Simple Genius

“I’ve got Joan digging on who owns this place. Say what you want about her, she’s really good at that.”

“Most animals with claws are,” Michelle shot back.

They eventually came to stand in front of Turing’s now empty cottage.

“FBI Special Agent with-a-bad-attitude Michael Ventris took all the stuff but I’m having Joan run down where Monk might have traveled to.”

“You said Alicia mentioned it was overseas?”

“She just didn’t know where.”

He took her to Len Rivest’s cottage next.

“Did you check Champ’s alibi on the night Rivest was killed?” she asked.

“Computer says he clocked in Hut Number Two at eleven-thirty and punched out at three in the morning. So whoever I saw around two in the morning, it wasn’t him.”

“And since it looks like Rivest had been dead for at least five hours when you found him, that rules Champ out.”

“Suspects come, suspects go,” Sean said with a sigh.

They next walked down to the boathouse. Michelle ran an expert’s eye over the watercraft. “Nothing too exceptional, mostly recreational,” she pronounced. She motioned to a twenty-six-foot Formula Bowrider up on a boat lift in one of the slips. “One of the owners of this place must be a New Yorker.”

Sean looked at the name stenciled on the stern transom: “The Big Apple.” He pointed across the river. “How long to row across? Not for someone like you, I mean an ordinary mortal.”

She considered this. “Not knowing the current, I’d say at least forty-five minutes or so. It always looks closer on land. When you’re sloughing through the water, it’s a lot farther.”

“So there and back we’re talking over two hours, considering you’d probably be rowing slower on the way back.”

“That’s right.”

He led her through the woods to the spot where Camp Peary could be seen. Michelle pulled a pair of binoculars from her backpack and focused them.

The sun was glancing off the shiny fence surrounding the CIA’s property.

“Heck of a shot at you,” she said, studying the distance and trajectory.

“Yeah, well let’s be happy it wasn’t a helluva shot or I wouldn’t be here.”

She pointed to her left at the break in the tree line. “Runway?”

“Yep.”

She looked at the large cranes farther down the river. “Navy?” Sean nodded. “Where’d they find his body?”

“As best I can figure out, right about there.” He pointed to a wooded spot about five hundred yards down from the runway.

“So the thing is, if Monk went over there voluntarily and not just to kill himself, then he either went to meet someone, or to spy on the place and someone got the jump on him,” she said.

“Right, but if he went to spy on the place the CIA had every right to shoot him. So why cover it up to make it look like suicide?”

“Well, maybe it was suicide after all,” Michelle said.

“But what about Rivest? He was most definitely murdered.”

“Unconnected to Monk’s death,” she said simply.

Sean didn’t look as confident. “Maybe.”

As they walked back Sean abruptly said, “Look, I should’ve given you a heads-up that Horatio was coming down. I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

“Forget it,” she replied. But she said it in a way that Sean knew she would never forget it.

CHAPTER 46

AS SOON AS THEY CLIMBED in Michelle’s truck, Sean rolled down the window and took a deep breath. “I recall you once cleaned out your truck for me so I could breathe without the aid of machinery.”

“That was back when I used to like you,” she said, slipping the truck into gear. “Okay, where to now?”

They drove along the river. Every half-mile or so they passed a ruined mansion or plantation; the only thing left standing in most of them were multiple brick chimney stacks.

“The third little pig was right, build it out of brick and it’ll last,” Michelle commented.

They finally stopped at one property and got out. Sean walked up the overgrown drive and Michelle followed. On the tilting stone entrance column was the name “Farleygate” written in weathered bronze script.

Sean said, “There was a book on local history at Babbage Town that I read through. Farleygate was owned by the son of some famous inventor.”

Michelle asked, “So what happened?”

“Like lots of rich people who inherit money, he blew it. Most of the mansions around here, Brandonfield, Tuckergate, have fallen into ruins.”

Michelle added, “Or been turned into secret labs where people die.”

A chilly wind blew across the front lawn that was rapidly being consumed by the surrounding forest.

“I bet it was beautiful when it was new,” Michelle said as she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and stared up at the manse. Unlike many of the abandoned manors around here, Farleygate’s walls were still standing though the large wooden front double doors had rotted away, most of the windows were broken out and the slate roof was full of holes. “Probably a nice place to grow up,” she said a bit wistfully.

He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve never even owned a home. I didn’t think you were into possessions.”

“I’ve never been married either. It doesn’t mean I can’t look,” she shot back.

Noise filtered out from the mansion.