Loitering with Intent

LATE IN THE afternoon, Stone and Dino were having a drink on their front porch when Evan Keating came down the walkway and stopped.

“Good afternoon,” he said, offering Stone an envelope. “There’s your fee for your day’s work.”

“Gigi and I are being married tomorrow morning, and since we don’t know anybody in Key West, we need a couple of witnesses. Would you stand up for us?”

“Thank you. We’re in the cottage at the end of the walk, and the hotel arranged for a justice of the peace at noon.”

“There’ll be lunch in the restaurant after that, and I hope you can join us.”

“We’ll look forward to seeing you at noon, then,” Evan said, and with a wave, he walked back toward his cottage.

“Not at all,” Dino replied. “It’s funny, but usually, when I go on vacation, I’m antsy to get home. Something about this place, though—I hate to leave.”

They were just about to order their second drink when Tommy Sculley ambled up to their cottage and accepted a rocking chair and a drink.

“I thought you’d like to know that your client is clear with the feds,” Tommy said. “And the Coast Guard has released his boat. It’s being towed to the yacht club. They’ll put it in my berth, since my boat is out of the water for some work.”

“That’s good to hear,” Stone replied, “and I’ll pass the news about the boat on to Evan.”

“And the ballistics report the Connecticut cops sent me matches the bullet that was recovered from Evan’s boat, so the same assassin was after both Evan and his father.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Stone said. “The only person with any kind of motive to kill both of them is Evan’s grandfather, and his motive would be purely financial. Since he’s a wealthy man anyway, and since he’s in his eighties, he doesn’t seem a likely candidate. The Connecticut state cops have already looked at him and eliminated him as a suspect.”

“What can I tell you?” Tommy said, accepting a drink from the room service waitress. He raised his glass. “Here’s to unsolved murders; what would cops do without them?”

“Maybe you’re underestimating old Eli Keating,” Dino said to Stone. “Just because he’s old doesn’t mean he can’t hate, and God knows, he must have hated Warren for stashing him in that nursing home.”

“I’ll give you that,” Stone said, “but remember, Evan was shot at first, and even your Connecticut cop commented on how warm the relationship was between Evan and his grandfather.”

“Okay, but there’s one other solution to this, although it may seem improbable,” Dino said.

“First, Warren hires the hit man to kill Evan. The guy takes his shot but doesn’t get the job done. Then either Evan or Eli, or both in collusion, hire the hit man to kill Warren, and that one takes. And both Eli and Evan had motive to kill Warren, you’ll admit.”

“But how would two of them, or all three, know about the same hit man?”

“The answer has to be, they both, or all three, knew Manny White, in Miami, or knew about him.”

Stone spoke up. “The law firm I work with, which was representing Warren, got in touch with Manny for a skip trace on Evan. Warren needed Evan’s signature on the contract to do the deal on selling the family business. Dino and I paid a visit to Manny, and we think he’s the middleman, the connection to the hit man.”

“Okay, so Warren, after he uses Manny for a skip trace, also uses him to find the hit man,” Tommy said. “I’ll buy that.”

“Manny was the one who warned us—well, sort of—that Evan was a candidate for a hit,” Dino said. “He said somebody had called him about some dirty work, but that he had hung up on him.”

“But he didn’t hang up,” Tommy said. “He arranged for the guy to come to Key West and plug Evan. I buy that. What I don’t quite buy is how Evan or his grandfather managed to hire the same hit man to go after Warren. Did either of them have a connection through the law firm, Stone?”

“No,” Stone replied. “Evan doesn’t know anybody at the law firm, and there’s no reason for him to know Manny White. His grandfather knows the managing partner at the law firm, Bill Eggers, but Bill would never help Eli find a hit man. He wouldn’t even put Eli in touch with Manny; if he needed Manny for something, Bill would deal with him himself.”

“Of course not. He’d have no motive to have Evan killed. He did the legal work on the sale of the family business, and he’d want it to go through.”

“All right,” Tommy said, “we’re agreed that both old Eli and young Evan would have motives for killing Warren—Eli because he got locked away in the nursing home, and Evan because his father tried to have him killed. Are we all agreed on that?”

“But,” Stone pointed out, “how did one of them get in touch with Manny White? How did they know about him?”

“We sort of already did,” Dino said. “Stone and I went to see him and talked like we wanted a hit man. He didn’t throw us out at first, but eventually he did. I don’t think he’d look forward to another visit from us, since he never liked us much in the first place, when we were all NYPD.”

“Not if we can think of somebody else to approach Manny, somebody with a plausible story of who recommended him, and somebody with a bunch of cash to wave at him.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Stone said. “Let us know when you’ve figured it out.”