The Sixth Man (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 5)

Michelle rubbed Sean’s arm. “The gentleman took his Cialis.” She closed the door of Sean’s room with a definite thud. “Okay, that lady is really starting to piss me off.”

“Forget that. I’m going to call Bergin’s office in Charlottesville.”

“Do you think they know?”

“I don’t know. They usually notify the next of kin first. But Ted’s wife is dead and they never had children, at least that he ever mentioned.”

Sean sat on the bed and made the call. Someone answered.

He said, “Hello, it’s Sean King. Is this Hilary? I spoke to you on the phone the other day.” Sean cupped his hand over the phone. “Ted’s secretary.”

Michelle nodded.

“Yes,” said Hilary. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with Mr. Bergin at Cutter’s Rock about now?”

Sean looked grim. She didn’t know. “Hilary, I’m afraid I have some bad news. I don’t like doing this on the phone, but you need to know.” He told her.

The woman gasped, tried to steady herself, and then dissolved into tears. “Oh my God. I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I, Hilary. The FBI are investigating right now.”

“The FBI?”

“It’s complicated.”

“How, how did he die?”

“It wasn’t by natural causes, obviously.”

“Who found the body?”

“I did. I mean me and my partner, Michelle.”

At that moment Hilary’s professional façade completely dissolved.

Sean waited patiently for her to stop sobbing. When it didn’t look like she was going to cease he said, “We can talk again later, Hilary. I’m really sorry to have been the one to have to tell you.”

With a massive effort she composed herself. “No, no, I’m all right. It was, it was just such a shock. I just saw him yesterday morning, before he left on his flight.”

Sean had only talked to Hilary on the phone before and had never met her in person, but he could envision the woman wiping the tears and perhaps most of her makeup and mascara away with a tissue.

“What time was that?”

“His flight or when I saw him last?” To Sean it seemed she was concentrating hard on the details in order to take her mind off her boss being dead.

“Both, actually.”

“Eight o’clock at the office,” she answered promptly. “He had a puddle jumper from Charlottesville to Reagan National. And then a noon flight from there to Portland.”

“Jet or prop?”

“One of those regional jets. United, I think.”

“Same type of plane we took. Okay, they fly high and fast, so that would have put him in Maine a little after one?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you have his schedule? I’d like to know if he met with Edgar Roy while he was up here. And also any times in the past he might have done so.”