery Homicide.”
“Lieutenant Dan Hotchkiss, please.”
“This is Lieutenant Hotchkiss.”
“Hey, Dan, it’s Dino.”
“I could have predicted that.”
“What did you find out about the Warren Keating thing?”
“I found out that it’s hard to analyze the ashes of a corpse for traces of poison.”
“You ever heard that tale about there being three common household substances—or maybe it’s two—that, when combined, make an unanalyzable poison?”
“Dino, how am I going to look for an unanalyzable poison?”
“You can get a search warrant for Keating’s house and look for the ingredients.”
“What are the ingredients?”
“I told you, two or three common household substances.”
“You’re a big fucking help, Dino.”
“Well, the people who know about these things don’t like to mention the names of the substances, for fear of setting off a nationwide epidemic of dead husbands, but Warren Keating has a chemistry degree, and you know what college kids are like: Something of that sort would be talked about in lab classes.”
“So what do I do, ask a college chemistry major?”
“Why don’t you ask the FBI lab? If anybody knows about this poison, they would.”
“Okay, say I call the FBI lab, or get somebody at our lab to do it, and they tell me that the three secret ingredients are toilet cleaner, bug spray and a decent Scotch. Half the people in the state have those things in their houses, so they’d be just as good for the crime as Warren Keating, wouldn’t they?”
“Dan . . .”
“You think a judge, a sober one anyway, would give me a warrant to search for those three items? I’ll bet the judge has them at home, too.”
“I take your point, Dan. Now, can you tell me what, if anything, is being done in this investigation?”
“Right now, it’s in the hands of the lab, and they won’t give me an ETA for their results.”
“They’ve probably laid it off on the FBI lab, anyway,” Dino said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Anything else, before I go back to fighting crime?”
“There has been a development. Warren Keating may have hired a hit man to kill his son.”
“Have you got anything more than three secret ingredients to back that up?”
“Well, his son is in a Key West hospital with a bullet wound to the shoulder.”
“That’s certainly an interesting development, Dino, but how do I tie that to Warren?”
“A guy with a New England accent, like Warren’s, called a Miami P.I. I know and made inquiries.”
“Did the P.I. recommend anybody?”
“No, he hung up when he saw which way the conversation was leading.”
“I’m really happy that the crime is out of my jurisdiction, Dino. Let me know if something happens that I can actually arrest Warren Keating for.” Hotchkiss hung up.
Dino turned to Stone. “For this kind of abuse, I lose the company of two attractive women?”