Simple Genius by David Baldacci
“You hear that plane come in earlier?” he asked the guard.
The man didn’t answer. He simply handed Sean his card and turned back to his computer monitor.
“Love you too,” Sean muttered as he headed out.
It was still dark and Sean stood there for a bit wondering what to do. Alicia had been wrong; he wasn’t just doing this for the money. He wanted to find out what had happened to Monk Turing. Every child should know what had happened to his or her parents. And every murderer should be punished.
Monk had left the country eight or nine months ago. Where had he gone? His passport would show where if he had used the normal channels of international travel. But if he had traveled under a fake name or via another country’s planes? Was he a spy? Had he gone out of the country to pass Babbage Town secrets to another country willing to pay well for them?
He breathed in fresh air devoid of the toxic fumes of the Washington Beltway and listened for a moment to scurrying feet from the nearby woods. Squirrels and deer probably; people made far different noises when they were moving. Sean had been trained to deduce the motive behind a person’s movements. It wasn’t actually all that hard to do. Most people couldn’t hide their motives to save their lives. If they could, far more than four American presidents would have been assassinated.
Sean had some FBI Hostage Rescue buddies who’d trained at Camp Peary with the CIA’s paramilitary units. These units traveled the world doing things no one at the CIA or anyone else in the government would ever talk about. Sean definitely did not want to cross swords with them. But had Turing?
Sean walked on, finally arriving at Len Rivest’s place. It was pretty early as yet and Rivest had really hung one on last night. He decided he’d let the guy sleep. He tossed his coffee in a trash can, passed the security office and a one-story squat building that appeared to be a garage and turned left where a sign that read “Boathouse” pointed down a gravel path. As he walked along Sean was quickly engulfed by forest.
It took twenty minutes to clear the trees and he came to the York River and the boathouse belonging to Babbage Town, which was situated along a pier that jutted out into the wide, calm, deepwater river. It was a long, plain cedar board structure painted yellow with multiple slips and garage-style doors enclosing each slip. He tried the door to the boathouse but it was locked. He peered through a window and could make out the shapes of several boats. He walked out onto a floating dock attached to the boathouse and noted several kayaks stacked on a holder there as well as two paddleboats tethered to cleats. One covered boat slip was open. On a power lift there were three Sea-Doos with their covers on. If Monk had used one of these crafts to get to Camp Peary, who had returned it here? Dead men didn’t make good sailors.
The sun was coming up now, throwing streams of light across the flat surface of the water. Sean pulled out a pair of binoculars from his knapsack. The sunlight was glinting off the razor wire fence on the other side of the York. Sean walked down to the edge of the river, his feet near the sandy edge, and took a sweep of the land opposite, not seeing much of interest. A couple of discarded crab pots floated in the water. Channel markers rose out of the depths of the York and a low-flying heron swooped effortlessly across his line of sight looking for breakfast in the murky water.
He wondered where the runway was that would allow a large jet to land. As he looked to his left he saw it: a clearing in the tree line revealing a wide swath of grass. The runway must start just after the grass, he thought.
Farther down to his left, long crane arms reached to the sky. The Cheatham Annex, he concluded. Navy boys. On the drive to Babbage Town he’d seen a gunmetal gray destroyer alongside a pier in front of the Naval Weapons Station. This area was alive with the presence of the military. For some reason that didn’t give him comfort.
The small branch fell from the tree and hit him on the head. Sean dropped to the ground not because the branch had hurt him, but because something else almost had. It had to have been a long-range rifle round. The bullet had clipped the branch right over his head. He hunkered down in the tall river grass. Who the hell had taken a shot at him? After about a minute he chanced a peek, his gaze scanning across the river. The shot had to have come from there. Now the question was obvious. Did the shooter intend to miss just to scare him, or was the branch supposed to be Sean’s brain?
When the next bullet whipped over his head, missing it by inches, his question was answered. The person was trying to kill him.
He burrowed deeper into the dirt and sand, pressing his body as flat to the ground as he could.
He waited for two minutes. When no other shot sailed past he began clutching at the short grass and propelling himself backward, resembling a snake whipping through the grass, albeit in reverse. He reached a patch of tall grass, and then the tree line. Once behind a thick oak, he stood and began zigzagging through the trees back toward Babbage Town.
He hit the path and ran flat-out to Len Rivest’s bungalow. Rivest didn’t answer his knock, so Sean pushed the door open and went in.
“Len. Len! Somebody just took a shot at me.”
No one was on the main floor. He raced up the stairs, two steps at a time, and flung open the first door he came to and stopped, his chest heaving.
Len Rivest was lying naked at the bottom of his claw-footed bathtub, his eyes staring unseeingly at the pale blue ceiling.
CHAPTER
21
HORATIO BARNES WAS SITTING at his desk looking at a map showing the small town in Tennessee where Michelle had lived when she was six.
Horatio had learned from Bill Maxwell that Michelle was many years younger than her next oldest sibling. Michelle might have been a mistake, Horatio mused. That could affect a child, he knew.
Horatio had pulled a few strings and gotten some information from her work file at the Secret Service. It had listed all the traits he knew that she had: control freak, hard on her underlings, but hardest on herself, incorruptible, fair, all earmarks of a good federal agent. Somewhere along the line she had lost or at least managed to control her fears, her inability to trust others, though the two agents he’d talked to about her had had strikingly similar comments. Both men had said that they would have trusted her with their lives, but they had never managed to get to know the enigmatic person behind the Kevlar and Glock pistol.
He’d had patients like Michelle before, and he’d wanted to help them all, but with Michelle he felt an extra urge to get her straight. It might be because she’d risked her life for her country or was the closest friend of Sean King, a man he respected like few others of his acquaintance. Or perhaps it was because he felt in her a hurt so deep that he just wanted to help her erase it, if she could.
And there was another reason, one he had not shared with Sean King or Michelle. People who attempted to end their lives, no matter how amateurishly they might do so at first, often got better at it, with the result that on the third, fourth or sixth try, they ended up on a slab with a coroner poking around their remains. He could not allow that to happen to Michelle Maxwell. He had a week’s vacation coming up. He’d planned on flying to California to go abalone diving with some friends. Instead, he went online and bought a plane ticket to Nashville.
CHAPTER
22
MICHELLE HEARD THE FOOTSTEPS AGAIN, exactly at one A.M. She rose and slipped out the door. Now she had added incentive to find out what Barry the Peeping Tom was up to. She prayed it was at least a felony. She headed down the darkened hall, gauging the pace of the steps echoing lightly in front of her. She reached the end of the corridor and peered around the corner. There was a light on at the end of the hall. She edged forward until she could see its source. It was the pharmacy. There was someone in there. As the man moved in front of the glass window in the door, she saw that it wasn’t Barry. It was the little man she’d seen in the pharmacy earlier. Pretty late to be dispensing drugs, she thought.
As she stood there another figure appeared near the doo
Michelle heard it before she saw anything; it was the slight squeak of rubber on linoleum. At first she thought it was the sneakers that the nurses here wore. But then she saw the wheelchair come into view. Sandy was fully dressed, her hands efficiently propelling her down the hall. Then she stopped and took up watch, her gaze on the pharmacy door. Michelle quickly drew back as Sandy suddenly whipped her head around and looked in her direction. A minute later when Michelle dared look back around the corner, Sandy was gone. A few minutes after that Barry and the other man left the pharmacy, the latter closing and locking the door. Fortunately, they walked down the hall away from Michelle.
As soon as their footsteps had faded, she stepped forward and made her way cautiously down to the pharmacy. What surprised her was that both men had left the pharmacy empty-handed. What was going on here?
Then she turned her attention down the other hall, toward Sandy’s room. She edged along the corridor, taking small, near-silent steps and hugging the wall. She reached Sandy’s room. It was dark. She peered in the glass and could just make out Sandy lying on the bed. The woman was obviously pretending to be asleep. But what had she been doing watching the pharmacy? Was she part of whatever Barry was up to? Michelle didn’t want to believe that but she couldn’t discount the possibility.
Michelle slipped back to her room where sleep didn’t come easily. She tossed for several hours, her mind racing with possible theories that would explain what she had seen, each one more unlikely than the last.
She woke early and went down to breakfast. After that she attended another group session that Horatio had arranged for her. Then she had a one-on-one with a therapist. After it was over, Michelle made a beeline for Sandy’s room and found her there. With other people.
“What’s wrong?” Michelle said. A doctor, two nurses and a security guard were gathered around Sandy’s bed. The woman was lying there thrashing around and moaning.
One nurse turned to her. “Please return to your room, right now.”
The guard stepped toward her, his hands out. “Right now,” he said.
Michelle turned and left, but she didn’t go far.
A few minutes later her vigil was rewarded when the group left Sandy’s room and passed her. Sandy was strapped to a gurney and there was an IV in her arm. She appeared to be sleeping now. Her Secret Service training kicking in, Michelle continued to run her gaze down the woman’s arm to her hands. What she saw puzzled her deeply. Sandy had always been so meticulous about her appearance.
Michelle waited until they were out of sight and then she hustled to Sandy’s room and closed the door behind her. She felt a bit guilty about taking advantage of Sandy’s illness to search her room. But only a bit.
It didn’t take long because the woman had brought few personal possessions with her. One thing that she wasn’t seeing puzzled Michelle. No pictures of family or friends. Then again, Michelle hadn’t brought any of those with her either. But from the loving way Sandy had talked about her late husband, Michelle would have thought she’d have at least one picture of the man. Yet with the horrific way it had ended, maybe she didn’t want a reminder.
She looked around the room and her gaze settled on the bouquet of flowers. She examined the table the bouquet was on, tracing her finger across the veneer of fine dirt particles. Her gaze went to the floor, where she could see a few bits of dirt as well. That’s what had puzzled her about Sandy’s hands. There was dirt on them. As though she’d—
Michelle raced across the room and flattened herself against the wall next to the door. Someone was out there. The door opened slowly. Michelle ducked down away from the glass opening so the person couldn’t see her through it.
As the person came in and walked toward the bed, Michelle silently slipped around the door and through it. She glanced back and saw Barry advancing toward Sandy’s bed. She raced down the hall and to the nurse’s station.
“I just saw someone sneak into Sandy’s room, I don’t think he’s supposed to be there since Sandy’s sick,” she said to the nurse on duty there. The woman rose immediately and walked quickly down the hall.
Michelle fled back to her room and almost collided with Cheryl, who was coming out sucking on her straw. Michelle didn’t want to be alone right now in case Barry came to give her a little payback for ratting him out. Michelle clearly couldn’t count on the nurse she’d told keeping her identity confidential. In fact she might be mad at Michelle for making her rush to Sandy’s room only to find Barry there. As the bastard had said, he could come and go pretty much as he pleased.
“Hey, Cheryl, you want to talk or something?”
Cheryl stopped sucking momentarily and looked at Michelle as though she was seeing her for the very first time.
Michelle started speaking quickly, “I mean we’re roommates and all and we really haven’t gotten to know each other. And I think it says somewhere in the patient handbook that we all ought to try and relate to each other as a form of therapy. You know, a little girl-to-girl soul-searching.”
Michelle’s invitation was so obviously insincere that Cheryl simply walked past her after giving her straw an extra-loud slurp. Michelle slipped inside the room and pressed herself against the door.
Twenty minutes passed and Barry didn’t come for her. She wasn’t physically afraid of the man. She had already sized him up as a bully who would turn and run the first time he was struck back harder than the blow he’d delivered. But he could hurt her in another way, by making allegations against her. Or he might slip some stolen drugs in her bed. If people believed him over her, what would happen? Would she be stuck in this place against her will? Would she go to prison? Her chin sank to her chest as a horrible depression dropped solidly on her shoulders.
Sean, come and rescue me from this place. Please. Then the obvious occurred to her. She was here voluntarily. She had checked herself in, she could check herself out. She could leave right now. She could go to the apartment Sean had gotten for them, chill out for a day and then go down and join him. He would probably need her help right about now anyway. He always needed her at some point on a case.
She burst out the door and almost ran into the nurse standing there.
Michelle blinked and stepped back. “Yeah?”
“Michelle, Sandy wants to see you.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s stabilized. And she wants to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.”
“Of course you can’t,” Michelle grumbled under her breath as she followed the woman down the hallway. But then her pace quickened. She did want to see Sandy. She wanted to see her very much.
CHAPTER
23
HORATIO BARNES DROVE HIS RENTAL CAR out of the Nashville airport. An hour later he was in rural Tennessee looking for the small town where Michelle Maxwell had lived when she was six years old. He found it after several wrong turns and some time-consuming backtracking. He reached the small, crumbling town center, stopped and asked for directions at the hardware store and drove out of town heading southwest. He was sweating because apparently his rental fee didn’t cover a car with functioning air-conditioning.
The neighborhood where Michelle had lived clearly had seen better days. The homes were old and dilapidated, the yards ill-nourished. He checked house numbers on the mailboxes until he found it. The Maxwell house was set off the street. It had a large front yard with a dying oak anchoring it. On one limb was a tire hanging from a rotting
The paint on the clapboard siding was peeling away and the screen on the front door had fallen off and was lying on the steps. Horatio couldn’t tell if the place was inhabited or not. From its piecemeal look he reasoned it was an old farmhouse. Presumably the original owners had sold the bulk of the land to a developer and the neighborhood had sprung up around their homestead.
He wondered what it would have been like for the young girl to grow up here with just her parents, the beloved sons having moved on to manhood. Horatio also wondered again if Michelle’s conception had been an accident. Would that have influenced how her parents treated her? From experience Horatio knew that one could cut both ways. Which way had it cut with you, Michelle?
He pulled his rental to the edge of the graveled shoulder, got out and looked around, wiping the sweat off his face with his handkerchief. Apparently there wasn’t an active neighborhood watch program because no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Probably there was nothing here worth stealing.
Horatio walked up the gravel drive. Part of him was waiting for an old hound to lumber around the corner of the structure with teeth bared just looking for a plump leg to bite. However, no animal or person came forward to greet or attack him. He reached the porch and peered inside the busted front door. The place seemed abandoned, or if not, the current inhabitants were setting a new standard for minimalism.
“Can I help you?” a firm voice said.
Horatio swung around and saw a woman standing there at the end of the drive. She was young, short and chubby, wore a faded sundress and had a fat baby riding on her left hip. Her hair was dark and curly and in the humidity it clung to her head like a skullcap.
He walked toward her. “I sure hope so. I’m trying to find out about the people who used to live in this house.”
She stared over his shoulder. “You mean the bums, druggies or whores?”
He followed her gaze. “Oh, is that what it’s used for these days?”
“I pray to the Lord to strike the sinners dead.”
“I presume the sinners don’t come by in the daylight, just at night.”
“Well ain’t no law says we got to hide in bed when it gets dark. So we see the evil and evil it is.”
“Well, I’m really sorry about that. But I wasn’t talking about the, um, evil. I was talking about a family named the Maxwells; they lived here about thirty years ago?”