by John Verdon
“I don’t recall those specific details.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He mentioned that she came from a family with a lot of money.”
She made a loud, grating sound—a sound he was surprised to hear coming from so delicate a mouth. He was even more surprised to realize that it was a burst of laughter.
“Oh, yes!” she cried, the harshness of the laugh still in her voice. “We’re definitely a family with a lot of money. You might say we have a shitload of it.” She articulated the vulgarity with a contemptuous relish. “Does it shock you that I don’t sound the way a bereaved parent is supposed to sound?”
The chilling specter of his own loss limited his response, making speech difficult. He finally said, “I’ve seen stranger reactions to death than yours, Mrs. Perry. I’m not sure how we’re … how someone in your circumstances … is supposed to sound.”
She seemed to be considering this. “You say you’ve seen stranger reactions to death, but have you ever seen a stranger death? A stranger death than Jillian’s?”
He didn’t answer. The question sounded histrionic. The more Gurney looked into those intense eyes, the harder it became to assemble what he saw into one personality. Had she always been so fragmented, or was there something about her daughter’s murder that broke her into these incompatible pieces?
“Tell me more about Jillian,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Apart from the personal characteristics you mentioned, do you know anything about your daughter’s life that might have given this Flores a motive for killing her?”
“You’re asking me why Hector Flores did what he did? I have no idea. Neither do the police. They’ve spent the past four months bouncing back and forth between two theories, both idiotic. One is that Hector was gay, secretly in love with Scott Ashton, resentful of Jillian’s relationship with him, and driven by jealousy to kill her. And the opportunity to kill her in her wedding dress would be irresistible to his drama-queen sensibility. Makes a nice story. Their other theory contradicts the first. A marine engineer and his wife lived next door to Scott. The engineer was away a lot on ships. The wife disappeared the same time Hector did. So the police geniuses conclude that they were having an affair, which Jillian found out about and threatened to reveal to get back at Hector, with whom she was also having an affair, and one thing led to another, and—”
“And he cut off her head at the wedding reception to keep her quiet?” Gurney broke in, incredulous. Hearing himself, he immediately regretted the brutality of the comment and was about to apologize.
But Val Perry showed no reaction to it. “I told you, they’re morons. According to them, Hector Flores was either a closeted homosexual pining madly for the love of his employer or a macho Latino screwing every woman in sight and using his machete on anyone who objected. Maybe they’ll flip a coin to decide which fairy tale they believe.”
“How much contact did you personally have with Flores?”
“None. I never had the pleasure of meeting him. Unfortunately, I have a very vivid picture of him in my mind. He lives there in my mind, with no other address. As you said, ‘current location unknown.’ I have a feeling he’ll live there until he’s captured or dead. With your help I look forward to solving that problem.”
“Mrs. Perry, you used the word ‘dead’ a few times, so I need to make something clear, so there’s no misunderstanding. I’m not a hit man. If that’s part of the assignment, spoken or unspoken, you need to look elsewhere—starting now.”
She studied his face. “The assignment is to find Hector Flores … and bring him to justice. That’s it. That’s the assignment.”
“Then I need to ask you …” he began, then stopped as a grayish brown movement in the pasture caught his attention. A coyote—likely the one he’d seen the day before—was crossing the field. He followed its progress until it disappeared into the maple copse on the far side of the pond.
“What is it?” she asked, turning in her chair.
“Maybe a loose dog. Sorry for the distraction. What I want to know is, why me? If the money supply is as unlimited as you say, you could hire a small army. Or you could hire people who would be, shall we say, less careful about the fugitive’s availability for trial. So why me?”
“Jack Hardwick recommended you. He said you were the best. The very best. He said if anyone could get to the bottom of it—resolve it, end it—you could.”
“And you believed him?”
“Shouldn’t I have?”
“Why did you?”
She considered this for a while, as though a great deal depended on the answer. “He was the initial officer on the case. The chief investigator. I found him rude, obscene, cynical, jabbing people with the sharp end of a stick whenever he could. Horrible. But almost always right. This may not make much sense to you, but I understand dreadful people like Jack Hardwick. I even trust them. So here we are, Detective Gurney.”
He stared at the asparagus ferns, calculating, for no reason he was aware of, the compass point to which they were leaning en masse. Presumably, it would be 180 degrees away from the prevailing winds on the mountain, into the lee of the storms. Val Perry seemed content with his silence. He could still hear the modulated buzzing of the hummingbirds’ wings as they continued their ritual combat—if that’s what it was. It sometimes went on for an hour or more. It was hard to understand how such a prolonged confrontation, or seduction, could be an efficient use of energy.
“You mentioned a few minutes ago that Jillian had an unhealthy interest in unhealthy men. Were you including Scott Ashton in that description?”
“God, no, of course not. Scott was the best thing that ever happened to Jillian.”
“You approved of their marriage decision?”
“Approved? How quaint!”
“I’ll put it another way. Were you pleased?”
Her mouth smiled while her eyes regarded him coolly. “Jillian had certain significant … deficits, shall we say? Deficits that demanded professional intervention for the foreseeable future. Being married to a psychiatrist, one of the best in the field, could certainly be an advantage. I know that sounds … wrong, somehow. Exploitative, perhaps? But Jillian was unique in many ways. And uniquely in need of help.”
Gurney raised a quizzical eyebrow.
She sighed. “Are you aware that Dr. Ashton is the director of the special high school Jillian attended?”
“Wouldn’t that create a conflict of—”
“No,” she interrupted, sounding like she was accustomed to arguing the point. “He’s a psychiatrist, but when she was enrolled at the school, he was never her psychiatrist. So there was no ethical issue, no doctor-patient thing. Naturally, people talked. Gossip-gossip-gossip. ‘He’s a doctor, she was a patient, blah, blah, blah.’ But the legal, ethical reality was more like a former student marrying the president of her college. She left that place when she was seventeen. She and Scott didn’t become personally involved for another year and a half. End of story. Of course, it wasn’t the end of the gossip.” Defiance flashed in her eyes.
“Seems like skating close to the edge,” commented Gurney, as much to himself as to Val Perry.
Again she burst into her shocking laugh. “If Jillian thought they were skating close to the edge, for her that would have been the best thing about it. The edge was where she always wanted to be.”
Interesting, thought Gurney. Interesting, too, was the glitter in Val Perry’s eyes. Maybe Jillian wasn’t the only one in love with life on the edge.
“And Dr. Ashton?” he asked mildly.
“Scott doesn’t care what anyone thinks about anything.” It was a trait she clearly admired.
“So when Jillian was eighteen, maybe nineteen, he proposed marriage?”
“Nineteen. She did the proposing, he accepted.”
As he considered this, he watched the strange excitement in her subsiding.
“So he accepted her proposal.
How did you feel about that?”
At first he thought she hadn’t heard him. Then, in a small hoarse voice, looking away, she said, “Relieved.” She stared at Gurney’s asparagus ferns as though somewhere among them she might locate an appropriate explanation for her rapidly shifting feelings. A mild breeze had materialized while they’d been speaking, and the tops of the ferns were waving gently.
He waited, saying nothing.
She blinked, her jaw muscles clenching and relaxing. When she spoke, it was with apparent effort, forcing the individual words out as though each were as heavy as something in a dream. “I was relieved to have the responsibility taken off my hands.” She opened her mouth as though she were about to say more, then closed it with only a slight shake of her head. A gesture of disapproval, thought Gurney. Disapproval of herself. Was that the root of her desire to see Hector Flores dead? To pay her guilty debt to her daughter?
Whoa. Slow down. Stay in touch with the facts.
“I didn’t intend …” She let her voice trail off, leaving it unclear what was unintended.
“What do you think of Scott Ashton?” Gurney asked in a brisk tone, as far from her dark and complex mood as he could get.
She responded instantly, as though the question were a lifesaving escape hatch. “Scott Ashton is brilliant, ambitious, decisive …” She paused.
“And?”
“And cool to the touch.”
“Why do you think he would want to marry a—”
“A woman as crazy as Jillian?” She shrugged unconvincingly. “Possibly because she was breathtakingly beautiful?”
He nodded, unconvinced.
“I know this sounds incredibly trite, but Jillian was special, really special.” She gave the word an almost lurid depth and color. “Did you know her IQ was 168?”
“That’s remarkable.”
“Yes. It was the highest score the testing service had ever measured. They tested her three times, just to make sure.”
“So in addition to everything else, Jillian was a genius?”
“Oh, yes, a genius,” she agreed, a brittle animation returning to her voice. “And, of course, a nymphomaniac. Did I forget to mention that?”
She searched his face for a reaction.
He looked off into the distance, out over the treetops beyond the barn. “And all you want me to do is look for Hector Flores.”
“Not look for him. Find him.”
Gurney had a fondness for puzzles, but this one was starting to feel more like a nightmare. Besides, Madeleine would never …
Jesus, think of her name and …
Amazingly, there she was, in her explosion of red and orange attire, making her way gradually up through the pasture, pushing her bicycle along the rutted incline of the path.
Val Perry turned anxiously in her chair to follow his gaze. “Are you expecting someone?”
“My wife.”
They said nothing more until Madeleine arrived at the edge of the patio on her way to the shed. The women exchanged blandly polite gazes. Gurney introduced them, saying only—to maintain the appearance of confidentiality—that Val was “a friend of a friend” who had dropped by for some professional advice.
“It’s so restful here,” said Val Perry, her emphasis making it sound like a foreign word whose pronunciation she was practicing. “You must love it.”
“I do,” said Madeleine. She gave the woman a brief smile and rolled her bicycle on toward the shed.
“Well,” said Val Perry uneasily, after Madeleine had passed out of sight behind the rhododendrons at the back of the garden, “is there anything else I can tell you?”
“Were you bothered at all by the nineteen versus thirty-eight difference in ages?”
“No,” she snapped, confirming his suspicion that she was.
“How does your husband feel about your intention to engage a private detective?”
“He’s supportive,” she said.
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“He supports what I want to do.”
Gurney waited.
“Are you asking me how much he’s willing to pay?” Anger twisted some of the beauty out of her face.
Gurney shook his head. “It’s not that.”
She seemed not to hear him. “I told you money was not an issue. I told you we have a shitload of money—a shitload, Mr. Gurney, a SHITLOAD—and I’ll spend whatever it takes to get done what I want to get done!”
Cherry splotches were appearing on her vanilla skin, the words rushing out contemptuously. “My husband is the fucking highest-paid fucking neurosurgeon in the fucking world! He makes over forty fucking million dollars a year! We live in a fucking twelve-million-dollar house! You see this fucking thing on my finger?” She glared furiously at her ring, as though it were a tumor on her hand. “This shiny lump of shit is worth two million fucking dollars! For fucking Christ’s sake, don’t ask me about money!”
Gurney was sitting back, his fingers steepled under his chin. Madeleine had returned and was standing quietly at the edge of the patio. She came over to the table.
“You all right?” she asked, as though the meltdown she’d just witnessed had no more significance than a bad fit of sneezing.
“Sorry,” said Val Perry vaguely.
“You want some water?”
“No, I’m fine, I’m perfectly … I’m … No, actually, yes, water would be good. Thank you.”
Madeleine smiled, nodded pleasantly, and went into the house through the French doors.
“My point,” said Val Perry, nervously straightening her blouse, “my point, which I … overstated … My point is simply that money is not an issue. The goal is the important thing. Whatever resources are needed to reach the goal … the resources are available. That’s all I was trying to say.” She pressed her lips together as if to ensure no further outburst.
Madeleine returned with a glass of water and laid it on the table. The woman picked it up, drank half, and put it down carefully. “Thank you.”
“Well,” said Madeleine, with a malicious twinkle in her eye as she went back into the house, “if you need anything else, just holler.”
Val Perry sat erect and motionless. She seemed to be reassembling her composure through an act of will. After a minute she took a deep breath.
“I’m not sure what to say next. Maybe there’s nothing to say, other than to ask for your help.” She swallowed. “Will you help me?”
Interesting. She could have said, “Will you take the case?” Did she consider that way of saying it and realize that this was a better way, a way that would be harder to reject?
However she asked, he knew he’d be crazy to say yes.
He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can.”
She didn’t react, just sat there, holding on to the edge of the table, looking into his eyes. He wondered if she’d heard him.
“Why not?” she asked in a tiny voice.
He considered what to say.
For one thing, Mrs. Perry, you seem a bit too much like your descriptions of your daughter. My inevitable collision with the official investigating agency could turn into a major train wreck. And Madeleine’s potential reaction to my immersion in another murder case could redefine marital trouble.
What he actually said was, “My involvement could disrupt the ongoing police efforts, and that would be bad for everyone involved.”
“I see.”
He saw in her expression no real understanding or acceptance of his decision. He watched her, waiting for her next move.
“I understand your reluctance,” she said. “I’d feel the same way in your place. All I ask is that you keep an open mind until you see the video.”
“The video?”
“Didn’t Jack Hardwick mention it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, it’s all there, the whole … event.”
“You don’t mean a video of the reception where the murder took place?”
�
��That’s exactly what I mean. The whole thing was recorded. Every minute of it. It’s all on a neat little DVD.”
Chapter 8
The murder movie
In the Gurneys’ spacious farmhouse kitchen, there were two tables for meals—the cherrywood Shaker trestle table used mainly for guest dinners, when it would be dusted off and bedecked by Madeleine with candles and bright flowers from their garden, and the so-called breakfast table, with a round pine top on a cream-painted pedestal base, where, singly or together, they ate most of their meals. This smaller table stood just inside the south-facing French doors. On a clear day, it was touched by sunlight from early morning till sunset, making it one of their favorite places to read.
At two-thirty that afternoon, they were sitting in their usual chairs when Madeleine looked up from her book, a biography of John Adams. Adams was her favorite president—largely, it seemed, because his solution to most emotional and physical problems was to take long, curative walks in the woods. She frowned attentively. “I hear a car.”
Gurney cupped his hand to his ear, but even then it was a good ten seconds before he heard it, too. “It’s Jack Hardwick. Apparently there’s a complete video record of the party where the Perry girl was killed. He said he’d bring it over. I said I’d take a look.”
She closed her book, letting her gaze drift into the middle distance beyond the glass doors. “Has it occurred to you that your prospective client is … not exactly sane?”
“All I’m doing is looking at the video. No promises to anyone. You’re welcome to watch it with me.”
Madeleine’s quick flash of a smile seemed to brush aside the invitation. She went on. “I’d be willing to go a little further and say that she’s a poisonous psycho who probably fits at least half a dozen diagnostic codes from the DSM-IV. And whatever she’s told you? I’ll bet it’s not the whole truth, not even close.”