Дэвид Балдаччи - King and Maxwell

The parking lot was half full, which still constituted a great many cars because the lot was a large one. Yet there was only one vehicle that drew her attention. She stared across at it.

Government plates, one silhouette inside, motor off, and the driver had been there awhile because the sedan was covered in snow. And no one had gotten out of the car, because there were no footprints in the snow around it. This was a strip mall where one made quick stops, in and out and on one’s way. Yet this driver had pulled in, cut the engine, and sat there in the freezing cold waiting for something.

Or someone. Maybe me.

She walked to her truck, climbed in, and started it up. Without appearing to do so she was watching the government sedan. The silhouette had not moved. She was considering whether she had been wrong in her deductions when the situation status abruptly changed.

The silhouette transformed into a man with wide shoulders and military-cropped hair, wearing a long, dark overcoat and regulation black shoes. His military rank rode on the sleeves of the overcoat in the form of pinned-on bars.

Bars, not stars. But then again, Michelle hadn’t expected them to send out a general to grapple with her.

When the man drew close, she rolled down her window. “You must’ve been cold sitting in the car all that time. Want to jump in and get warm?”

In response he showed her his credentials.

“Captain Aubrey Jones, military police,” Michelle read off the ID card. “What can I do for you?”

Jones said, “You were meeting with Tyler Wingo?”

“If you say so.”

“Why?”

“That’s confidential.”

“I understand that you’re a private investigator?”

“Again, if you say so. But if I am and if I was meeting with him, you can understand why I can’t reveal confidences.”

“Wingo is a minor. He can’t be your client.”

“On the contrary, yes he can,” replied Michelle.

“Why would he need a PI [11] PI – private investigator. ?”

“Could be lots of reasons. Why does it matter to you?”

“He just lost his father.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“He’s vulnerable and scared and the Army does not want to see him taken advantage of. Did you ask for money from him?”

“So you think I’m shaking down a grieving teenager for cash?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, that’s how I make my living. I look up dead soldiers in the newspaper and then arrange to meet with their crushed kids so I can get rich one dollar bill at a time.” She paused. “How likely does that sound?”

“We know that you were formerly with the Secret Service but were asked to leave.”

“Actually, I was offered full reinstatement but chose to voluntarily resign instead. And that’s ancient history.”

“You and your partner have been involved in some high-level cases. Serial killers, CIA, national security.”

“Stop, you’ll make me blush.”

Jones drew closer and leaned in so that his head and shoulders nearly filled the window. “We are politely asking that you stay away from the Wingos. They’re going through a lot right now. They don’t need this sort of distraction.”

“So how were you made aware of our involvement?” asked Michelle.

“The Army has lots of resources.”

“Do you do this for all the families that have lost service members?”

“No, just for the ones who have people like you trying to mess with their lives at a particularly tragic point. Fortunately, not that many stoop so low.”

“That’s your opinion, and for the record it’s the wrong one,” Michelle said firmly.

“His father was KIA. He was notified of that fact. I don’t know what he asked you to do, but whatever it was, you shouldn’t have accepted. In my book you’re just taking advantage of a heartbroken boy. Maybe you’re doing it to make a few bucks, or scoring some points somehow with someone. Maybe you’re doing it because you feel sorry for him. I don’t know and I don’t really care. But what I do care about is that you leave this family alone so they can grieve properly and get through this in one piece.” He paused and said, “Did I deliver the message clearly, Ms. Maxwell?”

“Crystal clear, Captain Jones.”

He spun on his heel and walked back to his sedan. Ten seconds later he was gone.

Michelle sat in her truck tapping the steering wheel with her fingers as she thought this through. Military police watching. Military police delivering a message. Stay away from the Wingos. They must have already talked to Tyler. Perhaps they were monitoring his phone, saw the meeting set up, and went directly to him. That could explain his sudden decision to have her and Sean stand down.

She called Sean and told him what had just happened.

“What do you think?” he said.

“Jones sounded legit, but maybe all they told him was what he needed to know to deliver the message loud and clear.”

“Well, coupled with the stone wall I got at the Pentagon I’m coming down on the side of this starting to look really suspicious. The question now is what do we do about it?”

“We still have the German Mauser to take back.”

“Michelle, they’ll be watching the Wingos’ house. They see us pull up, the next visit we get will not be from an MP [12] MP – military police. delivering a polite if tough message.”

“It’s not like they’re going to waterboard us, Sean.”

“There are worse things than waterboarding.”

“Name one.”

“Maiming? Death?”

“Come on, this is our government we’re talking about. And I can’t leave it like this. And I don’t think you can either. Tyler is holding something back. I really believe he needs our help, but he’s been warned off too. I doubt even the Army can afford to have its personnel wait in snowy parking lots to dress down somebody they think might be taking advantage of a slain service member’s family.”

“I know. Something is off, way off.”

“But you’re right about the Army fence around the Wingos now. We go there, it won’t be pleasant. So what other angle can we attack this thing from?”

“Well, if we can’t get to Tyler right now, we can dig into his dad’s background. Tyler said he worked at a company called DTI in Reston. We can start there.”

“But if we go there, the Army will probably find out.”

“We don’t have to go there. There’s this thing called the Internet. It has lots of information you can access from a computer. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Okay, you go tap your little keys. I’m going to do some real detective work.”

Michelle was staring back up at the Panera.

He said, “Like what? I don’t want you to go off half-cocked. Finesse is needed here. Not the Charge of the Light Brigade. And didn’t they get wiped out to a man?”

“ Man being the operative word. If they had been led by a woman, that slaughter never would have happened.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Talk to one teenager about another teenager. Female-to-female.”

Michelle clicked off, climbed back out into the snow, and headed into the Panera once more. She was going to find out how much Kathy Burnett really cared about Tyler Wingo.

“HI, KATHY.”

Kathy Burnett looked up from her computer to find Michelle staring down at her. She was holding a cup of coffee and a tray on which sat a bowl of soup and a roll.

“Oh, hi.”

“Mind if I join you?”

Kathy glanced around. “I thought you and Tyler had gone.”

“He did. To swim practice. And I was thinking of leaving but I thought I’d see what the snow was going to do. And then I decided a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup were calling my name.”