Harper noted this and said, “Former chiefs of police here. Way back we had six full-time officers, if can you believe it. But then our population fell off a cliff.”
“It’s going back up, according to Dak Silkwell.”
“It is,” conceded Harper. “The ‘remoters,’ he calls them. They are coming here in droves. I don’t know if it will last, but we’ll take it. Only good thing to come out of COVID, for us.”
“Any news on Jenny’s phone or laptop?”
“We don’t know that she had a laptop with her,” said Fuss.
Devine pulled out his phone and showed a picture he’d taken. “Dust pattern on her desk at the inn. What else could that be?”
“When did you notice that?” asked Harper.
“When we searched the place.”
“And you’re just now telling us?” he barked.
“I thought you had noted it.”
This seemed to make Harper even madder, and he was clearly struggling to keep his temper in check. “How about your folks? Have they traced any of that electronically?”
Devine shook his head. “No, but I got another question.”
“Okay,” said Harper, seeming to brace himself.
“Where was Alex Silkwell attacked all those years ago?”
Harper looked at Fuss, who was now looking at the scuffed wooden floor.
“I was a sergeant back then,” said Harper. “Like Wendy is now. But we had other officers, like I said.”
“Okay. Were you one of the responders? And who called it in? I understand that Alex didn’t. She woke up in the hospital.”
“Why are you asking about that?” said Fuss, now looking at him.
“Because Jenny asked Alex if she had remembered anything about the attack.”
“What?” bellowed Harper. “You mean this time? Who told you that?”
“Alex did.”
“She never told us,” retorted Harper.
“Well, she told me and I’m telling you. So I’d like to know where Alex was found, since it now seems Jenny came up here to look into what happened to her sister.”
“Why, after all this time?” said Fuss.
“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. So the place?”
“Before my time,” said Fuss quickly.
Devine shifted his focus to Harper, who would not meet his eye. “Chief?”
“It was... actually, it was right around where Jenny’s body was found, as a matter of fact. But in the open field before you get to the trees and through the trail there to the bluff by the water.”
Devine’s expression slowly hardened. “And you never put two and two together?”
“No, I didn’t. Hell, I hadn’t even thought about what happened to Alex in years. Your question just now made me think about it.”
“Come on, you really think they’re connected?” interjected Fuss. “What about the military round found out there? And the person who took a shot at you? And the ones who kidnapped you? They were all foreign folks. They weren’t around when that happened to Alex.”
“I don’t know what to make of all that, yet,” conceded Devine. “But the location being the same for Alex and Jenny? It might mean something. We have to follow it up.”
“You can, if you want,” said Harper. “I have better things to do with my time.”
“Okay. Did you confirm that the round fired at me was a NATO round? I’m asking because even though I found the casing, this case is so screwy when it comes to ballistics I want to make sure the casing matches the round fired.”
“We confirmed it, yes. Told the other feds, Saxon and Mann.”
“Did you check Dak’s alibi for the time Jenny was killed?”
Harper exclaimed, “Why in the world would Dak want to kill his own sister?”
“Oldest motivation of all — money.”
“What money?”
“Dak told me some developers want to buy Jocelyn Point. It would be worth millions. Now that Jenny’s gone, the value of Dak’s share went way up.”
Harper eyed Devine. “Okay, we’ll check it out. Thanks for the info.”
“You’re welcome.”
Chapter 37
Later that day, after spending time in his room going over the case notes and his briefing book, and pondering how all of this tied together with what he had found out so far, Devine drove through the wind and rain to the spot where Jenny’s body had been found, and where Alex had also been attacked. As he stared out over the rugged terrain, Devine concluded that the events had to be connected in some way, which meant that the killer of Jenny Silkwell might have also attacked Alex, or at least knew something about it.
But what explained the men who had abducted him? And the woman he had heard? Fuss was right. They were foreigners, most likely, and while they might have reason to kill Jenny because of her ties to CIA, they almost certainly could not have been involved in what happened to Alex fifteen years ago.
He instinctively looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was trying to get a bead on him. That had been a way of life in the Middle East, because there someone was always trying to sneak up and kill you.
This case really came down to one linchpin.
Earl Palmer. He was lying about finding the body, of that Devine was convinced. And the police seemed to have no interest in following that up. Were they being loyal to a local, just equal parts incompetent or stupid, or were they complicit in whatever cover-up was going on?
But the thing was, Palmer didn’t strike Devine as a liar. He seemed just like everyone described him: salt of the earth, nursing perhaps the most painful loss any person can endure.
So why lie under those circumstances?
Is someone making you lie, Earl?
He drove off while the rain continued to pour down, and then abruptly transformed to sleet. And then, just as swiftly, it all stopped and the skies began to clear. The weather really was crazy up here, thought Devine.
He turned onto the main road as his phone buzzed.
It was Campbell. Devine hit the speaker function.
“First things first, Agents Saxon and Mann have made a partial trace of the men who kidnapped you.”
“What did they find out?”
“They arrived in the country the same day they came after you. Flew in from London. Before that we traced them to Brussels. They are a known quantity, killers for hire.”
“Like the guys on the Geneva train?”
“Yes, but at a higher level. You did well to survive, Devine.”
“Any idea who hired them?”
“Not yet. The organization you went after in Geneva has many resources. And while we hit them with a debilitating shot, we obviously didn’t knock them out. Now we’re doing a deep internal security audit here, trying to compartmentalize who knew about your assignment in Maine.”
“Must be a fairly short list.”
“It is, Devine, but we need proof. If we have a mole we’ll find the person and deal with them accordingly.”
“I hope I’m around to see it,” replied Devine. “Anything on the woman on the train? She might have been the one in the house that night.”
“Apparently a woman of many identities, a number of which we are currently running down. It seems most likely that she was engaged by the Geneva folks to deal with you after what you did to them.”
“So she’s a freelancer, then?”
“That’s the prelim at least, but it has not been confirmed. There’s been talk of a new talent out in the mercenary field, but we don’t know if it’s her or not. Now, what’s new on your end?”
Devine went over his suspicions about Earl Palmer and the possible connection of Jenny Silkwell’s murder to the assault on her sister years earlier.