“Bill, please tell me exactly what you have heard about my alleged connection to this event and from whom you have heard it.”

“I have told you all I can.”

“Then I will have to decline to comment on apparently baseless charges and rumors promulgated by anonymous individuals.”

“It was Lance Cabot,” Eggers said.

“Ah, then you must know that, in the extremely unlikely event I had any connection whatever to this weird occurrence, my relationship with Lance’s employer would prevent me from either confirming or denying such an allegation, and Lance must know that, too.”

“All right, Stone,” Eggers said, “take a moment to muster all your lawyerly command of the language to craft a statement that will place you at a sufficient distance from my client’s perfectly understandable curiosity about the origins of this event, something I can repeat to him.”

Stone thought for a moment. “All right, you may quote me as saying that I have not now nor have I ever caused an automobile to fly through the air and into your client’s swimming pool, nor have I had any opportunity to prevent such a happening. And, when you have finished telling your client that, you may tell Lance Cabot, in the nicest possible way, to go fuck himself. If I should see Lance before you do, I’ll tell him myself.”

“I’ll have the spaghetti carbonara,” Eggers said to the hovering waiter.

“Make that two,” Dino said.

“I’ll have Barry’s secret strip steak, medium rare, with fries and haricots verts,” Stone said. “And bring us a bottle of the Mondavi Cabernet that you are always out of.”

“We’re out of that,” the waiter replied.

“Then make it the Phelps Cabernet.”

“We’ve got that,” the waiter replied, then departed.

“So, Stone,” Eggers said, “what beautiful woman are you seeing these days?”

“The last beautiful woman I was seeing was murdered in her own home not very long ago,” Stone said, “and my desire to see another has not yet overcome that circumstance.”

“Murdered by whom?” Eggers asked.

“Ask Dino; he’s the cop at the table.”

“Dino?”

“My money’s on her nephew or his girlfriend or both,” Dino said.

“You have any evidence to back that up?” Stone asked.

“They were the last two people to arrive for the dinner party, and the nephew had access to the building through his aunt and could have entered the back hall from inside the building, taped the door latch, and later let himself in to perform the killing, then out again.”

“That’s a reasonable conjecture,” Stone said, “but I take it you have no hard evidence.”

“You could put it that way,” Dino said.

Stone turned to Eggers. “How is it you are having ex parte communications with Lance Cabot?”

Eggers allowed himself to look uncomfortable for a tiny moment. “He called me; I didn’t call him.”

“He called you for the sole purpose of spreading rumors about my personal conduct?”

“That may not have been the only reason,” Eggers said. “I can’t say any more.”