The Viper

13

THEY SAT AT THE PINE TABLE NEXT TO THE FRENCH DOORS. It was just past noon. The frost on the patio had finally melted, darkening the bluestone slabs. The gray November sky rendered the low pasture colorless. They’d just finished a quiet lunch. Madeleine gazed at Gurney over the rim of a cup of spearmint tea.

“So,” she said, “when are you going to tell me about it?”

“About what?”

She lowered her cup. “You spent yesterday talking to Marcus Thorne, then Adrienne Lerman. You came home frowning and hardly said a word all evening. Same thing this morning. It’s obvious you’re wrestling with something.”

“I just have an unsettled feeling. Probably a product of the weather.”

She nodded, her expression attentive but otherwise unreadable.

After a while, he cleared his throat. “Those inconsistencies you said I’m good at noticing? Some small ones have popped up.”

“You can point them out to Emma.”

“And then walk away?”

“Yes.”

He nodded slowly, trying to find the right words for his next question. “Maddie, I keep getting this start-stop message—that I’m supposed to respond to Emma’s request, but only give her about a tenth of what she wants from me. I understand she’s your friend, or was your friend, but considering how dead set you are on my not actually doing anything, wouldn’t it have been a lot smarter not to have opened the door in the first place?”

“David, for Christ sake, why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“You think I’m good at spotting discrepancies? Well, I’m spotting one right now. Emma told you she wanted to talk to me about a murder case. A murder case. But instead of saying no, we had a recent experience here that makes that a bad idea, you said sure, come on over. And the fact that you were friendly at some point in the past doesn’t come close to explaining that response. What is it you’re not telling me?”

Madeleine stared in silence at her nearly empty plate for so long that he gave up hope of getting an answer. Then she began to speak in a halting voice.

“The reason I wanted you to . . . look into the case to begin with . . . was that I felt it was the right thing to do . . . because of what Emma had done . . . for us.”

“For us?”

“It was when you were buried in that horrid incest murder case . . . years ago . . . the one that got you involved with Jack Hardwick. You were never home. Sometimes your body was, but your mind never was. The case went on and on and on. I was never so alone before in all my life. I felt completely abandoned with no reason to believe you’d ever be present again. I thought this couldn’t be what a marriage was supposed to be. Even my work at the clinic felt empty. How could I help clients whose depression told them their lives were pointless, when that’s exactly the way I felt about myself? I didn’t feel connected to you or anyone else. I kept asking myself, what am I doing with my life? I thought maybe . . .” Her voice trailed off. She closed her eyes, her jaw muscles tightening. Seconds passed. When she opened them, her gaze was fixed on the middle of the table.

“I thought maybe if I started over, maybe that would be the way out of the pit. I couldn’t see any other way. I had to start over. Leave. Go away. Start a completely new life. But I felt paralyzed.”

Shocked by her revelation, Gurney tried to remember his own experience of the period, but the only details that came to mind were of the case.

She continued. “I wasn’t all that close to Emma, but she sensed that I was in trouble and offered to listen if I wanted to talk. I have no idea how long I talked or even what I said. When I finished, she smiled. It was the warmest, most comforting smile I’d ever seen. And I remember what she said—not just the words, the way she said it. The power it had.

“She said you were a good man. She told me to have patience . . . to pay attention . . . to trust you . . . and our life together would be good.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. But that smile . . . that voice . . . it was like she was speaking to a part of me that had never been spoken to before.”

Gurney was at a loss for words.

“So,” Madeleine went on, “based on what she’d done—pulling me out of the mental hell I was in, essentially saving our marriage—I felt that helping her, at least in some limited way, would only be right.”

He remained silent, trying to absorb what he’d just heard—a bomb detonating in slow motion.

AN HOUR LATER, alone at his desk in the den, he remained locked in that dislocated state of mind. The sudden rearrangement of the narrative of his past wasn’t exactly a house of cards collapsing, but the ground had definitely shifted. Madeleine had been on the verge of leaving him. The realization disturbed him. Equally disturbing was the fact that he’d been so insensitive to the depth of her distress that the possibility of her ending their marriage never occurred to him.

Gazing out the den window at the hillside, he caught sight of her in her fuchsia ski jacket, making her way along the mown swath that separated the overgrown pasture from the surrounding forest. She found solace in the outdoors, in pacifying her mind through physical movement, through immersing herself in the natural beauty of the countryside. He found peace and purpose in filling his mind with a puzzle, in turning it this way and that, until it surrendered its secret. Even now he sensed that some part of his brain was viewing his marriage and his own ignorance of its fragility as a puzzle to be solved. Uttering a sharp little laugh at the intractability of his thinking, he pushed himself up out of his chair. Maybe there was something worth considering in Madeleine’s preference for getting out in the open air—

His phone interrupted his train of thought. The caller was, by one of those unnerving coincidences, Emma Martin.

“Emma. I’m glad you called. I was just thinking we need to talk.”

“Because Madeleine wants you to drop the case?”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“No. It’s just a position I could imagine her arriving at.”

“There’s a tangible reason for it. The Harrow Hill case ended up making both of us targets of a homicidal maniac—who came within seconds of adding us to his body count. It’s had a powerful effect. The possibility that I might put us in that position again—”

“Is the last thing on earth Madeleine would want,” Emma said. “It’s also the last thing I want. This is not about you becoming a front-line combatant. It’s about you taking a calm, safe look at the available facts and detecting the flaw in the prosecutor’s narrative. I’m talking about the sort of intellectual challenge your brain was built for, not a gunfight.”

Gurney said nothing.

Emma added, “If even that limited prospect would be disturbing to Madeleine, we can part company right now. Your call.”

Again, Gurney said nothing.

“Let me make a suggestion,” Emma said. “Talk to Ziko. He may hold the key to the truth and not even know it, because he hasn’t been asked the right questions by the right person.” Those last words were delivered in a way that conveyed an absolute conviction that Gurney was the right person.

“You’re suggesting I visit him in Attica?”

“It will occupy one day in your life. I was planning on visiting him tomorrow, but you are welcome to take my place. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

GURNEY SET OUT at nine the following morning for what Google Maps told him would be a four-hour drive from Walnut Crossing to the maximum-security prison in the village of Attica.

For the first hour, his route took him through the frost-covered western Catskill foothills and on through a series of bucolic valleys, pockmarked by the occasional abandoned commercial enterprise. Small herds of cows stood motionless in muddy pastures or rummaged through hay piles on open hillsides. Farmhouses and outbuildings in need of repainting, ancient tractors, and tilting silos bore witness to the region’s battered agricultural heritage. His route took him past some relatively prosperous places, suburbs of university towns, areas with well-kept homes and landscaped lawns, but mile after mile, the landscape revealed its two primary characteristics—natural beauty and economic pain.

To Gurney the saddest things were the abandoned farmsteads. As he slowly rounded a curve, he noticed on a row of fence posts several bluebird houses in the same state of dilapidation as the old house beyond the fence. These abandoned birdhouses, once the lively embellishments of a beautiful place, had become symbols of a lost world.

Whatever it passed through, the road always returned to a rolling panorama of fields and forests, placid lakes, and winding rivers. Every so often a small thicket of larches, whose amber needles were yet to fall, gave a burst of color to a wooded hillside.

GURNEY ARRIVED ON the outskirts of Attica twenty minutes early.

Just past an area of modest village homes was the region’s gloomy center of gravity—a century-old penal fortress with concrete walls two feet thick and thirty feet tall, host to two thousand of the most dangerous convicts in the country, and location of one of the worst prison riots in modern American history.

The last time he had been here was on an equally dreary day shortly before his retirement from the NYPD. He’d come to interview a convict who claimed to have information on an open homicide case, the details of which were particularly grotesque.

Pushing those disturbingly vivid thoughts aside, Gurney locked his wallet and phone in the car and entered the medieval-looking tower that housed the prison’s main entrance. He was led to a large, windowless space filled with small pedestal tables and flimsy chairs, about half of which were occupied. The acoustics muddied the mixture of unhappy voices, and an odor of sweat and pine-scented disinfectant permeated the room. Six corrections officers were spaced out around the perimeter walls.

Soon after Gurney was seated, he saw Ziko Slade in a standard green convict uniform being directed to his table. That strange combination of soft, pampered features and calm, intelligent eyes Gurney had first noted in the trial video made the man instantly recognizable.

He took the chair opposite Gurney. He made no effort to force a handshake. Leaning forward, he spoke softly. “Thank you for coming here, sir. Your kindness means a great deal to me.”

“Emma believes in you.”

“Her belief is a blessing. Especially since so many facts appear to incriminate me. Every night, before I fall sleep, I wonder if the case will ever be understood, or if the person who killed Mr. Lerman will ever be found. But I must let go of these questions and focus on what’s good in my life.” He paused. “Thank you for making the long drive. I hope it wasn’t bad.”

“Not bad at all.”

Slade smiled. “The land is beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“It’s hard sometimes to see we’re surrounded by beauty. We do too much thinking. When I believe my ideas are real, what is real becomes invisible.”

Gurney wondered if Slade’s philosophizing was the product of serenity, psychosis, or manipulation. “How are you dealing with the reality of being here?”

“Often I wish I were somewhere else. Some people see this place as hell. I try to see it as purgatory.

“Meaning?”

“The fire of purgatory is purifying. The pain of clarity. The fire of hell is nothing but remorse. I agree with whoever said that hell is the truth seen too late. I’ve been blessed to have seen the truth while there was still time to live by it.”

“Even here in prison?”

“Wherever you are, you can live an honest life. But you know this already. I suspect you’ve always been an honest man.” He smiled, showing perfect teeth. “For me honesty is a relatively new concept.”

“How do you like it so far?”

Slade laughed as if Gurney had made a clever joke. “Honesty is astonishing. A key to another world.”

“A world Emma Martin introduced you to?”

“At the precise moment I was ready for it. Do you know I was stabbed and near death?”

“Emma told me.”

“Something happened while I was in the intensive care unit. I had a sudden vision of my life as a selfish, cruel, useless progression. A life of lies. I felt a desperate desire for my life to be the opposite of everything it was. That’s when I was brought to Emma. A magical connection.”

Gurney was skeptical of dramatic conversions, and particularly of their staying power. “So, that was the end of the old life? No thoughts of going back?”

The perfect smile reappeared. “Why would I go back to being the old me? That man was an idiot. I was drowning in money and buying one useless piece of junk after another. I had a fifty-thousand-dollar gold watch. Why? Because my East Hampton neighbor had a thirty-thousand-dollar gold watch. I was also fucking his very expensive wife. In fact, I fucked her in my laundry room the night of my own wife’s birthday party. I fucked her twice on her husband’s yacht. And I fucked their daughter for three days straight in a hotel room on a ten-grand crack buy. This was not unusual. This is what I did.”

“There are people who might envy that old life of yours.”

“People who don’t know what it really is. People who’ve never seen themselves as the scum of the earth, desperate to stay high because the crashes are devastating, and the crashes only get worse, and you get crazier and more terrified and more desperate. The dark is full of devils, and the light is unbearable. You want to die, but you’re terrified of dying—the claustrophobia, the paralysis, the suffocation—and the only way to escape the grave is to grab for another woman, another hit, another delusion of power. Then the next crash drives you back to the grave, and you can’t breathe and your mind is going to explode.”

Gurney had listened to a lot of addicts over the years, and Slade’s description of the low-bottom life rang true. Of course, where he came from was never in dispute. The more interesting questions centered around his post-conversion life—if that’s what it really was—and how that life related to the murder of Lenny Lerman.

“Are you still married to the woman who stabbed you?”

“No. She was too addicted to the insanity. When I got out of the hospital and backed away from the old life, she convinced herself I was either a total phony or a religious bore. She was done with me.”

“Why did she stab you?”

“We were arguing, she picked up an ice pick, and . . . it happened.”

“And since then you’ve been leading a straight life?”

“Yes.”

“A life that means a great deal to you?”

“It means everything to me.” His steady gaze met Gurney’s. “So, if someone threatened my new life with proof of an old crime, I would have a powerful motive for killing him. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“I think that’s what Cam Stryker wanted the jury to think.”

“It sounds reasonable. But it actually makes no sense.”

“Why not?”

“If I killed Mr. Lerman, I would have been trying to preserve the appearance of my new life at the cost of destroying the reality of it. That would be insane, wouldn’t it?”

14

THAT WOULD BE INSANE, WOULDN’T IT?

Even though his meeting with Slade continued for another twenty-five minutes, that was the comment most vivid in Gurney’s mind during his drive home. Viewed one way, it could be seen as the straightforward observation of an innocent man. Viewed another way, it might be the smirking humor of a psychopath.

He felt a similar uncertainty about Slade’s post-stabbing life of virtue. Perhaps it was all true, a legitimate road-to-Damascus awakening. Or it could be a long-term con job, aimed at some yet-to-be-revealed payoff.

Gurney went back over the final questions he had asked Slade.

Did he receive the threatening phone calls from Lerman that Stryker had referred to?

No, he hadn’t.

How did he explain the three calls made from Lerman’s number to his, and Lerman’s description of them in his diary?

He couldn’t explain them because they never happened.

If he was in the lodge the evening of the murder as he claimed, how could Lerman have been knocked unconscious a few feet from the front porch, dragged to a grave in the woods, beheaded, and buried without his noticing anything at all?

He’d been making preparations for the following day’s Thanksgiving dinner. The kitchen was in a rear corner of the building, and he had a Mahler symphony on the stereo, parts of which could have drowned out a machine gun.

How did his DNA get on the camos Lerman was found wearing?

It must have been stolen from a closet in the lodge. He never bothered to lock the upstairs windows. Getting in would have been a cinch when he wasn’t there, which was most days.

Slade’s answers sounded reasonable, but if true, it would mean that Cam Stryker’s persuasive courtroom narrative was a total fiction.

That thought produced a small frisson—and a new realization, not so much about Slade as about himself. He recalled his inclination after the Harrow Hill horrors to avoid active involvement in future criminal investigations—an easy enough boundary to maintain in the absence of temptation—but now he could feel the familiar pull of a closed case that just possibly should not have ended the way it did.

Under the influence of that magnetic pull, he might talk himself into something best avoided. He decided to share his thoughts with Jack Hardwick, the former New York State Police detective with whom he had an often contentious but ultimately productive working relationship.

Hardwick was vulgar and combative, but he was also smart and fearless. He and Gurney shared a special connection, formed as the result of a macabre coincidence. When Gurney was still with the NYPD and Hardwick with the NYSP, they were both involved in the investigation of the infamous Peter Piggert murder case. On the same day, in jurisdictions a hundred miles apart, they each found half of Mrs. Piggert’s body.

Gurney pulled into a roadside gas station and convenience store. He parked next to a battered pickup truck and placed the call. After four rings, it was answered by a female voice with a Puerto Rican accent.

“Dave?”

“Esti?” Esti Moreno was Hardwick’s live-in girlfriend. She was also a New York State Trooper in what was still very much a man’s world, which said a lot about her toughness and determination.

“Who else?” she said in a tone of teasing reprimand. “I saw your name on Jack’s phone screen, so I picked it up. He’s outside. We have groundhogs. Jack hates groundhogs. You want to talk to him?”

“I wanted to ask him if he knows anything about a murder case involving Ziko Slade.”

“The tennis player?”

“Years ago, yes.”

“I had such a crush on him!”

“On Ziko Slade?”

“I was such a tennis fanatic back then, and he was incredible. So graceful. He made it look so easy. Like he was born for it. Such a beautiful boy. The girls, the women, the gay men at the court where I played—we were all in love with him.”

“He’s not a boy anymore.”

“Sad but true. There were stories about crazy things—wait, hold on, Jack just came in.”

He heard the phone switching hands, then Hardwick’s rough voice.

“I’m blowing up goddamn groundhog burrows. Little bastards are undermining the house. The fuck do you want, Gurney?”

“Whatever you know or can find out about Ziko Slade and Leonard Lerman.”

He uttered a snorting little laugh. “According to my TV, Lerman is dead and headless, and Slade’s doing thirty-to-life in an upstate shitcan.”

“I’ve been asked to look into the situation. I just met with Slade, but I’m not sure who the hell is living in his body.”

“I had the impression the case was a slam-dunk.”

“You know who the prosecutor was?”

“Not a clue.”

“Cam Stryker. The murder took place in Rexton Township, other end of the same county as Harrow Hill, so the same district attorney.”

“Does she know you’re screwing around with her case?”

“Not unless she’s keeping tabs on the visitor log at Attica.”

“This poking around you’re up to—what’s the endgame?”

“The person who asked me to look into it is sure the case was flawed and that the verdict should be reversed.”

“Suppose you come up with something that turns Stryker’s golden victory to shit. Result number one is you turn Stryker into a lifelong enemy. Where’s the fucking advantage in that?”

“I haven’t given much thought to the personal implications. All I want to know at this point is whether the case against Slade was as solid as it looks. Facts—that’s all I want. Especially ones that didn’t make it into the trial record. I figured with your upstate law-enforcement contacts you might be able to unearth something.”

“You getting paid for this?”

“No payment has been mentioned.”

“Davey-boy, you must be out of your goddamn mind. Besides, I can’t focus on this in the middle of my groundhog situation. One fucking battle at a time. I’ll be in touch.”

As usual, Hardwick disconnected first.

Gurney gave little thought to Cam Stryker’s potential reaction to his investigation. There was another matter of greater interest on his mind: Exactly how strong was the supposedly unassailable physical evidence? Marcus Thorne took a few potshots at it during the trial, but wasn’t willing to subject it to rigorous questioning—perhaps because he knew that the answers would make the defense position even weaker. In Gurney’s mind, however, the actual strength of the physical evidence remained an issue worth looking at more closely. The question was how.

Gurney purchased an overpriced bottle of water from the convenience store, then set out again for home—with the evidence issue very much on his mind.

His thoughts on the subject, however, were interrupted from time to time by glimpses in his rearview mirror of a dark nondescript car on the otherwise traffic-free country road. He first noticed it shortly before his stop. When the car reappeared, trailing him at the same distance, mile after mile, he paid closer attention.

His rational mind told him there was nothing to be concerned about. The car behind him now might not be the same car from before—and even if it was, there could be any number of innocent explanations. But an uneasy feeling persisted, and when he was about twenty miles from Walnut Crossing, he pulled off the road into a gravelly turnaround area used by the county snowplows in the winter.

Less than half a minute later, a dark blue sedan sped past. In the early dusk, all he could see of the driver, who was staring straight ahead, was a shaved head and a thick neck. On the door he noted the circular gold insignia of the New York State Department of Corrections. The car was out of sight before he could get a clear view of the plate number.

15

DUSK HAD DARKENED INTO MOONLESS NIGHT BY THE time Gurney reached the top of the hillside road that ended at his barn. From there, a grassy lane led up to the house through the lower of two unused pastures.

As he passed the barn, he saw a light shining through the window of the back room where he kept his tools. His initial inclination was to continue driving up to the house and come down the next morning to turn off the light. But he hadn’t used that room for several days, and Madeleine never used it—making the light a bit of a mystery.

He backed the car up, got out with a flashlight, and made his way to the door on the far side of the building, shivering in the frigid air. The door was unlocked, which surprised him. He stepped inside, sweeping the flashlight beam around the barn’s large open area, then proceeded to the door of the back room.

Pushing it open, he saw nothing unusual, beyond the light being on. His tools were in their normal places, the dust on the workbench was undisturbed, the paint cans and brushes were as he’d left them. He was about to leave when he noticed the window wasn’t completely closed. He couldn’t remember whether it was open or shut the last time he’d used the room. He shut the window, switched off the light, and secured the barn’s outer door, then got back in his car.

As he parked by the asparagus bed, it occurred to him that the barn light probably wouldn’t have bothered him if he hadn’t noticed it right after his experience with the Corrections Department car. He chalked it up as another example of the fact that the mind is basically a connection machine, with a special affinity for connecting oddities.

Before making his way to the house, he checked on the chickens, making sure they had enough food and water, and closed the little door between the coop and the run. When he finally entered the house, he sensed that peculiar atmosphere of emptiness when Madeleine was out. Her absence was confirmed by a note on the refrigerator door:

He resolved to get in touch with Kyle later and made himself an omelet. While he ate, his mind kept returning to the increasingly strange Ziko Slade affair. As soon as he finished eating, he took his dishes to the sink, went into the den, and called Emma Martin.

“Hello, David.” Her tone revealed no hint of surprise at hearing from him.

“There are a few things I’d like to resolve, and I was wondering if I could get hold of the evidentiary material Cam Stryker provided to Marcus Thorne during the pretrial discovery process.”

“I’ll call Thorne and tell him to rush you whatever he has.”

“It’s not all that super-urgent.”

“I disagree. If there’s a chance of getting Ziko out of prison, timing could make all the difference. I’m sure his fellow inmates view him as a privileged brat who killed a poor man to protect his wealth. One of them may try to even the score.”

After finishing with Emma, Gurney made himself a cup of coffee and called Kyle.

It went to voicemail, and he left a message: “Hi, Kyle. It’s Dad. Long time since we’ve seen you, or even talked on the phone. Maddie and I were wondering if you might be free for Thanksgiving. Be great if you could join us. Let me know. Hope all is well. Love you.”

He took his coffee to the table by the French doors and tried to relax, letting his mind drift through the events of his day. Out of the jumble of conversations and perceptions, the item that rose to the surface was the conundrum of Lerman’s severed head and fingers. Not only the question of why they’d been removed, but what had been done with them. Had they been discreetly discarded? Or retained by the killer? He couldn’t help picturing them in the freezer in some madman’s basement. And two hours later, when he was too tired to think clearly and finally went to bed, that was the image that troubled his sleep.

16

HE AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING FEELING GROGGY AND unrested. Ten minutes in the shower brought some improvement. By the time he shaved, dressed, and made his way out to the kitchen, he felt almost normal.

Madeleine was at the table by the French doors, eating cold cereal with blueberries and reading a book about seashells. He made a cereal and berry mixture for himself and joined her.

She looked up from her book. “Are you okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You were thrashing around all night, mumbling. What were you dreaming about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know someone by the name of Sonny?”

“What did I say?”

“Mostly gibberish and half sentences.”

“Do you remember any of it?”

She laid her cereal spoon down. “You mentioned a grave.”

“What did I say about it?”

“You said something about fingers.”

“And I mentioned the name Sonny?”

She nodded. “Angrily, like you were accusing him of something. And a woman’s name, too.”

“Adrienne?”

“I’m not sure. I was half asleep.” She went back to reading her book.

He finished his cereal, went to the coffee machine, and made himself a double espresso. He brought it to the table and angled his chair toward the glass doors.

The morning sun was a pale disk in the overcast sky. White frost coated the brittle stalks of the black-eyed Susans and milkweed pods in the low pasture. A thin sheet of ice outlined the perimeter of the pond. Two vultures, dark shapes against the gray sky, circled slowly over the eastern ridge.

He couldn’t recall anything from his restless dreams, but he did remember what Adrienne said about the insurance company lawyer, Howard Manx, and his follow-the-money view of the case. It was conceivable that Sonny wanted that money badly enough to kill his father to get it, but engineering the murder to incriminate Ziko Slade was another matter entirely. It seemed impossible, but Manx might have other ideas about the case that were worth listening to.

Gurney brought his phone into the den and called Adrienne Lerman.

She answered immediately, sounded pleased to hear from him, and gave him Manx’s office address and phone number with surprisingly little curiosity about his need for it.

Figuring right then was as good time as any to reach out to the man, he made the call.

It was answered by a brusque voice.

“Manx.”

“Mr. Manx, my name is Gurney. I’m a retired New York City homicide detective, and I’ve been asked to look into the Leonard Lerman murder case with a view to appealing the verdict. I’d appreciate an opportunity to discuss it with you.”

There was a perceptible pause. “What did you say your name was?”

“David Gurney.”

“Phone?”

Gurney gave him the number.

“I’ll get back to you,” Manx said and disconnected.

His return call came thirty-five minutes later.

“You want to discuss the case, we can do it here in my office. You know where it is?”

“I have the address.”

“One o’clock today. Suite 201. Don’t be late, Supercop.”

Manx had obviously done a quick check on him, and the old New York Magazine article had surfaced. Its gushing over his record number of NYPD homicide arrests was a continuing embarrassment to the publicity-shy Gurney, but he had to admit that it opened doors.

SUITE 201 WAS located in a modern low-rise building in a corporate office park in a suburb of Albany. The landscaping around it was suggestively Asian, all raked gravel and large gray stones. The signage over the entrance read NorthGuard Insurance Company.

After checking in with a frowning receptionist sporting a coral crew cut, Gurney proceeded up a polished metal staircase. He knocked on the door to 201.

“Come in!” The abrupt tone matched the voice on the phone.

The chaotic state of the office was a surprise after the austere geometry of the lobby.

File folders and loose papers covered most surfaces. The man peering at Gurney from behind the cluttered desk radiated a twitchy energy. He flicked a finger toward the only chair in the room that didn’t have something on it.

“Sit.”

Gurney remained standing. “Look, Mr. Manx, if you’d rather do this another time . . .”

The man riffled rapidly through a pile of papers in his open desk drawer. “There is no other time.”

Gurney sat and looked around the room. He noted a group of enlarged, framed mugshots covering half the wall nearest him. Manx slammed his desk drawer shut and followed Gurney’s gaze to the wall.

“Trophies,” he said. “I hunt down thieving bastards and mount their heads on my wall.”

“Perpetrators of insurance fraud?”

“More of them every year. Geometric progression. They don’t even think it’s a crime. Assholes. Zero moral compass! You know what that says? It says this country is falling apart. Insurance theft is the canary in the coal mine—leading indicator of societal decay. Larcenous termites! They not only steal but tell themselves they have a right to steal.”

He tapped the desk, looking at Gurney as if expecting a reaction. When he didn’t get any, he sat back in his chair and switched subjects. “So, tell me, Detective—what do you know about this goddamn Lerman case that I don’t know?”

“I suspect you know a lot more about it than I do. All I have are questions.”

“Like what?”

“Do you believe Ziko Slade killed Lenny Lerman?”

Manx’s eyes narrowed. “Beliefs aren’t worth a damn.”

“But if you were forced to put your money on one side or the other.”

Manx looked pained. “I’m of two minds on the subject. My position in the insurance arbitration case was the same as Stryker’s in the trial. Namely, that Lerman was killed in his effort to blackmail Slade—a fact I hoped might trigger clause thirteen, absolving the company from payment in the event that death occurs in the commission of a felony. But the arbitrator found in favor of the beneficiaries.”

“Why?”

“Her rationale was that the prior expression of a seemingly felonious intent was insufficient to prove that an extortion demand was actually made during the fatal encounter.”

“You said you were of two minds on the subject of Slade’s guilt. Does that mean, your insurance argument aside, that you personally suspect someone else?”

Manx leaned forward, baring his teeth. “I’m a follow-the-money guy. It’s a reliable principle. And it points me at Psycho Sonny Lerman. He had a powerful financial motive, and he hated his father.”

“How do you know that?”

“His sister’s got no filter. Ask her anything, she’ll lay it all out. Family secrets, dirty laundry, whatever. She’s either got a pure heart or a mental disorder.”

Gurney said nothing.

“End of the day, whoever did whatever they did for whatever reason, there’s one bottom line. NorthGuard Insurance was fucked out of a million bucks, and I take that personally.”

Again, Gurney said nothing.

The rapid drumbeat of Manx’s fingers on the desk grew louder. “Okay, Detective, that’s it. I’ve told you everything I know. Bared my soul. So, tell me where you are in this mess. No bullshit.”

“I appreciate your candor, Mr. Manx, but I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you. I’m looking into the case as a favor to someone who believes that Slade was wrongly convicted. But frankly, if I was just a little more comfortable, I’d be happy to sign off on the official version.”

“What’s your discomfort about?”

“The missing body parts.”

Manx stared at him. “Because hacking off a blackmailer’s head with an axe seems a little over the edge?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Ever occur to you that Slade might be crazy? That maybe this is what he does to people who threaten him? He wouldn’t be the first nutcase to have a few heads in his freezer.”

17

GURNEY CONSIDERED THE MURDER SCENE EVIDENCE. THE bits and pieces were strung together by a plausible but not necessarily accurate narrative. To imagine an alternative narrative, he needed firsthand knowledge of the site. Crime scenarios had often shifted in his mind as he stood in the spot where killer and victim collided.

From his Outback, he called Emma Martin.

“What can I do for you, David?”

“I’m trying to clarify a few issues, and it would help if I could visit Slade’s lodge.”

“It’s currently being watched over by a young man in our addiction recovery group. When do you want to go there?”

“I’m near Albany right now. I could take a detour up into the Adirondacks.”

“If Ian isn’t there now, he will be later today. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

“Ian?”

“Ian Valdez. One our success stories and a great fan of Ziko.”

Gurney entered the lodge address into his GPS and pulled out of the NorthGuard parking lot. As he left the Albany metro area, the urban traffic thinned out, and by the time he was heading due north into the Adirondack foothills on a winding two-lane road, there were no other vehicles in sight.

The vistas around Walnut Crossing were essentially bucolic. Hillside meadows and thickets of deciduous maple, beech, and cherry trees alternated with old farms, barns, and silos. In contrast to the Catskills, the Adirondack vistas appeared less cultivated. This was a land of log cabins rather than farmhouses. Instead of meandering through broad valleys, the streams tumbled through boulder-strewn gullies. The forests seemed vaster, the silence deeper, the air colder. This was not a place of planting and harvesting but of hunting and trapping.

The farther north he drove, the stronger these impressions grew—along with a feeling of apprehension. A thin fog reduced visibility of the road ahead. The giant pines and hemlocks encroaching on the pavement darkened in the haze.

An edgy sense of again being followed crept up on Gurney, justified only by a momentary glimpse of a vehicle far behind him. Twice he slowed and once pulled over to test his suspicion, but no vehicle appeared. Still, the uneasy feeling persisted.

By the time his GPS told him he’d arrived at his destination, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and the fog was depositing films of ice on the trees. The announced “destination” was actually the point at which Slade’s private road—essentially, a very long driveway—met the public road. Gurney turned onto Slade’s property and followed the narrow lane through the forest to a clearing dominated by an imposing two-story log structure. There were no lights on, nor any other vehicle in sight.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing, got out, zipped his light windbreaker up to his neck, and stuffed his hands in the pockets. The fog, the dead stillness, and the motionless evergreens with their drooping branches gave the place an eerie look. All that was needed now, thought Gurney, was the screech of an owl to send shivers down his spine.

Based on what Emma had said, Ian, the house minder, would be arriving at any moment, but Gurney saw no reason to wait for him before proceeding. Soon, the November dusk would fade into darkness.

He approached the front porch of the lodge and stopped a few feet from the broad wooden steps—the spot where the prosecution claimed Lerman had been knocked unconscious. Gurney didn’t expect to find any remaining traces of the event. It was the place itself that interested him.

He began by making his way around the building. It was constructed of giant logs on a laid-stone foundation, in the style of the opulent Adirondack “camps” of the early 1900s. As he walked, he calculated the depth of the main structure to be about fifty feet. A square addition appended to the rear corner added another twenty or so feet. The windows in that section were larger. Gurney identified that part of the building as the kitchen.

He conceded that someone preparing a meal in there would probably not have been able to hear something occurring out by the front porch. That by itself didn’t argue for Slade’s innocence, but at least it explained how he could have been ignorant of someone else’s attack on Lerman.

Continuing around the back of the building, he saw a padlocked shed at the edge of the woods, perhaps the shed where the investigation team found the axe bearing the traces of blood with Lerman’s DNA. A generator hummed from behind the shed. A couple of the upstairs windows did not appear to be tightly shut, perhaps due to some warping or swelling of the sashes—another fact that proved nothing but was consistent with Slade’s explanation of how someone could have gotten into the lodge to take one of his camo suits as part of a framing scheme.

Gurney completed a full circuit of the lodge, then headed out of the clearing and into the woods in the direction the unconscious Lerman was said to have been dragged. Counting his paces to approximate the distance mentioned in the trial, he arrived at a spot bearing no noticeable characteristics identifying it as the location of Lenny Lerman’s shallow grave.

Because the deepening gloom under the trees was making it difficult to see clearly, he activated his phone flashlight app, sweeping the beam from side to side. Then he returned to his starting point in front of the lodge, changed the angle of his exploration, and repeated the process half a dozen times without success.

He was about to give up the effort when his phone light illuminated an area next to a huge pine where the ground was slightly hollowed out. The layer of pine needles over the sunken area was thinner here than on the surrounding ground and the earth was a little softer. His recollection of the crime scene photos confirmed that this was the spot where Lerman had been beheaded the previous November.

A slight tremor ran through him as he pictured the unconscious man being dragged facedown and dumped in the shallow waiting grave . . . the axe swinging down through the back of his neck . . . the blood spurting from the severed carotid arteries and seeping slowly into the dark earth . . . the fingers being clipped off one by one . . . loose soil being shoveled over the body . . . and finally the—

Gurney’s mental reconstruction of the murder was cut short by a scream.

18

THE SCREAM WAS A SOUND OF PURE TERROR—MADE EVEN more hair-raising because its distance and direction was obscured by a creeping fog. The uncertainty stymied Gurney’s police instinct to run toward a sound of distress.

“Who’s there?” he shouted. “Where are you?”

He waited a few seconds, listening, then shouted both questions again.

The silence was absolute.

He retreated from the grave site, using his phone to illuminate the way back through the woods and to his car. He unlocked the glove box and took out his 9mm Beretta.

He was imagining possible scenarios for the scream and deciding on his next move when a glint of light caught the corner of his eye.

And then it was gone.

He peered into the woods, searching for it, but saw nothing in the murky dusk but the black ghosts of trees.

The light appeared again.

It seemed to be moving.

And there was a second light moving with it.

Then there was the sound of a vehicle coming from the same direction.

Intermittently, through the trees, a pair of headlights turned onto Slade’s long driveway. A minute later, a white pickup truck entered the clearing and came to a stop behind the Outback.

A short male figure in ski pants, ski jacket, and a wool watch cap got out of the truck. Backlit by the headlights, he approached Gurney.

“Sorry I’m late. Fog, ice on the road. I am Ian Valdez.”

Gurney couldn’t place his mixed accent.

They shook hands as the beam of the pickup’s headlights went out.

Valdez started leading the way to the porch.

“Hold on a second,” said Gurney. “There’s a problem. I heard a scream in the woods a minute ago.”

“Yes. Common thing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Rabbit.”

“Sorry?”

“When caught by a fox, the rabbit screams. Like a small child. Always in the dusk or the night. You get used to it. Like many terrible things. Come.”

He opened the front door, flipped a switch on the inside wall, and the front room was flooded with amber light. They stepped inside, Valdez removed his hat and jacket, and Gurney got his first clear view of him. He was taken aback to see how much younger he looked than the tone of his comment suggested—perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. He had the broad face and prominent cheekbones of some Eastern Europeans, but the brown eyes and warmer skin color of a Southern European.

“I can make tea or coffee.”

“Coffee would be fine.”

“You like it strong?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“First, I must tell you. Ziko is very happy you are here.”

“You spoke to him?”

“Today, yes. I am returning now from seeing him.”

“How is he?”

“The same as always. He says worry is a waste of time. Maybe one day I will be so calm.” He gestured toward a seating area in front of a ceiling-high stone fireplace. “Please be comfortable while I make the coffee.”

Instead of sitting, Gurney walked around the large room. The decor suggested an upscale hunting lodge—polished pine paneling, exposed beams, wide-board flooring, oversized leather armchairs, rustic table lamps, colorful framed prints of upland game birds.

A long line of tennis trophies sat on the fireplace mantel. Lined up chronologically, they commemorated a series of victories in local, national, and international tournaments. From the trophy dates, Gurney calculated that Slade won them between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.

“Such a brilliant start.” Valdez returned with two mugs and handed one to Gurney. “So much success. So much love. Many people are killed by this. Almost Ziko, too. But God wants Ziko to live.” He pointed at two armchairs by the hearth. “Come, sit, tell me why you are here.”

They settled into their chairs.

“To see the actual murder scene.” Gurney sipped his coffee. It was very hot, very strong. “To visualize what happened here. Maybe to understand Ziko better.”

“He is the most amazing person.”

“What do you like best about him?”

“Best, I think, is the truth. When you speak, he listens, helps you see what is true, what is not true. He brings peace with him. This is why I have made him my father.”

“Your father?”

“My guide. This is what a father should be, yes?”

The question brought to mind memories of Gurney’s uncommunicative father and his meager childhood relationship with the man.

“Is he really that perfect?”

“He says he sometimes feels anger, fear, but this can be good—because what upsets us tells us what motivates us, and what motivates us tells us who we are.”

“This way of thinking made him a father figure for you?”

“No.” There was hard insistence in Valdez’s voice. “I have made him my father. Not father figure. Real. Not bullshit.”

Gurney paused, wondering if this sensitive issue should be pursued. He decided to take a chance. “Sometimes I wish I could have replaced my father with someone who talked to me, did more things with me, taught me things. But that’s not the kind of man he was. He never shared much of his life. Not with me, not with my mother.”

Valdez watched him intently.

Gurney took another sip of coffee. “Was your father like that?”

A long moment passed before Valdez answered in a tone that sounded purposely flat. “I never speak about him. He is dead.”

In another room, a device beeped.

Valdez set his coffee mug on a side table and stood up. “I set a timer for reminding me to leave to get propane tanks refilled before the hardware center closes tonight. They stay closed for all deer hunting season. Employees are all hunters. Please remain here as long as you wish. You are free to go through the lodge, inside, outside.”

“Thank you, Ian.”

He gave Gurney a long, questioning look. “Something I think is troubling you?”

“I’m wondering . . . if Ziko is innocent, why do you think there’s so much evidence against him?”

“It’s not a mystery, Mr. Gurney. It’s the power of evil.”

ONCE VALDEZ LOADED several portable propane tanks in the back of his truck and departed, Gurney examined the other rooms of the lodge. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but that was often the case when he explored the location of a crime.

An hour later, he entered the last of the lodge’s five bedrooms and saw something that got his attention—a pair of framed photographs on the wall facing the foot of the room’s single bed.

The photo on the left appeared to have been taken at a boozy party. Ziko Slade sat on a couch, shirt open, hair tousled. He had one arm around a barely clad young woman on his left, while exchanging an intense kiss with a similar young woman on his right. A third was kneeling on the floor in front of him with her head in his lap. It was the kind of louche disco scene the tabloids loved.

The photo on the right was riveting in a different way. It was an enlarged mugshot. This version of him was strikingly ugly. The features of the former Greek god radiated a dull menace that Gurney had seen in the eyes of hitmen. Together the images told a story a moralist might have titled “The Price of Sin.”

Gurney wondered if that was the point Slade was trying to make. Was the display a reminder to himself of where his egomania had led him, or was it the phony confession of an unrepentant con man?

He completed his examination of the house without making any more discoveries. Concluding that his visit had served its main purpose of acquainting him with the lodge and its immediate environs, and feeling no need to wait for Valdez’s return, he decided to set out for home. The weather would make it slow going, at least until he was out of the Adirondacks. He switched off the lights in the house, zipped up his jacket, and stepped out onto the porch.

There was a scent of pine in the cold air. The darkness was as deep as the mountain silence. He took out his phone and activated the flashlight app. In the plummeting temperature, the fog condensed into tiny ice crystals. He felt their pinpricks on his face as he made his way to the Outback, his steps crackling through the glaze that covered the ground.

He opened the car door and was starting to get in when he was stopped by the sight of something on the front seat. His first impression was some sort of fur hat, or muff, or . . .

As he looked closer, a grimace tightened his lips.

He was looking at the body of a rabbit.

A rabbit whose head was missing.

19

AFTER RETREATING INTO THE LODGE, GURNEY CALLED the Rexton Police Department and described the situation. The duty sergeant considered it no more than someone’s prank and suggested calling back in the morning.

Gurney explained that it could be connected to the Lerman murder case and suggested getting Scott Derlick out to the Slade lodge ASAP.

The sergeant’s voice went up a notch. “You want me to disturb Lieutenant Derlick at home? So he can drive all the way out there in this weather? To look at a dead rabbit?”

“That’s right.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is David Gurney, retired detective first grade, NYPD Homicide.” He hated identifying himself this way, but it occasionally served a purpose.

There was a noticeable pause. “So, how come you’re at the Slade place?”

“I’ll explain that to Derlick when he gets here.”

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, a large black SUV entered the clearing and came to a stop with its headlights on Gurney’s vehicle. The man who emerged wore a hooded parka and carried a steel-cased flashlight of the type that can do double duty as a truncheon.

The man approached the Outback and peered inside. He bent over with his head inches from the glass, aiming his flashlight at the front seat. He scrutinized the registration certificate at the base of the windshield, then swept his flashlight up to the porch and let it rest on Gurney.

“This your vehicle, sir?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And you are . . . ?”

“David Gurney.”

“NYPD?”

“Retired.”

“I assume you have appropriate identification?”

“I do.”

“Are you carrying a firearm?”

“I am.”

“If I asked, could you produce your carry permit?”

“I could.”

“Please come over to your vehicle.” The tone had no “please” in it.

Gurney stepped down from the porch and walked into the area illuminated by the SUV’s headlights. He recognized Scott Derlick from the trial video—although in person the man’s eyes were smaller, his nose more porcine.

He was studying Gurney as though he were a suspect in a break-in.

“This is not your residence, is it, sir?” He gestured vaguely toward the lodge.

“No.”

“So, what brings you here?”

“Curiosity.”

“You have permission to be here?”

“I do.”

“If I were to check, that would be confirmed, would it?”

Gurney smiled. “Lieutenant, I’m here because I’ve been asked to look into the Lerman murder case to determine if Ziko Slade’s conviction was a mistake. Until this evening, I was skeptical of that possibility. Now, I’m not so sure. The placement of that little cadaver in my car feels like an effort to scare me off, and I’d appreciate your reaction to that possibility.”

“You’d appreciate my reaction?”

“I would.”

Derlick stared at him in mock amazement. “You came here to determine if Slade’s conviction was a mistake? Did I hear you right?”

“You heard me right.”

“Well, that does make me wonder.”

Gurney said nothing.

“Do you know what it makes me wonder?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“It makes me wonder what kind of ex-officer would sell his services to a piece of crap like Ziko Slade. Fancy-ass society boy, slimebag drug dealer, cold-blooded murderer. Even for a downstate cop, that’s a mighty deep dive into the sewer.”

“It’s understandable why you might see it that way.”

“Don’t you goddamn tell me what’s understandable! Let me make something clear to you. Slade is guilty as sin. Period. Thirty-to-life was too lenient for that piece of shit. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re on the wrong track. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“Good. Now, listen up. I don’t want to see you or hear from you again. I don’t care who the hell you are, or who the hell you used to be down in that rat’s nest of a city. You make trouble up here, you try to pull some slippery crap to subvert the conviction of Ziko Slade, you’ll walk into a buzzsaw a hell of a lot more serious than a goddamn dead rabbit. Am I getting through to you?”

“You are.”

Derlick gave Gurney a hard stare and returned to his big SUV. Gurney watched its taillights recede down the long driveway and disappear onto the county road.

He considered the meeting a success in every way. The question of whether to expect simple noncooperation or active obstruction from Derlick was now answered. From the intensity of the man’s anger, Gurney also concluded that Derlick wasn’t at all sure of Slade’s guilt. Derlick’s lack of interest in the headless rabbit and his failure to take possession of it for forensic examination meant Gurney could bring in someone he trusted for the job.

He returned to the lodge and retrieved a large plastic container and some oversized tongs. He used the tongs to lift the rabbit carcass into the container. Then he left a voicemail for Kyra Barstow and headed home.

20

INTERMITTENT SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN SLOWED THE drive from Slade’s lodge to Walnut Crossing. Gurney didn’t arrive home until midnight. His mental review of the day’s meetings—with Howard Manx, Ian Valdez, and Scott Derlick—kept him awake into the wee hours.

The phone on his bedside table roused him from a claustrophobic dream at 9:05 a.m.

He cleared his throat. “Gurney here.”

“I got your message about wanting to bring me a headless rabbit you found in your car. Thing is, I don’t perform animal autopsies, so I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

“Good morning, Kyra. Thanks for getting back to me. No autopsy required. What I’m hoping is that the person who chopped off its head may have left some trace evidence on it.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“I know.”

“Is the body in decent condition?”

“No obvious decomposition.”

“I suppose I can take a look. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“There’s something you should know. This rabbit incident occurred while I was at Ziko Slade’s lodge—and after I reported it, I had a run-in with Scott Derlick.”

“No surprise. That man is touchy.”

“I just don’t want you to get blindsided by a hostile reaction from the Rexton PD or the DA’s office if they find out you’re looking into this for me after being part of the prosecution’s case at Slade’s trial.”

“I don’t report to them. I gathered the forensic evidence and presented my conclusions on the stand. That’s it. Facts are facts. I’m not on anybody’s side. If you want to know whether there’s foreign residue on the rabbit, and what it might be, I’ll tell you what I can. Drop the carcass off today, if you can. Be nice to see you again.”

The call left Gurney fully awake and energized. When he went out to the kitchen for his first coffee of the day, he found a note on the refrigerator from Madeleine, saying she’d left for an early shift at the Crisis Center and should be home by 3:00 p.m.

After a quick breakfast, he set out for the Russell College Department of Forensic Sciences in the wealthy enclave of Larchfield. The drive took a little over an hour and passed through the grim neighboring town of Bastenburg. Their juxtaposition was a stark example of the growing gap between the fortunate and the unfortunate—the gap that had become a fertile ground for conspiracy theories, lies, and political chaos. Topographically, all that separated Bastenburg from Larchfield was a gentle ridge, but to pass from one side to the other was to move between worlds increasingly at war with each other. As Gurney descended the Larchfield side of the rise, intense memories of the horrific drama six months earlier that had left fifteen people dead and nearly cost him and Madeleine their lives accosted him. He chose a roundabout route that avoided Harrow Hill entirely.

Gurney parked outside the forensic sciences building. He removed the plastic container with the remains of the rabbit and started toward the starkly modern structure.

Halfway there, his phone rang. “Kyra?”

“I can see you from my office. Stay there. I’ll come out. It’ll be quicker than getting you through building security.”

He returned to the Outback. A minute later Barstow strode across the parking area with the same easy grace she displayed at the site of the first Harrow Hill murder. Despite the tension and ugliness of that scene, her comportment struck him as a sign of self-possession, a no-drama quality he respected.

“David! Good to see you!”

“You, too, Kyra.”

They shook hands. Her grip was firm. She eyed the container on the hood. A dark shape was visible through the translucent plastic.

“That’s our subject?”

“That’s it.”

“The head is the only missing part?”

“As far as I know.”

Her gaze moved to Gurney. “You see it as a warning to back off?”

He nodded. “And I’d love to know who issued the warning.”

She picked up the container. “Maybe this will give us a clue.”

“You’re sure it won’t put you in a difficult position?”

“Difficulty is the spice of life. Besides,” she added with a wink, “you’re the one who needs to be careful. The dead bunny was in your car, not mine.”

They parted ways. Barstow returned to the big glass-cube home of the Forensic Sciences Department, and Gurney checked his phone for messages. He found a new one from Hardwick.

“You want the dirt I dug up on Slade, buy me lunch. Dick and Della’s Diner in Thumburg at one o’clock.”

Gurney returned the call. “You lost your fondness for Abelard’s?” he asked when Hardwick picked up.

“Abelard’s doesn’t fucking exist anymore. The glorious Marika sold it to some asshole from Soho who renamed it the Galloping Goose and doubled the prices.”

“Okay. Dick and Della’s at one.”

“I’m hungry. Don’t be fucking late.”

21

UNLIKE DINERS DESIGNED WITH RETRO FIXTURES TO CREATE a feeling of nostalgia for a bygone era, Dick and Della’s was authentically old and shabby.

The murky vinyl-tile floor might once have been brown and green. In addition to the frayed red-vinyl pedestal seats at the counter, there were half a dozen Formica-topped tables by the front windows. The few patrons lingering over their lunches looked like part of the decor.

It was just twelve forty-five, and Gurney was the first to arrive. He chose a table by one of the windows. A smiling waitress brought him a menu, asked if he wanted coffee, and departed.

He opened his menu. It appeared that a previous patron who’d ordered “Della’s Homemade Pot Roast with Dick’s Smothered Onions” had left remnants of both on the menu. When the waitress returned with his coffee, he ordered pancakes and sausages.

The coffee tasted burnt, but he drank it anyway. An avocado-green refrigerator behind the counter brought back a sudden memory of his father—the man finishing off a pint of whiskey, then searching through that green refrigerator for a six-pack that Gurney’s mother had thrown out with the garbage.

What the hell did she do with it, Davey?

With what?

My beer, what else?

I don’t know.

You don’t, or you’re just saying you don’t?

So the dance went. All he had wanted in those childhood years was to be grown-up and gone.

He was distracted from these thoughts by the familiar growl of the big V-8 in Hardwick’s classic GTO, pulling into a parking space just outside the window. The old muscle car looked better than Gurney expected. The last time he had seen it, the front end had been smashed in, the result of the head-on collision that stopped the escape attempt of the Harrow Hill murderer. A major restoration had finally been completed, including a fire-engine-red paint job. He was still admiring it when Hardwick arrived at his table.

“Slick, eh, Davey?”

“Looked ready for the junk heap last time I saw it.”

“An Esti ultimatum—make it nice or make it go away.”

He took a seat across from Gurney. His hard, muscular frame was evident even under a loose black sweatshirt, and the ice-blue eyes of an Alaskan sled dog were as unsettling as ever.

He signaled for the waitress.

“BLT on toasted white, bacon should be crisp, plenty of mayo. Sides of baked beans and coleslaw. Coffee and cherry pie.”

She wrote it all down on a little pad with green-tinted pages. “All at once?”

“Except the cherry pie.”

She retreated in the direction of the kitchen, and he turned to Gurney.

“Sweet kid. No Marika, but there aren’t a hell of a lot of those around. So, anyway, I did a little research on the slippery scumbag you want to turn loose on society.”

Gurney said nothing. Provocation was a natural part of any conversation with Hardwick.

“Digging up shit on this creep was easy. There’s plenty of it, but he always managed to skip out of serious legal consequences—until this Lerman thing nailed him to the fucking wall.”

Hardwick launched into a vivid tale of Slade’s history, most of which Gurney already knew. Hardwick’s narrative painted a clear picture of Slade’s dissolute past but fell short of providing any new insights into the man.

“Did you find out anything about his background, prior to all the notoriety?”

“Not a lot. His father was a champion fencer and a lifelong womanizer who eventually died of a coke-induced heart attack. Ziko was too busy fucking a Grammy-nominated teenager to attend the funeral.”

Like father like son, thought Gurney.

The waitress arrived with his pancakes, sausages, and a bottle of maple syrup. She told Hardwick that his BLT “and other stuff” would be ready soon and headed back to the kitchen.

“Did you find out anything about the period of Slade’s life after his wife stabbed him?”

“He disappeared into some weird rehab, grew a halo, pretended to be a saint—until the blackmail threat brought the old Ziko back to life and he chopped off Lenny Lerman’s head.” He paused, eyeing Gurney with obvious skepticism. “You don’t actually think this shitbag’s conversion was for real, do you?”

Gurney cut his sausages neatly into quarters and ate a piece. “I met Slade, and I’m not honestly sure about him one way or the other. Also, some details of the murder don’t make sense. And now someone is trying to scare me off the case.”

Gurney told him about the rabbit.

Hardwick’s face screwed up in disbelief. “You think a dead rabbit in your car makes Slade innocent?”

Gurney shrugged. “It does put some weight on that side of the scale.”

“Not a hell of a lot, in my opinion. What details of the murder are bothering you?”

“Mainly the missing head and fingers. Plus, Slade’s property is more than a hundred acres. Why would he bury the body so close to the lodge? And why wouldn’t he get rid of the axe—and the clipper that cut off the fingers? Keeping them seems incredibly stupid.”

Hardwick shook his head dismissively. “Crazy shit happens in murders. Distraction. Panic. If killers thought things through, we wouldn’t catch so many of them.”

“I get that, but Slade struck me as not only intelligent but super-calm.”

“Okay, let’s say that the former scumbag is now a Zen master who wouldn’t hurt a fly. What’s your hypothesis for the crime? You must have an idea or two. This is the kind of shit you live for.”

The waitress arrived with Hardwick’s order. Gurney waited until she was gone.

“Here’s the first thought that came to mind. Someone who was aware of Lerman’s plan to blackmail Slade saw it as an opportunity to kill Lerman and let Slade take the blame.”

“Like who? With what motive?”

“Possibly Lerman’s son. He despised his father and knew about his life insurance policy.”

“You’re saying Lerman’s son could have gotten into Slade’s lodge on a day when he wasn’t there, swiped the camo outfit, got the axe and pruning clipper out of the shed, then followed Lenny the night he went to see Slade, chopped off his head, and buried him there without Slade knowing?”

“Something like that.”

“So, how come Slade’s attorney didn’t dangle this evil son in front of the jury?”

“He did, in a way, in his closing argument; but he couldn’t do more with it, because there was no physical evidence to put him at the site, and he supposedly had a solid alibi.”

“Any other options?”

“Suppose someone who hated Slade gave Lerman sensitive information about Slade and suggested the extortion plan. Maybe the idea was for Lerman to do the work, and they’d split the money. But then he decides to kill Lerman on Slade’s property rather than going through with the blackmail plan. Maybe the idea of framing Slade for murder appealed to him more than extorting money from him.”

Hardwick stared skeptically at his coleslaw. “Any idea who this criminal mastermind might be?”

“None. And there’s a problem with this scenario. It doesn’t track with the excerpts from Lerman’s diary that were presented at the trial.”

“So, basically, you have no fucking idea what’s going on.”

Gurney poured syrup on his pancakes. “I’d like to know what damaging information Lerman had on Slade. The only mention of it in Lerman’s diary was something that went down between Ziko and someone by the name of Sally Bones. That mean anything to you?”

Hardwick took a large bite of his BLT. He shook his head.

“I did a search on it,” said Gurney, “but it led nowhere.”

Hardwick swallowed, then sucked at his teeth. “That wouldn’t by any chance be another of your subtle requests?”

Gurney shrugged. “Sally Bones. Interesting name. Could belong to a low-level mobster who never got enough media attention to pop up on the internet. But he may have come to the attention of law enforcement at some point in his career. If you get an itch to check it out with your old state police contacts, there’s another name you might want to mention. Ian Valdez.”

“Who the hell is Ian Valdez?”

“Good question.”

22

GURNEY’S DRIVE HOME FROM THUMBURG WAS NOT A happy one. The information Hardwick had dug up on Slade, apart from a few unpleasant facts about the man’s fencing-champion father, added nothing of substance to what he already knew.

By the time he parked in his usual spot by the asparagus bed, it was a little after four. The sky was already darkening and an icy breeze was blowing. On evenings like this, Madeleine enjoyed having a fire blazing on the big fieldstone hearth.

He zipped up his jacket, went to the woodpile behind the chicken coop, and brought an armload of split cherry logs into the house. The aroma of baking bread greeted him. As he carried the logs to the fireplace, he could hear the strains of a baroque cello piece coming from Madeleine’s music room upstairs. He took off his jacket and set about arranging the wood in the firebox. It was a task he enjoyed—getting the geometry and spacing of the logs just right to ensure that the fire would start easily and burn steadily without further attention.

The stove timer chimed, the cello music stopped, and a minute later Madeleine entered the kitchen. She removed the bread from the oven and placed it on a cooling rack.

“Oh, good,” she said, seeing him at the fireplace. “I was about to do that myself. I can’t seem to get warm. Did you see your package?” She pointed to a flat box on the table by the French doors. “It arrived by FedEx, right after I got home.”

He made a final adjustment to the top log before going over to the package.

He recognized Marcus Thorne’s return address. He ripped open the package and slid a pile of documents onto the table. The sheet on top was headlined, “Evidence and Witness Files Provided by the Prosecution to the Defense.”

Gurney scanned through the list of enclosures—transcripts of interviews, the ME’s on-site notes, the autopsy report, crime scene photos, and some phone call records. Thorne hadn’t labeled any of the documents as contradictory or exculpatory, which suggested they were consistent with what Stryker presented at the trial.

“Have you run into any new oddities in the case?” Madeleine was peeling a carrot at the sink island, her tone of voice determinedly nonchalant.

“Maybe one or two. Hard to say.” The rabbit “oddity” was surely more significant than his reply suggested, but he didn’t want to mention it to her, at least not now.

She paused to regard him skeptically, then continued peeling the carrot. He gathered up the pile of documents from the table, carried them into the den, and spread them out on his desk.

It was getting dark. Looking out the north window, he could barely see the outline of the pine ridge above the high pasture. He switched on the desk lamp and read through the list of documents again, starting with a transcript of the interview with Bruno Lanka, the hunter who found Lerman’s body. The document included the interviewer’s name—Detective Lieutenant Scott Derlick.

Gurney thought of at least one additional question he would have asked: Of all the deer hunting locations in upstate New York, Mr. Lanka, what was it that brought you to that particular spot?

He returned to the list and found the two items involving the medical examiner, Dr. Kermit Loeffler. He began with the transcript of Loeffler’s recorded observations of the body in situ.

A second transcript described the autopsy findings.

Loeffler placed the likely age of the victim in his mid-forties to mid-fifties and shrank the time window of death to between 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on the Wednesday prior to the Saturday discovery of the body. During the trial that window was further narrowed to two hours—based on Lenny having left a message on Adrienne’s voicemail at 7:00 p.m.

What Gurney found most interesting was the difference between Loeffler’s on-site description of the likely weapon and his description of it in this autopsy report.

In place of his in situ opinion that the weapon was likely a long-bladed, cleaver-like tool, he now concluded that it was a short-bladed axe. He explained that though the evenness of the cut originally suggested a single stroke, subsequent analysis of the neck tissues under magnification indicated that the severing was achieved not with one stroke of a long blade but with two end-to-end strokes of a short blade. “A level of precision demanding considerable expertise on the part of the axe wielder,” Loeffler noted.

GURNEY WAS PONDERING Loeffler’s comment later that evening while he and Madeleine ate dinner. Short of working as a lumberjack, how might someone acquire that sort of proficiency?

Madeleine had stopped eating and was gazing across the table at him.

“You haven’t said a word since we sat down.”

He shrugged and shifted his focus to the braised chicken with rice and apricots on his plate. He was hesitant to discuss the case because he didn’t want to admit his growing involvement to Madeleine.

“The chicken’s good,” he said.

There was another silence, broken by Madeleine.

“Kyle called this afternoon. He said he got your phone message and yes, he’d love to come up for Thanksgiving.”

“Good.”

“You should get in touch with him more often.”

“I know.”

They finished their dinner without further conversation. Madeleine cleared the table, brewed some chamomile tea, and headed upstairs to practice her cello pieces. Gurney made himself an espresso and retreated to the den and the case materials.

Instead of reviewing documents, he placed a call to Bruno Lanka. He got Lanka’s voicemail.

“This call is for Bruno Lanka. My name is David Gurney. I’m reinvestigating the Leonard Lerman murder, and I need to speak to you regarding the statement you made last November to the detective at the scene. You can reach me tomorrow morning between nine and noon.” He’d long ago discovered that providing a time window for a response made it more likely to get one. He included his cell number and ended the call.

23

GURNEY’S PHONE RANG AT 9:01 THE NEXT MORNING WHILE he was washing his breakfast dishes. He expected the caller to be Lanka, but the name on the screen was Hardwick.

“Yes, Jack?”

“Those names you gave me—Sally Bones and Ian Valdez? I found three people called Ian Valdez, but I doubt any of them would interest you. One’s a retired dentist in Chicago. Another’s a Jesuit in Boston. And the third’s a middle-aged choreographer in Los Angeles.”

“No one younger?”

“If your Valdez is young, either he’s using a phony name or he just hatched out of a fucking egg. Better luck with Sally Bones. I found a reference to a Salvatore Bono who died in odd circumstances about six years ago. A short news item mentioned he was known to his friends as Sally Bones. No one was listed as surviving him, no wake, no funeral notice.”

“What were the odd circumstances?”

“Body was found in a dumpster behind a fast-food joint in Albany, not far from where he lived. But get this—he was crushed to death.”

“Crushed . . . how?”

“News item quoted someone in the medical examiner’s office, saying it was like something had been wrapped around him and tightened until it cut off his circulation and respiration, literally squeezed the life out of him.”

“Interesting murder weapon. Who investigated it?”

“Albany city police.”

“Were you able to check it out?”

“A little. I know a guy over there from my NYSP days. He told me the investigation went nowhere. Victim was unmarried, no kids, no known employment. Turns out the ‘friends’ mentioned in the news item were a couple of acquaintances in a local bar, plus a stripper who lived with him but claimed to know nothing about him. She didn’t even know his real name. She said he called himself Sally Bones, and that was good enough for her. Same with the ‘friends’ in the bar. Case was technically open for a couple of years, then got dropped into the inactive file. Basically, nobody gave a shit. It happens.”

“Any motive theories at the time?”

“Maybe gambling debts. Maybe he got on the wrong side of some psycho. The guy was a loner. Goddamn loners are the hardest murders to solve.”

“No hint of any connection to Ziko Slade?”

“None.”

“And the weird method of execution didn’t lead anywhere?”

“Nowhere useful. Shit, I don’t even like to think about that. Having the breath crushed out of him. I’ll be having goddamn suffocation dreams. Any other sickening favors I can do for you, Sherlock?”

“Funny you should ask. There’s another name I’m curious about. Bruno Lanka.”

GURNEY GAZED OUT the French doors. The ground was covered in snow. In contrast with the stark white of the pasture, the leafless trees looked black. It was frustrating how little progress he’d made on the question of Slade’s guilt or innocence.

It was time for another call to Emma Martin.

“Good morning, David. What can I do for you?”

“What can you tell me about Ian Valdez?”

“That depends on what aspect of his life you’re asking about.”

“Let’s start with his name. Is it legitimate or an alias?”

“I can’t say. People who come to me can remain as anonymous as they wish. I’m not interested in names, only in who they really are. Why do you ask? Has something happened?”

“While I was at the lodge, someone put a decapitated rabbit in my car. I discovered it shortly after Ian left on some sort of errand.”

“And you’re thinking Ian put it there?”

“It’s possible.”

“That’s not the person I know him to be.”

“And who, exactly, is that?”

“A person, like Ziko, who has learned the value of integrity.”

Gurney sighed impatiently but said nothing.

“I understand your skepticism. Perhaps you should visit Ziko again.”

“Why?”

“The better you know Ziko, the surer you’ll be of his innocence, and the better you’ll understand Ian.”

He suppressed an itch to argue. Instead, he thanked Emma and ended the call. There might, in fact, be some value in meeting with Slade again.

After phoning Attica to arrange a visit later that day, he refilled the watering device in the chicken coop, left a note for Madeleine, and set out on the long drive.

THE VISITING ROOM was busier than on his previous visit. The conversational murmur was louder, and the odors of sweat and disinfectant more pronounced.

Slade entered the room, found his way to the table, and sat across from Gurney. He looked just as untroubled by his circumstances as before.

“Good to see you, Mr. Gurney.”

“How are you doing?”

“The food has room for improvement.” His tone suggested indifference to this fact.

“I drove up to your lodge the other day.”

The tilt of Slade’s head indicated interest. “To view the scene of the crime?”

“Yes.”

“Did you meet Ian?”

“He arrived a little after I did.” Gurney paused. “Interesting young man. How much do you know about him?”

Slade smiled. “Ian is one of Emma’s miracles.”

“Where did he come from?”

“Hell.”

“Did he share any details with you?”

“Some, but there were things he wouldn’t talk about.”

“Can you tell me what he did talk about?”

“One of Emma’s rules is that anything divulged in her home is confidential. But I can tell you that I felt horror at what he told me and sorrow over what it did to him.”

“Ian told me he’d adopted you as his new father.”

“True.”

“What do you make of that?”

“I suspect it has little to do with me. It is about something in him. ‘Desperation’ may be the best word for it. Whatever it is, making me his ‘father’ has had a calming effect on him. Perhaps it helped him to deal with some of his hideous memories of the father who raised him.”

“He needed that kind of help?”

“Very much so. When Ian first came to Emma, he was . . . insane.”

“Do you know if ‘Ian Valdez’ is his birth name?”

He shook his head. “Emma discourages that kind of curiosity.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I believe he’s been truthful with me, to the extent that he knows what the truth is.”

Gurney sat back in his chair and waited for the officer patrolling that part of the room with unusual persistence to pass out of earshot. The man’s shaved head and thick neck brought to mind the driver of the Corrections Department vehicle he spotted tailing him after his last visit.

“Have you given much thought to why you’re here?”

Slade shrugged. “The evidence convinced the jury I was guilty.”

“But if you’re innocent, that evidence must have been planted by someone else. The questions are by whom and why. Any ideas?”

Slade shook his head. “I don’t even know whether I was the target or the scapegoat. Was the objective to kill Lerman and, as matter of convenience, deflect the blame on me? Or was killing Lerman simply a way to frame me for murder?”

Gurney had arrived at that same fork in the road. That Slade shared his thinking was a point in his favor.

“How about a list of your enemies—do you think you could put one together?”

“For the two or three years leading up to my wife stabbing me, I was out of my mind.” He paused, a smile revealing his movie-star teeth. “You should talk to my ex-wife. She was high all the time, but she didn’t have memory blackouts like I did. If you want to know about the enemies I made, she’s the one to ask. Tell her you’re working on my case and you want some insights into my character. She’ll be delighted to tell you the worst.”

“Did she do any prison time for stabbing you?”

“She claimed self-defense, and I declined to testify against her. It was the least I could do to make up for my behavior. I’ll give you her contact information. She’s living in my Dutchess County house—the result of a divorce provision. You have something to write on?”

“I have a good memory.”

Slade spelled out his ex-wife’s name—Simone Delorean—along with her phone number. Gurney closed his eyes and pictured the number, repeating it to himself. When he opened them, the bull-necked guard was once again walking slowly past their table.

24

ON THE HOMEWARD DRIVE, GURNEY DIVIDED HIS ATTENTION between his rearview mirror and puzzling out a case hypothesis that would combine Lerman’s extortion plan, his murder at Slade’s lodge, and a murderer other than Slade himself. The few possibilities that occurred to him all contained significant logical obstacles.

He stopped for coffee and gas at the same convenience store where he had gotten a bottle of water on his previous trip. After refilling the tank, he placed a call to Adrienne Lerman.

“Mr. Gurney?” Her earnest, obliging tone reminded him of her desire to find homes for the kittens she was fostering. Kittens that were meowing in the background. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to share some thoughts I have regarding your father’s death.”

She didn’t reply.

“Do you have time now, or would you prefer that I call back later?”

“Now is probably best. There’s a hospice client I need to see at dinnertime. Have you discovered something?”

“It’s not so much a discovery as a feeling.”

“A feeling about his death?”

“About the way his death has been explained.”

Gurney got the impression that she’d stopped breathing.

He continued. “Based on what your father said about his plan, and where his body was later discovered, the natural assumption was that Ziko Slade killed him. That made perfect sense. But—”

Adrienne cut him off. “You put that in the past tense.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said the assumption that Slade killed him made perfect sense. But it doesn’t now?”

“I’m saying the case against Slade may not be as strong as it seemed.”

“But the trial . . . the evidence . . . how could he be innocent?”

“Sometimes when investigators pinpoint someone as the obvious perpetrator, their minds close, and they ignore facts that don’t support their conclusion. They see everything through the lens of what they’ve already decided is true.”

“Is that what you think happened?”

The meowing in the background grew louder.

“I think it’s possible. But I need your help. I’d like you to consider the possibility that someone else killed your father, and that—”

“What about the DNA, the axe . . . ?”

“Put that aside for the moment. What I want you to focus on right now is your father—on his behavior in the days and weeks leading up to his death—everything you can remember, even the smallest details. Can you do that?”

Gurney waited, relying on that deep vein of helpfulness that seemed to define her.

“I can try,” she said. “But you’re asking about things that happened a year ago.”

One of the cats sounded a lot closer. He pictured it standing in front of her, demanding attention.

“There’s no rush. Over the next few days, when you have time, try to picture the interactions you had with your father. Whatever comes to mind. Things he said. Things he did.”

He heard her taking a deep breath.

“I can try,” she said again.

“One last thing. Before the trial, had you ever heard the name Sally Bones?”

“Not that I remember. I think I’d remember a weird name like that.”

“No problem. Call me anytime with any thoughts, recollections, questions, anything at all. I really appreciate your help.”

After ending the call, he finished his coffee, crumpled up the container, and tossed it into the makeshift garbage bag hanging under his glove compartment.

He was tired, hungry, and eager to get home, but he decided to try reaching Simone Delorean first. Her number rang three times before switching to a recording that sounded both intoxicated and provocative.

“I’m busy right now. Very busy. So, at the tone, beep-beep, tell me what you want. Okay? Just spell it out. Be explicit. Bye-bye.”

Gurney began leaving a message, but at the mention of Ziko’s name he was cut off by a live voice, a sharper version of the one on the message. “Who the fuck is this?”

Gurney identified himself and explained that he was looking for insights into Ziko’s character.

“Insights? You want insights into that son of a bitch?”

“We’re trying to get a sense of his character before we commit to the appeal process. We were hoping that you might be able to—”

“Appeal? He’s appealing his conviction? You mean, like, trying to get it reversed?”

“That would be the objective.”

“But he’s guilty.”

“That’s what we’re taking a second look at.”

“You some kind of a lawyer?”

“An investigator. His attorney is Marcus Thorne.”

“I know who his fucking attorney is. You actually think you have a chance of getting that prick off?” She sounded both incredulous and furious.

“That depends. We’re trying to get a picture of his character.”

There was a silence during which Gurney guessed she was assessing the angles. “Where are you?” she asked.

Gurney started to describe his location when she interrupted him again.

“Actually, I don’t give a fuck where you are. You have my address?”

“No.”

“You know where Dutchess County is?”

“Yes.”

“You know Rhinebeck?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Forty-two Heron Pond Road. Can you get here by eight tonight?”

Gurney did a quick calculation. “Yes.”

“And you want the truth about Ziko? The whole truth?”

“We want to know as much as possible about him. He appears to be a charming man, but the evidence at the trial—”

“The evidence at the trial proved he was a fucking axe murderer! But that, sweetheart, is just the tip of the Ziko iceberg. Be here by eight.”

25

BEFORE SETTING OUT FOR RHINEBECK, HE LEFT A BRIEF voicemail message for Madeleine, saying only that he’d be home later than expected. He had no appetite for explaining why.

By the time he crossed the Hudson River on the Kingston bridge three hours later, the wind had risen, and the glow of a full moon was shimmering on the water.

His GPS took him through the prosperous village of Rhinebeck and into the rolling countryside beyond it. The final GPS instruction directed him onto Slade’s estate via a private lane. Unlike many of the county’s painstakingly restored eighteenth- and nineteenth-century homes, the two-story structure at the end of the lane was modern, glassy, and angular. Lamplight shone from an upstairs window. The rest of the house, the gravel parking area in front of it, and the spherically trimmed boxwoods around it were bathed in moonlight.

He got out of the car. On the far side of a multi-acre lawn, he saw a line of stables, reminding him that Marcus Thorne referred to the place as Slade’s horse farm. Beyond the stables sat a glass structure he assumed was a greenhouse.

He climbed the broad concrete steps to the front door—a glossy black slab with a nearly invisible camera lens at eye level—and knocked. Then knocked again, louder. Just as he was taking out his phone to call Simone Delorean, the door swung opened to reveal a shirtless, muscular teenager with disheveled hair and wild eyes. There was a sheen of sweat on his face and chest and a trace of white powder on one nostril.

“Fuck are you, man?”

“David Gurney. Here to see Simone Delorean.”

“Yeah?” He stared at Gurney, as if trying to comprehend a difficult concept.

“Maybe you should tell her I’m here.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I told you, David Gurney.”

After another prolonged stare, he slammed the door.

The meeting was turning out to be more complicated than anticipated. As a precaution, Gurney returned to the Outback and strapped on his Beretta ankle holster. He returned to the door just as it opened.

The woman standing in the soft light of the entrance hall wore nothing but a white tee shirt that reached halfway to her knees. Her long dark hair was wet from a shower she’d evidently just stepped out of.

Her pale gray eyes neither welcomed nor engaged. Like a predator, they assessed. She was equally beautiful and unsettling, and he suspected that upon meeting a man, the first thing she assessed was the impact she had on him. The second would be what possible use he might be to her. He imagined how the appraisal might have played out for the young fellow with the coke-powdered nose.

“He’s over eighteen,” she said, as if reading his mind. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

An engine started up somewhere behind the house with a loud burst, followed by the whine of a high-revving trail bike receding into the distance.

“You want to come in?” Her tone was a parody of coyness.

He followed her through a dim-lit hallway into a large room with three black couches around an open granite hearth. A conical chimney of black metal was suspended above it. Rather than creating the warm ambience of a traditional fireplace, it had a chilling effect on the room.

The way she settled herself at the end of one of the couches made it increasingly obvious that the long tee shirt was all she was wearing. Gurney sat at the far end, determinedly focusing on her face. A cool hint of a smile suggested that she found this amusing.

“So,” she said, “you want to know about Ziko?”

“I do.”

“Because he’s appealing his conviction?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he’s a totally guilty piece of shit?”

“On the phone, you called the Lerman murder the tip of the Ziko iceberg. What did you mean by that?”

She shifted a bit in her seat, making the sight of her thighs more distracting.

“Some people do nasty things, but underneath they’re not so bad. Their crazy shit makes you kinda like them. But with Ziko, it was the opposite. He’s a sweet talker, lots of charm, does favors with a smile. But underneath all that grinning he’s a piece of shit. He lies the way other people breathe. People think what a charming guy. How nice. How open. Doesn’t seem to have a secret in the world. And that’s exactly what he gets off on. Ziko’s got nothing but secrets. The man’s a walking, talking, smiling lie.”

“You don’t buy the truth of his new life?”

“Give me a fucking break!”

“You don’t believe he’s changed?’

“He’s changed, alright. The lies are bigger now. He’s not just lying about who he’s fucking, he’s lying about being a fucking saint!” She leaned forward, as if she were about to spring off the couch. “You don’t goddamn get it, do you? You’re dealing with the most poisonous, deceptive scumbag on the face of the earth!”

Simone’s display of rage felt authentic. But Gurney wasn’t sure if it was rage against an evil hypocrite or against a former partner who moved on to a better life—a life that excluded her.

“Why did you stab him?”

She shrugged. “We weren’t getting along. We argued about everything.”

“And in the middle of one of those arguments you decided to stab him?”

She yawned, as if she suddenly found the subject tiresome. “I discovered he’d been fucking my mother, which I found . . . inappropriate.”

It was far from the first revelation of intergenerational infidelity that Gurney had encountered, but it was definitely the most nonchalant. It made him wonder whether she was as corrupt as her tone suggested, or coke-addled, or lying.

She yawned again.

He decided to move on. “As you know, the trial narrative was based on the premise that Ziko was the target of a blackmail attempt. Do you know of any particular event in his past that could be the basis for that?”

“Ziko was capable of anything. He did things all the time that could come back and blow that fucking halo off his head.”

“Anything he’d be absolutely desperate to keep to himself?”

“Could be a hundred things. When he was high, nobody in the fucking world was crazier than Ziko.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Maybe there’s another headless body out there. You ever think of that?”

He had, but he preferred asking questions to answering them.

“Does the case of a victim being crushed to death ring any bells?”

She recoiled. “Fuck, no!”

“Where did Ziko’s money come from?”

“What do you mean?”

“A big estate in a pricey area like this can’t have been cheap. Did the money come from his drug dealing?”

She uttered a dismissive laugh. “Most of that went up his nose. Along with thousand-dollar bottles of wine. Ziko liked to drink Lafite Rothschild with takeout pizza.”

Gurney detected a nostalgic note. The good old days with crazy Ziko, before he put an end to it all by fucking her mother. Or was it by finding religion with Emma Martin?

“So where did it come from—the money for this place, the money he still has?”

“Some from the sale of his sportswear company. But mostly it was handed to him by his father. Nasty prick who wanted nothing to do with his son. Threw money at Ziko to keep him away.” She yawned again. “How much more of this shit you want to wade through? The family crap is totally boring.”

“Ever hear the name Sally Bones?”

“Yeah, at Ziko’s trial.”

“That was the only time you heard it?”

“Yeah.”

“How about the name Jingo?’

“Same. The trial.”

“Okay, Simone. That’s it. Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me.”

She sat quietly in her corner of the couch for a long minute, with those cold eyes fixed on him. When she spoke, there was ice in her voice.

“He’s guilty. Burn that into your fucking brain. He deserves to be where he is. I hope he dies there.”

26

“YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT?”

Madeleine was gazing at him across the table by the French doors, where they were having a mostly silent breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee.

“Not really, but it might help.” He put his fork down on the edge of his plate and took a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I was hoping that Slade’s ex-wife would provide some new insight into the case. Or into Slade. The fact is, she only added to the fog. She insists his reformation is a con job, and she hates him with a venom that’s hard to overstate.”

“A woman scorned?”

“Scorned and having an affair with a kid who looks about sixteen.”

“How old is she?”

“At least twice the age of her houseboy.”

“Attractive?”

“And repellent.”

“What were you expecting?”

“That she might reveal something useful. Possibly the event that was the basis for Lenny Lerman’s blackmail plot. Maybe a few objective facts about Slade’s background that would sharpen my picture of the man. She did say with particular conviction that he’s a superb liar.”

He poked at a remaining bit of egg, then put his fork down again. Beyond the glass doors, everything was white or gray or black, except for the muted red of the barn across from the now-frozen pond.

“It’s snowing again,” he said.

She finished her coffee. “So, where do you stand with the case?”

“Nowhere. I have major problems with every hypothesis.”

“Including the ‘Slade is guilty’ hypothesis?”

He nodded. Truth be told, the main source of his doubt regarding Slade’s guilt was the decapitated rabbit. But he wasn’t about to mention anything that threatening to Madeleine. “The evidence is inconsistent with Slade’s temperament. The man I visited in Attica is nothing if not cool under pressure. I don’t see him making so many incriminating mistakes—leaving that axe and pruning clipper where they could be discovered, putting one of his own camo suits on Lerman, burying the body so close to the house, dropping a cigarette butt with his DNA on it by the gravesite.”

“You’re saying he was framed?”

“It’s one way of explaining the evidence. But it raises a difficult question. Was framing Slade a way for the killer to escape responsibility for killing Lerman? Or was killing Lerman a way to set up the framing of Slade?”

Madeleine eyed him warily. “That’s the sort of question that obsesses you.”

“The answer could be crucial. If the primary goal was to kill Lerman, then that’s where we’ll find the key to this whole affair. The insurance investigator insists it was all about the insurance money. Meaning the suspects would be the victim’s beneficiaries, Sonny and Adrienne. But I just don’t see them as perps. Adrienne is a hospice worker, and she fosters homeless kittens. Sonny may be explosive enough to kill someone, but framing Slade would have required planning, not explosiveness.”

Madeleine continued watching him without comment.

“The other possibility—killing Lerman to frame Slade—has its own problems. It would require knowledge of Lerman’s blackmail plan, knowledge of when Slade would be at the lodge, and knowledge of exactly when Lerman planned to confront him. It seems like a hell of a coincidence that one of the few people to whom Lerman confided his plan would just happen to hate Ziko Slade enough to want to destroy his life and be willing to murder Lerman to do it.”

“You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.”

“But all I can see are three possibilities. One, Slade is guilty as charged. Two, someone else killed Lerman and framed Slade to get away with it. Three, someone wanted to frame Slade and killed Lerman to do it. But there are major flaws in all three.”

“I think this would be an ideal time to put your final thoughts on paper—the pluses and minuses of the three possibilities—pass them along to Emma and let her take it from there. You’ve done enough.”

Gurney nodded vaguely.

27

YOU’VE DONE ENOUGH.

Madeleine’s comment was echoing in his mind later that morning as he sat in the den, going through the files he’d received from Marcus Thorne. He realized she had a valid point; he just wished he could pass along a possibility that had more pluses and fewer minuses. But if he were to come up with a new Lerman murder hypothesis, he needed either new facts or a new way of interpreting the ones he had. He decided to begin with the GPS map of Lerman’s trip, which showed the route Lerman had followed from his apartment in Calliope Springs to Slade’s lodge in the wilderness above Rexton.

The duration of the trip—two hours and twenty-one minutes—seemed a bit on the long side. But Lerman’s sixteen-minute gas-station stop could explain it.

That did, however, seem like a long time to spend at a gas station. Perhaps Lerman spent some time in the station’s convenience store or restroom. Or a neighboring store. Gurney opened his laptop and entered the gas station’s address in Google Maps Street View.

The facility that appeared on the screen was small and scruffy. There were only two pumps, and the tiny store behind them looked more in need of demolishing than updating. He rotated the viewing angle 180 degrees. Directly across the road from the station was a shabby strip mall housing a discount cigarette outlet, a martial arts dojo, a liquor store, an auto supply shop, and a vacant storefront.

He imagined Lerman stopping for gas, noticing the liquor store, and going over to buy something to settle his nerves before going on to his meeting with Slade. But the fact that he could imagine that scenario didn’t mean much.

Kyra Barstow might have more information than she’d presented at the trial. Gurney retrieved his phone from the breakfast table and called her.

“If you’re calling about the rabbit, David, I’m not finished with it yet.”

“No, another request, if you have a moment.”

“Barely.”

“In addition to examining the physical evidence at the Lerman murder site, did you do any other forensic work on the case?”

“Anything in particular you have in mind?”

“A possible security camera video at the gas station where Lerman stopped on his way to Slade’s lodge.”

“There wasn’t any. The station owner claimed his system was broken.”

“How about the strip mall across the road?”

“Nothing operational there either.”

“How about Lerman’s credit card statements?”

“Covering that same day?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on. I need to check our files.”

Five minutes later she was back. “We have his Visa statement for last November. Stryker had no interest in it.”

“How about his phone records for the same month?”

“Stryker used those as evidence of Lerman’s calls to Slade’s number.”

“Any chance I could get copies of them, along with the Visa statement?”

“I assume, if questioned, you’d have no idea how they came into your possession?”

“I’ve forgotten already.”

“By the way, regarding the rabbit? I was waiting until I had a final answer to call you, but as long as we’re speaking, I’ll tell you what I have so far. There’s considerable foreign DNA on the rabbit’s fur—from various sources, none human. Some from other rabbits. Some from other living organisms, species yet to be identified. I’m cross checking non-human databases. I hope to have a species match soon, assuming it’s not something totally weird.”

“Great, Kyra. Your help is beyond anything I could hope for.”

“Do I detect another request buried in that sweet talk?”

He laughed. “Now that you mention it, could you look at Lerman’s Visa statement for the day of his trip to the lodge and tell me what purchases he made and where he made them?”

She paused. “Two purchases that day. One at that gas station for fourteen dollars and fifty-seven cents. And one at Cory’s Auto Supply for sixteen dollars and nineteen cents. Is that helpful?”

“Could be,” he said, recalling that Cory’s was the name of the auto supply store across from the gas station. “At the very least, it’s interesting.”

And baffling, he thought, after ending the call with Barstow. What automotive need could a man have had on his way to such a monumental encounter—perhaps the most important of his life? The price of the purchase seemed too high for an urgent quart of oil. So, what could the need have been? Emergency windshield wipers? A gas can? The possibility reminded him that Lerman’s car had been torched, but the torching occurred after Lerman was killed—a situation that raised more questions than it answered. So, would a windshield-wiper purchase make more sense?

Gurney went to an archival weather site and entered the name of the county and the date of Lerman’s murder. He discovered it had been partly sunny that day with zero precipitation—making wipers an unlikely purchase. Additional speculation would have to wait for additional facts. With a sigh, he turned his attention back to the trial materials.

He reviewed the medical examiner’s initial comments on the body and the autopsy report. The cause of death was the severing of the victim’s head with two successive blows of a sharp axe-like implement. The mechanism of death was cardiorespiratory arrest, subsequent to catastrophic neural interruption and rapid blood loss.

As always, he was struck by the disparity between the cool medical description of a murder and the gruesome visual impact of the body. It made him wonder about the emotional state of the killer. Had he been as dispassionate as the pathologist or was he driven by a hatred as ugly as the deed itself?

Gazing at the autopsy photos of the headless torso and fingerless hands, Gurney again asked himself what motivated the amputations. The explanations put forward so far—preventing or delaying the identification of the corpse—seemed to make no sense. And precisely because of that, he suspected those mutilations might be the key to the case.

He felt a new urgency to discover new facts, new dots to connect. Glancing through the titles of the remaining folders on his desk, he stopped at one labeled Photographs of victim’s incinerated car. He opened it and pulled out a handful of color prints. He counted sixteen of them—twelve of the car, four of the location.

The latter showed an abandoned granite quarry in the process of slipping back into the wilderness. Saplings had taken root in the larger crevices, and weeds filled the narrower ones. The excavated area, no more than a couple of acres, was surrounded by a dense hemlock forest. There seemed to be just one access road entering the clearing from the woods. In the corner of one photo, he saw a discarded red plastic gasoline can, probably the same one used to transport the fire accelerant to the scene.

Next he studied the vehicle photos—reminders that few things on earth looked more derelict than the skeleton of a burnt-out car. The windows had shattered and collapsed in the flames. The tires had been consumed. The interior photos showed even more extensive damage, since that was where most of the plastic components—controls, gauges, screens, panels, upholstery, padding, carpeting—were located. Virtually everything except the metal framework had been reduced to crusts and ashes. Gurney knew from his experience with homicides involving arson that a gasoline fire could reach temperatures close to two thousand degrees. Virtually no non-metallic part of a vehicle could survive that heat.

Neither could a human body—which raised an interesting question. Why did the killer go to the trouble of burying Lerman’s body, when it could have been disposed of more efficiently in the car fire? At two thousand degrees, there would have been only charred skeletal remains, and that heat would have destroyed the DNA molecules in the bones—a far more effective way of preventing identification than removing the man’s head and fingers. Perhaps the murder had been misunderstood from the beginning.

The thought energized him. He spread the other case files out on his desk and chose one at random. It was a transcript of Detective Lieutenant Scott Derlick’s interview with Thomas Cazo—Lerman’s boss at the Beer Monster.

Although Gurney had a clear recollection of Cazo’s testimony at the trial—testimony shaped by Stryker’s choice of questions—it was possible that the full interview might contain other facts of interest.

As he sat back in his chair to read the transcript, his phone rang.

It was Madeleine.

“I have a favor to ask. Actually, two favors. Could you bring my cello to the clinic? Any time before three thirty? I’m supposed to join our string group for a concert at Highfield Assisted Living right after work. I’d forgotten about it.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Thank you. And the second favor. The snow in the chicken run. Could you shovel it off to the side? They love being out there, but they won’t come down the ramp if the grass is covered with snow.”

After they ended the call, he picked up the transcript, then put it back down. He decided to get the chicken errand out of the way first. Large snowflakes descended in slow motion through the windless air. Soft pillows of snow collected on the seats of the Adirondack chairs on the patio, on the top of the little cafe table, on the birdhouse by the old apple tree, on the roof of the coop.

Being outside on a snowy day like this instantly immersed him in another world, one colored by fragments of memories. Sitting on a sled pulled by his father. The sled gliding silently between high drifts. He wondered if his lifelong love of snow dated back to that moment—he and his father alone in that silent, untroubled place.

The restless squawking of the hens in the coop brought him back to the present. He went to the shed he and Madeleine had built the previous spring. Currently, it was used for garden tools, hoses, fertilizer; but there was a possibility that it might someday house a pair of alpacas—animals Madeleine was especially fond of.

He retrieved a snow shovel and began clearing a broad area at the base of the ramp. As soon as he scraped away enough snow to expose a patch of grass, the five hens came strutting down the ramp in single file—the fearless Rhode Island Red in the lead—and began scratching at the ground. He headed back into the house.

His phone was ringing as he entered the mudroom. He pulled off his snowy boots and hurried through the kitchen into the den. The caller’s number had been blocked.

“Gurney here.”

“David Gurney?”

“Right.”

“I have information for you.” The voice was male, soft, insinuating.

“Who is this?”

“I know who killed Lenny Lerman.”

Gurney said nothing.

“Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“Would that information be useful to you?”

“That depends on who you are and how verifiable it is.”

“Perfectly verifiable, and very valuable to your friend Ziko Slade. It will free him from prison. Prisons are dangerous places. I suggest a simple transaction. I provide the truth about the hit on Lenny Lerman, and Mr. Slade pays for value received.”

“Does this truth come with proof?”

“Of course.”

“Let me make sure I understand. You have concrete proof—not just hearsay—that someone other than Ziko Slade killed Lenny Lerman. And you’re willing to turn that proof over for an appropriate payment. Is that right?”

“Exactly.”

“How would this exchange occur?”

“I will give you part of the information—enough for you and Slade to understand what happened to Mr. Lerman. Along with that, I will give you a price. I will retain the final proof until we have a firm agreement.”

“The partial information—what does it consist of?”

“Some names, dates, photographs.”

“How soon can you give me these things?”

“I have business this afternoon in Harbane and tomorrow in Scarpton. You know those towns?”

“More or less.”

“Good. Pick a spot, pick a time.”

Gurney thought about it, hesitated, then made his choice. “This afternoon, two o’clock, in front of the Harbane town hall.”

“I look forward to seeing you, Mr. Gurney. At two o’clock.”

The man’s voice was as placid as the purring of a cat.

28

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR GURNEY TO START FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE about the meeting in Harbane. It wasn’t the physical situation that made him uneasy. The town hall was next to the police station, cops would be coming and going all day, he’d be armed himself, and he’d faced hundreds of situations riskier than this down in the city. It was the silky confidence of the voice on the phone.

He decided to call Jack Hardwick.

The man answered the way he often did. “The fuck you want now?”

“Any chance you might be free this afternoon?”

“I’m on standby.”

“Standby?”

“I provide occasional security for a major asshole. He may call today.”

“This major asshole needs armed protection?”

“Wants it more than he needs it. He’s got a conspiracy theory website—a shitload of lunatic nonsense. But he wants people to think his life is in danger because of all the truth he’s exposing. Like the fact that the big California tech companies are run by a secret society of satanic dwarfs. He likes having a visible bodyguard at his public appearances. He thinks creating the impression that he might be shot makes him newsworthy. He plans to run for Congress. Probably win by a landslide. Big appetite out there for bullshit. So, why do you want to know if I’m free?”

“I’m meeting someone in Harbane at two o’clock in front of the town hall—a guy who claims to have inside information on the Lerman murder. The Lerman ‘hit’ is what he called it.”

“You know anything about this guy?”

“Nothing.”

“You have a concern about his intentions?”

“I have a concern about his lack of concern. Sounded too relaxed.”

Hardwick cleared his throat in his disgusting style. “I should get a call by noon to let me know if he needs me. If not, I’ll head for Harbane. By the way, I checked out that guy you asked me about.”

“Bruno Lanka?”

“Owns a specialty-foods market in a seedy suburb of Albany. No rap sheet. You want me to go see him, ask a few questions?”

“Not at the moment. Hope to see you this afternoon.”

Gurney’s gaze returned to the snow that was falling in slow motion on the high pasture, but he hardly saw it. His mind was on Harbane. A bleak place. The buildings along the main street, more than a century old, exhibited the decrepitude of age without the charm of antiquity. Among the shabby storefronts on that street there was, inexplicably, an excellent Vietnamese restaurant that he and Madeleine had visited three times in the past year.

Thinking about their first meal there, he remembered they chose that restaurant because it was near a town where they were attending a chamber music concert. All he recalled of the concert itself were the dramatic gyrations of the young Asian cellist—an image that suddenly reminded him to bring Madeleine her cello. It would be most efficient to go first to Harbane and then to the clinic. Doing it that way would also give him more time with the case files before setting out.

With everything squared away, he returned to the transcript of Scott Derlick’s interview with Lerman’s old boss at the Beer Monster.

He was still on the first page of the six-page document when a Bing! announced the arrival of an email from Kyra Barstow. He put down the transcript and clicked on the email.

There was no covering note, just two attachments. The first was a copy of Lenny Lerman’s Visa statement for the previous November. He glanced through it. Other than the transactions at the gas station and the auto supply store that Barstow mentioned, he saw nothing of interest.

The second attachment was a printout of Lerman’s phone calls for the months of October and November. He counted twelve outgoing and ten incoming calls. Barstow had put a check mark next to six of the incoming calls, all from the same number. At the bottom of the printout she had written, “That number was assigned to an anonymous prepaid phone that was used exclusively for the six calls to Lerman. The first call occurred on October 23 and the final call occurred on November 23, the day of Lerman’s death.”

The fact that someone acquired an anonymous phone for the sole purpose of communicating with Lerman—and solely during the weeks when he was developing his blackmail scheme—suggested that he and the caller might have been partners in the affair.

Gurney sorted through the case files on his desk until he found the photocopy of Lerman’s brief diary—his handwritten record of key moments in that five-week period. Checking the dates of the diary entries against the dates of Lerman’s communications with the owner of the anonymous phone, he noted several correlations.

The first call Lerman received—on October 23—was followed by an October 24 diary entry: Ran into Jingo at the Monster yesterday. Can’t get what he told me out of my head. Question one—is it true? I’m thinking sure why not? Z and Sally Bones. I can see how that would happen. Question two. What’s it worth? A hundred K? An even Mil?

On the morning of November 2, Lerman received his second call. That night he made the diary entry describing the dinner he had with Adrienne and Sonny: Took A and S to the Lakeshore. Said hello to Pauly Bats at the bar. Big Pauly! Nobody fucks with Pauly Bats!! Explained the plan to A and S. Adie worries like always. What if? What if? What if? Like her mother. Sonny doesn’t talk. But Sonny likes money. Now we’ll have money. Serious money!

He received a third call the evening of November 4, and on November 5 he made this diary entry: Got Z’s number and made the call. The asshole picked up. I asked him how much it was worth for me to forget everything I knew about Sally Bones. I told him to think about it. I made the scumbag worry.

On November 6 Lerman quit his job at the Beer Monster and recorded the event in the diary.

On the evening of November 12, he received a fourth call, and on November 13 he made this diary entry: Called Z again. Told him I figured an even Mil was the right number to save his evil fucking ass. In used twenties. Whining son of a bitch said that was like two suitcases. I told him so what, you worthless prick. What the fuck do I care about suitcases? You got ten days I told him.

Early on the morning of November 23, Lerman received the fifth call. That same evening, the evening of his fatal trip to Ziko Slade’s lodge, he made his final diary entry: Called Z, told him his time was up, he better have the fucking Mil. He said he did. I told him to have it ready tonight, make sure he’s alone. I walk with the Mil, or the whole fucking world hears about Sally Bones.

Lerman’s diary contained no mention of the six calls he received from the owner of the prepaid phone. Why had Lerman kept that element out of a written record that was in its other respects such a detailed admission of criminal intent?

Gurney wondered if the omission might be as important to the case as the decapitation.

29

GURNEY SECURED MADELEINE’S CELLO IN THE REAR SEAT of the Outback and set out at twelve thirty for his two o’clock appointment. Harbane was less than fifty miles away, but the route was hilly, snow was falling, and there was a chance of getting caught behind one of the road plows.

The broad valley that stretched in a westerly direction from Walnut Crossing was bereft of human activity. There was no traffic. The sporadic herds of cows he’d noted on his trips to Attica were out of sight, sheltering in their ramshackle barns. The snow-covered landscape seemed as lifeless as whitewashed stone. Near the end of the valley, he turned onto the road that led up over Blackmore Mountain into the next county.

He spent most of the drive wrestling with the implications of a second person being involved in the blackmail plot and with the perplexing fact that Lerman’s phone contacts with that person began the day before “Jingo” provided the information that made the plot possible. It was hard to see how that sequence made sense.

Unless . . . the scheme to blackmail Slade had been devised by someone other than Lerman. Say, by the owner of the anonymous phone. Perhaps that person and Jingo were using Lerman as a front man to minimize their own exposure.

He wondered if Kyra Barstow had given any thought to these issues. He pulled onto the shoulder and made the call.

“Hi, David. Are you calling about your rabbit?”

“Something a bit more complicated.”

“I love complication.”

“I’ve been looking at the record of the phone contacts between Lerman and Mr. Anonymous.”

“Or Ms. Anonymous.”

“Good point. Anyway, you mentioned in your note on the printout that the anonymous phone was used only for communications with Lerman. Odd in itself, but what do you make of the fact that the calls were limited to the period leading up to Lerman’s trip to Slade’s lodge?”

“Maybe Lerman had an accomplice, at least in devising the extortion plan.”

“Did you also notice an interesting time correspondence between some of those calls and the events Lerman later noted in his diary?”

“I did.”

“Did you bring this to Cam Stryker’s attention?”

“I did.”

“Did she discuss it with you?”

“That’s not the way she uses me or my department. She’s frequently made it clear that we’re here to answer her questions, not to generate unasked-for hypotheses. I think she regarded the notion of Lerman having a partner in crime as something that could muddy the prosecution narrative. She was fond of pointing out that it was Slade who was on trial, not Lerman. I don’t know whether you noticed it during the Harrow Hill case, but the lady is a control freak. She is the boss. The rest of us are the hired help.” Barstow paused, then changed the subject. “Regarding your rabbit, I should have some news for you in a day or so.”

After ending the call, Gurney remained parked for a few minutes at the side of the road—his eyes on the snowflakes landing on his windshield, his mind on the questions raised by Lerman’s phone records and by Stryker’s stranglehold on the case against Slade. Hopefully his meeting in Harbane would shed light on the situation.

As the road ascended Blackmore Mountain in a series of S curves, the wind picked up and eddies of snow swirled across the tarmac. After another mile or so the road began to level off. The top of Blackmore was more like a rolling plateau than a peak. A sign indicating the county line was the only sure way of knowing that one had reached the road’s highest point.

Gusts at this elevation were at their strongest, and visibility was reduced by the horizontally driven snow. Due to the howling of the wind and Gurney’s close attention to the road ahead, he failed to notice the big tow truck coming up behind him until it started moving out into the other lane, as if preparing to pass him. The truck was moving much too fast for the weather conditions—perhaps, thought Gurney, in response to some emergency. He moved a bit to the right to let it pass with less risk of encountering a vehicle in the oncoming lane.

The truck pulled up next to Gurney, reduced its speed slightly, and remained abreast of him for a few seconds . . . before swerving sharply toward him, slamming into the Outback and sending it skidding sideways off the pavement. Gurney struggled to regain control, but the icy gravel of the shoulder provided no traction. The vehicle wildly slewed away from the road. He glimpsed a tree stump ahead but had no ability to avoid the brutal collision.

The airbag’s violent deployment against his face and chest threw him against the seat back, stunned. In his semiconscious condition, he was dimly aware of his door flying open, followed by a flood of cold air and the pinpricks of blown snow against his cheek.

The final sensation to become fixed in his memory was of a sudden blow to the left side of his head. The impact shot like an electrical charge from his scalp to the soles of his feet.

30

HE WAS RUNNING AND SLIDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FROZEN pond as the grown-up skaters circled around and around in a single- file line just inside the perimeter. Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh went the rhythm of their skates. His father called to him. Time to go home. Time for dinner. He ran faster now, faster, toward the edge of the ice, through the procession of skaters, building up speed for a final slide. Out of control. Too fast to stop. Hitting the edge of the frozen ground, falling forward, his forehead smacking against something hard. His father’s handkerchief dabbing at the tender spot on his head, peering at it. “Just a scratch. You may get a bit of a bump. That’s all.”

At home, his mother glaring at his father.

“What happened to him?”

“Bit of a fall on the ice. Just a scratch.”

“He’s bleeding, for God sake! Weren’t you paying any attention?”

“It’s nothing. A bit of a bump.”

“You make little of everything! You pay no attention!”

A bell was ringing.

Louder.

Ringing inside his head.

Pulsating.

“Sir?”

A strange voice.

“Can you hear me, sir?”

The bell was a siren. He opened his eyes.

“Sir?”

“Where am I?”

“You’ve been in an accident. You’re on your way to the hospital.”

“For a bit of a bump?”

The voice didn’t answer.

HE WOKE UP in what he recognized as an ICU unit. He saw dimly that he was connected by wires to monitor screens above his bed. His head felt huge and heavy.

“David?”

A thin nurse in green scrubs stood next to the bed. She held a computer tablet.

“Where am I?” he asked. His voice didn’t sound like his own. He tried clearing his throat, but the effort sent jabs of pain through the side of his head.

“Parker Hospital intensive care unit. Do you know where that is?”

“Harbane. What time is it?”

“About three o’clock.” She checked her tablet. “Five minutes past.”

“In the afternoon?”

“In the afternoon. How are you feeling?”

“I’m not sure. Do you have my phone?”

“The police have all your personal items.”

“I need to call my wife.”

“I have to ask you some questions first. Can you handle that?”

“Depends on the questions.” His voice sounded to him like it was coming from the other side of the room.

A small grin softened the bony contours of her face. “I’ll start with the easy ones. What’s your name?”

“David Gurney.”

“What month is this?”

“November.”

“What’s the capital of the state you live in?”

“Albany.”

“Can you name a major holiday this month?”

“Thanksgiving.”

“Next month?”

“Christmas.”

“I’m going to give you a list of numbers, and I want you to repeat them back to me in the same order. Four . . . seven . . . nine . . . three . . . two . . . ten.”

“Four, seven, nine, three, two, ten.”

“Can you tell me what year JFK was assassinated?”

“Nineteen-sixty-three.”

“How about the square root of your zip code?”

He started to laugh, but that made both his head and chest hurt.

“Close your eyes,” she said and tapped his left foot. “Do you feel anything?”

“Yes. You. Tapping my foot.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“I’m psychic.”

“Keep your eyes closed.” A moment later, he felt a light tap on the back of his right hand. “Feel anything?”

“You again. Back of my hand.”

“You pass,” she said, her fingers rapidly entering some information into her tablet. “The doctor will be in to talk to you soon.” She turned and opened the sliding glass door to leave.

“Just a second,” he said. “Why can’t I move my head?”

“Neck brace. Part of EMS protocol. Precaution in the event of cervical injury. X-rays were taken as soon as they brought you in. Nothing fractured or broken, as far as I know. You’re very lucky. Doctor can tell you more.” She smiled and was gone.

Feeling a strain from the bright light in the room, he closed his eyes. His mind meandered back through softly falling snow to the skaters on the pond. Around and around. Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, swoosh—

“Mr. Gurney?”

The skaters disappeared. He opened his eyes and saw a short, sour-looking man in neatly fitted scrubs standing at the foot of the bed.

“I’m Dr. Dietz. Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Would it be possible to get hold of a phone? I need to make some calls.”

“We’ll get to that. Do you know why you’re here?”

“Someone ran me off the road into a tree stump.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then what happened?”

“Airbag went off. Not sure after that. Impact to the head. Sirens, I think. Woke up here. How soon can I leave?”

Dietz smiled in a way that was less friendly than no smile at all. He raised three fingers on his right hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Three.”

He raised the forefinger and middle finger on his left hand, while moving them moving them back and forth as if bidding goodbye. “How many now?”

“Two. I’d like to have my phone. There are people who need to know where I am.”

Without replying, Dietz came around to the side of the bed and pointed a small flashlight into each of Gurney’s eyes. “You’ve had a moderate-to-severe concussion. Although your symptoms appear minimal at the moment, within the next seven days they may grow more pronounced.”

“Symptoms such as . . . ?”

“TBI post-concussive manifestations—headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, loss of memory, fatigue, insomnia, nausea, irritability.”

“Traumatic brain injury?”

Dietz responded with the slightest nod, eyeing Gurney coldly. “A police officer needs to take a statement from you regarding the events surrounding your injury. Are you willing to provide a statement at this time?”

“No problem. However, I would like my phone.”

Dietz headed out of the room. He didn’t look back.

Gurney’s eyelids grew heavy. After a few moments, they drifted shut.

The skaters returned. Their circling became dizzying. He tried to turn away from them but found that he couldn’t. The swooshing of their skates grew sharper, like knives on sandpaper.

He blinked and was back in the ICU. A man in a blue shirt was pushing a portable table from the corner of the room toward the bed. The man had a sandy-brown crew cut, a pale face, and a dark blue tie. He positioned the table a short distance from the bed and swiped a finger several times across a device Gurney couldn’t see. The man smiled in a way that could be confused with a facial twitch.

“Mr. Gurney?”

“Yes?”

“Dale Magnussen, New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. I’m documenting the incident you were involved in earlier today on the Blackmore Mountain road.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Magnussen stared at him for a moment with the expressionless look that was as much a part of some cops as their fraternal solidarity.

“For your information, Mr. Gurney, I’m recording this interview. We’ll also be requiring a written statement as soon as you’re able to provide one. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s start at the beginning. At the time of the incident, where were you coming from and where were you going?”

“Coming from my home in Walnut Crossing, going to Harbane.”

“Was anyone else in your vehicle?”

“No.”

“What was the purpose of your trip?”

After briefly considering how much it would be wise to reveal, he decided to hold back nothing. What happened to him on the mountain was clearly intentional and surely linked to his planned meeting. “I received an anonymous phone call this morning from someone offering me information on the Lenny Lerman murder case. We agreed to meet at two o’clock in the Harbane town square.”

“What kind of information?”

“I was told it would exonerate Ziko Slade.”

Magnussen directed his no-reaction stare first at Gurney, then down at his device on the tabletop, his jaw muscles tightening. When he resumed his line of questioning, it was with an element of distraction in his voice.

“Alright, let’s . . . let’s focus for now on the specifics of what happened up on Blackmore. Describe your encounter with the other driver. Step by step.”

“There was no encounter with the driver, just the vehicle—a red tow truck. There was a lot of wind noise on the mountain, gusts of snow across the road. I didn’t notice it until it was coming up fast behind me, very close, swinging out into the other lane, as if to pass me. That’s what I assumed was happening. But then it swerved into the side of my Outback and pushed me off the road.”

“Was it your impression that this was done on purpose?”

“My impression was that the truck was under control.”

“Okay, so you were pushed off the road. What then?”

“I hit a tree stump at the edge of the woods.”

“Then what?”

“Airbag blast.”

“And then?”

“My sense of time may have been thrown off, but I’m thinking there was a gap between the shock of the airbag detonation and a slam to the side of my head.”

“A gap?”

“Like there were two separate impacts. It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the way I’m remembering it.”

“After that second impact, what did you do then?”

“I passed out.”

“Are you saying you had no contact with the other driver?”

“None.”

“You never saw him?”

“No.”

“Never spoke to him?”

“No. I didn’t even know it was a him. But you obviously do. Does that mean you have him in custody?”

“We’ll come back to that.” Magnussen peered down at his device for a long moment before continuing. “You have a currently valid concealed-carry permit, is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you possess a registered Beretta pistol, is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you have any other handguns—registered or unregistered?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had any other handguns—registered or unreg-istered?”

“A Glock 9, when I was in NYPD Homicide.”

“No other handguns at all?”

“None.”

“Have you discharged any firearm recently for any reason?”

“No. Any chance you might want to tell me what these questions have to do with my being run off the road?”

Looking more determined than ever to communicate nothing, Magnussen picked up his device and left the room.

31

“MADDIE! FINALLY! SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO reach you. I had some difficulty getting hold of my phone. And sorry I couldn’t deliver your cello.”

“The concert was canceled. What happened? Where are you?”

“Up in Harbane. At Parker Hospital, actually. I’m okay, but the car isn’t. Another vehicle rammed into the side of it. I got a knock on the head, and they brought me here for some tests.” He wanted to present the least alarming version of events that he could. The disturbing details could be held for a later conversation.

“My God, are you alright?”

“A little sore from the impact of the airbag, but that’s about it. They had me in a neck brace earlier, but that’s off now. They want to keep me overnight—no doubt to cover themselves legally. But at least I’m in a regular room now, getting restless. Where are you right now?”

“Halfway home from the clinic, with Gerry. You want me to do something?”

“Maybe Gerry could make a little detour and drop you off at the car rental place? The Outback may be out of commission for a while.”

After a brief exchange between the two women, Madeleine said, “Any particular kind of car you want me to get?”

“Doesn’t matter, so long as it has all-wheel drive.”

“Can I bring you anything tonight?”

“No point in that. But I’d like to get out of here tomorrow morning. Could you manage to come and get me without screwing up your work schedule?”

“I can be there by ten. Will that be okay with the hospital?”

“I don’t much care what’s okay with the hospital.”

“You’re positive you’re feeling well enough to come home?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m still annoyed at the attitude of the BCI investigator. And it took too damn long to get my phone back. I’ll tell you more about it in the morning.”

There was a brief but fraught silence. “Okay.”

“Love you.”

“Love you.”

He checked the time—5:01 p.m. A nurse hurried past the door of his room, pushing a wheeled stand of the sort used to suspend bags of intravenous fluids.

Swiping through his phone messages, he found the one he was sure would be there. It was left by Jack Hardwick at 2:27 p.m. He played it back.

“Hey, Sherlock, you said to meet you at two o’clock in the town square. It’s now half past. I’m standing here in a goddamn sleet storm. Where the fuck are you?”

Gurney returned the call, got Hardwick’s voicemail, and left him a quick summary of what happened. Swiping through his phone messages again, he could find none from the potential informant regarding his failure to appear.

He eased himself off the bed and made his way to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he gingerly lowered himself into one of the two chairs in his room. The seat back felt cold through the open back of his hospital gown. He tried turning his head from side to side and discovered that this was an exercise that would be better postponed. He shifted his chair so he could see through the room’s single window without moving his head.

Dusk had descended into darkness, and the parking lot floodlights had come on. Big snowflakes were floating past the window. He listened to the murmur of voices out at the nursing station, the bell-like dings of patient monitors, the muffled comings and goings of various contraptions in the hallway, a groan, an odd burst of laughter. His eyes drifted shut.

The ringing of his phone roused him from a dream that evaporated without a trace as he opened his eyes. The phone was on the edge of the bed. He just managed to reach it from his chair, his neck muscles rebelling at the effort. A glance at the screen told him it was Hardwick.

“Hello, Jack. Sorry about the Harbane inconvenience.”

“Damn near froze my balls off. But even if you came, it wouldn’t have mattered. Whoever you were supposed to meet never showed up. You found out yet who rammed you?”

“No. And the BCI guy who interviewed me was being weirdly cagey about it.”

“Who’d they put on it?”

It took Gurney a moment to recall the name. “Dale Magnussen. Do you know him?”

“Not personally, but I know the guy he reports to—one of the few people in that organization I got along with. What do you mean by ‘weirdly cagey’?”

“Like he knew something I didn’t, and he wanted to keep it that way.”

“Could just be an attitude. Lot of them fuckers have attitudes.”

Gurney almost laughed out loud. It was Hardwick’s authority-be-damned attitude that had ended his state police career.

“I got the impression he thought I knew who the other driver was. And he wanted to know how many guns I owned. Makes me wonder what the hell’s going on.”

“You suggesting in your subtle way that I should do your snooping for you?”

“Only if the peculiarity of the situation interests you.”

“Peculiarity is not a major motivator in my life. But if you—”

Gurney’s attention was distracted by a nurse’s voice in the hallway.

“This is his room. You can go right in.”

He looked over and saw Madeleine in the doorway.

“Jack, I have a visitor. I’ll get back to you.”

As Madeleine came closer to him, the concern in her eyes increased.

“You look . . . awful.”

“I thought you were coming tomorrow morning.”

“There’s no way I could sleep tonight without seeing you first.”

“Sorry if I alarmed you that much on the phone.”

“What alarmed me was how hard you were trying not to. You had that minimizing strain in your voice. It’s a sound I’ve gotten very familiar with. You always make little of the bad things that—”

He interrupted her. “I’m basically alright. Bit of a knock on the head, that’s all.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Your face is pale, your eyes are glassy, I saw you wince with pain when you turned your head toward the door. So, you’re not ‘alright’ at all.”

“Look, I’ve had a mild concussion, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“When you pretend that everything’s fine, I get the impression that you just want to keep doing what you’re doing and you’d rather not think about the costs.”

“Or maybe I’m just trying to save you from unnecessary worry.”

“By lying to me?”

“Oh, Christ, it’s not lying, it’s a simple matter of perspective.” An arrow of pain shot through his head, causing a split-second grimace.

Madeleine’s expression switched from anger to fear. She took a quick step closer to his chair. “Should I call a nurse?”

“No need. I get these little jabs, but they pass as quickly as they come. Part of the territory with this sort of injury.”

Madeleine stood gazing down at him. The anger and fear had morphed into something softer. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

“I just want to go home.”

There was a brief silence, broken by Madeleine. “Have the police caught the driver who sideswiped you?”

“They haven’t told me a damn thing.”

“I hope they get him and put him in prison for a good long time.”

“Fine with me.”

“Your eyelids are drooping.”

“All of a sudden . . . I’m sleepy.”

HE WAS AWAKENED by a rapping on his open door.

A sharp-featured woman in a fashionable leather jacket and pricey-looking jeans stepped into the room. Having seen her before only in conservative business attire, it took him a few seconds to recognize District Attorney Cam Stryker. She gave him a chilly once-over.

“I’ve been told you’re in good enough condition to talk. Do you agree?”

“I do.”

“Good.”

She moved an empty chair to a position facing Gurney’s, settled into it, and took out her phone. She tapped it several times and placed it on a small rolling table near her chair. “Everything said from now on will be recorded. Understood?”

“Understood.”

She smiled with all the warmth of a predatory fish. “So, David, I’d like to hear the full story of what happened on Blackmore Mountain.”

“Apart from someone running me off the road?”

“Let’s start with the reason you were there.”

“As I already told Investigator Magnussen, I was on my way to meet someone who claimed to have information that would exonerate Ziko Slade.”

“And who might this individual be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You thought it worth driving over a mountain in a snowstorm to meet someone who wouldn’t give you their name?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I have doubts about Slade’s guilt.”

She let out a harsh one-syllable laugh. “Because of that business with the rabbit?”

“Scott Derlick told you about that?”

“He told me that you were at the lodge with Slade’s creepy pal, and that you tried to turn a dead rabbit into a major crisis.”

“Not just dead. Decapitated. Placed in the front seat of my car, as I was looking into the decapitation death of Lenny Lerman. You’d have to be willfully blind not to see a connection.”

Stryker’s anger at the accusation was evident in the tightening of her jaw muscles.

“The placement of that mutilated animal in my vehicle should have been viewed as a threat. The failure of the Rexton police to investigate it, and the failure—”

“Stop right there! I’m not interested in your opinion of the Rexton police. I want to know exactly what happened this afternoon on Blackmore Mountain.”

“What happened on Blackmore Mountain is a direct escalation of the rabbit incident—a second warning to me to back away from the Lerman case. Whoever ran me off that road was sending a clear message—if not actually trying to kill me. Now, please answer a simple question. Do you have the driver in custody?”

“Do we have him in custody? That’s what you want to know?” She stared at him, anger mixed with disbelief. “Tell me the last thing you remember happening on that mountain.”

He repeated what he’d told the BCI investigator.

“That’s it?” said Stryker, leaning forward. “Hit the stump, knock on the head, lights out? No further recollection?”

“What am I supposed to be recollecting? And why the hell was Magnussen asking me how many guns I own?”

“The other driver is dead. Shot in the head. The evidence indicates you were the shooter.”

“What?!”

“No memory of that?”

“It’s absurd!”

“So, you’re claiming to have zero recollection of the shooting?”

“I didn’t shoot anyone. I have nothing to recollect.”

“The gun found in your hand says you did.”

“What gun?”

“A .38 special with the serial number filed off.”

“Christ, Cam, this reeks of a setup.”

“Our gunshot-residue test says you fired it.”

He spoke as calmly as he could with adrenaline flooding his brain. “Don’t you see it’s an obvious frame job? Someone doesn’t want me looking into the Lerman case. The rabbit warning didn’t stop me, so now I’m being framed for a homicide—just like Slade was. Think about that.”

She leaned forward again in her chair.

“A smooth defense attorney might be able to spin your notion of a setup—for which there is zero evidence—into enough ‘reasonable doubt’ to get you a hung jury and a lifetime of retrials. But I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you.”

“What’s your point?”

She lowered her voice. “I’m going to be under tremendous pressure to arrest and charge you. Because of your police background, I’d like to postpone that decision as long as I can. Of course, the media would accuse me of giving a former cop special consideration.” She paused with a pained expression.

Gurney said nothing, intrigued by where this was leading.

“Should I charge you immediately in this apparent road-rage homicide? Or can I justify leaving that option open, pending further investigation?” Her expression suggested that the dilemma was giving her stomach cramps. “I’m an elected official. Some people with political ambitions would love to use this situation to damage me.” She paused, as if to let the magnitude of the political risk sink in.

She inched her chair closer to his, her earnest tone undermined by the coldness in her eyes. “I can’t fight battles on two fronts at the same time. If you make the Slade conviction a matter of public controversy, then my focus will be split between defending that verdict and defending a decision to let you remain free. Of course, the simplest course of action would be to arrest you immediately—an option the evidence supports, but which, out of respect for your NYPD career, I would prefer to delay. I may be able to defend that delay—but only if that’s the only media battle I have to contend with. Do you understand my position?”

“I do.”

“It’s essential that you have zero contact with the media. It that understood?”

“Understood.”

“Crucially, you are to make no public comments regarding the Slade case.”

“Understood.”

“The final condition is that you must remain in Walnut Crossing for the duration of the Blackmore investigation. If you violate any of these restrictions, I’ll have no option other than to arrest and charge you, based on the current evidence. Is that clear?”

“It is.”

She sat back in her chair, evidently pleased with his apparent acquiescence.

“I’m glad we understand each other. Any questions?”

“Were you able to ID the driver you’re claiming I shot?”

“Yes.”

“Did he have a record?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“Assault, among other things.”

“Can you tell me his name?”

She eyed him with an odd combination of skepticism and curiosity.

“Leonard Lerman Jr.,” she said finally. “Also known as Sonny Lerman.”