King and Maxwell (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 6)

“Did he say why?”

“He put it off on notification of next of kin, privacy policies, and things like that. Only I told him the next of kin had been notified.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Only that he could not go into it further.”

“Could not or would not?”

“Does it matter?”

“Did he confirm that Sam Wingo was dead at least?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Okay, that’s officially weird.”

“It could just be that they’re reluctant to release information about a KIA, Michelle. It’s a pretty sensitive situation. They don’t want to be accused of giving out the information to just anybody.”

Michelle picked up the newspaper and opened it to a page in the front section.

“I’m not sure that’s a valid excuse. Have a look.”

She handed the paper over to Sean, who glanced down it. It was a photo page of casualties in the Middle East wars.

She said, “Fourth row, fifth photo over.”

Sean looked there and read, “Samuel Wingo, age forty-five, sergeant first class, part of a battalion out of the Eighty-Second Division from Fort Bragg. Killed by small-arms fire in the Kandahar province.”

“Pretty much everything Tyler told us,” noted Michelle.

“Meaning everything they told him,” said Sean.

“So you’re having doubts too?”

“Don’t read too much into this. It could still be nothing.”

“They printed his picture, his name, and his rank in the paper along with the fact that he’s dead. So how confidential can it be? They wouldn’t even confirm to you that he’s dead, but all the readers of the Washington Post know that he is? How exactly does that make sense?”

“At one level maybe it doesn’t,” he said. “But keep in mind that they’ve had thousands of casualties over there. My contact might not have even known that was printed in the paper today. The Pentagon is a pretty big organism.”

“Okay, but I know that Tyler was holding something back from us.”

“So how do you want to proceed?”

“We told Tyler we would check into it and report back. We checked into it and now we’re reporting back.”

“We have nothing to report, Michelle. Unless you count abject failure.”

“We have to get him to open up. Maybe it’ll be better if I go alone.”

“To his house? With the wicked stepmother there? She might not let you in.”

Michelle held up her phone. “I’ll text him and arrange to meet him at the same place before swim practice.”

“You’re really going out on a limb with this, Michelle.”

“He’s a kid who lost his dad. He needs help, Sean.”