The Sixth Man (20 page)

Six bodies. The E-Six Program.

That hit very close to home.

Someone was really playing with him.

T
HE TRIP
to Edgar Roy’s home took a number of hours. Michelle drove, as usual, while Sean stared moodily out the window.

“Are you curious about what Kelly Paul did while she was out of the country?” he asked.

“Of course I am. But she has a point about focusing on the investigation into her brother. He’s the one facing the death sentence. Not her.”

He didn’t seem to hear this. “And she never said how her stepfather died.”

“Easy enough to check, but that seems a little far afield, Sean.”

He turned to look at her. “Unless it’s all connected.”

“You’re talking a long time period, then.”

He looked back out the window. “Why would a woman like that move to a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere? She’s not farming. And her country accent was a bit too well done.”

“Well, she did grow up in Virginia. And they do have accents down here,” drawled Michelle.

“Lot of questions,” said Sean absently.

“What do you think about her advice with the Bureau?”

“It was good actually. Riley is a lawyer for the defense. You just can’t detain her indefinitely. In fact…”

He took out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Still no answer. Okay, let’s do this the hard way.”

He keyed in another number. “Agent Murdock? Sean King here. What? Yeah, we took your advice and went home. But we’re coming back. But that’s not why I’m calling. You’re holding the defense counsel in a case you’re investigating. That breaks about a dozen ethical and other laws I can think of off the top of my head. I either
hear from her in five minutes that she’s free and on her way to Martha’s Inn, or the next time you see me it’ll be on CNN talking about Bureau overreach.” Sean paused as the other man said something. “Yeah, well, try me. And you now have four minutes.”

He clicked off.

Michelle glanced at him. “And what did he say?”

“Basic blustery bullshit.” He looked at his watch. Ten seconds past the deadline Sean’s phone buzzed.

“Hello, Megan, how are you doing?” He paused. “Excellent. I thought Agent Murdock would see it my way. We’re down in Virginia but we’ll be heading back up very soon. Go to Martha’s Inn and stay there. No visitors. Do nothing. And if Murdock comes near you again, call me.”

He clicked off and put the phone in his pocket.

“What have they been asking her?”

“She didn’t say. From the background noise I think she was in a Bucar getting a ride back to the inn.”

“Do you think they told her about Hilary?”

“No, at least she didn’t mention it.”

“Wait till she finds out I was the one who probably shot her.”

“Michelle, you don’t know if it was you, so stop driving yourself crazy about it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

He started to make a retort but then stopped and patted her arm. “Actually, it
is
easy for me to say. I’m sorry.”

“So when are we heading back up to Maine?”

“As soon as we check out Roy’s farm and talk to the local authorities.”

“Doubt they’ll be much help.”

“No, I think they will.”

“Why?”

“Up to this point it seems everyone believed that Roy was guilty. Now, with Bergin and Hilary dead, something Roy could not have been involved in, it might make people take a second look. And cops are no different.”

“Who do we deal with on the federal side in Virginia? Not Murdock?”

“I know the RA in Charlottesville,” Sean said, referring to the Resident FBI Agent. “He’s a good guy. Owes me a favor, in fact.”

“Lots of people seem to owe you. What’s his debt?”

“I wrote a recommendation letter for his daughter to get into UVA Law.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, I got him tickets to the Skins-Cowboys game in D.C. He’s originally from Dallas.”

“Now that is valuable.”

The FBI agent was suitably cooperative. And he told them something that was particularly intriguing.

“I know Brandon Murdock. He’s a good guy. But I don’t know why he would be involved in something like this.”

“Why’s that?” asked Sean.

“He doesn’t work VICAP,” the man said, referring to the Bureau’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program, which also dealt with serial killers.

“What does he do?”

“Went to D.C. a while back.”

“So, Hoover, WFO?” asked Michelle, referring to the FBI headquarters and the Bureau’s Washington Field Office, respectively.

“No.” He looked doubtful. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you, Sean.”

“Come on, Barry. I’m not going to go blab it. You know me.”

“And he got you the Cowboy tickets,” Michelle reminded him.

The man grinned wryly. “Okay, Murdock is with the counterterrorism unit. Really specialized stuff.” He pointed a finger at Sean. “And I expect tickets for this. And better seats.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Next, Sean and Michelle spent time with the local prosecutor, who had heard about Hilary Cunningham’s death.

“You’re right, Sean,” the prosecutor had said. “This thing is really starting to stink.”

They were given copies of the file on the Roy case and then drove out to the farm. It was isolated, with one dirt road in and out, the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop, and not another house, car,
or even stray cow in sight. Michelle pulled her Land Cruiser to a dusty stop in front of the one-story, wood-planked house, and they stepped out.

Though the crime scene had long since been released, strands of yellow police tape still hung down from the front porch posts. Twenty yards west of the house was a two-story barn painted dark green with a cedar shake roof. In the back they could see a chicken coop and a small split-rail corral that looked far too small for horses.

“Pigsty,” noted Michelle, as she glanced at it.

“Thanks for the insight,” said Sean. “I thought they might have been breeding really small horses.”

“Bodies in the barn.”

“Six of them. All men. All white. All John Does as of now.”

They found the front door locked, but a minute later it was unlocked due to Michelle’s delicate manipulations of the deadbolt.

The house had a simple floor plan, and it didn’t take them long to make their way through it. Michelle picked out one of the books from a wall shelf full of them. She looked at the spine. “The only word I recognize in this title is
the
.”

“Well, you’re not a genius.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“No pictures of family. No testimonials from work. No college degrees. Nothing to show the guy even lives here.”

“Except for the books.”

“Right, except for them.”

“Well, this was his parents’ house. Maybe he just has his stuff somewhere else.”

“No, Paul told us their parents bought the place after they got married and before their son was born. This is the only home Roy has ever known.” He looked around some more. “I suppose if he had a computer the cops took it.”

“Good bet.”

They headed to the barn. The doors were unlocked. They opened them and went in. The space was big and mostly empty. There was a hayloft reached by a wooden ladder, some workbenches, and an assortment of rusty tools hanging on pegs on the walls. An old John Deere tractor was parked at the far end of the ground floor.

Michelle studied a patch of the dirt floor that had been dug up on the left side of the barn to a level of about five feet.

“I’m guessing the burial ground was here?”

Sean nodded and walked a perimeter around the turned-up soil.

“How’d they know to look here?” she asked.

“File says an anonymous tip was called in to the police.”

“That’s really convenient. Anybody try to run down this tipster?”

“They probably tried. But it also probably would have led nowhere. Throwaway phone card. Untraceable. That’s standard operating procedure for homicidal maniacs these days if the tipster was actually the murderer.”

She circled the site carefully, studying it like an archaeological dig. “None identified as of yet. Were their faces disfigured or their prints burned off somehow?”

“Don’t think so. They’re just not in any database, apparently. It happens.”

“Kelly Paul seems convinced of her brother’s innocence.”

“Half brother,” Sean reminded her.

“Still a sibling.”

“I find her more interesting than her brother in some respects. And I noted there were no pictures of her in Roy’s house, and no pictures of him in her house.”

“Some families aren’t that close.”

“Granted, but still, they seem to be really close right now.”

“Well, to be fair, we’ve never even heard the brother say anything. And she was equal parts loquacious and stingy with details.”

“Regarding details about her personal history, which was my point earlier.”

Michelle looked around. “Okay, we’ve seen the burial grounds. Now what?”

Sean examined some old tools on the workbench. “Let’s assume he was framed. How do you get six bodies in here, bury them, and no one knows?”

“First of all, the place is in the middle of nowhere. Second, Roy wasn’t here all the time. He worked outside the house and also spent time in D.C. Or at least so we were told.”

“So, easy enough to plant the evidence. Then the question is why?”

“Meaning if he was an unimportant cog in the nation’s mighty tax collection machine, why go to all the trouble?”

“There are two possible answers to that. Either it’s something in his personal history that we don’t know yet. A personal grudge of significant importance to justify six bodies. Or—”

“Or he wasn’t just an unimportant cog. He was a lot more. Other things being equal, I’m leaning in that direction. Like his sister says, he had uncommon intellectual gifts. That would be important to certain people, or agencies.”

“That and the time spent in D.C. make me lean the same way. Plus the fact that the FBI is all over this with unusual interest.” He dusted off his hands. “Okay, let’s make the rounds of the ME, and the office where Roy worked.”

When they came out of the barn an SUV pulled into the front yard and two men in suits got out.

One of them said, “Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

Sean gazed at him. “Right after you tell me who the hell you are.”

The men flashed badges. Quickly.

“Didn’t quite catch the name of the agency on your commission,” said Sean. “Want to try that again, slower?”

The creds didn’t come back out, but the men’s guns did. “We’re federal officers and you need to get off this property right now.”

Sean and Michelle showed their IDs, explained what they were doing there, and Sean’s earlier conversations with the local police force and the county prosecutor.

One of the men shook his head. “I don’t really care. Get out. Now.”

“We’re investigating this case for the defense. We have the right to be here.”

“All the same, you’re going to have to leave.”

“How’d you know we were here?” asked Michelle, as they headed to her truck.

“Excuse me?” said one of the men.

“There’s nobody around here. We didn’t pass one car getting here. How’d you know we were here?”

In response the man opened the door to Michelle’s truck and motioned for her to get in.

Sean and Michelle sped off down the dirt road, billowing dust behind them and into the faces of the two Feds.

“They couldn’t have known we were there, Sean. And those badges looked like the real deal even if I couldn’t see what agency they were actually with. They looked like Feds.”

He nodded. “We’re being tailed. I wonder for how long.”

“I swear there was no one following us when we went to see Kelly Paul. There’s no way I could’ve missed that. There was no cover. Absolutely none.”

“That’s the rub. There’s no cover here, either, and they still showed up.”

Michelle gazed out the window. “Satellite?”

“We’re up against the Feds here. Why not?”

“Buying satellite time is a tough step even for the Bureau.”

Sean considered this. “Those guys weren’t with the FBI. They want you to know who they are. They would’ve shoved their creds right in our faces and kept them there.”

“Damn, what have we got ourselves into?”

Sean didn’t answer her because he had nothing to say.