If the copsre involved in this, when do you think itll be over? They wont rest till they get that recorder. And by the way, I ain’t goin’ anywhere. This ismyplace. I worked half my life payin’ for it and I ain’t about to run away.’ The bullet that went with that third shell never has been located, Drake said. Stone turned his body to the left, and the other doctor tucked a pillow under him to hold him in place. No, I said. I suppose not. Not really. The canoe had been rented for the evening, the rental paid in advance, so Mason had only to tie it up at the float and walk away. Vullo stared at me some more, then ran his fingers through his thick brown hair that he wore the way most men wore their hair in 1959. After that he slumped back in his chair and flung his yellow pencil on the desk. It was a childs gesture. A peevish child. She rose and came over and picked up my glass.Ill get you a fresh drink, she said. “Water, isnt it? Not one thing. Nothing in his accounts, Mason said. He wouldnt be short of money or anything? I closed and locked the front door and walked out to my car to retrieve the flashlight. I spent the next ten minutes searching the grounds. The onslaught of rain didnt bother me much. She took precedence over the weather. Is there a little man behind the curtain pulling levers to make that happen? Traffic was still heavy, but the driver took a couple of shortcuts to get them back sooner, and shortly, they were driving onto the ramp.Theres the Hawker taxiing, the driver said. I went to the window and looked out at the rolling landscape of their estate. A man in a white T-shirt, jeans and a straw hat was astride a green John Deere riding mower. But the real show was a hawk soaring above the pine windbreak. For all their hunting ferocity there was a fragility in their flight that made them seem vulnerable. But I had to smile at my naiveté. I doubted that hawks seemed vulnerable in any way to their prey, which included pets as familiar as small dogs and puppies, small cats and kittens, plus rabbits and guinea pigs. Eight hundred? Yeah, sure you would..