unoccupied foyer and ducked down behind a large potted tree.
When Barry unlocked the door and came back in, Michelle tensed. This would be tight because she didn’t have a key. With one eye on Barry and one eye on the slowly closing door, she darted out. He was less than three feet from her and never turned around, a testament to how silently she could move. As Barry disappeared around the corner, Michelle stabbed her foot inside the door to prevent it from closing. Removing her shoe she wedged it between the door and the jamb and hurried out.
It only took her a few seconds to find Barry’s package in the pile outside the building next to the mailbox. Michelle whipped out a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote down the address where the box was going. She also glanced at the sender’s name and wasn’t terribly surprised to find it wasn’t Barry’s.
“Lola Martin,” she said, reading off the sender’s name. She ducked back inside the building, grabbed her shoe and jogged back to her section of the building. She managed to distract a nurse long enough to take a peek at the patient records at the nurse’s station. Lola Martin was comfortably ensconced in the Cuckoo’s Nest, the psychotic residents of which were not known to post many packages. She ducked into the patient services center and used a telephone there to make a phone call to a buddy of hers with the Fairfax police. After she’d filled him in, he said, “How’d you score this info, Maxwell?”
“I’m, uh, working undercover.”
An hour later, Michelle went into Sandy’s empty room. The flowers were still there, but the dirt had been cleaned up off the floor. Michelle assumed that Sandy’s hands were by now spick-and-span clean too, even under the manicured nails. Michelle had never had that problem for the simple fact that she’d never had a manicure. She didn’t want anyone messing with her trigger finger.
Five minutes later, her mission accomplished, Michelle headed back to her room. That afternoon she attended a group session. She was so pleased with the progress she’d made on nailing Barry that she actually stood up and talked about herself. “I’m Michelle and I want to get better,” she said.
“In fact, I think I am better.” She’d smiled at the others in the circle as they nodded approvingly. Some lightly clapped their hands while others whispered words of encouragement. A few others sat there sulking or else looking at her in disbelief.
If it occurred to Michelle that the only reason she thought she was better was because she’d made herself too busy to think about her own problems, the woman showed no sign of such an internal dilemma. She essentially lived for the adrenaline and not for the often calamitous revelations of self-examination. True to that personality trait, all she could think about was Barry and Sandy. After that she just wanted to get the hell out of here before they finally figured out she might belong in the Cuckoo’s Nest after all.
CHAPTER 29
SEAN SAT ACROSS FROM ALICIA in her office in Hut Number One. She’d whisked him through the main area so fast that he’d only been able to see a large open area with lots of small desks and what was doubtless a genius at every one of them. He could almost smell the mental power of the folks working there along with the hum of multiple servers.
He motioned to Alicia’s right leg and said in a joking tone, “You try and club me with that thing I’m going to lay you out.”
She didn’t even crack a smile. “How did Len Rivest die? And don’t tell me it was a suicide.”
He noticed that her eyes were red. “I don’t know how he died.”
“How could you
“Only the killer knows for sure. And considering that I didn’t kill him, I can only speculate as to the cause of death.”
“All right, go ahead and speculate.”
“I can’t do that. It’s an ongoing police investigation.”
She snapped, “I can’t believe you’re falling back on that pathetic line.”
“I used to be a cop and I know how leaks can screw up an investigation. The police are treating it as a suspicious death.”
“But that could mean he was murdered or died accidentally?”
He smiled. “Or it might be determined that he actually died from natural causes.”
“You said someone killed him.”
“And I could be wrong.”
“Oh thank you for being such a big help,” she said.
Sean leaned forward, his features no longer jocular. “The fact is I just met you and don’t know you from Eve. For all I know you could be the murderer.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I never met a murderer who said otherwise. That’s why we have defense lawyers.”
“Do you think this is connected to Monk’s death?”
“You must have missed my last point. Would you like me to repeat it?”
Now Alicia sat forward. “Monk Turing’s last will and testament was discovered in his house last night. I was just told that in that will, Monk named me as his daughter’s guardian. I intend to carry that duty out to the fullest. If the girl’s in danger I want to know about it.”
“Monk named you guardian, I didn’t think you two were that close.” “Monk knew that I cared about Viggie. Her well-being is my top priority.” “Well, with Rivest getting killed, Babbage Town doesn’t seem to be all that safe.”
Alicia put a hand over her eyes and moaned, “Poor Len! Oh, God, I can’t believe he’s dead.” Sean sat back. “You seem to be taking Len’s death really hard. Any particular reason why?”
She grabbed a tissue from a box on her desk and blew her nose. “Len and I were friends.”
“Friends. Good friends, or something more?”
“That’s none of your damn business.”
“If you had a relationship with Len Rivest, it will be the business of the police to look into that.”
“Okay, we were seeing each other, so what?”
“Casual dating? Deeper than that? Wedding plans?”
“You are an obnoxious prick!”
“You’re obviously very smart, but apparently you can’t see that I’m preparing you for what the police and FBI will ask. You think Agent Ventris is going to go gentle on you? Dead man plus relationship equals
“I didn’t kill him. Dammit I cared for him. He was a nice man. Maybe we had a future together. Now?” She turned away from him as tears trickled down her face.
“Okay, Alicia, okay,” Sean said gently. “I know this is hard for you.” He paused. “Can you just tell me if Len mentioned anything to you about anyone wanting to hurt him? Or whether he knew anything that might endanger him? Something to do with Babbage Town? Camp Peary? Anything like that?”
Alicia took several deep breaths and wiped her eyes with her sleeve before answering. “Camp Peary? What has that got to do with Len’s death?”
“If Monk Turing’s death is connected to what happened to Len, maybe everything.”
“But I thought you said it looked like Monk killed himself.”
“We don’t know that for sure. But please answer my question, did Len mention anything to you?”
“He never said anyone wanted to hurt him.”
Sean leaned forward. “All right. How about spies here? He ever talk about that?”
She shook her head. “No, never. Why?”
“Just something he said to me. Anything else you can think of?”
“Well, he did say that the people here had no idea what they were getting into. That what we were working on would change the world. And not in a good way.” She attempted a smile. “He said we geeks were clueless about how the real world worked. Maybe he was right.”
“He mentioned to me that what was going on at Babbage Town was worth countries going to war for. It can’t
