King and Maxwell (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 6)

Michelle put the phone away not quite knowing how to take that statement.

The offices of King and Maxwell were on the second floor of an unremarkable low-rise building in Fairfax. The views were limited, the building not overly clean, but the rent was cheap, or as cheap as it got around here.

He was already waiting for her when she opened the door and came in. They only had the one large room. The benefit of a secretary was not in their budget—nor was it necessary, Michelle felt. They did quite well on their own; adding a third person to the mix might destroy that delicate balance.

She sat across from him at her still-messy desk. He was seated in his chair, his feet up on his desk.

“So how was it unexpected?” she asked, looking at him pointedly.

He stopped staring at the ceiling and focused on her. “I felt like a priest witnessing a confession.”

“A catharsis for the soul by your ex?”

“I think she really loves her husband.”

“That’s refreshing. Will she help us?”

“Yes. But I told her to be careful.”

“Does she know about the email?”

r /> “I didn’t think that would be productive. I told her about the mortar shell part. She had a reasonable explanation for why they wouldn’t have told the family about that the first night.”

“What do you really think she can do?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what we can do actually.” He lifted his feet off the desk and sat up in his chair. “So he wouldn’t tell you what the email said?”

“No. And believe me I tried. Maybe too hard in retrospect.”

“Do you believe him?”

Michelle looked surprised. “Why would he lie about something like that?”

“I’m just mentioning it as a possibility. Since we don’t have independent verification of it, I can’t really treat it as fact yet.”

“Yes, I believe him.”

Sean nodded absently. “We really need to see that email. It could tell us lots of things.”

“You’d think the Army would be monitoring things like that. Emails from soldiers in the battlefield coming back, they have to be under surveillance.”

“No, they don’t. At least not typically. You can use your government email or even a Gmail account to send and receive messages.”

“Even so, maybe Wingo was treated differently?”

“I don’t know. But maybe Sam Wingo figured out a way around that and got a message to his son that only he knows about.”

She said, “Or maybe there was a technical snafu somehow. Maybe the email got delayed and it was sent before Sam was killed but Tyler only received it afterward.”

“Did the email have a time stamp showing when it was sent?” asked Sean.

“I suppose it did. I didn’t actually see it.”

“Right. But someone else with access to Wingo’s computer could have sent it from his father’s email account after Wingo officially died.”

“I asked Tyler about that. He was adamant that only his dad could have sent it.”

“Based on what?”