Stone looked around. He was going to have to reverse for a hundred and fifty yards. He had begun to do so, when the gate behind him swung shut. Now he was trapped on the narrow road between the gate and the fallen tree trunk.

He got out of the car and looked around. He was surrounded by thick woods and underbrush, with nobody and no house in sight. He was about to walk to the gate and try to open it when he saw a tiny red flash, and then he looked down at his chest to find a pinpoint of red light dancing around it. Laser gunsight. He hit the ground and crawled behind the car.

“Stand up and keep your hands where I can see you!” a deep voice shouted.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Stone called back.

“Maybe. We’ll see. Now get up.”

Stone sat up and looked over the car. On the other side stood a large, bearlike man somewhere in his sixties, Stone reckoned, with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, a large mustache and round, steel-rimmed glasses. He was holding a Sigarms P220 pistol, and the laser sight was still on him.

“I said, ‘Stand up,’” the man said.

Stone stood up.

“Now walk to the front of the car and put your hands on the grille.”

Stone did so, and the man walked over and frisked him from his neck to his ankles in a thoroughly professional manner.

The man backed away. “Now stand up straight, turn around and stand still.”

Stone did so.

“Why are you driving Dick Stone’s car?” the man demanded.

“Can I show you some I.D.?”

“Do it carefully.”

Stone produced a wallet with his badge and I.D.

The man snatched it away from him and read it carefully, keeping his aim with the gun. “Your first name is Stone?”

“Dick was my first cousin.”

“And you’re a retired cop?”

“Yes, and you seem to be, too.”

“Not exactly.”

“I’m Dick’s executor. I’m up here to settle his estate.”

The man lowered the gun but didn’t put it away. “Okay,” he said. “You ought to be more careful whose driveway you drive down.”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know it was a driveway; there was no sign or mailbox. I was just exploring.”

The man put the gun in his belt and held out a hand. “I’m Ed Rawls,” he said. He took a remote control from his pocket and pressed a button. The log ahead of Stone swung slowly out of his way. “Explore your way down to the end of the drive, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” he said, then he turned and disappeared into the trees.