He stared out at the bay. Stone had told the FBI agents that the person who’d blown up Gray’s house might have escaped by jumping off the cliff. He walked to the edge and peered down. Hell of a long dive, but probably easy for someone like Oliver Stone/John Carr.

Okay, he tosses his rifle into the water and jumps. Then where did he go?

He did not for a second believe that Stone had committed suicide. One did not plan hits so meticulously to merely end it all with a plunge off a cliff. He had lived. Knox was sure of that.

Carrying a knapsack over his shoulder, Knox walked along the cliff’s edge, following on land what might have been Stone’s journey in the water. He passed through woods, open fields, and then more woods, all the while keeping his eye on the shore below. Finally, he stopped. There was a bit of a beach down there. Stone had shot Gray before seven a.m. Knox had checked the tide charts. That time of morning would largely mirror the tide he was looking at right now. He eyed the boulders, then spotted the cleft in the rock, the trail coming up. He followed it to where it reached the top of the cliff. There was a path there. He took it. A half hour later he came to the series of shacks.

“Can I help you?”

Knox looked over at the short, squat man in the Green Bay Packers knit cap and greasy coat who was staring at him from beside an ancient tractor with one wheel off.

Knox approached. “I was over at Carter Gray’s house.” He held up his creds. “I’m Agent Knox.”

“Good for you. They call me Leroy because that’s my name. Gray, huh? The important fellow what got himself shot?”

“That’s right. I take it someone’s been by to see you.”

“Hell, yeah. But like I told them, I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’.”

“You live here by yourself?”

“That’s right, ever since my Lottie went to meet her Lord four years ago.”

“Sorry to hear that. Nobody to help you around here? What is it that you do, by the way?”

“Anything I can to make a little money. Had me a helper but he went on.”

“When was that?”

“Same day that man got shot.”

Knox looked anxious but Leroy held up his hand. “Don’t get yourself excited. He was here when them FBI folks come by. You can ask them. He’s old, bum leg, bad eyes and feller couldn’t even talk, just grunted.”

“Tall, short? Fat, thin?”

“Skinny, though with the bad leg it was hard to tell how tall he was. Lot taller’n me, that’s for sure. Big beard and thick glasses.”

“Why’d he leave?”