The Sixth Man

by David Baldacci

  THE LOCAL POLICE SHOWED up first. A single Washington County deputy in a dented and dusty but serviceable American-made V8 with an array of communication antennas drilled into the trunk. He came out of the cruiser with one hand on his service weapon and his gaze fastened on Sean and Michelle. He warily approached. They explained what had happened and he checked the body, muttered the word “Damn,” and then hastily called in backup.

  Fifteen minutes later two Maine State Police cruisers from Field Troop J slid to stops behind them. The troopers, young, tall, and lean, came out of their aquamarine cars; their crisp blue uniforms seemed to glow like colored ice even in the weak, hazy light. The crime scene was secured and a perimeter guard established. Sean and Michelle were interviewed by the troopers. One of the officers pecked the responses into the portable laptop he’d yanked from his cruiser.

  When Sean told them who they were and why they were here, and, more important, who Ted Bergin was and that he represented Edgar Roy, one of the troopers walked away and used his handheld mic to presumably call in more assets. As they waited for reinforcements, Sean said, “You guys know about Edgar Roy?”

  One of them replied, “Everybody around here knows about Edgar Roy.”

  Michelle said, “Why’s that?”

  The other trooper said, “FBI will be here quick as they can.”

  “FBI?” exclaimed Sean.

  The trooper nodded. “Roy’s a federal prisoner. We got clear instructions from Washington. Anything happens with him, they get called in. That’s what I just did. Well, I told the lieutenant and he’s calling it in.”

  “Where’s the closest FBI Field Office?” asked Michelle.

  “Boston.”

  “Boston? But we’re in Maine.”

  “FBI doesn’t maintain an official office in Maine. It all goes through Boston, Mass.”

  Sean said, “It’s a long way to Boston. Do we have to stay until they get here? We’re both pretty beat.”

  “Our lieutenant is on the way. You can talk to him about it.”

  Twenty minutes later the lieutenant arrived and he was not sympathetic. “Just sit tight” was all he said before turning away from them to confer with his men and look over the crime scene.

  The Evidence Response Team arrived a couple of minutes later, all ready to bag and tag. Sean and Michelle sat on the hood of their Ford and watched the process. Bergin was officially pronounced dead by what Sean assumed was a coroner or medical examiner—he couldn’t recall what system Maine used. They gleaned from snatched bits of conversation among the techs and troopers that the bullet was still in the dead man’s head.

  “No exit wound, contact round, small-caliber gun probably,” noted Michelle.

  “But still deadly,” replied Sean.

  “Any contact wound to the head usually is. Crack the skull, soft brain tissue pulverized by the kinetic energy wave, massive hemorrhaging followed by organ shutdown. All happens in a few seconds. Dead.”

  “I know the process, thanks,” he replied dryly.

  As they sat there they could see the members of the Maine constabulary look over at them from time to time.

  “Are we suspects?” asked Michelle.

  “Everybody’s a suspect until they’re not.”

  Some time later the lieutenant came back over to them. “The colonel is on his way.”

  “And who is the colonel?” asked Michelle politely.

  “Chief of the Maine State Police, ma’am.”

  “Okay. But we’ve given our statements,” she said.

  “So you two knew the deceased?”

  “I did,” answered Sean.

  “And you were following him up here?”

  “We weren’t following him. I explained it to your troopers. We were meeting him up here.”

  “I’d appreciate if you could explain it to me, sir.”

  Okay, we are suspects, thought Sean.

  He went through their travel steps.

  “So you’re saying you didn’t know he was here? But you just happened to be the first ones on the scene?”

  Sean said, “That’s right.”

  The man tilted his wide-brimmed hat back. “I personally don’t like coincidences.”

  “I don’t either,” said Sean. “But they sometimes happen. And there aren’t a lot of homes or people around here. He was going to the same place we were, using the same road. And it’s late. If anyone was going to happen on him, it would probably be us.”

  “So not such a big coincidence after all,” added Michelle.

  The man didn’t appear to be listening. He was looking at the bulge under her jacket. His hand went to his sidearm and he gave a low whistle, which brought five of his men instantly to his side.

  He said, “Ma’am, are you carrying a weapon?”

  The other officers tensed. Sean could tell in the fearful looks of the first two troopers on the scene that there would be hell to pay later for them missing such an obvious fact.

  “I am,” she said.

  “Why didn’t my men know this?”

  He gave a prolonged look at the two troopers who had turned about as pale as the moon.

  “They didn’t ask,” she replied.

  The lieutenant drew his pistol. A moment later a total of six guns were pointed at Sean and Michelle. All kill shots.

  “Hold on,” said Sean. “She has a permit. And the gun hasn’t been fired.”

  “Both of you put your hands on your heads, fingers interlocked. Now.”

  They did so.

  Michelle’s gun was taken and examined, and they were both searched for other weapons.

  “Full load, sir,” said one of the troopers to the lieutenant. “Hasn’t been recently fired.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t know how long the man’s been dead, either. And it’s only one bullet. Just replace it to make a full clip. Easy enough.”

  “I didn’t shoot him,” Michelle said firmly.

  “And if we did, do you think we would have hung around and called the police?” added Sean.

  “Not for me to decide,” said the lieutenant, who handed Michelle’s gun to one of his men. “Bag and tag.”

  “I do have a permit to carry it,” said Michelle.

  “Let me see it.”

  She handed it to him and his gaze ran swiftly over it before he handed it back. “Permit or not, doesn’t matter if you used the weapon to shoot that man.”

  “The deceased has a small-caliber entry wound with no exit,” said Michelle. “An intermediate range shot would have left powder grains tattooing the skin. Here the powder was obviously blown into the wound track. The muzzle end was burned into his skin. Looks to be a .22 or maybe a .32-caliber. The latter’s an eight-millimeter footprint. My weapon would have left a hole nearly fifty percent bigger than that. In fact, if I’d shot him at contact range, the round would have blown through his brain and the headrest and probably shattered the back window and kept going for about a mile.”

  “I know the weapon’s capabilities, ma’am,” he said. “It’s an H and K .45—that’s what we use in the state police.”

  “Actually, mine is an enhanced version of the one you guys just pointed at us.”

  “Enhanced? How?”

  “Your weapon is an older and more basic model. My H and K is more ergonomic and it’s got a ten-round mag box versus your twelve because of the restyling. Textured, finger-grooved grip and backstraps let it sit lower in the hand web, translating to better control and recoil management. Then there’s an extended ambidextrous slide, a universal Picatinny rail instead of the H and K proprietary USP rail for accessories that you have. And it has an O-ring polygonal barrel. It’ll drop pretty much anything on two feet all in a compact twenty-eight-ounce model. And it’s built right across the border in New Hampshire.”

  “You know a lot about guns, ma’am?”

  “She’s an aficionado,” replied Sean, seeing the look of growing anger in his partner’s eyes at the officer’s condescending
tone.

  “Why?” she said. “Are girls not supposed to know about guns?”

  The lieutenant abruptly grinned, took off his hat, and swiped a hand through his blond hair. “Hell, in this part of Maine pretty much everybody knows how to use a gun. My little sister’s always been a better shot than me, in fact.”

  “There you go,” said Michelle, her anger quickly receding at his frank admission. “And you can swab my hands for gunshot residue. You won’t find any.”

  “Could’ve worn gloves,” he pointed out.

  “I could’ve done a lot of things. You want to do the GSR or not?”

  He motioned to one of the techs, who performed the test on both Michelle and Sean and did the analysis on the spot.

  “Clean,” he said.

  “Wow, how about that,” said Michelle.

  The lieutenant said, “So you two are private investigators?”

  Sean nodded. “Bergin engaged us to help with the Edgar Roy case.”

  “Help with what? Man’s as guilty as they come.”

  “Just like you said, not for us to decide,” said Sean.

  “You licensed in Maine?”

  “We’ve filed the paperwork and paid the fee,” said Sean. “Waiting to hear back.”

  “So that’s a no? You’re not licensed?”

  “Well, we haven’t done any investigative work yet. Just found out about the job. We filed as fast as we could. The jurisdictions where we’re licensed have reciprocity with Maine. It’s just a formality. We’ll get the approval.”

  “People looking to be PIs need some sort of special background. What’s yours? Military? Law enforcement?”

  “United States Secret Service,” said Sean.

  The lieutenant eyed Sean and then Michelle with a new level of respect. His men did the same.

  “Both of you?”

  Sean nodded.

  “Ever guard the president?”

  “Sean did,” said Michelle. “I never got to the White House before I left the Service.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  Sean and Michelle exchanged brief glances.

  Sean said, “Had enough. Wanted to do something else.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Forty-five minutes later another car pulled up. The lieutenant looked over and said, “That’s Colonel Mayhew. Must’ve put the pedal to the metal, think he was over near Skowhegan tonight.”

  He hurried off to greet his commander in chief. The colonel was tall and broad shouldered. Though in his fifties, he had retained his trim figure. His eyes were calm and alert, his manner brisk and businesslike. He looked, Sean thought, like a Hollywood-inspired poster for police recruitment.

  He was briefed on the situation, took a look at the body, then came over to them. After introductions Mayhew said, “When was the last time you had contact with Mr. Bergin?”

  “Phone call earlier today, around five thirty p.m. A little while before we got on the plane.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he was going to meet us at the B-and-B where we’re staying.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Martha’s Inn near Machias.”

  The colonel nodded approvingly. “It’s comfortable, food’s good.”

  “Nice to hear,” said Michelle.

  “Anything else from Bergin? E-mails? Texts?”

  “Nothing. I checked before we got on the plane. And then when we landed. I tried calling him around nine o’clock but he didn’t answer. It went right to voice mail and I left a message. Any idea how long he’s been dead?”

  The colonel ignored this. “See any other cars?”

  Sean said, “None, other than Bergin’s. Pretty lonely stretch of road. And we didn’t see any evidence of another car having pulled up to his, although unless it leaked some fluid there probably wouldn’t be leave-behind trace.”

  “So you have no idea where he might have been going tonight?”

  “Well, I presume he was going to meet us at Martha’s Inn.”

  “Do you know where Bergin was staying? At Martha’s?”

  “No, she didn’t have any more rooms, apparently.” Sean searched his pockets and pulled out his notebook. He flipped through some pages.

  “Gray’s Lodge. That’s where he was staying.”

  “Right, know that one too. It’s closer to Eastport. Not as nice as Martha’s place.”

  “I guess you get around,” said Michelle.

  “I guess I do,” replied the colonel impassively. He looked over at the car. “Only thing is, if Bergin were coming from the direction of Eastport, his car would have been going in the opposite direction. You were coming from the southwest. Eastport is to the north and east. And he never would have come this far. The turnoff for Martha’s is five miles further on this road.”

  Sean looked over at the vehicle and then at the colonel. “I don’t know what to tell you. That’s how we found him. Car was pointed the same way as ours.”

  “Complicated,” said the lawman.

  Sean looked over as a black Escalade screeched to a stop and four people in FBI windbreakers literally leaped out. The federal cavalry from Boston had just arrived.

  And it’s about to get a lot more complicated, he thought.

  CHAPTER

  4

  THE LEAD AGENT’S NAME was Brandon Murdock. He was about Michelle’s height, a couple inches under six feet and rail-thin, but his grip was surprisingly strong. His hair was thick but cut to FBI standards. His eyebrows were caterpillar-sized. His voice was deep and his manner was compact, efficient. He was briefed first by the lieutenant. He then spent a few private minutes with Colonel Mayhew, who was the highest-ranked Maine police representative on-site. He checked out the body and the car. Then he walked over to Sean and Michelle.

  “Sean King and Michelle Maxwell,” he said.

  Something in his tone made Michelle remark, “You’ve heard of us?”

  “Scuttlebutt from D.C. makes its way up north.”

  “Really?” said Sean.

  “Special Agent Chuck Waters and I went to the Academy together, still keep in touch.”

  “He’s a good guy.”

  “Yes he is.” Murdock glanced over at the car. The chitchat was over. “So what can you tell me?”

  Sean said, “Dead guy. Single GSW to the head. He was up here repping Edgar Roy. Maybe somebody didn’t like that.”

  Murdock nodded. “Or it could’ve been a random thing.”

  “Any money or valuables missing?” asked Michelle.

  The lieutenant answered. “Not that we can tell. Wallet, watch, and phone intact.”

  “Probably not random, then.”

  “And he might’ve known his attacker,” said Sean.

  “Why do you think that?” asked Murdock quickly.

  “The driver’s side window.”

  “What about it?”