Chapter FORTY-FIVE
Sunday was one of those days when you accomplish nothing and end up tired in the process. I was looking forward to the downtime. One of the things I enjoyed about my island was the opportunity to hide out and spend the day alone with a book. If I didn’t answer the phone, no one was offended. They’d leave a message on the answering machine and get on with their day. The islanders understood the need for quiet time. As it turned out, I was tired by the time I went to bed that night, but it wasn’t from reading a book. The day got a bit complicated as it wore on.
I’d called Jock after I’d gotten home the afternoon before and told him what J.D. had said. He thanked me, but said he couldn’t talk about the laptop over the phone. He would fill me in when he got back to the key.
I pulled Christine Kling’s latest novel from the stack of books I had set aside to read. Her character, Seychelle Sullivan, was back on her tugboat, solving another mystery. I’d heard Ms. Kling had suspended the series and was writing something else. I hoped she’d get back to Seychelle.
The outdoor temperature had moved into the seventies. The sky was clear, the sun bright, and a small breeze blew out of the south. I sat on the patio with my book until my stomach began to rumble with hunger. Some warmed-over pizza and a diet cola took care of that.
I knew J.D. would be working, trying to tie all the ends together, figure out who was trying to kill her, and why. I had thought about calling her for lunch, but finally discarded the notion. She needed some time to work and get her thoughts together. I wasn’t going to be the instrument of her decision to stay on the island. That was a decision she had to make alone, to come to terms with a different existence than she’d known in Miami. If she couldn’t make the transition, she’d be better off back in South Florida. I would be worse off, but that should not be part of her equation. She had to find her own happiness, and if that cut me out, so be it.
My phone rang a couple of times, but I didn’t answer. I listened to the messages left on the machine. If the calls had been important, I’d have called back immediately. Neither of them was about anything that couldn’t wait until the next day. Late in the afternoon, just as the sun was beginning its daily descent into the Gulf, I heard the front door open and turned to see Jock walk in. He looked tired, stressed. I knew him better than any other person on the planet and I sensed that things hadn’t gone well in D.C.
“Hi, podna,” he said. “Taking a day off?”
“Yeah. Looks like you need one. Want to talk?”
He put his duffel down, went to the kitchen, and rummaged around in the refrigerator. He came out onto the patio with a cold O’Doul’s and took the empty chair. “We lost another agent last week. An old friend of mine.”
“Where?”
“Columbia. He was deep undercover and somebody took him out.”
“Are you sure somebody figured out who he was?”
“Yeah. They carved ‘CIA’ in his chest.”
“You’re not CIA.”
“No. But those people figure all American agents are CIA.”
“I’m sorry, Jock.”
“It’s an occupational hazard. But we think somebody inside our agency had something to do with this one and the two guys who were taken out several months ago.”
“The ones Gene Alexander was involved with.”
“Yeah. This one, too.”
“Gene was working on your friend’s murder?”
“The director called him the first of this week to get him involved. He’d hit an absolute dead end on the first two murders and they called off the investigation. He said he thought Gene would be better off working than moping around thinking about Nell.”
“And you think Gene’s murder is connected to the investigation?”
“Looks like it.”
“What was the deal with the laptop?”
“Gene was using the laptop on his end of the investigation. He could get into almost any database the agency has. He was trolling, trying to find an opening, somebody who had access who shouldn’t have, or somebody communicating with the bad guys in some way.”
“You think somebody killed Gene to get the laptop?”
“No. We think Gene was taken out by whoever is screwing with us. My guess is that the laptop was just there and the killer figured it might have information his bosses could use.”
“Sounds like that laptop would have a lot of information in it.”
“Yeah, but I doubt anybody would be able to crack the encryption. There are layers built in that would be almost impossible to break. But, the very fact that the computer was the only thing taken makes it more likely that this was a professional hit.”
“Anything else point to that conclusion?”
“Gene wasn’t a trained field agent. He was an analyst. Spent his whole life with computers, looking at intel, trying to stay a step or two ahead of the bad guys. Still, he would have been aware of his surroundings. I think it would have been very difficult for somebody who didn’t know what they were doing to be able to slip up on him.”
“Maybe Gene was asleep. We’ll never know.” I said.
“You’re probably right.”
“I talked with J.D. She wants to meet with you as soon as possible.”
“Call her. We can order in pizza.”
“I had pizza for lunch.”
“Won’t kill you to eat it again.”