The Viper

32

WEATHER IN THE CATSKILLS WAS ALWAYS UNPREDICTABLE and especially so in the late fall, when a morning’s blue sky could disappear behind an afternoon’s sleet storm. That seemed to be the direction of things now—at 11:05 a.m.—as Madeleine drove him home from Parker Hospital.

He decided earlier that morning that full disclosure, problematic as that might be, was the only reasonable way forward with Madeleine, and so he spent most of their drive filling her in on everything he could remember about the “incident”—plus his own position as prime suspect in the shooting death of Sonny Lerman.

After expressing outrage that Cam Stryker could suggest such a thing, she’d fallen silent and remained that way until they were close to Walnut Crossing. Then, gazing straight ahead, she began to speak.

“I know I encouraged you to take a look at the Slade case as a favor to Emma. I imagined you’d review the evidence, discover the flaws, and write a report. Like a radiologist would study X-rays and provide an opinion without coming into contact with the patient. Stupid of me to think you could keep it at arm’s length. Even now, with all that’s happened, you don’t want to drop it, do you?”

“Stryker sure as hell wants me to.” He paused while a high-pitched ringing in his ears grew louder and then subsided like the passing of siren, fading into a low-level tinnitus. “She’s holding a murder charge over my head to make me stop looking into it. She’s scared to death I’ll discover something that’ll kick the political ladder out from under her.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“About dropping the case? If no one cared whether I did or not, I might be willing to.”

“But someone trying to kill you on Blackmore Mountain, then ending up with a bullet in his own head, and the DA threatening to arrest you for murder if you don’t back away . . . that adds up to an irresistible attraction?”

He didn’t reply. His tinnitus was creeping back up in volume. His eyelids were growing heavy, and soon all he could see were the skaters circling on the frozen pond.

AN ABRUPT CHANGE in momentum awakened him. Blinking to clear his vision, he saw that the car had come to a stop between the asparagus patch and the side door of the house. Snow was falling. Madeleine was looking at him with evident concern.

“Are you alright?”

He winced as he turned to unfasten his seat belt. “Just a sore neck.”

He tried rotating his shoulders and discovered that wasn’t a good idea either.

“Shall I give you a hand?”

“I’m fine.” As if to prove his point, he got out of the car a bit too energetically and nearly fell before regaining his balance and making his way into the house.

She was close behind him. When they reached the kitchen, she asked if she could get him anything.

He shook his head. “I need to make some phone calls. I’m fine, really. My problem is maybe a three out of ten.”

Her lips tightened. “I don’t think that’s true. Not physically, not emotionally, certainly not legally. The idea that Stryker might prosecute you for murder is terrifying. On a scale of one to ten, that’s an eleven!”

He put his hand on the sink island to steady himself. “I don’t know how serious she is about that. All I’m sure of is that she wants me off the Slade case.”

Madeleine’s distress seemed to deepen. “Just like Sonny Lerman running you off that mountain road.”

“Probably. But that wouldn’t explain his getting shot. That’s where I get lost. It’s obvious that somebody other than Sonny is pulling the strings. Someone who talked him into doing what he did. Someone who either followed him to the spot where he rammed me or was waiting there. That’s the only way what happened makes any sense to me.”

Madeleine looked like she had questions she was afraid to ask.

After a fraught silence, she changed the subject.

“Do you want some lunch?”

He was about to say no, not until he made a phone call—to discuss the latest developments with Jack Hardwick—but then he thought better of it. This was not the moment to abandon Madeleine to her fears.

“Sure,” he said. “Good idea.”

33

MADELEINE ASSEMBLED A SALAD WITH THE CONCENTRATION of a person struggling to keep other thoughts at bay. After bringing it to the table, she focused on arranging the plates, silverware, and napkins just so before taking her seat.

“You first,” she said with a tight smile, nudging the bowl toward Gurney.

He served himself some lettuce and a chunk of avocado, but he wasn’t hungry. His hospital breakfast of watery scrambled eggs, a dry muffin, and a slice of unripe melon had killed his appetite.

“We need to think about getting the shed ready,” she said, gazing out through the glass doors. “For the alpacas.”

That took him by surprise, not just because it seemed such a far leap from the current crisis but because the possible acquisition of a pair of alpacas hadn’t been mentioned for the past six months, not since the conclusion of the Harrow Hill case.

Nothing more was said as they nibbled at the edges of their salads for another ten minutes or so. After they’d put down their forks, Madeleine cleared the table and Gurney retreated to the den, closing the door behind him. He needed to be able to speak frankly with Hardwick without Madeleine overhearing.

He settled down at his desk in a position that minimized the dull ache in his back and placed the call.

“The fuck is it now?”

“The driver of the other vehicle was Sonny Lerman.”

“Son of Lenny?”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit. What’s his explanation for ramming you?”

“No explanation. He’s dead. With a bullet in his head. After he ran me off the road, somebody shot him.”

“Who told you this?”

“Stryker, last night in the hospital. She claims the gun that killed him was found in my hand, along with traces of gunshot residue.”

“How’d the GSR get on you?”

“After I hit the tree stump, a blow to the side of my head put me out cold. I figure that’s when the shooter hit Sonny, then held the gun in my hand and fired it a second time to deposit the residue.”

Hardwick uttered a thoughtful grunt. “So, the proposed meeting in Harbane was just a way of getting you on that deserted road at that particular time.”

“So it seems.”

“But you’re still a free man. How come?”

“Stryker told me she’s proceeding slowly out of respect for my NYPD background.”

“Bullshit!”

“I realize that. So, I’m thinking there might be some evidence at the scene that doesn’t add up. I’d like to know whatever she knows about the vehicle that hit me. Also, did Magnussen’s crew find any evidence consistent with the presence of a third party?”

“You suggesting I should just use my instant X-ray vision to look inside Stryker’s head and the BCI case file?”

“Sounds good to me. Also, Magnussen had my phone for a while—which means he made a record of my calls, including the one from the guy offering to meet me in Harbane. I assume he was using an anonymous phone, but the phone company would have the originating cell tower location. If Magnussen tracked that down, I’d like to know what he found out.”

“Okay,” said Hardwick finally, making the word sound more threatening than compliant. “I’ll risk destroying my last positive BCI relationship to apply the kind of pressure this’ll take. But holy fucking shit, Gurney, you are gonna owe me!”

Gurney sat for a while gazing out the den window. A snow squall had engulfed the high pasture. He could hear the faint melody of one of Madeleine’s favorite string pieces coming from her upstairs practice room. She must’ve been using her backup cello, the one she kept as a spare after acquiring a better one from a retiring member of the Glimmerglass orchestra. He explained that her newer one couldn’t be retrieved from his wrecked Outback as long as BCI was treating the vehicle as part of a crime scene.

The day was barely half gone, and he was already feeling exhausted. Determined not to let his concussion symptoms control him, he forced himself to sit up straight, went through the Slade files on his desk, and picked out the transcript he’d been about to read the previous day before he headed for Blackmore Mountain.

The transcript was headlined “Interview with Thomas Cazo, Lerman’s Supervisor at the Beer Monster.” As he made his way through it, an exchange between Derlick and Cazo piqued his curiosity.

It might not mean much, but that reference to Lerman being “kind of out of it for a month or so” prior to quitting his job felt like information worth looking into. The question was who to ask about it. Adrienne would be dealing with the shock of Sonny’s death and, depending on what the police told her, perhaps a belief that Gurney had been involved in it—making an objective conversation impossible.

So that left Cazo. As Gurney considered how to approach the man, his gaze drifted back to the window and the swirling snowstorm. A dark bird flew wildly past the window. Hearing the den door behind him, he turned and saw Madeleine, eyeing him anxiously.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not bad,” he answered, not quite truthfully. “I heard you playing. Is the old cello okay?”

“The tone isn’t great.”

“We can probably retrieve your good one in another couple of days.”

“What about our car?”

“Depends on the verdict of the insurance company. I suspect they’ll total it and give us the money. We should discuss what we want to replace it with.”

She was looking through the window at the snow devils whirling across the hillside. “I hope the hens are in their coop.”

He didn’t reply.

She turned to him. “Any pain?”

“Bit stiff.” It was more than that, but he found it difficult to admit being in pain. He equated pain with weakness, and that was something he couldn’t acknowledge.

She looked at his desk, covered with the case folders. “Are you getting any closer to giving Emma your opinion of all this?”

“It’s hard to tell. I’m intrigued by the odd connection between what happened at Slade’s lodge last November and what happened on Blackmore Mountain yesterday.”

“You mean, the murder victims being father and son?”

“Not only that, but the fact that I was set up to take the blame for the son’s murder—just as Slade may have been set up to take the blame for the father’s. The blackmail demand gave Slade a motive to kill Lenny, just like being rammed off the road gave me a motive to kill Sonny. But the killer’s priority eludes me. Was the ultimate goal to kill both of the Lermans—or were they just collateral damage in an effort to incriminate Slade and then me?”

“The more important question is how involved you should be in any of this. It seems that people on both sides of the law want you out of it. I certainly do, the sooner the better.”

Ignoring her attempt to recast the issue, he went on. “I’m convinced there’s a piece missing from the puzzle, the piece that will make sense of the murders, the frame jobs, everything.”

“That’s magic for you, isn’t it? That missing piece that promises to explain everything, regardless of the danger. And danger is part of the attraction, isn’t it?”

He didn’t reply. He suspected that what she said was true. He’d faced armed killers many times. The fear he felt in those moments had been matched by a sharpening of his focus, a speeding up of his reflexes. He never felt more alive than when his life was threatened.

“I think I’ll scrape the snow out of the chicken run,” said Madeleine in one of those abrupt changes of subject that he’d never quite gotten used to. “Before it gets too deep.”

“I’ll help,” he insisted, rising from his chair. “The air will clear my mind.”

He was halfway out of the den when his phone rang. Seeing Barstow’s name on the screen, he stopped and took the call.

“I have news,” she said. “About your rabbit.”

“I’m listening.”

“The foreign DNA on its fur was degraded. It’s reliable only to the biological class level, so we can’t take it down to genus or species. However, the class is somewhat surprising. Reptilia.”

“Reptiles?”

“Lizards and snakes—including roughly eight thousand species.”

“You’re saying the rabbit came in contact with that sort of . . . creature?”

“Or in contact with something that a lizard or snake had been in contact with.”

“Is that something that could happen naturally in a wilderness area?”

“Theoretically yes, but unlikely. The quantity of DNA deposited on the rabbit’s feet and stomach would suggest a prolonged exposure, probably in a confined space.”

“What’s the likely scenario?”

“It’s possible that the rabbit spent some time in a herpetarium.”

“That’s not a word I hear every day.”

“A reptile enclosure. Could be the size of a large fish tank. Or the size of the reptile house at a zoo. Or anything in between. There would be enough reptile DNA in that kind of environment to account for its presence on the rabbit.”

“Okay . . . but what’s the context for that situation?”

“You mean, why was the rabbit there to begin with? I would assume as food for a fairly large lizard or snake.”

“Those things are fed live animals in captivity?”

“Not as a rule.”

“Then why . . . ?”

“Perhaps,” she said, “the owner enjoys watching.”

34

STANDING THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEN, HE’D BEEN so absorbed in what Barstow was telling him that he didn’t notice Madeleine watching him with growing alarm.

“What was that all about?” she asked as soon as he ended the call.

He opted for the truth—softening it only to the extent of referring to the thing merely as a dead rabbit rather than a beheaded one. He then explained the forensic work Barstow was doing and her unsettling conclusions.

“Why didn’t you tell me before about the rabbit?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Like you didn’t want to worry me when you called me from the hospital and failed to mention that the accident on Blackmore Mountain nearly killed you?”

“There are a lot of ways of describe a situation. I generally prefer the least dramatic.”

“Why?”

Such a simple question, yet he had no ready answer.

“Think about it,” she said on her way out of the room.

THERE WERE A number of things he was more comfortable thinking about, and the Lerman murders sat at the top of that list. He wondered if the elusive motive for those killings was one of those that accounted for virtually all premeditated murders—power, greed, lust, envy, revenge—or if it was something else, something festering in the mind of a psychopath. If the killer was indeed deranged, the ingenious setups of both murders suggested that whatever that derangement might be, it was accompanied by a cool intelligence.

The transcript of Scott Derlick’s interview with Thomas Cazo—with its reference to Lenny Lerman being “out of it” for a month prior to his resignation—indicated preoccupation or depression. But Cazo’s description of Lerman’s attitude on the day he resigned sounded lively, feisty, optimistic. It was frustrating that Derlick had failed to probe the details of these mood changes.

Gurney found Cazo’s number on the master list of trial witnesses and placed a call. He told himself that this was such a minor violation of the strictures placed on him by Stryker that he could easily find a way of explaining it in the unlikely event that it came to her attention.

The phone rang more than a dozen times before it was answered by a harried voice.

“Beer Monster.”

“Thomas Cazo, please.”

“He’s not here.”

“When will he be in?”

“Night shift.”

“What time does that start?”

“What?”

“What time will Mr. Cazo be in?”

“Four, five, around there.”

“Is that the time he gets in every day?”

“Except Mondays and Tuesdays he’s off. You want to talk to someone else?”

“No, he’s the one I need. Thank you. I appreciate your time. You sound busy.”

“We’re short-handed, and our only forklift’s down. They should have a couple of back-ups.”

“Heavy work, right?’

“Wouldn’t be so bad, you know, if everybody did their share. Some people think others should do it all.”

“A free ride,” said Gurney sympathetically.

“But it ain’t free. Somebody drops their end, somebody gets screwed with the load. So, yeah, free—on somebody else’s sweat. It’s bullshit, is what it is. Entitlement.” He drew the word out in slow, contempt-laden syllables.

“I hear you, brother.”

“What’d you say your name was?”

“Dave.”

“Okay, Dave, you take care, I gotta go.”

“Before you go, tell me something. Do you remember a guy who used to work there—Lenny Lerman?”

“You want to know about Lenny, talk to Cazo. I gotta go.”

The line went dead.

He’d handled the transition to Lerman too abruptly, and probably shouldn’t have tried it at all. Patience was a virtue Gurney needed to work on. He’d start by suppressing the urge to drive to the Beer Monster. Speed was important, but it wasn’t everything. Putting off questioning Cazo for twenty-four hours would give him time to come up with the right approach and give his headache time to abate.

In the meantime, he pulled up a satellite photo of an area encompassing Walnut Crossing, Blackmore Mountain, Harbane, and the neighboring town of Scarpton on his laptop. The image was dated the previous July.

Apart from the two villages, most of the area was forested. The remainder consisted of small pastures, many of which had been abandoned to the gradual encroachment of shrubs and saplings. More than the topography itself, however, he was interested in the roads connecting Walnut Crossing with Harbane and with Scarpton. The only direct route from his home to either of those towns passed directly over Blackmore Mountain. An alternative route would have doubled his driving time. The caller had let him choose between Harbane and Scarpton to give him the illusion of being in control. Bottom line, both Harbane and Scarpton required taking the same mountain road, which solidified his belief that no actual meeting was ever intended.

Gurney manipulated the satellite photo to zoom in on the mountain and locate the spot where he’d been forced off the road. He then centered that spot on the screen and adjusted the photo coverage to include an area of one mile in every direction from that point.

His initial impression was of uninterrupted woodland on both sides of the road. Closer inspection revealed two small clearings—one about a quarter mile in from the left side of the road, the other—a little farther in the direction of Harbane—half a mile into the woods on the right side.

Zooming in first on the left-side clearing, he was able to make out a log cabin, a shed, a woodpile partly covered by a tarp, and two raised planting beds. A dirt lane through the woods connected the clearing with the road.

Shifting to the right side of the road, he zoomed in on the other clearing. It contained a larger cabin and half a dozen tent platforms with a picnic table and fire pit adjacent to each. It appeared to be a small campground. Given the current weather, it probably wasn’t in use, but both sites were worth exploring.

“David, there’s a van down by the barn, and someone with a camera.”

Madeleine was at the den door, and her tone was an unmistakable call to action.

He closed his laptop and followed her out through the kitchen to the French doors. She pointed down past the low pasture to the area between the barn and the pond. He saw what he hadn’t expected to see for at least another day or two—a van with a satellite dish on the roof and a RAM News logo on the side. Two figures in hooded parkas were standing in front of it.

The one with the camera raised it to eye level and began a slow pan around the property. The other figure lowered her parka hood, revealing a mass of blond hair. The camera operator completed the panning shot and aimed the camera at her. She made a sweeping movement of her arm up toward the house. She appeared to be speaking to the camera.

Madeleine’s lips tightened. “Are you going to tell them to get off our property, or shall I do it?” She sounded eager to accept the second option.

“Not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’d like that.”

“Like being told to get lost?”

“They’d be happy to engage with either one of us on video. Ideally, they’d like me to answer questions about Blackmore Mountain, but they’d settle for a shouting match over their right to be here, the people’s right to know, et cetera—any contentious dispute they could play back on their so-called news program. These people don’t deliver information, they deliver conflict. That’s what they sell to their brain-dead audience. Battles boost ratings. A trip that doesn’t generate a fight is a zero for them. So that what we’ll give them—zero.”

It was obvious from Madeleine’s body language that zero conflict in this situation was not appealing.

Gurney added, “Their next move will be to come up to the house to badger us into responding. I’ll lock the doors and we’ll go upstairs.”

He watched as the blond reporter and her cameraman began to make their way awkwardly up through the snow-covered pasture.

“That’s it?” said Madeleine. “We let them have the run of our property, pound on our doors, do whatever?”

Gurney let out a small sigh. “However frustrating it may be for us, it’ll be more frustrating for them. Trust me.”

Madeleine waited while he secured the doors. After a final glare at the intruders approaching the house, she followed him upstairs.

Soon the door-knocking began, growing more insistent as the pair moved from the side door to the French doors and on to the door at the rear of the house. As she progressed from door to door, the reporter’s shouted challenges increased in insinuation and hostility.

“Mr. Gurney, we’re from RAM News. Please come to the door.”

“We have important questions for you. It would be in your interest to answer them.”

“Come to the door. This is of vital importance.”

“This is about your role in the Blackmore shooting.”

“It’s your chance to tell your side of the story.”

“What were you doing on that mountain road?”

“How long did you know the victim?”

“Did you shoot him? Now’s your chance to set the record straight.”

“Is it true you had a grudge against Sonny Lerman?”

“Are you being paid by Ziko Slade?”

“Are you the missing link between the two Lerman murders?”

“Why are you getting special treatment?”

During the onslaught, Madeleine decided to give the RAM invaders her own aggressively nonchalant response. She discreetly opened one of the second floor windows and began playing a lively Bach cello piece.

The effect of the baroque melody was both powerful and comical—the music of beauty, precision, and light, floating above the discordant merchants of conflict. There was a fierce satisfaction in Madeleine’s smile as she wielded her bow like a sword.

When Gurney watched the frustrated RAM pair finally heading down to their van through the slippery pasture, he had a pleasant feeling of victory. But the victory, he suspected, was fleeting.

35

A THROBBING HEADACHE DROVE HIM TO BED SHORTLY after dinner, and he had a restless night—the headache rising and receding in waves. Several times he was on the verge of abandoning sleep altogether, but simple inertia kept him in bed. Once, as he was drifting into unconsciousness, the image of a huge green snake with red eyes jerked him awake.

Sleep finally overtook him at dawn. The longed-for oblivion was shattered by the ringing of his phone, which turned out to be either a wrong number or bad joke. An anxious voice asked if the veterinarian had anything to kill lice on a parrot.

As he was putting the phone back on the nightstand, hoping for another hour or two of sleep, it rang again. This time it was Emma Martin, her voice full of anxiety.

“Are you alright, David?”

“More or less.”

“Thank God! What happened?”

“How much do you already know?”

“Just what I heard a minute ago on the Albany news station—that there was a collision and shooting on Blackmore Mountain. I wasn’t paying much attention, then I heard your name mentioned, along with Sonny Lerman’s. What on earth happened?”

“Good question. All I know for sure is that I was rammed off the road and whacked on the head. While I was unconscious, someone apparently shot Lerman and arranged the scene to put me in the frame for his murder.”

“Dear God! I’m so sorry, David! How badly were you injured?”

“Concussion, some strained muscles. Physically, no big deal.”

“Legally, it sounds like a very big deal. You should have an attorney, a good one. Whatever it costs, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather deal with this myself.”

“You think this is related to your investigation of the Slade case?”

“Yes.”

“Then drop it. I didn’t intend for you to be in any danger.”

“I appreciate that. But I don’t walk away from things like this. Besides, a violent effort to stop me tells me I’m making progress.”

He could hear a sigh of resignation. “Please be careful. And let me know the minute you need anything.”

Sure now that getting back to sleep would be impossible, he rose cautiously from the bed, noting with relief that his headache was gone. He showered, shaved, dressed, and went out to the kitchen, where he found a note from Madeleine taped to the coffee machine.

Early shift at the Crisis Center. Gerry Mirkle picked me up. Home by 3-ish. Stay in bed! Get some REST!

Rest was the last thing he wanted. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee he checked the supply of feed and water in the coop, let the hens into the fenced run, and set out in the rental car for Blackmore Mountain.

The squalls of the previous two days had passed, leaving alternating swaths of windblown snow on the farm fields—pure white under a shockingly blue sky. When he reached the mountain road, flashes of morning sun through the trees added to the brilliance of the world around him. The light made everything look so different, he was almost past the site of the “incident” before he recognized it.

He stopped for a closer look. A stump about twenty feet from the pavement with crushed wood fibers and shredded bark at bumper height assured him that this was indeed the place. Trying to align his memories, shrouded in swirling snow, with this sun-streaked scene was disorienting.

He drove on until he spotted the point on the left side of the road where the satellite photo showed a dirt lane leading into a pine thicket. As he slowed before making the turn, he heard the harsh revving of an engine from somewhere farther up the lane. He came to a stop, and a few seconds later a car came racing down the toward the road.

Gurney caught a glimpse of the driver—a gaunt young man, his face contorted in what might have been fury, as he braked the car into a swerving skid, whacking the trunk of a giant hemlock, caroming sideways out onto the pavement, and skimming the corner of Gurney’s front bumper. With its rear tires squealing and exhaust pipe scraping the pavement in a shower of sparks, it hurtled away in the direction of Harbane.

Gurney made a mental note of the plate number and turned into the lane. As he reached a point that offered a partial view of the clearing ahead, a heavyset woman in a shapeless brown blouse and slacks came half running, half stumbling toward him. He stopped the car and got out.

“Did he hit you?” she cried in a panicky voice, trying to push her glasses, which were falling off, back in place. “Is he alright? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just got a tiny kiss on the bumper. You are . . . ?”

“What?”

“May I have your name?”

“Nora. I’m his mother. I heard a crash. Is he alright?” Her glasses were thick, magnifying her watery eyes.

“If you mean the driver of the car that went speeding out of here, I don’t know anything about his condition. He hit a tree sideways, skidded out of the lane, and drove off. May I have your full name?”

“Rumsten. Nora Rumsten. Do you think he’s alright?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. What’s your son’s name?”

“Colson. It was such a loud crash. But you’re alright? What about your car? Was there any damage?”

Gurney checked his bumper. There was only a slight scrape. “No big problem. Perhaps we could go up to your house?”

Pushing her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose, she looked back toward the clearing, as if to confirm the location of her house. “Yes, I guess, yes, okay.”

When she didn’t show any sign of moving, he pointed up the lane. “You lead the way. I’ll follow.”

He drove slowly behind her. When they entered the clearing, he got a ground-level view of what he’d seen the day before from the satellite’s perspective. The cabin and the shed were both larger than the impression he’d gotten from the out-of-date aerial photo. A covered front porch had been appended to the cabin, and the raised planting beds with drifted snow against their sides now had the bare look of most Catskill gardens at that time of the year.

The woodpile, thirty or forty feet from the opening of the clearing, was covered with patches of windblown snow. A second woodpile, smaller and in a state of disarray, was in the process of being disassembled by a balding, gray-bearded man in rubber boots, muddy jeans, and what looked like an old Carhartt work jacket. His abrupt movements, grabbing and scattering the logs, conveyed more agitation than planning. Gurney got out of his car and joined the woman, who was pointing at the log hurler.

“Just look at him!” she cried. “That’s what sent Colson flying out of here. I don’t blame him, not when his father gets like this, which is too often. I mean, I’m sorry if he gave you a start, racing by you like that, but it’s not all his fault, not really, not when—” She shook her head, as though the situation were beyond explaining.

She called angrily to the man assaulting the woodpile, “I hope you intend to restack that mess you’re making!”

“The mess I’m making?” He turned toward her, holding a split log like a weapon. “The problem’s the mess he made. Damn waste of my time!”

“Fact is, Bert, Colson’s had another accident—thanks to you and your foul mouth!”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“You’re so deaf you didn’t hear the crash?”

Still holding the log, he walked toward her. “What crash?”

“He ran into a tree and grazed this gentleman’s car. Colson could’ve been killed!”

He eyed Gurney warily. “Ran into a tree? How? Where?”

Gurney answered calmly. “End of the lane. He was driving too fast, skidded, ricocheted off the big hemlock down there, nicked my front bumper, and kept going.”

Bert nodded slowly. “So . . . we’re not talking about a lot of damage. Tree’s no matter.” He took a few steps toward Gurney’s car and peered at the bumper. “Little smudge is all I see. Little polish ought to—”

His wife cut him off. “That’s not the point, Bert! Temper of yours sends the boy out of here like he’s been shot from a cannon. Not the first time, is it?”

He uttered a dismissive grunt. “Nothing to do with me. Not a damn thing! Running fast as he can from real life, is what it is. Boy’s allergic to the right way of doing things. A contrary nature from the day he was born. Say the ocean’s blue, he’ll say it’s black. Agree it’s black, he’ll say it’s purple. Tell him the right way of anything, guaranteed he’ll do it wrong. Screw it up on purpose.”

“Did it never occur to you there might be a better way of providing guidance than calling your son a fucking idiot?”

Bert bared his discolored teeth. “Lucky that’s all I called him, after the goddamn trouble he’s brought us, the money he’s cost us!”

She stared at him, a warning glare in her big myopic eyes.

He shook his head and wiped his mouth with a dirty red hand. Blinking and clearing his throat, he turned to Gurney with a cagey look. “So, that little affair down the road—way I see it, that’s between you and Colson. Got nothing to do with us.”

Gurney shrugged. “If you say so.”

“He needs to take his consequences. He scratched your car, you make him pay for it. Reckless driving. Sue him. Tell him you need a new bumper. Maybe a headlight, too. Thousand dollars, minimum. Dose of reality. Pay the piper.”

“Actually, that’s not why I’m here.”

Husband and wife both gave him blank looks.

“I’m investigating the incident that occurred down on the road the day before yesterday.”

There was a flash of interest in Nora’s eyes.

Her husband shook his head emphatically. “We don’t know anything about that.”

“But you know what I’m talking about, right?”

“The fact of it, is all. There was mention of it on the Harbane radio yesterday, something about a collision—maybe a road-rage thing? We weren’t hardly listening. Nothing we can tell you. If that’s what you come for, you’re wasting your time.”

The man’s position arose either from the all-too-common fear of anything that might involve the police, or from something else. Regardless, pursuing the matter with him right then would be a mistake.

“Does your son live here?”

“He does not.” Bert’s denial carried an edge.

“He has his own apartment in Harbane,” offered Nora with a defiant hint of pride, as though his apartment represented a significant achievement. “I can give you the address, if that would be helpful. You come to the house, and I’ll make a note of it for you.”

Her husband scowled at her, then turned and strode back to the wreckage of the woodpile.

Bert and Nora appeared to be one of those couples with a taste for litigating their disputes in the presence of strangers, as if points could be amassed toward some Pyrrhic victory in the ongoing battle of their marriage. Gurney suspected that offering him their son’s address was Nora’s way of drawing him aside to bolster her viewpoint in private. He followed her to the cabin.

She seemed disappointed that he chose to wait on the porch while she went inside. She came back out a minute later with a piece of paper with something written on it. A thin halo of frizzy hair surrounded the loosely gathered bun on the back of her head.

“Sir, I do want to apologize for Bert’s behavior. Shame you had to be exposed to that. But maybe it gives you some idea of what Colson’s been battered by his whole life. Bert believes there’s only two ways of doing anything, his way and the wrong way. The man’s got no sense of his own human frailty, you understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“Colson’s got potential. Talents. Smarts. But a boy needs the right kind of guidance, not getting cut down all the time by his own father.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Specially now that he’s come off the drugs. Any kind of stress right now . . . it could send him right back.”

She paused, looking down at the paper in her hand. “Which is why I put my phone number on here alongside Colson’s address. Whatever it costs to take care of that scratched bumper, I’d appreciate you letting me take care of it . . .” Her voice trailed off and she handed the paper to Gurney.

He slipped it in his pocket. “When I mentioned the incident I’m investigating—and your husband said neither of you knew anything about it—I got the impression you didn’t agree with that. Am I right?”

“I just know what I heard. Bert’s half deaf. But the problem’s not just his ears, it’s his pride. If he didn’t hear something, then it plain didn’t happen. Plenty of times Colson would tell him something, and Bert’d insist he never did. Call his own son a damn liar right to his face.”

“Regarding that incident on the road, Nora, what was it you heard?”

“Big smashbang collision kind of sound. I was out here digging a storage pit for the potatoes. I said to Bert, my God, what do you suppose that was? He claimed he didn’t hear a thing. I thought, if he could miss that, he’d miss the trumpets of Armageddon.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

“The gunshots. On the farm back in Harbane my brothers had every kind of firearm, shooting the damn things morning, noon, and night. You get to know the sounds. What I heard was a pistol, big one, no twenty-two plinker.”

Gurney gave her an admiring smile. “Sounds like you have a very good ear.”

“Maybe God gave me that, knowing Bert’d have no ear at all.”

“Did it sound like both shots came from the same gun?”

“Most likely. Same caliber, anyway.”

“How about the timing between the shots?”

She paused, her lips pursed in concentration. “A minute. Two at the most.”

“How long after the crash did you hear the first shot?”

“I’d say that was about a minute also.”

“So, the first sound was the crash. A minute later, the first shot. And a minute or two after that, the second shot. Do I have that right?”

“Except the first sound wasn’t the crash. The first sound was the motorbike.”

“Motorbike?”

“The one that came up to the road through the woods.”

“You saw it?”

“I heard it.”

“When you say it came up to the road through the woods—”

“I know the sound. When one of those things is on the pavement, it’s a steady whine. But in the woods, it keeps changing—loud, not loud, loud again—because the rider keeps changing the gears.”

“Your brothers had motorbikes?”

She shook her head. “The kid down at the campground used to have one. Raced around all day like a lunatic. I think there was something the matter with him.”

“You’re talking about the campground on the downhill side of the road?”

She nodded.

“But the kid doesn’t have one anymore?”

“He was the owner’s kid, and he hasn’t been there for a while now. Not since the owner left and brought that new woman in to manage the place. Sometimes the campers bring motorbikes with them.”

“So, you heard a motorbike come up through the woods to the road before the crash. How long before?”

She shrugged. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“And there was no sound of it leaving, until . . . when?”

“Right after the second gunshot.”

“Did you consider calling the police?”

“Bert said people who stick their noses in other people’s business get their noses cut off.”

“Was he threatening you?”

She let out a dismissive snort. “’Course not. Bert’s just a lot of noise. But I couldn’t have called anyway. No landline and we don’t get cell service up here. They keep saying it’s coming, but it never does. I would’ve had to drive down to Harbane, which I couldn’t do, cause Bert had the truck jacked up in the shed to change the oil, and there was the snowstorm going on. I guess I could’ve drove down when he was done with the oil, but . . . I didn’t feel like getting into another set-to with him.”

She fell silent. Tears began to well up in her magnified eyes. “He’s not a bad man, you know? It’s just that he’s always trying to be in charge of things he’s not in charge of. He’s scared, really, is what it is. He’s got fear of everything he can’t control, and, come right down to it, Bert can’t control very much.”

She glanced back at the man waging his hectic war on the woodpile. “It’s sad, is what it is. I’ve seen men like him drink themselves to death. Leastways, Bert doesn’t drink hard liquor. That’s something, right?”

36

AT THE FOOT OF THE LANE, JUST PAST THE HEMLOCK whose bark had been ripped open in Colson Rumsten’s flight from his father, Gurney made a left onto the road and began watching for the turnoff to the campground.

He found it almost immediately. The words BLACKMORE PINES CAMPSITES were painted in rustic letters on a sign affixed to a roadside tree. Rutted and icy, the lane leading down into the forest looked more challenging than the one to Bert and Nora Rumsten’s property. Rather than taking a chance on skidding or getting his rental car stuck on the slope, he decided to park by the sign and proceed on foot.

He stepped carefully around patches of ice. His concussion had made him wary of falling. It felt like a decade had been added to his age. The lane eventually brought him down to a clearing that was more deeply shaded than the Rumstens’. The evergreens surrounding it were taller and denser. There were no planting beds here, no sun, no grass, just frozen earth and pine needles. On the left side of the clearing there was a single-story log house with a wide porch. On the right were the six tent platforms and adjoining fire pits and picnic tables that he’d seen in the aerial photo.

A blue pickup truck was parked next to the house. Somewhere out of sight a generator was humming. At the top of a tall spruce, a raucous crow was voicing what Gurney imagined to be displeasure at his presence.

As if in response to the loud caws, the door of the log house opened and a woman holding a long wooden spoon stepped onto the porch. She wore a red flannel shirt and khaki cargo pants with mud stains on the knees. Her expression, framed by a casual mop of blond hair, was quizzical but not unfriendly.

He introduced himself and explained that he was investigating the incident involving a car and a tow truck that occurred two days earlier up on Blackmore Mountain Road.

“Sorry, but there’s not much I can tell you about that.”

He smiled understandingly. “Anything at all would be helpful. You’re obviously busy. I apologize for intruding like this, but if you could spare a moment for a few quick questions . . .”

After sizing him up, she shrugged. “I’m in the middle of concocting a sweet potato soup. If you want to come in, you can ask your questions while I stir the pot.”

He followed her into the house and found himself in a multipurpose room with a stove, sink, refrigerator, and work table at the near end, a large pine dining table in the middle, and at the far end a sitting area with a leather couch and a pair of armchairs. A fire was burning in a stone fireplace behind the dining table.

As she headed for the stove, she pointed to a chair at the end of the table. “I’m Tess Larson. Have a seat. What happened to your head?”

“Something collided with it.”

She began stirring the contents of a black pot on the stove. “Considering the size of the bruise, I’m surprised you’re walking around.”

“When things need to be done, they need to be done.”

“Profound. So, what needs to be done?” She continued stirring the pot.

“We’re trying to find out as much as we can about that incident up on the road—by talking to people in the area while any memories are still fresh.” He knew his use of the word “we” was deceptive, since it implied that his inquiries were part of the official investigation, but it seemed justified by the fact that he intended to turn over whatever he discovered to BCI.

She turned down the gas under the pot. “I don’t know how I can help you. The thing is, I wasn’t actually here when it happened.”

“Not actually here?”

She grinned. “What I mean is, I’d gone down to Harbane on a little errand of mercy, and on my way back I discovered the police had closed off this part of the road. I asked a trooper what the problem was. He said there’d been a serious traffic incident and there could be a long wait before I could get through, but when I explained that I had a visitor who might be seriously ill, he let me pass. That’s all I know.”

“You haven’t heard any more about it since then? No news reports, nothing at all?”

She shook her head. “I have no radio, no TV, as little outside contact as possible. That’s the point of my being here. Peace. Meditation. Reevaluation.” She paused. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

Seeing little chance of getting any useful information, he was about to refuse her offer, then on an impulse accepted it. “Coffee would be great. No milk, no sugar.”

She popped a pod into a machine on the counter next to the stove, inserted a mug, and waited until, with much hissing and gurgling, the mug was filled. She brought it to Gurney and took a seat across the table from him, eyeing him with interest.

He broke the silence. “You were saying that the point of your being here is—”

“To take some time out. Escape from the hamster wheel of life. Reevaluate.”

“Reevaluate what?” He hoped his tone hadn’t revealed his reflexive contempt for New Age navel-gazing.

“The purpose of my life. My career. I’ve been a social worker for the past ten years. I have that gene—that deep-seated itch to make everyone okay, especially the ones who have the least chance of being okay. It can wear you down. At some point, if you have any sanity left, you have to back away. I saw an ad for a wilderness camp caretaker. I met with the owner, was offered the job, and took it. So here I am. In the middle of nowhere, battling the gene, which is still alive and well. In fact, it’s why I wasn’t here when that accident happened.”

“How so?” He sipped his coffee, looking forward to the effect of the caffeine.

“I was gone because of the guy who was here that day. He arrived that morning in a big black pickup truck with a motorcycle in the back—one of those off-road things with high fenders.” She shook her head. “I never cease to be amazed at how grown men can be so fond of noise and speed. Anyway, he paid fifty dollars cash for one of the campsites, then spent the rest of the morning sitting in his truck.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Jim Brown.”

“You said he was the reason you weren’t here?”

“About one o’clock that afternoon he knocked on my door and asked if I could go down to the drug store to pick up his angina prescription. He said he felt an attack coming on, but he’d forgotten to bring his pills with him, and he’d just called his doctor’s office to have them phone in a prescription to the CVS in Harbane. He said the way he was feeling made him afraid to drive there himself. I offered to drive him—either to the drugstore or the ER—but he said someone was coming here to see him, and he had to be here when he arrived. He looked terribly anxious, which put that fixer gene of mine in high gear. I told him to lie down on the couch while I went for his medicine.”

Gurney nodded, noting the leather couch at the far end of the room. “Let me guess what happened next. When you got to the CVS in Harbane, they told you they hadn’t received a prescription order for anyone named Brown, and when you got back here he was gone.”

She stared at Gurney, her mouth open. “How on earth . . . ?”

“Did I leave anything out?”

“Just that he left another fifty dollars on the table for my trouble, along with a note apologizing for the confusion and explaining that he’d just discovered that his doctor wasn’t able to phone the prescription in, that the friend he was supposed to meet couldn’t make it, and he had to leave. But . . . how did you know?”

“Long story. Do you still have that note he left for you?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I tossed it in the fireplace.”

“Do you remember where his truck was parked when you set out for Harbane?”

“I can show you.” She went to a row of pegs by the door, where some outdoor clothes were hanging, and slipped on a puffy blue ski jacket.

He zipped up his own jacket and followed her out across the chilly clearing to one of the tent platforms, shaded by the towering evergreens. The crow on the top of the tallest one watched in silence.

She pointed to the rutted, frosty ground next to the tent platform. “If you’re looking for his tire tracks, you’re in luck. He was here during that snow and sleet storm, but the temperature was barely below freezing, and the ground was still soft from the last rain. I know, because I almost got stuck on my way up to the road—on my pointless drugstore trip.”

Gurney studied the ground around the platform. The cold snap had hardened the earth and preserved the tread impressions of two vehicles—one with four wheels and one with two. The motorcycle she’d seen in the visitor’s truck bed had evidently been unloaded and ridden while she was in Harbane. Ridden where was the question.

Gurney guessed it was to the site of the ramming—which would square with the sequence of engine and gunshot sounds heard by Nora Rumsten. If so, it would suggest that the rider was involved in the shooting, either as triggerman or in some backup capacity. One possible scenario was that whoever shot Sonny arrived in the truck with him, and the motorcyclist’s job was to get the shooter away from the scene as quickly as possible. He could also have been responsible for the blow to the head Gurney received in the moments after his collision with the stump.

Tess Larson watched as Gurney walked in a widening circle around the tent platform, intent on the tire tracks. It appeared that the motorcycle had been offloaded from the truck and ridden into an adjoining area of the forest that was free of underbrush. If the intended destination had been the ramming site, the rider had decided not to take the easy route up the lane and along the road, possibly to avoid being seen by a passing driver.

Before following the motorcycle tracks into the woods, Gurney turned to Tess. “I need you to do one more thing. Go back in the house, get a sheet of paper, relax, and take yourself back to the day before yesterday, to your meeting with Jim Brown. Take your time and write down everything you can remember about him. Physical details, mannerisms, voice, accent—anything at all, no matter how trivial it seems. Can you do that?”

“Only if you tell me what this is all about.”

“What happened up the road while you were in Harbane wasn’t an accident. Two vehicles collided, the occupant of one of them was shot, and I think your visitor was involved.”

Her eyes widened. “You mean, that guy sent me to Harbane to get me out of the way?”

“That would be my guess.”

The fear in her eyes increased. “What if I’d refused to go?”

“Not worth thinking about.”

“Good lord. Alright, I’ll see how much I can remember about him.” She turned and went into the house.

As Gurney followed the motorcycle tracks into the woods, he wondered how long he could avoid revealing his own position in the affair. He’d led Tess Larson to believe he was part of the official police team. He wasn’t comfortable with the deception, but there were moments in any investigation when expediency trumped openness.

The clear tread impressions made the route easy to follow. It extended from the campground nearly all the way up to the site of the ramming. Since the destination was far out of sight from the starting point, he concluded that the rider must have been following a route programmed into an off-road GPS. Interesting, but no big surprise. It was already obvious that everything about the attack had been carefully planned. The tread marks stopped short of the roadside, at a point in the woods where the motorcycle would have escaped the notice of any motorist who happened to be passing.

From the few remnants of yellow crime scene tape, Gurney got a sense of the area that had been cordoned off by the police. It consisted of a rough circle with a radius of forty or fifty feet, centered on the point of the collision. He noted it failed to extend far enough into the woods to encompass any evidence of the motorcycle’s presence—an omission that would create a major blind spot in the BCI investigation.

He took out his phone and photographed the tire marks, adding wide-angle shots to locate them within the overall scene. He walked back down through the woods to the campground and completed his photo inventory with shots of the tire tracks left by the truck.

He had a responsibility to make the photos available to the state police or at least to inform them of the presence of the tire tracks, along with Tess Larson’s story of what had transpired with her elusive visitor, but he was reluctant to do so before initiating an inquiry of his own, with the help of Kyra Barstow.

He was composing a text to accompany the photos he planned to send to her when Tess Larson emerged from the house and handed him three pencil sketches. One was of a man’s face, one of a pickup truck, one of a motorcycle. She shrugged apologetically. “I’m lousy at describing things in words. I’m better at drawing.”

“These are great,” he said. “Is there anything you remember about this ‘Jim Brown’ character that wouldn’t show up in your drawing?”

She frowned in concentration. “One thing, maybe. Most men tend to minimize their physical problems, especially pain, especially in the presence of a woman. In fact, I get the feeling that’s what you’re doing right now, probably without even thinking about it. The cautious way you move tells me you’re probably a lot more uncomfortable than you’re letting on. But with him, I think it was the opposite—like he wanted to appear to be in pain. I didn’t think about it at the time, but now, when I picture that strained look on his face, that’s what comes to mind.”

“You think he was manipulating you?”

“Yes. And it makes me feel like an idiot.”

37

WHEN HE GOT BACK UP TO HIS CAR, GURNEY SENT PHOTOS of the sketches Tess had given him and the tire treads to Kyra Barstow. Since the investigation of Sonny’s murder fell within the jurisdiction of the NYSP and their own forensic department, Barstow had no official connection to it. He was relying on her natural curiosity, just as he had with the beheaded rabbit.

In this case, he was asking her to access a comprehensive tread database, ID the tires, link them to the various vehicles on which they would have been installed as original equipment, and see if Tess’s truck and motorcycle sketches matched any of the possibilities. As for the sketch of the man who called himself Jim Brown, Gurney didn’t expect anything concrete from Barstow. But since the face in the sketch likely belonged to the shooter or to an accomplice, it added an element of interest.

His next stop was the Beer Monster in Calliope Springs to talk to Thomas Cazo, Lenny Lerman’s former employer. He found it mentally jarring to change focus from the son’s murder to the father’s. But it also felt appropriate, since he was increasingly certain the two murders were connected.

Because he had to pass through Walnut Crossing en route to Calliope Springs, he decided to stop at the house and pick up the transcript of Scott Derlick’s interview with Cazo. Having the transcript of a BCI interview in hand would convey an official connection. Deceiving Cazo that way troubled him less than deceiving Tess Larson.

Halfway between Blackmore Mountain and Walnut Crossing, the crazy Catskill weather shifted. The cobalt sky disappeared behind a gray cloud mass, and by the time he parked by the asparagus patch there were snowflakes in the air. The chickens were standing perfectly still in the run, as if attentive to the altered atmosphere. Gurney hurried into the house, ferreted out the Cazo transcript from the files on his desk, got back in the car, and resumed his drive to Calliope Springs.

By the time he pulled into the parking lot in front of the aggressively plain Beer Monster building, the ever-changing sky had darkened, the breezes had become gusts, and the snowflakes were more numerous. The windowless concrete-block structure looked more like an industrial warehouse than a retail store. It wouldn’t be the first business, thought Gurney, to rely on rock-bottom aesthetics to suggest rock-bottom prices.

Its strip-mall environment was hardly any cheerier. The adjoining enterprise was a lawn-and-garden nursery, closed for the season. Empty metal racks and stacked wooden pallets were surrounded by a chain-link fence, giving the place the look of an abandoned detention center.

With the transcript in his jacket pocket, Gurney got out of the car and headed for the Beer Monster’s plain metal entry door. It reminded him of the doors on adult video shops.

The inside of the place reflected the same no-frills philosophy as the outside. Workers pushed hand-trucks, piled with cases of beer, through aisles that ran between tall steel shelving. Customers pushed oversized supermarket wagons, loaded with six-packs and twelve-packs. The dusty-smelling air had a sour edge. Cold, shadowless light emanated from banks of fluorescent fixtures hanging from the steelwork that supported the high ceiling. There was a steady low rumble coming from vibrations in the heating system.

It struck Gurney as a hellish place to work. If Lenny Lerman had come upon a means of escaping from this to an imagined life of ease and wealth, however perilous the route, the temptation might well have been irresistible.

As a hand-truck worker was passing by, Gurney asked him where he could find Cazo. Without stopping, the man pointed to a glassed-in office at the rear of the center aisle. When Gurney reached it, he recognized Cazo’s stony features and thick-set body from the trial video. He silenced his phone and knocked on the door.

After regarding him for a long moment through the glass, Cazo pushed a button on the side of his desk. The door’s lock clicked open. Gurney entered the office, which reeked of cigar smoke, and introduced himself as an investigator following up on some loose ends related to the Slade murder trial. Apart from a slight tightening of his lips, the man showed little reaction. The hostility in his small dark eyes had a chronic look.

Gurney took the transcript out of his pocket. “According to this record of your interview with Detective Scott Derlick, when he questioned you regarding Lenny Lerman’s state of mind, you stated that his attitude and behavior had changed a month or so prior to his resignation.”

Cazo shrugged. “So?”

“Could you describe that in more detail? How exactly did Lerman change?”

“I don’t get the point. Trial’s over. Slade’s in the can. End of story, right?”

“Slade may be appealing the conviction. So we’re double-checking everything—especially what Lerman knew about Slade and how it affected him. Those changes you saw in him could be important. Can you describe them?”

Cazo picked up a paper clip and began examining it. “He got quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“Lerman liked to talk. Liked to make people think he had some juice, always saying he knew this guy, knew that guy. You’d see in the news that the feds pulled some major sting, all of a sudden Lerman knows the guy, could even be a relative. Uncle Vinnie, Uncle Joey, whatever. You listen to him, you’d think every wiseguy was his fuckin uncle.”

“Then he stopped doing that?”

“Like somebody turned off his switch. Not a fuckin word for like four, five weeks. Then, all of a sudden, he comes back to life, like he’d been storing up all his bullshit, talking for the next week or two like he was connected to some guy so big he can’t even say how big the guy is. Tells me he’s got this hot-shit idea to shake some celebrity down for who the fuck knows how much, enough that he don’t have to bust his balls here no more. So I can take the job and shove it up my ass.” Cazo paused, shaking his head in amusement at such foolishness. “Big idea got the little fucker iced, right?”

“Were you surprised that it turned out that way?”

Cazo let out a whispery laugh. “Only a fuckin moron woulda been surprised.”

The dead-cold look in his eyes brought to mind Marcus Thorne’s interjection of the man’s nickname into Slade’s trial—Tommy Hooks—and its ugly meaning.

38

IN HIS CAR, GURNEY SWITCHED ON THE WIPERS TO BRUSH away the snow that had accumulated during his meeting with Cazo. He was thinking about the changes in Lenny Lerman, and the timing of those changes in relation to the dated entries in Lerman’s diary. Three dates seemed significant. October 24 was the date of the diary’s first entry, and it referred to the conversation between Lerman and someone named Jingo, during which he learned of an event in Slade’s past that struck him as an opportunity for a blackmail scheme. The November 2 entry referred to the dinner with Sonny and Adrienne at which Lenny described the plan he intended to implement. The November 6 entry described his resignation from the Beer Monster.

That two-week stretch—beginning with his October 24 discovery of Slade’s secret and ending with his November 6 resignation—aligned closely with Cazo’s description of the period in which Lerman came “back to life.”

However, it was the three or four weeks prior to Lerman’s discovery of Slade’s secret—the period during which Lerman, according to Cazo, had been uncharacteristically quiet—that now interested Gurney. Since there were no diary entries for those weeks, discovering the reason for Lerman’s odd behavior at that time would require additional digging.

Remembering that he’d silenced his phone for his meeting with Cazo, he turned it back on and found two new messages. The first was from an unfamiliar name, Samantha Smollett.

The fake friendliness in her voice was like frosting on a knife. “Hello, Mr. Gurney. I hope you get this message in time. I’m Sam Smollett, producer on the top-rated RAM-TV show, Controversial Perspectives. Our lead segment tonight will be an examination of the Blackmore Mountain shooting, and we want our audience to hear your side of the story. This could be your best chance to confront the troubling speculations swirling around your involvement. I need to hear from you by 7:00 p.m. today at the latest. It may be the most important call you ever make. We want to hear from you. America wants to hear from you.”

She ended her message with her personal phone number, repeating it three times. He didn’t bother making a note of it.

The second message was from Madeleine, her tone more upbeat than it had been for a long while.

“I’ll be leaving the clinic in a few minutes. Gerry Mirkle is going to drop me off at the Winklers’. They have a pair of alpacas that have just been weaned. They’re six months old—the perfect age for us to adopt them. Of course, I won’t do anything until we talk about it, but it sounds perfect, doesn’t it? We just need to put a door on the shed and install some fencing. Dennis Winkler said we only need to enclose half an acre, maybe an acre at the most if we wanted to get a couple more after the first two. The low pasture would be perfect. There are some fence posts in the barn from when we were planning to put in a big vegetable garden. You could check and see how many we have. If you get home before I do—Deirdre Winkler said she’d drive me—take the scallops out of the freezer and get the rice cooker going. See you later.”

Early in his law-enforcement career he’d become familiar with the gap between his work life and home life. Now, with the Lerman murders on one side and Madeleine’s pastoral plans on the other, the gap seemed more like a canyon.

IT WAS NEARLY six when he reached the point where the town road ended and their property began. The dim light of the November dusk had faded into darkness. He parked beside the black mass of the barn, got out, and switched on his phone’s flashlight app.

A spare key to the barn door was located under one of the flat rocks placed there to keep the weeds down. Inside, he was greeted by the familiar barn smell—a combination of sawn wood and faint remnants of the gasoline he had spilled the previous week, getting the snowblower ready for winter.

As he turned his phone light toward the stack of lumber where he dimly recalled storing the fence posts, another light caught his eye—a thin line of it at the base of the closed door to his tool room—the same room where a few days earlier he had found the light on and one of the windows ajar. He remembered turning the light off the last time he was in there. There was no reason for Madeleine to have been in there since, and even if she had been, she was religious about turning off lights.

He opened the door and took a good look around the room. Seeing nothing unusual or out of place, he switched off the light, locked up the barn, and returned to the car. Instead of driving immediately up to the house, he sat there for a while, pondering the peculiarity of the light. Three possible explanations occurred to him. The first was a loose wire in the fixture or in the switch. He made a mental note to check that out. The second was someone getting in through one of the barn windows, not all of which were lockable, and turning on the light as part of a nasty game aimed at disconcerting him. The third, equally troubling, was that his memory of having turned the light off the last time he was in the barn was a false memory.

He could learn to live with certain physical limitations, even episodes of pain, but mental limitations were a different matter. If he couldn’t trust his perceptions and recollections . . . the very thought of that sent a shiver through him.

39

AFTER PUTTING THE RICE ON AND TAKING THE SCALLOPS out of the freezer, Gurney was at his laptop in the den. He heard the side door out by the mudroom opening and shutting.

A minute later, Madeleine came into the den, smiling.

“Thanks for getting the rice going. I’ll run some water over the scallops to hurry the defrosting along. But first, I have to tell you about the alpacas. Actually, when they’re young, they’re called crias. They’re amazing. You should see their—” She stopped, noting the expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you been in the barn recently?”

“No. Why?”

“The light in the back room was on again.”

“Again?”

“A few days ago, I noticed it was on. I went in and turned it off. Then, this evening when I got home, it was on again.”

“Are you saying that someone is sneaking into our barn and using the back room for something?”

“Or just turning the light on and leaving it that way.”

“What on earth for?”

“Maybe to create exactly this sort of confusion.”

“What sort of lunatic . . . ?” Her voice trailed off, her eyes registering the possibilities. “You think it’s connected to your investigation?”

“It’s possible.”

She took a slow breath, her lips tightening. “I want a gun.”

“There’s a shotgun in the upstairs hall closet.”

“I’d like to have another one for downstairs.”

“I thought you hated guns.”

“Not as much as I hate feeling threatened. I’ve had to move out of this house before, for fear of some homicidal madman you were playing cat-and-mouse with, but I’m not being driven out again. You understand?”

DINNER WAS A silent affair. Long after Madeleine cleared the dishes, Gurney remained at the table, trying to decide how to tell Cam Stryker what he’d learned from Nora Rumsten and Tess Larson without revealing the extent to which he had ignored her warning to stay away from the case.

His thoughts were interrupted by a call from Hardwick.

“Hello, Jack. You have news for me?”

“I do. If you want to know what it is, you can buy me breakfast tomorrow.”

“You want to give me a hint?”

“The phrase would be ‘toxic clusterfuck.’ Everyone working on the Sonny Lerman case has their own personal objectives, and your best interests are not on anyone’s top ten list. You want to know more, be at Dick and Della’s Diner at 8:00 a.m. By the way, I saw a promo for that bullshit RAM-TV show, Controversial Perspectives. It’s streaming live on their website at eight o’clock tonight. Those fuckers are taking a big interest in your connections to the dead Lermans. You might want to give it a look. Sweet dreams, Sherlock.”

When he looked up from his phone, he saw Madeleine watching him from the sink island.

“Hardwick?” she said.

He nodded.

“And?”

“He’s managed to extract some information about the Blackmore investigation. He wants to discuss it at breakfast. In the meantime, he suggested I watch a RAM-TV show tonight at eight o’clock.”

Madeleine pointed at the antique Regulator clock on the kitchen wall. It was 7:45 p.m.

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the den in front of Gurney’s open laptop. On the screen the red and blue RAM logo exploded, the spinning shards of color flying back together to form the words CONTROVERSIAL PERSPECTIVES. Underscored by a driving drumbeat, a subtitle marched across the screen: TOUGH QUESTIONS—SHOCKING ANSWERS. Those words in turn flew off the screen, revealing the stage set of a typical TV news program. Two desks were set at a forty-five degree angle to each other, allowing the co-anchors to turn easily from the camera to each other.

A name plaque in front of the anchor on the left identified her as Tarla Hackett. A carefully constructed coif, makeup-enhanced facial contours, and predatory eyes a bit too small for her other features created the impression of a beauty-contest winner morphing into a weasel. The name plaque in front of the anchor on the right identified him as Jordan Lake. With an up-to-the-minute haircut and eyes gleaming with a shallow intensity, he reminded Gurney of a bachelor contestant on a reality show.

As the camera moved in on both anchors, he was the first to speak. “Good evening! I’m Jordan Lake.”

“And I’m Tarla Hackett. Tonight on Controversial Perspectives we’ll be taking a look at some disturbing events. What are we leading off with, Jordan?”

“At the top of my list, Tarla, is the Blackmore Mountain mystery.” He turned to the camera. “At first, it looked like just another road-rage tragedy—flaring tempers leading to a collision between two vehicles, followed by a fatal shooting.”

“It barely made the local news,” interjected Hackett. “But now I gather there may be more to it.”

“A lot more. It turns out that the two drivers weren’t your typical road-rage strangers. We discovered that earlier in the week they had an argument on a street in Winston, an argument that included serious threats.”

“Wow—that definitely gives it another dimension.”

“The man who was murdered on Blackmore Mountain was Sonny Lerman. His father, Lenny Lerman, was murdered one year earlier, almost to the day. And get this—the driver involved in the incident with Sonny is retired NYPD detective David Gurney, who’s been looking into the year-old murder of Sonny’s father. Our sources tell us he’s been trying to get Ziko Slade, the celebrity drug dealer convicted of killing Lenny Lerman, out of prison.”

Tarla Hackett’s expression tightened with disapproval. “Sounds like too many coincidences involving this retired detective.”

Jordan Lake nodded. “Too many coincidences, and too many unanswered questions. Starting with, why hasn’t Gurney been arrested and charged? When only two people are present and one of them is shot dead, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the shooter was. Besides, we’ve been told that the murder weapon has Gurney’s prints on it.”

“But they haven’t brought him in. So, what the heck is going on?”

“That’s what we keep asking, Tarla. The state police keep referring us to the DA’s office, and the DA’s office keeps giving us their standard ‘ongoing investigation’ brush-off.”

“Meanwhile Gurney is free as a bird. Any idea what his secret power is?”

“A smart detective can accumulate a lot of dirt on a lot of people. And a lot of dirt can provide a lot of leverage.”

“Enough leverage to avoid a murder charge?”

“Who knows, Tarla? But that’s a real possibility.”

“Sounds like this could be shaping up to be the political scandal of the year. We’ll be back in just a minute with some wise words from RAM’s legal analyst, Maldon Albright. But first, these important announcements.”

Madeleine sat glaring at the screen, her arms folded.

After a commercial touting investment opportunities that required immediate action, Lake and Hackett were back on the screen, reprising their furrowed-brow expressions of indignation at cover-ups in high places.

Hackett spoke first. “In just a moment we’ll be moving along to tonight’s other high-octane story, scalp cancer—the secret killer. Why is the medical establishment refusing to talk about it? But now, a final comment on the Blackmore shooting from our renowned legal and political analyst, Maldon Albright.”

The video cut to a split-screen view of Hackett on one side and a fleshy-faced man who struck Gurney as an aging Ivy League frat boy on the other.

Hackett was sporting the envious smile of a climber gazing up the corporate ladder. “We appreciate your joining us, Maldon. Any insights into this baffling affair?”

Albright spoke with aristocratic disdain. “The stench of a cover-up is overwhelming. This Gurney character appears to be the missing link between the two Lerman murders, but his exact role is yet to be determined. We can safely predict that the mainstream media will prove worse than blind, and it will be up to RAM-TV to ferret out the facts and present them to America, without fear or favor. It promises to be an exciting ride.”

Albright disappeared, and the video cut back Hackett and Lake at their angled desks.

“Please,” cried Madeleine, “turn those idiots off!”

40

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, GURNEY PULLED into the parking area in front of Dick and Della’s Diner. He parked between Hardwick’s gleaming muscle car and a pickup with a faded bumper sticker proclaiming SOCIALISTS SUCK. Hardwick sat at one of the front tables, peering at the window with tight-lipped hostility.

The old-fashioned diner was populated with an old-fashioned clientele. Hardwick—with his black leather jacket, hard-edged features, and disconcerting malamute eyes—seemed out of place in what looked like a convention of retired farmers and their flannel-shirted wives. As Gurney took a seat at the table, Hardwick was still turned toward the window, his baleful gaze fixed on a pair of flies crawling on the window glass.

He spoke without turning. “I hate those fucking things.”

“My mother insisted they carried diseases. What’s your problem with them?”

Hardwick’s voice was stone-cold. “I don’t like what they do to dead bodies. They lay their eggs in the eyes. Then the eggs hatch into fucking maggots.”

Gurney said nothing.

After a while, Hardwick looked away from the window and cleared his throat in a way that sounded like a dog growling. “My father was a violent drunk. He terrorized the family. When I was sixteen, I broke his jaw. We didn’t have much contact after that. A year later, my mother divorced him. After I joined the state police, I got a call from his landlord. He’d been dead on his bathroom floor for four days. Summertime. The maggots were . . . active.” He shook his head in a violent motion as if to dislodge the memory, then waved to a young waitress who was delivering waffles to a nearby table.

She came over with a rosy-cheeked farm-girl smile. “What can I get for you gentlemen on this beautiful morning?”

“A flyswatter,” said Hardwick.

“Excuse me?”

He pointed to the flies on the window.

“I don’t think we have any swatters, but they won’t bother you. They’re just trying to get out.” She was grimacing, clearly disturbed by the subject.

Hardwick eyed her curiously. “You have some special feeling about flies?”

“You’ll think my family is weird.”

“Try me.”

She bent over the table and lowered her voice. “My brother kept them as pets. It drove my father nuts.”

Hardwick responded with an expressionless stare.

“Miss!” A customer’s voice from a few tables away hurried her off without another word.

“Fathers and sons,” muttered Gurney. “It’s becoming a repetitive theme. Every time I start to ignore it, it gets pushed back in my face.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve been thinking about Lenny and Sonny Lerman. And Ziko Slade and a young acolyte of his who considers him his father—and who hates his real father so much he won’t even talk about him. Yesterday I went to interview some people up on Blackmore Mountain, and I happened to arrive at their property at the end of a father-son blow-up.”

Gurney fell silent, his mind following a well-traveled groove to his own failings as a father, including the death of his four-year-old son, Danny, which he’d been reliving painfully for over twenty years.

Hardwick stared at him. “Fathers and sons? That’s a theme?”

“It keeps coming up.”

Hardwick shook his head. “Any fucking thing can remind you of any other fucking thing, if you want it to. Facts are facts. Themes are bullshit.”

Gurney was aware of the danger of adopting an overall belief about a case, then cherry-picking facts to support the belief. That trick of the mind was, after all, the basis of every lunatic conspiracy theory. It was time to change the subject.

“On the phone last night you called BCI’s Blackmore Mountain investigation a toxic clusterfuck. Tell me more.”

“It’s a clusterfuck with knives out and colliding agendas.”

“Can’t wait to hear the details.”

Before Hardwick could begin, the rosy-cheeked waitress reappeared. “Sorry, I got pulled away. What would you gentlemen like for breakfast?”

After a quick look at the menu, Hardwick ordered four fried eggs, a double portion of sausages, hash browns, and coffee. Gurney chose a western omelet, toast, and coffee. When the waitress hurried off toward the kitchen, Hardwick began.

“The source of this intel is my contact at BCI, and who the hell knows how objective he is. So bear that in mind. Best to start with Dale Magnussen, CIO on the Blackmore case. He wrote up the incident report—in which he interpreted the circumstances as a road-rage confrontation. Like most incident report writers, he’s more committed to his initial impressions than he ought to be. And your big-deal NYPD reputation rubbed him the wrong way. Bottom line, he’s dug in on his road-rage theory, making you the shooter.”

Gurney had gotten a hostile vibe from Magnussen, so this didn’t surprise him.

Hardwick continued. “Lucky for you, not everyone is on Magnussen’s wavelength. The BCI evidence tech found gunpowder residue on the side of the truck that she says is consistent with the gun being fired from about six feet away, while the truck was standing still, and probably from a position higher than that of a driver seated in another car. So it seems that for you to be the shooter, you would have to have gotten out of your car after it hit the stump, walked over to the truck, shot the victim, returned to your car, and passed out in the driver’s seat. An unlikely scenario.”

“Its unlikelihood didn’t change Magnussen’s mind?”

“Assholes do not have changeable minds. But it wasn’t just the tech who had doubts about the road-rage idea. Based on the angle of the bullet’s path through Lerman’s head, the ME agreed with the evidence tech’s opinion that the shooter was probably standing next to the truck. And finally, the doctor who examined you in the hospital claimed that the location of your head injury seemed inconsistent with a frontal collision. He didn’t say someone must have sandbagged you from the side after you hit the stump, but that would seem to follow from what he did say.”

Gurney was absorbing this with a cautious sense of relief. “That’s consistent with what I learned from two women who live near the scene.” He went on to relate what Nora Rumsten told him about the motorcycle and gunshot sounds and what Tess Larson told him about the visitor who left motorcycle tracks up to the shooting site after sending her off on a phony errand.

“So,” he concluded, “it seems that Stryker’s case against me isn’t all that strong.”

“Not in a logical sense, but that doesn’t mean shit, Sherlock. According to my BCI guy, Stryker’s a wild card—with enough brains and ambition to be dangerous. She’ll view any development in the Blackmore case that could raise questions about the Slade case an existential threat to her career. That conviction was a rare big-time success in a county where crime mostly consists of drunks pissing in public. If she sees you as any threat at all to her hot-shit new rep, she’ll be looking for ways to cut your dick off.”

Gurney’s sense of relief was fading.

Hardwick went on. “Before I forget, I did get answers to a couple of things you asked about. The tow truck that smashed into you was reported stolen that same day. It’s registered to an LLC called Top Star Auto Salvage, owned by a Charlene Vesco. And the call you got to set up the meeting in Harbane came from a prepaid phone—from which no other calls were made, before or since. Plus, there’s an interesting little geographical echo. The salvage company’s address and the phone call’s origination cell tower are both within a mile of a specialty food store owned by Bruno Lanka. And they’re all located in the grimy little town of Garville, just this side of Albany.” He paused. “You don’t look surprised.”

“I’m not.”

“Because these details fit into a giant blueprint in your head?”

“More like each little piece is starting to form a picture.”

“Yeah, well, watch out how you arrange those little pieces. Or the big picture could be totally fucked up.”

Gurney said nothing. He was used to Hardwick’s cynicism. Besides, the man had a point. In the ensuing silence the rosy-cheeked waitress brought them their breakfast orders. She transferred the items quickly from her serving tray to the table and left.

Halfway through his omelet, Gurney’s appetite waned. He laid his fork down on his plate and pushed the plate an inch away.

Hardwick eyed him curiously. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Madeleine wants me to drop the case.”

“Could be a sign that it’s time to bail.”

Hardwick wasn’t often on the same page as Madeleine, and Gurney’s surprise showed.

“You serious?”

“What the hell are you chasing after, anyway? The real murderer of Lenny Lerman? The real murderer of Sonny Lerman? Vindication for that slimebag Ziko Slade? Suppose you get Slade out of the can—and it turns out he chopped off Lerman’s head after all?”

“What’s your point, Jack?”

“My point is that you’re charging full speed ahead without a clue as to where the fuck you’re going or who you’re chasing. And you’re stirring up some poisonous shit along the way. The headless rabbit, a bash on the head, a crude effort to frame you for murder, an unhappy wife, a pissed-off DA, and fuck only knows what’s next.”

“So?”

“So, maybe the smart move would be to drop the whole fucking thing and walk away.”

41

THE SKY WAS THAT PIERCING BLUE THAT SOMETIMES ACCOMPANIES a frigid autumn day, and the morning sun glistened on the dew in the farm fields, but Gurney hardly noticed. After leaving Dick and Della’s, he could focus on little beyond Hardwick’s final comment.

Even though he’d unearthed some facts that appeared significant, he wasn’t much closer to understanding the Lerman murders. Someone was trying to stop his inquiries, but the reason was less clear. He’d been assuming it was to keep him from discovering something that would exonerate Ziko Slade, but what if he was wrong about that?

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone. The name on the screen was A. Lerman. He pulled onto the shoulder and answered.

“Gurney here.”

“What the hell is going on?” There was a sharp quaver in her voice, the sound of someone crying angry tears.

“Adrienne?”

“Did you . . . kill my brother?”

“No, Adrienne, I didn’t kill your brother.”

“Tell me what happened! Tell me the truth!”

“I’ll tell you everything I know, but I’d rather do it face-to-face.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

He spoke as calmly as he could. “Someone attacked me on Blackmore Mountain. Probably the same person who killed Sonny. Your own life may be in danger right now. We need to talk, but I don’t think the phone is a good way to do it. Are you at work?”

“No. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Are you at home?”

“Yes.” The word was barely audible.

He glanced at the time on his dashboard—9:20 a.m.

“I can be there by a quarter past ten.”

COMING INTO THE main street of Winston, he noted an antique shop he’d missed on his previous trip—the Flying Turtle—another genuflection to the god of rural cuteness.

Three minutes later, as he was climbing the steps of the rhododendron-shaded porch of the big Victorian on Moray Court, he received a call from Kyle. He let it go to voicemail and silenced his phone. He pressed the bell for apartment B, and a few seconds later the door buzzed open. The now-familiar litter box odor greeted him. It grew stronger as he climbed to the second floor.

Adrienne met him at the landing and led him into the kitchen with the cat-motif wallpaper where they’d spoken on his previous visit. Her battered but determined optimism seemed to have suffered a fatal blow. There was a new hopelessness in the downturned corners of her mouth. After they’d taken their seats, she wiped tears from her eyes.

“Tell me,” she said in a strained voice. “Tell me what happened.”

“What have the police already told you?”

She shook her head. “All they did was ask questions. About Sonny. About you. They asked, did you and Sonny argue? What about? How long did you know each other? Did he plan to meet you the day he was killed? How well did I know you? On and on like that, and they wouldn’t tell me a single thing about my brother’s death. It was like they were interviewing a stranger. They told me nothing, except he’d been shot and found dead in a tow truck on Blackmore Mountain, and that you were involved. It made no sense. All they wanted to talk about was you! Then, last night, that RAM program! Saying you were there, on the mountain. There was a gun. Fingerprints. A big cover-up. What are they talking about? For God’s sake, I want to know what happened to my brother!”

“So do I, Adrienne.”

“Were you really there?”

“I was there, but I was unconscious. I was on my way to Harbane to meet someone who’d promised to give me information about your father’s murder. As I was driving over the mountain, a tow truck ran me off the road—into a tree stump. I was knocked unconscious. I didn’t know Sonny had been shot until a detective told me later in the hospital.”

“Was Sonny driving the truck?”

“He was found in the driver’s seat, but that may have been a setup. I believe at least one other person was at the scene. I’m trying to find out who that was.”

He turned on his phone, brought up Tess Larson’s sketch of her visitor, and showed it to Adrienne. “Does that face look familiar to you?”

She peered at it with a desperate intentness that faded to disappointment. She shook her head and wiped her eyes again. “You don’t seem to know any more about Sonny’s death than I do.”

“I’m trying to get to the truth of it. And you can help me.”

She shook her head again. “I never knew anything about Sonny’s comings and goings, who he hung around with, nothing. We weren’t close.”

Her reaction reminded Gurney that the pain of losing a relationship that hadn’t lived up to one’s hopes could be worse than losing a satisfying one. Regret over what might have been was probably the most painful of all emotions.

“Actually,” he said gently, “it’s not Sonny I want to ask you about. I’m sure what happened on Blackmore Mountain is connected to your father’s murder. If I can get to the bottom of what happened to your father at Ziko Slade’s lodge, I think what happened to your brother will be clearer.”

Seeing a hint of curiosity in her sad eyes, he continued. “The prosecutor’s understanding of why your father was at the lodge came mainly from comments he’d made to you and Sonny, along with entries he made in a diary. But the diary only covers the period from his learning about something in Slade’s past to his setting out for the lodge. Had he ever kept a diary before?”

Adrienne shook her head. “I don’t think I ever saw him writing anything except lists of things he wanted me to get at the store.”

“But you’re sure that was his handwriting on the diary pages you saw at the trial?”

She nodded. “That was his messy little scrawl, alright. His writing was like a little kid’s.” Her voice had become shaky. She took a paper napkin from a holder on the table and dabbed at her eyes.

“When we met before, you told me that your father admired gangsters and sometimes hinted at having a connection to a big one.”

She nodded.

“When your brother was trying to scare me off the first time I came here, he claimed to have that same sort of connection. Do you have any idea who that mob figure might be?”

“Not really. I used to wonder if it was all made up. Dad mainly talked about it when he had too much to drink. And Sonny would say it to threaten people.”

“Did either of them ever mention a name?”

She shook her head. “If you want, I could ask some of my cousins. If this person was related to our family, they might know about it.”

“That could be very helpful. Now, there’s one more thing. When we spoke on the phone a few days ago, I asked if you could remember anything unusual about your father’s behavior in the weeks leading up to his trip to the lodge. Has anything come to mind?”

“Not really. He didn’t do anything unusual, nothing I was aware of. But for a while, he did seem depressed. He could be moody, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

“But it was noticeable enough that you can still recall it a year later. Why is that?”

“It may have been a little different from his other down moods. I think maybe it lasted longer and ended more abruptly than the others.”

She paused, as if straining to see into a foggy past. “Now that you’re making me think about it, it was like he was hit with some big problem, then a month or so later the idea of getting a load of money from Ziko Slade seemed to solve it. Do you think that’s important?”

“I think it might be.”

Adrienne looked suddenly exhausted, the red blotches on her face more pronounced.

“When will they release Sonny’s body? I have to make arrangements for his funeral.”

“You should hear from them soon. Maybe today or tomorrow.”

She nodded vaguely. “I’m used to people dying. That’s what hospice nursing is all about. Dying is natural. But being killed . . . that’s horrible.”

“Yes,” said Gurney gently, “I know.”

“It makes it worse when the police won’t tell you anything. As if everything about my brother belongs to them, and I have no right to know anything.”

He could see in the movement of her eyes her mind going from frustration to frustration, feelings of fury and sadness contending with each other. His own mind kept returning to her father’s abrupt depression and its later reversal. What sort of problem did Lenny Lerman have that he hoped to solve by blackmailing Ziko Slade?

Gurney had a frisson-producing suspicion that the solution to both Lerman murders would lie in the answer to that question.

42

HE WAS DRIVING THROUGH FROST-COVERED CORNFIELDS a few miles out of Winston when he remembered Kyle’s call. He pulled over into the grassy edge of a pasture.

Checking his phone, he saw that he’d also gotten a call from Kyra Barstow. He chose Barstow first, which said something about his priorities that made him uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to switch the order.

Her message was brief but promising. “I have answers to your questions. Call me.”

Kyle’s message was more substantive. “Hey, Dad. Got a question for you. Kim Corazon is here in the city, visiting her mom. She called me this morning about getting together. I was wondering, would it be okay for me to bring her up to your place on Thanksgiving? If that would stir up ugly memories of the Good Shepherd case, and you’d rather I didn’t bring her, I’d understand completely. If you have any qualms, just say so, and I’ll come alone. Totally up to you. Love you. See you soon.”

Gurney didn’t think much of Kim Corazon or her insatiable quest for journalistic stardom. Kyle had been involved in an on-and-off relationship with her for a couple of years—“on” when it was convenient for her and “off” when a shiny career opportunity pulled her in another direction.

He called Kyle, got his voicemail, and said, with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm, that bringing Kim on Thanksgiving would be fine.

Then he called Barstow, who picked up right away, her lilting West Indian accent more pronounced than it had been in her terse message.

“Some good news, David. Regarding the truck and motorcycle tread photos you sent me, the database ID’d the tires, along with several vehicles on which they were factory-installed. Then the truck and the motorcycle sketches you sent me narrowed the possibilities to one truck and one motorcycle—a Ford-150 pickup manufactured between 2014 and 2019, and a Moto Guzzi trail bike manufactured between 2002 and 2012.”

As she spoke, Gurney entered the information in a notebook app on his phone.

“I also made progress with the reptile DNA on your rabbit. I pushed the analysis a little further and narrowed the possibilities down to several snake families, all quite dangerous, each in their own way.”

“When you say, ‘each in their own way’ . . . ?”

“Each of these snake groups has a distinctive aggressive weapon. They fall into two broad categories—venom and constriction.”

“Constriction, as in boa constrictor?”

“Boa constrictors, anacondas, pythons, to name a few.”

“And the venom category would include rattlesnakes, copperheads, et cetera?”

“Exactly. The et cetera, by the way, would include some species far more dangerous than rattlesnakes or copperheads.”

HALFWAY FROM WINSTON to Walnut Crossing, Gurney passed a billboard with a circle of red, white, and blue stars surrounding these words:

With Madeleine’s demand for a gun in the back of his mind, along with his own feeling that it might be a good idea to have a second shotgun in the house, he made the indicated right onto a dirt road that brought him through a patch of evergreen woods to a single-story building in a small clearing. Its wood facade, wide porch, and flat roof reminded him of a western-movie saloon. A smaller version of the roadside billboard stood on the roof, with the words “ERSKINE STOPPARD PROPRIETOR” in place of “NEXT RIGHT.”

Gurney pulled up in front of the porch. There was only one other vehicle in sight, a tan military-style Humvee with a LIVE FREE OR DIE bumper sticker.

When Gurney entered the store, the first things he noted, after the mixed odor of old wood and insecticide, were the security cameras—half a dozen of them, positioned to cover every inch of the place.

Free-standing shelf units displaying camping gear, first-aid kits, water purifying devices, flashlights, and beef jerky occupied the center of the space. Beyond them, a glass-topped counter ran across the width of the store. Signs along the wall behind the counter segmented it into areas of interest: HUNTING, TARGET SHOOTING, PERSONAL SECURITY, and HOME DEFENSE.

In the Home Defense area, a short, dark-bearded customer was conferring with a tall, white-haired clerk behind the counter.

“I hear what you’re saying, Hedley,” the clerk said. “I know it can seem like a tough decision, what with the different advantages. The AR-10’s going to give you more down-range knock-down power. The AR-15 can’t quite match that, but I personally find it to be a sweeter-handling weapon—lighter, smaller, more manageable all around. Higher fire rate, too, and less recoil.”

The customer nodded. “I kinda like that down-range capability with the AR-10.”

“Lot of folks do, Hedley. More power, flatter trajectory, bigger impact. Those are fine qualities. I have a suggestion for you, what a lot of smart folks ’round here have done. Get yourself one of each.”

The customer uttered a thoughtful grunt.

“You give that some serious thought, Hedley, while I see to this other gentleman.” The clerk moved along the counter to the Hunting end where Gurney was standing.

“Yes, sir, how can I help you?” He had a smiling mouth and assessing eyes.

“I’m looking for a simple, short-barrel, pump-action shotgun.”

“No surprise. Folks are snapping them up fast as I can get them. I’ve got some Mossbergs and Remingtons on backorder, but if you’re in a hurry, I’ve got some darn nice used ones.” He reached under the counter for a printed sheet and handed it to Gurney. “That’s our preowned inventory. Lot of them like brand new. Take a minute now, see if there’s something there that interests you. I’ll finish with this other gentleman and be right back.”

As Gurney looked over the list, the clerk resumed his sales pitch at the other end of the counter. “You see the sense of what I’m saying, Hedley? You get them both, you got all your situations covered, a hundred percent. That’s peace of mind. And I just happen to have one of each in stock right now. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re both gone by tomorrow—what with the news coverage of that business up on Blackmore.”

“You talking about the road-rage shooting?”

“What I’m talking about is how once again the pansy-ass gun haters will all be shouting about how we need more laws and less guns—and the thing is, whenever they start that crap about taking away our rifles and handguns, our sales go through the roof. Right through the goddamn roof, Hedley. Smart thing for you right now would be to pick up this pair of ARs while you can.”

Hedley cast a nervous glance in Gurney’s direction, looked around the store, and lowered his voice. “What kind of background check you got to do?”

The clerk smiled the smile of a successful salesman. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Hedley. See, that system only applies to official sales through this licensed establishment here. If the official system isn’t right for you, we can work out a transaction as private individuals. I’ve always considered background checks an invasion of privacy, and I hate conducting them. Forces me to act as an unpaid agent of the state. It’s socialism, is what it is. Now you just wait here a minute while I see to this other fellow.”

He approached Gurney. “Some real nice firearms on that list. You’d hardly know they were ever used. Which ones would you like to see?”

“Hard to decide right now. I need to give the matter more thought.”

The man’s smile faded, and Gurney departed.

There were, in fact, a couple of shotguns on the list that might have addressed the need, but he was less than eager to deal with anyone at that establishment.

When he returned to his car, he took out his phone to check for gun stores within a twenty-five-mile radius of Walnut Crossing. He found half a dozen and was about to get in touch with the nearest when the phone rang. The screen said the call was from C. Stryker. Rather than taking the call, he waited for her to leave a message.

Her voice was icily formal. “David Gurney, this is District Attorney Stryker. Your attendance is required in my office tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. to determine your status in the matter of the Blackmore Mountain homicide. If you choose to be accompanied by counsel, please arrive by 9:45 a.m.”

Listening to her message a second time, he was struck by two things. One, it had no legal force, and two, by her tone and choice of words, she was trying to make it sound like it did. His conclusion was that she’d seen RAM’s Controversial Perspectives program, and it had left her anxious and angry. Still, skipping the meeting would be a pointless provocation, so he needed to prepare for it. That meant gathering as much information as he could as quickly as he could. He called Jack Hardwick.

“The fuck do you want now, Sherlock?”

“I’m meeting with Stryker in the morning, and the more I can find out before then, the better. I’m thinking Garville might be a good starting point. It’s where the tow truck came from, it’s where the call that set me up for the Blackmore attack came from, and it’s where Bruno Lanka’s store is located—which makes it the place that links the two Lerman murders.”

“How the hell does it do that?”

“The bullshit phone call I got promised me information about Lenny’s murder. Then the route to get the information put me in the frame for Sonny’s murder.”

“Shit, Gurney, that way of putting it sounds like a major connection, but it doesn’t tell us fuck-all about what actually connects the two murders. And how does Bruno Lanka fit into it, besides being the guy who found Lenny’s body?”

Gurney sighed. “I’m not sure, but Lanka’s role has gnawed at me from the beginning. Why didn’t he testify at Slade’s trial? In murder trials, the prosecutor generally puts the person who found the body on the stand to describe the discovery. It’s a natural first step in the narrative and juries love it. But Stryker skipped it and had the CIO describe the scene instead. How come?”

“Maybe Lanka looks shady?”

“Or maybe he is shady. I mean, she was willing to put ‘Tommy Hooks’ Cazo on the stand, which makes me wonder what made Lanka too big a risk.”

“You think if we pay him a visit he’s going to confess his sins?”

“No, but it might be interesting to rattle his cage.”

“Cage rattling is fun, so long as you don’t get kicked in the balls while you’re doing it.”

“I’d also like to drop in on whoever runs Top Star Auto Salvage, see if we can get a sense of their moral principles.”

Hardwick uttered a contemptuous grunt. “You’re saying we should take a two-hour drive to some shithole town near Albany and annoy some potentially dangerous scumbags?”

“Something like that.”

“So, instead of taking my heartfelt advice that this might be the ideal time for you to walk away from this goddamn mess, you’ve decided to double down?”

“I just want to turn over a few more rocks. See what’s there.”

“And the worst that could happen is one of the annoyed scumbags shoots us. Sounds fucking irresistible. Mind if I bring my Glock?”

“I was going to suggest it.”

43

GURNEY AND HARDWICK MET IN THE PARKING LOT OF A Home Depot adjacent to the interstate and proceeded from there in Gurney’s rental car to Top Star Auto Salvage on the scruffy outskirts of Garville.

The sprawling automotive junkyard was surrounded by a razor wire–topped fence. An industrial gate stood open to the street. Wind gusts raised eddies of dust from the bare ground between the gate and a large travel trailer—the only office-like structure in a landscape of derelict vehicles.

Hardwick got out of the car first, stretched his thickly muscled neck from side to side, and spat on the street. Despite the icy gusts, which he seemed not to notice, he wore only a light windbreaker over his shoulder-holstered Glock.

A demented-looking pit bull made a straining, snarling appearance at the end of a rusty chain attached to the corner of the trailer. Staying outside the radius of the chain’s arc, they approached the trailer. The door opened abruptly, and a large, heavy-jawed woman in a pink track suit filled the doorframe. She eyed them with bored hostility.

Gurney spoke first.

“Charlene Vesco?”

“What do you want?” She had the hoarseness of a lifelong smoker and the yellow skin that went with it.

He answered loudly enough to be heard over the barking of the pit bull. “We’re following up on a statement you made to Detective Magnussen regarding the theft of your tow truck.”

“When do we get it back?”

“That’s up to Magnussen. Right now we need to ask you about your security system.”

“It’s all in my statement.”

“We double-check everything. Tell me what you told him.”

She looked like she was about to refuse, then thought better of it. “There was a short-circuit in the system is what my electrician said, so the cameras didn’t pick up anything. That’s it.”

“How about the key for the truck? Where was that?”

“Right here in the office, where it always is. When I came in that day, the truck was gone, but the key was still here. There’s other ways to start a vehicle. Look, the point is, we need the truck back. My lawyer says you got no right to keep it.”

“Did you know Sonny Lerman?”

“The guy that got shot?”

“Right.”

She shook her head.

“How about his name? Did you ever hear it anywhere other than on the news?”

“No.”

“How about Lenny Lerman?”

“Who?”

“Lenny Lerman. Father of Sonny Lerman. Also murdered. One year ago.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Never?”

“Look, if you don’t mind, I got things to do.”

“Where was the truck parked when it was taken?”

She pointed. “Right there on the street, in front of the gate.”

“You don’t keep it in here at night?”

“Not always.”

Gurney turned to Hardwick. “Any questions for Ms. Vesco?”

Jack pointed at the pit bull. “Where was that fucking dog the night the truck was taken?”

Something shifted in her eyes. “In the doghouse.”

“Where’s that?”

She pointed to the end of the trailer where the chain was attached. “Around that side.”

“And he didn’t go batshit crazy when some stranger was stealing your truck?”

“I don’t know what he did. I’m not here at night.”

“Too bad. You might have been able to save your truck.”

She didn’t reply.

Gurney smiled. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Vesco.”

He led the way back to the car as the door of the trailer closed firmly behind them.

Hardwick sucked at his teeth. “She’s a lying sack of shit.”

“No surprise. How about we pay a visit to Lanka’s Specialty Foods?”

THE BUSINESS DISTRICT of Garville had a morose look about it, due in part to the soot-darkened brick facades of the buildings. Lanka’s Specialty Foods was located on a side street off the main avenue. Gurney pulled into the “Customers Only” parking lot next to the single-story building.

“If Lanka’s here,” said Gurney, “I’ll use a following-up-on-the-Slade-trial approach and see where it takes us. You should come in a few minutes after me and keep an eye on what’s happening between me and Lanka, assuming he’s here.”

“You mean I should save your sorry ass if the situation goes south?”

Gurney got out of the car and walked around to the front of the building. The first thing he noted was the sign on the door indicating the limited hours the store was open—from noon to four, weekdays only. When he pushed the door open, a bell rang in the rear of the store.

The ornamental tin ceiling, incandescent lighting fixtures, and wooden shelving belonged to a past era. There didn’t seem to be any customers in the place, no clerk at the checkout counter, no visible employees anywhere.

The shelves were filled with canned specialty items, mostly imported. No prices were shown. There was a fine coating of dust over everything. The walls above the shelves were covered with large sepia prints depicting the store’s history.

The only contemporary intrusions were security cameras mounted high on the walls at the ends of the aisles. At the rear of the store there was an old-fashioned butcher case of white enameled steel and heavy glass panels. It was empty. On the wall above it was a print showing two burly men in butcher aprons, one with gray hair, one with black hair. The resemblance between them and their age difference suggested a father and son.

A door opened in the wall beneath the photograph, and a lean, dark-haired man in a black silk shirt stepped out into the space behind the butcher case.

“You want something?”

“Just admiring that picture up there.”

The man said nothing.

“Would that be Bruno Lanka and his father?”

“Who are you?”

“David Gurney.”

“You want something?”

“I’d like to speak to Bruno.”

“He’s not here.” The man’s voice was as expressionless as his eyes.

“Do you know when he will be?”

“Maybe later, maybe tomorrow. Why?”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“About what?”

“A private matter.”

“What should I tell him?”

“Tell him the Lenny Lerman murder case is being reinvestigated.”

The man said nothing.

“Tell him it’s being reinvestigated in connection with the Sonny Lerman case.”

The man remained perfectly motionless, as if on the verge of a sudden tactical decision. His attention shifted to the far end of the aisle.

Gurney glanced back and saw Hardwick standing there, his fingers just inside the open front of his windbreaker, a dangerous glint in those ice-blue eyes.

NEITHER GURNEY NOR Hardwick said anything until they left the parking lot and turned onto the road that led out of Garville in the direction of Walnut Crossing.

“That place is obviously a fucking front for something,” said Hardwick.

Gurney nodded. “Meaning Lanka’s political connections are strong enough that he doesn’t have to worry about how obvious it is. And the guy behind the butcher case was not your average grocery store employee. The second I saw him I recognized him.”

“You know that little creep?”

“He’s the guy in the sketch Tess Larson gave me. Or his twin brother.”

44

AFTER DROPPING HARDWICK OFF AT THE HOME DEPOT parking lot, Gurney drove home.

He stopped at the barn before going up to the house. Wielding a sharp-tined rake as a potential weapon, he checked the interior. Satisfied that there was nothing amiss and the lights were off, he continued up to the house.

Madeleine was by the coop, carrying an armful of loose straw from an open bale into the attached shed. As he headed over to her, he noticed their shotgun leaning against the side of the coop a few feet from the straw bale.

Emerging from the shed, she followed his gaze to the gun.

“I wanted it within reach,” she said.

“You sure you know how to use it?”

“You went through all that with me years ago. And I got a refresher course this morning. Amazing what you can find on YouTube. So, yes, I know how to use it. And I will, if I have to.”

She gathered another armful of straw and strode back into the shed.

He followed her as far as the doorway. “What’s the objective here?”

“Coziness.”

“For the alpacas?”

“Who else?

“Can I help?”

She looked surprised. “If you want, you can carry the straw in, and I’ll smooth it out.”

“Okay. I just have to go into the house for a minute, and I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, her surprise fading.

After using the bathroom, he decided to take a quick look at his email.

The one that grabbed his attention was from Cam Stryker. It seemed to be a word-for-word reiteration of the message he’d gotten from her earlier. He read it again, convinced that it was driven by fear and anger, powerlessness masquerading as power. But being in a legally dubious position didn’t mean she couldn’t create serious trouble for him.

He’d need to marshal every available fact for his meeting with her. He sat down at his desk and began putting his discoveries in order, starting with the recollections of Nora Rumsten.

IT WASN’T UNTIL he and Madeleine were in bed that night that he remembered his promise to help with the straw. She hadn’t mentioned his forgetfulness—not even at dinner, when problems and irritations were often aired. But her silence was troubling.

For their first couple of years in Walnut Crossing, their conflicting expectations of what life there would be like had led to an undercurrent of tension, centering on his involvement in murder investigations. She’d been hoping for a clean break from the fraught experience of being the wife of a homicide cop. Instead, she’d watched him being drawn into a series of cases as dangerous as any in his city career.

What followed was a kind of quiet accommodation—which felt like a welcome development. But now, lying awake in the middle of a moonless night, a bleaker interpretation crept into his mind—the specter of his parents’ marriage. There were no pitched battles between them. In fact, there was hardly anything at all between them. Perhaps the lack of explosive disagreements between him and Madeleine was a warning sign that his marriage was moving in that same empty direction.

He was reminded of a question a therapist had asked him decades earlier, at the brink of his divorce from his first wife: “What do you think is the key ingredient of a good marriage?”

He’d responded with a list of possibilities: love, patience, tolerance, kindness, generosity, forgiveness. The therapist agreed that those were desirable attributes, but the essential one was missing, one without which a marriage would always be flawed: partnership. He went on to say that most people weren’t really looking for a partner. They were looking for an assistant, or a parent, or a possession.

As Gurney lay there in the darkness, uneasily pondering the nature of partnership, coyotes began howling in the woods above the high pasture.

45

GURNEY PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT OF THE COUNTY office building at 9:55 the following morning.

The structure was a product of 1960s institutional architecture—relentlessly rectangular, joyless, and cheap. The Office of the District Attorney occupied a prime corner of the main floor. At 9:59 he opened the frosted-glass door and stepped into a reception area whose gray carpet, beige walls, and overly bright lighting echoed the building’s aggressive plainness.

Along the left wall there was a row of uncomfortable-looking Danish-modern chairs. Along the right wall there were two partially enclosed cubicles. In the rear wall there were three frosted-glass doors. On the center one were the words DISTRICT ATTORNEY. There was a desk next to it, occupied by a woman with the etched frown of a gatekeeper vigilant for the arrival of trouble.

“Can I help you?”

“David Gurney for Cam Stryker.”

She gestured toward the chairs against the wall. “Wait there.”

Several minutes later, her phone rang. She picked it up, listened for a moment, and looked over at Gurney. “The district attorney will see you now.”

Stryker’s office was no more welcoming than the reception room. The perfunctory smile on her face was equally chilly.

“Have a seat.” It was more a command than an invitation.

He settled into one of the two chairs facing her nearly bare desk.

“So,” she said, steepling her fingers in front of her chin, “what did you think of RAM’s treatment of the Blackmore affair?”

He shrugged. “Irresponsible and unsurprising. What did you think of it?”

“I thought it was devastating to you personally. The pressure on me to have you arrested is growing by the minute. Albright’s reference to ‘the stench of a cover-up’ is being quoted in all the upstate news sites. It’s political poison!”

Gurney was tempted to point out that arresting the wrong person could be even more poisonous, but he said nothing.

“As bad as the cover-up claim is, even worse was his suggestion that the two Lerman murders are connected. That’s something RAM will be pursuing with a vengeance. And they’ll be pressuring you to help them create that connection.”

“Don’t worry about my cooperating with RAM. That’s not going to happen. But you do need to look into the relationship between those murders. They’re definitely linked.”

“Goddamnit, David! There’s no evidence for that! None! Lenny Lerman tried to blackmail Slade, and Slade killed him. End of story. As for Sonny Lerman, he was killed in a totally unrelated confrontation, for which you are the prime suspect—a fact you seem to be ignoring.”

Gurney sighed. “Cam, you know damn well there’s evidence that points away from me in the direction of a third party.” He went on to add what he’d learned during his trip to Blackmore Mountain—beginning with Nora Rumsten’s recollection of hearing a motorcycle before and after two shots being fired.

“The first shot was the one that killed Sonny. The second was fired into the air with someone holding the gun in my hand to get my prints on it and the powder residue on my skin.”

Stryker waved her hand. “That’s wild conjecture, based on easily misinterpreted sounds some woman in the woods claims she heard.”

“Except that a second woman had a visitor that day with a motorcycle, and its tire tracks show that it was ridden from her campground to the crime scene.”

Stryker frowned, leafing through a file folder on her desk until she found the page she was looking for. “This campground woman you’re talking about—would that be Tess Larson?”

“Yes.”

“The trooper’s report I have here says that he questioned her at a roadblock regarding what she might have seen or heard in connection with the incident that occurred half an hour earlier on Blackmore Mountain Road. He ended the interview when he determined that she had no knowledge of the incident, being down in Harbane at the time it occurred.”

Stryker closed the folder and gave Gurney a questioning look.

“The fact is, she has more knowledge of the situation than she realized at the time. If the trooper had mentioned there’d been a shooting, she might have put two and two together.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

After explaining the circumstances surrounding Tess Larson’s trip to the Harbane CVS and her visitor’s absence when she returned, Gurney described his discovery of the truck and motorcycle tire tracks. “I have photos of those tracks, as well as sketches Larson made of the man and his vehicles. I can give them to you right now.”

Her voice was as unrevealing as her expression. “It would be appropriate for you to turn over all relevant material in your possession.”

He took out his phone, selected the photo files, and sent them to her cell number. Moments later a muted chime announced the arrival of the files on her phone. She swiped slowly through the photos, making an obvious effort to appear unimpressed.

“All this proves is that you’ve ignored the terms of our agreement.”

“What agreement?”

“That I would endeavor, out of respect for your background, not to rush to judgment regarding your role in the Lerman shooting; and that you, in turn, would refrain from any disruptive investigations into the Lerman cases. You’ve been violating the letter and the spirit of that understanding.”

“Self-preservation is a powerful motivator.”

“Your behavior calls for your arrest. You call that self-preservation?”

“Someone’s been playing an intimidating game with the light in my barn—letting me know how vulnerable I am. And how vulnerable my wife is.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” said Stryker without a speck of concern. “But I don’t see the connection to what we’re discussing.”

“I already told you about a headless rabbit being placed in my car, and—”

Stryker cut him off. “Another irrelevant event. Is that it?”

“Hardly. The Blackmore Mountain setup was an obvious effort to stop my investigation of Lenny Lerman’s murder by framing me for the murder of his son. You’d have to be blind not to see a pattern in those events.”

Stryker’s rigid gaze was fixed on her desktop. “Apparently it hasn’t occurred to you that the events that you believe were designed to make you back away from the case may have a different purpose altogether.”

“Such as?”

“Every one of these supposed ‘warnings’ has had the actual effect of making you pursue your inquiries with increasing determination. If those events have any relevance at all, you may be looking at them backward. Their real purpose may be to motivate you.”

“That’s quite a creative interpretation.”

“Call it whatever you want. But it’s possible you’re being played for a fool by someone who wants you to stir up confusion about Slade’s conviction.”

Gurney smiled. “If the case against him is solid as you say, why on earth would someone want me to stir up confusion?”

“Obviously, to create controversy. You’re not just anyone, David. Your reputation gives you weight. I can see headlines like ‘Top NYPD Detective Challenges Outcome of Slade Trial.’”

Gurney shook his head. “But what would the endgame be? If there’s ultimately no fire under the smoke—”

Stryker’s anger broke through the forced calmness in her voice. “The endgame would be to embarrass me politically! People focus on controversy, not on its legitimacy. Next year, when I’m up for reelection, they’ll be thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, Stryker, she’s the one behind that questionable conviction.’ That kind of thing ends political careers.”

“You’re actually suggesting that someone put a decapitated rabbit in my car as part of some complicated plot to obstruct your reelection?”

She fixed Gurney with an unblinking stare. “Politics is a blood sport, David. Don’t underestimate what some people might be willing to do.”

He said nothing.

She seemed pleased by his silence. She relaxed, just a little. “So we understand each other, let me make this perfectly clear. As a condition of your freedom during the investigation of the Blackmore homicide, you are to remain in Walnut Crossing, unless I specifically request your presence in this office. You are to have no contact with anyone connected to the Slade case or the Blackmore case. Break this agreement, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

46

GURNEY SAT FOR A WHILE IN THE COUNTY OFFICE BUILDING parking lot, reviewing his meeting with Stryker, trying to sift the truth from the nonsense. He saw no way that the crime scene evidence, in light of the information provided by Nora Rumsten and Tess Larson, could be used to justify his arrest. The sense of relief that provided, however, was diluted by the discovery that Stryker’s sharp mind was warped by paranoia. One of her comments was particularly unsettling: Don’t underestimate what some people might be willing to do. It was clear that some people included her.

He had intended to tell her about the peculiar atmosphere of Bruno Lanka’s store and his impression that the store’s sole visible employee was the same man who sent Tess Larson on a fabricated mission to Harbane. But her burst of irrationality stopped him cold.

He was sure now that there were aspects of the investigation better kept to himself. That thought reminded him that his Beretta was still being held by BCI, presumably as evidence connected to a crime scene. Retrieving it should eventually be a simple matter, but he had no faith it would be quick. He needed to get a replacement ASAP.

He reentered the county office building, located the county pistol clerk, and went through the process of securing an approval card for the purchase of a new sidearm. At the end of the brief bureaucratic transaction, the clerk smiled and said, “Have a nice Thanksgiving.”

The reminder that the holiday was upon them, plus concerns that had been intensified by Stryker, made it seem like a good idea to get in touch with Kyle immediately and suggest postponing his visit.

As soon as he was back in his car, he called Kyle. Expecting it to go to voicemail, he was surprised to hear a live voice.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“I’m having some second thoughts about your coming up this week for Thanksgiving.”

“How come?”

“It’s kind of a dangerous time, because of a case I’m involved in.”

“You still have to eat dinner, right?”

“True. But the situation here has become risky. It’s not something I want you to be exposed to.”

“Are you and Maddie leaving town?”

“As far as I know, we’ll be staying put. On high alert, though, eyes wide open.”

“If it’s safe enough for you and Maddie, then it’s safe enough for me.”

“But what about Kim? It wouldn’t be right to put her—”

“Into a risky situation? She’s a crime reporter. She’s in danger all the time.”

Gurney took a different tack. “I thought you guys broke up.”

“We did. Four times, five times. But we keep reconnecting. We’re not living together, no commitments, just seeing each other.”

“Sounds like the definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

“I’m not claiming it makes sense. It’s a magnetic thing, this incredible energy she has. She’s off-the-charts ambitious, which ends up pushing us apart, but then I get pulled back in. I know she’s pretty selfish, that she wants what she wants and she doesn’t care how she gets it. I know all that. But her energy, it’s like something wild inside her.”

“That’s what keeps pulling you back in?”

“Exactly. Maybe I have a secret fantasy of taming her. Somehow maintaining all that energy but getting rid of the selfish part.”

Gurney was tempted to point out that such a fantasy would lead to endless frustration. But all he offered was a mildly sarcastic “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah . . . well, anyway . . . about Thanksgiving. If I told Kim you didn’t want us to come because there was an element of risk, she’d burst out laughing. And then she’d be pissed. Besides, if I have to wait until there’s no danger in your life to see you, I’ll never see you at all. It’s been too long as it is. Hey, sorry, one of my law professors is calling. She’s almost impossible to get hold of, and I really have to talk to her. Love you, Dad! See you Thursday!”

Gurney said nothing. He realized he’d been outmaneuvered. And Thanksgiving dinner was shaping up to be . . . interesting.

THERE WAS A sporting goods store in a mall less than a mile from the county office building. Gurney stopped to purchase a gun. Less than twenty minutes after he entered the store, he left with his new sidearm—a Glock 19; his preferred Beretta could be ordered, but the clerk couldn’t promise a delivery date—a shoulder holster, and two boxes of 9mm ammo.

Before setting out again for Walnut Crossing, he called Madeleine to see if she wanted anything from the supermarket on his way home. She didn’t. She’d already gone shopping and had gotten, in addition to the basic necessities, all the ingredients for their Thanksgiving dinner.

“By the way,” she added, “I invited Gerry Mirkle to join us.”

He suspected that she’d invited Gerry as a kind of distraction from the presence of Kim, whom she’d never liked.

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“No problem at all. The more the merrier.”

After ending the call, he sat gazing at the comings and goings in the sporting goods store parking lot, his mind on the potential personality conflicts at the upcoming dinner, on Kyle’s somewhat unsettling portrait of Kim Corazon, on the Gerry Mirkle wild card, and on the unquantifiable possibility of danger—which brought him back to the two Lerman murders.

That in turn reminded him of a conversation he’d been meaning to have. He scrolled through his contact list until he found Rebecca Holdenfield, the high-profile forensic psychologist with whom he’d worked on several murder cases.

Her left a message.

“Becca, this is Dave Gurney, with a request. I’d love to have your opinion of a recent trial—NY State v. Z. Slade. You can see the video in the Murder on Trial section of the RAM website. I’m hoping you’ll be able to find the time to take a look and tell me what you think of the evidence, attorneys, witnesses, and Slade himself.”

He avoided any promises of being forever in her debt—knowing they would only irritate her. She was one of those individuals who valued both honesty and brevity.

HE WAS PARKING in his usual spot by the mudroom door when Madeleine emerged with their shotgun in one hand and retractable measuring tape in the other.

“I want to measure the opening in the shed, so we can start making the door,” she explained as he was getting out of the car.

He nodded, shifting his mind from his Lerman-Slade-Stryker problems to the simplicities of carpentry. “I’ll give you a hand in a minute. I just need to take care of something.”

He gathered his purchases from the front seat and brought them into the house and on into the bedroom. He opened the pistol and ammunition boxes and loaded the Glock magazine with the legal maximum of eight rounds. He took off his jacket, strapped on his new shoulder holster, slipped the gun in place, and put his jacket back on. The Glock, he decided, would remain on his person or within easy reach until there was no longer any cause for concern.

On his way through the kitchen, he picked up a pad and pencil to take down the doorway measurements. He found Madeleine out at the shed on her toes, trying to hold the metal tape steady across the top of the door opening. The shotgun was resting on a nearby straw bale.

He made some suggestions for successive placements of the tape, then jotted down the numbers Madeleine called out.

“Okay,” she said after the final measurement, “time to make the door.”

He hadn’t planned to spend the afternoon that way but, craving some balance between his two worlds, he agreed. With a satisfied smile she picked up the shotgun, and they walked together down to the barn.

Gurney performed a careful inspection, first of the perimeter, then the interior, with particular attention to the partitioned room that housed the woodworking equipment they’d be using—equipment that came with the property but which he’d rarely taken advantage of—a table saw, chop saw, planer, power sander, jointer, and router.

From one of the equipment cabinets he retrieved a drill, screws, clamps, exterior wood glue, outdoor paint, and brushes. From the lumber stacked along the barn’s sidewall he chose the best two-by-fours and a sheet of furniture-grade plywood.

Four hours later, they were able to step back and admire the product of their labor—a solid door with perfect ninety-degree corners, painted bright yellow and equipped with a black iron latch and matching hinges.

They carried it up through the pasture to the shed, positioning it in the opening to check for fit. Satisfied that it was ready to be installed, they decided to delay that tricky step until the following morning. It was getting dark, and it wasn’t the sort of job to be done with flashlights.

Their joint achievement cast a pleasant glow over dinner and the rest of the evening, including an earlier-than-usual retreat to their bedroom.

Later, as Gurney was drifting off to sleep, his phone rang. He picked it up from the night table, where he’d placed it next to his new Glock. The name on the screen was Rebecca Holdenfield. He assumed with a pang of disappointment that her rapid response meant that she was calling to let him know she wouldn’t have time to review the video. He took the call in the den to avoid disturbing Madeleine.

As usual, Holdenfield got to the point immediately. “You’re in luck. The outfit I’m consulting with is closed for Thanksgiving week. I was able to spend the afternoon and evening viewing the trial. So, what do you want to know?”

He settled into his desk chair. “For starters, what was your impression of the evidence?”

“Vivid facts, nicely strung together. Nothing a jury would find difficult to swallow.”

“How about the prosecutor?”

“Smart, controlled, brittle.”

“Brittle?”

“Could crack under pressure. Or explode.”

“And Marcus Thorne?”

“Clever, careless, self-important. Coasting on the glory of past victories.”

“How about the witnesses?”

“Nothing unusual in the ones I saw. No signs of prevarication.”

“The ones you saw? Meaning what?”

“A likely witness was missing.”

“Bruno Lanka?”

“Having him describe his experience of finding the body would have been a natural way to engage the jury. I felt like I was looking at a group photo with a face cropped out.”

“How about Ziko Slade?”

“Ah, yes, Ziko. The interesting one. Like a Buddhist who’d achieved satori. Startling disconnect with the monster the prosecutor was describing.”

“Which Ziko would you say is the real one?”

“Difficult question. What I saw in him was the opposite of what was said about him.”

“Do you think he killed Lenny Lerman?”

Holdenfield paused before answering, a rarity with her. “My impression was that he was baffled by the evidence that seemed to prove he did.”

“So, the guilty verdict was . . . ?”

“A reasonable response to the prosecution narrative . . . but possibly a mistake.”

47

HOLDENFIELD’S COMMENTS KEPT GURNEY AWAKE INTO the wee hours of the following morning, not because they surprised him, but because they reinforced what he was already inclined to believe. He decided to make a return trip to Garville later that day for a closer look at Bruno Lanka’s store and the man in Tess Larson’s sketch.

He finally fell asleep in the gray light of dawn, only to wake up an hour later with a dull headache and a stiff neck. He eased himself out of bed, swallowed a couple of ibuprofens, and took a long, soothing shower. By the time he’d shaved, dressed, and made his way out to the kitchen, the headache had faded. Madeleine, waiting for the coffee machine to warm up, appeared to be her energetic morning self.

“I don’t start at the clinic until ten,” she announced cheerily, “so we’ll have plenty of time to install the shed door.”

With his focus on the Garville excursion, he’d forgotten about the door, but he chose not to mention either of those facts.

After breakfast, while Madeleine dealt with the dishes, he strapped on his Glock and went down to the barn for the mounting screws, the power driver, and the shims and clamps that would hold the door in place while the hinge flanges were attached to the opening. He brought the necessary materials up to the shed, where Madeleine was waiting, her work gloves on.

Half an hour later, the job was completed. The door’s position in the opening required no hinge-shimming or other adjustments, confirming that the abutting surfaces were plumb and level. It gave him a simple sense of closure that the murkier work of homicide investigations rarely did.

Gerry Mirkle picked Madeleine up at nine thirty, and Gurney departed for his two-hour drive to Garville at nine forty-five, aiming to arrive just before Lanka’s store opened. Most of the trip was on the interstate where, despite the speed limit being sixty-five, it seemed that everyone had set their cruise control at seventy.

The passing landscape was made up of rolling hills, farm fields, and patches of evergreen woods on slopes too steep for cultivation. This pastoral expanse gave way to a flatter, more populated area as he entered the suburbs of Albany. One sight jarred him briefly out of his contemplation of Bruno Lanka—a dead deer on the shoulder of the highway, legs extending stiffly out from the body in rigor mortis. Vultures circled overhead.

From time to time, a sight like this—a deer, a dog, a possum—along the edge of a road touched something in him that he’d learned to suppress at the sight of a human victim. But stifled emotions have a way of coming to the surface, and a dead creature lying alone in a cold, hard place could sometimes bring him close to tears.

His route to Lanka’s Specialty Foods took him through the grungy outskirts of Garville and past Top Star Auto Salvage. He slowed down, noting that the red tow truck had been returned by BCI. It was parked inside the fenced compound next to the trailer-office. He could see the scrapes on the truck’s side, incurred during its collision with his Outback.

He drove into the center of town, turned onto the side street where Lanka’s store was located, and chose a parking spot half a block past it from which he could observe the store’s front door and the entrance to its parking lot in his rearview mirrors.

He had no specific expectations nor any firm plan. He knew from experience that stakeouts were open-ended exercises in patience and improvisation. He tilted his seat back into a semi-reclining position and adjusted his inside and outside mirrors. The dashboard clock said it was 11:49 a.m.

Twelve noon came and went without anyone arriving to open the store. During the next half hour, a Garville police cruiser drove by three times—particularly noticeable, since there was so little traffic on that street. When the cruiser appeared a fourth time, it came to a stop behind him.

After two or three minutes, during which he assumed that his plate number was being being run through the system for outstanding tickets or warrants, a uniformed cop emerged from the cruiser and approached Gurney’s window. He had the shoulders and neck of a bodybuilder. His mouth was set in an approximation of a polite smile. The plastic ID tag on his jacket said his name was Gavin Horst.

“Good afternoon, sir. May I see your license and registration?”

Rather than questioning the reason for the inquiry, he handed over his license and the auto rental agreement, and the cop returned to the cruiser. In his mirror Gurney could see that he was making a phone call rather than checking the license on the in-car computer. After ending the phone call, the cop returned with Gurney’s documents. The smile was gone. “So, where are you coming from today, sir?”

“Walnut Crossing.”

“And where are you heading?”

“Just here, then back to Walnut Crossing.”

“You drove all that way just to park on this street?”

“I’m waiting for Lanka’s Specialty Foods to open. Any idea when that might happen?”

“You came all the way from Walnut Crossing to buy something in that store?”

“Right.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“Interesting store. Unusual merchandise.”

The cop nodded slowly, sucked at his teeth, and handed Gurney his documents. “Store’s not open today. You’re wasting your time.”

“Shame. I was hoping to meet Mr. Lanka.”

“Why is that?”

“A private matter. Do you know him?”

The cop’s artificial smile reappeared. “Like I said, you’re wasting your time. Be a good idea to move on. You have a nice day.” He returned to his cruiser and sat there, watching, as Gurney pulled out of his parking space.

At the end of the block, where Gurney was about to make a turn that would take him back to the main avenue, a black Cadillac SUV drove by in the oncoming lane. He caught only a brief glimpse of the driver, but he recognized him as the unpleasant character he encountered in his last visit and the subject of Tess Larson’s sketch. In his side mirror, he could see the receding license plate, as the SUV turned into the store’s parking lot. He made a note of it on his phone.

Once he was out of Garville and back on the interstate, he pulled into the first rest area and placed a call to Hardwick.

“Yeah?”

“The Garville situation just got more interesting. I had an odd little dance with a cop there, Gavin Horst, who’s probably on Lanka’s payroll.”

“The fuck were you doing there anyway?”

“Watching Lanka’s place of business. I was curious to see who might show up. And guess what. A black Escalade turned into the street as I was being chased away—driven by the same character we saw yesterday in the store.”

“Piece of dirt, in my humble opinion.”

“I agree. So, I’ll give you the Escalade’s plate number, and maybe your guy at BCI could run it though the system. Be nice to know who owns it—along with any other vehicles linked to the same name.”

“Any particular reason my guy would want to do that?”

Gurney gave that some thought before answering, as a convoy of ten-wheelers roared past the rest area.

“If one of those other vehicles turns out to be a Moto Guzzi trail bike, he could get credit for solving the Blackmore Mountain murder case. Plus, he might get to embarrass someone on the case he doesn’t like, maybe someone who zeroed in on the wrong suspect. Or he might just have a natural hunger for the truth.”

“Only natural hunger that fucker has is for women half his age. But the idea of sticking it to a fellow officer might appeal to him.”

“If he’s willing to check out the Escalade owner for other registered vehicles, maybe he could be encouraged to run a similar check on the tow truck owner, Charlene Vesco. Be nice to know how she might fit into the big picture.”

Hardwick let out a harsh one-syllable laugh. “The big picture being some yet-to-be-concocted grand theory that ties Sonny’s murder to Lenny’s murder to Bruno Lanka to the Escalade driver to Charlene Vesco to a shady Garville cop to Cam Stryker to the abominable fucking snowman?”

“Something like that.”

“So, everybody’s a suspect? Everybody except Ziko Slimebag Slade?”

OVER THE COURSE of several homicide investigations, Gurney had come to appreciate the unique nature of Hardwick’s contributions. In discussions, the man invariably raised aggressive objections to just about any proposed hypothesis, but when action was required, he was all in. Therefore, despite his ridiculing any theory that might explain the Lerman murders, Gurney knew that Hardwick would extract every fact he could from his contact at BCI, and if a dangerous confrontation should arise in the future, he would be there without reservation.

At the moment, Gurney’s own potential for action was limited. Short of returning to Garville to stir the pot again, there was little he could do. Any significant next step would depend on whatever information Hardwick could get hold of.

This enforced hiatus allowed Gurney’s mind to move from case-related speculations to concerns about Thanksgiving. As he pulled out from the rest area, those concerns centered on ensuring that the planned dinner would take place without fear of a hostile invasion.

The possibility of installing electronic monitoring devices came to mind, but he’d never put much stock in them. When he and Madeleine lived in the city, protection against intruders consisted of a lobby attendant in their building, a substantial deadbolt on their apartment door, and his NYPD sidearm. After they moved to the old farmhouse, the deadbolt and lobby attendant had been replaced by a shotgun, and by letting it be known that the place was occupied by a former detective.

Now, however, with three guests coming for dinner in the wake of the unsettling RAM coverage of the Blackmore shooting, he was looking at the situation from their perspective. He came to the conclusion that a visible array of surveillance cameras might help, not only to discourage an intrusion, but to foster peace of mind.

His route home would take him past the Oneonta mall’s Epic Innovations, a vast cavern of a store that carried cutting-edge electronics gear. Surely they’d have a well-stocked home-security department.

48

THANKSGIVING DAY BROUGHT A STUNNING WEATHER REVERSAL. A major warm front moved into upstate New York during the night, bringing Indian summer to Walnut Crossing.

Gurney had spent the previous evening and most of that morning installing the system he purchased at Epic Innovations. The fast-talking techie salesman had made the process seem a lot simpler than it turned out to be, with the bizarrely translated manual providing more confusion than assistance.

After charging the batteries in the six cameras, whose mounting plates he positioned on the corners of the barn and on the side of the house that faced the woods, the final step was downloading the operational app to his phone and making sure that the promised capabilities of the system were actually functioning.

At two o’clock that afternoon the system got, and passed, its first real test. Gurney was gazing out through the French doors at the old apple tree, where a few red McIntoshes were still clinging to the branches above the height where the deer could reach them, when he received a beeping security notice on his phone that a vehicle was passing one of the cameras mounted on the barn. Moments later, as he watched, a Subaru Outback began making its way up through the low pasture toward the house. The vehicle looked like his own, or at least like his own had looked before its smash-up on Blackmore Mountain.

When it came to a stop next to his rental car and the handsome young couple emerged, he experienced the slight shock that results from the changed appearances of people you haven’t seen for a while. He hadn’t seen Kyle for over a year, Kim for more than two.

He opened the French doors and headed across the patio to greet them.

“Welcome!” he said as they strode toward him, Kyle leading the way.

“Hey, Dad! Wow! Great to see you! You look great!”

“So do you, son, so do you!”

Kyle’s face was fuller than Gurney remembered, his hair shorter and neater, his grin broader. The differences in Kim were deeper. There was something harder in her eyes, less open in her expression.

Gurney gave Kyle a hug, then, a bit awkwardly, repeated the gesture with Kim.

“The place looks great,” said Kyle, his happy gaze traveling around the fields and back to the area around the house. “That shed on the side of the coop—that’s new since I was last here, right? And the patio looks different. It used to be . . . a little rounder?”

“You have a good memory.”

Kyle eyed the rental car. “No more Outback?” There was disappointment in his voice.

“I’ll be getting a new one, as soon as we get a check from the insurance company.”

“The old one got totaled in that Blackmore Mountain thing?”

“That’s my assumption. I’m waiting for a call from the adjuster. Then I’ll be able to replace it.”

“That must have been quite a crash,” said Kim. “The coverage on RAM was, like, crazy.”

Although it sounded like a simple statement, Gurney heard in it a reporter’s hunger for more information. Not inclined to offer any, he simply nodded in agreement.

Kyle broke the brief silence, pointing at the shed. “You built that yourself?”

“A joint project with Maddie.”

“I love the iron hardware on the door.” He added in an aside to Kim, “My dad can do anything. He just figures out whatever it is and does it.”

She turned to Gurney. “What’s it for?”

“Well, it seems that one of these days we may be getting—”

“Alpacas!” The enthusiastic contribution came from Madeleine, who’d just emerged from the side door. “A pair. Twins. The cutest things.”

Kim frowned. “You want them for the wool?”

“The wool is nice, but it’s not the main thing. They’re just wonderful little creatures.”

“Aren’t they a lot of work?”

“Depends on what you mean by work.”

As Kim glanced meaningfully at the hay bales stacked against the shed wall, the sound of a vehicle coming up through the low pasture ended the exchange.

It was a buttercup-yellow VW Beetle.

After jouncing up the rutted lane at a speed too enthusiastic for the terrain, it came to a stop behind Kyle’s Outback. Gerry Mirkle emerged from the driver’s seat with a bright smile and a pot of multicolored mums.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” she cried, approaching the group, surprisingly light on her feet for a plump woman. “What a glorious day, spring in November!”

She handed the mums to Madeleine, who thanked her effusively and, after introducing her to Kim and Kyle, carried the pot to the sunniest corner of the patio.

“So,” said Gerry, addressing Gurney with sudden seriousness, “you look better than I expected, considering what you’ve been through. How do you feel?”

“There’s just enough discomfort to remind me that I’ve had a concussion, but it’s nothing that keeps me from doing what I need to do.”

She flashed a quick grin. “Is that a roasting turkey I smell? Possibly with a sage-and-thyme bread stuffing?”

“Plus chestnuts and sausage,” replied Madeleine happily. “Shall we go into the house? Everything will be ready soon.”

The cherrywood fire that Gurney had started an hour earlier was blazing in the stone fireplace. Cheeses, olives, and glasses of cider were laid out on the coffee table in front of the hearth. Madeleine headed for the kitchen end of the big open room to check the stove, while the others took seats around the coffee table. Kim pointed to a crystal vase of beige hydrangeas on the mantel.

“Are they real?”

Madeleine answered from the kitchen. “Real, but dried out. When I cut them from the bushes by the pond, they were pink. When they dry out they lose their color, but the petals last for months.”

“Lovely,” said Kim with fading interest.

Kyle was gazing up at the mantel. Next to the hydrangeas, there was a photograph of the house in the state of neglect when Dave and Madeleine purchased it.

“You look deep in thought,” said Gurney.

“The photo up there just reminded me—I brought something for you. It’s in the car. I’ll be right back.” He went out through the French doors, which had been left open to let in the soft Indian summer air.

Gerry Mirkle, whose expression suggested an attitude of mild amusement, leaned over the table and cut herself a small wedge of Irish cheddar.

Kim was leaning back in her chair, holding her cider glass in front of her chin with both hands. She was studying Gurney’s face. “You haven’t changed. Not even a little.”

But you have, he thought, without replying.

“Murder cases must be your fountain of youth.”

Again, he said nothing.

“Considering what happened on Blackmore Mountain and the awful way the media are treating it, I expected you to be radiating anger, tension, something. But I don’t see anything at all.” Her quizzical tone turned her comment into a request for an explanation. Even if he had one ready, he wouldn’t have been moved to provide it. He responded only with a shrug and a vague smile.

The awkward silence that followed was interrupted by Kyle’s return. Smiling, he handed Gurney a flat gift-wrapped box.

“For you.”

Gurney was surprised and mildly baffled. “Thank you.”

“Before Mom moved to her new condo, she was clearing out some old stuff, and she told me to take whatever I wanted. I found two old photos that I really liked, especially side by side.”

Undoing the wrapping paper, Gurney found a double picture frame, the two sides hinged together. The photo on the left was of his own father, shockingly young, smiling, with a toddler, also smiling, on his shoulders. It took Gurney a couple of seconds to realize the toddler was himself.

“I think your mother gave that to Mom ages ago,” said Kyle, “when you and Mom were still married.”

Gurney’s attention moved to the photo on the right. It was of himself in his mid-twenties, and there was a little boy on his shoulders. The little boy was Kyle.

“It’s a long time since I’ve seen these pictures.” He felt the pressure of a nameless emotion in his chest. “I think maybe . . . maybe we can put this right up here.” He got out of his chair and placed the hinged frame on the mantel, angling the sides carefully to avoid glare from the nearby window.

“Thank you,” he said again, at a loss for what else to say. An open expression of feelings, especially strong ones, never came naturally to him.

“Turkey time!”

Madeleine’s cheery announcement from the kitchen end of the room dissipated the odd mood created by the photographs, and everyone headed enthusiastically for the dinner table.

49

“I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE ALPACAS,” SAID Gerry Mirkle, as Madeleine was passing her a dish of cranberry sauce.

“The most important thing about them is the hardest to describe. It’s the expression in their eyes. It’s like they’re sizing you up, but in a friendly way. I can’t wait for them to arrive.”

“Do you have names for them?”

“I want to wait until they’re here, so I can match the names to their personalities.”

Gerry glanced over at Kim. “How about you—any favorite pets?”

Kim wrinkled up her nose, as though she’d been asked if she was fond of any unpleasant odors. “Only a least favorite. When I was little, my father had an iguana. Horrible thing.” She punctuated the statement with a little shudder.

“No furry friends in your life?”

“Investigative reporting doesn’t leave a lot of time for dog-walking.”

“Sounds like the kind of work that could take over your life.”

“Only if you love it.”

“And you do?”

“Absolutely.”

“What’s the best thing about it?”

“Ripping the mask off a creep who’s pretending to be what he’s not.”

Kyle spoke up for the first time at the table. “Exposing the bad guys—that’s what you do, Dad, just from a different angle, right?”

Gurney was cutting a piece of turkey on his plate, which he continued doing as he replied. “And from a different starting point. Investigative reporting—correct me if I’m wrong, Kim—generally begins with a whiff of smoke, then tries to locate the fire, if there is one, with the goal of exposing it in the media. A homicide investigation, instead of a whiff of smoke, starts with a dead victim, and the goal is to gather enough evidence to arrest the person responsible.”

Smiling, Kim laid her fork down. “Aren’t we both pursuing the truth?”

“Yes, but for very different reasons.”

“I think what matters is the truth. Why we pursue it seems like a secondary issue.”

Gurney realized that further debate could only dampen the Thanksgiving spirit and would be best abandoned. “Good point, Kim. Could you reach that salt shaker for me?”

“Speaking of investigations,” said Kyle, leaning toward Gurney, “the way those RAM idiots were talking about you was frigging awful. They were pushing right up against the edge of slander. I wish they’d step over the line, so we could sue.” He looked over at Gerry Mirkle. “Did you see that Controversial Perspectives segment about the shooting?”

“Madeleine told me about it, and I watched it on the RAM website.”

“What did you think of it?”

“Apart from it being a trash can of poisonous nonsense?”

Kyle flashed a grim smile. “And what about that guy at the end, that Maldon Albright character?”

She shrugged. “I got the impression he was trying to give a sophisticated-sounding gloss to RAM’s garbage. Dave, can you pass the gravy?”

The conversation turned to the dinner—the moistness of the turkey, the sweetness of the yams. Everyone seemed happy to retreat into these pleasant observations except Kim, who was toying with her food, seemingly eager to find a way back to a more serious subject. She finally just laid down her fork and turned to Gurney.

“I have to ask. Do you have your own theory of what the Blackmore shooting was all about?”

Everyone stopped eating. Madeleine gave Kim a cold stare. Kyle’s eyes widened. Gerry Mirkle’s expression revealed nothing. Gurney felt annoyed, not so much by the question as by the coolly probing tone in which it was asked.

“It’s not really a theory—just a suspicion that a toxic relationship between a father and son is responsible for everything that’s happened.”

“You mean, a problem between Lenny and Sonny?”

“It sounds like you’ve been doing some research on the original Lerman murder case.”

“That’s my job.”

It was suddenly clear to Gurney that Kim wasn’t present at dinner because Kyle invited her. Kyle had no doubt mentioned his planned visit, and she’d invited herself. Which meant there was a possibility that whatever he said would appear, sooner or later, in the media.

He chose his words carefully. “I believe there was something poisonous in the relationship between Lenny and Sonny Lerman that ended up causing both their deaths.”

Her eyes widened. “So, you don’t believe Ziko Slade killed Lenny because Lenny tried to blackmail him?”

“It sounded good in court, but it doesn’t account for the peculiarity of the murder.”

“You mean, the . . . decapitation?” She articulated the word with something like awe.

Madeleine broke in with the shy little smile she often used to lighten the tone of a serious request. “While we’re having our turkey, maybe we could talk about something other than severed body parts?”

“Good idea,” Gurney said.

Kyle launched into a change of subject so complete Gurney nearly burst out laughing.

“Madeleine, I love the way you made the yams.”

She blinked in surprise. “The yams? They’re just mashed up with some butter and salt and a dash of cinnamon.”

Gerry Mirkle said, “Yams were a point of dispute in the house I grew up in. My mother served one of her yam concoctions at every holiday dinner. My father hated yams. ‘I’ve never made them this way before, you should try them,’ she’d say. He’d reply, ‘This way, that way, makes no damn difference. They’re godawful, no matter how you make them!’ Then she’d start talking to the cat, telling it how nice yams are and how some people couldn’t appreciate good things. At that point my father would slam down his fork and stomp out of the room. They say opposites attract, but attraction can turn into a collision. And the collision either blows the relationship apart, or freezes it in a state of perpetual frustration, with each partner wishing the other would change.”

“What sort of man was your father?” asked Kim.

“He was a college professor. An authority on macroeconomics. I doubt he ever thought of himself as a husband or a father.” Gerry paused. “He liked to swim and went off every Saturday in the summer to a nearby beach. One Saturday, he took me along. I’m sure it wasn’t his idea, just something my mother pressured him into doing. He forgot I was with him, and he drove home without me.”

Around the table there were sounds of dismay.

“Over the years, my mother told that story with increasingly bitter humor. It was her way of letting everyone know that the professor was a self-absorbed idiot. I ended up feeling sorry for him—even though I once heard him say he wished I was a boy.”

“Patriarchy!” said Kim with disgust. “If you were a boy, he wouldn’t have forgotten you at the beach.”

“His relationship with a boy might have been worse.”

“How? Why?”

“Fathers often have expectations for sons that they don’t have for daughters. They see the son as an extension of themselves, and if they have serious control issues to begin with, the results can be explosive.”

“Last year,” said Kyle, leaning in, “Kim reported on a case where the father and son were serial killers, working as a team.” He turned to her. “You want to tell the story?”

Her eyes lit up in a way that reminded Gurney of the sensation-loving “personalities” on RAM-TV.

“Noah and Tanner Babcock, the father and son from hell,” she began—only to be interrupted by the beeping of the security alert on Gurney’s phone.

Unexpected visitors were rare enough that he and Madeleine exchanged questioning looks for a moment before he got up from the table. He went to the kitchen window and watched as a white van rounded the barn and drove up on the pasture lane to the house. A uniformed driver got out, carried a large, square shipping carton to the side door, and returned to the van.

Gurney made his way out through mudroom and opened the door in time to see the driver getting back into the van. It had a blue logo on the side that said NORTHEAST EXPEDITED DELIVERY. The van departed as quickly as it came.

Gurney looked down at the carton on the step. He picked it up, discovered it weighed at least thirty pounds, brought it into the house, and laid it on the kitchen sideboard. The label listed the sender’s name as C. Hadley.

“It’s from Christine,” he said.

“Christine?” Madeleine made the name sound like a problem.

“That’s what the label says.”

“My rich sister in Ridgewood,” she said, by way of explanation to the others at the table.

Gurney cleared his throat. “Do you want to open it?”

“You’re there. You open it.”

Gurney sliced through the packing, pulled the top flaps open, and looked inside. “It’s a holiday gift basket. Jams, relishes, fancy mustards.”

“Fine,” said Madeleine, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’ll figure out what to do with it later.”

Gerry Mirkle broke the ensuing silence. “I believe Kim was about to tell us a father-and-son serial murder story.”

Kim glanced around, making sure she had everyone’s attention. “Noah Babcock lived with his son, Tanner, on an isolated dairy farm. When his son was six, he beat the boy’s mother to death in front of him—with a shovel—stripped the body, and dumped it into a tank full of liquified manure. Over the next fifteen years, he dumped eleven more women into the same tank, and the son, who had become an emotionless zombie, assisted with the heavy lifting. The murders were accidentally discovered when a state inspector was doing routine checks of slurry tanks. When he opened the tank, he found a partially decomposed ear floating on the surface. The father received twelve consecutive life sentences in a maximum-security prison. The son was remanded to a facility for the criminally insane.”

Kyle added, “Kim wrote a prize-winning article, based on her interviews with the son.”

Madeleine’s gaze was fixed on Kim. “How did you manage to get those interviews?”

“Tanner was allowed one visitor a week. So, I visited.”

“I’m surprised he was willing to speak to you.”

Kim produced a self-satisfied smile. “It took some effort.”

“What did you promise him?”

“‘Promise’ is too strong a word. I suggested that telling his version of the story would help people understand what had happened.”

“Any idea what his IQ was?”

Kim’s expression tightened, but before she could respond, Gerry Mirkle interjected. “The Fertilizer Murders. I recall that’s what the case was called by RAM News. They do have a way of characterizing events.”

Kim said nothing.

Gerry continued. “As a professional journalist, you no doubt have an opinion of RAM’s approach to the news?”

“Their approach?”

“The way they turn complex, tragic events into vulgar, simplistic headlines.”

Kim’s smile failed to conceal the hostility in her eyes. “It’s easy to criticize the style of the product, but it wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t what the audience wanted.”

Gerry picked up her fork, studied the tines for a moment, then put it down. “Trouble is, so many of the things people want end up poisoning them.”

The tenor of that idea, if not the exact words, reminded Gurney of Emma Martin. He asked Gerry if she was familiar with Emma or with her therapeutic approach.

Gerry’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes, indeed. But more by reputation than direct contact. Emma was always a bit of an outsider when it came to the clinical community. I recall an incident at a conference in Aspen. A famous psychiatrist had just presented the details of a study he claimed established the relative impacts of nature and nurture on human behavior. You could have heard a pin drop—until Emma burst out laughing and proceeded to demolish the underlying structure of the research. Academic pretension was one thing she could never stomach.”

That brought on a silence that lasted while the dishes were cleared away. Madeleine got coffee going and brought a pumpkin pie to the table.

“While we’re waiting for the coffee,” she said, “I’m going to make a quick call to Christine to thank her for the jam basket, before I forget.” She started to leave the room, then stopped. “If anyone is fond of jams, jellies, et cetera, please go over and take whatever you want. Don’t be shy. My phone’s in the den—be back in a sec.”

“Shyness has never been my problem,” said Gerry, standing up and heading for the open carton on the sideboard. Kim followed her, and they began tentatively removing a jar at a time and studying the fancy labels with polite admiration. They took their time, as if instinctively relating speed to greed. Proceeding this way, it took them a good three or four minutes to remove, admire, and comment on half a dozen items.

“Well,” said Gerry with a grin, “those goodies only filled the top section of the carton. Must be a lot more under this divider.”

She reached into the carton and tugged for several seconds at the cardboard insert. Glancing around the top of the sideboard, she picked up a spare serving fork and pushed it down under the edge of the insert—just as Madeleine was returning from the den, looking puzzled.

“I spoke to Christine. She said she had no idea what I was talking about. She didn’t send us anything.”

Suddenly the insert flew up out of the carton, followed by a flash of something bright green. The serving fork was knocked from Gerry’s hand and clattered to the floor as she staggered back, uttering a sharp cry.

Kim stood frozen in place, mouth agape.

Madeleine approached tentatively and looked into the carton. Her eyes widened and she screamed, tripping backward. Her body collided with the kitchen wall, and she slid to the floor.

“What the hell is it?” cried Gurney, leaping to his feet, knocking his chair over, stumbling toward Madeleine. “Are you alright? What the hell . . . ?”

She pointed. “Look! For God’s sake, look!”

A coiled green snake with curved needle-sharp fangs and malevolent eyes the color of red-hot coals was rising from the carton, its triangular head rocking ever so slightly from side to side.