On Harrow Hill

14

During the drive to Larchfield, Gurney was only minimally aware of his ­surroundings—the sparkling of the dew in the early-morning sunlight, the pure green of the fields, the swaths of yellow wildflowers. The Larchfield scenarios forming in his mind were collapsing one after another under the weight of improbability.

More disturbing were his visualizations of Billy Tate in that tightly closed casket. Having miraculously survived that dreadful fall, he was surely in great physical pain as he regained consciousness. And the terror of finding himself in that dark, constricted place—it was awful even to imagine it. Gurney felt the grip of fear in his own stomach as he pictured Tate desperately struggling in the panic of his confinement before the latch screws finally gave way.

Immersed in this horror, Gurney came within inches of hitting a cow that had escaped from its pasture. It was the nudge he needed to keep his mind on the road.

He arrived in Larchfield at 7:55 a.m. He parked, switched off his phone to avoid interruptions, and headed into the incongruously genteel police headquarters. The classic Victorian building appeared more suited to tea parties than criminal investigations.

A uniformed officer met him inside the front door and led him along a carpeted hall to the conference room. Brad Slovak was standing in front of an urn with a coffee mug in one hand and a large donut in the other. Several paces away, Kyra Barstow was speaking to a wiry woman with a knifelike nose and vigilant eyes. Morgan was standing by himself at the head of the long table, an anxious frown creasing his forehead, a phone to his ear.

When he saw Gurney he ended his call and lowered the phone. He turned to the others. “We’re all here. Let’s get started.”

He took the chair at the head of the table. Barstow and the wiry woman sat on one side of the table, Gurney on the opposite side. Slovak brought the remainder of his donut over on a napkin and took the chair next to Gurney.

“We obviously have a monster of a case on our hands,” said Morgan.

Morgan sounded so tense that Gurney expected to see beads of sweat on his forehead at any moment. He took a deep breath and continued, “Because Tate’s survival comes as such a shock, especially to those of us who saw him fall, I’ve asked Kyra to present the forensic data—to remove any doubt about the facts. We can’t afford any more false starts.” He gestured toward Barstow. “Lay it out for us.”

She glanced around the table, her gaze settling on Gurney.

“The evidence is consistent with Tate’s revival inside the casket, followed by his emergence from it,” she began. “So, it makes sense to look first at the evidence of what happened inside the casket, prior to its being broken open; then the evidence of his emergence from the casket and from the storage unit; then the evidence of his movements around the embalming room and his departure from the building.”

With obvious confidence in the logic of this approach, she continued. “Beginning inside the casket, we found ample blood and print evidence of Tate’s being placed there, as Peale reported. The inside of the casket lid has scratch marks and microscopic residues of his fingernails, as well as complete handprints consistent with an effort to push up against the closed lid—an effort that succeeded, due in part to the casket’s cheap construction. Greta here will describe the evidence of that success.”

She gestured toward the woman seated next to her. “A word of explanation for Detective Gurney. Dr. Greta Vickerz is a professor of mechanical engineering at Russell College and a consultant to the forensic sciences department. She has particular expertise in stress fractures in wood.”

Barstow tapped an icon on her phone. The sliding panel in the wall opened, revealing the large monitor screen. A moment later a photo appeared that showed the splintered area on the edge of the casket.

Vickerz spoke with an Eastern European accent. “This splintered part that you are seeing, it is where the screws were pulled out of the wood as a result of upward force being exerted against the inside of the lid. The bad splintering you are seeing is due to flimsy construction of the casket. Ironic that shoddy materials get some credit for saving a life. If it was better made, the man inside would eventually have died from hypoxia or carbon dioxide toxicity.”

She paused, and Gurney asked, “Are you sure the force that broke open the casket came from inside it?”

“Absolutely. There is no indication of a pry bar, which would leave definite marks. There’s no way a force sufficient to splinter the wood could have been applied from outside the casket without leaving tool traces. If you wish, I can show our micro-­photos of the torn fibers and explain exactly how the fracturing process occurred.”

Morgan intervened. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” He glanced at Gurney, as if seeking agreement, but got no reaction.

Barstow thanked Vickerz, who excused herself from the room, and continued her evidence narrative.

“We found traces of Tate’s blood on the inside wall of the storage unit, which would have occurred naturally as he climbed out of the casket. We found his handprints on the inside of the storage unit door and on the small emergency handle. We found sneaker prints on the floor of the unit that match the sneakers on Tate’s feet in the video segment showing him on the mortuary trolley. Following his likely path, we found his fingerprints at several locations in the room—in the glass cabinet that was broken into, by the symbol scratched on the wall, on the edge of the embalming table, on the window sash in the adjoining equipment room, on the wall of the hallway leading to the back door, and on the doorknob.”

Morgan looked impressed. “Thank you, Kyra. Very credible reconstruction.” He sent another approval-seeking glance in Gurney’s direction before he continued. “There’s no doubt that Tate survived. So now we’re looking for him as a murder suspect, not a stolen corpse. You agree, Dave?”

Gurney was silent for a moment. “I’m having a hard time reconciling the trauma of the lightning impact and the fall with his forcing his way out of the casket and walking away.”

Morgan nodded nervously. “I know what you mean. But this scenario explains evidence that otherwise makes no sense.” He paused. “Brad, anything yet from computer forensics?”

“They said they’d get back to us later this morning.” He turned to Gurney. “Even though the recording function on Peale’s computer was turned off, the camera data was still being transmitted to it. I got the computer last night from Peale. It’s a long shot, but I thought a digital remnant of the data might have been retained, and maybe they could do something with it.”

“Definitely worth checking on.”

“I figured if we had video, it would end any doubt about what happened. Seeing beats reconstructing.”

Barstow’s eyes narrowed. She seemed on the verge of responding to the apparent devaluing of her presentation when Slovak’s phone rang.

He peered at the screen. “I better take this.”

The growing alarm in his terse questions and exclamations during the call held everyone’s attention. When he put down his phone, he sat for a moment in a kind of adrenaline-jazzed distress before speaking.

“One of the guys doing door-to-doors found another body. A woman. In a drainage swale on Waterview Drive, by the turnoff for Harrow Hill. He figures she’s been dead for a couple of days. Her throat was cut.”

After Morgan sent Slovak and Barstow to the new crime scene—with instructions to report back ASAP—he slumped back in his chair. “Christ. What the hell is going on?”

Gurney shrugged. “On his way to or from the Russell house on the night of Angus’s murder, Tate may have encountered the victim and saw her as a problem to be eliminated. We’ll know more when we get an ID and a more precise time-of-death estimate. Will Slovak contact the medical examiner?”

“That’s the procedure.”

“He’s the one who pronounced Tate dead. When do you plan to bring him up to date?”

“God, so much has been happening so fast—”

“Sir?” An obese gray-haired officer was standing at the conference room door.

“What?” Morgan’s voice was strained.

“Someone here to see you. From that computer group at the college.”

“Computer forensics.” The precisely articulated correction came from behind the officer. A slim young man with a fashionable three-day beard stepped into view. He was wearing pencil jeans and a tightly fitted white shirt. “Brad Slovak asked me to give this information directly to you.”

The officer departed and the young man entered. “I’m Ronan Ives. I’ve been working on the Peale computer matter. Shall I explain our findings?”

“Go ahead.”

“So, we began by double-checking to make sure that the camera output wasn’t being encoded somewhere in computer memory, despite the record option being deselected. There was no trace. Next step was to analyze the specs for the software controlling the behavior of the system. That’s where we made an interesting discovery. The camera output that’s transmitted to the laptop can be recorded on that device, or not, simply by clicking on the preferred option in a clearly displayed box. However . . .”

He smiled, obviously pleased with what he was about to reveal.

“There’s a secondary system that’s always on, unless it’s actively deselected through a process buried in a series of technical menus. That automatic secondary system transmits the camera data to a cloud-based storage field, where it’s retained for seven days. It’s a safeguard—in case the user’s own computer fails to record the data due to an oversight or hardware glitch. Bottom line, the camera data for your period of interest is retrievable.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “Have you seen it?”

“No. It’s password-protected.”

“So how do we get access?”

“Get permission from the licensed user, along with his registered ID and password. Otherwise, you’ll need a warrant.”

Morgan took a few moments to absorb this. “I’m pretty sure we can get permission.”

“So, I’ll wait to hear from you.”

As soon as the young man departed, Morgan picked up his phone.

“I’ll give Peale a call.”

“Might be better to drop in on him,” Gurney suggested. “Face-to-face is always a plus.”

Morgan nodded.

They found Peale in the rear parking area, looking as preppy as the day before in a teal sweater, yellow Bermuda shorts, and tan moccasins. He was coiling a power cord attached to a tire jack that was no longer supporting the rear wheel of the Lexus.

“Returning this to my neighbor. Convenient having someone next door who’s a car enthusiast and tool junkie. Something I can do for you?”

Morgan smiled. “We may have a breakthrough in the missing-body case. We need the ID and password for your security camera software, so we can access its backup storage.”

“Am I hearing you right? Are you saying there’s a video of the break-in and theft of the body?”

“A video of what actually occurred that night.”

Morgan’s answer struck Gurney as a truthful evasion of the issue.

If Peale noted the equivocation, he didn’t react to it. Looking excited at the prospect of the video, he gave Morgan his ID and password.

Morgan phoned the information to Ronan Ives, then he and Gurney headed back to headquarters. After asking Gurney to wait in the conference room, Morgan went to his office to get the agreement formalizing Gurney’s temporary role in the department.

Sitting at the conference room table reminded Gurney that he’d turned off his phone to avoid any distraction during the earlier meeting. Now he turned it back on and checked his voicemail. He found three new messages.

The first was from Madeleine.

“Hi. Just a reminder that the Winklers are coming for dinner at six. Love you.”

The second was from Jack Hardwick.

“Larchfield? Why the fuck do you want to know about Larchfield? Rich lizards living next door to other rich lizards. Medieval fiefdom, lorded over by Angus the Scottish Scumbag. Classy veneer over rotten wood. You want to know more, buy me a coffee tomorrow morning at Abelard’s. Eight sharp. Call if you can’t make it.”

The third was another from Madeleine.

“Hi, again. Could you pick up some flowers for the table? Maybe tulips from Snook’s Nursery? See you later.”

A moment later Morgan appeared with some papers tucked under his arm and a mug of coffee in each hand. He placed one in front of Gurney, took the seat across from him, and laid the papers in the middle of the table.

“You won’t find any surprises there,” said Morgan. “I just spelled out what we talked about yesterday afternoon. The terms of your involvement. One copy for you, two copies for the department. Before you leave today, we’ll take your photo, laminate it into an official ID.” Morgan was sounding breezy, but his tic was working overtime.

“So long as we understand that I’ll be taking my own path. I’ll keep you and your people informed. But I need to follow my instincts.”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way. I’ll send out a memo to the department, so there’s no confusion about your authority.”

Morgan’s phone rang. He took the call. After listening for half a minute, he said, “Got it. Thank you.” He put the phone down on the table.

“That was Ives at forensics. He accessed the last seven days of Peale’s camera data and downloaded it to our internal system. He coded the segments separately, so we can go directly to the night in question. You want to see it now?”

15

Once Morgan had located the downloaded video segments in the system, he proceeded to the one tagged with the date of Tate’s disappearance from the mortuary and tapped the PLAY icon.

A sound, nearly inaudible at first, took the form of a muffled groan, and the screen came to life with a shot of the embalming room. Gurney assumed that it was this sound that had activated the camera, as well as one of the room’s lighting circuits. As the groan was repeated, building in intensity to a kind of teeth-clenched roar, the camera’s field of view moved to the right, toward the cadaver storage unit. Seemingly responding to a series of dull thumps from the unit, the panning motion was followed by a slow zoom in, until the side of the unit nearly filled the frame. The time code in the corner of the screen was changing from 9:03 p.m. to 9:04 p.m.

The next sounds were more frantic—a combination of growling shouts, grunts, and dull scraping sounds. Gurney pictured, with a twinge of claustrophobia, the scratches and fingernail residues Kyra Barstow had found on the inside of the casket lid.

Pounding continued intermittently for the next quarter of an hour. Then, a different sound—the straining, tearing, and snapping of wood fibers. The time-code display read 9:29 p.m.

What he heard next brought to mind the image of someone stumbling and bumping into something inside the storage unit, followed by a cry of pain and another silence. Soon a new series of thumps and knocks began, louder and more immediate than the earlier ones, suggesting that Tate was moving around and testing the solidity of the walls that surrounded him.

At 9:44 p.m. Gurney heard the distinctive metallic clunk of an exit lever. The door of the unit swung open.

The camera position offered only a side view of the unit, and its occupant only became visible when he finally staggered into the room. His hooded sweatshirt appeared blood-soaked.

The motion-sensitive camera followed him as he moved unsteadily toward the embalming table. He leaned forward, grasping the edge of it. His breathing sounded labored and raspy.

Gradually he straightened himself and began to make his way around the room. The bloody hood concealed his face and allowed only animal sounds of pain and rage to emerge. He might as well not have been human at all. Thinking of this feral creature as “Billy” seemed incongruous.

When he reached the doorway to the equipment room, he hesitated, then went inside. Soon there was the sound of a window being opened. Gurney wondered whether his purpose was to get more air or a clearer view of his surroundings. Where am I? would have to have been one of the top questions in his mind.

A minute later he came back into the main room—at an angle that provided a passing glimpse of the damaged side of his face.

“Holy Christ,” muttered Morgan.

Even shadowed as it was by the sweatshirt’s hood, the vertical gouge down through red and black charred flesh was so appalling that it was a relief when he turned away in the direction of the cabinet on the wall next to the doorway.

The cabinet appeared to interest him. He remained there for some time before making an effort to open it. Discovering that the glass door was locked, he smashed it with his elbow, which triggered another yowl of pain. He reached through the shattered opening, removed two handfuls of shiny implements, and stuffed them into the pockets of his sweatshirt.

He pulled a phone out of one of those pockets. For a while he just stood there, as if trying to make up his mind about something. Then his fingers moved as if he were sending someone a text message. He started to put the phone back in his pocket, then stopped and sent what appeared to be a second message. The time code on the video indicated that it was 10:01 p.m.

He started moving in the direction of the hallway that led to the back door, then stopped and faced a section of the wall next to the smashed cabinet. He remained in that position, rocking almost imperceptibly from side to side, for several minutes. Then he took one of the shiny instruments out of his pocket and stepped closer to the wall. He scratched a looping figure eight design into the white paint, added a vertical slash, and put the instrument back in his pocket. He stepped back, as if to admire what he’d done, then turned and walked with new determination into the dark hallway. Moments later there was the sound of a door being opened, a few seconds of silence, and the sound of it being firmly closed.

The time-code display read 10:19 p.m.

Five minutes later, in the absence of any further sounds or movements to activate it, the camera stopped operating.

The screen in the conference room went blank.

The untouched coffee in Gurney’s mug was cold.

Morgan’s expression conveyed a sense of overload.

Gurney provided a low-key counterpoint. “Interesting video. Intense, but no surprises. Entirely consistent with Kyra’s evidence narrative.”

“She did describe it like it happened,” said Morgan, as if the consistency were reassuring.

“And the time code tells us when it happened,” said Gurney, “which gives us a reliable window for tracing Tate’s movements.”

Morgan picked up his coffee mug, took a sip, made a disgusted face, and put it down. His gaze fell on the papers in the middle of the table. “You should take a look at your contract. And sign it. As soon as you do, you’ll be covered.”

Gurney picked up one of the copies and gave it a once-over. It was basically the same as the agreement he’d had the previous year with Sheridan Kline as an adjunct investigator on the White River multiple-murder case. “This is fine.”

Morgan slid a pen across the table. “I should give Barstow a call and tell her the video confirms her version of events.”

“Let her and Slovak both know that Tate exited Peale’s premises at ten nineteen that night. That could be important,” said Gurney.

“Will do.”

Morgan made the call, gave Barstow the news, and asked her to pass it along to Slovak.

As Gurney was signing the agreement, there was a knock at the open conference room door. A uniformed cop, the one who showed Gurney in that morning, was standing there. “That funeral director from next door wants to see you. He sounds pissed off.”

“Dan Peale?”

“Mister Danforth Peale was the way he put it. Angry like.”

“Did he say what the problem was?”

“No, sir.”

Morgan’s tic reappeared. “Bring him in.”

Peale appeared at the conference room door as the cop was stepping away to get him. There was a disconnect between his cheery yellow Bermuda shorts and the fury in his eyes. He slammed the door behind him and strode over to the conference table.

“Fallow’s a bloody idiot!”

Morgan recoiled.

“That son of a bitch’s addled judgment is about to destroy three generations of family tradition! I want him arrested and prosecuted for criminal malpractice!”

“I’m not sure I—”

Peale cut him off. “The video. The software company told me how to access it. Tate wasn’t dead after all. I’m telling you, I want Fallow prosecuted! I want the bastard in prison!”

“For mistakenly pronouncing Tate dead?”

“For recklessly doing so while under the influence.”

“You’re suggesting he was drunk?”

“Damn right he was drunk!”

“That’s a serious accusation.”

“Do you realize the seriousness of what he’s done to me? What people will say when it gets around that Danforth Peale put a living human being inside a closed casket? My professional life will be destroyed—as a direct result of Fallow’s gross incompetence!”

Peale’s rage left Morgan at a loss for words.

Gurney asked mildly, “Did your observation of the body give you any reason to doubt that Tate was dead?”

“Absolutely not. But I certainly didn’t perform a rigorous examination. It’s not the responsibility of a funeral director to second-guess a medical examiner.”

“How do you know that the doctor had been drinking when he examined Tate?”

“He smelled of alcohol. I assume he’d been drinking it, not spraying it on his clothes.”

“Was anyone else aware of the odor?”

“How the hell should I know? I wasn’t conducting a goddamn survey.”

“Did you mention your observation to anyone at the time?”

Peale shook his head. “I didn’t want to create any problems for him, given his sketchy history. It didn’t occur to me that he might be creating a worse problem for me.” He turned toward Morgan. “What do you plan to do about this mess?”

Morgan’s arms were crossed in a near-parody of defensiveness. “Everything is already being done that can be done. I understand your frustration. I share it. The damage. The potential damage. All the unknowns. Believe me, I know. Our number-­one priority is getting this under control.”

Peale was nodding in a way that looked more like impatience than agreement.

Morgan’s phone rang. He looked at it, then at Peale. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

Peale waved his hand in the air, as if to signify that he had no more to say. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

From Morgan’s half of the phone conversation, Gurney gathered that the call was from a reporter by the name of Carly who wanted an update on the Russell investigation, and that Morgan was trying to put her off by promising significant news later that day.

As soon as he put his phone down, it rang again. This time Gurney could tell little from Morgan’s responses, other than the fact that the news was good.

When he ended the call, he sounded excited. “Looks like we have an ID on the homicide victim in the drainage ditch. Plus, a woman told one of Brad’s guys that she saw someone out on Waterview Drive, not far from Harrow Hill, around 2:00 a.m. the night Angus was killed. Feel like taking a ride?”

16

Once they were underway in the Tahoe, Gurney raised a question about Peale’s rant. “That comment he made about Fallow having a ‘sketchy history’—do you know what he was referring to?”

“Three years ago Fallow came close to losing his medical license—in connection with a DUI conviction.”

“Any difficulties since then?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Any history of conflict between him and Peale?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Peale’s level of anger seemed . . . extreme.”

“I guess there could be some bad blood between them, but nothing that’s ever come out publicly.”

They fell silent. Soon they were on Waterview Drive, passing the manicured grounds of one mansion after another. Through occasional breaks in the lush greenery, Gurney caught glimpses of the azure lake. Then, directly ahead, he saw a pair of police vehicles parked on the side of the road—a black Dodge Charger and a Larchfield patrol car. Brad Slovak and a uniformed cop were standing on the grass verge as Morgan pulled in behind the patrol car. Gurney noted that they’d stopped at the only overgrown property by the lake.

Slovak approached Morgan as he and Gurney got out of the Tahoe. “Woman’s name is Ruby-June Hooper. Sound familiar?”

Morgan looked blank. “Should it?”

“She pops up in the news every couple of years, whenever she’s offered another million for these four acres of hers. Always says the same thing—she was born here and she’s gonna die here. She wouldn’t tell me or Dwayne who she saw out here the other night. Insisted on talking to you.”

“Where is she?”

“In her house. Behind them trees.” Slovak pointed at a path that led into a thicket.

Morgan motioned to Gurney to come along. The path through the trees brought them to a narrow lawn that separated the house from the woods around it. It was full of crabgrass, dandelions, and wandering, clucking, pecking chickens.

The house, a smallish clapboard colonial whose white paint needed refreshing, would have been unremarkable in virtually any other upstate locality. On Larchfield’s Waterview Drive, however, its mild shabbiness was startling. The unkempt land on which it sat might have been considered pleasantly natural elsewhere, but here, adjacent to the genteel grounds of its neighbors, it seemed to radiate aggression.

The woman waiting for them in the doorway was wearing a shapeless dress. Her straight gray hair covered her forehead and ears like a loose hat. Her dark eyes peered first at Gurney, then at Morgan.

“You’re the one took Tucker to the hospital. You’re the one I want to talk to.” She pointed at Gurney without looking at him. “Who’s that?”

“The best detective I know,” said Morgan with an awkward smile.

“Which of you is the boss?”

“He is,” said Gurney.

“That’s all right, then. He took Tucker to the hospital. I don’t ever forget a kindness.”

“Tucker . . . ?” said Morgan.

“When he got passed out in the pansies with the heatstroke.”

“Yes!” said Morgan with obvious relief. “In the village square.”

“Hottest day of the summer it was.”

“I remember.” His moment of relief gave way to his perennial unease. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Better we talk inside.” She stepped back and gestured them into an unfurnished hallway. On the right side of it there was a door to a small dining room and a stairway up to the second floor. On the left side there was a wide opening into a living room.

“You go right on in. Don’t pay no mind to Vaughn,” she said, tilting her head toward a man in full hunting camos sitting in a wheelchair in front of a picture window at the far end of the room, “and he won’t pay no mind to you.” The window provided a panoramic view of the lake.

“Vaughn,” she added, “is a lifelong duck hunter.”

She led them to the other end of the room, where four armchairs formed a loose semicircle in front of a three-cushion couch. The center cushion was occupied by a sleeping gray dog whose little legs seemed inadequate for his large body. Ruby-June sat next to him and rested her arm on him as if he were part of the couch.

Morgan took the chair farthest from her, Gurney the one closest.

“So.” Morgan put on a smile. “What did you want to tell me?”

“I spoke to a man the other night, a man who I’ve since been told is dead. Not just dead now, but dead when I spoke to him.”

“Do you know who this man was?”

“Course I do. Otherwise, how would I know he was dead?”

“Can you give me his name?”

“That’s what I’m wanting to tell you. It was Billy Tate.”

“And when exactly did you see him?”

“It was just about twenty-four hours after he fell off Hilda’s roof and died. Course, I didn’t know that when I spoke to him, or I can’t think that I would have done so.”

“What time was it? Do you recall?”

“I’d say two in the morning.”

“Where was this?”

“Out on the road. Tucker here wanted to take care of business.” She scratched the head of the dog on the cushion next to her. “We were on our side of the road, but Tucker can be particular, and he wanted to go to the other side. We was making our way across—Tucker’s not so quick on his feet these days—when Billy come driving along. He slowed way down, letting us pass.”

“You say you spoke to him?”

“I did. I said, ‘Good morning, Billy.’ ’Cause it was rightly morning, being after midnight. He passed by real slow, almost stopped. ‘Ruby-June,’ he said, kinda hoarse like. Something wrong with his throat, like he was sick.”

“And then, after he said your name . . . ?”

“He drove on down the road.”

Morgan looked at Gurney.

Gurney asked, “What direction was he going?”

“Toward Harrow Hill.”

“What kind of car was he driving?”

“I don’t know cars. Kind of square like. Some kind of Jeep, I think? Used to drive around town in it. Orange color.”

“Billy’s window was open?”

“Course it was. We wasn’t shouting at each other through the glass.”

Gurney smiled. “Sounds like you’ve known him a long time.”

“Since he was being raised up. Crazy boy from the beginning, which you can’t blame him for being. You’d be plenty crazy, too, if your stepmama was Darlene Tate.”

“What was the problem with Darlene?”

“I’d rather not say. To talk about it, I’d have to think about it, wouldn’t I? And thinking about it would dirty my mind.”

“Fair enough. You said that Billy sounded hoarse. Do you remember how he looked?”

“Same as always. Wearing that thing on his head. Like he’d been wearing it for years. I venture he did it because it made him look like, you know what I’m saying, like a bad boy. Which most folks hereabouts would say he was. But maybe he was just hiding, you know what I mean?”

“Tell me.”

“Hiding from the prying eyes of the world. Hiding from the judgment of them that’s always judging. Hiding what he done with Darlene.”

Gurney nodded. “So you don’t think Billy Tate was a bad person?”

“Not deep-down bad. Marched to his own drummer, for sure. And he did have a temper. Didn’t take crap, that’s a fact. A fierce streak in that boy. And now everyone’s saying he died the night before I saw him out on that road—just thinking that in my mind gives me a cold feeling. Right now, sir, I feel a shiver right through me.”

“I can understand that,” said Gurney. “Have you told anyone you saw him that night?”

“No, sir! Folks already think Vaughn and I are long gone around the bend. No way I’m handing them more ammunition.”

Gurney nodded sympathetically. “Is there anything else you want to tell us?”

“Yes, sir. More like a question, though. I’m talking here with a troubling notion in my mind—that the Billy Tate I saw was what they call on the TV shows ‘the walking dead.’ Like the horror movies, which is not what I truly believe. But I’ve been told by reputable people with their heads on straight that Billy Tate is dead. So, that’s my question to you. Is that boy dead, alive, or somewhere in between?”

Gurney sat back in his chair and looked over at Morgan. It was up to him to decide how much to reveal.

“Well, Ruby, I’d say we’re currently of the opinion that he may be alive.”

Ruby-June Hooper smiled broadly for the first time since they arrived. “Thank you, sir! That’s a trouble off my mind.” She gave the dog an enthusiastic scratching behind the ears. “You hear that, Tucker? Mama’s still got her marbles. Ain’t nobody carting us off to the loony bin. Not just yet.”

Morgan handed her his card. “If you see him again, Ruby, let us know as fast as you can. That’s my personal number. Day or night.”

“I thank you. If Vaughn had the slightest idea about anything, he’d thank you, too.”

On their way out through the thicket, Morgan wondered aloud if he’d revealed too much to Ruby. Too little? Should he have asked her to keep the information to herself? Gurney said that it probably didn’t matter—which seemed neither to surprise nor reassure Morgan. Back at the road, while Morgan remained absorbed in second-guessing his response, Gurney filled Slovak in on what Ruby-June had told them.

Slovak’s eyes filled with speculative excitement. “So, Tate has a friendly exchange with her, then drives another mile down the road, runs into another local lady who just happens to be out, doing God knows what, at two in the morning. This time he gets out of his car, cuts her throat, and dumps her in a drainage ditch—on his way to kill Angus Russell!”

“That’s one way of putting it together. What information do you have on this new victim?”

“Mary Kane, age seventy, retired school librarian. Lived in a small cottage, across from the first turnoff to Harrow Hill. Former gatehouse of the lakeside estate behind it.”

“Any estimated time of death?”

Slovak ran his hand back over the bristly red hair on the top of his head. “I’d guess at least two days. Classic signs of early-stage decomp. Fallow passed by a couple of minutes ago on his way there. He’ll probably give us a tighter time window. If it’s between two and three days, that would line up with the Russell murder—and be consistent with what the Hooper woman just told you.”

Classic signs of early-stage decomp sounded to Gurney like Slovak’s jargony effort to sound more inured to this sort of thing than he actually was. The sight of a two-day-old corpse in a ditch would leave any young detective unnerved. The odor alone was gut-wrenching.

Emerging finally from his tangle of second thoughts, Morgan spoke up. “Brad, assuming that Kyra now has control of the homicide scene, this would be a good time for you to take a run out to Selena Cursen’s place. Take Dwayne Wolman with you, in case there’s any difficulty. Remember, go in easy and see what you can get. If we need to go in hard later, that’s an option. The video of Tate walking out of the mortuary gives us proof that he’s alive, so we have reasonable grounds for a search warrant at his girlfriend’s place, if necessary.”

“You think Tate might be there now?”

“I’m guessing he’d head for someplace less obvious. But if you get a hint of his presence, call for backup.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Slovak was turning to leave, Gurney asked, “How are your people doing on the search for security cameras in the area?”

“Three so far that seem to be in position to capture vehicle traffic to or from Harrow Hill. We’re tracking down the property owners to get access to the files, assuming they’ve been saved. I’ll keep you informed.”

Morgan turned to Gurney. “You ready to go to the murder site?”

Their destination was a two-minute drive along the same road. A barricade was set up a hundred yards or so before the site to divert civilian traffic. The cop manning it moved it out of the way to let the Tahoe through.

A perimeter of yellow police tape demarcated the site itself—approximately an acre that extended from a small cottage on one side of the road to a grassy, shrubbery-­bordered swale on the opposite side.

Morgan parked between the evidence van and the body-transport van, just outside the tape. He got out and called to Barstow, who was conferring with her two techs next to a search grid that ran from the cottage across the road to the far side of the swale.

“You want us in coveralls?” Morgan asked.

“Just shoe covers and gloves, as long as you don’t kneel or sit anywhere inside the tape.”

“You go ahead,” said Morgan to Gurney. “The gloves and booties are in the back of her van. I’ll wait here for Fallow. When he finishes with the body, I’ll fill him in on the Tate situation.”

Gurney went to the van, put on the protective items, and ducked under the tape. It didn’t surprise him that Morgan had come up with a reason to remain where he was. Back in the NYPD, the man always managed to minimize his exposure to the ugly starting point of every homicide investigation, the body of the victim. Never having become used to it, it was one more reason his career was an endless source of stress—all in the fruitless pursuit of his father’s approval—an emotional trap with no way out.

Barstow’s voice interrupted Gurney’s train of thought. “Would now be a good time for me to give you a tour of the highlights?”

“Now would be ideal.”

“We start over here,” she said, leading him toward the cottage.

It was a small, cream-colored clapboard house with a brass knocker in the center of a green door. There were red geraniums in boxes under the two front windows. The bright colors gave the place a playful appearance. An open porch faced the road. There was a lavender ladder-back chair on the porch and next to it a small wooden table. On the table was a cup with a desiccated residue of coffee in the bottom of it, a blank index card, a pen, and a flashlight. It appeared that everything had been dusted for prints. What held Gurney’s attention longest was the line of dried blood droplets that began on the table and extended eight or ten feet across the porch.

“Appears that the victim’s throat was cut while she was sitting in that chair,” said Barstow. “Bloodstains look like a typical throw-off pattern from a blade slashed through a large artery.”

Like the pattern on Angus’s bedroom wall, thought Gurney.

“There was also a phone on that table,” she added. “Battery was dead. It’s being recharged now, so we can check for any calls or text records around the time of the attack.” She turned and pointed at a rough line of brownish smears on the macadam surface of the road. “Attacker dragged the bleeding body across the road, through the shrubbery on the other side, and left it in the drainage ditch.”

Gurney nodded. “I know one of Slovak’s people was doing door-to-doors on this road this morning. But there are no houses on that side. How did he happen to find the body down behind the bushes?”

She thought about it for a moment. “The stink would be hard to miss if the breeze was right. Want to see the body?”

“After I take a look through the house. Your people finished in there?”

Barstow nodded. “It’s all yours.”

The front door opened into a small living room. She followed him in. At the back of the room a doorway led to a small kitchen with a table with two wooden chairs. Off the side of the living room there was a hallway with three doors—a bathroom and two small bedrooms.

“We didn’t find any evidence of disturbance in the house,” said Barstow.

“Was the front door open?” he asked.

“Closed but unlocked.”

“Did you find her house keys?”

“Yes. In the back of a kitchen drawer. Doesn’t appear that she bothered much with them. With virtually no crime, lot of folks around here leave their doors unlocked.”

“Is there a basement or accessible attic?”

“Both, but there’s nothing in them but dust.”

“Any security cameras on the property?”

“None that we found.”

He took another slow walk through the house, noting that Mary Kane had a fondness for birds, evident in the many amateur watercolors hanging on the walls. It touched him in a way that was obvious to Barstow.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Ready to take a look at the body?”

Gurney followed her across the road and through a break in the barrier of bushes a few yards from the Harrow Hill turnoff.

Stepping down into the broad drainage swale, his gaze went immediately to the body on the ground—a thin, gray-haired woman. Her white slacks and tan sweater were stained with dirt and blood. The skin on her hands and face showed early signs of putrefaction. A gentle breeze was carrying the odors away from where Gurney was standing, allowing him to move closer without the nausea they would have induced.

The contour of the ground under the body had tilted the head back, so that the neck wound was open and had become a magnet for flies. Even so, it was clear that the fatal damage had been a single deep cut inflicted by a very sharp blade.

Four other individuals were present in the swale. A young patrol officer was standing with his arms folded and his mouth drawn down in disgust. An obese fellow was taking a series of photos, sidling in a slow semicircle around the upwind side of the body. A gaunt man was pushing a mortuary trolley, like the one in Peale’s embalming room, toward the body. The fourth individual, whom Gurney assumed was Dr. Fallow, was speaking loudly into his phone, his back to the body. He had an athlete’s physique gone soft and a large head with receding hair. The hair, neatly combed straight back, was incongruously brown above a white mustache. His blue blazer appeared to have been purchased when he was twenty pounds slimmer.

The man pushing the trolley brought it to a stop near the body. He unfolded a black plastic transport bag and laid it on the ground, then called to the young cop to help him slide the body into the open bag. The cop approached with reluctance, checked the integrity of his gloves, and did as he was asked. After the gaunt fellow zipped up the bag, they lifted it onto the trolley, which they pushed along the swale in the direction of the parked vehicles.

The big man in the blue blazer ended his phone call and, after a curious glance at Gurney, set out after the trolley. The photographer took a few more shots of the site, then climbed up out of the swale, nodded to Barstow, and headed for the break in the bushes.

Gurney went over to the spot where the body had been resting. Bright green elsewhere, the grass there was dull, matted down, bloodstained.

He gazed at the surprisingly small indentation her body had made—as though she were a child. “Mary Kane,” he said softly.

Barstow gave him a quizzical look.

“It’s a habit I have. Saying the name aloud. It moves my focus from the corpse to the person who was once alive—where it belongs—the person whose life was stolen from them.

“Sounds painful.”

“It should be painful. Otherwise, this is nothing but a game.”

Hearing himself, he was taken aback by his sententious tone. Hadn’t his own investigations been powered more by intellectual challenge than by empathy for the victim? Hadn’t he often found the “game” intriguing, motivating, all-consuming?

Barstow’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Do you have any scenario yet for what happened here?”

“You’ve been here longer than I have. You tell me.”

“Well, we know from the mortuary video that Tate walked out of there about twenty after ten that night. So, sometime between then and the Russell murder, he drove out here. You can see the turnoff to Harrow Hill is pretty sharp, so he must have come to a near-stop in front of her house, with her sitting on the porch. She may have recognized him—under that streetlight.”

She pointed at the arching arm of the light pole across the road from the cottage. It was one of the first things Gurney had noted when he arrived at the scene. He was pleased that its significance hadn’t escaped her.

“So,” she continued, “if Tate realized he’d been recognized, he may have decided to deal with it.”

Gurney nodded. “The proximity to Harrow Hill, the timing, and the neck wound point to Tate being the killer. But there’s a problem with motive. I just spoke to a woman a mile down the road who saw Tate driving this way shortly before the Russell murder and spoke to him. With no consequences. Why would Tate let one person who recognized him stay alive, but not another? Maybe we’re making the wrong assumption about the motive here. Maybe it had nothing to do with being recognized.”

Barstow was watching him with increasing interest.

He went on, “I’d like to know what this woman was doing on her porch—with an index card and a pen and a phone—in the middle of the night.”

“You love this, don’t you?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s written on your face. Baffling questions excite you.”

Gurney didn’t respond.

“So, when will you be taking over the investigation?” There was a sparkle of amusement in her gray eyes.

“Taking over is not what I do.”

“It would be an improvement.”

“You have a problem with Brad?”

She shrugged. “Brad and I have a history.”

“Oh?”

She let out a burst of laughter. “Lord, no, it’s not what you’re thinking. Back when Brad was taking criminal justice courses at Russell College, I was one of his instructors. We had no problem then, but ever since he got promoted to detective, he’s been trying very hard to prove that we’re equals.”

That explained a lot. After a pause, he asked, “How long have you been up here? Your accent sounds West Indian.”

“It’s Jamaican.”

“Were you born there?”

“In Albany, actually. My mother was Jamaican. She took me there after she divorced my father, when I was three. I came back when I was seventeen.”

He nodded with interest, then looked at his watch. “Time to get back to business. I need to check on a conversation your chief is having with the medical examiner.”

He started toward the parking area, then stopped. “You said that the phone you found on the porch is being charged. Can you let me know as soon as you can what you find on it?”

17

As he reached the yellow perimeter tape, he was surprised to see the ME’s body-transport van pulling out onto the road, followed by a black Mercedes with an MD plate. It seemed impossible that Morgan could have shared the bombshell news of Tate’s survival without it provoking a longer discussion.

Morgan waved to Gurney from window of his Tahoe, gesturing for him to get in.

“New plan,” he announced as they headed back toward the village. “The situation with Fallow is delicate. The thing is, in addition to being the county ME, he’s a member of the village board—the board I report to. And he’s not likely to be pleased by an accusation that he pronounced a living person dead.”

“Accusations are never pleasing. What’s the problem?”

“He’s a difficult person. Always was, and that doubled after the drunk-driving incident.”

Gurney could see where this was going. “Since the message will be unwelcome, he’ll want to shoot the messenger, and you’d rather it be me than you.”

Morgan looked pained, but kept his eyes on the road ahead. “You’re an outsider with a golden reputation. He can’t do you any harm. Besides, you’re better at these things than I am.”

“Have you told him anything so far?”

“I just told him that because the Russell investigation was so important, I’d brought in one of the country’s top homicide detectives.”

Gurney grimaced at the characterization. “You didn’t mention Tate at all?”

“I told him we’d made a disturbing discovery about the Russell murder, and it would be best to discuss it back at headquarters. He’s meeting us there, while his assistant takes the Kane body in for autopsy.”

Fallow was already in the conference room when they arrived. He was intent on the screen of his phone and didn’t look up, even when they both took seats across from him.

This close, Fallow looked ten years older than he had in the swale. Gurney noted a drinker’s web of capillaries on his pudgy nose. Several more seconds passed before he put aside his phone and acknowledged their presence.

“Before I forget,” he said rather officiously, “the Russell autopsy report is available. The digital version has been entered in your system, hard copy is available on request.” He eyed Gurney. “I assume that you’re the hired gun.”

“Good assumption.”

Morgan broke the ensuing silence. “Any autopsy surprises?”

Fallow smoothed his white mustache before answering. “Two points of interest. The neck wound contained a trace of white paint dust, likely left behind by the incising blade.”

Gurney recalled the segment of the video that showed Tate scraping the figure eight symbol onto the white wall of the embalming room.

“And we located the missing forefinger.” Fallow paused, straightening the cuffs of his blazer. “It was inserted in the victim’s anus.”

Morgan recoiled. “Jesus.”

Fallow checked his watch. “You said there was a development in the Russell case you wanted to discuss?”

Morgan cleared his throat. “Because of Dave’s key involvement in the investigation, I’d like him to explain the situation.”

Gurney hid his annoyance. “You’re a busy man, Doctor, so I’ll get through this as quickly as I can. You were the pronouncer of death at the Tate accident scene, is that right?”

“It’s a matter of record. What’s that got to do with the Russell case?”

“You checked his vitals and overall condition?”

“Of course.”

“What did you discover?”

“What’s the point of this?” Fallow’s voice was rising.

“Please, Doctor, just tell me what you observed.”

“Absence of circulatory and respiratory function. High-voltage electrical burns exposing a narrow vertical area of forehead and cheek bones. The angle of the head and digital manipulation of the neck indicated a cervical break. There was bleeding from the ears. There was evidence for a reasonable inference of spinal injuries, as well as catastrophic neurological damage related to electrocution. Most conclusively, CPR and defibrillation efforts had been initiated without success and discontinued prior to my arrival.”

Gurney nodded slowly. “So, even if the subject were not already dead at the time of your examination, death would have been imminent and inevitable?”

“The subject was dead at the time of my examination. Imminence and inevitability are irrelevant.”

“What if I told you that Billy Tate walked out of Peale’s Funeral Home?”

Fallow erupted in a sharp burst of laughter. “I’d say you were misinformed.”

“What if I told you we have a witness who spoke to Billy Tate nearly twenty-­four hours after you pronounced him dead?”

“I’d say it doesn’t matter how many delusional witnesses might claim to have spoken to him. It wouldn’t change the fact that the young man was struck by lightning, fell off the roof of St. Giles Church, and was killed instantly. If you’ve managed to lose his body, I suggest you find it. If you’re claiming that the man I pronounced dead is wandering around Larchfield, you’re making a serious mistake.” He checked his watch again. “If you have no other questions . . .”

“Just one,” said Gurney. “Did you by any chance have anything to drink the night Tate fell off the roof?”

Fallow stared at him. His voice tightened. “If you’re suggesting my professional judgment was in any way impaired—”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking a simple question.”

Fallow stood up from the conference table and glared at Morgan. “If this absurd confrontation was your idea, you’ll live to regret it.”

“Before you leave, Doctor,” said Gurney in a matter-of-fact way, “we have a security camera video you might be interested in.”

“Video of what?”

“Billy Tate’s resurrection in Peale’s embalming room.”

18

The video, which Fallow watched with increasing distress, deflated him. He insisted that what he’d witnessed on the screen was impossible, but the strength of his conviction was gone.

“There was no doubt whatever in my mind that he was dead. I don’t understand. There’s no way he could have been alive.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Doctor, but there’s another piece of the puzzle that supports the likelihood of Tate’s survival. Two pieces, in fact. Two murders.”

Before Gurney could go on to explain it, he saw the connection suddenly dawning on Fallow—beginning, no doubt, with the neatly sliced throats of Mary Kane and Angus Russell.

“The scalpels . . . Oh, my God . . . the scalpels he took from the mortuary cabinet.”

“We also have Tate’s fingerprints and DNA at the Russell murder scene.”

Fallow swallowed hard.

Gurney continued. “We’ll be issuing an APB today for Billy Tate, followed by a public statement, which will trigger a media explosion—including the inevitable Dead Man Rises stories. Things may get ugly, especially for you personally. Be prepared for that.”

“Can’t you control what details go to the media?”

“To some extent. But it’s public knowledge that Tate was declared dead. Now it will be public knowledge that he’s wanted for questioning in connection with two new murders. That’s not something we can conceal.”

Gurney didn’t need to mention that Fallow’s alcohol-related arrest was also a matter of public record. He could almost see the panic wheels turning in the man’s brain as he imagined the career-smashing way that fact was likely to be covered by the media: MEDICAL EXAMINER WITH HISTORY OF ALCOHOL ABUSE DECLARES UNCONSCIOUS MAN DEAD.

Fallow turned to Morgan. “You were there. You saw him. How could anyone in that condition have survived?”

Morgan said nothing.

Fallow began shaking his head. “Newspapers, television . . . God, what a horror!”

Gurney spoke calmly. “I’d suggest you refer any media inquiries you get to the Larchfield Police Department. It will be better for everyone if that function is centralized.”

After a long moment, Fallow departed, still shaking his head.

Morgan gave Gurney a deer-in-the-headlights look. “When you say Larchfield Police Department, you mean me?”

“Unless you’ve got a spokesman on staff that I don’t know about.”

Morgan sighed. “I’d better get working on a statement.”

“If I were you, I’d get the APB on Tate out first. The Mary Kane murder suggests he has no qualms about killing anyone who could be a threat to him.”

Morgan nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Sir?” Slovak was in the conference room doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I just got back from Selena Cursen’s. Should I fill you in now?”

“Fill Dave in. I’ll catch up with him.” He hurried out.

Slovak joined Gurney at the table and starting talking. “It was totally weird. She kept smiling and saying weird shit. He’s the Dark Angel who rose from the dead. Beware the Dark Angel who rose from the dead.”

“Did she let you into the house?”

“No. She must have been outside and heard my car coming. You approach her place on this long, narrow dirt road through the woods. You have to drive real slow, with all the ruts. It’s like a tunnel, with thick pine branches meeting over the top, so there’s hardly any light. Then you come to this black iron gate that separates the woods from the grounds around the house. You look at that house, you can’t help thinking bad shit goes on in there. When I got to the gate, she was standing there, all in black. With those shiny stud things in her lips. Smiling, like she was waiting for me. I had to force myself to get out of the car. I told her we were trying to get a better understanding of Billy Tate’s accident, and would she mind if I asked her some questions.”

“What did she say?”

“That’s when she started with the weird shit. She knows that Tate’s alive. But she seems to believe he actually died and came back from the other side. The way she was looking at me, the way she sounded, gave me the shivers.”

“Any evidence that she was high on something?”

“Not really. Selena’s always been strange. Harmless-strange. But today she was scary-strange. The look in her eyes almost made me think she was right.”

“Right?”

“About Billy being dead and coming back to life. I know that’s nuts, but . . . that look, like she knew something no one else did.”

“Does she have any family?”

Slovak shook his head. “Her parents and sister died in a fire about ten years ago. The family house burned to the ground in the middle of the night. The fire marshal never came up with the reason. He suspected arson, but couldn’t prove it. Selena was the only one of the Cursens who didn’t die in the fire—because she was sleeping in a tent in the woods that night, or that’s what she said. There were whispers going around, but no solid facts, just a feeling people had that Selena might be capable of anything. And there was the fact that she ended up with a huge inheritance. And went to live by herself in that haunted house out by the swamp.”

“How old is she?”

“Around my age, I guess. Late twenties?”

“Was she in high school with you?”

“Her parents sent her to a school near Albany. For kids with emotional problems. Right after she came home, the family house burned down.”

“And her relationship with Billy Tate began when?”

“Right after he got out of prison. At least that’s when Darlene went batshit over it.”

“Okay. Let’s move ahead to the night Tate fell off the roof. You got a good look at the body. Was it your impression that he was dead?”

“My impression?” Slovak ran his hand back over his bristly scalp. “I’m not sure. His head was twisted to the side, and there was a burn line on the side of his face. Jimmy Clapper, one of our patrol guys, tried doing CPR, but that just seemed to increase the bleeding. They used the defib unit, too. Multiple times. Nothing worked. And Fallow making the official pronouncement kind of sealed the deal.”

Gurney decided it was time to talk to Tate’s stepmother.

Following the directions he got from Slovak, he took the two-lane state road up the long hill from the lush Larchfield valley and down into dreary Bastenburg. At the town’s single traffic light, he turned onto Stickle Road and was soon driving through a scruffy area where abandoned pastures, overrun with thorn bushes, alternated with dilapidated trailers and collapsed barns.

Gurney was keeping an eye on his odometer, since Slovak’s directions were based on distances rather than on the often illegible addresses on the tilting mailboxes. At 2.4 miles from the commercial center of Bastenburg, he arrived at the incongruously named Paradise Inn—Darlene Tate’s place of business, as well as her residence—a ramshackle two-story structure with a tavern on the ground floor and an apartment upstairs. According to Slovak, access to her apartment was through the barroom.

Gurney parked in the weedy lot at the side of the building. Two other vehicles were present, both pickup trucks. Inside the rear window of one was a Confederate flag decal. A rifle was on display inside the other.

He got out and walked around to the front entrance. Above the sagging overhang, the words PARADISE INN were stenciled in red letters on a yellow background. A looping garland of blinking Christmas lights hung from the overhang. Rather than adding an element of cheer, the effect in the glare of the midday sun was repellent. He opened the glass-paneled door and stepped inside.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the low light level. There were no windows. Apart from the glass door, the only sources of illumination were a wide-screen TV on the wall at the end of the bar and a few low-wattage light fixtures in the ceiling.

Only one of the barstools was occupied—by a shapeless woman in an oversized flannel shirt and a John Deere cap on backward. Straggly gray hair reached her shoulders. She was leaning forward, elbows on the bar, hands wrapped around an empty glass. She glanced over at Gurney, then up at the TV, where colorfully dressed contestants were shrieking and dashing back and forth in a frenetic game show.

A young man with a shaved head and a bodybuilder’s physique was perched on a stool behind the bar, cleaning his nails with the tip of a narrow-bladed hunting knife. He eyed Gurney with the quiet calculation common to ex-cons.

Gurney spoke with the steely politeness common to cops. “Good afternoon, sir. I’d like to speak to Darlene Tate.”

“And you are . . . ?”

“Detective Gurney, Larchfield Police.”

The young man slipped his knife slowly into a sheath on the side of his belt, picked up a phone from under the bar, and tapped a few icons. He put the phone to his ear and turned away. When he spoke, it was in a low voice.

All Gurney could make out was the word “police.”

The young man lowered the phone. “Mrs. Tate would like to know the subject of your inquiry.”

“Tell her I have some questions about her stepson.”

He turned away and spoke into the phone in as low a voice as before. A few seconds later, he turned back to Gurney.

“Mrs. Tate does not wish to discuss her stepson. She says if you dropped dead, you could talk to him yourself in hell. No offense intended.”

The shapeless woman with the straggly hair was taking an interest in this back-and-forth. Or maybe that was just an impression created by the fact that her mouth was hanging open.

Gurney motioned to the young man to follow him to the end of the bar.

“Tell Mrs. Tate that I’m investigating a murder that her stepson may have been involved in. I’d like to close the case, and she may be able to help me.”

The young man raised his phone and passed along Gurney’s message. The response this time was evidently positive. He pointed down a row of high-backed booths running along the wall parallel to the bar.

“Last one.”

The six booths Gurney walked past were dingy, unlit, unoccupied. In the seventh, a small lamp produced just enough light to give him his first impression of Darlene Tate—a battle-scarred version of Lorinda.

She licked her lips. “Murder? For real?”

“Very real.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him. Wouldn’t put nothing past him. Who’d he kill?”

“Mind if I sit down?”

She licked her lips again. There was a glass in her hand and a bottle of tequila on the table. “You want a drink?”

“Maybe later.” He slid into the seat opposite her and smiled. “I appreciate your willingness to speak to me.”

“Nice face. You sure you’re a cop?”

“You have a nice face, too, Darlene.” Actually, it wasn’t a nice face at all. The bone structure was strong, but there was a sourness around the corners of the mouth and a reptilian coldness in her eyes. “Mind if I ask you some questions about Billy?”

She squinted at him sideways as though an odd thought had occurred to her. “What do you care what he did, now that the little bastard’s dead?”

Gurney followed that opening. “You saw him at the mortuary that day, am I right, after he was struck by lightning and fell off that church roof?”

“People always look smaller when they’re dead. You ever notice that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I seen a lot of dead people, but never one I was happier to see dead.”

She gave Gurney a hard look, as if daring him to say a good word about her stepson.

“Did he have any friends?”

“Friends?” She made it sound as if he’d asked whether Billy knew any Martians.

“Billy was a user. A filthy, lying user. A psychiatrist told us he was a sociopathical psychopath. When he was ten years old. You ever know anyone like that, evil like that from their childhood?”

“Did he get in trouble a lot?”

“He was never out of trouble. He had that impulsive control disorderly thing.”

“How did he end up with Selena Cursen?”

She shook her head, picked up the tequila bottle, and poured a large shot into her glass. She drank it down slowly, then laid her glass back on the table. “Fucking bitch.”

“If Billy were still alive, and I wanted to find him, where should I look?”

She frowned at her empty glass, blinking, as though she couldn’t quite parse what he’d asked her. “He’s dead,” she said finally, picking up the bottle and pouring herself a generous double shot. “Ask Greg Mason.”

“Who is Greg Mason?”

“His gym teacher, coach, who the fuck knows what else.” She downed her tequila in one long swallow. “Ask him.” Her voice trailed off, her eyes half closed.

“One last question, Darlene. Do you think Billy is capable of premeditated murder?”

Her eyes opened and she gazed at him with a drunk’s sudden shrewdness. “He’s dead. Not capable of anything. Why are you asking me that?”

“You did see him at Peale’s Funeral Home, right?”

“You telling me he’s not dead?”

“If he were alive, do you have any idea where he might be?”

She shook her head violently. “Find him! Go find him! Find him and KILL HIM!”

The muscular young man appeared beside the booth, eyes bright with animal alertness. “Everything okay?”

She picked up the tequila bottle. “Fine. Fucking fine!” She slid out of her seat and stumbled against the table. “How can he not be fucking dead?”

As she was guided unsteadily to a door in the room’s rear wall, she cried out without turning, “If he’s with that witch bitch, kill them both!”

19

Sitting in his car outside the Paradise Inn, Gurney called headquarters and asked for Slovak.

He came on almost immediately. “Hey, Detective Gurney, I was just about to call you. We have new information. Video files from security cameras in the village and out near Harrow Hill. A couple of the cameras were covering the streets around Peale’s place, including the access to his parking lot, the night Tate disappeared. At the time Peale’s video shows him leaving the embalming room, there’s no vehicular traffic at all in that area.”

“So he walked to his own car? Do we know where it was parked?”

“A woman who lives near the town square says she remembers it clearly—an orange-colored Jeep on a side street in back of her house.”

“Did she see Tate?”

“No, but we have a clip from a stockbroker’s security camera in that area, showing Tate walking toward the side street where she saw the Jeep.”

“You reviewed the clip?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did Tate look?”

“Unsteady. Head down. Like he was keeping a careful eye on the ground in front of him.”

“Interesting. What else do you have?”

“We have videos from cameras out by Waterview Drive that show Tate driving in the direction of the Harrow Hill turnoff around the time Ruby-June Hooper claims she saw him go by, which squares up with our guesstimate for the Kane murder, and the later Russell murder.”

“All very consistent.”

“There’s more. A local stoner and his girlfriend came in a while ago to report another Tate sighting, more recent. They were freaked out, because they’d heard he was dead.”

“Where and when did they see him?”

“Out past the far side of Harrow Hill, the side facing away from the lake. There’s an old picnic area there by a pond where teenagers go to smoke weed and make out. They were there last evening, sometime after sunset. They hear a car coming, so they sit up and pay attention. It’s Billy Tate in his orange Jeep. Stoner boy says he almost had a heart attack. Dead man driving. Felt like he was in a zombie movie.”

“This was yesterday?”

“Right.”

“Any security camera images confirming this?”

“That area has very few houses. It’s mainly back roads. We haven’t checked yet, but I doubt we’ll find anything.”

“You find these kids credible?”

“Yes and no. He’s an obvious druggie, but she seems straight enough. She’s the one who insisted they report it.”

“Peculiar.”

“That they bothered to report it?”

“No. That Tate would drive around locally, two days after the Russell and Kane murders. He must have had a good reason to take a chance like that. Are you making any progress tracking down the phone we saw Tate using in the mortuary video?”

“The carrier says there’s no phone registered to him. Could be an untraceable prepaid.”

“Check for phones registered to Selena Cursen—he may have gotten it through her. Also, we know exactly when he made the call from the time code on the video. Ask the carrier to check for any call originating at that time through the Larchfield cell tower. And get the receiving name and phone number.”

“You think I’ll need a warrant?”

“Make the request to the carrier on an emergency basis. Get the process moving, then get a warrant for the file.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get on it right now.”

“Before you go . . . is there a Greg Mason at the high school?”

“Sure. Been there for years. He’s head of the Phys Ed department. Why?”

“I was told he may know something useful about Billy Tate. I’m going there now. And one more thing. Have Selena Cursen’s house staked out, in case Tate shows up.”

The sprawling campus of Larchfield Academy occupied a grassy rise just outside the village. The entrance, just like the Russell estate, was through a pillared gateway in a drystone wall. The main school building was an ivy-covered neoclassical structure more suited to a grand old university than a rural high school. Perhaps another demonstration of Russell largesse.

Gurney parked near the marble front steps in a shaded area demarcated by a sign reading FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF OUR VISITORS.

The school’s massive front door opened with surprising ease into an entry area that was cordoned off from the rest of the marble-floored lobby. A uniformed security guard was manning a desk next to a walk-through metal detector.

Gurney identified himself, explaining he was with the Larchfield PD, and asked to see Greg Mason.

The man who came striding across the lobby two minutes later was conspicuously neat. There wasn’t a hint of a wrinkle in his fitted blue dress shirt or sharply cuffed gray slacks. He had the physique of a man who believed in staying in shape. His salt-and-pepper crew cut was as carefully managed as the rest of his appearance.

He stopped on his side of the metal detector with a puzzled look.

“Why did you come here?”

“To speak with you, if you can spare me a few minutes.”

“It’s my wife—my ex-wife—you should be talking to. She’s the one who discovered the problem.”

“What problem?”

“The vandalism. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No, sir. I’m here to ask about a former student.”

“Oh.” He looked confused, then curious. “Which student?”

“Perhaps we could speak in your office.”

Mason checked his watch. “How long will this take?”

“Not long. Just a few questions.”

“All right. Follow me.”

From the lobby, he led Gurney down a high-ceilinged corridor to a corner office. Its oak door had a smoky glass panel and a brass knob. Gurney felt like he was walking into the dean’s office back at his college. The furniture inside was simple in an old-fashioned, classy way. There was a mahogany desk in the center of the room. Mason motioned Gurney to a chair in front of it. Gurney sat. Mason remained standing. Perhaps, thought Gurney, he’d read an article on power dynamics.

“So,” said Mason with a less-than-warm smile, “what’s this all about?”

“Billy Tate.”

The smile vanished in a flash of revulsion. “Is this about the accident at the church?”

“I’d like to know whatever you can tell me about him.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“You could begin by telling me why you had such a negative reaction to his name.”

Mason folded his arms. “You won’t find many people here with positive reactions.”

Gurney waited for him to go on.

“Billy Tate was the most troubling—and most troubled—student we’ve ever had in this school. At least, during the thirty years I’ve been here.”

“What was your worst experience with him?”

“Lord, so many to choose from. You mind telling me why you’re asking?”

“Some questions have been raised by the incident at St. Giles. I’m trying to find out as much as I can about him. Your name was mentioned as someone who could be helpful.”

Mason hesitated, appearing less than satisfied by Gurney’s answer, but in the end, he sighed and sat down in his desk chair.

“The striking thing about Tate was the combination of his God-given ability and the evil way he chose to use it. He was a natural athlete. Wiry, fast, incredibly strong. Fifty, sixty push-ups without breaking a sweat. Impervious to pain. I persuaded him to try out for the school wrestling program. I sensed there was too much ego in him, so I paired him up with a bigger, more experienced wrestler. The star of the team. The challenge brought out something frightening in Tate. He broke the bigger kid’s arm. And it wasn’t an accident. He knew what he was doing. He seemed to think it was funny.” Mason’s mouth tightened in an expression of contempt. “That’s partly what led to his detour into the juvenile justice system.”

“Partly?”

“There was an initial intervention by our guidance counselor, who happened to be a skilled therapist and, in the interest of full disclosure, my wife.” Mason produced an awkward smile. “Now my ex-wife.”

He straightened a stack of index cards on his desk before continuing. “Tate made what Linda considered to be threats on her life. They were vivid, detailed, and disgusting. She did not take that lightly. She had recordings of her sessions with him and filed an official complaint. Appropriate hearings were held, and Tate ended up spending six months in a juvenile detention facility. All this happened when he was barely fourteen years old.”

Gurney found nothing surprising in the age factor. He had no illusions about the so-called “innocence” of childhood. In his NYPD days, he’d investigated premeditated murders committed by kids a lot younger than fourteen. One gruesome assassination of five family members was carried out by an eight-year-old, whose calm stare—coming from an otherwise cherubic face—was more unnerving than that of any mob hit man.

“Was he close to anyone in school?”

Mason shook his head. “Tate’s evil streak was pretty near the surface. Even the rough kids kept their distance. The only one who seemed comfortable around him—odd as it may seem now—was Lori Strane, legal name Lorinda, now Mrs. Angus Russell.”

That got Gurney’s attention. “How do you mean, ‘comfortable’?”

“I’d see her talking to him, sometimes smiling. She definitely wasn’t afraid of him, not like everyone else was.”

“Interesting. What else can you tell me about her?”

“Nothing.”

“You said that very quickly.”

“Rumors are a form of social poison. I refuse to repeat them. Whatever I may have heard about her would fall in that category.”

“Like her relationship with your former principal?”

“No comment.”

“Okay. Just tell me what she was like, the way you might describe any other student. I’m not recording this, and I won’t quote you.”

Mason gazed off into the middle distance, as though he might be evaluating a tricky bit of terrain. He cleared his throat. “She was an astonishingly beautiful young woman. The boys were obsessed with her. I think half the men in Larchfield would have left their wives for her, if they thought they had a chance.”

Gurney smiled. “So, everyone was in love with the unique Lori Strane and scared to death of the unique Billy Tate.”

“That’s a reasonable summary.”

“Did Tate have any redeeming qualities?”

“None that I was aware of. I may be prejudiced due to the threats he made to my wife, but I can’t recall ever hearing a good word about his character or behavior.”

Mason joined his hands together on the desk in front of him, interlocking his fingers tightly. “I suppose his upbringing played a role in how he turned out. Are you aware of his family situation?”

“His father shooting him five times?”

“That, and the man himself. Elroy ‘Smoky’ Tate. A mob-connected arsonist, or so the news stories intimated. And Billy’s birth mother was no prize, either—an ‘exotic dancer’ who OD’d on heroin when he was in kindergarten. Maybe it’s understandable how he turned out.”

Mason’s tone was about as understanding as a hammer.

“I was told Billy recovered completely from the shooting. Is that right?”

“Physically, yes. But mentally and emotionally, no. He was worse than ever. I hate to say this about another human being, but I thank God he’s no longer among us.”

Mason unclasped his hands, stretching his fingers, then slapped his palms lightly on the desktop, as if to suggest that there was no more to be said.

Gurney had no objection. Letting the man end the interview on his own terms would make it easier to meet with him again if the need arose.

They both stood up. Gurney extended his hand, and Mason reached across the desk and shook it. “Will someone be getting in touch with my ex-wife regarding the vandalism?”

“I’ll check when I get back to headquarters. What sort of vandalism are we talking about?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Linda lives in the house. I live in a condo out at the end of the lake. I still take care of the property, mowing and so forth, but that’s just once a week. She no longer works here, but we stay in touch, particularly with any issues concerning the house.”

“Like this incident of vandalism?”

“She has a private therapy practice in the village, and when she arrived home last evening, she called to say that the front door of the house had been defaced. I told her to report it to you folks. That’s what I thought you were responding to.”

“Did she say what she meant by ‘defaced’?”

“Some kind of design scratched into the paint. Hopefully not into the wood.”

“Design?”

“That’s all she said.”

“Could you call her, please?”

“Now?”

“It could be important.”

Sighing impatiently, Mason took out his phone and placed the call. After a long moment, he looked at Gurney. “It’s going to her voicemail. Shall I leave a message?”

Gurney ignored the question. “Where’s the house located?”

“At the end of Skinner Hollow.”

“Where’s that?”

“Out past the north side of Harrow Hill. Middle of nowhere, really.”

“Is that the side of the hill facing away from the lake?”

“Yes.”

“Did your wife call you before or after she entered the house?”

“I have no idea. Why does it matter?”

“It may not matter at all. I’m going to drive out there now and take a look. I’ll let you know what I find, okay?”

Skinner Hollow consisted of a narrow, two-mile-long dirt road running by a stream in a ravine with sides too steep to accommodate any structures. At the end the ravine broadened suddenly into a pine forest, which in turn gave way to a mowed field. In the middle of the field stood a white farmhouse with blue shutters and a blue door. Behind it was a classic red barn. Unlike Ruby-June Hooper’s house on the lake, to which it was similar in size and structure, this house was as neat and crisp as Greg Mason. Even the gravel driveway was spotless.

The driveway widened to form a parking area in front of the house, partly occupied by a dusty white Corolla. As soon as Gurney pulled in next to it, he could see the nature of the “vandalism” on the front door. A chillingly familiar figure eight with a vertical slash through the middle had been scraped into the door’s blue paint by something with a very sharp point.

He lowered the Outback windows and listened. He peered at the windows of the house, then scanned as much of the surrounding field as he could see from the car. He opened his glove compartment and took out his ankle holster and 9mm Beretta. He strapped on the ankle holster. Beretta in hand, he stepped out of the car. His level of alertness amplified the crunch of the gravel underfoot.

As he approached the defaced door, he noticed that it was slightly ajar. That, even more than the scratched symbol, was disturbing.

He called out, “Mrs. Mason!”

A flock of yellow finches took flight from a large viburnum at the corner of the house. He called out her name two more times.

Silence.

He stepped up to the door and rapped on it sharply, calling out her name one more time.

Silence.

Clicking off the Beretta’s safety, he pushed the door open with his foot.

Silence.

He stepped inside and found himself at the front end of a center hall that ran back to a glass-paneled rear door. Through the rear door he could see a stretch of bright green lawn and the corner of the red barn. On his right was a small dining room; on his left a living room.

From an abundance of caution, he announced his presence loudly one more time. “Larchfield police! Anyone in the house, show yourself now!”

Silence.

He stepped into the living room.

The interior wasn’t disorderly. It just wasn’t compulsively orderly. A small plate with crumbs on it had been left on an end table along with an empty glass. A copy of The New Yorker was open on the floor next to one of the armchairs. A tilting pile of books stood in the middle of the coffee table. A bunched-up lap blanket was hanging off one arm of the sofa.

Gurney continued along the hall to the modest kitchen. This, too, showed the signs of normal use. Several dishes were propped in a drying rack on the countertop. A few others remained in the sink, along with a used tea bag and some yet-to-be-washed silverware. Several kitchen drawers were not quite closed. There was a small breakfast table by a side widow, and the afternoon sun flooding over it magnified a scattering of crumbs.

He was about to take a look upstairs when something caught his eye.

In the middle of a small oval rug beside the breakfast table, there was a nickel-­sized stain that looked like day-old blood.

He got down on his knees and gently raised the side of the rug nearest the stain. Peering under it, he could see that it had penetrated the rug fibers and was visible on the underside. Using the flashlight on his phone, he saw that the spot where the seepage had occurred had not completely dried. He lowered the rug back in place and began an examination of the rest of the floor.

He soon found what appeared to be long scuff marks, of the sort that might be made by dragging something heavy across the floor. He followed the marks out of the kitchen and down the hall to the rear door. Rather than opening and passing through it, risking further contamination of the scene, he retreated back along the hall and out the front door. From there he walked around to the back door to see if the trail continued outside it.

It did—taking the form of a body-wide depression in the grass, continuing across the lawn in the direction of the barn.

He followed it, discovering that it led around the corner of the barn and stopped at the barn’s sliding door. The concavity in the grass was more obvious there, as though the dragged body had rested there. A brown bloodstain in the grass a few inches from the door seemed to confirm this.

To avoid interfering with possible prints on the steel handle, Gurney instead gripped the edge of the heavy door and pulled it sideways along the top-rollers that supported it. As it slid open, the buzzing whine of flies grew louder. The sound was a warning of what he was likely to find, but it hardly prepared him for the sight.

A farm tractor was facing the open doorway. It was fitted with the sort of front-loader that might be used to move large amounts of gravel or manure. The loading bucket was positioned about four feet above the barn floor. It was supporting a woman’s body at a downward angle—her legs and feet higher than her torso, her head hanging down to within a foot of the concrete floor. Her hair was pulled back into a single long braid. The end of the braid was just touching the floor. Flies were swarming around her eyes and a gaping wound in her throat.

The tilt of the body was reminiscent of the photos Gurney had seen of Angus’s body. But there was a significant difference.

The floor under Angus’s throat had been soaked with blood. But there was no blood on the barn floor. Not a single drop.

Gurney took out his phone and called headquarters.

20

Within half an hour of his call, all the key individuals had arrived—two patrol officers to secure the area and maintain an entry and exit log; Kyra Barstow with her crime-scene processing team; Dr. Fallow with his gaunt assistant; the rotund crime-scene photographer who earlier that morning had been documenting Mary Kane’s body in the drainage swale; and, with his facial tic more noticeable than usual, Mike Morgan.

The patrol officers set up a yellow-tape perimeter, enclosing a rectangular acre or so, with the house and its parking area at one end and the barn at the other. Everyone whose functions required them to be within the perimeter donned the standard protective clothing.

Gurney gave Morgan and Barstow a detailed description of his movements and observations at the scene. He also reported what Slovak had told him about the local stoner and his girlfriend seeing Billy Tate in his Jeep passing in the direction of the Mason house the previous evening. He concluded by explaining to the photographer the areas of the house, lawn, and barn that required documentation—in addition to the standard shots of the body in situ.

He then accompanied Fallow across the lawn to the barn, giving him an abbreviated summary of the facts he’d just shared with Morgan and Barstow.

Fallow’s only response was a tight-lipped nod.

At the open barn door, after gazing for a long moment at the body, he asked Gurney if it was in the exact position in which he’d found it.

Gurney assured him that it was, and Fallow began his examination.

“David?”

Barstow had followed him. “I’m thinking we should start our site processing inside the house, then work our way out here. That okay with you?”

He nodded his assent. “The blood spot on the kitchen rug suggests the killer made initial contact with the victim inside the house, knocked her unconscious, then dragged her out here. So it would make sense to start there.”

“You just referred to ‘the killer.’ Does that mean you’re not sure it was Billy Tate?”

“I’m not sure of anything. I’ve discovered that being sure this early in a murder case is a sure way of being wrong.”

Gurney then heard sharply raised voices and noticed men jostling out by the opening in the perimeter tape. Heading that way, he could see that the two patrol officers charged with securing the restricted area were struggling to restrain a man trying to enter. He got a clear line of sight to the man’s face.

Greg Mason, eyes wide and voice ragged, demanded to be allowed onto his property. Behind him on the lawn, alongside the official vehicles, was the car Gurney assumed he’d arrived in—a blue Prius, with its driver’s-side door hanging open.

One of the cops barring Mason’s entry was repeating, like an automatic tape loop, “Just calm down, sir. Just calm down, sir. Everything will be explained. Just calm down.”

“Mr. Mason,” said Gurney, walking up to him.

Mason blinked several times and stared at him. “You said you’d call me as soon as you got here. That was a goddamn hour ago. What the hell is going on here?”

“Can we sit down?”

“What?”

“Let’s go sit in your car.”

Apparently content to let Gurney deal with the problem, the two cops backed away.

Gurney led Mason toward the Prius. Gurney directed him to the car’s passenger side and took the driver’s seat himself. This seemed to confuse Mason, but he made no objection.

“A hard day,” said Gurney softly.

Mason stared at him. “What is it? What happened?”

The fear in the man’s voice told Gurney that he might be guessing at the truth.

“We found the body of a woman on your property.”

Mason blinked, his mouth opening slowly. “A woman?”

“Yes.”

Mason’s lips moved for a few seconds before he spoke and his voice contracted to little more than a whisper. “Do you mean my wife?”

“Can you describe her to me?”

Mason looked lost.

“Her age?”

“Fifty . . . fifty-one. Yes. Fifty-one.”

“Her hair?”

He sounded as if his mouth had gone dry. “Brown. Mostly brown. A little gray. Here and there.”

“Long or short?”

“Long. She . . . likes it long.”

“Did she ever braid it?”

“Sometimes. A single braid. Down the back.” He began breathing heavily. “Oh, God. What happened to her?”

“We’re trying to find out.”

“Where is she?”

“In the barn.”

“She never went into the barn.”

Gurney hesitated. “She may have been placed there.”

“Placed there?”

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Are you saying she was killed?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it appears that way.”

“She was killed? You mean murdered?”

“It appears that way.”

“How? Why?”

“Those are the questions we hope to find answers to.”

“You’re positive that the . . . the body you found . . . is Linda?”

“We’ll be asking you to confirm the identification, when you feel able.”

A silence fell between them, broken finally by Mason.

“Do you know things . . . things that you’re not telling me?”

“I’m afraid, sir, that right now we don’t know very much at all.”

Mason nodded in a way that appeared more like a mindless rocking motion than a cogent response. “Can I see her?”

“Soon. The medical examiner is . . . here now.”

“Where?”

“In the barn.”

“Where in the barn?”

Gurney wanted to be reasonably truthful, without being too specific. “By your tractor. I assume it’s your tractor?”

“That’s where you found her?”

“Yes.”

Mason let out a sharp little sound, halfway between a stifled whimper and a laugh.

“She hated that tractor.” He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were full of tears. He lowered his head and slowly bent forward, his hands clasped between his knees.

Gurney was tempted to reach out and put a consoling hand on the man’s shoulder but instead maintained, as he normally did in situations of crime-scene grief, a professional distance. It wasn’t a difficult decision, since he found emotional detachment in general to be a comfortable state of mind.

Mason straightened himself in the seat, gazing blankly for a while in the direction of the barn, then turning to Gurney with a look of perplexity.

“Why were you asking about Billy Tate?”

When Gurney didn’t answer, Mason’s eyes widened. “Tate is dead . . . isn’t he?”

Again Gurney said nothing.

“My God! He’s not alive, is he? How could he be alive?”

“Good question.”

“Do you . . . are you saying . . . my God, is he involved in this?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“I don’t understand. He was struck by lightning. It was in the news.”

“Some new evidence has come to light. It’s possible that Tate survived.”

“What? How could that—”

“Mr. Mason?” Mike Morgan had come to the side of the car. “Mr. Mason, I’m sorry, I know how difficult this is, but would you feel able at this point to look at the victim’s face and tell us whether or not the victim is your wife?”

Gurney was beginning to wonder if Mason had understood the question when he finally responded, distractedly. “Yes, I . . . I’ll do that.”

“The medical examiner will be bringing the victim’s body over this way in just a moment.”

A rolling stretcher emerged from the barn, guided by Fallow and pushed by his assistant.

Gurney and Mason exited the Prius. A cool breeze had come up, the sun was gone, and small dark clouds were scudding across the sky. The green of the lawn had lost some of its vibrancy.

“Dave?” Kyra Barstow was calling to him from the front porch of the house, her hand raised to get his attention. “There’s something here you need to see.”

He glanced at the approaching stretcher, which he now saw was bearing a dark plastic body bag. He hoped that Fallow would have the delicacy to open the zipper just far enough to show the woman’s face without revealing the god-awful wound to her throat, and he knew that Morgan was quite capable of handling the formality of the identification process.

He made his way around the official vehicles and followed Barstow into the house. The front door, the newel post and banister of the staircase leading to the second floor, and several spots along the hallway had already been dusted for prints. In the living room, one of her Tyvek-suited assistants was going over the rug with a noisy trace-evidence collection vac.

“Up there,” she said, indicating the staircase.

He’d only climbed a few steps when he saw it.

On the wall of the landing at the top, illuminated only by weak window light reaching it from the adjacent bedrooms, there was a message painted in large dripping letters.

Whether it was the meaning of the message, or the likelihood that it had been written in the blood of the dead woman in the barn, or the suggestion it conveyed that the dreadful work of this “angel” might not be over, the sight of it on that dim-lit wall gave Gurney gooseflesh.

He went back down the stairs and out onto the porch. Barstow followed him out.

“We need to know more about Tate. I can’t tell whether he’s psychotic—or trying to create that impression—or whether something else is going on.”

“Something else . . . like what?”

“I wish I knew. Most homicide cases, your first hypothesis is often pretty close to the truth. But this Tate thing is a whole other animal.”

She seemed fascinated by this. “The guys who leave messages at murder sites, they do tend to be the crazy ones, right?”

“They’re the ones with a hunger for recognition, justification, admiration. The messages are directed at an imagined audience. The wording sometimes reveals mental deficits, delusions, emotional disorders. But once in a while, all that craziness is being faked. I’ve had cases with perps who came across as total maniacs, when in fact—”

A sound not far away stopped him—a small, wavering moan—barely audible, yet as full of pain as a scream.

Greg Mason was standing in front of his car, between Fallow and Morgan, looking down at the face in the open end of the body bag. His own face was contorted with misery.

“Poor man,” said Barstow softly.

Gurney watched as Morgan helped Mason back into the passenger seat of the Prius. He remained there, bent over, speaking to him, while Fallow zipped up the body bag and, with the help of his assistant, rolled the stretcher over to their cadaver-­transport van.

Gurney followed them.

“Dr. Fallow?”

Fallow turned and regarded Gurney with an unblinking lack of expression.

“Doctor, if there’s anything you can share with me at this point, even if it’s just a guess, it could be extremely helpful. The time factor in this case—”

Fallow cut him off. “There’s always a time factor. Everything is always needed immediately.”

Gurney was starting to back away when Fallow surprised him with a rapid-fire recitation of facts.

“Slight blue paint residue on the lower edge of the neck wound. Multiple hair follicles torn from the scalp, consistent with the body being dragged by the hair to its final location. Right carotid and right jugular severed. Substantial quantity of blood had been drained from the body and removed from the site. Evidence of a sharp blow to the upper parietal bone of the cranium, consistent with the use of a tool similar to the one used to kill the Russell dog.”

“Upper parietal?” said Gurney. “Does that mean she was struck on the top of the head?”

“Yes.” Without another word, Fallow strode away to his Mercedes, while his assistant loaded the stretcher and body bag into the van.

Soon both vehicles, Mercedes first, were heading along the gravel driveway, out of the grassy clearing, and into the shadows of the pine woods.

As Gurney was watching their departure, Morgan came over. He looked around and lowered his voice. “Did you detect any odor?”

“Odor?”

“From Fallow. Alcohol.”

“No.”

“Good.” He checked his watch and added, “I need to get back to headquarters and start preparing a statement. Press conference this evening at seven o’clock. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to—”

“Don’t even think of it.”

Morgan nodded. “Right. So . . . what are your thoughts about this business here?”

“Apart from its being horrendous, I’d say it adds at least three troubling data points to the puzzle. First, the timing. Unlike the Kane murder, this one isn’t a direct by-product of the Russell murder, with Tate eliminating someone who recognized him on his way to Harrow Hill. This is about something else. Second, the missing blood. It seems to have been drained from the body and taken away. One wonders for what purpose. And finally, something you haven’t seen yet—a message in blood inside the house. It gives the impression of something beginning rather than ending. On the wall at the top of the stairs.”

Morgan hesitated, then made his way reluctantly across the parking area toward the house.

Gurney went to his Outback, took out his phone, and called Madeleine.

He was half hoping that the call would go to voicemail, but she answered it.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Something’s come up, and you won’t be home for dinner.”

“I have a difficult situation here.”

She waited for him to go on.

“Two more bodies were found today. Women whose throats were cut.”

She let out a sharp little groan.

“And it may not be over.”

“What do you mean?”

“The killer left a message, but I don’t want to get into that now—”

“You don’t need to explain. I’ll talk to the Winklers. Call me when you can.”

“I will.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He checked the time on his phone, took a long, slow breath, leaned back in his seat, and closed his eyes—to withdraw, if just for a moment, into a place of peace—before what he was sure would be an emotionally draining conversation with Greg Mason.

A rapping on the window next to his head jarred Gurney back into the world. He opened the window and found Morgan staring down at him.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” said Gurney. His mouth was dry. He hadn’t eaten anything since the coffee and toast he’d had for breakfast.

“A hell of a thing, that writing on the wall,” said Morgan.

“Yes, a hell of a thing.”

“Look, I’ve got to get back to headquarters and get ready for that damn press conference. Situation here seems under control. Barstow’s got the evidence-­collection process moving along. Body’s gone for autopsy. Patrol team’s keeping an eye on the perimeter. You plan on spending some time with Mason?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If you need to reach me . . .” He ended the sentence with a vague gesture and headed for his Tahoe.

Gurney rooted through the storage compartment between his front seats. He came up with a small bottle of water. He drank it all and tossed the plastic bottle on the floor behind his seat.

He got out of the car and made his way over to the Prius. As soon as he got in next to Mason, he could see that the man’s earlier expression of desolation had tightened into something more like anger. He was nodding to himself, as if affirming some private conviction.

Gurney watched and waited.

“It’s the only explanation. What you said. About Tate being alive. The evil son of a bitch is alive!”

“What makes you so sure?”

“No one else would do such a thing. Everyone loved her. Everyone in that school loved her. Everyone except Billy Tate.”

“Because she reported his behavior to the police?”

Mason seemed not to hear the question. “When they graduated, kids kept in touch with her. They adored her. And not just kids. She had a way with people.” He made a way with people sound like a mysterious gift. “She was an amazing person. Full of interest in everything and everybody. She cared. People were drawn to her. She had no enemies. Only Tate.”

Gurney wondered why Mason’s relationship with his wonderful wife had ended in divorce, but that was too sharp a question for the mood of the moment.

In a softer tone he asked instead, “What was it she didn’t like about your tractor?”

Mason blinked in confusion. “What?”

“You told me that Linda hated your tractor. I was wondering why.”

Mason raised his hand as if to brush the question aside, then lowered it without completing the gesture. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

As Gurney watched, he could see the man’s assertiveness dissolve back into a weary sadness. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“She didn’t really hate the tractor.”

Gurney gave him a gently questioning look.

“Sometimes things stand for other things. Do you understand?”

“What did the tractor stand for?”

Mason sighed. “Our differences. What I focused on, spent my time on. I like order, precision, proportion.” He uttered a dismal little laugh. “The tyranny of perfectionism.”

“The tractor stood for all that?”

“Not the thing itself, but how often I used it. Leveling areas around the edges of the field. Smoothing and re-smoothing the driveway. Grooming the trails. She saw the tractor as the part of me that stood between us.”

Gurney wanted to keep him talking. “You have trails on your property?”

“Just one, in the woods on the south side of our clearing. But it connects with all the trails on Harrow Hill—miles and miles of them, on the Russell side and the Aspern side. I keep them cleared and mowed.”

“Sounds like a lot of work. Why bother?”

“Because neat is better than sloppy. Order trumps disorder.” Tears were welling in his eyes. “Silly, isn’t it—that a marriage could fall apart over something like that?”

The tears started making wet lines down his cheeks. He gazed despairingly at the house. “I should have been with her. She was alone. With a maniac who hated her.”

21

By six that evening, Gurney was ready to leave the property. He took a final walk around the edges of the spacious lawn, lingering at the trail entrance that led, according to Mason, to an intricate web of trails on Harrow Hill.

The sky’s cloud cover had darkened, the path into the pine woods was uninviting, and the restless breezes had grown cooler. The broad rise of Harrow Hill itself loomed over the area—a dark presence that seemed for a moment to be the source of the chill in the air. Gurney moved on, completing his circuit of the lawn.

Barstow and her team had finished their examination of the house and barn without turning up anything that appeared inconsistent with Gurney’s hypothesis of the murder. Whether that conclusion held up would depend on the analysis of the contents of their evidence vacs.

For now, it seemed a safe bet that Linda Mason’s killer—presumably Billy Tate, based on the scratched symbol, method of execution, and bloody message on the wall—had gained entry to her home, knocked her unconscious in her kitchen, and dragged her to the barn, where he employed the tractor’s front loader to lift her body and tilt it at a head-down angle to facilitate the draining of her blood after cutting her throat. The trace of blue paint dust on the neck wound would have come from the scalpel having been used on the front door. The fact that she’d received the blow that presumably rendered her unconscious on the top of her head struck Gurney as odd, since it suggested she was in a seated position at the time—not a common situation with assault victims. But there could be a simple explanation for that.

Fallow and his assistant were long gone. Morgan was likely in the midst of an angst-filled process of preparing for his press conference back at headquarters. Greg Mason had finally been persuaded to go home to his condo on the lake. The two patrol officers had been replaced by one from the night shift with instructions to maintain the site security until further notice.

Gurney decided to call it a day and set out for Walnut Crossing. He got in the Outback and followed the dirt road down through the pine-shadowed ravine. The stream next to the road reminded him that he was still thirsty. And hungry.

Realizing that his route would be taking him through the center of Larchfield, he thought he might pick up a snack for the drive home after touching base with Morgan.

When he reached the village square, he saw that Morgan’s press conference was likely to be a bigger deal than he’d anticipated. Media vans, complete with rooftop satellite dishes, had made Cotswold Lane nearly impassable.

Inching his vehicle around them, he looked up the headquarters driveway and saw more vans in the parking area. Next he came to Peale’s Funeral Home. A glance up that driveway revealed an emptier parking area, so he decided to use it.

Once there, however, it occurred to him that Morgan would be too much of a nervous wreck to talk to, and he didn’t feel like bobbing and weaving to deflect media attention from himself. As unappetizing as it might be, he decided to head directly for the gas station mini-mart in Bastenburg. There wasn’t much harm they could do to a bottle of orange juice and a granola bar.

He was about to turn his car around when another thought occurred to him. As long as he was back where it all began—the site of Tate’s startling revival—why not make another visit to the embalming room, on the chance that he might see something he’d missed the first time around?

As he got out of the car, he noticed a bell at the rear door. He pressed the button and heard a faint chiming. He waited. He pressed it again, and the door opened. The perturbed expression on Danforth Peale’s face faded to bland curiosity.

“Detective Gurney? What can I do for you?”

“I’d like another look at the room where Tate regained consciousness.”

“Any particular reason?”

“A feeling I get sometimes—that I may have missed something. The only way I’m able to get rid of it is to take a second look around.”

Peale hesitated, glancing at his watch. “Fine. But I can’t imagine what you could have missed.”

He led Gurney through the dark hallway to the windowless embalming room and switched on the lights. Gurney’s gaze moved slowly around the room. It was as he remembered it, except that the door of the cadaver storage unit, which had been open, was now closed.

“Is that being used?” he asked, pointing to it.

“No. It’s hardly a time for business as usual.”

“What I’d like to do,” said Gurney, “is step inside the storage unit—to begin where Tate began. It may be useful to follow his movements, to see things from his point of view.”

“If you think it will help, go right ahead.”

Gurney checked the operation of the emergency release lever on the inside of the door. It worked smoothly. He stepped into the unit and closed the door behind him. He tried to imagine himself lying in a closed casket, consciousness gradually returning, consciousness first of severe pain—pain in his head, neck, chest, back, arms, legs, everywhere—then the consciousness of being trapped in some sort of elongated box with no memory of how he’d gotten there. Then the inevitable panic, the stale air, the dead silence, perhaps even the dawning suspicion that the box might be a coffin. Terror. Total terror. Then the frantic battle to break out of it. The straining effort against the inside of the lid. And finally the indescribable relief of the lid breaking open. Then climbing out of the box, only to discover being in a larger box. The panic returning. The search for an exit, a seam, a crack, anything. Eventually his searching hands would come upon the lever, and the door would open.

All of this, Gurney realized as he stepped out into the light, was consistent with what he’d seen and heard on the video. He moved around the room, duplicating Tate’s progress as best he could, seeing what Tate would have seen.

“Is this doing you any good?” Peale asked.

“Putting myself in someone else’s position usually helps. How well did you know Tate?”

“No one really knew him. Certainly not me. Why would I?”

“You’re around the same age. You both grew up in this area. Maybe in elementary school? Or high school?”

The suggestion spread a look of disdain across Peale’s face. “I attended Dalrymple Day School through the eighth grade, hardly the sort of place that would tolerate anyone like Billy Tate. Larchfield Academy was, by its unfortunate charter, more inclusive.” He articulated the word as though it signified something repellent. “I believe Tate entered Larchfield a year or two before I graduated.”

“So, no contact of any kind?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“What can you tell me about Lori Strane?”

“She was an object of universal desire.”

“Any close friends?”

“She inspired awe, envy, lust. Those are not feelings compatible with friendship.”

“Was her marriage to a man fifty years older than her a shock?”

Peale shook his head. “Bit of a scandal, perhaps. Focus of intense gossip. Subject of salacious jokes. But not really a shock.”

“Why not?”

“Because under all that startling beauty there was a core of selfish practicality. Her marriage to Angus Russell revealed it clearly.”

“Interesting observation. What can you tell me about Selena Cursen?”

“Hard to keep up with Selena. If she didn’t have so much money, she’d probably be residing in the Wiccan Weirdo Nuthouse.” His little joke had the stale tone of something he’d said before.

“I understand she and Tate had a relationship.”

Peale sniffed. “I’ve heard a rumor to that effect.”

“Do you believe it?”

“It’s not hard to believe that two antisocial lunatics would find common ground.”

Gurney heard the rumble of a truck passing, probably on the cross street behind the building’s parking area. It reminded him that Peale had mentioned that outside noise was the problem that caused him to disable the link between the room’s security camera and his computer’s recording function. He asked Peale if the Tate incident had motivated him to turn it back on.

“No need to, now that I know the cloud system has it covered. But whether I still have a business here to protect is doubtful at best.” He sighed impatiently. “Are you finished here?”

“For now, anyway. Thank you for your patience.”

Peale led him through the hallway and stepped out into the parking area with him. He gestured toward the media vehicles behind police headquarters. “Mind if I ask you . . . what’s going on over there?”

“Press conference about Tate and other matters. Chief Morgan is handling it.”

“I hope to God he knows what he’s doing.” Peale hesitated. “Might those ‘other matters’ be related to Mary Kane?”

“What do you know about Mary Kane?”

“There’s a rumor flying around the village that she was killed. Is that true?”

“I heard the same rumor. The chief will probably address it. Keep an eye on the news.”

“You don’t part with information easily, do you?”

Gurney shrugged. “I just gather it. Folks up the ladder from me decide how much of it to share.”

Gurney got in his Outback and headed down the driveway with Peale’s unhappy gaze following him all the way.

22

The mini-mart in the Bastenburg gas station was a disheartening exemplar of its type. A shabby seller of beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and rewarmed pizza slices, it radiated rural malaise.

Gurney scanned the refrigerated compartments that lined the walls, finally settling on an overpriced pint of orange juice. He then searched the freestanding shelves for something to eat. Finding nothing whose labeled contents didn’t take his appetite away, he went to the counter with his juice.

The young man standing by the register was enormous. His bulging cheeks had reduced his eyes to slits. He had a metal stud through his lower lip. A tabloid was open on the counter in front of him.

The headline on one page said, “Python Swallows Poodle.”

The headline on the opposite page said, “Child-Porn Sting Nets Top Cop.”

The young man looked up at Gurney. “Y’all set?”

“I am. Do you happen to know anything about that storefront a couple of blocks down the road? The sign in the window says ‘Church of the Patriarchs.’”

The young man shook his head emphatically. “Couldn’t say.”

“Do you know anyone who goes to that church?”

The head shaking continued. “I’m not really from here, you know?”

“Me neither.” Gurney paid for the orange juice and left.

By the time he’d put the last few scattered houses of Bastenburg in his rearview mirror, he’d finished half his juice and was beginning to feel revived.

His mind kept returning to Peale’s embalming room and his efforts to imagine Tate’s experience. He realized what he was lacking was a sense of the medical effects of being struck by lightning. There’d surely be a wealth of information on the internet, probably too much. Better to speak directly with someone. But whom?

Fallow would be convenient, but he might slant the facts in his own self-­interest. And pathologists in general might not be the ideal experts on this situation, since they knew mainly about victims who’d died, not survived. He needed to ask someone who would at least be in a position to direct him to the right party.

Rebecca Holdenfield came to mind.

On the positive side, she was an influential psychotherapist, a respected academic, a prolific contributor to the literature on neuropsychology, and she knew everyone. She’d worked with Gurney on several cases, and they had a special personal chemistry. On the negative side, there were occasions when that special personal chemistry could have put his marriage at risk. However, he’d always stopped short of making a serious mistake.

At the next place on the road where the shoulder was wide enough he pulled over, took out his phone, found her number, and made the call.

She answered surprisingly quickly. “David?”

“Hey, Becca, how are you?”

“Busy, as always. What can I do for you?” The sound of her voice brought with it an image of her ironic smile, intelligent eyes, and mass of curly auburn hair.

“I’m hoping you might be able to recommend someone. I’m looking for an expert in a couple of unusual areas—survivability of lightning strikes and sudden revivals from deathlike states.”

“What do you want to know?”

“It’s a long story. You want me to get into the details, or save them for the expert?”

“That could be me.”

“You? I didn’t realize—”

“I have a long-term therapy patient who was struck by lightning—with fascinating consequences. I also happen to know something about shock-induced comas and seemingly magical resurrections. But if you’d prefer that I find someone else—”

“No need for that. If you have time now, I’ll tell you what I’m dealing with.”

He related the basic facts of the case, including Tate’s fall from the church roof, his embalming room revival, and the evidence of his presence at the Russell, Kane, and Mason murders.

“Remarkable,” said Holdenfield after a pause. “So, what do you want to know?”

“To start with, how common is it to survive a lightning strike?”

“Fairly common.”

“With no ill effects?”

“I didn’t say that. The effects in some cases can be catastrophic, in others superficial. The effects can be muscular or neurologic, straightforward or bizarre.”

“Bizarre?”

“A pleasantly bizarre feature might be the appearance of a new talent. An ear for music that the individual didn’t have before, a sudden facility with arithmetic, a greater sensitivity to colors. These benign neural realignments are extremely rare. There could also be a personality change. A new propensity for violence, for example. But that’s also quite rare. Some brain damage with a variety of functional deficits would be more common. The brain is an electrochemical organ. A massive voltage surge can wreak havoc.”

“Okay. Question number two. What might cause a physician to pronounce a living person dead? I’ve read stories of supposed ‘corpses’ coming to life in morgues. It does happen. But why?”

“In this case, the high-voltage effect of the lightning and the severe impact of the fall may have resulted in a profound state of shock that caused temporary suppression of respiratory and cardiac function. And there are possible issues affecting the physician—overwork, exhaustion, environmental distraction, chemical impairment. Plus the subtle factor of expectation.”

“Say that again?”

“Expectation. The trauma may appear so severe—so necessarily fatal—that the physician’s assumption of death plays an oversized role in his judgment. Research shows that expectations affect the mind’s interpretation of physical data.”

“That’s helpful. At least it puts things in a rational context.”

She laughed. “I like that. Could be a new slogan for my therapy practice.”

“I have soft spot in my heart for rationality. How are you, by the way?”

“Thriving, racing, juggling. Dodging the bullets that come with success. What are you up to? I thought you were back teaching at the academy, not out on the trail of the walking dead.”

“I’m doing both.”

“Glad to hear it. Busy is good. Speaking of which, I need to get to my next appointment. Nice hearing from you, David. Take care.”

He reopened his container of mini-mart orange juice, finished what was left, and resumed his journey home. He was heading south now, through an area of wild meadows alternating with freshly plowed farm fields, all bathed in a strange light. There was a gap between the dense cloud cover and the western horizon, allowing the radiance of the setting sun to flood out across the landscape, creating an upside-­down world in which the warm glow of the earth contrasted weirdly with the sky above it. Its strange effect on his mood was broken by his phone ringing. He glanced at the screen and saw Slovak’s name.

“What’s up, Brad?”

“The good news is that the forensics lab broke into Mary Kane’s phone. The bad news is it doesn’t lead anywhere. She never called anyone, and hardly anyone ever called her. There were only two incoming voice calls in the week before her death. We called the originating numbers. One belongs to a retired librarian in an assisted living place in Virginia. The other was from the service department of the Kia dealer in Bastenburg, letting her know she could pick up her car.”

“Any texts?”

“Two, from some kind of nocturnal birding club.”

“She saved the texts?”

“Yep. One was a membership renewal reminder. The other was about a website where you can listen to different owl hoots. These people are big on identifying owls by their hoots. You figure that’s why she was out on her porch in the middle of the night?”

“Makes as much sense as anything else.”

“So, I guess just a harmless old lady in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Gurney said nothing.

“Bottom line, her phone was a dead end. Sorry about that.”

“Investigations are full of dead ends, Brad. It’s the nature of the beast. How’s the press conference going?”

“The conference room is packed. Department personnel had to make room for the media people and their equipment. I don’t think the chief was expecting anything this big. But maybe he should have been. When a guy who’s supposed to be dead pops out of a coffin and starts slicing throats, you gotta figure the press is gonna eat it up.”

Slovak’s view of the situation was still on Gurney’s mind when, moments before arriving home, he got a call from Morgan.

“Hey, Dave. I know you don’t have a TV, but could you take a look at the media websites tonight, especially RAM News?”

“What will I be looking for?”

“After I read my statement, there were questions. The RAM reporter, Kelly Tremain—her attitude gave me a bad feeling about how they’ll handle the story. I’ll be checking myself, but I’d appreciate your perspective.”

“Sure.”

“You have my cell number. Also, there’s a meeting tomorrow morning at ten sharp with the village board. Lots of concerns, and they want as much of an update as we can give them.”

“Should be interesting.”

“More likely a total horror.”

“Slow down, Mike. Linda Mason’s body hanging from that front-loader was a total horror. Tomorrow’s meeting won’t be a total horror.”

He heard Morgan sighing.

23

By the time Gurney had rounded the barn and was heading up through the low pasture to the house, it was nearly eight thirty. Dusk was beginning to decline into night. As he was parking the Outback by the side door, there was just enough light remaining for him to notice garden stakes and bright yellow string demarcating a rectangular area adjacent to the side of the chicken coop.

He got out of the car for a closer look. The marked-off area looked to be about twelve by twenty feet. Possibly, he thought with a touch of dismay, the right size for an alpaca shed.

When he went into the house, he sensed the unique silence that seemed to fill it when Madeleine was out. There was a note on the refrigerator door.

The note made him smile. Like most contacts with Madeleine, it nudged, at least for a moment, the rest of his life into perspective.

He went to the bathroom, washed his hands and face, kicked off his shoes in favor of a pair of slippers, did a few stretching exercises to loosen muscles that had stiffened in the car, and returned to the kitchen.

After reading the directions on the box, he put farro, water, butter, and salt in the rice cooker and turned it on. He shelled the shrimp and put a handful of asparagus spears in a bowl for the microwave. Then he went into the den and woke up his laptop.

It was 9:01 p.m. when he accessed the livestream section on the RAM News website.

The graphic pyrotechnics of the opening teasers were underway. Over a strident drumbeat soundtrack, letters were whirling in from all sides of the screen to form headlines:

Those words burst into jagged pieces, only to reform in a second series of headlines:

These words in turn flew off the screen, revealing a TV news desk under a red-white-and-blue RAM logo. A neatly groomed TV anchor was sitting at a three-quarter angle to the camera, holding a pen and gazing with concern at his clipboard. Gurney recognized him from RAM’s overheated coverage of the White River murders. His anchor partner at the time was Stacey Kilbrick, a RAM star who suffered an on-screen breakdown at the gruesome finale of that case.

As the camera moved in, he lowered his clipboard, looked up, and began speaking in a voice that seemed too thin to support the gravity of his tone.

“Good evening. I’m Rory Kronck. We have a huge story for you tonight regarding the terrifying events in the once-tranquil village of Larchfield, New York. Our own Kelly Tremain is there right now. We’ll get her live report in just a moment. First, I’ll bring you up to speed on this mind-boggling situation.”

He turned in his seat to face the camera head-on. “Our story begins on a stormy night with Billy Tate—a known practitioner of witchcraft—climbing onto the roof of his village church. As he was spray-painting a satanic symbol on the steeple, he was struck by lightning and hurled to the ground below—killed instantly, according to the county medical examiner. His body was moved to a nearby mortuary. His next of kin arrived in the wee hours of the morning and asked that the body be placed in a closed coffin, pending a decision on its final disposition. The closed and latched coffin was placed in a storage unit, where it remained throughout the day.”

Kronck paused for dramatic effect. “Later that evening something bizarre occurred. Billy Tate came back to life. RAM News has obtained a copy of the video from the security camera at Peale’s Funeral Home. The sounds you will hear are those of Billy Tate attempting to break out of that closed coffin. A word of warning. If you suffer from claustrophobia, you may find this extremely disturbing.”

The mortuary video had been edited down to its key moments—from the first muffled sounds inside the storage unit to the eerie emergence of the hooded figure into the embalming room, his unsteady movements, his breaking into the glass case and removal of the scalpels, and his disappearance out the back door.

Gurney was wondering how RAM had gotten hold of the video—who had leaked it, with what motive—but those thoughts were interrupted by Kronck’s next comments.

“That’s the second time I’ve watched that video, and I still find it bone-chilling, especially the end, when Tate goes off into the night to begin his gruesome murder spree. It’s like a scene in a horror movie, except this is real—tragically, frighteningly real.” He shook his head, as if he were being forced to face the depravity at the fringes of humanity.

“Okay,” he said with sudden resolve. “Let’s move on to our next video—the press conference held by Larchfield’s police chief.”

This video opened with Morgan standing at a podium in the headquarters conference room. He was wearing a full-dress uniform with gold chief’s stars on his jacket collar. He was holding a sheet of paper with both hands. His anxiety was palpable. Several rows of chairs were set up facing him. All were occupied.

He began reading, stiffly. “The Larchfield Police Department is currently investigating three local homicides: Angus Russell, age seventy-eight; Mary Kane, age seventy; and Linda Mason, age fifty-one. An APB has been issued for William ‘Billy’ Tate, age twenty-seven, a suspect in all three homicide cases. Tate was initially believed to have been killed in a freak accident, but new evidence suggests that he may have survived.”

Morgan looked up from the paper. “If anyone has any information concerning Tate’s whereabouts, please get in touch with us as soon as possible. A special phone number has been added to our website. You’ll find the number at LarchfieldPDHQ.net. One important caution—these homicides were heinous and unspeakably violent acts. The suspect should be considered extremely dangerous. Do not under any circumstances approach the suspect. If you see him, or know where he is, call us immediately. Thank you.”

Hands were raised. Several voices called out simultaneously. A sharp female voice cut through the others. “How does your medical examiner explain his mistake?”

Morgan was gripping the podium as if steadying the steering wheel of a bus. “We have no comment on that at this time.”

The sharp voice persisted. “There’s a rumor that Tate belonged to a satanic cult. Did that play a part in these killings?”

Morgan shook his head. “I’m not going to comment on hypothetical speculation.”

“What about his alleged history of incest? Is that connected to these crimes?”

It was becoming clear that RAM had been given, in addition to a copy of the mortuary video, inside details of the case. Morgan responded with a deer-in-the-headlights look, and RAM chose that moment to freeze the video clip before switching back to the news desk.

“Wow, a rocky moment there for the police chief,” said Kronck with a smirk. “Those probing questions came from our own Kelly Tremain. Good work, Kelly! Now, let’s go live to Larchfield—to the scene of Billy Tate’s supposedly fatal accident. Kelly is about to interview a controversial local preacher with a reputation for confrontation.”

The scene shifted to the street in front of St. Giles Church, where a thirtysomething woman with blond hair, a red blazer, and a microphone was standing next to a compact man who appeared to be in his late fifties. He had a gray pompadour, shrewd eyes, and an oily smile. Behind them the front of the church was illuminated by a streetlight just visible at the side of the screen. The woman faced the camera with a concerned frown and raised her microphone.

“I’m just a few feet from the church where earlier this week Billy Tate was knocked from the roof by a bolt of lightning and pronounced dead at this very spot by the county medical examiner. Directly across from me, on the other side of this beautiful village square, is Peale’s Funeral Home—where Tate later broke out of his locked coffin and disappeared into the night. Since then, three Larchfield residents have been killed, and the young man who some are saying actually rose from the dead is the prime suspect. I’ve been joined here by the Reverend Silas Gant, pastor of the Church of the Patriarchs in the neighboring town of Bastenburg.”

She turned toward him. “Thank you for joining us on such short notice, Reverend. Let’s get right to it. What we’ve been hearing is shocking beyond belief, and we’re having a hard time getting public officials to confirm or deny anything. Do you have any idea what’s really happening in this supposedly crime-free village?” She held the microphone in front of him.

“I do, Kelly. I absolutely do. But first let me say that I appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to folks who have the good sense to be relying on RAM News—one of the few information sources we can trust in this beleaguered nation of ours.”

Kelly Tremain nodded a proud smile of agreement.

Reverend Gant continued, “The people in power aren’t explaining the situation for the simple reason that they’re not able to. This is so far beyond their understanding, they’re paralyzed by confusion. But the fact is, what’s happening is exactly what I’ve been predicting. Satan is loose in the land. I do not speak metaphorically. I am speaking literally of the Devil—risen up from hell, waging war on the righteous. Kelly, you and I know that this view of the world is not popular in the mainstream media—the media that’s full of lies and false gods, the media that has become the shameless voice and servant of Satan. Satan residing in hell may be out of our reach, Kelly, but Satan on earth, Satan in the flesh, is a proper target for the army of the righteous. This war is ours to win. We are armed and ready for battle. And we welcome to our ranks all who are willing to take up arms in the cause of righteousness.”

Tremain’s smiling agreement was mixed now with a touch of uncertainty. “I must say, Reverend, your determination is . . . remarkable. Let me ask you: Do you see Billy Tate as part of the evil you’re describing?”

“Kelly, Tate is dead. Struck dead in the very spot where we stand. An incestuous boy, grown into a demented man, an abettor of witchcraft. Dead as a doornail!”

Tremain’s mouth was slightly open. The uncertainty in her expression was turning into confusion. “We do have a video of Tate, a video that shows—”

Gant cut her off. “That shows a hooded figure, risen from the dead. But it was not Billy Tate! It was Satan you saw in that video! Satan who is now loose in Larchfield. It is Satan who hides and creeps in the night, slaughtering the righteous. But we will find and destroy him! We will defeat all who harbor and condone him. Armageddon is upon us. Those who give succor to Satan shall taste vengeance at the hand of the Church of the Patriarchs. This attack on godliness will not go unanswered. The battle lines are drawn. We invite all the righteous to join us. In this final hour, those who are not with us are against us.”

Tremain turned to the camera. “The Reverend Silas Gant, founder of the Church of the Patriarchs, speaking with me live here in Larchfield. Back to you, Rory.”

The scene shifted to the news desk. Kronck was leaning back in his chair, as if blown there by a gust of wind. A balding, brown-skinned man with thick glasses was sitting next to him

“Wow,” said Kronck. “Strong stuff. Now, moving along to our own RAM medical expert with a different angle on this shocking story—the strange effects of being struck by lightning. Welcome, Doctor Lou.”

“Thanks, Rory. Glad to be here.”

“We all know that being struck by lightning can cause terrible damage, including death. But I’ve heard in some cases the effects can be truly mind-boggling.”

“Absolutely right, Rory. The examples are few, but they are truly amazing. The tremendous voltages involved—one hundred, two hundred, three hundred ­kilovolts—can totally rearrange the chemistry of the brain.”

“Possibly for good? Possibly for evil?”

“Either way. Toss of the coin.”

Kronck pivoted in his chair to face the doctor. “So, is it conceivable that the brain realignment caused by a lightning strike could turn an already unbalanced person into a killer?”

“I’ll say this, Rory. Rewire the brain with a potentially fatal electrical jolt, and just about anything could happen.”

“Wow! Thanks for coming by, Doctor Lou. You never fail to give us something to think about.”

Kronck swiveled back to the camera. “In just a moment we’ll be getting another startling perspective on this remarkable case. But first, these important messages.”

“Has he lost his mind?”

Madeleine’s voice surprised Gurney. He turned from his computer screen to find her standing in the doorway. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Why are you watching this?”

“It’s related to the case I’m working on.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

She came and stood behind his chair, watching in silence as a commercial pitchman explained the vital importance of a home security system—a necessity at a time when “our borders are crumbling, our police are under attack, and violent criminals are running loose in the land.” Immediate protection was just a phone call away.

“Yuck,” muttered Madeleine.

When the commercial ended, Kronck reappeared, the weight of his tone once again an awkward burden for his weak voice. “The sinister events in Larchfield have captured the attention of Karl Kasak, top investigative reporter on RAM’s Crimes Beyond Reason—the series that explores the weird, the paranormal, and the inexplicable. Karl is on his way to Larchfield as we speak. Here’s his take, recorded earlier this evening, on this developing story.”

A video came on showing a man standing next to an open car door in a parking garage. He had thick black hair brushed back from a low forehead and a gritty look of determination. A safari jacket with the sleeves rolled up created a hands-on, high-energy impression. He began speaking as the camera zoomed in.

“Karl Kasak here. I’m heading to a small rural village in upstate New York—where people claim a dead man is stalking the living—a dead man who is now the prime suspect in three ghastly killings. Can the dead come back to life? Can the dead murder the living? Those are the questions we’ll be asking. Get the shocking answers on the next edition of Crimes Beyond Reason.”

Madeleine seemed nonplussed. “This nonsense—this is your case?”

“Yep.”

“There’s actually a debate over whether the person walking around killing people is dead or alive?”

“Debates raise ratings. Especially absurd ones. Of course, the simple explanation is that the medical examiner was wrong. Nothing bizarre at all, just a major error.”

“I still don’t get it. They said your suspect broke out of a coffin? So it wasn’t just the ME’s error? The mortuary person also screwed up?”

“Apparently.”

“What about heart function, lung function, brain activity, livor mortis, rigor mortis? Wasn’t anyone paying attention to anything?”

“It seems to have been a perfect-storm situation. The subject was hit by lightning, fell off a roof, and evidently suffered temporary cardiac and respiratory arrest. CPR was attempted and discontinued. It was dramatically increasing blood loss, and the subject’s neck and chest bones appeared to be broken. Ditto for the defib efforts. The local doctor, who’s also the county’s part-time ME, claimed that the absence of vitals, the failure of CPR and defib efforts, along with catastrophic traumas to the body, led to a reasonable pronouncement of death.”

“What about the mortuary?”

“The funeral director claims he was just providing temporary storage for the body, pending further decisions. The subject wasn’t stripped, so the presence or absence of livor mortis was never determined. As for rigor, that wouldn’t have been present when the body was brought to him, and it wasn’t noted when the body was transferred to a coffin several hours later. But that may have been attributed to the refrigeration in the storage unit.”

“But this person was actually still alive—in a lightning-induced coma?”

“So it seems. There’s a video documenting his revival and departure from the mortuary. Plus evidence of his presence at other locations later that night.”

“I’ve never heard of an ME making that kind of mistake. Was he impaired?”

“The possibility was raised by the funeral home owner. He told us the ME smelled of alcohol. Made a pretty forceful accusation. Which the ME forcefully denied. There’s no way at this point to establish the truth.”

“It would explain a lot.”

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t make catching our killer any easier. That craziness on RAM News is no help, either. They’ll have the peasants out with pitchforks, hunting for zombies.”

Madeleine’s expression darkened. “That’s not funny. The peasants these days have assault rifles.”

24

Gurney’s attempts to sleep that night were repeatedly interrupted—first by wind in the thicket outside their bedroom windows, then by lashing rain. When he did finally doze off just before dawn, the sounds of the storm stirred up troubled dreams, then morphed into the sound of his alarm.

He showered, dressed, made himself a quick cup of coffee, and was about to leave a note for Madeleine when she came into the kitchen in her pajamas.

“You’re heading back to that awful place?”

“I’m meeting Jack Hardwick first at Abelard’s. He knows some things about Larchfield from his days with the state police.”

She inserted a breakfast-blend coffee pod in the top of the coffee maker and placed her favorite mug at the bottom. “I switched the Winkler dinner to tomorrow evening. Okay?”

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

She peered steadily at the coffee maker as her mug was slowly filled. “You never mentioned the string.”

She waited.

“Oh, yes. The yellow string rectangle off the side of the coop. I was going to ask you about that.”

“I’m building an extension.”

“You are?”

“You’re obviously too busy. I think I learned enough about structure-framing when I was volunteering at Habitat.”

“This extension is for . . . what exactly?”

“Could be for anything. Maybe just more chickens. It’ll be an interesting challenge.”

Gurney glanced up at the old regulator clock on the kitchen wall. He needed to leave if he was going to meet Hardwick on time. He suppressed an itch to ask more questions about the extension, gave Madeleine a hug and a kiss, and headed out to his car.

Abelard’s, once a grungy general store in the tiny village of Dillweed, had over the past few years been gentrified into an artsy cafe through the efforts of a Brooklyn transplant by the name of Marika. The dusty displays of canned vegetables, BBQ-flavored potato chips, and two-liter bottles of off-brand colas had been replaced by imported pastas, freshly baked scones, and a remarkable variety of “artisanal” beverages. It was becoming a favorite breakfast spot for the area’s clique of weekending city hipsters.

When Gurney pulled into the parking area, Hardwick’s 1970 Pontiac GTO was already there. The hulking brutishness of the old muscle car, born half a century ago and in serious need of repainting, contrasted mightily with the sleek BMW and Audi roadsters next to it.

Hardwick was sitting at a small table toward the back of the place. Marika—eye-catching in blue spiked hair, scoop-neck blouse, and skintight shorts—was operating an espresso machine on a side counter. Heading for Hardwick, Gurney passed two tables occupied by slim men with expensive haircuts and neat beards.

It had been nearly a year since he’d seen Hardwick, but the man always looked the same. The compact, muscular body in black tee shirt and jeans; the hard face; the unnerving pale-blue eyes of an Alaskan sled dog. And, of course, the attitude.

“Gurney, I am so fucking impressed! First, you’re an NYPD homicide hotshot. Then you move up here and show the locals how to wipe their asses. And now you’re in charge of tracking down a zombie. I am in awe.”

Gurney sat down at the table. “Hello, Jack.”

“Is there something in the water up there in Larchfield? From what I hear, it sounds like goddamn mass psychosis.”

“You’ve been exposed to the fanciful news reports?”

“Fanciful? More like fucking insane. Some Satan-loving loon got struck by lightning, then rose from the dead and murdered three people—including Angus the Scottish Scumbag? Never heard anything like it.”

“The case does have peculiar aspects.”

Hardwick laughed—a sound that could have been mistaken for the barking of a large dog. One of the slim bearded men glanced over in alarm.

“I saw your police chief’s press conference. He looks like a nervous wreck I ran into at an interagency clusterfuck on the Piggert case. This the same guy?”

“Yes.”

“That lip-biter is Larchfield’s top cop?”

“Yes.”

“The fuck did that happen?”

“Long story. I don’t know all of it.”

“How’d he rope you into this shit?”

“Another long story.”

“That one I want to hear.”

“First, I need some coffee.” He caught Marika’s eye on her way back from delivering what looked like cappuccinos to the bearded men.

She smiled her gorgeous smile. “Double espresso?”

“Good memory. It’s been a long time.”

“Too long.” She went to the machine, put in some beans, and turned on the grinder.

Hardwick flashed his ice-glitter grin at Gurney. “So, talk. What the fuck are you doing in Larchfield?”

“I got a call from Morgan. Hadn’t heard from him since he got pushed out of the department.”

“For what?”

“Wrong women, wrong circumstances, wrong everything.”

“No surprise. I remember at the Piggert clusterfuck he had that injured-­little-boy look. Some women love it.”

“Thing is, when he got pushed out, he landed on his feet. Somebody connected him to Angus Russell, and Russell picked him for the top security job at a college in Larchfield, then moved him a year later into the police chief job. Nice spot, quiet village, no real crime—until all hell broke loose a few days ago.”

“That’s when the vulnerable little boy called you?”

“Right. Sensational murder, turmoil in paradise, his major protector dead and gone, job on the line, self-esteem in the toilet—please help me, please help me.”

“Why didn’t you tell him to go fuck himself?”

“That could be awkward with a former partner who once saved my life.”

Hardwick’s expression didn’t exactly warm up. Warmth was not a thing with him. But he did take a slow breath and nod. “A factor to be considered. So, what do you want from me?”

“Information, mainly. Larchfield being in the same state police district where you were stationed, I thought you might know something about it.”

“I do. Horrible fucking place. Angus Russell was the lord, Larchfield was his manor. The local snobs ate it up. The fantasy of gentility.”

“Did he have enemies?”

“Of course he did. Which is why he came to the attention of BCI to begin with. But the investigation went nowhere.”

“What investigation?”

“Five, six years ago Russell got into a nasty bidding war for a prime piece of property over on Lake Champlain. Then the other bidder disappeared, and Russell got the property.”

“Disappeared? Just like that?”

“Just like that. The investigation went nowhere. No proof of foul play. No law against disappearing. But the missing guy’s wife hired a private detective to look into Russell’s past, and he came up with something that looked interesting. A few years earlier, a developer up near Rochester was suing Russell for multimillions over a deal gone bad. He also disappeared without a trace.”

“That must have gotten BCI’s attention.”

“Briefly. Thing is, the guy who disappeared had his own legal problems—­people suing him like he was suing Russell—and there was the fact that his mistress disappeared at the same time. No evidence of forced abduction. The possibility that he decided to start a new life in a different part of the world seemed a reasonable explanation. Case closed.”

“The echo of the first disappearance wasn’t enough to keep the case going?”

“Against one of the state’s biggest political contributors? You kidding?”

“Russell spread his money around?”

“Wherever it would buy leverage.”

“Did he have any local adversaries?”

“The most visible one was Larchfield’s little prick of a mayor.”

“Chandler Aspern?”

“Bingo. Eyes like little round deer turds.”

“Any idea what their conflict was about?”

“Bad chemistry? Type A jerks banging heads?”

“How about Billy Tate? You know anything about him?”

“Nada. Never made it onto the state police radar screen while I was there. Any problems must have been dealt with at the local or county level. But RAM News claims he’s your murder suspect, so it must be true, right? Any leads?”

Gurney shook his head. “Possible sightings. An eccentric girlfriend we’re staking out. But nothing that’s moving the needle.”

“Loners are a bitch to track down.”

Marika arrived with Gurney’s double espresso and a couple of her home-baked anisette cookies. “Free gift,” she said. “So you remember to come by more often.”

Hardwick watched as she walked away. “That woman could make a man question the wisdom of being in an exclusive relationship.”

That brought to Gurney’s mind an image of Esti Moreno, Hardwick’s live-in girlfriend. If one were going to have an exclusive relationship, one could do a hell of a lot worse than Esti. He took a long sip of his strong coffee. “How about the Reverend Silas Gant? You know anything about him?”

“Vile son of a bitch. Figured out that religion is the perfect shield from the law. The conclusion at BCI was that he had income streams from a gun business, a conspiracy-theory website, and evangelical money-grubbing. Amazing the phony shit you can sell for real money if you call it religion. Basically, a total scumbag with bought-and-paid-for politicians in his pocket.”

“Is that Church of the Patriarchs storefront in Bastenburg his headquarters?”

“Sort of. He’s also got a twenty-five-acre fortified compound in the woods outside town. Registered as tax-free church property. It’s really an armed-to-the-teeth loony bin—and a harem for the polygamous patriarchs.”

It struck Gurney that Gant’s compound must be the entity Mike Morgan’s wife had been trying to shut down before she fell ill. He was trying to remember exactly what Morgan had told him when he noticed Hardwick studying him with a sardonic little tilt of his head.

“Something on your mind, Jack?”

“A few minutes ago you said what you wanted from me was mainly information.”

“So?”

“So, that’s got me wondering . . . what else do you want?”

Gurney saw no reason to tiptoe around the scenario lurking in the back of his mind, however remote it might be. Better to just say it. “Backup. Just in case I need it.”

“You mean in case Larchfield PD isn’t up to providing it?”

“Like I said, just in case.”

Hardwick reacted with a cool smile. “Light or heavy artillery?”

“Too early to say. I just have an uncomfortable feeling that whatever is going on in that fancy little village might be worse than it seems.”

“Worse than a zombie running around cutting people’s throats?” Hardwick’s smile broadened. There was a glint in the ice-blue eyes. The man had a natural hunger for a challenge.

25

During the hour-long drive to Larchfield, the rain, which had stopped shortly after dawn, began again. Gurney’s thoughts wandered between the disquieting information Hardwick had given him about Angus Russell’s business dealings and his own concerns about Morgan’s reasons for drawing him into the case.

It was probable that Morgan’s motivation was more or less as he had described it, but Gurney couldn’t help wondering if the man might, in some as-yet-­undisclosed way, be planning to collect on the debt incurred in the Bronx shoot-out.

Is there some aspect of the case he’s expecting me to approach in a way favorable to him because of what I owe him? Am I supposed to extricate him from a tangle he’s gotten himself into? Am I getting sucked into a cover-up? Or am I being as paranoid as he seems to be?

Convinced that questions about Morgan’s motives were, for the present, unanswerable, he finally managed to push them aside.

By the time he arrived in Larchfield, the rain had stopped but dark clouds remained. In his dour mood, they reminded him of wads of dirty cotton.

There were two media vans in front of police headquarters. He found a third in the rear parking area, along with several private cars. Among them was Mayor Aspern’s dark blue BMW.

As soon as Gurney opened the door of the Outback, a blond woman in a red blazer came hurrying toward him from the van, followed by a video tech.

“Can I ask you just one question?”

It was by her sharply distinctive voice—as much as by the blazer and mass of blond hair—that he recognized RAM’s Kelly Tremain. He smiled at the “just one question” gambit. It provoked curiosity, seemed easy to deal with, and was hard to say no to.

“No,” said Gurney pleasantly.

“Just one quick question, David!” she called after him as he was walking out of the parking area.

He wondered for a moment how she’d gotten his name, but it wasn’t worth asking. His involvement could have been leaked by whoever had leaked the mortuary video. Or by someone else. RAM might even have rapid facial recognition software on their satellite vans. It didn’t really matter. The notion that one’s identity could be kept secret was, like most forms of personal privacy, a relic of a departed era.

The headquarters desk sergeant—an overweight man with a shaved head, walrus mustache, and uniform buttons strained to the popping point—directed him to Morgan’s office.

A discreet brass plate on the door bore the words CHIEF OF POLICE.

Gurney knocked, and Morgan’s voice replied, “Come in.”

Although much smaller than the conference room, Gurney noted that the walls and furnishings were of the same lustrous mahogany. In addition to a substantial desk and several bookcases, there was a round table with six chairs encircling it. Morgan was standing behind one of them. Brad Slovak and Kyra Barstow were seated across from each other.

“Join us,” said Morgan, gesturing to one of the empty chairs. “We need to review the case status before I meet with the village board. I’ve asked Brad and Kyra to update us. You want coffee?”

“Just had some.” Gurney took a seat at the table.

“Okay. Brad, you’re up.”

Slovak stretched his thick neck from side to side, then ran both hands back over his bristly scalp. “First the simple stuff. Stakeout guys in the woods keeping an eye on the Cursen place reported no activity last night, then one car arriving this morning. Plate check made the registration in the name of Harold Stern. There’s a Harold Stern in an Albany law firm. Garbel, Stern, Harshman, and Black. Could be she anticipates a problem, wants some on-site advice.”

“Too bad,” said Morgan. “Any responses to our APB?”

“Zilch. Some requests for clarification, but no leads. Opposite of the deluge of calls triggered by that RAM News thing last night, with the leaked video. People are spotting Tate everywhere, at opposite ends of the county at the same time. You know what I think is gonna happen? Crazy teenagers dripping red paint on their hoodies and trying to scare the shit out of people. Somebody’s likely to get shot, the way Gant’s stirring things up.”

“That’s all we need,” muttered Morgan. “Anything from the local door-to-doors?”

“Nothing new.”

He turned to Kyra. “Any forensic results?”

“Fingerprints at both the Kane and Mason homicides have been ID’d as Billy Tate’s. Sneaker prints on the dusty floor of the Mason barn match the sneaker prints at the mortuary and the image of the sneaker soles in the video of Tate on the stretcher in front of the church. The message on the wall of Linda Mason’s house was written in her own blood type, DNA confirmation to come. The blood appears to have been applied with a narrow, disposable sponge brush. We didn’t find any similar brushes in the house or barn, so it’s likely Tate came prepared.”

Morgan looked across the table at Gurney. “What do you make of that?”

“An interesting combination of lunacy and logic.”

Morgan nodded uneasily. “Is that it, Kyra?”

“For now.”

“Dave, you have any questions?”

“I do.” He turned to Slovak. “When computer forensics got into Mary Kane’s phone, what did they look for?”

“Phone and text messages, sent and received. That was the point, right?”

“It might be worth checking to see if she used the phone as a recorder.”

“Recording her calls?”

“I’ve been thinking about that nocturnal birding club that texted her.”

“The owl club?”

“Right. You said one of the texts referred to a website where she could listen to birdcalls. I thought if she was interested in that sort of thing, it could be the reason why she had the phone out on the porch with her in the middle of the night—to record the calls, hoots, whatever, of owls. I doubt she was expecting an urgent call at two in the morning.”

Slovak blinked in puzzlement. “You want to know if she recorded any owl hoots?”

“If she had her phone out there to record those sounds, and if that function was on when she was killed, something useful may have been recorded. It’s a long shot, but easy enough to check.”

“Will do.”

Morgan cast a nervous glance at his watch. “Thanks, all. Let me know the instant anything significant comes up.”

Realizing they’d been dismissed, Slovak and Barstow left the office.

Morgan put on a grim smile. “Now we face the village board. Expect the worst. It consists of Ron Fallow, Danforth Peale, Chandler Aspern, Hilda Russell, Harmon Gossett, Martin Carmody, and Gifford Styles. Gossett is the village attorney, sharp as a razor, with the warmth and charm of a corpse; Carmody is the retired CEO of a PR agency; Styles is an old-money idiot Angus installed on the board to give himself an extra vote. You ready for this?”

“I was told this morning that a couple of individuals who had business conflicts with Angus conveniently disappeared off the face of the earth. Is that true?”

Morgan shook his head. “The way you’re saying it makes it sound terrible. There was never even the slightest evidence of Angus’s involvement in anything . . . anything like the way you’re making it sound. There wasn’t a speck of proof that those so-called ‘disappearances’ were anything other than voluntary—and unrelated to Angus.”

“But you are aware of these incidents.”

“Yes, but not with the meaning you’re implying.”

“You didn’t think they were worth mentioning to me?”

“To be totally honest, no. I mean, what’s the relevance of a pair of wild allegations from years ago? What connection could they have to this homicidal rampage by Billy Tate?”

“I have no idea. But it’s the kind of thing I like to think about.”

Morgan stared at him for a moment, then looked down at his watch, cleared his throat, and said, “We better get to our meeting.”

26

“With these crisis inventors, these professional liars, these cable news buffoons trying to persuade the world that life in Larchfield is some kind of horror movie . . .”

Chandler Aspern was speaking as Morgan and Gurney entered the conference room. He was sitting at one end of the rectangular table, and the six other members of the village board were seated across from each other, three on each side.

Morgan and Gurney took the two empty chairs at the end of the table opposite Aspern.

“We need to get control of the public narrative,” continued Aspern. “With the wild exaggerations and crazy theories promoted by the media, the image of Larchfield is going to hell in a handbasket.”

Nods of agreement came from Martin Carmody and Gifford Styles.

Aspern went on. “That RAM program last night was appalling. And the headlines this morning were worse. ‘The Dead Walk on Harrow Hill’—that was the top story in my news feed.”

Carmody—well-fed, pink-faced, white-haired—spoke in the rich baritone of an old-time radio announcer. “Something has to be done, and quickly.”

Styles, who might have been a geriatric aristocrat displeased with the progress of a polo match, shook his head. “This is intolerable. Tate isn’t even from Larchfield. He’s from Bastenburg. Deliberate slandering of our village. Must be stopped.”

He glared across the table at Gossett. “Do something, Harmon. You’re our bloody lawyer. Take action, man!”

Gossett said nothing. A thin man with thinning hair, he was as expressionless as a fish.

Peale spoke up, an acid edge to his patrician intonation. “The immediate priority should be to plug the leak! We’re not going to get anywhere, if things like the Tate video are handed over to the scurrilous media. The damage is incalculable—to the town, and to me personally. Whoever gave that video to RAM wanted us to look like fools.”

Although Peale was addressing Gossett, the man again remained silent and unblinking. Fallow’s discomfort was obvious in the set of his mouth, but he, too, said nothing.

Aspern looked down the table at Morgan. “Finding the leaker is a job for the police.”

“We’re looking into it.”

Gurney wondered if this was something else Morgan had failed to mention.

“Regarding the broader issue,” said Aspern, “we need calm, consistent messaging to counteract the media coverage. Perhaps Martin here, with his background, can help craft that strategy?”

Carmody cleared his throat. “Happy to do what I can. But before I design the suit, I need to know the shape of the body.”

Morgan blinked in confusion. “The shape of the body?”

“The raw facts of the case, especially the troublesome ones. Professional tailoring can smooth out a lot of imperfections, so long as we know what they are.”

“Troublesome fact number one,” snapped Peale, “is that someone who was pronounced dead is very much alive. That colossal error is the basis for these insane ‘zombie’ headlines and every other damn problem we’re facing.”

“Damned useless observation,” muttered Fallow, giving Peale a black look.

Carmody was nodding attentively, as though this were any other client briefing.

“In my experience,” he said, ignoring the obvious tension in the room, “there are three key ingredients in a crisis messaging strategy. Simplicity, the projection of competence, and the appearance of transparency. To begin with, it’s important to explain the pronouncement of death as a reasonable diagnosis, based on the available facts. The subject’s subsequent revival should be described as an uncommon but far-from-unique event. I’m sure the internet can provide examples of similar revivals. The point is to demystify it and take the air out of the supernatural speculation.”

Aspern was smiling. “Simple is good. Down-to-earth. No apologies. No need to get into anything exculpatory—like our medical examiner’s crushing workload with all the heroin ODs and autopsies on his plate, et cetera.”

“Exactly!” said Carmody. “Basic rule number one: never offer an excuse for an error when the incident can be described in a way that makes it not an error at all, but a case of sound professional judgment misled by a deceptive set of facts.”

“I like it,” said Aspern. “What do you think, Harmon, from a legal point of view?”

Gossett offered an almost imperceptible nod of approval.

Styles looked like he was developing gas pains.

“Problem, Gifford?” said Aspern.

“All well and good that Fallow is off the hook. Glad, too, that all the ‘resurrection’ balderdash will be put to rest. But what about the witchcraft angle, the ‘satanic’ malarkey? Is there a plan for making that go away?”

Carmody nodded. “All part of the same cloth, Gifford. The solution depends on tone and vocabulary. The thing is, we should never use any big, fuzzy, mystical words in public. Stick to hard, small, simple terms. The suspected perp is an ex-con from a bad neighborhood, with a history of threats and assaults. The police are tracking him down. Emphasize practical procedure. The witchcraft angle should be positioned as a silly distraction, not worth discussing. Underscore the point that irrational speculation always aids the criminal. Show a high school photo of the suspect, preferably looking weak and awkward—obviously with no magic powers—a low-grade criminal whose capture is only a matter of time.”

Aspern looked down the length of the table at Morgan. “You on board with this?”

Morgan cleared his throat. “No disagreement.”

“How about you, Detective Gurney? Anything to say?”

“Be careful you don’t minimize the danger. There’s a killer on the loose. He’s dangerous, clever, efficient, and cold-blooded. And probably not finished.”

Aspern blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I think he has plans for more murders.”

Several voices were raised at the same time. “How do you know that?”

Gurney didn’t want to divulge sensitive facts in what might be a leaky environment. “I can’t be specific at this point, but some evidence suggests that Tate has made preparations for additional attacks.”

“My God,” said Styles. “What sort of preparations? Shouldn’t we be told, as a matter of personal safety?”

“Sharing what I’m referring to wouldn’t be helpful in that way.” He turned his attention to Aspern. “But there is something that should be added to any public information statements from your office or from the department—a request for anyone who was ever threatened by Tate to come forward.”

Aspern looked alarmed. “Why do you say that?”

“Tate threatened to kill Angus Russell, and Angus Russell is dead. He threatened to kill Linda Mason, and Linda Mason is dead. His past threats should not be ignored.”

Aspern’s small eyes widened. “He threatened me.”

“When?”

“Not too long after he got out of prison. Right after Selena Cursen bought him that orange Jeep. I caught him driving it on my trails.”

“What happened?”

“I told him to get the hell off my property. He said anyone who claimed to own Harrow Hill deserved to die.”

“Did you report that to the police?”

Aspern shook his head. “I assumed it was just talk.”

As the meeting broke up, Carmody left with Aspern. Gurney approached Hilda Russell—who hadn’t said a word at the meeting—as she was preparing to leave. A sturdy woman with short white hair clinging closely to her large head, she was wearing a plain gray suit over a black turtleneck. The suit accentuated the squareness of her physical presence.

“Reverend Russell?”

“Hello, Detective Gurney.” There was intelligence in her bright blue eyes.

They smiled and shook hands. Hers was strong and surprisingly rough.

“I was wondering—” he began.

“If you could speak with me later today? Pick a time.”

“Half an hour from now?”

“Here or at the parsonage?”

“The parsonage sounds more interesting.”

“See you then.” She walked out of the conference room, light on her feet for a woman of such solidity.

Besides Morgan and Gurney, the only other attendee still present was Dr. Ronald Fallow. He was wearing the same blue blazer he’d worn at the Kane crime scene. He was standing by his chair, swiping through a series of screens on his phone. The general resentment that had been on his face for most of the meeting had changed to an emotion Gurney couldn’t readily label.

Morgan turned to Gurney. “That business about your finding evidence that Tate is planning more murders—what on earth was that all about?”

“What I found is purely suggestive. But it’s nagging at me. Tate used Linda Morgan’s blood to leave that Dark Angel message on the wall. That message required at the most two ounces of blood. But more than ten times that amount was drained from her body and removed from the site. It doesn’t prove anything, but it does suggest a forward-looking plan of some sort.”

“So you think we’re just at the beginning of—”

He was interrupted by Fallow, who was approaching them, phone in hand.

“Chief, I found something that may be of interest. Something that’s been bothering me ever since the Russell autopsy. The placement of the severed finger. Something about it was tugging at a memory.”

He held up the phone. The screen showed a photo of a gray-haired, stone-jawed man in a courtroom witness chair, his forefinger pointing dramatically at someone or something.

“Angus,” muttered Morgan, half to himself, half to Gurney.

“Yes,” said Fallow. “When Billy Tate was on trial for making threats. Russell was asked by the prosecutor if he could identify the individual who had threatened him. Angus pointed directly at Tate. Do you know what happened next?”

Morgan shook his head.

“When Angus pointed at him, Tate shouted, ‘How about I rip that finger off and shove it up your ass?’ Interesting coincidence, is it not?”

27

Although St. Giles was just the proverbial stone’s throw across the village square from police headquarters, Gurney decided to take his car. He had a notion that, after speaking with Angus Russell’s bereaved sister, he might head out along Waterview Drive to Mary Kane’s house. Sometimes following the route of a killer—driving where he drove, seeing what he saw—led to some unexpected insight. But first, and more concretely, he wanted to get a better reading on Hilda Russell, whose presence in the conference room had told him nothing.

As he was turning into the driveway next to St. Giles Church, he noted some work underway on the path by the corner of the building. Two men were spreading new gravel on the area where Billy Tate had landed. If the large bloodstain on Tate’s hoodie were any indication, the gravel under him would have been stained as well, accounting for the cleanup underway.

Gurney followed the driveway to a parking area that separated the church from a large Victorian house, painted in muted shades of blue and gray. A neatly swept bluestone path, purple petunias planted on either side, led from the parking area to the porch steps. A mechanical twist doorbell in antique bronze was set in the center of the front door. As he was reaching for it, the door opened.

“You’re right on time,” said Hilda Russell, stepping back to let him in. She was still wearing the shapeless gray suit and black turtleneck. “Come this way.”

She led him through a dark, wood-paneled center hall to a bright, airy room at the rear of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows reminded Gurney of the tall windows in Angus Russell’s bedroom. They looked out on a tranquil English-style garden, full of spring flowers and weeping cherry trees in blossom. A gardener was pushing a mower along a path through the flower beds.

The cherrywood desk, cabinets, and bookcases in the room were in the simple Shaker style. The brightly upholstered couch and armchairs were large and comfortable-­looking. A brick fireplace had been swept clean of ashes. A crystal vase on the mantelpiece was overflowing with jonquils and daffodils.

“Very nice,” said Gurney as he took it all in. “Is this your office?”

“It is, but I try to keep it as un-businesslike as possible. Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward one of the armchairs by the fireplace.

She took the one that faced it. “So. How can I help you?”

“First, let me offer my condolences. I apologize for the need to bother you with questions at a time like this.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “No apologies necessary. Ask whatever you wish.”

“You were very quiet in that meeting this morning. I was wondering why.”

“My mother’s favorite saying was, ‘Learn to listen, then listen to learn.’ I seem to have made it my own.”

He smiled. “Do you live here in the rectory?”

“I do. Upstairs. Comfortable little retreat, all to myself.”

“Is that where you were when Tate fell off the church roof?”

“You mean, when Jehovah’s thunderbolt struck down the evil instrument of Satan?” Her portentous tone was belied by the spark of sarcasm in her eyes. “Yes. Sound asleep, so I missed all the drama. But I shouldn’t joke.”

“Why do you suppose he was up there?”

“I assume to spray that symbol on the steeple—emblem of hellfire, or so I’ve been told.”

“Does that shock you, someone doing that to your church?”

“After hearing confessions for nearly forty years, including ten as a prison chaplain, I’m not impressed by a bit of vandalism. More concerning is the way this sort of thing is used by the slick, pompadoured Silas Gants of the world for their own ends.”

“How about Tate’s revival after being pronounced dead? Were you impressed by that?”

“I might have been more so if it were the first time.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Billy has a dark history. Sick relationships surrounded by salacious rumors, none of which am I inclined to discuss. However, as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s a matter of public record that his father was convicted of shooting Billy and putting him in what was believed to be a vegetative coma. Two days later he opened his eyes, asked where he was and why the hell he was connected to all those damn machines. The doctors couldn’t account for it. A miracle, they called it.”

“And now there’s been another one.”

“‘Miracle’ is a rather imprecise term. I came close to being expelled from the seminary for arguing that it has no real meaning at all.”

“What would you call his latest revival?”

“Considering the subsequent events, I’d call it unfortunate.” She paused, her gaze on the empty fireplace. “I understand you have evidence connecting him to my brother’s murder.”

“Does that surprise you?”

Her gaze moved from the fireplace to one of the windows looking out over the flower garden. “Billy was always unbalanced. Predictably unpredictable. Almost certainly suffered from an impulse control disorder, plus a handful of other psychiatric conditions. It’s surprising he’s survived as long as he has. But murder?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have said that was likely. Especially not Mary Kane. Everyone loved her. Even Billy, I think.”

“But if she recognized him the night of Angus’s murder . . . well, self-­preservation can be a powerful motive.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I was told that allegations were made in the past regarding the disappearance of individuals who were involved in conflicts with Angus.”

She remained focused on some point in the garden.

“Did those allegations shock you?”

She sighed. “‘Shock,’ like ‘miracle,’ is a much-overused word.”

“Did you find the accusations credible?”

“I believe that whoever was said to be missing was missing. Why they were missing is a different matter. Was Angus instrumental in that? I have no particular reason to believe that he was.”

That, thought Gurney, was far from a wholehearted defense of her brother’s innocence. He was about to pursue that point when she addressed it herself. “Angus and I were not especially close. The downside of that is the absence of the familial warmth that some siblings enjoy. The upside is objectivity, seeing people for who they are. Angus’s values and ambitions were never mine. I know he could be a dangerous man if cornered. His personal desires were paramount in his life, and he had the means to achieve them. Did he have the means to arrange for his enemies to disappear? Certainly. Did he ever do so? I don’t know. Perhaps I don’t want to know.”

Gurney got out of his chair and walked over to the nearest window. A breeze was swaying the thin branches of the weeping cherry trees. “How about Lorinda? What can you tell me about her?”

“Apart from the fact that she’s an obvious symptom of Angus’s greatest weakness?”

“Lust?”

“Lust was only part of it.”

He turned from the window. “Part of what?”

She met his gaze and held it. “His supreme confidence in his own desires. Angus never wanted something because it was good. It was good because he wanted it—and wanting it meant he had to have it, at any cost.”

“And Lorinda came at a high cost?”

“Lorinda Strane Russell is what the mindless media would call a trophy wife. She is also a vial of poison, a sociopath, and—if I may use a term from an era long past—a slut.”

Gurney returned to his chair. “Meaning she had affairs outside her marriage?”

“She has that reputation.”

“Affairs with whom?”

“People who might be useful to her.”

“For example?”

“In the absence of proof, it would be slanderous to name names.”

Gurney refrained from mentioning that the absence of proof hadn’t deterred her from naming Lorinda.

Perhaps sensing the inconsistency, she added, “Sit down with her for an hour. Ask questions. Watch her. Listen to her. You’ll quickly discover the kind of animal you’re dealing with.”

“What can you tell me about Selena Cursen?”

Russell moistened her lips and seemed to relax a bit. “Space cadet.”

“That’s it?”

“Involved in some Wiccan nonsense. Attracted to bad boys. Besotted with Billy. But underneath it all, an airhead. If it wasn’t for the trust fund from her parents, she’d be living in a homeless shelter, staring at profound messages in a kaleidoscope.”

“How about Dr. Fallow?”

“Decent enough. Too fond of his country club. Too fond of his single-malt scotches. There’s an unfortunate public record of that problem, which I assume you’re aware of. Bad luck, his getting caught, especially for a man in his position. So many reckless drunks get away with it again and again. Men a lot worse than Fallow. Unfairness of life.”

“What can you tell me about Danforth Peale?”

“W. Danforth Peale the Third—to use the full name—is not nearly as simple as Fallow. He seemed normal enough as a small child. Then he was sent to a snobby elementary school, and the Peale gene for icy arrogance began to assert itself. It grew worse in high school. And by the time he came home from Princeton, he’d reduced his Christian name, William, into that pretentious first initial and was insisting on being addressed by his middle name. He’d also contracted the family disease of entitlement. The one positive thing to be said about him is that he doesn’t seem as horrible as his late father, Elton Peale, the coldest man I’ve ever met. But maybe Danforth is just better at concealing it.”

“Sounds charming.”

“The Peales are one of the oldest New York families. They amassed a fortune in shipbuilding and slave-trading. They once owned Rolling Hills Preserve, one of the state’s largest private land holdings, along with a dozen or so exclusive funeral homes and cemeteries—catering to those very special individuals who demand to be buried with people of their own class. The Peales were the equals of the Russells in wealth and close allies in greedy pursuits.”

“Partners in crime?”

“Lots of dark rumors to that effect.”

“So Danforth is super-wealthy?”

“Not in Larchfield terms. The Peale family lost most of its fortune and business properties to a Ponzi schemer of impeccable blue-blood provenance. Greed was the engine and destroyer of the family’s wealth. Danforth inherited what was left, but has done nothing to increase it. Like many who’ve been given a lot, he’s resentful that he wasn’t given more.”

“I appreciate your candor,” said Gurney.

“What you mean is, you’re surprised that a woman of God would speak like this behind the backs of her neighbors. The fact is that just about everything I said to you I’ve already said to their faces, and would gladly say again. There are many people-pleasers in this world, Detective, but I’m not one of them. I believe my creator put me on earth to tell unpleasant truths.” She glanced up at an antique clock on the mantelpiece. “Any other questions?”

“Do you have an opinion of Chandler Aspern?”

She made a lemon-sucking face. “Chandler is just a poor imitation of Angus. The same greed and ruthlessness, with half the intelligence and none of the charm.”

“How about Darlene Tate?”

“On the surface, a lubricious drunk. Beneath the surface, a lubricious drunk.”

“I gather from your earlier comment that you have no great affection for Reverend Gant. Any particular reason for that?”

Russell unclasped her hands and, leaning forward in her chair, slowly rubbed her palms on the tops of her legs as if preparing her muscles for battle. She delivered her opinion like a battering ram.

“Silas Gant is a virus in the heart of Christianity. A walking, talking malignancy. He promotes racism, hatred, guns, and violence as though they were life’s cardinal virtues. His so-called ministry is an ugly joke.”

“What’s in it for him?”

“Money, publicity, the thrill of stirring up an angry mob. And—if he can grow that mob big enough—a political career. He wouldn’t be the first petty demagogue to rise to the heights of power on a wave of ignorant fury.”

“You think that’s his goal?”

“Everything he does is consistent with building a certain sort of following—­resentful fundamentalists who see evil in their enemies, virtue in themselves, and the Bible as a blunt instrument for breaking heads. That constituency, led by a clever psychopath . . .”

Her voice trailed off. She shook her head in a shudder of revulsion before adding, “I’m sorry to say, Angus was one of his largest supporters.”

“Really? I didn’t think Angus was a particularly generous man.”

She startled Gurney with a harsh laugh. “I guarantee you that nothing Angus did was even remotely connected with generosity.”

She got up from her chair, which emitted a slight creak when relieved of her weight. “I hope I’ve been helpful.”

“Perhaps we can speak again, if other questions come up?”

“I’m always here, and never too shy to share the truth.”

She led Gurney through the dark center hall to the front door and opened it.

As he was about to step out onto the porch, he hesitated. “Hilda is an interesting name, one I haven’t heard in a long time. Were you named after anyone in particular?”

“The seventh-century abbess of Whitby Monastery in North Yorkshire. She reputedly had a talent for turning snakes to stone.” She flashed a sharp-edged smile. “I envy her.”

28

Gurney emerged from the parsonage driveway onto the street that separated St. Giles from the village square. He was about to head for Waterview Drive, as he’d planned, when he noticed three figures coming out of police headquarters, wearing motorcycle leathers.

Two were hulking, bearded men—the ex-lineman types employed as bouncers in rowdy bars. The third man, walking in front of them, was clean-shaven and more compact. Gurney recognized Silas Gant’s gray pompadour from his appearance on RAM News.

They went straight to three motorcycles parked in front of the headquarters building, put on their helmets, revved up their engines, and pulled away from the curb, Gant in the lead.

Deciding to postpone his trip to Mary Kane’s house, Gurney drove around to the headquarters side of the square and parked in the space vacated by the trio.

He went straight to Morgan’s office. He found him at his desk, looking worried as usual, phone in hand. He put it down when Gurney entered.

“I was about to call you. Gant was just here.”

“I saw him leaving, with a pair of apes. What did he want?”

“To keep me informed, is what he said. He plans to hold what he called ‘a gospel revelation tent meeting’ tonight out at the Buckman farm. He told me that members of his Church of the Patriarchs would be providing security.”

“He’s expecting trouble?”

“So he says—from local Satanists and God-haters.”

“What Satanists and God-haters?”

“Good question. He also wanted me to know that his security people would be conducting, in the public interest, their own search for Billy Tate and any fellow travelers supporting Tate’s activities.”

“And what did you say to all this?”

“I warned him not to get in the way of our official investigation, that any interference could be dangerous, and that it could result in charges of obstruction of justice.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said he would ask the good Lord to take special care of me in the tribulations of the End Days.”

“Is this the same creepy character your wife was battling?”

Morgan nodded, looking down at the table as if to avoid the subject.

Slovak knocked on the jamb of the open door.

Morgan looked relieved at the interruption and waved Slovak in. “What’s up, Brad?”

“We have confirmation of the time connection between the Tate sighting by Ruby-June Hooper and the murder of Mary Kane. Dave’s suggestion that we check Kane’s phone for audio recordings paid off.”

He took a phone out of his jacket pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and laid the phone on Morgan’s desk. “According to the time code, this recording was made at 2:10 a.m. the night of Angus Russell’s murder—right after Tate’s encounter with Hooper.”

The recording began to play.

(Sound) Breezes passing through tree foliage.

(Sound) Series of shrill descending birdcall notes.

(Woman’s voice) “Eastern screech owl, courtship call.”

(Sound) Series of shrill descending birdcall notes.

(Sound) Breezes.

(Sound) Series of shrill descending birdcall notes.

(Woman’s voice) “Courtship call from a different direction. Male moving to new perch.”

(Sound) Breezes . . . approaching vehicle . . . growing louder . . . slowing . . . stopping.

(Woman’s voice) “Oh my goodness! What on earth are you doing out here?”

(Sound) Vehicle door opening. Engine running softly.

(Male voice, indistinct)

(Woman’s voice) “Blessed God! What happened to your face?”

(Male voice, indistinct)

(Sound) Series of shrill descending birdcall notes. Breezes. Foliage rustling.

(Woman’s voice) “My God, what . . . what’s wrong with you?”

(Sound) Quick footsteps.

(Male voice, guttural) “Don’t move.”

(Woman’s voice) “Wha—”

(Sound) Rasping, gagging inhalation. Footsteps. Silence. Breezes. Series of shrill descending birdcall notes. Footsteps. Thud of a heavy object hitting the ground. Dragging of a heavy object on the ground, slowly diminishing.

That harsh, gagging gasp on the recording gave Gurney’s image of the murder a vivid reality—worse in its dreadful suddenness than his memory of the woman’s body lying in the drainage swale.

Slovak reached down and tapped an icon on the phone’s screen. “There’s an additional three-minute segment of bird and wind noises—I guess while he was dragging her body across the road—then the sound of his vehicle door being shut and him driving away. Hard to tell from the recording, but it sounds like he made that turn up toward Harrow Hill. The recording continued until the phone battery ran down, but there’s nothing else on it.”

Gurney turned to Morgan. “Since both women apparently recognized him, why did Ruby-June Hooper get a friendly wave and Mary Kane get her throat cut? That’s the key question.”

Morgan turned up his palms in an admission of bafflement.

After a moment, Slovak spoke up. “I do have other news. We managed to track down the number of the phone Tate used for the two text messages he sent from the embalming room. It’s an anonymous prepaid one, but now that we have the number we can ping it for a current location.”

“Is that being done?”

“We’re trying it every ten minutes. So far, he’s got it turned off.”

“Have you found out who he was contacting?”

“Selena Cursen and Chandler Aspern.”

“Aspern? Are you sure?”

“We have no way of knowing who actually picked up the phone, but the cell number the text was sent to is Aspern’s.”

“Interesting. You’ll want to get copies of both texts. Service providers usually retain them for five days, so you’ll need to act quickly.”

“Yes, sir. Just one thing. The Jeep that Tate used is actually registered to Cursen. We added the plate number to the APB, but as far as we know, the last people to see it were those stoners the night before you discovered Linda Mason’s body. But today we got three reports of churches over in Bastenburg being defaced with that weird figure eight thing, painted in blood. So maybe Tate’s got another vehicle.”

“Or maybe an accomplice,” said Gurney. “Do we know Cursen’s whereabouts?”

“I checked with our guys staking out her place. She hasn’t left.”

“Okay. The priority now is getting in touch with the carrier and requesting copies of the Cursen and Aspern texts.”

Slovak nodded and hurried out of the office.

Morgan started rubbing his neck. “That’s all we need, more church desecrations. It’s the kind of crap Gant loves to shout about.”

“You’ll want to get the addresses of those churches and send Kyra’s team out there—to find out if it’s really blood, and if so, whose.”

Morgan nodded vaguely. He picked up a pen from his desk, then put it back. “Dave, I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“That business about the disappearance of Angus’s business rivals. I honestly didn’t think it amounted to anything. But I should have told you. Total openness, right?”

“Apology accepted.”

Gurney almost added, “No problem.” But that wouldn’t have been true. There was a problem—Morgan’s eagerness to view Russell in a favorable light and ignore the disappearances. It was a classic example of the tendency to view facts in a way that supports one’s own needs—a tendency that was always damaging and sometimes deadly.

It made Gurney wonder if Russell had installed Morgan as police chief because of his weaknesses, rather than in spite of them. Having an insecure police chief who depended on you could be useful. It was a point he’d need to explore, but this was not the time. There was a depth of misery in Morgan’s eyes that seemed to go far beyond the issue at hand.

“Has there been any change in your wife’s condition?” Gurney asked.

Morgan shook his head. “She’s on hospice. Lot of drugs. Mostly sleeps.” He sat up straighter, as if making a physical effort to change the subject. “What’s next on your agenda?”

That reminded Gurney where he’d been heading when he was sidetracked by the sight of Gant and his apes emerging from their meeting with Morgan. “I’m going back to the Kane crime scene. Sometimes on a second visit I notice things I missed on the first.”

Morgan nodded, his preoccupation obvious.

The weather was changing yet again. Dark clouds were breaking up, revealing areas of blue sky. Wind gusts were shaking the last droplets of rain from the maples on either side of Cotswold Lane. There was an herbal scent in the air. Patches of sunlight illuminated the flower beds in the village square.

Gurney got in the Outback, drove slowly around to the St. Giles side of the square, and headed for Mary Kane’s house.

When he got there, he parked across the road next to the swale. The yellow police tape outlining the site had been removed, but a strip had been placed diagonally across the front door of the cottage. Gurney got out of his car and crossed the road. After debating for a minute whether to enter the cottage, he loosened the tape and opened the door.

As soon as he stepped inside, he sensed, even in the semidarkness with the blinds drawn, that something was different. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the bird pictures that had hung above the couch were now on the floor. In their place, in dark red lettering, were the same words that had been found on the wall in Linda Mason’s house.

29

Gurney called headquarters for an evidence tech to process the scene. Kyra Barstow arrived twenty minutes later in her van.

After donning her coveralls and shoe covers and performing a preliminary luminol examination of the living room wall, she confirmed that the red substance used for the lettering was blood and appeared to have been applied with the same type of brush used on Linda Mason’s upstairs wall. She then took scrapings for DNA analysis.

She and Gurney conducted a walk-through inspection of the rest of the cottage, but made no further discoveries. Everything appeared to be as it had been the previous day. They then made a similar inspection of the outside of the house and its modest grounds with a similar result. It wasn’t until they had completed their circuit of the property and were standing in front of the cottage that Gurney noticed a partial tire track in the soil at the edge of the lawn.

He pointed it out to Barstow. “That wasn’t there yesterday, was it?”

“Absolutely not. The body was dragged across that exact area. There’s no way we could have missed a tread mark.”

She took several photos with her phone, went to her van, got a ruler, laid it next to the impression for scale, and took a few more shots; then went back to the van and began preparing a special dental-stone plaster mixture to pour into the impression and create a solid model of the tread.

While she worked, Gurney went across the road for another look at the place where Mary Kane’s body had been found. He made his way around the bordering row of tall bushes and stepped down into the swale. The shade from the bushes and the relative lowness of the ground had left the grass sopping from the overnight rain. Portions of the large bloodstain had been washed away or drawn down into the soil, but the coating of water made the color of the remaining stain redder.

Gurney was overcome by a sudden wave of sadness. He wondered if it was for that old woman he never knew . . . or for himself and everyone else whose final traces would eventually disappear into the wet earth. Before he could fall any deeper into the fears and regrets that come with thoughts of mortality, the ringing of his phone pulled him back.

The screen told him that it was Chandler Aspern. With some misgivings, he took the call.

“Gurney here.”

“This is Mayor Aspern. We need to talk.”

“You have some information you want to give me?”

“That’s one way of putting it. How soon can you be in my office?”

The mayor’s peremptory tone was annoying. “How vital is this information to the case?”

“How vital? Who the hell knows? The point is, I need to talk to you.”

Gurney checked the time on his phone. It was 12:52 p.m.

“I can try to be there around one thirty.”

“Fine.”

On that curt note, Aspern ended the call. Gurney pocketed his phone, took a last look around the swale, and made his way up through the row of bushes.

Slovak, squinting in the sunlight, was just getting out of a black Dodge Charger, parked behind Gurney’s Outback.

“Just got the news at HQ,” he said, closing the car door. “Weird that Tate would take the chance of coming back here. You figure it was just to leave a creepy message?”

“If there was another reason, we haven’t discovered it yet.”

“If he wanted to leave us a message, why didn’t he do it the night he killed her?”

“The night he killed her he was on his way to kill Russell. With that on his mind, he may not have wanted to take more time here than he had to. Fear of being discovered, maybe. Sometime yesterday or last night, his other goal may have taken over.”

“Other goal?”

“He wants recognition. Common with a certain kind of killer. Ego trip. He wants the name Billy Tate up in lights.”

“Man, that is so sick!”

“But possibly helpful to us. Obsession can lead to practical mistakes.”

He pointed to Barstow, who was kneeling at the roadside, checking the solidity of the plaster cast. “Tate may have left that partial tire track over there. Could be a key piece of forensic evidence. You need to revisit the owners of the security cameras that captured the earlier videos of Tate’s Jeep. If those cameras are still operational, you should review any vehicle or foot traffic they captured between the time the last officer left here yesterday and noon today.”

“Will do. By the way, Chief Morgan just got in touch with Hilda Russell, executrix of Angus’s estate, and she’s providing copies of all his trust and testamentary provisions. Good to have all that, I guess—even though it doesn’t seem relevant to the murder. Tate sure as hell isn’t one of the beneficiaries.”

“Right. But it still might be interesting. Anything else?”

“Not much. A few more idiots over in Bastenburg claiming Tate sightings, asking about a reward. Local cops are checking them out. If anything credible turns up, I’ll let you know.”

Slovak rubbed his scalp, got in the Charger, made a U-turn, and started driving slowly along Waterview Drive.

Gurney asked Barstow if she needed any help before he had to head back to the village for a meeting with Aspern.

“Not at the moment,” she said, gently prying up the solidified cast.

The village hall was one of the three big Victorians on Cotswold Lane. Police headquarters sat in the middle, with Peale’s Funeral Home on one side and the village hall on the other.

They were similar in structure, with similar front lawns and a similar profusion of lilacs in front of their porches. In the spacious entry foyer, an unsmiling receptionist, who’d evidently been told to expect him, directed Gurney along a wide center hall to the last office on the right.

The door was open. With its mahogany furniture and paneling, the office looked very much like Morgan’s, just larger. Aspern was on the phone with his back to his desk. Gurney rapped sharply on the doorjamb. Aspern swiveled around, nodded, and pointed to a leather-covered chair facing his desk. He ended his call a moment later and showed his teeth in an expression that bore a distant resemblance to a smile.

“Glad you could make it.”

“You said you had information.”

“I do. And concerns. But first, I want you to know how much I welcome your involvement. You have a hell of a reputation.” He showed his teeth again. “Experience, smarts, record of success.”

He paused, as if expecting thanks for the compliment, then continued. “So, I have a question. Are you being given all the resources you need?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question.” That wasn’t true. He understood the question and what was likely behind it, but he wanted to hear how Aspern would explain it.

Aspern leaned back in his oversized chair and glanced at the heavy gold Rolex on his right wrist. “I’m concerned about the agenda of your old partner.”

“Agenda?”

“Maybe that’s not the best word. Let’s call it his mindset. I worry about the mindset and priorities of a man who’s been so blind to the dark side of Angus Russell. It suggests stupidity, complicity, or both.”

“Tell me about Russell’s dark side.”

“Surely you’re aware by now of the suspicious disappearances?”

“I heard there were allegations regarding two individuals—dismissed for lack of evidence.”

“Three, actually. Two in the past five years, another a few years earlier. Very convenient for Angus, this tendency of his enemies to evaporate.”

“You’re suggesting that Angus had a super-efficient hit man who made all this happen without leaving behind any physical evidence or witnesses?”

“I’m suggesting that the facts speak for themselves. And that your former partner’s attitude toward the facts fails to inspire confidence. I’m fond of facts, and my research into your background tells me that you share this fondness.”

Gurney said nothing.

“You’re giving me that laconic cop stare. You’re wondering what my point is, right?”

“I’m sure you’ll get to it.”

“It’s simple enough. Morgan was never the choice of the village board for police chief. He was Angus’s choice. But with Angus gone, things will be different. Changes will be made. I guarantee it. The position of police chief will finally be filled the way it should have been—on the basis of experience, ability, integrity, not behind-the-scenes entanglements. A great opportunity for the right person. Something to think about, eh?”

Aspern smiled the beneficent smile of a man with the power to bestow great gifts—while his small dark eyes communicated the depth of self-interest welded to the beneficence.

If he was searching Gurney’s face for a sign of gratitude or even of mild interest in what amounted to the offer of a plum job, it wasn’t there to be seen. “What’s on your mind, Detective?”

“Questions.”

“Ask them.”

“I’m thinking about Angus Russell’s apparent ease in making his enemies disappear. Did you ever wonder if you were on that list?”

“I’m sure I was. I took certain precautions. I’m not without resources. I acquired some information, the publication of which would have created a significant inconvenience for Angus. I informed him of the facts I had gathered and of the instructions I had given to an unnamed law firm—to provide those facts to the media and law enforcement agencies in the event of my untimely death by any other than natural causes. It seems to have been effective.”

Gurney considered the implications of that before asking his next question.

“What can you tell me about Lorinda Russell?”

Aspern uttered a harsh laugh. “Wet-dream queen of Larchfield by day, vampire bat by night. You want details, ask Morgan.”

Gurney was about to pursue that further when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen. It was Morgan. He decided to take the call.

“Gurney here.”

The tension in the man’s voice sounded more like excitement than his normal anxiety. “The carrier just provided us with copies of Tate’s last two texts. The one he sent to Selena Cursen was mainly to let her know that he was alive and that she should keep it to herself. The other one—the one that went to Chandler Aspern—was more interesting.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s pretty slangy. But basically it reads like a proposal for some sort of cooperative arrangement. If that’s what it is, it changes everything.”

“I’m on my way.”

Gurney ended the call and got to his feet. “Sorry. Something’s come up.” As he was leaving the office, he stopped and looked back at Aspern. “Regarding Billy Tate, apart from the time he threatened you, did he have any other contact with you?”

“No.”

“He never accosted you on the street, at home, in your office?”

“Never.”

“No phone calls, texts, emails?”

“Nothing at all. Why?”

“Just covering all the bases. Like I said, the more I know, the better. I’ll be in touch.”

The beneficent smile had long since disappeared from Aspern’s face, but the self-interest radiating from those coal-dark eyes was as strong as ever.

30

When Gurney arrived at the doorway of Morgan’s office, he found him pacing, his phone to his ear. He entered and took a seat on one of the two leather couches. The subject of the call was unclear from what Gurney could hear. It consisted mainly of Morgan’s terse responses—yes, no, absolutely, absolutely not.

When the call ended, Morgan glared at the phone as if it were the source of all the pressure in his life. “That was Cam Stryker. County DA. Silas Gant is pressuring her to bundle everything that’s been happening here into one big hate-crime conspiracy and take personal charge of it.”

“Gant is saying the Russell, Kane, and Mason homicides were hate crimes?”

“He’s pointing to the defacing of St. Giles and the three churches over in Bastenburg with those sideways figure eight symbols—calls them ‘battle flags of the armies of hell’—and he claims that the killings were part of that, and it all adds up to an orchestrated attack on religion. Therefore, a vast hate-crime conspiracy.”

“Did Stryker tell him he needed mental-health counseling?”

Morgan looked pained. “I doubt it. Last election was a close one for her. She can’t afford to alienate anyone, especially not someone like Gant.”

“What exactly is her position on this vast-conspiracy nonsense?”

“She wants it to go away. Under normal circumstances, she’d be happy to be seen as a prosecutor of religious hate crimes, defender of the God-fearing, et cetera. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Not only is the logic of the thing nutty, Stryker’s staff is already buried under an avalanche of heroin-fentanyl deaths, some of which appear to be opportunistic murders. Her caseload is twice what it was last year, and that’s double what it was the year before.”

“So what does she want from you?”

“She’s desperate for us to find Tate, announce a motive for the killings that has nothing to do with religion, make sure no more figure eights appear on local churches—and get it all done before Gant can whip this mess up into a political hurricane.”

“Is that all?”

Morgan sighed. “I know, I know. But I can understand the pressure she’s under. Add a religious angle to a murder case, and everybody goes crazy—especially the media. All of a sudden, it’s not just one more homicide in a nation that has fifteen thousand every year, plus seventy thousand drug deaths and half a million tobacco deaths. It’s anti-religious terrorism! Raise an army of the righteous! Beat back the Devil! Send money to Silas Gant!”

He fell silent. The agitation in his eyes had shifted to something that looked like hatred.

A moment later, he blinked as if to erase a dangerous thought, turned to his desk, picked up two sheets of paper, and announced with a sudden change of tone, “We have copies of the texts sent from Billy Tate’s phone—one to Selena Cursen, one to Chandler Aspern. Which do you want to see first?”

“The one he sent first.”

“That’d be the one to Cursen,” said Morgan, coming over to the couch and handing it to him. “The originals from the carrier identify Tate and Cursen only by their cell numbers. We substituted their names for sake of clarity.”

Gurney read the text exchange.

Gurney read it a second time, then a third.

Morgan was watching him closely. “Any reaction?”

“Who’s Raven?”

“She’s like a younger version of Cursen. Lives at her house. A follower or apprentice. Maybe part of a threesome with Cursen and Tate.”

“She was in the village square when Tate fell off the roof?”

“Apparently. I didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean anything. Things were pretty crazy. She probably came to watch him spray that garbage on the steeple.”

“Okay, let me see the text to Aspern.”

This one was terser, but more intriguing. It was a single message with no reply.

Gurney also read this message three times. At first, he had an urge to confront Aspern with it, since the man had just denied ever receiving any messages from Tate. Then he thought of a possible innocent explanation. Aspern could have assumed the oddball message had been sent to the wrong number and ignored it. And perhaps it was, in fact, sent to the wrong number. In any event, there was no solid basis for assuming he’d lied.

Gurney shared these thoughts with Morgan and added, “The text’s intended recipient might be in doubt, but its content points to the existence of an accomplice. Or at least an intended accomplice.”

Morgan nodded. “Someone Tate knew well enough to sign the text with just his initial.”

“Someone,” said Gurney, “who has a phone number similar to Aspern’s, assuming that Tate made a one- or two-digit mistake typing it in.”

As Morgan was considering this, his phone rang. He peered down at the screen. “It’s Gareth Montell, the department’s forensic attorney. He’s meeting with Hilda Russell to go through her brother’s estate documents. I should talk to him.”

“Fine. I want to get back to Aspern and see what he has to say, then talk to Cursen. Can I take these copies of the texts?”

Morgan nodded and took the call from Montell.

Gurney headed next door to the village hall. As he was climbing the porch steps, he encountered Aspern on his way out.

A flash of irritation on the man’s face was replaced by a cool smile.

“Something else, Detective?”

“A question. We’ve managed to retrieve some of Billy Tate’s text messages. This one was sent to your cell number.” He handed the copy to Aspern. “Do you have any recollection of receiving it?”

Aspern studied it, his nose wrinkling as if the message had an unpleasant odor.

“I remember seeing this,” he said after a long moment, handing it back to Gurney. “But I had no idea it came from Tate. I assumed it was sent to me by mistake.”

“Did you call the source number to ask about it?”

“Are you joking? I wouldn’t waste my time on anything like that.”

Aspern made a show of glancing at his Rolex. “I hope that’s helpful.” He flashed an empty smile and hurried past Gurney down the porch steps. He got in the passenger seat of a waiting Mercedes, which immediately pulled away.

Selena Cursen’s house was located in the opposite direction from Waterview Drive, well outside the village of Larchfield—in the center of what Gurney had been told was a state-designated wilderness area where human habitation was restricted to the few widely scattered homes there at the time of the designation.

Wilderness was a good word for it, Gurney agreed as the gravel road took him through a pine forest thick enough to block out all but a few glimpses of the sky. As his GPS led him ever deeper into this dark place, he found himself with an uncomfortable sense of isolation.

He wondered how much of his uneasiness was coming from the echoes in his mind of witchcraft and Satanism and the message written in blood on the walls of the two female victims.

His GPS directed him from the gravel road onto a rougher dirt road, which terminated after another mile at a tall black-iron fence—with an opening too narrow for a car to pass through.

Each upright bar of the fence was topped with a black spearpoint shaped like an ace of spades. Beyond the opening, a stone footpath passed through an expanse of untended grass to a gray three-story Gothic Victorian.

Gurney switched off his engine and watched a flock of crows rising from the grass and settling in the tops of the pines. He took out his copy of Tate’s text to Cursen and read it one more time, searching for inspiration on the best way to approach her.

As he was pondering this, he sensed some motion in front of him. A pale woman in a silky black robe appeared in the fence opening. She had straight black hair, violet eyes, black lipstick, and three silver studs in her lower lip. A polished black cameo of the horned god of witchcraft hung from a silver chain around her neck. Her fingernails were glossy black. Her feet were bare and as pale as her face. The fabric of her robe lay against the contours of her body in a way that suggested it might be all she was wearing.

Gurney restarted his car and backed slowly away from the fence to create more space between them before getting out.

She was watching him, lips slightly parted, with a look that suggested secret knowledge, a sexual fantasy, or a fried brain.

“Hello, Lena,” he said gently, using the name Tate had used in his text.

There was a hint of movement in her eyes, but she said nothing.

“I saw Billy come back to life.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, its pinkness a surprise in the midst of all the black and white and silver. He thought she was about to speak, but she didn’t.

“I saw Billy get out of his coffin. I saw him pick up a handful of knives and walk out into the night. He was definitely alive.”

Her unblinking eyes widened. “Billy’s a willow, and willows love water, and water is life, and life is love.”

“And love is all there is,” said Gurney, trying to match her tone.

“My Dark Angel rose from the dead,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“It must be hard for you,” he said, “not knowing where he is.”

“He’s my Dark Angel who rose from the dead,” she repeated with sudden insistence, tears welling in her eyes.

The tears, more than anything else, told him what he wanted to know. After a long silence, he got his copy of Tate’s text from the front seat of his car, tore off a blank part of the paper, wrote his name and cell number on it, and held it out to her. “If you want to talk to someone about Billy, you can call me.”

At first, she didn’t take it.

Then she did.

31

Back at headquarters, Gurney asked the desk sergeant if there was an empty office he could use. He needed to catch up on the part of the investigation process he liked the least—the paperwork involved in keeping incident reports, witness reports, and progress reports up to date. He had no problem making informal notes on his phone or in his notebook, but he had to push himself to transfer the information to the official case files.

The sergeant pointed him to a small office at the end of the central hallway. He was on his way there when Morgan intercepted him.

He motioned Gurney into his office. “How did it go with Aspern? How did he react when you confronted him with Tate’s text?”

“He said that he saw it, assumed it was sent by mistake, and paid no attention to it. Too busy to be bothered. A credible enough position. No reasonable way to challenge it.”

“Okay. What about Cursen?”

“My impression is that she doesn’t know any more about Tate’s whereabouts than we do. As for the witchcraft business, I think it may be a form of play-­acting—a persona she discovered at some point and got comfortable with. Maybe a way of keeping people at a distance, feeling in control, feeling like she’s connected to something profound. Or at least trying to give that impression. Bottom line, my guess is that she’s a confused girl with an unfortunate attraction to bad boys.”

Morgan looked disappointed. “You don’t think she might be hiding Tate?”

“Not at the moment. She’s obsessed with that Dark-Angel-risen-from-the-dead line in the text he sent her, but I think it’s because she’s afraid he might never come back to her. Underneath the weird getup and otherworldly attitude, I get the impression of sadness, loneliness, maybe fear that her fantasies are collapsing.”

“Jesus, another dead end,” muttered Morgan, sinking down onto one of the couches and rubbing his forehead. “A nutcase kid who was declared dead kills three people, stirs up a media tornado, flushes the image of Larchfield down the toilet, leaves the stinking mess in our laps, and disappears. And tonight Gant stages his ‘revelation tent meeting,’ which is bound to be a rabble-rousing horror show.”

He closed his eyes. Perhaps to make it easier to think. Or not think. When he opened them, he looked pleadingly at Gurney. “We have to find that son of a bitch and put an end to this insanity!”

Gurney ignored Morgan’s overwrought statement of the obvious. “Anything of interest with the lawyer from Angus’s estate?”

“No surprises. The bulk of his wealth—in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty million—goes in roughly equal thirds to Lorinda, Hilda, and Russell College. Plus half a million to Helen Stone and half a million to the Village Square Preservation Society. Montell is pursuing a more precise valuation of the real estate assets, but he’s reasonably confident that the hundred and fifty number will hold up, give or take ten percent. And there’s nothing in the will that benefits Billy Tate—so, whatever his motive was, it wasn’t money. At least not from Angus’s will.”

“Have you heard anything from Brad about the Waterview Drive security cameras?”

“He’d already spoken to the homeowners and gotten the video files for the period you specified. He pulled in a couple of patrol guys to help review them, and he should have a report for us within the hour.”

“Fine. I’ll be updating the Russell, Kane, and Mason case files in the office at the end of the hall.”

Thirty-five minutes later, as Gurney was entering the details of his brief interview with Selena Cursen, Morgan called to tell him that Slovak had arrived with the video file information.

He finished and went to Morgan’s office, where he found the two men already at the conference table. Morgan gave Slovak a nod to proceed.

“We were able to access four security cameras that provide coverage of Waterview Drive. We examined video files for the period from four thirty yesterday afternoon until noon today. Fact number one, no orange Jeep. Fact number two, no driver resembling Billy Tate. Fact number three, none of the vehicles could have stopped at Mary Kane’s cottage.”

Gurney smiled. Maybe Slovak was smarter than he’d given him credit for.

Morgan frowned. “How on earth could you know that none of them stopped?”

Slovak looked eager to explain. “Because one of the cameras is located a mile east of the cottage, and one roughly a mile west of it. There’s an analysis app that measures the speed of objects in the camera’s field of view. And every vehicle that passed the first camera arrived at the second one just about when it should have at its indicated speed. If it stopped anywhere after passing the first camera, the time of its arrival at the second would have been way off.”

Morgan’s frown deepened. “So what are you saying? That Tate, or whoever put the damn message on the wall, came on foot through the woods?”

“Or maybe along the lakeshore, then up through the estate grounds behind the cottage.”

Morgan turned to Gurney. “You agree that he must have come on foot?”

“It’s possible. It’s also possible that he came in the Jeep, but not along Waterview Drive. He could have driven down from Harrow Hill and come out at the intersection across from the cottage.”

It was an obvious possibility, but it was also obvious from the expression on Slovak’s face that he’d already dismissed it. “Nobody lives up there, except Lorinda Russell and Mayor Aspern.”

“True,” said Gurney, “but Greg Mason told me that Harrow Hill is crisscrossed by a network of trails that he keeps mowed and usable. In fact, one of the access points is in back of his house. So it’s possible that Tate could have driven to the cottage that way—without passing any of the cameras on Waterview Drive.”

Slovak rubbed the back of his neck. “But the night he killed Kane and Russell he came along Waterview Drive. Why not this time?”

“The night he killed them, no one was on the lookout for him. But at this point he’d want to minimize the chance of a patrol team spotting him.”

“Sir?” Kyra Barstow was in the office doorway. “I have news from the lab. A DNA match indicates the blood used for the message on Mary Kane’s wall came from Linda Mason. They also found that the blood on the wall contained microscopic traces of the polyurethane used in those little foam paint brushes.”

“Fast results,” said Morgan.

Slovak shifted in his seat. “What about that tire track in front of Kane’s cottage? You have anything on that?”

“Soon,” said Barstow.

Morgan thanked her.

She shot a quick smile at Gurney, stepped back out of the doorway, and disappeared down the hall.

Slovak shrugged. “That blood stuff was pretty much as expected.”

Morgan looked at Gurney. “Any thoughts?”

“Just the obvious one. If Tate did approach the cottage via the Harrow Hill trail system, he must have gone back the same way to wherever he’s hiding out. It would be a good idea to check for security cameras beyond Waterview Drive—on any other roads that might provide access to that trail network. Also, since Tate and his Jeep may be holed up somewhere in the sprawling woods of Harrow Hill itself, a feet-on-the-ground search needs to be organized.”

“Wouldn’t a helicopter be easier?” asked Slovak.

“For some areas, yes. But my impression of Harrow Hill is that most of it lies under a pretty thick cover of pines and hemlocks, with the exception of the area around the Russell mansion. You can check a satellite view to see if I’m right. If I am, the shoe-leather way will be the only way. You might want to download a topographic map and start designing a search grid.”

Slovak glanced at Morgan, and Morgan nodded his agreement.

After Slovak left the office, Gurney suggested to Morgan that he talk to the chief over in Bastenburg, see how many men he could contribute to the effort.

“You really think we’re going to need that kind of manpower?”

“Yes. Unless Tate turns himself in.”

Morgan sighed, then looked at the time on his phone. “Jesus. Six thirty.” He glanced uncertainly at Gurney. “Shall we get something to eat?”

Gurney’s introversion would normally result in a negative response. But he was just hungry enough to say yes. He hadn’t eaten anything all day—with the exception of the two anisette cookies Marika had given him that morning at Abelard’s.

Morgan produced a Chinese restaurant menu from a drawer in his desk. After they made their selections and Morgan phoned them in, they sat across from each other at the table off to the side of Morgan’s desk.

“Important to take time out to eat,” Morgan said after an awkward silence. “We missed quite a few meals back in the day, didn’t we?”

It wasn’t really a question, and Gurney made no effort to reply.

“Strange,” Morgan said after another silence, “how memories seem to come out of nowhere. Happens to me in the morning, when I’m still half-asleep. Vivid memories of things I hadn’t thought about in years.” He uttered an abrupt little laugh. “Jesus, remember Fat Frank?”

“That’s who you woke up thinking about today?” Gurney’s aversion to reminiscing gave his response a less-than-pleasant tone.

“No, no, I just happened to think of him now. This morning I woke up thinking about the first homicide case we worked on together. Remember that one?”

“Not immediately.”

“The guy who imported jockstraps from Vietnam. George Hockenberry.”

Gurney nodded. His lack of enthusiasm did nothing to dampen Morgan’s.

“And the guy who supposedly shot him—the guy with all the rug stores, Kip Kleiburn. The Carpet King. Open-and-shut case against Kleiburn. Until you got hold of it.” He nodded with a distant smile. “Those were the days, eh?”

Nostalgia was Gurney’s least favorite state of mind. He pointedly changed the subject.

“What time tonight is that Silas Gant gathering?”

“Eight thirty. When it’s starting to get dark. He likes fireworks.”

“Fireworks?”

“You’ll see.”

32

The venue for Gant’s “revelation tent meeting” was a rectangular, wooden-fenced field that had the scruffy look of a former pasture. Several lengths of fencing had been removed to allow vehicles to enter. Scores of cars and pickup trucks were parked around the perimeter of the field, and more were arriving. Morgan and Gurney each parked near the entry-exit opening.

The “tent” was a tarp-like canopy erected over a set of theatrical risers at the far end of the field. A podium stood on the top riser. To its left was an American flag on a gold-painted pole and to its right a gold-painted cross of equal height. On the front of the podium was a carving of two rifles with intersecting barrels.

Morgan got out of the Tahoe, and Gurney watched as he headed up behind the row of vehicles to a Larchfield patrol car and bent over to talk to the driver. Gurney went the other way, to a spot by the rear fence with a view of the whole field.

A large part of the audience, which he estimated at roughly three hundred, was already seated in informal rows of lawn chairs on either side of a central aisle that led from the rear of the field to the makeshift stage. They were universally white, mostly older, and, unlike many church congregations, mostly male. Groups of younger men stood smoking, talking, and drinking from beer cans by the parked pickups. Swarms of ragged little boys were running here and there, shouting and colliding with each other. The colors of sunset had faded away, dusk was deepening, a restless breeze was rising, and the sweet scent of mown grass was competing with the exhaust fumes of late-arriving vehicles.

Gurney was about to call Madeleine, to give her a rough idea when he’d be arriving home, when a low rumble out on the road diverted his attention. As it grew louder, the audience began looking back toward the source, and the murmur of their voices grew more excited. The rumble increased to a roar as a procession of motorcycles turned from the road into the central aisle of the seating area.

Gurney counted twelve of the heavyweight machines proceeding up the aisle toward the stage. The procession split as it reached the stage, with six machines turning right and six turning left. A thirteenth rider—this one in a shiny white leather riding suit—came slowly up the aisle and took the center position, setting off a burst of cheering from the crowd. It was Silas Gant, his gray pompadour unruffled by the breeze.

The crowd fell into an anticipatory silence. A few moments later a loud whoosh accompanied the fiery path of a rocket racing up into the sky, where it burst into a red-white-and-blue approximation of an American flag while the sound system blared an arena-style rendition of “God Bless America.” The crowd applauded as Gant stepped up onto the risers and took his position at the podium, illuminated by a pair of spotlights.

“God bless America!” he cried, generating a reprise of the applause that had just ended.

“God save this threatened nation of ours,” he continued. “That is the calling that brings us together on this beautiful night, at this critical moment in the history of our country. Our country! We have come together tonight to share our vision, to claim our rights, to send our message to the degenerates in high places conspiring to turn our precious homeland into a foreign garbage dump. The degenerates in the media—the corrupt, depraved media—who glorify every kind of perversion. The degenerates who laugh at our religion, our Bible, our God. The degenerates who want to strip us of our God-given, Constitution-guaranteed right to bear arms. The degenerate LGBTQ promoters who connive to turn innocent children into freaks. You know what those letters stand for? They stand for ‘Leave God Behind and Turn Queer.’ They are the initials of perdition! The alphabet of the demons of hell!”

He took out a large white handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face before going on with rising intensity. “When I say the demons of hell, that’s exactly what I mean. The purveyors of evil have insinuated themselves into high places. Perched like vultures on their mountains of filth, they look down on God-fearing folks like you and me. Proud in the putrefaction of their souls, they look down on us and laugh the laughter of demons!” His voice, which had risen to a sustained shout, cracked. He stepped back from the podium microphone to clear his throat.

When he spoke again, it was with less volume but no less emotion. “My fellow Americans, we come here tonight with our sacred land, our sacred rights, our sacred traditions under siege. All that we hold dear to our hearts is under assault by socialists, sodomites, and Satanists. The signs of the End Times are visible to all who have eyes to see. Look at the fires and floods ravaging the corrupt state of California, successor to Gomorrah, hotbed of every kind of anti-Christian iniquity. The Lord in his wrath is giving us a call to action. He will not purify America without our assistance. This is the word that the Lord has spoken to me. He invites us, he summons us, to join him in the great battle ahead. He calls us to enlist in his army—to be the vehicles of his word, his power, and his fire.”

Gant paused, out of breath, and again wiped the sweat from his face. Then he leaned into the podium, his closeness to the microphone giving his voice a throatier intimacy. “Even as I speak, a devil stalks us—right here in our own hills and valleys—a devil in the body of a man risen from the dead. Creeping through these dark woods. Cutting throats. Defiling churches. Leaving his foul words, dripping with blood, on the walls of his victims. But with the gun and cross we will beat back the Prince of Darkness. We will bear arms into the great battle and save our country from perdition. Join us in the mighty Church of the Patriarchs. With gun and cross we stand for God and country.”

After a dramatic pause, Gant pulled the microphone from the podium and strode to the edge of the top riser. “With gun and cross, we’ll beat the demons down!” he cried. Then, tilting his ear toward the crowd, he asked, “What’ll we do?”

The crowd responded. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

Once again he asked, “What’ll we do?”

They responded, louder this time. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

He asked a third time, “What’ll we do?”

They responded even louder. “With gun and cross we’ll beat the demons down!”

With his white leather riding suit gleaming in the spotlights, Gant extended his arms in a triumphant embrace of the whole crowd and shouted, “God bless America!”

The crowd rose to its feet with applause that continued until the last of the thirteen motorcycles had passed down the center aisle and disappeared into the night.

33

By the time Gurney got home it was past ten thirty. Madeleine was already in bed. He drank two glasses of water while trying to decide whether to stay up or go to bed. After checking his email and finding nothing but fundraising appeals and a notice for his thirtieth college reunion, he opted for going to bed.

Although his body seemed eager for sleep, his mind was reviewing events of the day. Recurring images included the bloody Dark Angel message on Mary Kane’s wall . . . the glint in Hilda Russell’s eyes when she mentioned her namesake’s power over snakes . . . Selena Cursen’s tear-filled eyes . . . Aspern offering him Mike Morgan’s job . . . the “dead man has a plan” message Aspern received from Tate but supposedly ignored . . . Silas Gant’s promise of victory by the gun and the cross . . . the long roar of applause from his followers.

The recollected din of that cheering crowd gave Gurney a chill. Or maybe it was the breeze from the wide-open window next to the bed. As he reached down to pull up his side of the blanket, he was surprised by Madeleine’s wide-awake voice.

“What are you wrestling with?”

“I don’t have a firm enough grip on the situation to wrestle with it.”

“Do you feel like you’re making progress?”

“I’m accumulating facts, but they’re not forming anything like a coherent picture.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“On one hand, there’s a simple story. Billy Tate revives from near death with a desire to kill the man responsible for putting him in prison. On his way to do this, he is recognized by two women, one of whom he kills. Two nights later, he kills a woman who put him in a juvenile detention center when he was a teenager. He leaves a trail of occult symbols and messages in blood. Then he vanishes.”

“Sounds awful, but somewhat coherent.”

“The thing is, I’m having a hard time putting together a picture of Billy Tate. One Billy Tate is a hotheaded, impulsive kid spray-painting crazy symbols on a church steeple in the middle of a thunderstorm. The other is a cool, premeditating murderer who killed three people, each with a single, precise slash with a scalpel.”

“Haven’t you encountered other murderers with conflicting characteristics?”

“If it was just that, it wouldn’t be bothering me so much. But there’s a world of ugliness surrounding the three murders. It may be coincidental, but I don’t think it is.”

“Ugliness?”

“Stories about Angus Russell—allegations that he arranged for some of his enemies to ‘disappear.’ Mike Morgan has a complicated history with him, and he’s giving off a jumpy, guilty vibe. The man’s always had an anxiety problem, but this is on another level.”

“Is there more?”

“Plenty more. Russell’s definitely-not-grieving widow is as far from warm as a human being can be. And there’s his sister, a pastor who seems to despise everyone. And Billy Tate’s alcoholic stepmother, who was replaced in Billy’s bed by a vulnerable young woman who’s a make-believe witch. Not to mention a local mayor with financial reasons for wanting Russell dead. And I have the feeling I’m only scratching the surface of Larchfield’s nastiness.”

“You think all of that is connected to the three murders?”

As he considered the question, the screech of an owl in the nearby thicket pierced the silence. Another chilly breeze came through the window.

“I don’t know yet what’s connected to what, but I’m sure there’s more to this case than a crazy kid settling scores.”

Gurney closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind by concentrating on the soft rustling of the trees. Whenever the echo of Gant’s words intruded, he tried to bring his attention back to the gentler sounds of the breeze.

“Maybe he has an accomplice.” Madeleine’s now-sleepy voice dispelled both Gant and nature. “That could explain why you’re having trouble getting a unified sense of who he is.”

A few minutes later he could tell by the way she was breathing that she’d fallen asleep.

But the possibilities her comment raised kept him awake another hour. It gave a new dimension to Tate’s text to Aspern. It also gave extra weight to the notion that Tate and his orange Jeep might be hiding on Harrow Hill. Aspern’s casual dismissal of the text as something sent to him by mistake had been convincing, but being convincing was the basic talent of all effective liars.

The notion of a Tate-Aspern alliance seemed a stretch but not impossible. It certainly merited further exploration. That was his last conscious thought before he drifted off to sleep.

When he was awakened suddenly by Madeleine gripping his arm, it was near dawn, but the moon had moved behind a cloud bank and the room was darker.

“What was that?” There was an edge of fear in her voice.

Her tone had him fully awake.

For a long moment he heard nothing but the susurrus of the breeze in the thicket. Then he was stopped cold by a high-pitched howl. He was familiar with the howls and yips of coyotes, but this was more piercing, fading at the end into something like a demented laugh. This was no mere coyote, and the nearest wolves, even if one could produce such a sound, were over a hundred miles away in the northern Adirondacks.

He rolled out of bed and picked up the powerful LED flashlight he kept on his nightstand.

Madeleine sat up on her side of the bed. “I think it came from the low pasture.”

Gurney’s hearing was normal, but hers was extraordinary, and he’d learned to trust it. He went to the side of the house that looked down over the pasture, the barn, and the pond. There was enough moonlight filtering through the clouds for him to get a sense of the open parts of the landscape. He saw nothing moving. He was tempted to use his flashlight to scan the border of the woods, but decided not to. Before he announced his presence, he wanted to know what he was dealing with.

After peering out of the windows on all sides of the house, he returned to the bedroom, where he found Madeleine locking the windows. He put on a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, took his 9mm Beretta from the top drawer of his nightstand, and slipped it into his sweatshirt pocket.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Taking a quick look around.”

“Be careful!”

He left the house as quietly as he could, closing the side door gently behind him. Instead of taking the path through the pasture, he entered the narrow copse that separated the high pasture from the low one and followed it down toward the pond and barn. The moon was slowly emerging from the edge of the cloud cover. Bathed now in a silver light, the hillside seemed preternaturally quiet, focusing Gurney on the sound of each step he took.

When he reached the pond, there was a silver gleam on the black surface. The frogs, usually croaking at all hours of the night, were silent. He stood for a minute or two in the relative darkness under the drooping branches of a giant hemlock, letting his gaze move around the perimeter of the pond, then over to the end of the town road, then across to the barn.

On the wide door of the barn something caught his eye.

He removed the Beretta from his pocket and flicked off the safety. He moved cautiously from under the hemlock and approached the barn.

He was still a good fifty feet from the barn door when, in the brightening moonlight, he saw what he’d been hoping he’d never see again.

When he reached the door, he switched on his flashlight. The painted letters were a deep red; their distinctive tackiness told him the blood had been applied very recently.

There were two doors to the barn—this large one that permitted him to move his tractor in and out, and a normal entry door. He went to that second one now, quietly turned the knob, then kicked it open, sweeping the flashlight beam across the interior, holding his Beretta in firing position.

Satisfied that the barn wasn’t harboring Tate or anyone else, he stepped out, closed the door, hurried back up to the house, and made a call to police headquarters in Larchfield for the evidence team to go over the site ASAP. It was out of their jurisdiction, but involving the local police in an incident clearly tied to the Larchfield case would make no sense.

34

The morning sun, now well above the ridge in a cloudless blue sky, was illuminating the blossoms on the old apple tree by the chicken coop and turning droplets of dew on the grass into dazzling pinpoints of light.

He and Madeleine were sitting at the round pine breakfast table, each with a mug of coffee. He had opened the French doors to let in the morning air, and Madeleine had closed them. They had hardly spoken since he’d insisted that she leave the house and stay with a friend, at least for the next couple of days, or until the evident threat had been neutralized.

It was not the first time a lunatic had invaded their lives. Everything that could be said about it had been said on the previous occasion. All that remained now on Madeleine’s part was a grim resignation. On Gurney’s part, a sense of guilt that he’d allowed this to happen again alternated with what he considered a realistic acceptance of the nature of his career. It is what it is—in the words of a popular saying that struck him as both profound and inane.

His focus now was on logistics and the minimization of risk. His plan was to drive Madeleine with a suitcase of clothes and other essentials to Geraldine Mirkle’s house on the other side of Walnut Crossing. She and Gerry shared the same schedule at the mental health clinic and usually drove there together. And Gerry was an extrovert who always welcomed company, especially Madeleine’s—a fact confirmed by her immediate affirmative reply when Madeleine had called to ask for the favor.

Madeleine went to take a shower and pack her things, and Gurney went down to the barn to touch base with Kyra Barstow, who’d been working there for the past hour with one of her techs.

“I took a scraping for DNA,” she said, pointing to the message. “And we found a couple of shoe prints in the damp ground in front of the door—I’m thinking from the same sneakers that left prints at the mortuary. No indication that he was inside the barn.”

He nodded. “Are you checking for vehicle tread marks?”

“Already done.” She pulled out her phone and swiped back and forth between two shots of tread marks in soft earth. “The first is from the road in front of the Kane cottage, the second is from right over there.” She pointed to an area next to the barn where there was more dirt than grass. The tread marks appeared to be identical.

“Best of all,” she added, “there’s a double impression here, one from each side of the vehicle—which gives us the exact axle width, which with any luck may give us the make and model of the car, or at least narrow the possibilities considerably.”

“Interesting,” said Gurney. “He’s not shy about leaving his little calling cards.”

“Or his big ones.” She gestured toward the bloody message on the door. “Did you hear or see anything suspicious last night?”

“Just before dawn this morning, we heard a god-awful howling—shriller, louder, more intense than any coyote or wolf. Like something out of a horror movie. Now I’m pretty sure it was him, wanting to make an impression.”

“He didn’t think a bloody message about rising from the dead was enough?”

Gurney smiled. “We’ll ask him when we catch him.”

After taking another look around the barn and finding nothing out of place, Gurney returned to the house. While he was waiting for Madeleine to finish packing, he checked the locks on all the windows, upstairs and downstairs, and the French doors.

When they finally set out, he mentioned to Madeleine that he needed to make a quick stop at Miro’s Motors, their local auto repair shop, to have something looked at. It was a sign of her preoccupation that this generated no response.

Gurney wanted to make sure that whoever had left the message on the barn hadn’t also affixed a GPS tracker to the Outback. The best way to examine the undercarriage was to have it raised on a lift so that all the nooks and crannies would be visible.

Miro—short for Miroslav—was an immigrant of mixed Slavic background who had taken over the Walnut Crossing auto shop around the same time the Gurneys had moved up from the city. A bone-thin man with a lined face and a sad smile, he had a penchant for a kind of sweetly pessimistic philosophizing that Madeleine found charming.

He was sweeping out one of the shop’s two service bays as Gurney pulled into the parking area and lowered his window. He ambled over, broom in hand. “Your name is on the news this morning. I hear them say it, about crazy crimes up north. You’re not a retired man anymore?”

Gurney wondered if the leaking of his involvement to the media had been accidental or intentional—and if intentional, with what intent. “I’m mostly retired. But not always.”

Miro looked past Gurney to Madeleine. “Your husband famous guy, right? Big detective for big crimes. Like movie star, but better, because movie star only pretends to be big man.”

Madeleine’s expression suggested that however famous her husband might be, being driven from her home by a madman made it difficult to be thrilled by his fame.

Miro went on. “My country, no good to trust police.” He looked like he was about to spit, but thought better of it. “Here much better. Police like anyone, but mostly they’re not criminals.” He smiled his sad smile. “So, Detective, what can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you could take a quick look at the underside of our car. Every once in a while there’s a rattle, and I’m afraid something might fall off.”

Outside of undercover work, he wasn’t fond of making things up. However, sharing his concern about a possible GPS tracker seemed an unnecessary complication, not to mention an extra cause of worry for Madeleine. And while Miro was searching for things that might rattle, Gurney could join him under the car and check for suspicious devices.

“Cars with things starting to fall off usually not look so good as this.” He shrugged. “But pull car inside, we check.”

Madeleine got out and announced she’d be in the little park adjacent to the shop.

Once the car had been raised on the hydraulic lift, Gurney and Miro engaged in their separate inspections. After another minute or two of poking around the undercarriage, Miro announced, “You got good car. Nothing falling off. Maybe vibration. Very hard to find vibration. Next time for oil change, we go out on the road, drive, listen. For now, okay.”

Gurney had also come to a satisfactory conclusion regarding his own inspection. He took out his wallet. “Thank you, Miro. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing, please.”

“You should be paid for your time.”

“I am paid all the time. You are good customers. No charge, please.”

After dropping Madeleine off, he headed north to Larchfield.

On the way, he placed a call to Morgan, got his voicemail, and left a message asking him to have the warrant for Tate’s phone records expanded from the five-day text-retention window to include all calls made in the last ninety days, partly as a fishing expedition for contacts, partly to see if he’d made other calls to Aspern.

This message was the first subject Morgan raised when Gurney arrived at headquarters. “Where are you heading with this expanded warrant thing?”

“Probably nowhere. Due diligence, et cetera.”

“You’re not planning to pursue a warrant for Aspern’s call records, too, are you?”

“Not unless Tate’s records reveal texts or conversations that Aspern failed to mention.”

Morgan took a labored breath. “Let’s just be careful we don’t jump to any conclusions.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of the mayor, there’s a one o’clock lunch meeting in the village hall. The board is having a meltdown over the media coverage of the ‘Larchfield zombie’—plus the way Gant stirred up his followers out in that field last night.”

“Enjoy it.”

“Christ, Dave, I need you to help me navigate this. Your being in the room will calm them down.”

“After what I found on my barn door this morning, I’m not in a mood to calm anyone down.”

“Barstow’s out there, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Has she found anything other than the message?”

“Sneaker prints and tire tracks. Maybe they’ll lead somewhere, maybe not.”

“What the hell is Tate trying to do?”

“Ratchet up the panic level? Draw attention to himself? Distract us?”

“Distract us from what?”

“Maybe from the real purpose of the murders. But don’t ask me what that might be.”

“You really think this craziness has a purpose?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“Jesus.” Morgan stared at Gurney in a state of obvious mental overload, then glanced again at his watch. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

With mixed feelings, Gurney accompanied him to the village hall. The cast of characters at the conference table was the same as the previous morning, with one missing—Harmon Gossett, the village attorney. Fallow and Peale had chosen seats as far from each other as possible, as had Aspern and Hilda Russell.

A lunch buffet had been set up, along with a coffee urn. Most of the meeting attendees were focused on their sandwiches or salads. Neither Morgan nor Gurney visited the buffet. With an awkward smile, Morgan took a seat facing Aspern. Gurney sat next to Morgan.

“We should get started,” said Aspern with a sour glance around the table. “Since yesterday, the situation has gotten worse. Not only do we still have a throat-slashing lunatic on the loose, we are the target of the most unfair media coverage imaginable.” He looked down the table at Carmody. “Martin, I hope to God you can help us reverse the tide before the world starts thinking ‘Larchfield’ is the name of a horror movie.”

“We’re doing all we can, Chandler. Immediately after this meeting, I want to record Chief Morgan delivering a positive statement about the progress he’s making. I’ve already written a preliminary draft. We want every internet, cable, and network news provider to have the video in hand for the next news cycle. Stern, confident, solid hand on the tiller. That’s our message.”

“Good,” said Aspern. “Now, I want you all to see a god-awful program that ran last night on RAM-TV. By this morning it had spread to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter.” He directed everyone’s attention to a screen set into the conference room wall, a larger version of the one at police headquarters. “It’s called Crimes Beyond Reason. I have our attorney looking into a possible lawsuit.”

Aspern tapped an icon on his phone and the screen on the wall came to life. After a typical RAM sequence of pulsating title graphics, the program began with a doctored video of Tate on the church roof. Eerie music had been added. There were more frequent flashes in the night sky and louder claps of thunder than in the original, and when Tate was struck by the final bolt of lightning, his tumble from the roof was shown in slow motion.

When Tate hit the ground, the scene shifted to Karl Kasak in front of the church, wearing the same safari jacket Gurney remembered from the program promo on RAM News. He was speaking with the intensity of a reporter in a war zone.

“I’m Karl Kasak, here where Billy Tate, a practitioner of witchcraft, plunged to his death—a death certified by the official medical examiner. Tate’s body was taken to a mortuary and placed, at the strange request of his stepmother, in a sealed coffin. Hours later, Billy Tate burst out of that coffin and began the bloody rampage people here are calling ‘the zombie murders.’ Did Tate experience a miraculous revival? Or has he become what investigators of the macabre call ‘one of the walking dead’?”

Kasak paused to let his audience absorb that question before going on in the same dramatic tone.

“I spent today talking to area residents, learning how they feel about the nightmare that’s engulfed their town—as well as to experts on the effects of lightning and to probers of the paranormal. Prepare to be shocked!”

The scene switched to a close-up of a twentysomething man with a thin mustache and big designer-frame glasses. He was identified on-screen as JASON HARKER, LARCHFIELD RESIDENT. From the background, it looked like the scene had been recorded in the village square.

Harker spoke directly to the camera. “I remember Billy from high school. The way he’d look at you sometimes . . . you’d think, whatever’s on his mind, it’s not good. He carried one of those knives, you flick your wrist, blade flips out. That look and that knife made you want to back away. Fast.”

Kasak’s next interviewee was a bullet-headed man with small eyes, a boxer’s flat nose, and a purple birthmark on his shaved head. He was wearing a white tee shirt and a black leather vest. The screen identified him as ROBERT “BOB” STENGEL, PLUMBING CONTRACTOR. He had the hoarse voice of a longtime smoker.

“How do I feel? Like an animal feels before an earthquake. This kid in the coffin, you know what it makes me think of? That horror movie with the hand shooting up out of the grave. That’s what’s happening in the world today, evil coming up around us. Reverend Gant’s got it right. Time to lock and load.”

According to the identifying line at the bottom of the screen, the next interviewee was ARTHUR BUNZMAN, RETIRED EXECUTIVE. He had a narrow face, long nose, and thinning gray hair. He looked to Gurney like he’d just walked out of a photograph of the Nazis at Nuremberg.

As if responding to Robert “Bob” Stengel’s call to arms, he said, “I’m ready. I’ve taken the steps the situation demands for my family’s protection and to set an example. When the days of disorder arrive, woe betide the fool who is unprepared. There’s no spot in my home where I cannot, within the space of three paces, lay my hand on a loaded firearm.”

Next up was MICHAEL KRACKOWER, MALWARE CONSULTANT, a gimlet-­eyed fast talker. The white lettering on his black tee shirt said TRUST NO ONE. He claimed that the events in Larchfield were the tip of a vast iceberg, that Billy Tate’s return to life was linked to CIA experiments with “resurrection drugs,” that artificial-intelligence life-forms were infiltrating the media, and that malignant government forces were manipulating the weather, the stock market, and the avocado industry. He said that the police department reference to three murders was an obvious lie, the truth being at least triple that.

The next three contributors described post-resurrection sightings of Tate in which his body was smoldering, he was urinating a shower of sparks, and he was speaking in tongues.

Kasak appeared again with the facade of St. Giles behind him. “Wow! What a frightening picture we’re getting of Billy Tate, the Larchfield Slasher, before and after that fateful lightning bolt—which we’ll hear about now from Dr. Elmer Bird, a leading researcher on the mind-blowing effects lightning can have on the human psyche.”

Bird, an octogenarian in a rumpled white shirt, tilting red bow tie, and thick glasses, sat behind a desk. “You ask me about what lightning could do.” He sniffled loudly and cleared his throat. “A lot, I’ll say. First, it could kill you. Burn you, blind you, paralyze you. Tremendous voltage. The power to reorganize the electrochemistry of the brain, or destroy it completely. Not frequent, once in a while, this has effects we cannot imagine.”

Kasak was back on the screen. “There you have it. Scientific information. We still have some big unanswered questions. We’ll be taking a deep dive into those questions in the next installment of Crimes Beyond Reason—when we’ll be joined by the controversial Mars Brothers, Clinton and Delbert, who’ve achieved worldwide fame as zombie hunters! Now, here’s a frightening image I want to leave you with—the message Billy Tate left in the homes of two female victims. Some say the message was meant for them. Some say it was intended for all of us. Take a look . . . and pray that it doesn’t give you nightmares.

The image that came into focus on the screen, accompanied by horror-movie music, was the message on Mary Kane’s living room wall:

The entire screen turned blood-red. With a succession of drumbeats, it faded to black. An announcer’s voice intoned, “RAM-TV. We deliver reality.”

Aspern tapped an icon on his phone, and the screen went blank. He slammed his hand down on the table. “That video of the Dark Angel claptrap on the victim’s wall—I want to know who leaked that to Kasak. If we can’t keep control of something like that, what can we control?”

Irate mutterings of agreement went around the table.

Aspern aimed his next question at Morgan. “Crime-scene photos—they’re taken by people who report to you. Am I right?”

Morgan nodded.

“And they’re shared on an as-needed basis with people who report to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then someone who reports to you must be the damn leaker.”

“I suppose that’s . . . possible.”

“Possible?! It sounds like an obvious conclusion!”

Morgan shifted in his chair and cleared his throat.

Gurney had an aversion to triangulating a confrontation, but a greater aversion to the bullying arrogance in Aspern’s voice. He spoke up calmly. “It’s not that obvious.”

Aspern glared at the challenge. “What are you talking about?”

“What makes you so sure that the leaked video is the one the police took at the scene?”

“Well, who the hell else . . .” Aspern’s angry tone faded, as it evidently dawned on him that the limb he was out on was fragile. “Are you saying someone else had access to the scene?”

Gurney waited patiently.

Hilda Russell leaned forward. “Chandler, for goodness’ sake, isn’t it obvious?”

Aspern looked like he’d regurgitated something bitter. “You’re saying the leaked video may have come from Billy Tate?”

Gurney nodded. “Kyra Barstow documented the message on the wall with individual photos, not a motion video.”

Aspern rechanneled his anger. “So, what the hell is Tate up to?”

“He wants attention,” said Gurney. “And apparently knows how to get it.”

“Speaking of attention,” interjected Hilda Russell, looking down the table toward Morgan, “I’m wondering if our police department has the resources to give these multiple murders the attention they require. Are you any closer to making an arrest today than you were yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that?”

In Gurney’s opinion, the honest answer to the question would be no. Instead, Morgan sidled around it like a politician. “Right now, Hilda, we’re focusing on a locale where Tate may be holed up. We’ve got ten extra officers coming over from Bastenburg to join our guys in a major sweep of the Harrow Hill area.”

Aspern leaned forward. “What do you mean by major—”

Russell cut him off. “That’s fine, as far as it goes. But don’t you think it might be time to bring in the state police, the sheriff’s department, the DA’s office? There’s expertise and manpower out there that we’re not taking advantage of.”

Once again Morgan was looking squirmy. “There are control issues, Hilda. Once the state police come in, they run the show. They have their own priorities and couldn’t care less about Larchfield’s reputation.”

She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “From what I see in the news, we don’t have a reputation left to worry about. What matters is having the proper resources to bring this tragedy to a proper conclusion. I say bring them in.”

Morgan blinked, then sighed.

Aspern took advantage of the silence to pursue his own question to Morgan. “What do you mean by ‘a major sweep’—and why the focus on Harrow Hill?”

“Some security camera videos we retrieved suggest that Tate may be using that area as a base for his movements. We believe that sealing it off and combing through it, foot by foot, is our best option at the moment.”

Aspern looked troubled but said nothing.

“How long do you see this taking?” asked Russell.

Morgan turned up his palms. “Hard to say. It’s a lot of ground to cover, hundreds of acres. I’m thinking at least forty-eight hours, with teams working around the clock.”

“So, two more days? With no guarantee of success?” She shook her head. “I don’t think it makes sense to wait that long, not with state police resources just a phone call away. Suppose Tate strikes again? Then what?”

Morgan sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, Hilda, I really do. Maybe I can prevail on Bastenburg for more feet on the ground, push harder, complete the search in twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If we can wrap this up without surrendering control to an agency with no stake in—”

She cut him off. “Chandler, where do you stand on this?”

Aspern took so long to answer, he seemed not to have heard the question.

“I’m not happy about it, but giving the local department another thirty-six hours seems preferable to punting the ball to the state.” He glanced around the table. “Any serious objections?”

The question was answered with shrugs. Then Martin Carmody suggested that Morgan should issue a statement to the effect that the investigation was entering a new phase, with a breakthrough expected at any time. Speaking up for the first time, Peale endorsed the idea of giving Morgan another thirty-six hours. After a short silence the meeting was adjourned.

Gurney approached Hilda Russell. “Can I speak to you for a minute?”

She led the way out of the building to a wrought iron bench in the village square park, next to a flowering crab apple tree. The afternoon sun was warm on the bench.

“So, what’s on your mind?” she asked.

“I noted your eagerness to bring in the cavalry.”

“Indeed.”

“Does that reflect a desire to expand the investigation? Or bring it to a close?”

She shrugged. “Maybe both.”

“Are you concerned that something is being overlooked?”

“Human beings tend to overlook things. A common failing, don’t you think?”

“Especially when overlooking them is advantageous.”

Russell smiled.

A soft breeze carried the spring scent of grass and moist earth, adding an incongruous tranquility to a conversation about murder.

Gurney mirrored her smile. “We could save some time if you’d tell me what you think is being overlooked.”

“I’m not clairvoyant. I just feel that the focus of the local police may be excessively narrow.”

“Are you saying your brother’s murder might be more complicated than it seems?”

“I’m saying that Larchfield’s flowery meadows are full of snakes. And my late brother was very much at home here.”

35

Gurney’s way home that afternoon passed through the east end of Walnut Crossing, coming within a quarter mile of Geraldine Mirkle’s house. He decided to stop and see if Madeleine needed anything and perhaps allay some of the fear the situation would naturally be causing.

When he pulled into the driveway behind Gerry’s yellow VW Beetle, he spotted them behind the house in a gazebo bedecked with baskets of petunias. The sight set off a momentary flashback to the petunias that were part of the savage conclusion of the White River murder case. He pushed that gruesome scene out of his mind and headed over to the gazebo.

They were sitting on opposite sides of a small table that supported a Scrabble board and a pitcher of iced tea. Gerry Mirkle was the first to speak.

“Good news or bad news?”

“Not much of either one.” He tried for a casual smile. “I was passing by and thought I’d drop in for a minute. Who’s winning?”

“Gerry, as usual,” said Madeleine. “Where are you coming from?”

“Lovely Larchfield.”

Her lips tightened. “Do you feel like you’re getting any closer to . . . ending this?”

“There’s a major manhunt underway right now, with a good chance of success.”

Neither woman appeared convinced.

“Is there anything you ladies want from the village?”

Gerry shook her head.

“No,” said Madeleine.

“Or from the house?”

“No. Just look in on the chickens. I think they have enough food and water, but it’s worth checking. And please be careful.”

“Right.” He kissed the top of her head, nodded to Gerry, and returned to his car.

The route to the Gurney property out in the western hills went through the center of Walnut Crossing. It was hard to tell whether the sad condition of the upstate economy was more accurately reflected in the vacant storefronts or in those occupied by the shabby businesses that had survived—selling discount cigarettes, secondhand clothing, used furniture, lottery tickets, and junk food. The only enterprises that seemed on a solid enough footing to keep up appearances were the hospital and the funeral parlor.

Fifteen minutes later, Gurney was parked in front of his barn. The grass was in need of mowing—a reminder of how difficult he found it to balance the domestic and detective sides of his life. He decided to deal with the grass while it was on his mind. Then, as he was about to get the mower out of the barn, he was struck by the aggressive ugliness of the bloody statement on the door. The urge to do something about that first pushed the mowing plan aside.

He figured the simplest remedy would be a quick sanding and repainting of the defaced area. Barstow had already taken photographs and surface scrapings for analysis, so there was no evidence-preservation issue, and he had the materials on hand in his workshop in the barn.

Half an hour later, the job was done. His painting could have been neater, but at least the creepy message had been covered. He checked his watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He hadn’t bothered to eat anything at Aspern’s lunchtime meeting, and he was hungry, but he decided to inspect the barn area before it fell into the shade of the tall cherry trees.

He walked a gradually expanding spiral route around the structure, just as he’d done at countless other crime scenes. He found nothing of interest until he came to the tread marks Barstow had made impressions of that morning.

The fact that the combination of the two tread patterns and the distance between them might identify the make and model of the car had Gurney itchy for a status report. Although he was pretty sure that Barstow would notify him promptly if anything useful turned up, he called her anyway. He reached her voicemail and left a message.

Then he drove up through the low pasture to the house, intent on getting something to eat—and making sure the chickens had enough food and water.

He discovered they had plenty of both. He took a few minutes to clean off their perches, air out the coop, and put down a few handfuls of fresh straw before going into the house. After getting a pot of water boiling and adding some pasta, he took a shower and put on fresh jeans and a polo shirt. He returned to the kitchen, drained the pasta, added some butter and leftover asparagus, and carried a bowl of it to the café table outside the French doors.

The slanting rays of the early-evening sun were pleasantly warm on his back. The grass between the patio and the chicken coop was a brilliant green. The yellow strings that Madeleine had used to lay out her plan for a shed alongside the coop were swaying in a gentle breeze. Barn swallows were swooping overhead in pursuit of insects. Chipmunks were gathering seeds from under the finch feeders. The harshness of the day was fading into the background.

His sense of peace was ended by a panicky call from Morgan.

“Another episode of that damn Karl Kasak show is scheduled for ten o’clock tonight. There’s a preview segment on the RAM website now. I’m trying to reach Harmon Gossett to see if we can get it killed. We’ve got to do something about this before it buries us.”

“Good luck with Gossett.”

“Right. I’ve got another call I need to take. Talk to you later.”

After finishing his dinner and making himself a cup of coffee, Gurney went into the den, opened his laptop, and went to the RAM website. In the “Streaming Previews” section he found Crimes Beyond Reason and clicked on the current date.

After a two-minute commercial, Kasak appeared in front of the Gothic iron gate of a cemetery. He spoke in a tense, hushed tone.

“I’m here among the dead of Larchfield, New York—an appropriately chilling location for my meeting with Clinton and Delbert Mars, self-styled zombie hunters, drawn here by the terrifying events of the past week. You may think of zombies as creatures found only in horror movies. I asked the Mars brothers if that’s true. What they told me may shock you.”

The screen was filled with a close-up of two overweight, bearded men, side by side in front of a marble mausoleum. They spoke alternately, one sentence each, like twins accustomed to finishing each other’s thoughts.

“The idea that the walking dead are creatures of fiction is just about the biggest lie the government wants us to swallow.”

“Like telling us that UFOs are weather balloons.”

“Truth is, the walking dead are real as you and me.”

“As real as Billy Tate, and just as hard to kill.”

“A zombie can’t be killed at all, if you don’t know how to do it.”

“More likely, you’d be the one to get killed.”

“Ninety-nine percent more likely.”

“Most folks don’t even know where zombies come from.”

“Because they don’t see it happening.”

“They don’t see the lightning that makes it happen.”

“And mostly it happens in cemeteries.”

“When lightning strikes a grave or a mausoleum.”

“And brings the dead back to life.”

“A kind of life that draws strength from taking the lives of others.”

“The more they kill, the stronger they get.”

“Like Billy Tate, they kill to stay alive.”

“But we know their weakness.”

“We can send them back to hell, which is where they were, before they rose up.”

“By fire they rise up, by fire they fall!”

“Billy Tate, your zombie days of blood and evil are about to end!”

The scene shifted back to Kasak, standing outside the Gothic iron gate. “We’re talking about a potentially fatal face-off. Gives me goose bumps just to think about it! For more about this eerie battle, tune in tonight at ten. Crimes Beyond Reason. On RAM-TV.”

Gurney suddenly realized what Kasak’s tone was reminding him of—a TV wrestling announcer. Then Kasak disappeared, and a blue logo came spinning onto a black screen.

He closed his laptop—wondering if there was any limit to the market for half-witted, fearmongering nonsense—and turned his attention again to the stark reality of his barn having been visited by a probable murderer.

Although it was unlikely that anyone had seen the vehicle that left the tire marks, he felt it would be negligent not to check on it. There were only two other houses on the two-mile-long dirt-and-gravel road that led from the state route up to his barn. One was a single-wide mobile home whose onetime lawn had been displaced by skunk cabbage and thorn bushes.

In the years that the Gurneys had lived at the top end of the road, the mobile home had been sporadically occupied, and he wasn’t sure about its current status. The cabin at the bottom end of the road, however, was enjoying a sudden renaissance as a getaway for city hipsters who found its overhanging hemlocks, tilting porch, ancient outhouse, gravity-fed spring, and lack of electricity charming—and the frequent howling of coyotes an exciting bonus. Or so a realtor friend of Madeleine’s had told her.

Gurney got in his Outback and headed down the road. He stopped first at the deteriorating mobile home. Stepping carefully through the tangle of thorns, he reached the faded front door and knocked on it, setting off a burst of angry barking on the other side of it. A male voice shouted “Shut up!” several times before the barking stopped.

The man who opened the door was wearing only white boxer shorts and black socks. The thinning hair on his head was as black as his socks. The mass of hair on his chest and legs was gray, as was the three-day stubble on his face. He was holding a brown beer bottle by the neck, a grip suitable for using it as club.

Gurney adjusted his stance accordingly, put on a pleasant smile, introduced himself, and added, “I’m your neighbor from up the road.”

“McDermott’s old farm.” The man said it with an emphasis suggesting that any subsequent owner’s right to be up there was doubtful.

Gurney replied blandly, “That’s the place.”

“You’re the detective?”

“Retired.”

The man switched his grip on his beer bottle and took a long, slow swig, eyeing Gurney all the while. “You’re a detective. What do you do about a thief?”

“What’s been stolen?”

“My compost. Gone like it wasn’t ever there.”

“You could report it to the Walnut Crossing Police Department.”

“I told Darryl LeMoyne all about it twice, which is like talking to a groundhog.”

“Does anyone live here with you?”

“Not at the current moment. My son’s in prison.”

“Oh?”

“Girlfriend put him there. Claimed he knocked her teeth out. Meth done that, not Emmett.”

“Let me ask you something. What time did you wake up this morning?”

He shook his head. “What you want to know that for?”

“I’m wondering if you might have seen a car passing sometime before dawn this morning.”

“Couldn’t say. You got something stole from you, too?”

Gurney ended the conversation, thanking the man for his time and expressing the hope that his compost would be returned. He renegotiated the thorn patch, got in the Outback, and drove another mile down the road.

He pulled over behind a white Audi SUV with a double bike rack mounted on the roof. The vehicle was parked on a bed of evergreen needles at the head of the path to the cabin, which was set back from the road in a hemlock thicket.

Gurney followed the path. When he arrived at the cabin, he found a young couple wearing biking tights the color of chartreuse tennis balls, sitting on the rickety porch steps. The woman’s hair was artfully disarranged. The man’s hair had been wound into a bun on the top of his head, samurai-style. They were using a pail of water to wash dirt off some kind of greens. They looked up at Gurney, the woman smilingly, the man apprehensively.

“Hi,” she said, brushing a few strands of hair back from her face.

“Ramps?” asked Gurney, recognizing the wet greens in her hand.

“Isn’t it incredible? We were biking on a trail up in the woods this afternoon and we found a whole hillside covered with them. You know what they charge for these in Brooklyn? Do you live around here?”

“Up at the end of the road. I’m Dave Gurney.”

“I’m Chloe. This is Jake. You live here, like, all the time?”

He laughed. “Yes, all the time.”

“It’s so absolutely gorgeous now, like a perfect spring, and the air, my God, but I can’t imagine what these mountains are like in February. You have a big plow or something?”

“Pretty big. Winters can be interesting.”

“Wow. I can imagine.”

The friendlier she was sounding, the less friendly Jake was looking. Gurney decided it would be best to get to the point.

“I have a question—about early traffic on this road. Did either of you happen to be awake before dawn this morning?”

They glanced at each other. “Both of us, actually,” she said, a little warily now.

Gurney took out his wallet and showed them his Larchfield PD credentials. “I’m working with the police department, and we need to know if there were any cars using this road between four and six this morning.”

Jake spoke up. “Is there some kind of problem here?” He had worry in his eyes and pique in his voice, as though he were suspecting the cabin’s rental agent of concealing something.

“Nothing that should concern you. We just need to know if anyone drove up or down the road before dawn today.”

They looked at each other again.

Jake nodded reluctantly. “There was one car. We saw it leaving.”

“You were out here in front of the cabin?”

“Out by our car. By the road.”

“What time was this?”

“Had to be around four thirty.”

“Had to be?”

“We were meeting an instructor down on the Willowemoc Creek at five.”

“Fly fishing?”

He nodded.

“Jake fell in the creek,” said Chloe with a wicked grin.

“So,” said Gurney, “you saw a car at four thirty this morning. Do you remember make, model, color, style, anything specific?”

“It was super quiet,” said Chloe.

“I’m pretty sure it was a BMW,” said Jake. “Looked like a 5 Series.”

“Did you notice the color?”

“It was too dark out to be sure. I’d guess black or dark blue?”

Gurney knew that the precise color would not have been clearly discernible in the moonlight. He just wanted to be sure the man wasn’t “remembering” more than what would have been visible. He couldn’t count the number of investigations that had gone awry because witnesses “recalled” details that never existed.

In this case, Jake was passing the credibility test.

“Do you remember seeing the license plate?”

He shook his head. “Now that you mention it, I think maybe the bulb was out.”

“Okay. Anything else you noticed?”

He started shaking his head again, then stopped. “Oh yeah, like Chloe said, it was quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“Like zero engine noise. Could’ve been a hybrid.”

Back up at the house, Gurney went into the den and checked his phone. He found messages from Madeleine, Morgan, and Hardwick. He listened first to the one from Madeleine.

“Hi. It’s me. Obviously, I had to cancel the Winkler dinner for tonight. But when I mentioned it later to Gerry, she told me that she knows the Winklers, too. So, we’re thinking about doing the dinner at her house tomorrow night. Is that okay? Talk to you soon.”

Social occasions held an obvious attraction for Madeleine. The more the better, the sooner the better. They had the opposite effect on Gurney. His initial reaction to proposed get-togethers was invariably negative, although he usually ended up agreeing to attend events that were important to Madeleine. This one seemed to fall into that category.

Like a child accepting an unappealing vegetable, he called, got her voicemail, and left his message of agreement. He reminded himself that these things occasionally turned out to be more pleasant than he’d anticipated—although his past experiences with the Winklers made that outcome seem unlikely.

Morgan’s message was, as usual, agitated.

“On RAM News just now there was a video of your barn, showing that damn Dark Angel thing. They refused to give us the video files, so Gossett is getting a court order. You still think it’s Tate making the videos and sending them to RAM? No chance it could be one of our own people? God, I hope not. That Rory Kronck idiot was going on about it being the Larchfield Slasher’s direct challenge to you. The son of a bitch is turning you and Tate into comic-book characters! I hope to God the dragnet moving over Harrow Hill comes up with something. Tate, if we’re lucky. Give me a call.”

After making a mental note to check the RAM archive for the Kronck segment, Gurney listened to the third message, the one from Hardwick.

“Last time we talked, you said you might want to enlist my services. We getting any closer to that? My hardware is cleaned, oiled, and ready for deployment. Been almost a year since I shot anybody. Speaking of which, I looked a little deeper into the Silas Gant situation. Word is that the Patriarchs are the protection and possible extortion arm of his operation, a source of fear to his enemies, and backup for business and political allies who need to show strength. Odd little factoid: the top Patriarch’s name is Otis Strane, which I’m told was Lorinda Russell’s maiden name. The plot thickens, Sherlock. Give me a call when you decide who needs to catch a bullet in the balls. One last thing. Check out Gant’s Twitter account. He’s stirring the shit like crazy.”

Gurney was tempted to see what new poison Gant might be selling to his followers, but that quiet BMW Jake and Chloe saw at four thirty in the morning was occupying a more urgent spot in his mind. He decided to try Barstow again.

This time, she picked up the call on the first ring.

“David, great, I was just reaching for the phone to call you.”

“Good news?”

“I got the tread and axle-matching results. They narrow the vehicle down to a single make and model group.”

“BMW?”

“Yes.” She sounded surprised.

“A 5 Series?”

“Yes. Any of the 5 Series sedans, starting with the 2018 model year. How come you knew that before I did?”

“Intuition.”

“Like hell.”

“Once in a while, we get lucky. A couple from the city happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“This means . . . what? That Tate traded in his orange Jeep for a seventy-grand Beemer?”

“Unlikely.”

“So what on earth is going on?”

“Good question.”

“Those sneaker impressions in the soft soil by your barn? They matched the impressions we found in the floor dust in the mortuary. And the blood on your barn door matched Linda Mason’s DNA, as expected.”

“So, some things are what they seem.”

“Some,” she said.

After hanging up, he placed a call to the central number for Larchfield police headquarters, expecting to reach the desk sergeant. Instead, Morgan answered.

“Dave? You got my message? Did you see that Rory Kronck thing?”

“I’ll take a look at it. But first, do you happen to know the model and year of Aspern’s BMW?”

“Why would you want to know that?” There was an instant edge on his voice.

“Just curious.”

“It’s a 530e, 2019.”

“Does that ‘e’ have a particular meaning?”

“The ‘e’ models are hybrids.” Morgan hesitated, his concern coming across loud and clear. “You sound like this is more than casual curiosity. What’s going on?”

“Just one of those little echoes that seem meaningful at first, but usually end up being nothing. The thing is, there’s tire-track and eyewitness evidence that the person who left the bloody message on my barn this morning was driving a BMW 5 Series hybrid.”

“Jesus, don’t tell me you suspect Chandler Aspern of being involved in that!”

“I realize it doesn’t make much sense.”

“It makes no sense at all! Chandler Aspern driving around in the middle of the night with a bucket of blood and a paintbrush?”

“Well, someone drove up to my barn in a 5 Series hybrid, got out in Billy Tate’s sneakers, left that charming message, photographed it, and sent the video files to RAM News. I agree that it doesn’t make sense for that person to be Chandler Aspern, nor does it make sense for Billy Tate to be driving that kind of car, unless he stole it. So, you might want to send out a theft-report inquiry for BMW sedans gone missing within the past couple of days.”

“Yeah . . . okay, sure.”

From the man’s tone, Gurney could picture the worry lines deepening on his face.

“In the meantime,” Morgan continued, “tread lightly.”

“You mean, don’t stomp on Aspern’s toes?”

“Don’t even say that! The fact that there may have been a BMW on your property and the fact that Aspern owns a BMW . . . hell, that adds up to nothing. Less than nothing. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I do.” What Gurney heard was a man so focused on keeping his job that he was incapable of doing anything that might put it at risk—especially upsetting someone of importance.

After Morgan ended the call, Gurney moved from his firm desk chair to the overstuffed armchair by the den window with the broadest view of the high pasture. The sun had set, and the red and orange hues in the clouds were shifting to shades of purple. He put his feet up on the ottoman, put the open computer in his lap, silenced his phone, and let his eyes drift shut—telling himself that a restorative ten-minute nap was just what he needed before going to the RAM program archive to see Kronck’s comments on the case. It had been a very long day.

A strange ringing impinged on his sleep, bringing with it the image of the alarm clock that was atop the bureau next to his bed when he was in high school—and the instant feeling of gloom that sound always brought with it. He opened his eyes and found himself still in the armchair in the now darkened den. It took another few seconds of reorientation to identify the ringing as the sound of his landline phone. He switched on the floor lamp next to the chair, made his way across the room to his desk, and picked up the phone.

“Gurney here.”

“Christ, I’ve left three messages at your cell number. Where have you been?” Morgan’s voice was a spring on the verge of snapping.

“What’s the matter?”

“Selena Cursen’s house was attacked. She and that girl who lives with her are in the hospital, may or may not make it.”

“Who did it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Of course, everyone’s out working the dragnet on Harrow Hill. If I call them in for this Cursen thing, that operation collapses, which we can’t let happen. How soon can you get here?”

Gurney looked at the time. It was 11:20—meaning his ten-minute nap had lasted for two and a half hours.

“I can be at the Cursen place by twelve thirty.”

“Ignore the speed limit.”

36

The last section of the dirt road that led to the opening in Selena Cursen’s iron fence had been taped off. Five official vehicles were parked outside the tape at haphazard angles—Kyra Barstow’s crime-scene van, two Larchfield patrol cars, a red-and-white Chevy Suburban with a sheriff’s department logo and the words FIRE INVESTIGATION UNIT across the back, and a utility van with a Larchfield Police logo on the side. Next to the van was a Toyota Camry.

Gurney figured the utility van had transported the generator he could hear humming in the background, as well as the halogen lights that were set up in the cleared area around the half-charred house. Despite having worked under those superbright lights countless times in his career, he’d never gotten used to the feeling of dislocation they created by turning night into day. Now their stark glare was giving the scene a surreal aspect. He guessed the Camry by the utility van belonged to the crime-scene photographer, whom he spotted heading into the house.

The desk sergeant from headquarters was leaning against the fender of one of the cruisers. He picked up a clipboard from the hood and stood up straighter as Gurney approached. He checked his watch and made a note on the crime-scene log.

“Hell of a thing,” he said, gesturing toward the destruction. “Betcha people will say she brought it on herself.”

“How?”

“All that witchery shit. Not a popular thing around here.”

“Do you know if she’d received any threats?”

“I couldn’t say. Some folks might have suggested she move on. Wouldn’t be surprising, what with the Satanism and all that. Stirred up bad feelings.”

Gurney was pretty sure those feelings were shared by the sergeant. A uniform was no antidote to the belief that unpopular victims—especially those who happened to be unconventional women—were responsible for the crimes committed against them.

His urge to dig a little deeper into the sergeant’s attitude was interrupted by Barstow, calling out to him.

He called back to her over the hum of the generator. “You want me to suit up?”

“Just shoe covers. Back of my van, if you don’t have your own.”

He went to her van, took a pair of disposable booties from an open box, and slipped them on. He passed through the opening in the fence and headed toward Barstow through an expanse of knee-high grass that was starting to go to seed for want of mowing.

“So far we’ve found hundreds of these,” she said, holding up a brass shell casing.

Gurney took a close look at it. “Seven point sixty-two, full metal jacket?”

She nodded appreciatively. “Fits most of the Kalashnikov-style assault rifles.”

“When you said hundreds, did you mean a lot? Or literally hundreds?”

“Literally. Over three hundred so far. And still counting.”

“So what happened here?”

“Hard to tell in all this grass, but my estimate from the tread marks in the dirt on the entry road is that five motorcycles came through the opening in the fence, then circled the house, firing into it. From the way some of the grass is matted down, I’d say they circled it at least three or four times. The wood siding’s like Swiss cheese. Those full metal jackets ripped right through the walls, blasted everything inside the house to pieces.”

He looked over at the house and saw a figure in coveralls spraying water from a garden hose through a broken window.

Barstow followed his gaze. “There’s a second hose at the back of the house, and they’ve got a third hooked up inside. Well water. No way to get a tanker truck in here, and no pond to pump water from. The only reason the fire didn’t consume everything is that it started on the leeward side of the house. If it started on this side, it would have blown through this old tinderbox in no time.”

“Who reported it?”

“Ask Morgan. Far as I know, he got two or three calls from distant neighbors out in these woods. All those gunshots must have sounded like a war started.”

“Morgan came out here himself?”

“Along with Sergeant Wood—the guy with the clipboard. Then he put in a call for the rest of us. Plus the EMT squad. They couldn’t get the ambulance through the iron fence, so they carried Cursen and the other girl out on stretchers. That was over an hour ago. This place wasn’t designed for rescue vehicles.”

“Where did they find them?”

“Hiding in the basement. Wounded. Pretty badly. At least the fire hadn’t gotten to them.”

“Any idea what caused it?”

“Hot rounds striking combustibles in the house would be my guess. You should talk to the young man from the sheriff’s department. Denzil Atkins. He’s the official county fire expert. I’m sure he’s bursting to reveal his expertise.” She pointed toward two Tyvek-clad figures on the charred side of the house. “He’s the one making notes on his iPad. Do not ask him if he was named after Denzel Washington. It’s a touchy point.”

“He wouldn’t by any chance be one of your former forensic science students?”

There was a spark of humor in those gray eyes. “You have a talent for detection.”

One of Barstow’s techs walked past them, eyes to the ground, following the same type of spiral search route around the house that Gurney had followed around his barn.

“Any more?” asked Barstow.

“Five on the last rotation.” Without stopping, he held up a plastic bag containing five brass casings.

“We may get to four hundred before the night is over,” she said to Gurney. “You ever have a crime scene with more shots fired?”

“A few. Gang shoot-outs over drug territories. Arm the bangers with Uzis, and it’s the Fourth of July. How about you?”

“Not up here. But I can recall some major fireworks down in Kingston. Drug gangs tend to be well armed.”

“I better go talk to Denzil.”

“See you later, boss.”

Gurney made his way over to the young man with the iPad and introduced himself.

“I know who you are, sir. I’m Officer Atkins, sheriff’s department. What can I do for you?” His tone was as crisp and efficient as his blond crew cut.

“Do you know yet how the fire started?”

“Yes, sir—with a reasonable degree of certitude.”

Gurney recognized the witness-stand phrase. He wondered for a moment if it carried a hint of irony, but the young man didn’t seem to be the ironic type.

Atkins indicated an area of the wall where the siding was partially burned through. “Ignition point was on the interior side of that wall. There’s a shattered kerosene lamp on what’s left of a table, approximately sixteen inches from the interior surface. Our on-site petrochemical residue test indicated kerosene combustion consistent with the lamp capacity. A bullet hole in the partly shattered lamp reservoir and in the opposite wall is consistent with a bullet trajectory beginning outside the house.”

Gurney smiled at the young man’s attention to detail. “You examined the whole interior?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No other ignition points?”

“No, sir.”

“And the wind direction is the reason that the entire house wasn’t consumed?”

“That, plus a burst pipe on the second floor. The heat from the fire caused a solder joint to give way, and the water spreading over the floor and down through the wall structure acted as a partial barrier. They’re off the grid here, but their generator kept working and the well pump kept pumping. If the fire got to the main breaker panel, we’d have had a different outcome. Some people are blind to the risks of a location like this.”

Gurney thought about the location of his own house. “Price of privacy, I guess.”

Atkins shook his head, as if to say that any clear-thinking adult would see that the price was unacceptably high.

Gurney thanked him and made his way to the porch side of the house—the side saved by a benign wind and a broken pipe.

The front door was open, and he entered a wood-paneled foyer, facing a carpeted staircase to the second floor. The acrid stink of smoke and wet ashes was much stronger here than outside. A surprising amount of light was coming in through the windows from the halogen stands surrounding the house, illuminating the smoky haze hanging in the air.

The photographer was panning with his camera around the walls of the parlor to Gurney’s right, pausing at each group of bullet holes.

A woman in coveralls and gloves was using a razor knife and tweezers to probe a bullet hole in the staircase newel post. He recognized her as the hardscrabble patrol officer who’d been keeping an eye on Lorinda Russell the day after Angus’s murder. She’d apparently been drafted by Barstow into helping with the massive task of bullet retrieval.

He watched as she extracted the slug, placed it in a pre-labeled envelope, then proceeded to another hole, this one in the staircase stringer board. He assumed she’d been instructed to collect as many slugs as she could, not only as pieces of evidence that could be linked ballistically to specific firearms in future legal proceedings, but as a way of determining the number of firearms used in the attack.

“Are they coming out clean?” he asked, meaning suitable for ballistics.

“Yes, sir. They’re all FMJs.”

There was something military in the tone of her voice that reinforced a thought he’d had at their first meeting, that she was probably one of the many police officers who found their way into law enforcement via the armed forces, having discovered a comfort zone in a world of rules, lines of command, and secure employment.

He headed up the stairs to a broad landing with a wet carpet and five open doorways leading to three partially destroyed bedrooms, a bathroom, and an enclosed staircase to the third floor. Deciding to check the third floor first, he found that it was just a large unfinished attic. The halogen light coming through the windows was weaker here, but he could see that the space was empty, apart from a gauzy lacework of cobwebs.

Returning to the second floor, he spent the next hour going through the bedrooms and bathroom. The first bedroom was the one used by Billy Tate, or at least by a male with a fondness for gray hoodies and black jeans. It exhibited a disarray familiar to him from his own son’s teenage years—socks, underwear, and tee shirts on the floor, one sneaker on a chair and one under it, an open bureau drawer, a lamp with its shade askew, gum wrappers on the floor.

A heavy-metal band poster was taped to one of the walls. On another wall there were several eight-by-ten nude photographs of a woman. Looking closer, Gurney recognized the face of the black-haired beauty with three silver studs in her lower lip who he’d spoken to at the opening in the fence the day before.

“Love to my Billy forever, forever, forever, from Lena” was scrawled in girlish handwriting across the bottom of one of the photos.

On a nightstand by the unmade bed, there was a superhero comic book and a printout of the sideways figure eight symbol for sulfur and hellfire.

In the nightstand drawer, there was a flashlight, a jackknife, a box of condoms, a small plastic bag containing some pot, a pack of rolling papers, and three more comic books.

One of the room’s three windows was open. Its curtain had been reduced by the fire to blackened strands of melted polyester fabric. There was ashy water on the floor and on the table under the window.

The next bedroom was more severely damaged, but enough of its contents were recognizable to identify it as Selena’s. A bureau with a buckled top and scorched drawer fronts had remained intact inside—preserving an assortment of black lipsticks, black nail polishes, black panties, silky black gowns like the one he’d seen her in, and silver jewelry in the shapes of common Wiccan symbols. In the bottom drawer there were four books—The Pagan Path to Saving the Earth, The Yogic Path to Beauty, and biographies of Joan of Arc and Madonna.

In place of a closet, there was a tall armoire whose doors had been mostly burned away and whose contents were unrecognizable. The inside of the bedroom door was covered with heat-discolored photos of a young man with a smirky mouth and brooding eyes, wearing a gray hoodie and black jeans. He struck Gurney as an aging juvenile delinquent, trying to look dangerous.

The third bedroom, presumably used by the girl called Raven, had been almost entirely consumed by the fire. Apart from charred and cracked pieces of furniture and burned pieces of women’s clothing, he noticed one fairly intact item—a handwritten note, stuck in the frame of a mirror that had fallen to the floor. Gurney bent over to read the message in a girlish script: “Remember the corn for the crows.” It was signed, “Lena.”

He went on to the last doorway on the landing, the one to the bathroom. Because of a high doorsill, the water on the floor was nearly an inch deep. Hanging on the wall next to the basin was a framed copy of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. He went quickly through the medicine cabinet and the shelving along one of the walls. He found nothing special, but that in itself was contributing to a not easily labeled feeling that had been growing from the moment he’d entered the house, a feeling that had begun the day before when he saw the tears welling in Selena Cursen’s eyes. He made his way down the old-fashioned carpeted staircase and out the front door onto the porch.

Barstow was a few feet away, conferring with one of her techs. When she had sent him off with new instructions, she turned to Gurney and held up another brass casing. “New total—four hundred and one.”

When he didn’t answer, she looked at him more closely. “Is something wrong?”

“I wish the situation were clearer.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stuff in their rooms is pretty ordinary. Nothing I saw suggests that they’re devil-worshipping monsters. More like garden-variety lost kids. I’ve been in the homes of psychopaths, where the signs of evil are pretty obvious. That’s not the case here.”

“Are you saying Tate’s not the murderer that all the evidence says he is?”

“I can’t say anything that definitive. Sometimes the malignancy in someone is so well hidden, it’s a shock to see what they’re capable of. There’ve been mass murderers whose lives looked a lot more peaceful than Billy Tate’s. I guess I was just hoping to find something here that matched the crimes we’re dealing with—some clear assurance that we’re on the right track.”

“A psychological smoking gun?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe it got destroyed in the fire.”

“Maybe. But the clearest signs of evil here right now are those bullet holes.” He paused, his mouth tightening. “Sons of bitches ride in here like they’re major warriors and put two helpless young women in the hospital. Jesus!”

Barstow was watching him closely, perhaps trying to understand a side of him she hadn’t seen before. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get them. They’re probably stupid enough to hold on to the weapons they used here. And unless they power-­wash their bikes, soil and grass samples will link them to this site.”

Gurney nodded. “It’s a safe bet they were drunk or high.”

She raised her eyebrows in fake surprise. “You don’t think that the idea of firing four hundred rounds into a house, roaring around it like maniacs in the middle of the night, was a sober plan?”

“What I’m thinking is that they may have been actively drinking on their way out here. Throttle in one hand, beer can in the other. Very macho.”

It took her about three seconds to grasp the implication.

“So . . . maybe I should send a couple of our people out along the entry road, have them check the brush along the edges for cans, bottles, whatever the shitheads might have tossed?”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“Maybe something with prints the system can ID?”

“Even better.”

“Possibly the prints of a Patriarch?”

“Best of all.”

37

By the time Gurney was descending the final hill into the village of Walnut Crossing, the first blush of dawn was visible over the eastern ridge.

When he arrived at his barn fifteen minutes later, there was enough light for him to see that the door would need a second coat of paint to fully obliterate the Dark Angel message. Rather than putting it off, he decided to take care of it. He got his paint and brush from inside the barn and set to work. Applying the second coat was quicker and easier than the first. He washed out the brush in the pond’s cold spring water, put it away with the remaining paint, and headed up to the house.

The morning air was cool and still. He heard the chickens moving around in the coop and went to check on their food and water. He poured more pellets into their feeding device and swept off the ramp that led into the fenced run. Then he went to the asparagus bed and cut a handful of spears to go with the scrambled eggs he was planning to have for breakfast.

Half an hour later, he was sitting at the table by the French doors, finishing a second cup of coffee. The doors were open, and the air drifting in carried a faint scent of lilacs. A flock of purple finches had arrived at the bird feeders that hung from shepherds’ crooks at the edges of the patio.

He was reminded again of the stark contrasts embedded in his life. There was this peace and beauty, Madeleine’s smile, the sweet air itself. And there was the ugliness of his profession. Of course, it wasn’t really his profession that was ugly, it was the viciousness in human nature—the viciousness that made his profession necessary. The goal was balance. Remembering that the peace and beauty were as real as the bullet holes.

He was not a believer in the progress of the human species. Centuries of wars were proof enough of humanity’s moral stagnation. But he did hang on to the notion that one could strive for moments of kindness, generosity, love, and tolerance.

The successes he had personally managed to achieve in those areas were limited, especially when it came to his animus toward the hate-mongers—the rage-­merchants who ruled the echo chambers of cable news and the internet, who nurtured discontent and division, who marketed resentment for power and profit. They were, in Gurney’s opinion, the scum of the earth. And the worst of the lot were the hypocrites who wrapped themselves in the banners of God and Country.

He was pulled out of this dark train of thought by the ringing of his phone.

The screen told him it was Morgan.

“Gurney here.”

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“You checked out the Cursen house, right?”

“Right.”

“You discover anything useful?”

“Nothing specific—just the feeling that Cursen’s and Tate’s evil-witch and killer-­zombie reputations may be a bit exaggerated.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rooms of the people living in that house did not strike me as the dens of monsters. If it turned out we were wrong about the evidence, I wouldn’t be shocked.”

“What?” Morgan’s voice on the phone rose suddenly in volume and sharpness. “You’re making it sound like we’re sliding backward!”

“Backward may be the right direction, if we’re on the wrong path.”

“Great. Perfect.” Morgan’s tone was between petulance and panic. “I can hear myself announcing that at my next media briefing. It’ll sound like I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Gurney took a new tack. “How’s the Harrow Hill search going?”

Morgan took a few seconds to refocus. “We’ve got every available pair of feet out there. Slovak figures they’ve covered about a third of it. The trails are a damn maze. If we don’t get another downpour, within the next twenty-four hours they should find whatever—or whoever—is there to be found. But if, God forbid, we come up empty . . .”

Gurney could picture the man shaking his head in desperation.

“On top of everything else,” Morgan went on, “Gant is tweeting all kinds of nonsense about Tate and Cursen, the murders, the defacing of the churches in Bastenburg, even about your barn. I’ll email you the links. Let me know how you think we should respond.”

“If you’re thinking about accusing him of libel or inciting violence, you need to have Harmon Gossett review his statements. But Gant’s probably smart enough to make sure his comments are protected by the First Amendment.”

Morgan’s tone turned sour. “You sound like you don’t want anything to do with this.”

“Mike, I’d love to see Gant in court, in prison, or worse. But there are people better equipped than I am to evaluate the legal possibilities.”

“Will you at least take a look at the things he’s saying?”

“Okay, sure.”

Morgan breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Thank you. So . . . where do you think we need to focus our efforts now?”

“That depends on what the Harrow Hill dragnet produces.”

“Let’s hope it produces Billy Tate—and your doubts about him evaporate.”

“Have you gotten the expanded warrant for his phone records?”

“We should have it by noon. But if this is about trying to establish a link between him and Chandler Aspern, it seems like a waste of time. Like focusing on that BMW coincidence.”

“It would be nice to know where Aspern was at five o’clock yesterday morning.”

“Christ, we can’t interrogate the mayor like he’s a suspect.”

“If his phone’s location feature was enabled, there could be a record of—”

“Jesus, Dave, could we please explore some other avenues first, before we create a powerful enemy in our own camp?”

Gurney said nothing.

Morgan took a deep, noisy breath. “Look, I’ve been working here all night. I’m running out of steam. I have to go check on Carol. Whatever news I get from the Harrow Hill sweep, I’ll let you know. Take a look at the Gant video, okay?”

“Okay.”

As he ended the call, Gurney noticed that he had a phone message from the night before that he hadn’t listened to. A bad feeling tightened his chest as he stared at the caller’s name and the time of the call.

Selena Cursen, 9:05 p.m.

He played the message.

It took him a second or two to realize he was hearing an erratic series of gunshots.

Then, combined with the gunshots, a female voice:

“It’s Lena. They’re shooting at us. Help! Oh, God—”

Her voice broke into a sudden scream. Then the scream was cut off, along with the sound of the gunshots, as if something had happened to the phone.

Gurney felt sick.

He listened to the message twice, to be sure he wasn’t missing details that could tell him more about the attack or the attackers.

He found nothing helpful.

He just felt more pain.

And fury.

38

Gurney called the Larchfield hospital, also known as the Russell Medical Center, to learn what he could about the conditions of Selena and Raven. He was blocked by HIPAA privacy regulations.

It took ten minutes of playing the critical-need-for-information card to extract even the minimal facts that two female patients who had been admitted during the night were in the ICU and unable to receive phone calls or visitors. No, there was no exemption for police officers. No, it didn’t matter that police officers had accompanied the ambulance that delivered the patients. No, it didn’t matter that the patients were victims of a violent crime. HIPAA was the ultimate authority. Period.

As upsetting as the attack was, he realized there was no immediate way forward on that front—not until Barstow’s people came up with an evidentiary link to one of the perps or until one of them got drunk enough on a Bastenburg barstool to brag about his daring assault on a coven of witches.

However, it wasn’t in Gurney’s nature to sit and wait. There were other ways he could make progress—if not on the Cursen attack, then on the larger case. He could, for example, dig deeper into what sort of person Billy Tate really was.

He checked his phone for Greg Mason’s number and placed the call.

He was surprised how quickly Mason picked up and how sharp his voice sounded.

“Have you found him?”

“Not yet, sir. But we’re doing everything we can. That’s why I’m calling.”

“What do you mean?”

“The last time we spoke, I asked you if you recalled anyone from Tate’s high school years who he was close to or hung out with or had any kind of relationship with at all. You told me that everyone was afraid of him, with the exception of Lori Strane.”

“Yes, so?”

“I want you to think again about that. Any sidekick, anyone with any relationship with him at all—I don’t want to ignore any link that could lead us to Tate.”

Mason was silent for so long, Gurney wondered if he was still there.

“Sir?”

“I’m trying to remember. But . . . he really had no friends.”

Gurney detected a hint of uncertainty in Mason’s voice.

“Okay. No friends. But maybe some other kind of relationship?”

Mason let out an impatient sigh. “Look, I wouldn’t call it a relationship, but he may have had a connection with a local drug dealer.”

“Do you recall his name?”

“Jocko.”

“Was that his first or last name?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know if it was a real name. I only remember it because he spray-painted it on all the benches in the village square before he was arrested and sent away.”

“Do you have any idea where Jocko is now?”

“He’s probably not even alive. No great loss. One less piece of human garbage in the world.”

Gurney thanked Mason and ended the call. After pondering how he might be able to track down a drug dealer who might not be alive, he decided that his arrest was the best starting point. He placed a call to Morgan.

“Jocko? Everyone in the department knows about Jocko—except now he goes by his real name, John Smith. Big turnaround. Why on earth are you asking about him?”

“Greg Mason told me there was a connection back in his drug-dealing days between him and Billy Tate.”

“No surprise there.”

“Do I gather Mr. Smith is living a different life now?”

“Last I heard, he was managing a sober house in Albany.”

“Can you get me the name of it?”

“Hold on. I’ll see.”

Gurney held on for a good five minutes. He was about to end the call and try again when Morgan came back on the line.

“The place is called Free and Sober. It’s a reentry program for ex-cons with substance abuse problems.” He gave Gurney the address and phone number. “You think this guy is going to know something useful?”

“Probably not. But I hate ignoring possibilities.”

Free and Sober occupied a neat row house, surrounded by a bleak neighborhood of semi-abandoned buildings, payday-loan outlets, liquor stores, and storefront churches. Across the street there was a pharmacy with bars on the windows. Two cars were parked in front of it, jacked up, with the wheels missing. Gurney parked his Outback down the block from them and put an OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS sign in his windshield. It was close to noon, but there was no one on the street.

The front door of Free and Sober was steel, painted brown. It had what looked like a reinforced peephole, but Gurney realized on closer inspection it was a shielded camera and speaker. There was a push-button bell on the brick wall next to the door. He pressed the button and heard the sound of a harsh buzzer somewhere inside the building.

The man who opened the door had the marks of a certain type of ex-con—the hard-muscled prison physique, obvious even under a loose polo shirt; the crude tattoos on his face, neck, arms, and hands; the watchful eyes that revealed nothing.

Gurney introduced himself and explained that he’d spoken with John Smith an hour earlier to arrange a meeting.

The man’s expression relaxed into something just shy of welcoming. “Follow me.”

He led the way along a dim-lit hallway, smelling of pine-scented floor cleaner, to the first open door and stood aside to let Gurney enter. The windowless room was furnished with a small desk, a filing cabinet, a bookcase, two chairs, a sagging couch, and a coffee table with cracked veneer. On a narrow table behind the desk there was a dated-looking computer and a framed photo of two men shaking hands. The room was lit by a single fixture in the center of the ceiling.

The man sat down in the chair behind the desk and waved his hand toward the other chair and the couch. “Take your choice.”

It was then that Gurney recognized the voice of the man he’d spoken to on the phone. “Mr. Smith,” he said with a smile. “I appreciate your taking the time to see me.”

“No problem. But like I told you, I haven’t spoken to Billy in ten years. And I don’t know anything about this crazy stuff in the news. That’s not the kid I remember.”

“How did you happen to know him?”

“I was his dealer.” Smith said this matter-of-factly, with neither the swagger nor attempt at justification that Gurney usually heard with such admissions.

“Tate was an addict?”

“More of an experimenter. He liked being on the edge. You know these pictures of people hanging off a balcony, standing next to a crocodile, that kind of shit? That was Billy.”

“That’s the way he was on drugs?”

“That’s the way he was without drugs. He was crazier off them than on. Sober, he was like other guys on meth. I think he was experimenting with drugs to see what they would do for him. But the boy had a weird brain. Meth, coke, they didn’t do anything for him.”

“Did he try downers?”

“Sure. Oxy, heroin, tranks. They calmed him down, but Billy wasn’t into calm. He was wild. Scared the shit out of people.”

“Did he scare you?”

“I don’t scare easy.” It came across as a statement of fact, not street talk.

“Was he a bully?”

Smith didn’t answer right away. “I wouldn’t say he was. Bullies like to threaten little people. Billy threatened everybody. Just the way the boy’s engine ran.”

“Did he ever threaten you?”

Smith let out a humorless laugh. “He’d trash-talk, you know? But I never felt the need to deal with it.”

“Why is that?”

“For something to be a threat, you got to feel it that way, and I never did.”

“How dangerous was he?”

“Push the wrong button, everybody’s dangerous. You’re a cop. You know.”

“How dangerous was he, compared to other people you’ve known?”

“Compared to the kind of gangbanger who might shoot a man because he blinked wrong, Billy wasn’t that kind of animal. He had a line.”

“A firm line?”

“Looked that way to me. But most people didn’t see it. Billy had a way of laying down a threat on somebody with a smile—like telling them he was gonna cut their dick off and shove it up their momma’s ass—like it was such a sweet idea he couldn’t wait to do it.”

“It was just talk?”

“Far as I know, all them men still have their dicks.”

There was the sound of a vacuum starting up in a nearby room.

Smith glanced at the plastic watch on his wrist. “Cleaning time. Most residents are out at their jobs. Jobs are part of the deal here. Men that haven’t found employment are assigned house maintenance.” He paused. “You have any more questions?”

“You’re aware that Tate is the prime suspect in three murders?”

“I saw that on TV.”

“Did you find it surprising?”

“Price of being Billy is you’re going to be the suspect for whatever bad shit goes down within a mile of you. But if he did them murders, then I’d say something in that boy’s head must have changed.”

“When you think back, can you recall any people he was close to?”

Smith shook his head. “He wasn’t a close kind of person.”

“Any idea where he might run to, if he needed to hide?”

“He used to have a thing with his stepmother. Maybe he still does.”

“Anyone else?”

“Had a hard-on for Lori Strane. But so did half the county.”

“Did you know her?”

“From a distance. I’d be careful around her, if I were you.”

“Why is that?”

“A man of the cloth might say she has no soul.”

“Did you know Angus Russell?”

“Knew of him. Had a rep. Not a man to fuck with. When I heard he and Lori got hooked up, I thought, holy shit, there’s a match made in hell.”

Gurney wasn’t sure whether Smith had clarified his image of Tate or confused it further. As he was taking a final look around the office, his gaze stopped at the framed photo on the table behind Smith. He leaned forward for a closer look. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

The other man looked familiar. “Can I see it?”

Smith handed it over.

Gurney realized why the man looked familiar. He was the state governor.

Perhaps in reaction to the surprise on Gurney’s face, Smith spoke up. “We’ve had some success here, helping men who were incarcerated for drug-related crimes adjust to the outside world. People have no idea how hard that can be. Our program got the governor’s attention early on. He dropped by with a camera crew. Gave our fundraising a big boost.”

“I’m impressed.”

Smith responded with the same earthbound calmness with which he seemed to address everything. “Considering where I came from, only thing that impresses me is the fact that I’m still alive.”

A quarter of an hour later, Gurney was sitting in his car down the block from the Free and Sober facility, going over what John Smith had told him and deciding on his next move.

He checked his phone and found two messages that came in while he was meeting with Smith. The first was from Madeleine, letting him know that their dinner that evening with the Winklers and Gerry Mirkle would be at 7:00 p.m. The second was from Morgan, asking if he’d checked out Silas Gant’s comments yet.

Though he had little appetite for it, Gurney went back to Morgan’s original email and clicked on a link to a news site that had aggregated a series of tweets posted by Gant beginning at 1:05 a.m. that day.

“The house of a self-proclaimed WITCH connected to BILLY TATE has burst into flames. FLAMES OF HELL?”

“Servants of the DEVIL will blame my followers for the attack on that depraved house. Shame on those LIARS!”

“They spread their LIES—while SATAN, in the body of BILLY TATE, is sharpening his knife. WANTS BLOOD!”

“The LYING MEDIA want to SILENCE AND DISARM us. Stand with us now! We will PREVAIL!!”

There were five more in the same fiery tone, all with the core message that any implication that the Church of the Patriarchs had broken any law or fomented violence was not only a lie but a diabolical plot against the righteous. Whatever happened at that den of witches resulted from the ungodly activities of its residents.

Morgan’s email included a link to a call-in interview Gant had given that morning to RAM-Talk, a program that thrived on outrage. He was wondering whether it would be worth listening to when his phone rang.

The screen said it was Slovak.

“Gurney here.”

“Thanks for picking up.” He sounded excited.

“What’s up?”

“We found the orange Jeep!”

“On Harrow Hill?”

“On Aspern’s side of it. About two-thirds of a mile from his house. In a thicket of pines. You were right about the helicopter problem. The Jeep would have been invisible from the air.”

“Anything of interest in it?”

“Yes, sir! A bloodstained scalpel under the driver’s seat. A bloodstained rag on the floor. Bloodstains on the top of the seat back—where Tate’s hoodie would have rested against it.”

“Any obvious prints?”

“Bloody ones on the steering wheel and the parking-brake handle. The steering wheel ones are smeared, but the ones on the brake handle look good.”

“Sounds like you struck gold, Brad.”

Actually, it seemed like a little too much gold, but he didn’t want to say so. “Is Barstow’s team there?”

“I’m going to call them right now. Wanted to fill you in ASAP.”

“I appreciate that. Have you told Morgan?”

“Yes, sir, but he was on his way to see his wife. He’d gotten a call from the hospice people. I was hoping maybe you could come instead.”

“I can, but I’m at least an hour away.”

“No problem. We’ll be here a lot longer than that. Best way in is through the trail in back of the Mason house. When you get there, call me. I’ll send one of the guys down to get you.”

“Have you notified Aspern?”

“I can’t. I mean, the chief has a standing order that all contacts with the mayor go through him personally.”

“This is different, Brad. This has nothing to do with Aspern’s official role as mayor. This involves a suspect’s vehicle on his property and our need to treat it as a crime scene. The evidence you observed connects it to at least one murder site, making it an extension of that scene. Since it’s on his land, Aspern should be notified. But if he happens to appear at your location, he needs to be kept outside the boundaries you establish, just like any other unauthorized person. You have absolute control of that area.”

The excitement had gone out of Slovak’s voice. “Okay . . . if you think that’s best.”

Once again, Gurney found himself regretting his involvement. If he hadn’t agreed to Morgan’s request for assistance in the first place, the man probably would have been forced to turn the case over the Bureau of Criminal Investigation—with all the state manpower and technical resources to handle it.

Instead, he felt an increasing weight of personal responsibility—combined with an unnerving sense that each new discovery in the case brought with it far more questions than answers.

39

An hour later Gurney was sitting in the Outback next to the trailhead behind the Mason house. After letting Slovak know he was there, he decided to use the time to take another look around the property and, if it was open, the barn where he’d found Linda Mason’s body.

The first thing he noticed was that the acre or so of lawn surrounding the house had been mowed recently—probably that very day, judging from the uniform look of it, and probably by Greg Mason. It would be consistent with his fixation on ­orderliness—a trait likely to grow stronger when faced with the emotional chaos of murder.

The barn was locked, but the grass and plants around it had been tended to.

When Gurney made his way back to the trailhead, a Ford Explorer was waiting there. Slovak was in the driver’s seat with his window open.

“I thought I should come down for you myself.”

Gurney got in, and Slovak began maneuvering the Explorer up the narrow trail. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said after negotiating a sharp turn. “I left a message for Aspern, like you suggested, saying we found a vehicle on his property that was used in the commission of a crime. I didn’t know how to describe the location, so I gave him the GPS coordinates.”

“Good.”

After weaving their way through the ascending labyrinth of trails, they came to a barrier of yellow police tape. Slovak parked the Explorer next to a big Sequoia SUV. There was a Russell College emblem on the door.

“Is that instead of the usual forensics van?” asked Gurney.

“Barstow was afraid she couldn’t get up here without four-wheel drive.” His tone seemed to question her decision.

He pulled a pair of shoe covers out of a box behind his seat and waited for Gurney to put them on. They got out of the Explorer, slipped under the tape, and followed the trail on foot.

Rounding a curve in the woods, they came upon the orange Jeep. The doors were wide open, and one of Barstow’s helpers was going over the interior with an evidence vac. Barstow was on her phone, but when she saw Gurney she ended the call.

“Lots of prints, lots of blood,” she said.

She began pointing out numerous chemical-stained finger- and handprints—some blue, some purple—on the Jeep’s interior surfaces and the driver’s-side door.

Gurney took a closer look. “Two different reagents?”

“I wasn’t sure with some of the prints whether I was seeing blood or something else. I applied leucocrystal violet on those. Amido black on the others. I like the way it works on nonporous surfaces, and I figured the blue prints it produces would create a better contrast. I like the crisp look of the amido black in photographs. But I used the violet over there.” She pointed to what looked like a sneaker print in the soft earth by the open driver’s door. “I wasn’t sure about that little spot of discoloration. It turned out to be blood.”

“Everything is going to the lab for DNA?”

“Scrapings from all the prints and from the driver’s seat and headrest, plus the rag and scalpel we found on the vehicle floor. Like you said yesterday, Tate isn’t shy about letting us know where he’s been. Be nice if he’d let us know where he is now.”

“Speaking of that,” said Gurney, half turning to include Slovak, “have either of you considered bringing in a K9 team?”

“Not me,” said Barstow. “Chasing and capturing is Brad’s department.” The hint of mischief in her tone turned the fact into a challenge.

Slovak had a deer-in-the-headlights moment. “A K9 team . . . to track Tate? Can we still do that? The Jeep’s been here for a while now, right? And we’ve had rain.”

Gurney turned to Barstow. “Can you tell from the tire tracks how long it’s been here?”

“I’ve tried to figure that out. I think the Jeep arrived, was here for maybe a day or so, then left and returned. I don’t think it’s been moved for the last couple of days.”

“Can you tell from which direction it arrived? Or which way it left?”

She shook her head. “The only reason I can say anything at all is that the spot he chose has relatively soft soil.”

Gurney turned to Slovak. “You’re right about there having been rain, but it wasn’t very heavy. The scent may still be followable. It’s worth a shot.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever brought in a K9 team.”

“All you need to do is get in touch with the NYSP regional barracks and tell them you need K9 assistance in tracking a fugitive.”

Slovak’s frown deepened. “The thing is, the chief’s dead set against involving the state police.”

“What he’s dead set against is turning case jurisdiction over to BCI. This is different. The K9 unit just provides tactical support. There’s no question of them taking over the case. If you call now, they may be able to have a team here tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” said Slovak with lingering reluctance.

When he stepped away, Barstow gave Gurney a quizzical look. “You really think a dog can track Tate down at this point?”

“Not unless he’s still in these woods. But I’d like to know what direction he took out of here. I’m also thinking about your opinion that the Jeep came here, left, and came back. I’m wondering how that pattern might fit with the other facts we have. What are you smiling at?”

“You. I can see your brain working like a 3D design program—tilting and turning the shapes to see how they join up. So, tell me how you’re seeing it right now.”

“Okay. Tate, after leaving Peale’s mortuary, went to his parked Jeep and headed out along Waterview Drive, where he had a harmless encounter with Ruby-June Hooper and, a few minutes later, a deadly encounter with Mary Kane. He then proceeded up the Harrow Hill road to the Russell estate, broke in through the conservatory, and cut Angus’s throat—after which he got back in the Jeep and drove through the trail maze to this spot. He may have stayed here himself until two evenings later—recuperating, nursing the damage to his body—at which point he could have used part of the trail system to access the back road that leads to the Mason house—the road where he was seen by a couple of local stoners.”

Barstow pursed her lips. “Why didn’t he just take the trail all the way down to Mason’s back lawn?”

“Maybe the road was faster and safer—with all the switchbacks on the bottom half of the trail. Maybe timing was important. And there are no other houses or traffic on that final stretch, so he probably underestimated the risk of being noticed.”

“Okay, what then?”

“When he arrived at the Mason house, he scratched his hellfire symbol on the front door with one of the scalpels he took from the mortuary, then waited for Linda Mason to come home. He knocked her unconscious, dragged her out to the barn, and lifted her with the loading bucket of the tractor—to simplify draining her blood. He then went back to her house, left the Dark Angel message with her blood on the upstairs wall, and drove the Jeep back here. How does that sound?”

“It’s consistent with the Jeep coming, leaving, and coming back. But then what?”

“Ah, that’s the question. Or maybe it isn’t.”

“You just lost me.”

“The scenario I gave you is entirely reasonable, but it may have nothing to do with what actually happened.”

“Are you always this unsure in the middle of a case?”

“Frequently.”

“But you usually get to the truth, right? I mean, that award you got for clearing more homicide cases—”

Before she could finish, an irate voice interrupted.

“What the hell is all this?”

Chandler Aspern had ignored the police tape and was striding toward them, his compact frame a picture of compressed aggression.

Gurney stuck out his palm. “Hold it right there, sir. You’re in a restricted area.”

“Like hell I am! This is my property. No damn piece of yellow tape changes that.”

“I’m afraid it does, sir. Please return to the area outside the tape, and I’ll be happy to explain the situation.”

“I hadn’t figured you for this sort of bureaucratic nonsense.” He turned and strode back the way he came, Gurney following him. They soon came to the perimeter tape, where Aspern had parked a golf cart.

“So,” he demanded, “explain.”

Gurney spoke with an easy calmness. “Evidence found in the vehicle back there on your trail connects it to three murders.”

“Slovak left a message for me saying something like that, rather incoherently. Are you telling me that orange thing is Tate’s Jeep?”

“We believe that to be the case.”

“How long has it been on my property?”

“We’re trying to determine that.”

“When do you plan on removing it?”

“As soon as that’s feasible.”

“That’s a meaningless answer.”

“It’s the only answer I can give you at this time.”

“Fine.” It was clear from Aspern’s tone that it wasn’t fine at all. He got into his golf cart, turned it around sharply on the narrow trail, and was soon out of sight.

On Gurney’s way back to the Jeep, he met Slovak coming toward him, looking a little less worried.

“I got in touch with the regional barracks. They’ll have a dog and handler here by ten tomorrow morning. There’s going to be some paperwork, but it doesn’t seem to be a big deal.”

“Good. Do you know if Kyra plans to impound the Jeep?”

“Don’t ask me. The woman runs her own show.” His tone conveyed that the show was unpleasantly unpredictable.

Gurney was getting tired of the static in the Slovak-Barstow relationship, but that wasn’t something he wanted to address—not right then, anyway. Instead, he thanked Slovak for arranging for the K9 team and continued along the trail to the Jeep.

Barstow explained she’d be completing her forensic examination of the Jeep within the hour and, yes, she intended to have it transported to the impound lot—but that wouldn’t be happening until the following day, because there was a snag in getting it there. There was no key, and without one the anti-theft system would make starting the engine close to impossible, and there was no way to negotiate the trails with a tow vehicle. The nearest dealer able to provide a substitute key would have it ready for pickup in the morning. So, perhaps by tomorrow noon the Jeep would be on its way to the garage.

With little else at the moment keeping him on Harrow Hill, or anywhere else in Larchfield, Gurney’s thoughts turned to Walnut Crossing and the planned dinner with the Winklers. That, in turn, reminded him of the tulips Madeleine had asked him to pick up.

An hour later, he pulled into the busy parking lot of Snook’s Green World Nursery. Some customers were perusing the flower and vegetable seedlings on the outdoor tables, while others were making their way through the greenhouses. After a brief search, he located a potted tulip display, chose three pots with brightly colored varieties, paid for them, and secured them on the floor behind the front seat of the Outback.

He chose a route to Walnut Crossing that meandered through a succession of hills and valleys and wildflower meadows, but it wasn’t because of the views that he chose it. It was because it was less direct and would add time to the drive. He’d accepted the need to be present at the Winkler dinner, but he had no desire to arrive early.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the road-maintenance delay just outside Walnut Crossing. A pair of backhoes were deepening the drainage ditch alongside the road, and the final downhill stretch into the village that would normally take a minute to drive through took nearly twenty. It made him wonder how often lateness was a by-product of the fear of being early.

At Gerry Mirkle’s driveway, he pulled in behind an eco-looking vehicle, no doubt belonging to the Winklers. He glanced at his dashboard time display and noted with relief that it was just 7:15. Arriving a quarter of an hour late could hardly be viewed as a problem.

As he was getting out of the car, Gerry opened a screen door to the driveway. She had a drink in her hand and a grin on her face.

“Welcome, traveler, we’re just getting ready to eat.”

He followed her through the door into a brightly lit kitchen with pictures of roosters on three of the walls. The aroma of Indian spices filled the air.

The Winklers—vegan-pale and wearing matching undyed-wool sweaters—were standing in the middle of the room, each holding a small bottled water.

Madeleine was carrying a covered casserole from the oven to a counter that separated the working part of the kitchen from a homey dining area with a pine table and captain’s chairs. She set the casserole on a black-iron trivet and gestured toward the Winklers.

“You remember Deirdre and Dennis?”

Gurney walked over to Dennis with his hand extended and a smile that he hoped was sufficient to conceal his distaste for the man. “Nice to see you again.”

Dennis sniffled loudly as they shook hands. Wearing a slim-cut white linen shirt, partly tucked into designer jeans, he had the curled lip of a perpetually unsatisfied connoisseur.

Deirdre offered a pale cheek to receive a welcoming kiss, which Gurney bestowed lightly.

“Oh, my . . .” she said, drawing back in dismay. “Sorry about that. You seem to have a strong negative aura. But of course you do. You’re still doing police work, aren’t you?”

“To some extent.”

He wanted to avoid being more specific. It wasn’t just his basic cop instinct for saying as little as possible about a current case. It was the fact that his last personal involvement with the Winklers involved Dennis’s exposure to the frightening finale of the Peter Pan murders—a memory he didn’t think anyone would want to revisit.

In an attempt to change the subject, he waved his hand toward the casserole. “Hopefully a nice dinner will get rid of my negative aura.” He peered at the bottle in Dennis’s hand. “What are you drinking?”

“The only absolutely pure water in America.”

“Speaking of which,” said Gerry to Gurney with a wink, “would you care to wet your whistle with an absolutely pure gin and tonic?”

“I would. Thank you!”

He followed Gerry to the counter, where she had the drink makings and a bucket of ice. He watched as she poured a generous shot of gin into a tall glass.

“So, how goes it?” she asked in a confidential tone.

He shrugged. “It’s . . . complicated.”

She glanced over toward the Winklers, as if to be sure they weren’t overhearing her. “All I know is what Maddie told me, but it sounds horrendous and totally weird.”

“It’s all of that.”

She poured some tonic over the gin, added ice cubes and a wedge of lemon, handed him the glass, then raised her voice to a more public level. “Okay, everybody, let’s make our way to the table. Madeleine’s put together a wonderful vegetarian biryani, and the scent of that cinnamon and cardamom is making me drool!”

While the Gurneys and Winklers were seating themselves, she went back and forth to the kitchen, bringing dishes of chutney, curried potatoes, and oven-warmed chapatis to the table.

“Wonderful stuff, Gerry,” said Gurney after sampling a few items.

“Very nice,” said Dennis. His flat tone suggested he’d had nicer things.

“By the way,” said Deirdre, “have any of you been following what’s going on up in Larchfield?”

“We don’t have a TV,” said Gurney quickly, having no desire to disclose his involvement. “What are they saying about it?”

“Horrible is a mild word for it,” said Deirdre. “And the ironic thing is where it’s happening.”

“You mean Larchfield?” asked Madeleine.

“One of the classiest towns in the state! Dennis and I stayed at an inn on the lake on our tenth wedding anniversary. The inn, the lake, the homes—pure perfection! And that glorious little village square park—not one faded petal on the flowers. You could feel a sense of decorum in the air—something that’s become virtually extinct in our tawdry world.”

“True civilization is becoming a thing of the past,” added Dennis. “The great American aristocracy has been forced to retreat into a few islands of propriety, like Larchfield. A tragedy.”

From there, for the next two hours, the dinner conversation moved from one annoying topic to another, in Gurney’s opinion, often involving Dennis’s special occupations.

Among other things, he’d worked as a “natural-ecology arborist”—which involved a kind of matchmaking between trees and their evolutionary environments. He was also a hay-bale home builder, which he insisted was the most sensible form of residential construction. But he’d been forced to abandon that profession as a result of his hay allergy.

“And what are you doing now?” Madeleine asked, as Winkler paused to scoop the final bit of vegetable biryani from the casserole dish onto his plate.

“In addition to managing our alpaca farm, I’m now a CTB Life Guide. It’s the culmination of—”

“A what?” said Gurney.

“You’re not familiar with CTB? Contemporary Transcendental Buddhism. It’s by far the most—”

Gerry interrupted to ask if anyone was ready for tea, regular coffee, or espresso.

Gurney opted for an espresso, Madeleine for regular tea, the Winklers for herbal tea.

Gerry began filling a teakettle with water.

“Wait a second.” Dennis stood up, reached into a shoulder bag he’d hung on the back of his chair, and produced another bottle of water. “Would you mind using this for our tea?”

Gerry smiled. “No problem. Just curious—how is it different from our regular water?”

“Purity! A quality that should be built into more of the world’s products.”

Gurney recalled the eco-looking vehicle in the driveway. “Like your car?”

“Yes. It has zero emissions. Meaning it leaves the gentlest possible footprint on the world. There’s a CTB saying: Your footprint in this life forms the cradle of your next life.”

Deirdre nodded enthusiastically. “Your actions today create what your life will be tomorrow. That’s the true meaning of karma. Maybe all that horror in Larchfield is karma. Evil coming back from the dead.”

Dennis offered his own summary. “Evil is done unto him who evil does.”

Deirdre shuddered and crossed her arms. “That saying gives me goose bumps. But it’s true, when you think about it. It’s very deep.”

“Well,” said Gerry, standing up from the table. “It’s getting dark, and I’m feeling a little chilly. Time to close the windows. Once the sun has gone behind those hills, it doesn’t take long for the temperature to drop.”

Everyone turned their heads to follow her gaze. The sky had faded from purple to charcoal gray. Gurney stood up to help close the windows. From somewhere in the woods behind the house there came a mournful cry.

Deirdre’s eyes widened. “My God, what was that?”

Gerry shrugged. “Some kind of bird or animal. What else would be out there?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” cried Deirdre. “That sounds like a line in a horror movie.”

“Sorry.” Gerry’s smile was pure innocence. “I’ll check on the tea.”

Madeleine spoke up cheerily. “Let’s talk about alpacas.”

“Oh, yes!” said Deirdre. “They’re so sweet. And their wool is so gorgeous.”

“Finest wool in the world,” said Dennis. “Silky, durable, top-of-the-line. If someone wanted the ideal animal, the alpaca is the obvious choice.”

“Kind of pricey, aren’t they?” said Gurney.

“Quite the opposite, all things considered.”

“What things?”

“The hidden costs of other animals. For example, cats.” His intonation made cats sound about as desirable as rats. “When I met Deirdre, she had two cats, both with a preference for premium canned cat food. Two dollars a can. Four dollars a day. One thousand four hundred sixty dollars a year. And they lived for fourteen years.”

“They were inseparable,” said Deirdre wistfully. “Pippa died a week after Big Beau.”

“Fourteen years,” repeated Dennis. “At one thousand four hundred sixty dollars a year. That’s twenty thousand four hundred forty dollars. Over ten thousand dollars per cat. For food. You know what an alpaca eats? Grass! And best of all—”

Gurney’s phone rang. He pulled it halfway from his pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Morgan.

“Sorry,” he said, “I need to take this.”

A sliding glass door led to a rear deck. He stepped out into the cool night air.

“Gurney here.”

“Dave! Can you hear me?” Morgan’s voice was charged with excitement.

“Yes. What’s happening?”

“Lorinda Russell called. She told me she just shot Billy Tate!”

“What?”

“She shot Billy Tate! She thinks he’s dead.”

“How did it happen?”

“He broke into the house. Through the conservatory, like the night he killed Angus. She heard the glass breaking and got one of Angus’s guns. She went out into the conservatory, he came at her with a scalpel, and she shot him. Twice. She said he’s lying there on the floor. She sounded freaked out by the blood. How fast can you get here?”

“An hour, if I leave right now. Who have you notified?”

“I sent some patrol guys over to secure the site, then I called you. I’m about to call EMS, Fallow, Slovak, Barstow. Hurry. I want you to be here when we interview Lorinda.”

“When we spoke to her after Angus’s death, she said she was bringing in a security company the next day to install cameras. If she did, get hold of the video files.”

“Right. Will do. Wow. Tate’s down! Hopefully dead. Jesus.” Morgan’s voice was breaking up with excitement. “I hope to God this means the case is over.”

40

Gurney stood on the deck, staring out into the dark woods, trying to make sense of this strange development. There’d been unforeseen twists in cases he’d worked on over the years, but this felt different. It felt like a fundamental dislocation. It made him wonder if his previous sense of the case had any basis in reality.

What motive was he missing that would account for Tate attempting a homicidal attack on Lorinda? And from a tactical point of view, why hadn’t he killed her the night he killed Angus? She was in the next bedroom, a convenient target. If he hadn’t wanted to kill her then, why now?

Madeleine stepped out on the deck. “Is there a problem?”

“Morgan just told me that the ‘Dark Angel’ who left the message on our barn has been shot. So the case may be coming to an end, but now I’m not sure what it was all about to begin with.”

“Do you have to know?”

“I’d like to.”

After a silence she changed the subject. “Did you by any chance remember the tulips?”

“Actually, I did.”

He retrieved the pots from the Outback and handed them to her.

“I have to leave now. Can you—”

“Explain that you’ve been called away on a police emergency? Of course. Be careful.”

There was no traffic on the route he chose from Walnut Crossing to Larchfield, and he drove well over the speed limit. A full moon was high in a cloudless sky, giving the landscape a silvery sheen and making his headlights almost unnecessary. As he descended the long hill into Larchfield, the surface of the lake was a sheet of pewter running through the center of the valley.

Soon he was proceeding along Waterview Drive, passing a succession of lakefront mansions, coming eventually to the roadside cottage with the little porch where Mary Kane had been murdered.

Why her and not Ruby-June Hooper, who’d encountered Tate less than a mile down the road? Gurney wondered for the twentieth time. Could that little mystery be a window into the essence of the case?

Immediately after the Kane cottage, he turned up the private road that provided access to the Russell estate and the web of Harrow Hill trails. As he recalled from his experience there with Morgan, the dirt-and-gravel lane soon twisted into a series of narrow switchbacks—tricky in daylight and a real challenge at night.

He finally arrived at the estate’s imposing drystone wall and stopped. Police tape had been stretched across the open gateway. A young officer with a large flashlight came to the side window of the Outback and pointed it for a moment at Gurney’s face.

“Detective Gurney?”

“Right.”

“You can go right on through. All vehicles are to be parked by the front portico.”

“Thanks. Is he dead?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s dead. I was one of the first responders, took one look, didn’t need to take another. Two shots. One through the chest, one through the jaw. Blew the back of his head apart. Only thing that kept it from flying all over that greenhouse was that hoodie.”

The officer lowered the tape, and Gurney drove through the open gate into the allée of tall trees that enclosed the gravel driveway on both sides. He parked the Outback next to the other vehicles by the columned portico—three Larchfield PD cruisers, Slovak’s Dodge Charger, a body-transport van, Fallow’s Mercedes, Morgan’s Tahoe, the crime-scene photographer’s Camry, and Barstow’s tech van. The time on the dashboard display was 10:15 p.m. as he stepped out into the chilly night air.

As Gurney made his way around the big stone house, he passed from soft moonlight into the stark brightness of the halogen lights illuminating the area between the conservatory and the woods. He crossed paths with the photographer, who was just leaving, a bulging camera bag slung over his shoulder.

Slovak and one of the uniformed officers were examining Tate’s orange Jeep, which was now at the mouth of the trail opposite the conservatory door. Two other patrol cops were using yellow tape to demarcate a wide corridor across the lawn. Through the glass-paned side of the conservatory, Gurney spotted Barstow talking to Fallow.

Morgan was standing by the open conservatory door. The emotion in his eyes was beyond anxiety.

“Thank God you’re here!”

“What’s the matter?”

“You’ll see.”

Gurney stepped inside.

What he saw at first was consistent with what he’d been envisioning, based on Morgan’s phone call and the comments of the officer at the gate.

There was nothing initially surprising about the prone figure lying in the middle of the stone floor, or in the now-familiar Tate uniform of gray hoodie, black jeans, and sneakers. The body was resting on its back, legs extended toward Gurney.

Large, still tacky-looking bloodstains on the floor to the left side of the head and chest suggested that the body’s original orientation had been facedown over those areas of pooled blood and that it had been rolled over by the medical examiner in the course of his preliminary in situ examination. The matching positions of the stains on the chest and neck areas of Tate’s hoodie were consistent with this scenario.

When Gurney moved closer, he noted the catastrophic damage caused by the bullet that had shattered the chin and jaw before continuing on its path and ­apparently—according to the gate officer—blowing the rear section of the skull into the hood of the sweatshirt.

As he approached still closer and was able to get a better view of the upper part of the face, he was baffled by its transformation. It seemed to have aged in a weird way, looking nothing like the mug shot he’d seen of Tate. Certainly nothing like the photograph in Selena Cursen’s bedroom.

The change was especially evident in the still-open eyes. They were smaller, darker . . .

He stopped, stared, took another step closer.

Was it possible?

He looked back at Morgan, who nodded in what looked like an ongoing state of shock.

Gurney bent over, peering intently at those small, black, dead eyes. Now he was certain.

The bloody body on floor was Chandler Aspern’s.

He stepped back, his mind racing to make sense of this bizarre development.

Barstow’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “We found something interesting in his sweatshirt pocket.” She held up a plastic freezer bag.

Gurney leaned forward to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

The bag contained a severed right hand, probably male, judging from the size of it.