“I don’t know; he didn’t tell me, and he took the contract with him.” Stone’s cell phone vibrated, and he glanced at it. “Eggers; he’s going to love this.”

Stone put the phone on speaker. “Yes, Bill?”

“Did you get the contract?”

“Yes.”

“Did you show it to Evan Keating?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He said to tell Warren, no deal.”

“Shit!” Eggers said.

“You were hoping he would take it?”

“It sure would have made my life a lot simpler,” Eggers said. “This was supposed to go like clockwork; you were supposed to fi nd Evan, get his signature and everybody would have been happy.”

“Everybody except Grandpa Eli, who’s locked in the nursing home, Uncle Harry, who’s dead, and Evan, who thinks, not without cause, that he’s being cheated out of his share of the business.”

“It’s a snakepit, that’s what it is,” Eggers moaned.

“Bill, what’s the sales price for the business?”

“Didn’t you read the contract?”

“No, it was addressed to Evan, care of me, and when I gave it to him he didn’t read it aloud.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘No deal,’ and when I asked him if he thought his father poisoned Uncle Harry, he replied in the affi rmative.”

“And you think I should go to the police?”

“From what Evan said the other day, the police are already looking into Harry’s death. What could you tell them?”

“That I have reason to believe that Harry Keating was poisoned by his brother.”

“And what reason do you have to believe that?”

“Warren Keating is a chemist; his brother died under mysterious circumstances; Warren stood to gain from his death.”

“Don’t you think the police have already figured out that much? In addition, they’ve probably searched Warren’s house, garage and toolshed for ant poison, or whatever the hell is poisonous these days, and they surely took fluid and tissue samples from the corpse.”

“Then why haven’t they arrested Warren?”

“Maybe because toxicology screens seem to take one hell of a long time to come back, especially in small towns like— Where is it Warren and Harry live?”

“Torrington, Connecticut.”

“Like Torrington, Connecticut.”

“Yeah,” Eggers said, “and did I mention that Harry’s body was cremated?”

“Before or after they took samples?”

“I’m not sure. Can a crime lab get toxicology reports from ashes, or whatever’s left after a cremation?”

“Maybe, in the case of heavy metals, like arsenic, but if Warren is a chemist I should think he’d use something more sophisticated than arsenic.”

“Like ant poison?”

“Some of those insecticides have cyanide in them—at least I think that’s the case; I’m not an expert on poisoning. Somebody once told me that there are two common household fluids that, when mixed, form a poison that can’t be analyzed.”

“I didn’t know there was anything that can’t be analyzed.”