Double Jeopardy (Stone Barrington #57)
Stuart Woods
1
Stone Barrington walked into his office on a Monday morning and found three pink memo slips, saying that a John Keegan had called and needed to see him urgently.
Joan Robertson, his secretary, came into the room without being asked, and said, “No, I don’t know who he is. He’s been leaving messages on the machine since early this morning.”
“Perhaps you know why there’s no number to call back on these slips?”
“Oh, I just thought I’d make life more difficult for you. Isn’t that my job?”
“I’m just asking.”
“I can only write down the messages left,” she said. “If there had been a number, I would have written that down, too. If past performance is any indication, he’ll call back.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Stone said. His phone rang. Joan picked it up.
“The Barrington Practice at Woodman & Weld,” she said. “Ah, yes, Mr. Keegan, I have him right here.” She handed Stone the phone with a triumphant grin.
“Good morning, this is Stone Barrington.”
“Thank God,” Keegan said. “My name is John Keegan, call me Jack. I need to speak to you in person as soon as possible.”
“Where are you, Jack?”
“In a cab, on the way in from the airport.”
“A New York airport?”
“Sorry, yes. LaGuardia. I just got off the shuttle from Boston.”
“Do you have my address?”
Keegan spoke it to him.
“May I know what this is about?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Suffice to say, it’s a family matter.”
“I’ll be available when you get here. I hope you brought your raincoat and galoshes.” But Keegan had hung up. It was pouring outside.
A few minutes later, the office doorbell rang. Stone’s office was in a former dentist’s office in a house that he had inherited from a great-aunt many years before and remodeled. He heard the sounds of an umbrella closing and outer clothing being shucked off.
Joan stuck her head in. “Mr. Keegan to see you,” she said, “slightly damp.”
Keegan walked in wearing a good suit and a necktie, and carrying an old-fashioned briefcase, stuffed. He dropped it on the floor with a thump and offered his hand.
Stone shook it and waved him to a seat. “I expect you could use some hot coffee,” Stone said.
“Oh, yes.”
“How?” Joan asked.
“Black, please.”
“It’s strong. Do you want it weaker?”
“Strong is good.”
She left and returned with a steaming mug and set it on a small table beside him. He sipped it gratefully.
“You said this was a family matter,” Stone said. “I have only one family member, a son, Peter, who lives in Los Angeles. Is this about him?”
“No, sorry. The other side of the family.” He handed a card over: “Keegan, Kay, and Williams, Boston.”
“And you’re Keegan,” Stone said. “Just a wild guess.”
“I and my father before me. All three of us partners had fathers who preceded us in the firm.”
“Neat and tidy. The other side of the family? The Stones?”
“Yes.”
“They’re all dead, except two of them, who are . . . unavailable.”
“Mr. Barrington . . .”
“Call me Stone.”
“Stone . . .” He hesitated.
“Yes?”
“I’m new to this case, and it would be helpful to me if you could recount your knowledge of your Stone relatives, particularly with regard to your residence on Islesboro.”
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“Grandparents.”
“My mother, Matilda, was a Stone. She and my father, a Barrington, were both from western Massachusetts, both families in the weaving business, mostly men’s suitings. My parents fell in love as teenagers; she was studying art at Mount Holyoke and he, law, at Yale. Her parents objected to the pairing.”
“On what grounds?”
“My father had leftist political views. He had even joined the Communist Party for a brief time, mostly to annoy his father, I think. They married anyway—eloped. As a result, they were both banished from their families: he for his politics, she for marrying him.”
“Did you have any cousins on the Stone side?”
“Two first cousins, Caleb and Richard.”
“Did you know them well?”
“Not until, at eighteen, I was invited to spend a summer on Islesboro with them, during a brief thaw in family relations.”
“And how did you get on with them?”
“Splendidly, with Dick, poorly with Caleb, who was both a bully and an ass, as bullies usually are. I finally had occasion to punch him in the nose, earning the displeasure of his mother, who thereafter declared me persona non grata on the island. I was not invited back.”
“Did you see them after that?”
“I saw Dick once, when he came to New York on business. We had dinner and renewed our warm friendship. That was the last time I saw him.”