Twenty-Nine

“The FBI didn’t speak to Matt Kingston,” Mike Hewitt said Wednesday at 8:15 a.m. at his debriefing with Peyton. “Neither did the Secret Service. And the kid doesn’t know enough to make me think what he does know is worth lying about.”

“CIA?” Peyton asked.

Her iPad was on her lap; she was typing. Behind her, yellow sunlight splashed through the window onto the thin gray carpet.

“If it was CIA,” Hewitt said, “we’ll never know it.”

“That’s what I figured. It wasn’t Karen Smythe. I called her. If the CIA talked to Matt Kingston, there’s much more to all of this than meets the eye.”

“In that case, Simon Pink is a hell of a lot more important than either of us thinks he is.”

“Matt Kingston says one man’s voice sounded like Drago from Rocky IV. And others have said Simon Pink had a Russian accent.”

“So if Pink was one of the two men Marie St. Pierre saw crossing her land at midnight,” Hewitt said, “who’s the second man?”

“Probably the person who shot him,” Peyton said. “But Matt Kingston says three men were there, not two.”

“Three?” Hewitt said. “So someone was waiting for the other two?”

“I don’t know. But Matt was close enough to be reliable.”

They were quiet, and Peyton added to her notes, typing furiously on the iPad’s virtual keyboard.

“CIA involvement doesn’t feel right,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said.

“A CIA agent would walk in here and demand to know everything I learned from Matt Kingston. They wouldn’t sneak around behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t give them that much credit. They might tap your phone.”

She thought about that. “Even so, if we assume it’s the CIA, it gives us nowhere to go.”

“Okay,” he said, “so if it wasn’t the state police, it wasn’t the FBI, and it wasn’t the CIA, who the hell went to see Matt Kingston?”

“Whoever it was wanted to know what Matt saw in the woods that night. Matt said it was a female, wearing a windbreaker zipped up to her chin, sunglasses, and a hat.”

“In June?”

“Yup.”

“Someone is fucking with this investigation,” Hewitt said.

“That’s what I think,” she said and typed two names on her iPad.

Hewitt stood and went to the file cabinet near the door. A Mr. Coffee machine was atop the cabinet.

“You finally broke down and bought a coffee maker?” she said.

“I figured, Who am I kidding? I drink six cups a day. Why keep walking to the breakroom? Want a cup?”

She shook her head. He’d been military for a decade. And she’d heard all about military coffee. If she thought Tim Hortons was mediocre, she could only imagine how Hewitt made the stuff.

“We need an espresso bar in this town,” she said.

“Go to a town council meeting and ask for one,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll get right on it.”

He poured himself a cup and brought it back to his desk.

“I do have one update,” he said. “Stephanie DuBois cut a deal with Nancy Lawrence’s attorney for Nancy’s statement and potential testimony admitting she was paid for Freddy’s alibi the night Simon Pink was murdered.”

“Really?”

“You surprised?”

“Stunned,” Peyton said, using her stylus to circle one of the two names she’d typed. “She was at the top of my list of those who might have talked to Matt Kingston.”

“Still could be,” Hewitt said. “She has a lot to lose if she’s in any way tied to Pink’s murder. You’re biting your lip and staring at the floor. What is it?”

“What’s Nancy’s agreement?” she asked.

“Probation—for her admission that Sherry paid her to let Freddy sleep on her sofa and to lie about dating him.”

“Probation? For what might end up being accessory to a murder?”

He shrugged. “Don’t blame me for the lawyer bullshit.”

“When I first mentioned Nancy to Sherry,” Peyton said, “she told me Nancy—she called her a ‘little slut’—was somehow behind all of Freddy’s problems.”

“Maybe Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall, Ph.D. and all, is a little nutty,” Hewitt said.

Peyton blew out a long breath. “Nancy’s statement won’t look very good for Freddy or Sherry. Do they know Nancy turned on them?”

“If they don’t, they will soon.” He narrowed his eyes. “You do realize this is a positive development, right? The noose is tightening on Freddy St. Pierre.”

“If he did it, it’s positive. If he didn’t do it, we got Nancy Lawrence to give us the wrong guy. We still can’t place Freddy at the crime scene, Mike.”

“Maybe he’s the third guy Matt Kingston heard,” Hewitt said.

“Maybe.” She wrote something on her iPad.

“Sherry paid someone to be her brother’s alibi,” Hewitt said. “That’s an admission that he was guilty of something in my book.”

“An admission of guilt for something, yes. But not necessarily of murder, Mike. And Len Landmark says he’s not representing Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall now, only Chip.”

“They splitting up?” Hewitt said.

“Sherry is sleeping with her research assistant.”

“Not usually conducive for marital bliss,” Hewitt said. “Where are their kids?”

“In Portland with Chip’s sister. The son is Chip’s adopted child. Sherry had him with someone else.”

“So this will be her second divorce?”

“I don’t think she was married. I was at the diner yesterday, and Sherry’s research assistant, a guy from Prague, was at the counter when Chip pulled up. The research assistant stopped him in the parking lot. They had an exchange, and Chip drove off without coming in.”

“I’d have met him in the parking lot, too,” Hewitt said, “and I’d have kicked his ass for him, if I was trying to eat lunch and the bastard who was screwing my wife showed up.”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “I can see why they wouldn’t like each other. But it was the other way around—Kvido was eating and Chip showed up. Why didn’t he walk in and punch Kvido’s lights out?”

There was a faint knock on the door. Hewitt told whoever it was to come in.

“Peyton”—it was Linda Cyr—“Freddy St. Pierre has requested a meeting with you.”