“He wouldn’t say. And why would someone write such an email in the first place making it seem like it was from Sam Wingo? Pretty cruel trick to play on a kid.”
“We really need to know why Tyler believes his dad wrote it.”
“Sean, he flat-out refused to tell me.”
“It’s tough having an uncooperative client.”
“Do we ever get any other kind?” she shot back. “Our last one initially refused to talk to us at all.”
“Edgar Roy. That’s right, he did.” Sean swiveled around in his chair and then swung it back around to face her. “I wonder if Edgar could get access to that email?”
“How?”
“Do we have Tyler’s email address?”
“I can get it from his friend Kathy. I don’t think kids email much anymore. Or use Facebook. They don’t talk on the phone either. They text or Tumblr or whatever the hell else they do.”
“You sound really old,” Sean pointed out.
“Compared with that age I’m ancient. I’m Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey wondering where the horse and carriage is when the Model T drives up.”
“So get the email from Kathy and we’ll give it to Edgar. If he can sit in front of this huge wall of screens with data flowing in from around the world and make sense of it, I think he can probably hack a teenager’s email.”
“So how did you leave it with Dana?”
“She would see what she could find out. I told her to be careful. It might be dangerous.”
Michelle straightened out a paper clip on her desk. Without looking up she said, “So how was it seeing your ex after all this time?”
“I felt lucky.”
She glanced up frowning. “Lucky?”
“Yeah, lucky that I escaped with my sanity and manhood intact.”
“Think you’ll ever take the plunge again?”
“I don’t know. You’ve never taken it.”
“I’m a lot younger than you,” she said, smiling.
“Yes you are.”
“But we’ve both been aged by life’s events,” she added, her smile fading.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desktop. “Yes we have. Regrets?”
“Wouldn’t have missed a minute of it. Well, maybe the minutes that hurt like a bitch.”
“I wonder if Jean Wingo knows about the email?” asked Sean.
“If I had to guess, I would guess not. They don’t seem to be two people who share much of anything except a house.” Michelle added, “But if Sam Wingo is alive, why is the Army saying he was shot and killed?”
Sean said, “And then mortared. Which gets them around the pesky detail of remains that can be identified by family members.”
“I was thinking the same thing, actually,” said Michelle.
“So again, why? Because the Army has to be in on the subterfuge. They would certainly know if the man was alive or dead, as would members of his unit.”