Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 8

When Gurney arrived home from Hardwick’s place in Dillweed at 11:15 A.M., Kim was parked by the side door in her red Miata. As he pulled in next to her, she put away her phone and rolled down her window. “I was just going to call you. I knocked on the door, and no one answered.”

“You’re early.”

“I’m always early. I can’t stand being late. It’s like a phobia. We can head for Rudy Getz’s right now unless there are things you need to do first.”

“I’ll just be a minute.” He went into the house to use the bathroom. He checked for phone messages. There weren’t any. Then he checked the laptop for e-mail. It was all for Madeleine.

When he went back outside, he was struck by the smell of wet earth in the air. The earthy scent in turn conjured up the image of the arrow in the flower bed-red feathers, black shaft, embedded in the dark brown soil. His gaze went to the spot, half expecting…

But there was nothing there.

Of course not. Why would there be? What the hell is the matter with me?

He walked over to the Miata and got into the low-slung passenger seat. Kim drove bumpily through the pasture, past the barn and the pond, to the dirt-and-gravel road that followed the stream down the mountain. Once they were heading east on the county route, Gurney asked, “Any new problems since yesterday?”

She made a face. “I think I’m getting too wound up. I think it’s what psychiatrists call ‘hypervigilance.’ ”

“You mean constantly checking for danger?”

“Constantly checking, and doing it so obsessively that everything looks like a threat. It’s like having a smoke alarm that’s so sensitive it goes off every time you use the toaster. It’s like, Did I really leave my pen on that table? Didn’t I already wash that fork? Wasn’t that plant two inches farther to the left? Stuff like that. Like last night. I went out for an hour, and when I got home, the light was on in the bathroom.”

“You’re sure you turned it off before you left?”

“I always turn it off. But that’s not all. I thought I could smell Robby’s horrible cologne. Just the tiniest trace of it. So I start running around the apartment sniffing everywhere, and for a second I’d think maybe I could smell it again.” She sighed in exasperation. “You see what I mean? I’m losing it. Some people start seeing things. I’m smelling things.” She drove for several miles in silence. The mist had begun again, and she turned on her wipers. At the end of each arc, they made a sharp squeaking sound. She seemed oblivious to it.

Gurney was studying her. Her clothes were neat, subdued. Her features were regular, her eyes dark, her mouth quite lovely. Her hair was a lustrous brown. Her clear skin had a hint of Mediterranean tan. She was a beautiful young woman-full of ideas, full of ambition, without being full of herself. And she was smart. That was the part Gurney liked best. But he was curious how someone so smart had gotten tangled up with someone as troubled as Robby.

“Tell me a little more about this Meese guy.”

He began to think she hadn’t heard him, it took her so long to answer. “I told you he was removed from some kind of sick family situation and put in a series of foster homes. Maybe some people come out of that okay, but most don’t. I never knew any of the details. I just knew he seemed different. Deep. Maybe even a little dangerous.” She hesitated. “I think the other thing that made him attractive was that Connie hated him.”

“That made you like him?”

“I think she hated him and I liked him for the same reason-he reminded us both of my dad. My dad was kind of erratic, and he had a crazy background.”

My dad. From time to time, those words had the power to trigger a wave of sadness in Gurney. His feelings about his father were conflicted and largely repressed. So were his feelings about himself as a father-the father of two sons, one living and one dead. As the emotion began to subside, he tried to hasten its exit by pushing his attention toward some other aspect of Kim’s project, some other point of interest.

“You started to tell me on the phone about your contact with Max Clinter, that you found him strange. I think that was the word you used.”

“Very intense. Actually, beyond intense.”

“How far beyond?”

“Pretty far. He sounded paranoid.”

“What made you think that?”

“The look in his eyes. That I-know-terrible-secrets look. He kept saying that I didn’t know what I was getting into, that I was risking my life, that the Good Shepherd was pure evil.”

“He seems to have gotten under your skin.”

“He did. ‘Pure evil’ sounds like such a cliché. But he made it sound real.”

After another few miles, Kim’s GPS directed them off Route 28 at the Boiceville exit. They drove alongside a cascading white-water stream, swollen from snowmelt, until they came to Mountainside Drive, an ascending switchback road through a steep evergreen forest. That brought them to Falcon’s Nest Lane. The addresses on the lane were posted next to driveways that led back to homes shielded from view by thick evergreens or high stone walls. Each driveway occurred at an interval Gurney estimated to be no less than a quarter mile from its nearest neighbor. The final address on the lane was Twelve-etched in cursive script on a brass plaque affixed to one of the two fieldstone pillars that bracketed the entrance to the driveway. Atop each of the pillars was a round stone the size of a basketball, and atop each of these was perched a sculpted stone eagle with wings spread aggressively and talons extended.

Kim turned in to the elegant Belgian-block driveway and drove slowly ahead through a virtual tunnel of massive rhododendrons. Then the tunnel opened, the driveway widened, and they were in front of Rudy Getz’s home-an angular glass-and-concrete affair, hardly homey.

“This is it,” said Kim with nervous excitement as she came to a stop in front of cantilevered concrete steps leading up to a metal door.

They got out of the car, climbed the steps, and were about to knock when the door opened. The man who greeted them was short and stocky, with pale skin, thinning gray hair, and hooded eyes. He was dressed in black jeans, black T-shirt, and an off-white linen sport jacket. He held a colorless drink in a short, fat glass. He reminded Gurney of a porno-film producer.

“Hey, nice to see you,” he said to Kim with the cordiality of a drowsy Gila monster. He eyed Gurney, his mouth stretching into an emotionless grin. “You must be her famous detective adviser. Pleasure. Come in.” He stepped back, gesturing them into the house with his glass. He squinted at the gray sky. “Fucking inclement weather, you know?”

The interior of the house was as aggressively modern and angular as the outside-mostly leather, metal, glass, cold colors, white oak floors.

“What are you drinking, Detective?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. Right. And for you, Ms. Corazon?” He gave the name an exaggerated Spanish inflection that, combined with his smile, was like a lewd caress.

“Maybe just some water?”

“Water.” He nodded, repeating the word as though it were an interesting comment she’d made, rather than a request. “So. Come in, sit down.” He gestured with his glass toward a seating area in front of a cathedral-size window. As he spoke, a young woman in a skintight black leotard flew across the expansive room on eerily silent Rollerblades and disappeared through a doorway in the far wall.

Getz led the way to a set of six brushed-aluminum chairs around an oval acrylic coffee table, his mouth widening into a smile-like expression, shocking in its lack of warmth.

After they’d seated themselves at the low table, the Rollerblader flew back across the room, disappearing into another doorway. “Claudia,” Getz announced with a wink, as though revealing a secret. “She’s cute, eh?”

“Who is she?” asked Kim, who seemed taken aback by the display.

“My niece. She’s staying here for a while. She likes to skate.” He paused. “But we’re here for business, right?” The smile evaporated, as though the time for small talk had passed. “So I have some great news for you. Orphans of Murder got a top score in our audience polling.”

Kim looked more confused than pleased. “Polling? But how did you-”

Getz interrupted her. “We have a proprietary system for evaluating program concepts. We create a representative slice of the show, expose it via podcast to a statistically representative audience sample, and get real-time online feedback. Turns out to be super predictive.”

“But what material did you use? My interviews with Ruth and Jimi?”

“Slices. Representative slices. Plus a little surrounding info to set the scene.”

“But those interviews were shot on my amateur cameras. They weren’t intended-”

Getz leaned forward over the table toward Kim. “Fact is, the so-called amateur look in this case turns out to be perfect. Sometimes the zero-production-values look is exactly right. It says honesty. Just like your personality. Earnest. Open. Young. Innocent. See, that’s another thing our test audience told us. I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. Because I want you to trust me. They love you. They absolutely love you! So I’m thinking we have a future in front of us. What do you think of that?”

Kim was wide-eyed, her mouth open. “I don’t know. I mean… they just saw a slice of an interview?”

“Wrapped in a little blanket of explanation, perspective-like we’d do in the actual show. The testing vehicle on the restricted podcast is put together like a one-hour show, composed of four program concepts-thirteen minutes each. So in this case we included yours, plus three other programs we’re considering. This testing vehicle is called Run It or Dump It. Some people think that sounds crude. But there’s a good reason for it. It’s visceral.” Getz intoned the word with a confidential, almost reverential intensity. “You want to know the real RAM News success secret? That’s it. It’s visceral. In the old days, the networks used to think that news was news and entertainment was entertainment. That’s why their news operations lost money. They were sitting on a gold mine and didn’t know it. They thought news was about pure facts, presented as boringly as possible.” Getz shook his head indulgently at mankind’s capacity for delusional thinking.

Gurney smiled. “Obviously they got it all wrong.”

Getz pointed a finger at him, like a teacher drawing attention to a bright student. “Obviously! News is life, life is emotion, emotion is visceral. Drama, blood, triumph, tears. It’s not about some starched asshole reading dry facts and figures. It’s about conflict. It’s about fuck you!… No, fuck you!… Who the fuck are you saying ‘fuck you’ to?… Bam! bam! bam! Forgive my language-but you get what I’m saying?”

“Clear as crystal,” said Gurney mildly.

“So that’s why we call the show where we test our ideas Run It or Dump It. Because that’s what people like. Simple choices. Power. Like the emperor looking down on the gladiator. Thumbs-up, he lives. Thumbs-down, he dies. People love black and white. Gray gives them headaches. Nuance makes them nauseous.”

Kim blinked, swallowed. “And… Orphans of Murder… got a thumbs-up?”

“Big thumb, way up!”

Kim started to ask another question, but Getz cut her off, continuing along his own train of thought. “Way up! Which I find personally gratifying. Karma, full circle! Because it was our original coverage of the Good Shepherd murder spree that catapulted RAM News to the top. Where we belong. The idea of coming back to it now, exactly ten years later-that has the perfect vibe. I feel it in my bones! Now, how about a fantastic lunch?”

On cue, Claudia reappeared, balancing a large tray, which she placed on the coffee table. Her gel-spiked hair, which Gurney had originally taken for black, he now noted was a deep blue-a blue just a bit darker than her eyes, which met his momentarily with a disturbing frankness. He doubted she was out of her teens. She pirouetted on the tip of one blade, then cruised languidly across the room, looking back once before gliding out of sight.

There were three plates on the tray. On each there was an elaborate, delicately arranged display of sushi. The colors were beautiful, the shapes intricate. None of the ingredients were familiar to Gurney-nor, apparently, to Kim, who was studying the display with alarm.

“Another Toshiro masterpiece,” said Getz.

“Who’s Toshiro?” asked Kim.

Getz’s eyes glinted. “He’s the prize I stole from a hot sushi restaurant in the city.” He took one of the bright little chunks from the plate nearest him and popped it into his mouth.

Gurney followed suit. It was unidentifiable but surprisingly delicious.

Kim, who appeared to be calling on her reserves of courage, tried a piece and visibly relaxed after a few seconds of chewing. “Lovely,” she said. “So now he’s your personal chef?”

“One of the rewards.”

“You must be very good at what you do,” said Gurney.

“I’m very good at recognizing what people will connect with.” Getz paused, then added as though the idea had just dawned on him, “My talent is the ability to recognize talent.”

Gurney nodded blandly, intrigued by the man’s shameless self-regard.

Kim seemed eager to move the conversation back to Orphans. “I was wondering… did you learn anything from your Run It or Dump It polling that I should take into account with my remaining interviews?”

He gave her a shrewd look. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got that natural innocent thing going for you. Don’t overthink it. That’s for now. Long-term I smell an extension opportunity and a spin-off opportunity. The Orphans concept has strong emotional appeal. It’s got legs that take it way beyond the six Good Shepherd victim families. It extends easily to families of other murder victims. It’s a natural franchise, so maybe we can run with it. But it also leads to a second concept-the unsolved angle. Right now we’ve got both those things wrapped up together. You got the pain of the families, right? But you also have an escaped murderer, the lack-of-closure thing. So I’m thinking if Orphans runs out of juice, we could switch the emphasis. I’m thinking of a spin-off deal-In the Absence of Justice-new show, we just shift the slant to the injustice of unsolved crimes. The lingering injustice.”

Getz sat back, watching her absorb this.

She looked uncertain. “That… could work… I guess.”

Getz leaned forward. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from-the emotional angle, the pain, the suffering, the loss. Just a matter of adjusting the balance. Series one, we have more pain-and-loss emphasis. Series two, we have more unsolved-crime emphasis. And now I just got a whole other idea. Came to me out of the blue, just looking at this guy here.” He pointed at Gurney, with the glint of discovery in his hooded eyes.

“Listen to this. I’m just thinking out loud here, but… how would you two like to be America’s hot new reality team?”

Kim blinked, looked simultaneously excited and baffled.

Getz elaborated. “I see some natural dramatic chemistry here. A juicy personality conflict. The emotional kid who cares only about the victims, the heartache-locked in a love-hate partnership with the steely-eyed cop who only cares about making the collar, closing the case. It’s got life. It’s visceral!”