Twenty-Six

She made notes when she was confused.

So Tuesday at 9 a.m., Peyton was at her desk, stylus in hand, a bowl of blueberries near her iPad. Scrawled notes and annotations covered the small screen—names, questions, and words: cabin, money, bankruptcy, .22. Lines and arrows connected people to questions and words. She was breaking the clutter into separate groups, seeing what connections she could make. And she was considering holes found in peoples’ stories.

There were many holes, even more questions, and a few connections.

A week earlier, Marie St. Pierre saw two men cross her farmland at midnight. Who were they?

Hours later, Peyton had gone to the scene and found a torched cabin and (eventually) a corpse (Simon Pink) in it.

Peyton still didn’t know if Pink was one of the two men Marie had seen.

What had Matt Kingston heard? Although she knew the state police had interviewed him, she still hadn’t spoken with him since their parking-lot conversation. She underlined his name, needing to talk to him ASAP.

Fred St. Pierre had shot and killed his wife, then himself, after asking forgiveness and saying he hoped someone would understand. From whom did he need understanding?

A search of the farmhouse turned up passports for Marie St. Pierre and Simon Pink, and cash. The amount of cash—$900 for Marie and $500 for Fred Jr.—was too much to have on hand, given that the Duvalls had supposedly bailed out Fred St. Pierre, but not so much that it raised red flags. But it did make Peyton wonder where the disposable income came from.

Marie and Simon had been planning a trip to Prague. Why? And did anyone else know about the trip?

Could she prove Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall paid Nancy Lawrence to let Freddy sleep on Nancy’s sofa? Or would Nancy testify that Sherry had paid her to do so, if it came to that?

“What are you doing?”

She looked up to see Miguel Jimenez eating an egg sandwich.

“Every time I see you,” she said, “you’re eating.”

He shrugged. “What is that? Looks like the messy outlines I made for high-school papers.”

“It’s messy alright. I’m thinking.”

“You looked pretty focused,” he said. “I called your name twice.”

“Sorry. How can you eat that? I can smell the Tabasco from here.”

It was dripping off his sandwich onto his paper plate.

He smiled. “I like hot sauce. And Tabasco is for wimps. This is mi madre’s recipe.”

“If I need to take the paint off my car, I’ll call you,” she said, then: “Who has the detonators that were found at the St. Pierre farm?”

“State police turned them over to the FBI.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Why? That mean something?”

Peyton looked past Jimenez at the breakroom. Wally Rowe was talking on the phone.

When Rowe hung up, Peyton crossed the bullpen and knocked on the breakroom door.

“Hi,” Rowe said. “What’s up?”

“Got a sec?”

“For a BORSTAR agent? You bet.”

“Former BORSTAR agent,” she said and smiled.

He wasn’t wearing a sports jacket this day. He wore jeans and a dark windbreaker.

“Hey,” she said, “what are you working on?”

He leaned back in his seat and frowned. “I’m Secret Service. I’m working on the president’s security details.”

“Any idea what the FBI is doing in regards to the cabin fire?”

“Why don’t you call them?”

“That’s not answering my question,” she said.

He spread his hands as if to say, You know I can’t talk. Give me a break.

She wasn’t buying it.

“I’ll tell you what I think: I think you’re collaborating with the FBI. And that you could answer my question, if you wanted to.”

“I’m Secret Service,” he said again. “By definition my job requires discretion and secrecy.”

“And self-importance. Maybe I was expecting too much to think we could share information like two professionals.”

“Spare me.”

She sat down across from him. He didn’t seem pleased, his welcoming smile now long gone.

“Who told the county fire marshal to desist?”

“Just a Secret Service agent. That’s me.”

“Look, those detonators bother all of us. The FBI isn’t here yet, and I know why.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You were an FBI agent. You still have contacts there.”

“Naturally,” he admitted.

“And ties.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I oversee the president’s travel into this state, Peyton.”

“I know that. Those detonators would raise red flags at the FBI. And when the FBI looked at the president’s travel itinerary, someone at Secret Service got a phone call. You came up here early because of Simon Pink and what was found in that cabin.”

Rowe looked at her. His blue eyes steady, his expression stoic, his hands folded calmly in his lap.

“You play poker?” she asked.

“Why?”

“You should,” she said.

Finally, a smile. “Thank you. Look, Peyton, I don’t want to waste your time. So let me say this: The cabin has moved up the federal foodchain. FBI isn’t directly involved in it anymore.”

She leaned back in her chair and offered a momentary smile.

“So the CIA has entered the picture?”

He said nothing, which was a confirmation.

“Time for a squeeze-play,” she said and went out.