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“Two or three spots, I reckon.”
“Where were they?”
“I saw him along the road from the ferry to the village, like maybe he had just gotten off the ferry. I saw him in the village, where he went into the store and bought an ice cream. I saw him, late in the day, walking back toward the ferry.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Casual, like all them from away: khakis, a shirt; had a sweater thrown over his shoulders, like he expected it to get cooler. Good idea! It gets cooler up here.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yup.”
“How long was he in the store?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe. More than enough time to get himself an ice cream.”
“Did you see him speak to anyone inside or outside the store?”
“When he come out, he gave a little wave to somebody behind him and said something. Couldn’t make out what from the distance.”
“Did he buy anything in the store except ice cream?”
Seth thought for a moment. “Yup. He bought a paper, maybe the New York one. Had it tucked under his arm.”
“Which way did he go when he left the store?”
“Toward the ferry.”
“Seth, is there a bar on the ferry, or liquor for sale?”
“Nope. You have to bring your own.”
“Was he carrying anything? A bottle or a hip flask?”
“Nope to the bottle. His pants were kind of baggy, so he might have had room for a hip flask.”
“Anything else you can remember about him?”
Seth went quiet for a minute.
“Seth?”
“Yup? Nope. Can’t remember anything else.”
“Thanks for your time, Seth.”
“Yup.” Seth hung up.
Stone ran the conversation again in his head and retained the pieces for further use.
Joan came in with some sheets of paper. “This was sent to you by Lance Cabot,” she said.
It was the Maine ME’s report on the Collins postmortem.Stone ran a finger down to “stomach contents”—lobster, coleslaw, alcohol, colorless, likely vodka, eight to twelve drinks—that spelled drunk.
So Collins had a lobster roll, widely available in the area, but vodka? Was liquor sold at the little market in Lincolnville? Very likely. But Collins was a nondrinker. What could have caused him to imbibe eight to twelve drinks? Or, perhaps, who? And where? On board the ferry? In a car? In a car on the way to the ferry?
Stone looked for the place on the form for cuts and bruises. One large bruise, recent, base of the skull. He would have been unconscious for a while afterward. That would account for how they got him into a car. Maybe how they had gotten the vodka into him.
