The 6:20 Man(29)

“EXCUSE ME?” said Devine, because he wanted a little time to process what she was even doing here.

“You’re Travis Devine? You work at Cowl and Comely? Where a woman was found dead?”

“And you are?”

“Rachel Potter. Channel Forty-Four, but I’m working my way up to the single-digit stations and you might just be my ticket.” She eyed her beefy cameraman, who was driving. “We have room in the front seat.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you can tell me about Sara Ewes.”

“I don’t have a lot of time. I have a train to catch.”

“Then jump in—it’s faster driving.”

Devine looked around, and then he climbed in as Potter scooched over to allow room. The cameraman took off at a sedate pace, something Devine could tell was prearranged.

She took out her phone and hit the Record button. “You’re Travis Devine, employed by Cowl and Comely?”

“I am. Look, I—”

“And you knew Sara Ewes?”

“I did. I think—”

“And do you know anything about the circumstances of her death?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What can you tell me about her?” Potter asked.

“She was nice. She worked hard. She was moving up at the firm.”

“Did you and Sara see each other, I mean other than at work?” she asked.

Devine eyed her for a moment. This question kept coming up. Hancock had already been sniffing around about it, intimating that Devine had not been entirely truthful. They knew something. They had to. And maybe this Potter woman did, too. Maybe she’d been told last night in fact. And not by the cops.

He put a hand on the door latch. “I think we’re done here.”

The driver sped up.

Devine eyed Potter. “So what are you doing here? Holding me against my will? Should I be concerned for my safety?”

She eyed him coyly. “Big, strong Army Ranger with a chest full of combat medals? You could probably kill us both with your pinkie.”

The woman was right about that, but it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Potter was around five four and one-ten in all her clothes. The driver was in his sixties and about fifty pounds overweight, and every breath he exhaled was full of cigarette smoke. Devine probably could take him out with his pinkie.

“Have you killed anyone, Mr. Devine? I mean in war, not in New York City.”

“I’ve always wondered why people find that so fascinating.”

“Okay, let’s focus on Sara Ewes. Do you know why anyone would want to murder her?”

So now that cat was out of the bag. If Potter knew, then it was all over the news. Devine hadn’t checked his feed today. He would have to remedy that on the train ride in.

“Murdered?” he said, looking, he hoped, appropriately dumbfounded. “Last I heard it was suicide.”

“Then you’re behind the curve. I broke that story last night,” she said triumphantly. “Before any of the single-digit stations. My scoop.”

“How’d you manage that?” he asked, thinking that he had learned that it was murder before she had, from Detective Hancock.

“I’m really good at my job and I have great sources. Confidential sources.”

Yeah, I saw your confidential source outside of Ewes’s house, thought Devine. He hoped the loose-lipped cop had told the woman’s parents before they found out on the news.

“So, getting back to Ewes. Did she have any enemies?”

“How exactly did you decide to pick on me? A lot of other people work at the firm. And a lot of them knew Sara better than me.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Then what you heard was wrong. And where did you hear that?”

“Confidential, sorry.”

“Stop the van,” he said.

“Oh, come on.”

Devine reached a long arm across and slammed the gearshift into Park, jolting them to a stop and causing Potter, who was not wearing a seat belt, to end up facedown in Devine’s lap. He looked down at her thick red hair planted in his crotch.

He said, “Hey, don’t you want to buy me a drink first before you do that?”

This line actually got a guffaw from the cameraman-driver.

But not from Potter.

She sat up and looked at him furiously. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Which is why I’m getting out now, but I won’t be pressing charges for false imprisonment.”

“You sound like a lawyer.”

“No, but I know a really good one. So depending on how you end up playing this, you might be hearing from her.”

“The First Amendment is pretty broad.”

“And it cuts both ways.”

He got out of the van and hustled toward the station.

The van zoomed past him, blaring its horn all the way. And he knew it was Potter with her hand on it, her fury still fully engaged.

He reached the station and climbed on board just as the doors of the inbound train opened for passengers.

He sat down at a window, checked his phone, and saw that the media was indeed now reporting Sara Ewes’s death as a homicide.