A flicker of impatience rose in Joe’s hard face, but his wife joined them, shuddering in the cool wind as she stepped out of the converted barn. “What an awful thing suicide is.” She crossed her arms on her chest, her windbreaker, with its prominent Breakwater Security logo, not warm enough for the cool temperature. “When I was in high school, one of my classmates killed himself. I’ll never forget it. There was no reason, not that any of us saw.”
“As far as I know, Alicia Miller didn’t leave a suicide note,” Huck said.
“Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe she wanted her death to look like an accident.” Sharon shook her head, staring at the ground. “Maybe it was an accident, but she was reckless and didn’t care what happened to her, didn’t fight to save herself.”
Joe Riccardi’s jaw seemed to clamp down on itself. “We shouldn’t speculate.”
His wife didn’t seem to hear him. “I wonder if Miss Miller had an underlying mental illness-would that make her death easier for her family and friends? If they could latch onto a reason, maybe-”
“There’s never a reason to kill yourself,” her husband snapped.
Her head jerked up, and she looked taken aback at his sharp tone. “No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. A reason in her own mind-”
Joe broke in as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’d think if Miller had obvious emotional problems the Justice Department would have taken some kind of action. Insist she take a leave of absence. They wouldn’t just sit back and do nothing.” He stopped himself. “Now I’m speculating. We don’t know what happened.”
“How well did you all know her?” Huck asked.
Sharon turned to him. “We met last month at a party Gerard Lattimore held at the marina restaurant here in Yorkville. Joe and I were there with Oliver.”
“Quinn Harlowe?”
“She was there, too.”
Joe straightened, even more rigid than usual. “Let’s leave the investigating to the authorities. We have our own job to do. Boone? You all set? If the police have further questions to ask you-”
“I’ll be in the shower.”
His deliberately flip answer got a reaction out of Lieutenant Colonel Riccardi. He made two fists. Huck thought he’d end up with at least one of them coming at his jaw, but his new boss restrained himself.
His wife touched his hand. “Joe.”
Neither Riccardi said anything as Huck ducked into the converted barn. A straight hall ran down the middle, with rooms on either side, like horse stalls. There was a kitchen with cafeteria tables, an office, a men’s room, a shower room. The bedrooms were at the far end-mostly singles, but a few doubles and one triple with its own private bath, apparently for any women who showed up. So far, Sharon Riccardi was the only female on the premises, but she stayed in the main house with her husband.
Huck ran into Vern Glover at the far end of the hall. “I heard about the dead woman, Boone. Damn. Couldn’t you have picked a different route for your morning run and kept us out of this thing?”
“Sure. Next time I’ll check my crystal ball to find out where the dead people are.”
“You ran past the body and didn’t see it?”
Vern had him there. Huck had noticed the red kayak in the tall grass out by the water, but hadn’t thought much of it. If he’d investigated, he could have spared Quinn the trauma of discovering her friend’s body.
“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” he said.
Travis Lubec emerged from the room across the hall from Huck’s. Lubec had just moved into the converted barn. He had worked security for Oliver Crawford for a couple of years and wasn’t among those fired after his kidnapping-apparently, Crawford had ignored some piece of sage advice Lubec had given him before his trip to the Caribbean.
Nick Rochester, a kid maybe a hair older than Cully O’Dell, joined the men in the hall, coming in through the back door. He and Lubec were scrubbed, serious and ultrafit, wearing Breakwater Security polo shirts and khakis, their weapons in shoulder holsters.
Lubec’s gaze fell on Huck. “You’re bad luck, Boone.”
Rochester nodded. “Hell, yeah. You’re here, what, three days, and you’ve already managed to stumble on a body and end up under the hot lights, talking to the feds.”
“Just one fed,” Huck said. “The rest were local guys.”
“You’re a cheeky bastard, aren’t you?” Travis took a step closer to him. “I’d watch that mouth if I were you.”
“Cheeky. That’s a PBS kind of word, isn’t it?” Huck replied. “Shouldn’t you say ‘cheeky bastard’ with an upper-crust British accent?” Huck yawned. “You know that Lubec and Rochester are both names of towns, right? Lubec, Maine. Rochester, New York.”
Vern rolled his eyes at Huck’s taunting the two meats. Lubec’s fair cheeks turned red, but he didn’t say anything. The kid told Huck to fuck off.
“Boone’s had a rough morning,” Vern said. “Don’t kill him.”
Lubec took a couple of breaths through his nose, then glared at Vern. “I’ll excuse him this time. Next time, I’m not cutting him any slack.”
After Lubec and Rochester left, Vern stuck a thick finger in Huck’s face. “I’m not bailing you out again. If you want to mouth off, you can take the consequences.”
“I was just stating a fact. Lubec and Rochester -”