The Sixth Man Read online

  It was on the first floor of a clapboard-sided building painted white with green shutters and a black door. It had a simple arrangement: reception area, two offices, a conference room, and a small kitchen and workspace area in the back. As was her habit, Michelle scouted out and noted the rear exit on the other side of the building.

  Michelle was greeted by a woman in her sixties wearing a pale-blue blouse with a ruffled collar, black skirt, and black heels. Her hair was bottle blond and starting to thin from one perm too many. She had puffy eyes and reddened cheeks. Michelle assumed this was Hilary Cunningham and was proven right when the woman introduced herself. After offering condolences about her unfortunate boss, Michelle asked to look around Bergin’s office.

  “We need to track down who the client is,” she explained.

  Hilary led her to Bergin’s office and then left her alone, murmuring something about burial arrangements. From the utterly devastated look on the woman’s face Michelle wondered if their relationship had been something more than employer and employee. If so, that might be another lead they would have to run down. Bergin’s death might not stem from his representation of Edgar Roy at all. He had been Sean’s friend and law professor, but the truth was the two had not seen each other much over the last few years. There could be secrets in Bergin’s past that might explain his death, even all the way up in Maine.

  Michelle closed the door to the office and sat down behind the man’s old-fashioned partners desk, running her fingers across the faded leather inlay. As she gazed around the room it seemed everything in here was old-fashioned. And solid. She closed her eyes and cast her mind back to the dead man in the car.

  The diminished body. The saggy face. The hole in the head.

  And the rolled-down window that had been rolled back up by the killer.

  A killer Bergin might have known. If true, that could possibly cut the suspect list down substantially.

  She rifled through Bergin’s desk and files. There were several litigation bags parked in a corner of the room but they were empty. No address book. There was no computer on his desk. She slipped back out to the front room and asked Hilary about that.

  “Megan and I use computers, obviously, but he never cared to. Pen and paper and a Dictaphone were good enough for him.”

  “And his calendar?”

  “I kept an appointment calendar on the computer for him and would print out a copy every week. He also had a Daily Planner he carried with him.”

  Michelle nodded. And that Daily Planner would now be in the hands of Agent Murdock. Along with the rest of Bergin’s papers.

  “Do you know if he ever e-mailed or texted from his cell phone?”

  “I seriously doubt he knew how. He preferred talking on the phone.”

  Michelle went back to his office and noted the jar of pens and pencils and stacks of legal pads on the desk.

  Definitely old-fashioned. But then there’s nothing wrong with that.

  She turned her attention to the wooden file cabinets, the closet, a trench coat that was hanging on a wall peg, and lastly a small oak credenza.

  After an hour of searching she came away with nothing helpful.

  She spent another hour questioning Hilary. He had not confided much to her about the Roy case, and Michelle could tell this had somewhat irked the lady.

  “He’s usually very open about his cases,” Hilary said. “We worked together, after all.”

  “And you do the billing?”

  “Absolutely. Which made it strange why he never mentioned to me who had retained him to work for Edgar Roy. How were we to be paid, after all? I mentioned to Sean that Mr. Bergin might have taken the case pro bono, but the more I thought about it the less likely I think that is.”

  “Why?”

  “He has a small practice. He’s made a good income over the years, but a case like this requires a lot of time and expenses. It would have taxed his resources too much.”

  “Well, it’s a high-profile case. Maybe he was doing it for the notoriety.”

  Hilary made a face. “Mr. Bergin was not into notoriety. He was a very well-respected lawyer.”

  “Well, maybe the client made it a condition of the retainer that he couldn’t tell anyone. Do you have bank records? There might be a deposit in there that didn’t go through you.”

  Hilary clicked some keys on her computer. “We maintain an account with a local bank. All funds from the practice go in there. I have online access, so let me check.”

  She looked at various screens and then shook her head. “I made every one of these deposits going back six months.”

  “Might have been cash.”

  “No, there are no cash deposits listed.”

  “Did he keep another account?”

  Hilary looked offended by even the suggestion. “If he did, he never told me about it.”

  “And there’s obviously no retainer agreement in the files for the Roy case?”

  “No. I already checked that.”

  “But if Edgar Roy didn’t hire him, and from what I’ve seen of the man it’s highly doubtful he had the capacity to do so, someone with a power of attorney or something like that had to do it. You can’t just appoint yourself as someone’s lawyer. A court has to do that and only under certain conditions.” She stared at Hilary. “Are you sure that wasn’t the case here?”

  “No. If the court had done so there would be a record of that in the file. Mr. Bergin has served as a public defender assisting indigent clients, but not in this case. And I don’t believe Mr. Roy was indigent. He had a job and a home.”

  “Yeah, he’s just comatose. I’m not sure in this instance which one is worse.”

  “I can’t speak to that.”

  “Maybe a family member retained Bergin? Roy’s parents are dead. Any siblings? Sean couldn’t remember the media mentioning any.”

  “I really didn’t get into that with Mr. Bergin,” said Hilary demurely.

  “But weren’t you curious when he started representing the man? No retainer agreement? No payments?”

  Hilary looked uncomfortable at this query. “I must admit that I thought it unusual. But I would never have questioned Mr. Bergin over a professional matter.”

  “But it was also a business matter. A retainer agreement and getting paid for services is important, too. He’s running a business, after all, and you’re part of that business.”

  “Again, I never questioned it. Mr. Bergin certainly would know what he was doing. And it was his practice after all. I… I was just his employee.”

  Michelle studied the woman. But you wanted to be more. Okay, I get that.

  “He never let anything slip about who might have hired him? The financial arrangement?”

  “No.”

  “So the client never came here?”

  “Well, I’m not here 24/7, but no one like that, no, at least while I was present.”

  “So there were no clients in from the time he started representing Edgar Roy?”

  Hilary looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “If it was a new person you wouldn’t necessarily know why they were here until they met with Bergin.”

  “Oh, right, I see what you mean. Well, with new clients they typically make an inquiry by phone. I would ask them their personal information and what the matter related to. Mr. Bergin doesn’t do all aspects of law so I wouldn’t want people wasting their time coming here.”

  “You serve as a filter.”

  “Exactly. Then they make an appointment if he can do what they need. And if they come to an understanding I would provide them with a retainer agreement.”

  “The same day they’re here?”

  “Sometimes. Or if it was out of the ordinary and Mr. Bergin had to revise the standard document, it might be sent out a few days later to the client’s address. Mr. Bergin was a stickler for that. No work was done until the retainer was signed.”

  “Except in the case of Edgar Roy, apparently.”

>   “Apparently,” sniffed Hilary.

  “Anyone call here asking for Bergin you didn’t recognize?”

  “Well, we get a lot of calls. Most of the people I know, of course. Some I don’t. But nothing like that sticks out in my mind.”

  “Did anyone come in to meet with Bergin around the time he started representing Roy, anyone who you didn’t send out a retainer agreement for?”

  “Not that I can remember, no.”

  “But like you said, you’re not here 24/7. He could have met with the person during nonbusiness hours. Or they could have called in when you weren’t here.”

  “Certainly. He could come and go whenever he wanted.”

  “What can you tell me about Megan Riley?”

  “She came to work here just over two months ago. Mr. Bergin had been saying for a long time that he needed to get an associate. That he wouldn’t be practicing forever. And the workload was pretty substantial. There was more than enough for a second attorney. And, of course, he was representing Mr. Roy by that time, and it was demanding a lot of his attention. He needed some help.”

  “Did he have a lot of applicants for the job?”

  “Several. But Megan and he had chemistry, right from the beginning. You could see that.”

  “You like Megan?”

  “She’s very nice and works very hard. Now, she’s not very experienced, so she makes some mistakes, but that’s to be expected. Mr. Bergin was being a fine mentor to her, smoothing out some of the wrinkles.” She paused.

  “What?” asked Michelle.

  “Mr. Bergin and his wife never had any children. I think he looked on Megan as the daughter or even granddaughter he never had. That was probably another reason he brought her on. The other applicants were older.”

  “That makes sense. Bergin apparently talked to her on the day he… on the day it happened. Did she mention that to you?”

  “No. But if it was after hours she probably wouldn’t have. She went straight to court the next day, and I didn’t get in touch with her until she called afterward. That’s when I passed along Sean’s message.”

  “Megan said she brought up all the files on Roy. Do you think she might have left anything behind here?”

  “I can check if you want.”

  “Please.”

  Twenty minutes later Hilary held up a small file that contained only two pieces of paper. “This was stuck in accidentally with another client file. That’s most likely why she missed it.”

  Michelle took the file, opened it, and stared down at the writing on the paper.

  It was from the FBI. It was a request for information from Ted Bergin on his representation of Edgar Roy. As Michelle saw who’d signed the letter, she gave a start.

  Special Agent Brandon Murdock.

  CHAPTER

  19

  SEAN HAD GOTTEN back to the inn and literally fallen into his bed. He’d gotten up in time for a late lunch. There had been no call from Megan. He’d finally phoned her but it had gone directly to voice mail. Then he’d worked through the legal files twice more but found nothing of value. The case was very undeveloped, and Sean could not determine what Bergin had been planning in the way of a defense. But then again the case wasn’t that old. He was probably still feeling his way. And it didn’t help matters that Edgar Roy wasn’t of much assistance.

  Now it was dusk, and he pulled the rental with the shot-out windows to the shoulder of the road and got out. The police and Feds had finished their work here and gone; their yellow barrier tape and warning signs had gone with them.

  He started his investigation by standing where the car had sat. He envisioned Bergin driving along late at night. What would make him pull off the road in the first place? Was it someone in distress? Had someone flagged him down and claimed some sort of emergency? Bergin was a smart man, but someone of his generation in particular might have been more apt to pull over and help.

  Yet Bergin was in his seventies, alone, no weapon. By all logic he should have just kept on driving. If whoever had killed him had faked an emergency to try and get him to pull off, he could have simply continued on and called 911 on his cell phone. He didn’t have to stop and roll down his window just so he could take a fatal round to the head.

  So unless he knew the person he should’ve kept going, but he didn’t. Now Sean considered another possibility.

  He might have been meeting someone and that person killed him. He studied the gravel shoulder and cast his mind back to that night. They had not seen traces of another car. But he had to admit he hadn’t looked all that closely before the police showed up. But if another car had been parked here there would likely be some evidence of that. Evidence the police and the FBI would have.

  He looked toward the woods. The troopers had done a preliminary perimeter search, a down-and-dirty one with a fuller one to follow at first light. Had they found anything? If they had, either Dobkin didn’t know about it or else the FBI was keeping the Maine State Police in the dark, too.

  If a meeting, who with and why here?

  Bergin might have been a gentle, caring man, but he was no fool. If there had been the slightest chance of an ambush the man would not have come here. Had it something to do with Edgar Roy? It had to, he concluded. The only reason Bergin was in Maine was because of his client.

  And if the meeting had something to do with Edgar Roy, there might be a limited number of suspects. Sean wondered if that list began and ended at Cutter’s Rock.

  He tensed as a car’s headlights cut through the gloomy dusk. At first he thought it was just a passing motorist, but the car slowed and then pulled in behind his Ford.

  Eric Dobkin was not in uniform, and the vehicle he stepped out of was a Dodge pickup, not a Maine State Police cruiser. His shoes made clicking sounds against the asphalt as he came to stand next to Sean. He had on worn jeans, a University of Maine pullover, and a Red Sox ball cap. He looked like a high school senior on the prowl after a football game.

  “What are you doing out here?” asked Dobkin, his hands in the pockets of his pullover.

  “I thought it would be obvious. Checking out the scene of the crime.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s not doing me much good, frankly.”

  “You really think he might have known the person?”

  Sean looked past Dobkin, into the stretch of dark woods. Though they were miles from the ocean the briny smell seemed to overwhelm him, drift into every pore, like the stench of cigarette smoke in a bar.

  “Just an educated guess, based on that window. And the fact that he’d pull over on a lonely road late at night. Odds are he wouldn’t have for a stranger.”

  “Maybe somebody suckered him. Faked a car being broke down. That’s what got you to stop.”

  “Yeah, but there were two of us and my partner had a gun.”

  “I know your theory about a cop pulling him over sounds plausible, but I don’t think that’s possible. This is an isolated area, but everybody knows everybody else. Some stranger running around in a police cruiser would’ve been noticed.”

  “I think you’re right. And if they wanted Ted dead, they really didn’t need to go to that much trouble.” Sean paused, studying the face of the other man. “You guys totally off the case?”

  “Not totally. FBI’s running it, of course, but they have to use us for some stuff.”

  “Find anything of interest here?”

  “Nothing really. I would’ve told your partner if we had.”

  “What if he were meeting someone?” asked Sean. “That would account for him both pulling off the road and lowering his window. Was there any trace evidence of another car?”

  “No wheel impressions. But that’s easily gotten around. Pull your car back on the road and go back and sweep the gravel. Who would he have been meeting with?”

  “I was hoping you’d have some idea of that.”

  “Didn’t know the man. You did, though.”

  The last comment was said
in a more accusatory tone than Sean thought the other man probably intended.

  “I mean if he were meeting with someone they were probably from