David Baldacci - Simple Genius

“I’ve been on a diet,” he said absently as he read through the contract. He signed the agreement and slid it back to her. “Can I see the file now?”

“How about I buy you lunch and we can discuss it? I have some ideas and you have a few other documents to sign. Your partner will have to do the same thing.”

Sean tensed. “Well, the thing is, she won’t be working with me on this one.”

Joan tapped a pen against her blotter. “Tied up on something else, is old Mildred?”

“Yeah, Michelle is.”

Over lunch at Morton’s Steakhouse, they discussed the case, though Sean focused quite a bit on his meal.

“Off the diet, are we?” she said, eying his impassioned stabs with the fork.

He laughed shamefacedly. “Guess I was hungrier than I thought.”

“If that were only true,” she replied sardonically. “Okay, here’s the case. And it might turn out to be a challenging one. A suspicious death. Man by the name of Monk Turing. He was found on property owned by the CIA near Williamsburg, Virginia. Either a murder or a suicide. You have to find out which, why and, if it was a murder, the all-important who.”

“Turing worked for the CIA?”

“No. Ever heard of a place called Babbage Town?”

He shook his head. “What is it?”

“It’s been described to me as a sort of quasi-think tank with potentially enormous commercial applications. That’s where Turing worked as a physicist. With the CIA involved and the FBI investigating the homicide because it took place on federal property it’ll take some delicate handling. I have some veterans here I could send down, but I’m not sure any of them are as good as you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. So who’s our client?”

“The people at Babbage Town.”

“And who are they?”

“You’ll have to find that out too. If you can. You game?”

“You mentioned a bonus?”

She smiled and patted his hand. “As in cash or professional services?”

“Let’s start with the cash.”

“Our policy is to split the bonus with the principal field agents on a sixty-forty basis.” She cocked her head. “You remember from last time, Sean.

Only you refused to take any of the money you were so clearly entitled to and let me keep it all. I never really understood why you did that.”

“Let’s just say I believed it was safer for both of us. And I thought you were going to use that cash to retire?”

“Alas, my spending got a little out of control. So I’m still on the treadmill.”

“So if we solve this how much am I looking at?”

“That gets complicated because it’s based on certain formulas. But suffice it to say, it’ll be a big nut.” Her gaze ran over him. “You won’t be nearly so thin, I imagine.”

Sean sat back and took another bite of his mashed potatoes.

“So, are you interested?” she asked.

He picked up the bulky file. “Thanks for lunch. And thanks for the work.”

“I’ll make arrangements for you to go down there. Say in a couple of days?”

“Fine. I’ll need some time to get stuff in order.”

“Like saying goodbye to Mildred?”

Before he could respond she slid an envelope across to him. He looked at her questioningly. “An advance on your expense money. I figured you might need it.”

He looked at the check before sliding it in his pocket. “I owe you, Joan.”

“I hope you mean that,” she said to herself as he walked off.

MICHELLE STUDIED THE DOORKNOB OF the room she was in, waiting for it to turn, revealing another person who wanted to ask her questions. Every day here was like the one before it. Breakfast, shrink time, lunch, exercise time, then more psychobabble, an hour to herself, then more shrink interaction centered around mastering her emotions, tempering her inner violent core that threatened to destroy her. Then came dinner, a couple of pills if she desired them, which she usually didn’t, and then bed, where she could dream about the next day of this living hell.

When the knob didn’t budge she slowly rose from her chair and her gaze bounced off all four windowless, brightly painted walls. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet and took deep breaths, testing the healing stage of her ribs.

Michelle hadn’t thought much about that night in the bar. She’d gone there to drink and forget. And then, drunk, she had done her best to kill a man. Well, not her best. Somewhere deep in her mind had she wanted to be hurt, perhaps to die? No, Michelle could not admit that. And yet if that was her intent, she apparently couldn’t even kill herself properly. How did one even chart that level of ineptitude?

She spun around when the door opened and Horatio Barnes walked in, dressed in his usual faded jeans, sneakers and black T-shirt with a silkscreen of Hendrix on the front smoking the frets. She’d seen him several times since she’d come here, but their conversations had all been general. She had come to think the man was not very smart, or else didn’t really care whether she got better or not. Do I even care?

He was clutching a tape recorder, and asked Michelle to sit. And she did. She always did what they asked. What else was there to do?

Horatio sat down across from her and held up the recorder. “Do you mind? I’m afraid dementia’s setting in. I’m lucky I remember where my front door is or I’d never get out anymore.”

Michelle shrugged. “I don’t care, record away.”

Horatio took this rebuke in good spirits, turned on the recorder and set it on the table beside her. “And how are we doing today?”

“ We are super. How are you doing today, Dr. Barnes?” Michelle added in a dead-on impression of the man.

The psychologist smiled. “Just make it Horatio. My old man was the Dr. Barnes in the family.”

“What kind of a doctor was he?”

“He was chief of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Stephen Cawley Barnes. That’s why he was ticked I always called him Stevie.”

“How come you’re not an M.D.?”

“My father wanted me to become one. Had my whole life planned out for me. He named me Horatio after some distant relative of ours from colonial times because he thought it would give my life historical weight. Can you believe that? Do you know the shit I took about my name? In high school I was either called ‘whore’ or ‘rat’ just because my old man was an elitist snob. So I went to Yale and became a shrink.”

“Quite a rebel, were you?”

“Go big or go home. I see from your chart that you didn’t have a restful night.”

Michelle took this abrupt segue in stride. “I wasn’t sleepy.”

“Nightmares apparently,” Horatio said. “They finally had to wake you up.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well that’s why I’m here. To help you remember.”

“And why would I want to remember a nightmare?”

“I find I do my best soul-searching smack in the middle of some kick-ass nightmare.”

“And if I don’t want to know? Does that count?”

“Sure. Do you want to know?”

“Not really.”

“Gotcha. I’ve mentally checked the nightmare off-limits box. I also see that you asked Dr. Reynolds if he was getting laid enough at home. Mind telling me why you did that?”

“Because he kept trying to look up my gown every time I crossed my legs.

You’ll notice I’m wearing pants now.”

“Lucky me. Okay, let’s talk about why you went to that bar.”

“Didn’t we already discuss this?”

“Humor me. I have to justify my enormous salary somehow.”

“I went there for a drink. Why do you go to bars?”