Simple Genius (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 3)

“Yes.”

“Monk Turing’s death was unfortunate, but hardly the basis for a murder investigation.”

“You told my partner it was a suicide.”

“No, I told him there had been four other suicides in and around Camp Peary. And I also told him that the FBI had concluded that Turing killed himself.”

“I’m not sure they still believe that. And then there’s Len Rivest.”

“The local paper said he’d had a lot to drink and was found drowned in his bathtub. Doesn’t sound all that sinister really.”

“Two deaths so close together?”

“People die all the time in all different ways, Michelle.”

He looked, Michelle thought, like a man who knew what he was talking about.

“That almost sounds like a warning,” she said.

“I have no control over how you interpret my words.” He swept his hand toward the other side of the river. “There’s a big federal presence down here and that includes the Navy. People working for their country, doing dangerous things, risking their lives. You should understand that. You risked your life for your country.”

“I do understand it,” Michelle said. “And where exactly is this conversation going?”

“Just keep in mind that this stretch of the York can be very dangerous. Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of that. You have a nice day now.”

Michelle slipped her paddle off the gunwale as Whitfield put the throttle in reverse, turned and slowly puttered off. Michelle maneuvered her kayak so that she could continue to watch him as he headed downriver to the Camp Peary boat dock. The man never once looked back.

When he was out of sight Michelle turned around and paddled slowly away. Ian Whitfield had given her a lot to think about. And a good reason to be afraid.

CHAPTER

68

OVER COFFEE IN THE MANSION’S dining room Michelle filled Sean in on her conversation with Ian Whitfield.

“He strikes me as a guy who doesn’t make empty threats.”

“My skin was tingling the whole time he was talking to me.”

“That makes me even less inclined to go over the fence.”

“Then we need to find some new angles to work,” she said. “I’m just not sure what they are.”

“Let’s go over what we know. Monk went to Germany and he died at Camp Peary. There were German POWs kept at Camp Peary during the war. Len Rivest wanted to talk to me about Babbage Town and now he’s dead. He thought there were spies here. Alicia Chadwick was having a fling with Rivest and is Viggie’s guardian. Champ doesn’t have an alibi for Len’s death but we have no evidence he had anything to do with it. Ian Whitfield warned me and then you off and his wife is a dead end. The morgue got blown up. To mess up the evidence that Rivest was murdered?”

“Wait a minute,” Michelle said. “You suspected that Rivest was murdered because of the absence of towels, bath mat and the plunger.”

“Right. I told Hayes and he asked the ME to check into whether any trace from the plunger was on the body.”

“And?”

Sean said, “And we hadn’t heard back before the ME died.”

“If the morgue got blown up because someone knew you suspected murder, how would they have found out you did suspect something?”

“Well, Hayes could have carelessly let it slip to someone.”

“Or deliberately told someone,” Michelle countered.