Chapter 8: The Boathouse Chase

The sniper lay on the cellar floor with his chair tipped over and the cuff still locked on the pipe.

His throat had been cut.

It was a neat cut, and it was deep.

Ronan crouched beside him and put two fingers under the jaw.

"Still warm," he said. "Minutes."

"Who had the door?"

"Two men." He stood. "One is in the hall with a broken head. The other is the man who ran for the doctor last night."

I remembered him.

He had been tall, with a gray crewcut and a navy jacket.

"He's gone," Ronan said.

"Where?"

Wet boot prints ran across the cellar floor to the low iron door that opened onto the garden steps.

They were still shining.

"Harbor side," I said.

Ronan was already moving.

I ran after him.

The garden went down to the water in three long terraces, with the boathouse at the bottom.

It was a gray old building with a slipway and a long wooden pier, and a small speedboat with an outboard sat at the end of it.

A man in a navy jacket was bent over the engine.

"Stop!" Ronan shouted.

The man yanked the cord.

The outboard coughed and caught.

Ronan reached for his belt and put a pistol in my hand.

"I'd rather you did it," he said. "You're better."

"It's close."

"Then you won't mind."

It was eighty yards, downhill.

The boat was already pulling away from the pier, its stern low in the water.

I put the first shot through the engine cover.

The second hit the housing.

The third went into the fuel line.

The outboard screamed once, and smoke boiled up out of it.

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