King and Maxwell by David Baldacci
“We could have had lots of things, Dana.”
“I’m too old for that now.”
“You’re not that old. Women your age have kids all the time.”
“Curtis is set in his ways. And I’m not sure I have the energy to run after toddlers, Sean.”
“We all make choices.”
She finished her drink. “Can we order some food? And then we can talk more about your kid who needs my roundabout help.”
Later, when their plates were cleared and the coffees had been brought, Dana said, “Okay, talk to me.”
“His name is Tyler Wingo.”
Sean went on to tell her most but not all of what had transpired.
He was about to add something else when his phone buzzed. He looked down at the text he had just gotten from Michelle.
In it she had recounted what Tyler had told her on the drive home about his father.
Dana watched his face and said, “Developments?”
“Could be. Now they’re telling him that his father was first shot and then hit by a mortar. There are no remains left to bring home.”
“They always bring the remains home, Sean, trust me on that. If a mortar shell did hit him, the coffin will be closed and sealed. But the Army is really good about identifying the dead. I know from Curtis that the Pentagon is borderline fanatical about that.”
“I’m sure they are. It’s just curious they didn’t tell him the first time.”
“It could be as simple as they didn’t want to tell the son or the wife something that disturbing when they were already delivering such devastating news. They have protocols for this but each situation is different. You said Tyler was running through the rain with his father’s old collectible gun. It could be the Army reps deemed it unwise to tell him about the condition of his father’s body at that time since he was so clearly upset. They wouldn’t have wanted to risk traumatizing him and his mother further.”
“Stepmother,” he corrected. “But that does make sense. So why the stone wall at the Pentagon?”
“Confidentiality. They take it seriously there, particularly about combat deaths.”
“Tyler seemed like he was holding something back, though. Something that only he knew but didn’t want to tell.”
“Something about his father?”
From Michelle’s text Sean knew exactly what he had been holding back. His father had sent him a message after he was supposedly killed. He debated whether to tell Dana this, but then decided against it. She was married to a general, after all, and owed him far more allegiance than she owed Sean.
“I don’t know. Michelle seemed to think so, and she has good instincts.”
Dana drank her coffee and appraised him keenly. “So are you two a couple as well as business partners?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ve seen her picture, read up on her. Quite a beauty. Quite an overachiever. I mean, an Olympian who can shoot straight? What a combination.”
“Why did you read up on her? And before it seemed you could barely remember her name.”
“Just a game we girls play. I’m sure she’s a ball of fire between the sheets.”
“Now, there’s the Dana I know.”
“I never said I had changed completely. What exactly do you want me to do about Tyler Wingo?”
“I would appreciate whatever you could find out.”
“I’m not a spy. I do some work with wounded soldiers and their families and I’m involved in many of the organizations that generals’ spouses typically are. But I don’t have the security clearances or computer skills to get into the Pentagon’s inner rings or hack into databases.”
“Don’t underestimate your skills, Dana.”
“What do you mean?”
Sean ran his eyes over her. “I was thinking more along the lines of pillow talk.”
She smiled. “Okay, now that I can do. Curtis is a stickler for protocols, but any man can be manipulated given the right… inducements.”
He smiled. “Like riding a bike.” His expression quickly turned serious. “But let’s be clear. Just try to work it into a conversation with the general and see what comes of it. I don’t want you to go out on a limb or take unnecessary chances. That would not be good.”
“You’re making this seem dangerous,” she scoffed.
“It potentially is very dangerous.”
She stared across the table at him. “You’re giving me your steely Secret Service stare.”
“Surprised you remember what it looks like after all these years.”
“There were many things that were unforgettable about you, Sean. That just happens to be one of them.”
“If you do decide to help us and anything weird happens you call me.” He slid his card across to her.
“Okay, you’re officially scaring me,” she said in a mirthful tone, although her troubled look clearly said otherwise.
“Good,” said Sean.
CHAPTER
15
MICHELLE DROPPED TYLER OFF ABOUT three blocks from his house. She watched him walk away and then slowly followed him to make sure he arrived safely. She didn’t see any Pentagon cars lurking like feral cats in an alley, ready to pounce on unsuspecting prey. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
She drove off with one thought nagging her.
Tyler had refused to tell her what his father had written him in the email. She had asked nicely and then less politely when her frustration got the better of her. Yet the more she tried, the more Tyler had dug his heels in. They had not parted on the best of terms. She had promised him she would keep digging. He had been largely unresponsive to her on this point.
He had walked away, head down, feet shuffling, looking very much like a young man who had lost everything of value in his life.
She was annoyed and empathetic at the same time, and the disparate emotions were making her feel a bit dizzy.
She had texted Sean all of this information and wondered how his meeting with Dana was going. It had surprised her at first when Sean had started talking about his ex-wife. Michelle learned shortly after the two of them met that Sean had once been married. Yet Dana’s name had never once come up since then. It was as if she had disappeared from the earth, and it was a little jolting to discover that this was not the case, and that Sean would be meeting with her.
She wasn’t feeling jealousy, really, just apprehension. Yet maybe at some level they were the same thing. She also wondered if Dana would actually consent to use her husband’s status in the military to help the man who had divorced her.
As she was driving back to her apartment her phone buzzed. It was Sean. She arranged to meet with him at their office.
“How did it go with Dana?” she asked.
“Not what I expected,” he replied.
Michelle put the phone away not quite knowing how to take that statement.
The offices of King and Maxwell were on the second floor of an unremarkable low-rise building in Fairfax. The views were limited, the building not overly clean, but the rent was cheap, or as cheap as it got around here.
He was already waiting for her when she opened the door and came in. They only had the one large room. The benefit of a secretary was not in their budget—nor was it necessary, Michelle felt. They did quite well on their own; adding a third person to the mix might destroy that delicate balance.
She sat across from him at her still-messy desk. He was seated in his chair, his feet up on his desk.
“So how was it unexpected?” she asked, looking at him pointedly.
He stopped staring at the ceiling and focused on her. “I felt like a priest witnessing a confession.”
“A catharsis for the soul by your ex?”
“I think she really loves her husband.”
“That’s refreshing. Will she help us?”
“Yes. But I told her to be careful.”
“Does she know about the email?”
“What do you really think she can do?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know what we can do actually.” He lifted his feet off the desk and sat up in his chair. “So he wouldn’t tell you what the email said?”
“No. And believe me I tried. Maybe too hard in retrospect.”
“Do you believe him?”
Michelle looked surprised. “Why would he lie about something like that?”
“I’m just mentioning it as a possibility. Since we don’t have independent verification of it, I can’t really treat it as fact yet.”
“Yes, I believe him.”
Sean nodded absently. “We really need to see that email. It could tell us lots of things.”
“You’d think the Army would be monitoring things like that. Emails from soldiers in the battlefield coming back, they have to be under surveillance.”
“No, they don’t. At least not typically. You can use your government email or even a Gmail account to send and receive messages.”
“Even so, maybe Wingo was treated differently?”
“I don’t know. But maybe Sam Wingo figured out a way around that and got a message to his son that only he knows about.”
She said, “Or maybe there was a technical snafu somehow. Maybe the email got delayed and it was sent before Sam was killed but Tyler only received it afterward.”
“Did the email have a time stamp showing when it was sent?” asked Sean.
“I suppose it did. I didn’t actually see it.”
“Right. But someone else with access to Wingo’s computer could have sent it from his father’s email account after Wingo officially died.”
“I asked Tyler about that. He was adamant that only his dad could have sent it.”
“Based on what?”
“He wouldn’t say. And why would someone write such an email in the first place making it seem like it was from Sam Wingo? Pretty cruel trick to play on a kid.”
“We really need to know why Tyler believes his dad wrote it.”
“Sean, he flat-out refused to tell me.”
“It’s tough having an uncooperative client.”
“Do we ever get any other kind?” she shot back. “Our last one initially refused to talk to us at all.”
“Edgar Roy. That’s right, he did.” Sean swiveled around in his chair and then swung it back around to face her. “I wonder if Edgar could get access to that email?”
“How?”
“Do we have Tyler’s email address?”
“I can get it from his friend Kathy. I don’t think kids email much anymore. Or use Facebook. They don’t talk on the phone either. They text or Tumblr or whatever the hell else they do.”
“You sound really old,” Sean pointed out.
“Compared with that age I’m ancient. I’m Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey wondering where the horse and carriage is when the Model T drives up.”
“So get the email from Kathy and we’ll give it to Edgar. If he can sit in front of this huge wall of screens with data flowing in from around the world and make sense of it, I think he can probably hack a teenager’s email.”
“So how did you leave it with Dana?”
“She would see what she could find out. I told her to be careful. It might be dangerous.”
Michelle straightened out a paper clip on her desk. Without looking up she said, “So how was it seeing your ex after all this time?”
“I felt lucky.”
She glanced up frowning. “Lucky?”
“Yeah, lucky that I escaped with my sanity and manhood intact.”
“Think you’ll ever take the plunge again?”
“I don’t know. You’ve never taken it.”
“I’m a lot younger than you,” she said, smiling.
“Yes you are.”
“But we’ve both been aged by life’s events,” she added, her smile fading.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desktop. “Yes we have. Regrets?”
“Wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. Well, maybe the minutes that hurt like a bitch.”
“I wonder if Jean Wingo knows about the email?” asked Sean.
“If I had to guess, I would guess not. They don’t seem to be two people who share much of anything except a house.” Michelle added, “But if Sam Wingo is alive, why is the Army saying he was shot and killed?”
Sean said, “And then mortared. Which gets them around the pesky detail of remains that can be identified by family members.”
“I was thinking the same thing, actually,” said Michelle.
“So again, why? Because the Army has to be in on the subterfuge. They would certainly know if the man was alive or dead, as would members of his unit.”
“Pity we can’t get to them and ask them,” said Michelle.
“I guess it would behoove us to find out when his unit’s coming back stateside.”
“Do you think Dana could wheedle that out of her hubby?”
Sean nodded. “Soldiers are made of strong stuff. But Dana has a way of making men talk.”
“Really?” said Michelle, but her features were clearly annoyed.
Sean didn’t see this warning sign. He gazed at the ceiling, a smile playing off his lips. “She came into the restaurant dressed in a miniskirt, fishnets, and stilettos, with her cleavage spilling out and this really hip blonde hairdo. I have to admit, she looked great. I thought every guy in the restaurant was going to fall out of his chair. One old guy almost choked when she talked about being sexually insatiable.”
“Every guy?” said Michelle, a definite hard edge to her words.
Sean looked at her, suddenly taken aback. “No, of course not every guy.”
“Sexually insatiable? How the hell did that come up in the conversation?”
Sean sputtered, “We were just… I mean, we were just talking… about what went wrong between us, and I—”
Michelle rose. “I’m beat. I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”
She headed for the door.
“Michelle, you’re being silly,” he called after her.
“Great, Sean, just what a woman wants to hear.”
She slammed the door behind her.
CHAPTER
16