Simple Genius (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 3)

“But even if Messaline knows something, why would she tell you?”

“I’m not exactly a novice at getting information out of people.”

“But you said she blew you off the first time.”

“That was the first time.”

“So you really believe Whitfield had something to do with Monk’s and Len’s deaths?”

“Monk died on CIA soil. Whitfield made a special point of calling us off the case. Even got the DDO on my butt. And from that same plot of land somebody took a shot at me. And planes flying without lights land there in the middle of the night.”

“Planes?” Hayes said.

“They come right over Babbage Town. And they’re big jets, easily capable of intercontinental flight. No one knows who’s on those flights. And there was hush money funneled through Congress to build what was termed a new dorm for agent trainees at the Camp, even though they have lots of housing there already.”

“What do you mean ‘termed’?”

“A building can be lots of things. Including an interrogation center. Even a torture chamber.”

Hayes almost drove off the road. “Are you out of your damn mind? That’s totally and completely illegal in this country.”

“Maybe Monk saw prisoners no one knows about getting their organs tickled by electrical current. What better motive to kill the man?”

“I can’t believe that. And what about Len Rivest?”

“Monk told him, or else he suspected, or found out somehow. Whitfield discovered that and no more Len Rivest.”

“But if he knew something why wouldn’t Len have gone to the police? He was ex-FBI for God’s sake.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to go up against the CIA and Ian Whitfield. Maybe there are folks even higher up in the government who know about what’s going on at Camp Peary. And maybe he did tell someone and that person was the wrong person to tell.”

“Now you’re talking some kind of major conspiracy.”

“So what? They happen every day. If the stakes are big enough the conspiracies tend to grow large enough to accommodate them. And by the way, in D.C. they’re not referred to as conspiracies, they’re called policies.”

Hayes said nervously, “This is getting way over my head, Sean, I don’t mind telling you. I’m just a small-town cop looking to retire in a few years.”

“Merk, you can just drop me off and don’t look back. Our partnership can be dissolved with no hard feelings, but I am not letting this go.”

Hayes seemed to consider this for a minute. “What the hell,” he finally said. “If I’m going down it might as well be over something important. But I still think somebody should be following you tonight.”

If either of them had turned around, he would have noticed that someone already was following them tonight.

CHAPTER

53

HORATIO PULLED HIS MOTORCYCLE to a stop next to Michelle’s truck. The woman had turned off the main road and parked under some trees down near the river. She wasn’t in the truck and Horatio followed a dirt path down to the water where he found her sitting on a fallen tree that extended partially over the water. She didn’t acknowledge his presence as he sat down on the other part of the tree that was still firmly on land.

“Nice evening,” he said as he tossed a pebble into the fast-moving York, which was carrying debris from an earlier thunderstorm down to the Chesapeake Bay.

She was silent for some minutes, just staring at the water until Horatio started to fear she might jump in.

Her first words definitely got his attention. “I cleaned my truck out once. I did it for Sean.”

“Why?”

“Because I liked him and he’d been going through a bad time.”