Forty-Five

Hewitt had sent her home for a few hours of rest while he and Hammond and Stone Gibson debriefed Matt Kingston.

Now it was 10:30 Saturday morning, and it was her turn. There were chairs set in a semi-circle at the perimeter of Hewitt’s desk.

Peyton told them everything she could remember from the conversation inside the cabin.

“Nothing’s on tape?” Hammond said.

Peyton shook her head.

“And we heard absolutely nothing,” Hewitt said, “because we lost radio contact. So, in effect, you disobeyed a direct order and risked your life and forced me to kill someone for no good reason.”

“I realize you’re right,” she said, “but no one in this room would have sat by while someone killed herself.”

No one denied it.

“So, yes, I was wrong to disobey an order. But I thought you were just worrying about my safety, Mike.”

“This isn’t a woman thing, Peyton. I put you in harm’s way by having you lead.”

“I know that. And I really thought I could talk her out of the cabin.”

“It was taking too long, and we lost contact with you. I had to take the shot.”

“I know. And I understand why you took the shot. But while I was in there I learned a lot of information no one had on Kvido Bezdek, information that can go in his file.”

“You’re a gutsy broad,” Hammond said.

Peyton looked at him. “You mean I’m a gutsy agent?”

Hammond was pushing sixty, and if he understood her meaning, he gave no indication. “The piece about Bezdek’s father is important, Mike,” Hammond said.

Hewitt was still glaring at her. “I killed a woman this morning. That situation might have been avoidable.”

“She wasn’t putting the gun down,” Hammond said. “I’d go easy on her, not that it’s my business. But we now have a motive for the IEDs.”

When Hewitt looked out the window, she smiled at Hammond. He nodded.

“And I think I know who shot Simon Pink,” she said. “It makes sense, and it explains why Freddy isn’t talking.”

Stone Gibson had been following the conversation. “I’m all ears. I’m trying to see if this impacts my case, the Simon Pink murder. I don’t think it does.”

“Sherry shot Simon Pink,” Peyton said. “Matt said there were three people at the cabin. One sounded like Drago from Rocky IV; that would be Simon. And one was quiet; that was Sherry.”

“Can you prove that, Peyton?” Hewitt said.

“I think so.”

“How?” Hammond was writing on a legal pad. “Even if she confessed, you have no recording, do you?”

“No. I’ve got something better. I think her brother was the third person. He said he was at the scene, but insists he was there hours later. I don’t think so. I think he was the third person that night. Matt even ID’d his voice.”

Hewitt held up his index finger, asking her to pause. “What are you saying, Peyton?”

“It explains why Freddy hasn’t turned on the third person. He’s just denied shooting anyone. Even when Stephanie DuBois offered a deal, he wouldn’t talk.”

“Because the shooter was his sister?” Hewitt asked.

“Yes,” Peyton said.

Hammond shook his head. “You can’t prove that.”

“No, but Freddy has no reason to sit in the cell now, not if she did it. Why should he face a murder charge and life in prison when he can downgrade to Conspiracy to Commit? She’s dead. He doesn’t have to take the life sentence for her.”

“Wait a minute.” It was Stone Gibson. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The murder investigation is mine. And Freddy only needs half a brain to know that he can walk if he throws his sister under the bus. I’m not sure I want Peyton planting that idea in his dull head. I’ve been working this day and night for two weeks.”

“You’re saying you want someone to go down for the murder?” Hammond said.

“Not any someone. I want the right person to go down. And I have a suspect in custody who admits he was at the crime scene. And ballistics proves the suspect’s gun was used to commit the crime. That’s a pretty good case. And nothing anyone has said in here makes me think Freddy isn’t just as likely as his sister to have shot Simon Pink.”

“You do understand my reasoning, right?” Peyton said. “That’s why he didn’t give anyone up. It absolutely makes sense.”

“Yes, Peyton. It makes sense, but you can’t prove it.”

“No, probably not. But we can build a case. Kvido wanted to avenge his father’s death.”

“By blowing up the president?” Hammond said.

Peyton shrugged. “Everyone in this room has heard crazier plans. Last year, we had a drug smuggler tell us his priest told him to swim bags of pot across the river.”

Hewitt chuckled at the memory. “He said the priest told him to do it when he was across from him in the confessional. I thought the priest was going to have a stroke when we brought him in. Poor old guy.”

“A repentant pot dealer,” Hammond said. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

Stone leaned back in his chair. “So we’re saying that none of this has anything to do with Andela? Nothing to do with any group? This is just a kid with a screwed-up childhood who was looking for a way to get over it. That’s what you think this whole thing is about?”

Peyton looked at Stone, then at Hewitt and Hammond.

“Yes, that’s what I think,” she said. “And Sherry had been abused—verbally, physically, and, I’m fairly certain, sexually—by her father. She was a broken individual. It made her needy. Kvido saw that and manipulated her. She told me it was a coincidence that Kvido knew Simon Pink. That was no coincidence.”

“You think Simon was planted here by Kvido?” Hammond asked.

“Probably. I think he built the IEDs, and I think they paid Fred St. Pierre for the use of his cabin.”

“So why was Simon Pink shot?” Stone asked. “Regardless of whether Freddy did it or Sherry did it. What’s the motive to that killing?”

“Could be a lot of things,” Peyton said. “Maybe Fred Sr. never knew what they were using his cabin for and found out. Maybe Simon told Marie, and when the truth came out, they all had to go.”

“Or maybe,” Stone said, “Fred Sr. knew all along, and when Marie found out, she had to go, along with Simon Pink. And Fred couldn’t live with himself if he killed his wife, so he took his own life, too.”

“This is all hypothetical,” Hammond said. “Won’t do a thing for you.”

“We need to get Kvido in the box again,” Hewitt said.

Hammond shook his head discouragingly, “He’s very good. If we can’t tie the IEDs to him, he can walk all the way back to the Czech Republic and let Freddy take the rap.”

“Someone put the IEDs in the ground,” Hewitt said. “Pink was dead and Freddy was in custody when they were buried.”

Hammond nodded. “We’ll ask him. We should be able to keep him here for a while. He’s a suspect in a presidential assassination attempt.”

“When Stone and I interviewed Kvido,” Peyton said, “he called Simon Pink a ‘father figure,’ said Simon brought him into Andela. I’d love to hear how he injured his hand.”

“I bet Simon Pink taught him about IEDs,” Hammond said. “This all makes sense. Too bad it’s all circumstantial.”

Peyton was staring out the window, thinking. It was a sun-drenched Saturday. Tommy’s last day of school was in two days.

Stone said, “Can you get a warrant to search his room?”

“We did that already,” Hewitt said. “Found nothing.”

“Mike,” Peyton said, “I need a warrant to take a DNA swab from Kvido.”

“DNA? Are you trying to link him to the murder scene? There’s nothing left out there. Everything burned.”

“No,” she said. “I have an idea.”

Sunday night, the house was quiet. Tommy was in bed after a day spent with Peyton. They’d gone to a karate lesson then fished a brook in the afternoon.

Now Peyton was alone on the living room sofa with a glass of wine and her thoughts, which ran continually to Dr. Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall.

Stone Gibson had walked her through the Matt Kingston debriefing: Matt had been in the cabin for several days. He’d been taken by Sherry Wednesday night and escaped Friday. Matt had spent the bulk of his hours in captivity in a small bedroom at the back of the cabin. The window had been boarded up, and the door had been locked. Friday night, he found a box cutter in his room, used it to cut the duct tape binding his wrists, and escaped.

Peyton was drinking a glass of Casamatta. She leaned back on her living room sofa and thought about that: Matt Kingston had gone missing Wednesday night, but Peyton had seen Sherry Thursday at the Hampton Inn.

Had Matt been bound and left in that cabin while Sherry was in her hotel room? Why didn’t he see the box cutter before Friday night?

It didn’t feel right. Something wasn’t adding up. She picked up her cell phone.

When Stone Gibson answered, she said, “Sorry to bother you at home. I didn’t think of this when we were at the dojo.”

“You’re apologizing as if I lead an exciting life and you might be interrupting me.”

“I assumed you do and I was.”

“The Red Sox are down four in the bottom of the seventh, Peyton. I’ve been on my couch for two hours listening to them on the radio and reading.”

“Matt was abducted Wednesday night and taken immediately to the cabin, correct?”

“Yes, by Sherry.”

“And he never left the cabin, right?”

“Yes. What’s wrong? You sound skeptical.”

“I went to the Hampton Inn and spoke to Sherry on Thursday.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Who was with Matt Kingston while Sherry was at the Hampton Inn?”

Stone said, “He said he didn’t hear anyone else in the cabin.”

“You think they left him there alone?”

The line was quiet for a time; Stone was thinking.

“I wouldn’t do it that way,” he said.

“Why not kill him?”

“Because he’s a kid?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why then?”

“This whole thing feels wrong.”

“Peyton, what are you getting at?”

“I think someone relieved her at the cabin. How else would she be out there without a car?”

“Bezdek?”

“He went missing for a time. Hewitt and Hammond went to bring him in for questioning and he couldn’t be found. Then when I wanted to talk to him, he was happy to do it. It smells bad.”

Stone was quiet.

“And why not kill Matt Kingston?” she asked again. “He’s a liability, right?”

“Of course.”

“For what?”

“To point a finger,” Stone said.

“At whom?”

“The shooter in the Simon Pink murder.”

“Yeah, and who’s left? Freddy is locked up on First-Degree Murder charges, Simon Pink is dead, and then there’s Sherry.”

“You think she’s a fall guy?”

“It looks that way. If Kvido Bezdek was the one behind all this—paying Simon Pink to make bombs, convincing Sherry to shoot Simon, and paying Freddy, through Sherry, to burn the crime scene—Kvido would have lots of reasons to want Sherry out of the picture.”

“You’re saying Bezdek used Sherry.”

“If Sherry had come out of that cabin with me, and Matt Kingston is still alive, he could help us place her at the crime scene. Then she’d eventually be facing either murder or conspiracy charges. You see? Bezdek would want Matt Kingston alive—to testify against Sherry and Freddy because one would be going to jail for life and the other to jail for conspiracy, and Pink would be dead.”

“And Bezdek would be in the clear.”

“That’s the thing, Stone,” Peyton said. “As things stand, he still is.”