“Why the hell would he want you there?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe he was just impressing me with how he could keep tabs on me. Turns out, he had flown over Islesboro earlier and saw my airplane there. He invited himself to dinner, but I nixed that, then the chopper flew me back.”

“So that was the first time you’d spent any time with Adele?”

“We had dinner at the Four Seasons before we went to Maine.”

“Anybody you can think of has anything against Adele?”

“No. Of course, I didn’t know her long enough to meet any of her circle of friends. The only nexus we had was Herbie Fisher, who was marrying her niece.”

“The son, David—I read he was on a sailing trip when the blowup at his father’s business happened?”

“Yeah, I saw him interviewed on TV in the marina, after he got back to Miami. Actually, I’m told he was a suspect in the missing-money scandal, which turned out not to be a scandal at all, since there was no missing money.”

“Would he have anything against his aunt?”

“Not that I know of. If he wasn’t on good terms with her, why did she invite him to dinner, and why did he accept?”

“Makes sense,” Dino said. “What about the other couple?”

“She described them as old friends from out of town. I never even learned where they were from.”

Dino checked his notes. “Chicago. Neither of them was an investor of Gunn’s. How did Adele feel about Jack Gunn?”

“She liked him, trusted him. When the mess blew over she kept the proceeds of her husband’s estate with him, and recommended to me that I invest with him. No hard feelings there.”

“Late husband?”

“Yeah, she told me that she shot him, after he had blackened her eye and broken her arm. She was never charged with anything.”

“Lansdown,” Dino said, thinking. “Last year. I remember the case. They ran it by me, and I didn’t see any need for charges.”

“You think anybody had something against the cook?” Stone asked.

“If so, he would have shot her and hit Adele over the head, not the other way around.”

“Good point,” Stone admitted. “You know, security is pretty good in a building like this. Makes you wonder how somebody got in through the service entrance.”

The ME came in from the dining room, followed by two helpers and the corpse on a gurney. “Death by shooting, two in the head, small caliber, typical of a pro job. She’d been dead for less than an hour when I got here.”

“Fax me the full report,” Dino said. “Thanks, Doc.”

The man left.

“I think we’re done here,” Dino said, “and the smell of that food cooking makes me hungry.”

“Elaine’s?”

“Where else?” Dino said. “Let’s leave by the service entrance.” He led the way out the back, where Dino had another look at the door. “Doesn’t seem tampered with.”

“Probably when you live in a building like this, you think you can leave your door unlocked,” Stone said.