“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.”

“Did you communicate on any sort of regular basis?”

“Not really. I never met his wife.”

“And did the Stone brothers have progeny?”

“Dick and his wife had a daughter. Caleb, twin sons.”

“Did you ever hear from Dick again?”

“I received a package from him, with a letter instructing me to put it in my safe and to open it only in the event of his death.”

“What happened after that?”

“He died.”

“Murdered, along with his wife and child, I am informed.”

“You are correctly informed.”

“Did you learn who killed them?”

“I deduced who did. The law did not.”

“What was your deduction?”

“That Enos and Eben Stone murdered all three, along with a number of local, Boston, and New Haven women. Oh, and both their parents. I believe the twins are serving life without possibility of parole in the state prison.”

“That is not quite correct,” Keegan said.

“How not so?”

“The Stone twins confessed to the killing of their parents, pled guilty, and were sentenced to life.”

“What about no parole?”

“Their first parole hearing is the day after tomorrow.”

2

Stone blinked. “Whatever happened to ‘without parole’?”

“Like you, the police deduced that the Stone twins were guilty of all the aforementioned murders, but they did not have the evidence to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In shooting their parents, however, they were careless, and the prosecution had them cold.”

“Wasn’t that good enough for life without parole?”

“It should have been, but two factors intervened: first, the boys claimed, convincingly, that their father had sexually abused them as children and that their mother knew about it but did nothing. Second, the state was deeply embarrassed about its failure to charge them on all counts, and they just wanted the case to go away. So, aided by a clever attorney—my father—they pled guilty to the murders of their parents, in exchange for life with the possibility of parole, something the prosecution thought never would happen.”

“And you,” Stone said. “Are you telling me all this because of the guilt of your father’s participation?”