The 6:20 Man

“Yes. I don’t like red or emerald green. They’re not really my colors. I prefer blue. The only green I wear is lime, and that’s only in the summer when I’m tanned. But Brad likes me in those colors.”

“And he tells you when to go out by the pool in the bikinis?”

“Yes. Like I said, he has a fetish.”

“Is it always by six forty-five?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Okay,” he began. “Let’s go over the chronology. Last Friday, before they found Sara’s body, you were wearing a green bikini. Correct?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And you weren’t by the pool on Saturday.”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t take the morning train in on Sunday, but were you told to sit out by the pool then?”

“Yes.”

“Red bikini?”

“Um, correct.”

“I was told on Saturday that Sara’s death was due to homicide, not suicide.”

“Okay,” she said. “But I don’t see the connection.”

“Then on Monday morning, I saw you wearing a green bikini.”

“That’s right, I was. Just like Brad told me to. I was surprised because normally it wouldn’t be that frequent. Most of the time weeks would go by. And this goes back to last summer. We met in August, and that’s when I moved here.”

“I think I know why the frequency picked up.”

“Why?” she asked curiously.

“Because people started dying. Now, you were by the pool on Tuesday, but you had on a blue swimsuit. Why that color?”

“That was all me, not Brad. Like I said, blue is my favorite color.”

“But why were you by the pool if Cowl didn’t tell you to be?”

She smiled impishly. “I decided to have some fun after you told me about all the guys checking me out. I mean, I knew they were, but I knew you’d be on the train, too. So I decided to put on a show and then flip everybody off.”

He shook his head. That’s why it didn’t fit the pattern. “Okay, then on Wednesday you were by the pool with the red bikini?”

“Yes. That was when Brad texted me late and told me to get over there.”

“So Stamos was dead, Cowl probably knew about it, and you got the message to be by the pool in your red bikini?”

“I must be pretty dumb, because I don’t see where all this is going, Travis.”

“I think you got the message from him to wear the red bikini because he had found Stamos’s body.”

Her face screwed up in confusion. “Why are you so fixated on me and my bikinis? It’s just one of Brad’s quirks, like I said. He has a lot of them, let me tell you,” she added wearily.

Devine sighed and sat back. “You ever heard of Hermes?”

“The people who make the handbags?”

“No, the Greek god.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He was the cleverest of the gods. He was their interpreter. And he was also their messenger.”

“Again, so what?” said Montgomery in a puzzled tone.

“So, at the most basic level, Michelle, green means go. And red means stop.”