The 6:20 Man

CHAPTER

53

EIGHT P.M.

Devine was standing across the street from where Jennifer Stamos had lived in Hamilton Heights, near Harlem. And where she had now died. He had found her home address on a database at work. He had read the cryptic message a dozen times. You can only love one person. That might be significant. Stamos had loved Ewes. Had Ewes loved someone else before? And because her love had moved on to Stamos, she had lost? And so had Stamos? And what did the sender mean by it not being pretty? Or fun?

Stamos’s apartment was on the ground floor of a walk-up like Michelle Montgomery’s, only situated in Upper Manhattan. She would have to traverse nearly the entire island north to south to get to work each day. While not as tony as where Sara Ewes had lived, it was a diverse and thriving working-class community. Police cars were parked outside, and he figured detectives and forensics people were inside trying to find out who had killed her.

There were no details in the news on how Stamos had died. The police were holding that back for obvious reasons. He again wondered if Cowl had been the one to report the murder before fleeing. If it hadn’t been Stamos who had called Cowl, it was quite a coincidence that he had gone out right around the time she had been killed.

And did Cowl send me the untraceable emails? With all his resources, he could afford to hire the best IT people around.

Was Stamos pressuring him somehow? Perhaps Ewes had told Stamos something about Cowl and maybe what was going on in Area 51. Ewes knew about the Locust Group and its ownership of the Lombard Theater. That knowledge had probably gotten Ewes killed, and now maybe the same thing had happened to Stamos.

He texted Campbell and arranged to meet, then took the subway back to Midtown and the little Italian restaurant.

Campbell was in the same room sitting in the same chair with another plate of food in front of him.

“Bronzini,” he said in answer to Devine’s curious look. “People think of Italy as the land of spaghetti, it’s actually the land of fish. You hungry?”

Devine had noted that with each visit the retired general was more informal and friendlier. He didn’t know if this was an act, a tactical move, or whether the man was actually beginning to like him.

And since Devine had barely eaten any of his lunch eight hours earlier and no breakfast, he said, “Thank you, sir.”

Food was brought and the men began to eat.

Devine took about five minutes filling Campbell in on what he had found on the fifty-first floor and how Michelle Montgomery had helped him.

“Sounds like she would make a good operative,” said Campbell.

Probably better than me, thought Devine. “There’s bad news, though. The camera feed was working great. But on the train ride in this morning, the whole thing shut down.”

“What?” said Campbell sharply.

“I was checking the phone constantly, to make sure it was all good. And it was until my ride into the city.”

“They must have found the camera.”

“I don’t think so, sir. If they had, why not remove the camera? I can still see inside the place if it ever starts back up.”

“Well, forward what you have to me,” said Campbell.

“It’s a lot of data. It won’t fit in an email.”

Campbell made a call. A minute later a man entered the room. Devine showed him what he had. The man arranged for a secure file transfer onto a laptop and then left.

Campbell said, “I’ll get my people working on it immediately. And, by the way, why have you waited this long to report in?” he added gruffly.

“That was the other thing I’ve yet to tell you.” He went on to inform him about the NYPD detectives meeting him outside the office early that morning to tell him that Jennifer Stamos had been murdered.

“I’ve been preoccupied with that all day,” said Devine. “But there’s something else.” He showed Campbell the untraceable emails he’d received.

Campbell looked at them and said, “If this is the killer, he’s targeting you for some reason. Any ideas on that?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you need us to try and trace them?”