There is one name that keeps bugging me: William Simmons.

Here’s a guy who was homeless, had no money, had abandoned his friends and loved ones, and who had, himself, been abandoned by society. He was as close as a human being could be to being of no consequence to anyone, probably not even himself.

So why were Joey Silva and Daniel Lewinsky discussing his apparently random murder years later? What could they have possibly been concerned about?

I kick it around with Nate, and we come up with a plan of attack. He’s going to dig into the possibility that Simmons might be representative of a larger group of victims. He’ll check into whether other people that fit Simmons’ profile were brought to Bergen Hospital; maybe we can make some sense of it that way.

One angle I haven’t really looked at is Simmons’ work life. He owned an insurance agency, which has some possible significance because insurance is all about money. Sometimes big money. The type of money that could interest Joey Silva.

Jessie finds out for me that the Simmons Insurance Agency still exists; it had been taken over by the insurance companies themselves, and eventually sold to a man named Ben Wilkinson.

I call Mr. Wilkinson, identify myself, and tell him I want to come talk to him. I guess the call is routed to him, because he says he’s out in the field, which I assume means anywhere other than his office. He asks if it can wait until tomorrow, and I say no, so he agrees to see me at his office at two o’clock. I’m a tough guy to say no to.

My next call is to Agent Wiggins of the FBI, and I tell him I want to come down to see him as well. He’d find it easier to say no to me, but he doesn’t. He says he can give me ten minutes, if I come right down.

So I’ve got a couple of meetings set for today, which has become my version of activity. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, like I’m just trying to fill my day. This is how I’ll be when I’m retired, maybe in Florida in a community with my fellow elderly people. Busy day today … shuffleboard in the morning, and then taking the tram to the market to buy fruit in the afternoon. And then some much-needed rest.

I think my old self may be returning, because rather than talking to people, I’d rather be punching and shooting them. I just wish I knew who to punch and shoot.

Wiggins is at the Bureau’s Newark office, about a half-hour drive for me. I’m brought in to see him as soon as I arrive; his office isn’t any nicer than mine. He stands when I come in and shakes my hand, and looks at his watch before he sits back down, a silent message that the ten minutes starts now, and I’m on the clock.

“I need some help,” I say. “I need to know if you have any information on a man named William Simmons.”

His face doesn’t register any familiarity with the name. “Who might that be?”

So I tell him the story of William Simmons, or at least as much as I know about him. When I conclude, I say, “Silva and Lewinsky were talking about him, years after his death. They weren’t reminiscing about an old high school buddy. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, do you remember who Billy Simmons took to the prom?’ He was important to them.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“To help me figure out why. To go through every database you have to see if anything pops up.”

“Okay; I’ll get it done. Is that it?” I’m sure he’s wondering why I didn’t just ask him this one over the phone, but I have another request.

“Almost. You can also tell me why you’re so interested in what we’re doing.”

“What gave you that impression?” he asks.

“You’ve been hovering over this from day one. You called Bradley when Shawn got killed. You came to see us and told us about the courier. You’ve been in touch with Roberts in Vegas a bunch of times, trying to stay on top of what he’s doing. You arrested Joey Silva when it should have been our call, and we didn’t want to. Why are you so interested in a drug case? You’re not wearing a DEA windbreaker.”

He doesn’t answer right away, and I suspect the decision he’s making is between saying something truthful and throwing me out. Finally, he says, “I don’t give a shit about your drug case, if that’s even what it is.”

“So what do you care about?”

“That courier I told you about; he wasn’t just a normal courier. He didn’t just do drop-offs, or make pickups. He was an expert in munitions; this guy could take a jar of peanut butter and some Krazy Glue and blow up Nebraska.”

“But he’s dead,” I say.

“Yeah, but he was also the guy who would be sent to educate, to tell whoever was receiving the goods exactly how to employ them. And we know that he had a plane ticket; he was going to LAX. Which means he had already done what he set out to do.”

He continues. “And there is one other thing; when he was taken out of that car wreck, he had a million five in cash.”

“Shit,” I say.

He nods. “Exactly. He didn’t get paid that money for nothing. He brought the goods, and he showed them how to use them. And that’s what they’re going to do; they didn’t pay a million five to use those devices as paperweights.”

“Let me ask you this. Is there a technical way they go about it? How would something be detonated? Remotely?”

He nods. “Almost certainly. A simple call to a cell phone number on the device.”

“Why did you arrest Joey Silva?”

“We wanted to pressure him and offer him a deal; all he had to do was tell us what was going to happen, and how we could stop it. We told him what would happen to him if he didn’t go along.”

“What happened?”

“We made him the offer, one so good that he couldn’t possibly turn it down. Essentially he’d have immunity for every awful thing he’s done in his life, and that covers a lot of ground. Just tell us about the explosives. And he turned it down.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because, and this is just my opinion, so I could be wrong … he didn’t know what the hell we were talking about.”