The 6:20 Man

And while he thought about all of this, Devine also mulled over his very serious problems: He had paid a visit to, and raised the suspicions of, a grieving mother. He, and apparently only he, had received an untraceable email about a murder.

And the email had not stated that Sara had died by suicide. Devine realized he had just assumed that was what the email had implied. Yet it had only said that she was dead. And then it had gone on to describe the hanging body. It was Wanda Simms who had mentioned suicide. She said she’d overheard the police. And Detective Hancock had confirmed that initial opinion during their first meeting.

He had to talk to people to find the sender of the weird-ass email, because it apparently could not be done with computer keys and a server. For Devine, it was actually refreshing to see that not every single problem today was solvable by technology alone. Sometimes a little shoe leather and the semblance of a personality and a few well-formed questions might just do what artificially intelligent thinking and petabytes of data hovering in fake clouds couldn’t. But the email was tied to Ewes’s murder, which had to be tied to whatever nefarious things were going on at Cowl. And this was exactly what Emerson Campbell had told him to work on in order to stay out of a military prison. His marching orders couldn’t be clearer.

He knew the guard currently on duty at Cowl. His name was Sam. He was around sixty, grizzled hair, pale skin, sloped shoulders, big gut that stretched his shirt’s fabric to near its breaking point, and a pleasing smile to top it all. He seemed like a favorite uncle or grandfather who would get down on the floor and play with the little ones, a beer in hand.

Devine walked up to the granite-topped reception console and placed his leather briefcase on it, rubbing a few sweat bubbles off his forehead.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hey right back, Devine.”

“Pretty crazy shit happening around here.”

“Got that right. Police have been in and out. New developments.”

“Right, I heard. Murder instead of suicide. Pretty damn big difference.”

“Hell yes it is. You knew the woman?” asked Sam.

“A little. You ever see her?”

“Oh yeah. Always a smile and a wave. Nice young lady, damn shame.”

“Understand one of the custodial staff found her.”

Sam shook his head and grimaced, as though something foul had entered his mouth. “Jerry Myers. Thought the poor guy was going to stroke out. He come running in here screaming about this gal hanging in the storage closet. I thought he’d lost his marbles. I mean, in this building, what the hell, right?”

Devine stiffened. “Wait, he came all the way down here to tell you? He didn’t call you or the cops from up there?”

“No, he didn’t, the knucklehead, but he was upset. Poor guy had never seen anything like that. He went into the storage room to get something and bam, there she is. Would’ve shocked anybody. So I cut him some slack on not phoning from up there. I called the cops and then me and Jerry both went up there. I was really hoping the guy was drunk or having hallucinations or something. But nope, there she was. Poor lady. I used to be with the Newark Police Department, but I have to tell you, I felt my breakfast coming back up on me, too.”

“I bet. By that time of the morning there must have been a full house up on the fifty-second.”

“That’s why I hustled up there as soon as I made the 911 call, and had another guy cover the front, to let the cops up when they arrived. I mean, it was a potential crime scene and there are protocols and all. See, at that point I didn’t know how she died, nobody did. But you got to preserve the evidence.”

“Lucky you got up there so fast before anyone knew what had happened.”

Sam eyed him closely. “Well, fact is, I can’t vouch for that.”

“What?”

“Jerry left the door partially open. Least that’s how we found it.”

“Did he say that’s how he left it?” asked Devine.

“Hell, he was so shaken up he could barely remember his own name. The cops got there about five minutes later. I didn’t want that responsibility any longer than I had to.”

“And what’d you do after that?” asked Devine.

“Hung around up there in case they needed anything.”

“Talk to anybody?”

“Just Jerry and one of the cops.”

“None of the office staff or people like me?”