Freeman shook his head. “I’ve been going over this in my mind since Stone called me, and I can’t see how it could be business-related,” he said.
“Surely, yours is the kind of business where a man could make enemies,” Smith said, sounding skeptical.
“You’d have to understand Jim,” Freeman replied. “He was a charming man, and he went out of his way to treat people decently, even those who didn’t like him. He worked hard not to make enemies.”
“How about a competitor? Surely, he would be resented by people who had lost contracts to him.”
Freeman thought about it. “I think that, in his early days, he went after business pretty hard, but for the ten years I’ve been with him, he pretty much sat back and let the business come to him. He was a very popular man.”
“Was he married?”
“Divorced, many years ago, in England.”
“Has he been seeing someone else’s wife?”
Freeman shook his head. “That wouldn’t be Jim. He loved beautiful and accomplished women, but they were all single.”
“Jealous boyfriend of one of his women?”
Freeman shrugged. “If so, he never mentioned it.”
Stone spoke up. “He would have to be a jealous boyfriend who was a pro at this sort of thing.”
“Agreed,” Smith said. “Should I talk to the lady upstairs about this?” he asked.
Stone shook his head. “She’s a friend visiting from London. She wouldn’t contribute anything to your investigation.” God knows, he thought, that’s true.
55
The three of them sat at dinner, prepared by Seth’s wife, Mary, eating quietly. Mike Freeman’s reticence seemed to affect them all.
“Did you call all your clients?” Stone asked him, in an effort at conversation.
“Just about,” Freeman replied.
“How are they taking it?”
“Shock, mostly.”
“Did you tell them he was murdered?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Freeman replied. “It’s probably already on the evening news.”
Stone polished off his wine and set down the glass. “Let’s go find out,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s almost six-thirty.”
He led Freeman and Felicity into the living room and switched on the lights and the big flat-screen TV.
“Earlier today,” the anchorman was saying, “James Hackett, the head of the worldwide security firm Strategic Services, was shot to death by a sniper at a friend’s home on an island in Maine.”
There followed an interview with Captain Scott Smith. “We have no suspects at this time,” he said, “but the case bears the earmarks of a professional killing.”
They watched as various experts were interviewed. All suggested a contract murder. The news show moved on to other stories.
Freeman turned to Felicity. “What about you?” he asked. “Any idea who might be responsible for this?”
“Listen,” Stone said, pointing at the TV.
“This breaking news just in,” the anchorman said. “A London newspaper is reporting that the director of MI6, the British foreign intelligence service, is charging that Foreign Minister Douglas Palmer and Home Secretary Eric Prior are jointly complicit in the murder of James Hackett. The paper goes on to say that Palmer and Prior believed that Hackett was a former MI6 agent named Stanley Whitestone, who disappeared twelve years ago, and that the two cabinet ministers held him responsible for the deaths of Palmer’s daughter and Prior’s son at that time. We hope to have more on this before the program’s end.”