As Stone walked back toward the marina he could not stop thinking about Libby Manning. He was depressed, and he felt guilty, though he could not think why. Certainly a human being was dead, one he had known; but not one he had known well or had come to care about. So why couldn’t he shake the feeling? He boarded Expansive and went below. Allison was putting something away in a cupboard.

“Libby Manning is dead,” he said.

“Come again? I don’t think I heard you right.”

“Libby is dead. Chester crashed shortly after takeoff this morning, and Libby and a local woman were killed, along with Chester.”

She stood, staring at him for a long moment. “Dead,” she repeated tonelessly. “No chance she might still be alive?”

“The airplane went down in at least six hundred feet of water. Chester’s body was recovered, but nobody else.”

Allison sank onto a sofa, looking as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “How could this have happened?” she asked.

“There was an engine fire, but nobody knows why, and my guess is that nobody is going to know. In order to figure out what made an airplane crash, you need the airplane, or at least a lot of it, and a wing tip was all that was recovered.”

“Some sort of mechanical problem, then?”

“Apparently.”

“What could cause such a problem?”

“A fuel leak, maybe. I have no idea what sort of rules a pilot like Chester would operate under on this island, but my guess is he was pretty much on his own. He’d have had the manufacturer’s service requirements to go by, but I doubt if there was anybody looking over his shoulder.” He looked at her. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but she didn’t sound it. “I’m just shocked, I guess. Three people dead.”

Stone sat down beside her. “It is pretty depressing,” he agreed.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be depressed,” Allison said. “After all, her death saves me four hundred thousand dollars.”

“Maybe,” he replied.

“Maybe? Why maybe? Didn’t our agreement and my check go down with her?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then why maybe?”

“Strictly speaking, that money was hers, and her heirs are entitled to it.”

“Heirs? Libby had heirs?”

“I’ve no idea, but let’s say, for example, she had a sister, and she left a will leaving everything to her. She’d be entitled to the four hundred thousand. Even if Libby died intestate, that is, without a will, her next of kin would be in line for it.”

“But there’s nothing. The check and the agreement went with her.”