Sean thought again about his Harley-riding friend Horatio Barnes and decided he would give him a call later. He was torn, though, because he wanted Horatio to focus on getting Michelle well.

Rivest continued, “He was seen at dinner the night before his body was discovered. After that he went to do some follow-up work in his department.”

“How do you know that?” Sean said, sharply.

“The computer log showed him leaving there at eight-thirty. His movements after that are just speculation.”

“How’d he get to Camp Peary? Did he swim or take a boat? Or drive?”

“I don’t see how he could have driven. You can’t get to that part of the compound without going through the main gate. And we can’t tell if he swam over or not. Because of all the rain his body and clothes were soaked through. But it’d be a long haul across the river.”

“By process of elimination he probably went by boat. Any found nearby?”

“No.”

“Are there any boats kept here?”

“Oh, sure. Some rowboats and kayaks; there’s a large sailboat and a few racing sculls. And there’re a couple of powerboats owned by Babbage Town.”

“So lots of watercraft available; but none missing?”

“Right. But if someone did take him over, they could have just put the boat back in its place and who would know?”

“Where are they kept?” Sean asked.

“At a boathouse down by the river.”

“Anybody hear a motorboat on the night Monk was killed?”

Rivest shook his head. “But the boathouse is a good ways away with forest in between. It’s conceivable nothing would’ve been heard.”

“We seem to be hitting a wall everywhere.”

“You feel like a drink?” Rivest asked.

“You think I need one?”

“No, I do. Come on, we’ll have some dinner, a few drinks, and then tomorrow I’ll tell you more about Babbage Town than you’ll ever want to know.”

“Tell me this much, is it worth somebody getting killed over?”

In the fading sunlight, Rivest stared over Sean’s shoulder at the mansion. “Hell, Sean, it’s worth countries going to war over.”

IT WAS ONE A.M. when over the sounds of Cheryl’s light snoring Michelle heard footsteps in the hallway again. Already dressed, she stepped out in the hallway in her stocking feet and followed the person. It was Barry’s tread, she was pretty sure.

She stopped as the footsteps up ahead halted. Michelle looked around. She was on the corridor headed to Sandy’s room. She hadn’t believed Barry when he’d said he didn’t know the woman. His explanation had been too clumsy. Her ears perked up as the person started walking again.

She slid forward, her gaze sweeping across the dimmed lights of the hallway ahead. She heard a door open and close. Michelle edged forward and peered around the corner. There was a light on at the end of the hallway. Then it went out. She ducked back behind the wall when another door opened and closed. After waiting about five minutes, Michelle heard a door open and close again. The footsteps started coming back toward her. She looked around for someplace to hide.

She ducked inside an empty room and crouched next to the door. When the person walked past she peered through the window in the top half of the door. It wasn’t Barry. The person was too small. She didn’t get a good look at him because he had on a hat and his coat collar was turned up. When he disappeared from her line of sight she left the room and debated whether to follow him or go and see where he had been. She finally opted for the latter. She crept down the hall, turned the corner and continued on.

At the end of the hall was the door to the pharmacy. Was that the one she’d heard open and close? She looked to her left. Sandy’s room was here too. She peered through the glass of the woman’s door. Sandy was asleep in her bed or at least she seemed to be.

As Michelle glanced down at the floor, her gaze caught on something. She stooped and picked it up. It was a piece of white puffy plastic that people used in shipping boxes. She put it in her pocket, looked once more at Sandy sleeping and quietly made her way back to her room.

The next morning Michelle woke early and made the rounds of the corridors. She passed Sandy’s room as the woman wheeled herself out into the hall. Sandy wore a Red Sox ball cap and a generous smile.

“How’s the migraine?” Michelle asked.

“All gone. One good night of sleep usually does it. Thanks for asking.”

“When’s your shrink session?”

“My first is at eleven. Then there’s a group session after lunch. Then they give me my drugs. Then a counselor comes and sees me. Then I get another little pop of joy pills and then go gab with some more strangers. At that point, I’m so looped I could give a shit. I’ll tell ’em whatever they want to hear. Like my mom breast-fed me until I left for the prom, stuff like that. They eat it up and then go write articles on it for the medical journals while I’m laughing my ass off.”

“I don’t think I could do the group thing,” Michelle said.

Sandy spun her wheelchair around in a tight circle. “Oh, it’s easy. All you have to do is get up, or, in my case, remain seated, and say, ‘Hi, I’m Sandy and I’m screwed up so bad, but I want to do something about it. That’s why I’m here.’ And then everybody claps and throws you kisses and tells you how brave you are. And then I get a sleeping pill and crash for ten hours and get up and do it all over again.”

“Sounds like you have the routine down pat.”

“Oh, honey, I’m at the point where I see the questions coming before they even ask them. It’s cat and mouse stuff, only they haven’t figured out that I’m the cat and they’re the mouse.”

“You ever try and address whatever’s actually making you depressed?”

“Hell no, then it gets way too complicated. The truth will not set me free, it’ll just make me suicidal. So until they let me out of here, I dance my little jig”-she slapped the wheels of her chair-“figuratively speaking of course, and Sandy goes with the flow, so long as they keep giving me my pills.”

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

“When people tell you you’re paralyzed from the waist down, you think to yourself, ‘Okay, that’s a real bitch, but at least I can’t feel anything hurting.’ Wrong with a capital fucking W. What they don’t tell you is how much being paralyzed hurts. The bullet that took my legs away is still inside me. The quacks said it was too close to my spine to remove. So it just sits there, that little nine-millimeter son of a bitch. And every year or so it moves a tiny bit. Ain’t that something? I can’t move but it can. And the real zinger is the quacks say that if it ever hits against a certain place on my spine, I might just drop dead, or lose the feeling in the rest of my body and become a full-fledged quad. How ’bout that? Isn’t that just too screwed up for words?”

Michelle said, “I’m really sorry. My problems don’t seem like such a big deal now.”

Sandy waved this remark off. “Let’s go get some breakfast. The eggs are for shit and the bacon looks like pieces of tire tread and tastes worse, but at least the coffee’s hot. Come on, I’ll race you.” Sandy took off and Michelle, smiling, trotted after her, then grabbed the wheelchair’s handles and sprinted down the hallway, Sandy screaming with laughter the whole way.

After breakfast, Michelle met with Horatio.

“I talked with your brother Bill again.”

“And how is Bill?”

“Good. He doesn’t see you much, though. That goes for the rest of the family.”

“We’re all busy.”

He handed her the letter from her mother.

“I was at your and Sean’s apartment and picked it up. I know you haven’t seen the place, but it’s really nice. I’m glad I got to see it before you trashed it like your truck. Speaking of major landfills, ever think of cleaning your Toyota out? I mean just from the perspective of preventing bubonic plague.”