Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 29

As he drove out of Branville into the rolling hills and scrubby pastures of northeastern Delaware County, Gurney’s mind was swirling. His natural facility for organizing data into meaningful patterns was stymied by the volume of it all.

It was like trying to make sense out of a heap of tiny puzzle pieces without knowing whether every piece was present-or even how many puzzles the pieces were part of. One minute he would be certain that all the debris was the result of a single central storm; the next minute he would be certain of nothing. Maybe he was too damn eager to come up with one explanation, one elegant equation.

Passing a roadside sign welcoming him to Dillweed suggested a modest next step. He pulled over and called the one Dillweed resident he knew personally. An undiluted face-to-face dose of Jack Hardwick could be a good antidote to fanciful thinking.

Ten minutes later, four miles up a succession of twisty dirt roads, he arrived at the unimposing rented farmhouse, much in need of paint, that Hardwick called home. The man answered the door dressed as usual in a T-shirt and cutoff sweatpants.

“You want one?” he asked, holding up an empty Grolsch beer bottle.

First Gurney said no, then he said yes. He knew he’d have alcohol on his breath when he got home, and he’d be more comfortable attributing it to a beer with Jack than to a Bloody Mary with Rebecca.

After getting Gurney a Grolsch and himself another, Hardwick sank down into one of two overstuffed leather chairs, motioning Gurney toward the other. “So, my son,” he said in a harsh whisper that pretended a level of inebriation that was belied by his sharp gaze, “how long has it been since your last confession?”

“Thirty-five years, more or less,” said Gurney, humoring the man from whom he wanted help. He sampled the beer. It wasn’t bad. He looked around the little living room. Like Jack’s attire, the painfully bare space was the same as it had been on Gurney’s last visit. Not even the dust had moved.

Hardwick scratched his nose. “You must be in a great deal of trouble to be seeking the solace of Mother Church after such a long time. Speak freely, my son, of all your blasphemies, lies, thievings, and adulteries. I’d be most interested in the details of the adulteries.” He produced an absurdly salacious wink.

Gurney leaned back in the wide soft chair and took another swallow of beer. “The Good Shepherd case is getting complicated.”

“Always was.”

“The problem is, I’m not sure how many cases I’m dealing with.”

“Too much shit for one latrine?”

“Like I said, I’m not sure.” He recounted, in as much detail as he could, the long litany of facts, events, oddities, suspicions, and questions on his mind.

Hardwick took a rumpled tissue out of his sweatpants pocket and blew his nose in it. “So what are you asking me?”

“Just for your gut sense of how much of that stuff fits into one big picture and how much is likely to be something else entirely.”

Hardwick made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I don’t know about the arrow. Maybe if someone shot an arrow up your ass, but… stuck in the ground out there with the turnips? That doesn’t mean much to me.”

“And the other stuff?”

“The other stuff would get my attention. Apartment bugging, barn burning, booby-trapping the staircase, the trapdoor in the young lady’s ceiling-that kind of shit requires an investment of time and energy, plus legal risks. So it’s serious. Meaning there’s something serious at stake. I’m not giving you any news here, right?”

“Not really.”

“You’re asking me, do I think it’s all tied together in a grand conspiracy?” He screwed his face up into an exaggerated mask of indecision. “Best answer is something you said to me a long time ago when we were working on the Mellery job. ‘It’s safer to assume there’s a connection that turns out to be false than to ignore one that turns out to be true.’ But there’s a bigger question.” He paused to belch. “If the Good Shepherd case wasn’t about the righteous slaughter of the evil rich, then what the fuck was it about? Answer that, Mr. Holmes, and you’ll have the answers to all your other questions. You want another Grolsch?”

Gurney shook his head.

“By the way, if you really try to demolish the case premise, you’ll be in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime shit storm. Galileo at the Vatican. You understand that, right?”

“I started getting the message today.” Gurney pictured Agent Trout, baleful Doberman at his side, on his cheerless Adirondack porch. His references to “complications.” His allusion to the arson situation. And Daker, the assassin in a hundred films.

“Okay, my boy, just so you know. Because-” The ring of Jack’s cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Hardwick.” He was quiet at first, his expression growing more interested, more perplexed. “Right… Right… What?… Holy shit!… Yeah… That was the only one?… You have the original application date?… Okay… Right… Thanks… Yeah… Bye.” When he ended the call, he continued to stare at the phone as though some additional clarification might emerge from it.

“The hell was that about?” asked Gurney.

“Answer to your question.”

“Which one?”

“You asked me to find out if Paul Mellani had any registered guns.”

“And?”

“He has one handgun. A Desert Eagle.”

For most of Gurney’s half-hour homeward drive from Dillweed to Walnut Crossing, he could think of little else. But as startling as the discovery was, it was more troubling than actionable. Rather like discovering that an ax murderer and his victim, previously believed to be unconnected, had shared a desk in kindergarten. Attention-getting, but what the hell did it mean?

It would be important to know how long Mellani had owned the gun. However, the record accessed by Hardwick’s colleague, showing a currently valid concealed-carry permit, did not indicate the original application date. Calls to Mellani’s office number and cell number had both gone into voice mail. Even if the man chose to return the calls, he was under no obligation to explain his unusual choice of sidearm.

Obviously this curious new fact exacerbated Gurney’s original concern: that depression and easy access to a firearm could be a high-risk combination. But “concern” was all it was. There was no hard evidence that Paul Mellani was a credible danger to himself or others. He had said nothing-uttered none of the key phrases, none of the psychiatric alarm words-that would justify notifying the Middletown police, nothing that would justify any intervention beyond the personal calls that had been made.

But Gurney kept thinking about it-imagining the probable content of Kim’s contacts with the man prior to their Saturday meeting, her letter and phone call explaining her project. These reminders of his father’s death-reminders of his father’s apparent lack of concern for him-may have focused him on the emptiness of his life, the sinking ship of his career.

Lost in the miasma of depression, might he be planning to end it all? Or, God forbid, perhaps he already had? Perhaps that’s why the calls went into voice mail?

Or what if Gurney had it all backward? What if the purpose of the Desert Eagle wasn’t suicidal but homicidal?

What if it had always been homicidal? What if…

Jesus Christ! What if. What if. What if. Enough! The man had a legal permit to possess a legal handgun. There were millions of depressed people in the world who never came close to harming themselves or anyone else. Yes, the brand name of the handgun raised obvious questions, but these questions could be asked and answered when Mellani called back, which he surely would. Strange coincidences usually had pedestrian explanations.