nodded. “I stand corrected. I want you out of my grandmother’s house.”
“Mr. Landon.” Corbett got to his feet. “I apologize if you feel threatened or harassed.”
Eli simply stared. “Really? If?”
“The fact is, due to the connection, due to the victim’s purpose here in Whiskey Beach, you’re a person of interest. I’d like to ask if you own a gun.”
“A gun? No. No, I don’t.”
“Is there a gun in the house?”
“I couldn’t say.” Now he smiled. “It’s my grandmother’s house.”
“We’ll get a warrant,” Wolfe put in.
“Then get one. You’ll need one to get back in this house because I’m done being badgered and hounded by you.” He walked out, to the door, opened it. “We’re done.”
“Keep thinking that,” Wolfe muttered as he strode out.
“I appreciate your time,” Corbett said.
“Good because I’m finished giving it.” Eli firmly closed the door. Then allowed his hands to ball into fists.
Corbett waited until he and Wolfe were in the car. “God damn it! What the fuck were you doing?”
“He did it, and he’s not getting away with it again.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Infuriated, Corbett stomped on the gas. “Even if he had motive, which we don’t know, can’t prove, his opportunity is below nil. He gets Duncan up to the lighthouse in the middle of the damn night, shoots him, shoves him off the cliff, then pulls off the rest? The way he spelled it out’s exactly right.”
“Not if the woman’s part of it. She could’ve lured Duncan up there, then she follows Landon into Boston, drives him back, sits as his alibi.”
“That’s bullshit. Goddamn bullshit. I don’t know her, but she came off clean and up front. So do her neighbors. And I do know Vinnie Hanson. He’s a good cop. He vouches for both of them. It went down just the way they said. The break-in, the goddamn trench, the timing.”
“Landon’s got money. Money buys a lot of vouches.”
“Be damn careful, Wolfe. You’re here because we invited you. We can rescind the invitation, and that’s exactly what I’m going to recommend. You’re fucking obsessed, and you just screwed any chance I have of getting Landon to cooperate.”
“He killed his wife. He killed Duncan. Cooperation from him’s bullshit.”
“You’ve had a year to pin him for the wife, and you haven’t. Duncan’s a hell of a bigger reach. If you weren’t so dug in, you’d be asking yourself who hired Duncan, why, and where the hell they were between midnight and five on Friday morning. You’d be asking yourself who broke into that house while Landon was in Boston, and how they knew he was in Boston.”
“One doesn’t have dick to do with the other.”
Corbett only shook his head. “Obsessed,” he repeated under his breath.
Inside the house, Eli went directly upstairs, turned into the south wing and into what he’d always thought of as the memento room. Various cases held bits and pieces belonging to ancestors. A pair of lace gloves, a music box with a jeweled butterfly, a pair of ornate silver spurs. Mixed together in what he considered charming and unstudied displays were three leather-bound diaries, military medals, a wonderful brass sextant, a marble mortar and pestle, a pair of satin button shoes and other interesting Landon debris.
Including a case of antique guns. Locked, he noted with considerable relief, as always. The shotguns, a beautifully preserved Henry rifle, the fascinating pearl-handled derringer, the Georgian-style dueling pistols, flintlocks, a tough-looking Colt .45.
He didn’t relax until he’d confirmed every space in the custom-made cabinet held its weapon.
All present and accounted for, he thought. At least he could be confident none of the Landon guns had killed Kirby Duncan. To his knowledge none had been fired in his lifetime, and likely for a generation prior. Too valuable for target practice or sport, he mused, remembering his grandfather allowing a thrilled eight-year-old Eli a chance to hold one of the flintlocks while he explained its history.
Valuable, Eli thought again as he wandered the room. The dueling pistols alone were worth thousands. And easily transportable, easily sold to a collector. A locked glass-fronted case would hardly stop a thief, yet whoever had dug in the basement hadn’t taken the bird in the hand.
Hadn’t known about them? Didn’t know the layout and history of the house well enough? Besides the guns—and there had to be six figures, easily, inside that case—the house contained countless valuable, portable items.
His grandmother would have noticed, eventually. But there’d been a decent window of time between her accident and when he himself had moved in.