6 Stone Barrington Novels by Stuart Woods

one.”
    â€œPity she was hanged.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI remember from Lou that you’re a friend of Mrs. . . . the Calders. I take it I’m here to talk about another murder trial.”
    â€œLet’s call this a precautionary meeting.”
    â€œIt’s always wise to take precautions. Has Arrington talked to the police yet?”
    â€œEarlier this afternoon.”
    â€œI should have been there for that,” Blumberg said.
    â€œI didn’t want to appear to be running scared,” Stone said. “You’d have been happy with the way it went.” He gave Blumberg a detailed rundown of Arrington’s questioning.
    â€œThat sounds okay,” Blumberg said. “You handled it well.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSounds as though they don’t have another suspect.”
    â€œThat’s how I read it. They went through the drill the night of the murder, and they didn’t come up with anything, and that disturbs them. Cops like early indications, and when they don’t find them, they look at the household.”
    â€œAnybody in the house besides Arrington?”
    â€œNo. The butler and maid were in their quarters; the butler found Vance and called the police.”
    â€œWhat was the scene like?”
    â€œVance was dressed in tuxedo trousers and a pleated shirt, no tie. They were going to a black-tie dinner at Lou’s house a little later. He was found lying facedown in the central hallway of the house, one bullet here.” Stone pointed at the spot.
    â€œYou used to be a cop, didn’t you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHave you got a scenario for this that doesn’t involve Arrington shooting Vance?”
    â€œHere’s how I read it,” Stone said. “Arrington was in the bathtub; Vance was getting dressed. His safe was open, containing his jewelry box, a nine-millimeter automatic, and a box of cartridges. He either walked in on a burglary, or a burglar walked in on him, probably the former. The burglar took the jewelry box and the gun, walked Vance into the central hallway and shot him.”
    â€œAny struggle?”
    â€œLooks like an execution to me. My guess is, Vance saw it coming and turned away. That’s why the wound in the back of the head.” Stone stood up, held out his hands in the “no, no” position, then half turned away from his imaginary assailant.
    â€œMakes sense,” Blumberg said.
    â€œFor Arrington to have done it, she would have to have gone to the safe, taken out the gun, cocked it, flipped off the safety, then either marched her husband out into the hall, or gone looking for him and found him there. That doesn’t fit a domestic quarrel.”
    â€œIt fits a cold-blooded, premeditated murder,” Blumberg said. “How do you figure the chances of that?”
    â€œUnlikely in the extreme.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear it. So what we’ve got is an innocent woman who loved her husband, who is a suspect only because the police haven’t done their job and found the real killer.”
    â€œIn a nutshell,” Stone said. “A couple of other things you should know: I got the impression from the detectives that they might have other evidence we don’t know about. They refused to disclose it to me, said they’d talk to a California lawyer.”
    â€œWe’ll get it; don’t worry. What’s the other thing?”
    â€œThe police talked to a woman named Beverly Walters, who told them Vance was screwing an actress named Charlene Joiner; they took that as Arrington’s motive for the shooting.”
    â€œI know her; she’s a complete bitch, and she could give us trouble at a trial. Charlene Joiner, huh? If it’s true, Vance was a lucky guy.”
    â€œYeah, I’ve seen some of her pictures.”
    â€œTell me, Stone, what’s your role in all this?” Blumberg asked. “Family friend?”
    â€œThat, and for