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Sunday, June 19
Bristol, New Hampshire
At the airport in DC, they rushed through security and boarded a small jet to Manchester, New Hampshire.
The flight was uneventful, and they landed in Manchester, New Hampshire, in one piece. Cooper had arranged another black SUV. They located the vehicle and got on the road.
“The light is fading fast,” Smithers said. “We won’t see much.”
“Yeah, we’ll be here overnight. Hopefully, there’s a couple of beds of some sort in the town,” Kim replied. She pushed buttons on the navigation system to pull up local hotels. “Not much showing up on here. Which probably means the local places aren’t paying for national advertising. Maybe the sheriff can help us. We’ll ask him when we get there.”
“Who is this guy? Got any intel on him?” Smithers asked.
“The sheriff? Or the witness?” Kim replied. “The answer is no to both. Unless Cooper sent something while we were in the air.”
She pulled her satellite phone from her laptop and fired it up. There was a message and two files from Cooper. She read the message and then opened the laptop.
“You’re gonna just keep me hanging here?” Smithers asked, relaxed in the driver’s seat with one hand on the wheel.
“Sorry. Cooper sent two files. One is a quick bio on Sheriff Bernie Franklin. Elected to the position unopposed. For the past twenty years,” Kim read the bio quickly and summarized the high points. “Previously army military police. Served in Germany, UK. No combat deployments, apparently. Went in for training, got it, left.”
Smithers nodded. “Okay. What about the witness.”
“Even less intel on her. All we have is her basic statistics. Julia Haverson. Forty-two years old. Single mother. Works at a local insurance office as a secretary,” Kim summarized. “Lives with her elderly father a few doors down from the Gunston residence.”
“What did she witness, exactly?”
“Cooper doesn’t say,” Kim replied. “That’s how this usually works. He rarely gives me more information than he wants me to have. Claims he wants fresh eyes on the situation and doesn’t want to prejudice my views.”
“Uh, huh,” Smithers replied skeptically. “Sheriff’s office first?”
They were coming into the outskirts of town, headed along Main Street. The driveway to the Sheriff’s office was on a side street. The turn was north at the end of the next block.
“Let’s drive through and see the Gunston house first. It’s not too dark yet to get a feel for the place. I’d like to get a first look, at least, before we talk to the witness.”
“Your wish is my command,” Smithers said with a grin. He rolled the SUV through town below the speed limit so they could get a look at the shops along the way.
The town was old. Established in the 1700s, according to the files Cooper sent. Red brick buildings, mostly. But the paint was fresh enough and the sidewalks were in good repair.
Angled parking spots on both sides of the streets were mostly vacant late on Sunday night. But there were a couple of bars in town and a few patrons must have been inside.
In short, nothing out of the ordinary about the town that Kim could see.
The sun had set a while ago, but the summer solstice was only two days away. The longest day of the year. About fifteen hours of daylight, this far north. Kim figured it would stay light enough until ten or eleven o’clock.
When she was a kid in Michigan, she and her siblings had loved the long spring and summer evenings. Bristol, too, seemed like the kind of place where people would take advantage of any chance for outdoor activity, even when the temperatures were still cooler.
“This is it,” Smithers said as he parked the SUV along the curb on the quiet, tree-lined street. The Gunston’s colonial-style house with its white clapboard siding and neatly trimmed hedges seemed well tended and prosperous. Lights were on inside the house.
There was no crime scene tape or other obvious signs that a murder had been committed there. The black Mercedes was still parked in the driveway.
“Two days,” Smithers muttered as he looked at the house. “It’s been two days since the judge was killed. The place looks unchanged.”
“But for his family, nothing will ever be the same,” Kim said her expression tight. “And there’s not a damned thing we can do about that, either.”
The house felt somber, and a sense of unease hung in the air.
Mrs. Peggy Gunston, a woman in her mid-forties, opened the door. She wore a pained expression, her eyes bearing the weight of recent tragedy.
“Agents,” she said with a tremor in her voice, inviting them inside.
The interior of the house was a blend of classic and contemporary, with colonial-style furniture juxtaposed against modern accents. Kim and Smithers followed Mrs. Gunston to the kitchen, where a wooden table with a vase of fresh flowers stood at the center.
Smithers spoke gently, breaking the silence that had settled over them. “Mrs. Gunston, we’re here to find out what happened on the morning of your husband’s death.”
Peggy Gunston nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “It happened so fast,” she began, her voice quivering. “Matt came home early because of Melody’s soccer game. He’s one of her coaches. He was here just a few minutes to change and then they went out to the car. She was excited for the game and hurried ahead to wait for him. I was in the kitchen when they left, preparing dinner.”
Kim leaned forward, her gaze compassionate. “Can you tell us if you noticed anything unusual in the days leading up to the shooting?”
Peggy took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Well, there was this man who came to the house. We don’t get many strangers here. He said he was friends with Matt from Boston. He wanted to schedule a time when Matt would be home to come over. But he wanted it to be a surprise.”
“What did you tell him?” Kim asked.
She widened her eyes and shook her head, looking bewildered. “He was asking about Matt’s daily routine. You know, when did he leave for work, and when did he come home, and did he work weekends. Things like that.”
Smithers talked as if he were gentling a wild pony. “Did this man leave a name or any contact information?”
Peggy shook her head. “No, he didn’t. He seemed perfectly normal. Do you think he had something to do with what happened?”
Kim exchanged a look with Smithers. “What did he look like?”
She scrunched her brow and pressed her lips to think. “Young. I’m not good with ages. Maybe in his twenties? Brown hair. Normal looking. No tattoos or piercings or anything like that.”
“What was he wearing?” Kim asked.
Peggy did the squinting thing again. “Jeans, I think. A hoodie. Sneakers. You know, the kind of things young people wear. A baseball cap. That’s all I can think of.”
Smithers nodded and continued the conversation. “Mrs. Gunston, can you tell us what happened on the morning of the shooting?”
Peggy wiped away a tear and began recounting the events as if she’d already told the story too many times. “Like I said, Matt was walking toward his black Mercedes, and Melody was already in the car. I was watching from the doorway when... when I heard the gunshot.”
“You’re sure it was a gunshot?” Smithers asked. “Only one?”
Peggy nodded, twisting her fingers together in her lap. “There are a lot of hunters around here. I hunt myself from time to time. Matt, too. I know what gunshots sound like. Yes. Only one.”
Kim leaned forward, her voice gentle. “Did you see anyone? Or notice anything unusual before you heard the shot?”
Peggy’s gaze turned distant as she struggled with the effort to recall. “Earlier in the day, I saw a van across the street, in the woods. It was parked there, hidden away. But I didn’t think much of it at the time.”
Smithers pressed for more details. “Can you describe the van, Mrs. Gunston? Anything you remember, no matter how small, could be helpful.”
“It was white,” Peggy replied, her brows furrowing as she strained to remember. “I couldn’t see the license plate or the driver. It was almost hidden by the trees. Later in the summer, when the trees were leafed out more, I wouldn’t have seen it at all.”
Smithers gave Kim a quick glance. Two other witnesses had reported seeing a white van speeding away from the scene after the murder. Peggy was the third.
“Do you know who owned the van? Had you ever seen it before?” Smithers asked.
Peggy shook her head, tears leaking from her eyes.
Kim shifted the focus. “After you heard the shot, what did you do?”
Peggy’s voice trembled as she continued. “Nothing really. Like I said, there are a lot of hunters around here. The shot sounded like it came from a distance. I-I didn’t know Matt had been hit.”
“When did you realize your husband was down?”
“M-Melody came running in, shouting that her daddy had been shot.” Peggy squeezed more tears from her eyes. “I ran out to check on Matt, but he was a-already gone. I tried to shield Melody. She became hysterical. Kicking, screaming. I could barely hold onto her.”
Peggy’s voice faded and she cleared her throat before she continued. “The police arrived, and an ambulance came. But there was nothing they could do. It was too late. Not with a shot like that. Matt was gone before he hit the ground.”
Kim leaned back, absorbing the information and sifting through what she’d learned before she arrived, trying to put the pieces together.
Smithers nodded and placed a reassuring hand on Peggy’s arm before he asked, “Did your husband mention any recent threats or concerns that might help us figure out what happened here?”
Peggy shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. “No, nothing. Matt was a good judge. He took the work seriously. People liked him. He was re-elected twice. Some of his cases were hard, but he was just doing his job. He never mentioned any particular problems. He didn’t like to bring his work home with him.”
Kim stood, pulling a business card from her pocket. She handed the card to Mrs. Gunston. “Thank you for helping us. We’re sorry to intrude. Please call me if you think of anything else that might be useful.”
Peggy took the card and nodded woefully, and more tears ran silently down her cheeks.
“No way that guy was a friend of Gunston’s,” Kim said when they were outside again. “Let’s see if Sheriff Franklin is still at the station.”
“Okay,” Smithers replied, using the remote to open the SUV’s front doors.