Rawls held up a finger. “One: This island has a population of fifty or sixty in the winter and maybe six hundred in the summer. All of them, local and summer folk, have known each other for years—generations, some of them—and the atmosphere on Islesboro is not the sort to engender grudges that end in multiple homicides. Two: Dick Stone was not the kind of guy that anybody could hold a grudge against. And three: I’m just guessing, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that there wasn’t a trace of any kind of evidence in the house. Am I right?”

“On all three points,” Stone said.

“And the weapon was silenced, right? This was a pro hit,” Rawls said, sitting back in his chair. “No doubt about it.”

“The weapon was Dick’s own,” Stone said.

“Well,” Rawls said, sitting back again, “if you were a pro staging a murder-suicide, you’d use the victim’s own gun, wouldn’t you? Lends plausibility.”

“That brings us to who sent the pro,” Stone said. “Any ideas, Ed?”

Rawls sipped his coffee contemplatively. “You make enemies in that line of work.”

“Which ones did Dick make?”

“Irish? Russian mafia? Islamics? Take your pick.”

“So you have no idea?”

“Not specifically.”

“Who would want to kill you, then?”

“Ah,” Rawls chuckled. “The field broadens. With me, you have to consider domestic sources.”

“Domestic? The Agency deals only in foreign matters, doesn’t it?”

“Well, not anymore…not since 9/11, anyway. It did in my day, though, at least mostly.”

“You fear your own countrymen, then?”

“More than anybody else.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that my countrymen were not always happy with the way I did my work.”

“I’ve heard your name before, haven’t I?” He knew he had, but he couldn’t place it.

Rawls shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Why would I have heard it, Ed?”

Rawls shrugged again but said nothing.

“Come on, Ed. I can run a check on you half a dozen ways. Hell, I can probably get most of it by Googling you.”

“I suppose you could,” Rawls said. “I was running the Scandinavian station out of Stockholm some years back, looking forward to retirement. I got involved with a lovely Swedish creature who turned out to be a lovely Russian creature. This was before the fuckers all became democrats. They blackmailed me, and I gave them some fairly useless information, but a meet went south, and a couple of my people bought it. I was blamed, and they hung me out to dry.”

“I remember now,” Stone said. “You’re supposed to be in prison, aren’t you?”