by John Verdon
“Ah, yes. Jack. Thanks for getting back.”
“And the question is …?”
Gurney smiled. Hardwick made a fetish of brusqueness, when he wasn’t too busy making a fetish of vulgarity. “How sure are you about the location of every individual at the reception during the time Jillian was in the cottage?”
“Sure enough.”
“How do you know?”
“The way the cameras were set up, there were no blind spots. Guests, catering staff, musicians—they were all on tape, all the time.”
“Except for Hector.”
“Except for Hector, who was in the cottage.”
“Who you think was in the cottage.”
“What’s your point?”
“Just trying to sort out what we know from what we think we know.”
“Who the fuck else would be in there?”
“I don’t know, Jack. And neither do you. By the way, thanks for the heads-up on that rehab jam-up.”
There was a long silence. “Fuck told you about that?”
“You sure as hell didn’t.”
“Fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’m a big fan of full disclosure, Jack.”
“Full disclosure? I’ll give you full fucking disclosure. Dickbrain Rodriguez took me off the Perry case because I told him that chasing down every fucking Mexican illegal in upstate New York was the biggest fucking waste of time I’d ever been assigned to. First of all, no one was going to admit working there illegally, evading taxes. And they sure as hell weren’t going to admit having any contact with someone wanted for murder. Two months later, on my day off, I get called into an emergency manhunt situation for a couple of idiots who shot a gas-station attendant on the thruway, and somebody at the scene tells Captain Marvel that I smelled of alcohol, so I get jammed up. The little fuck had been dreaming of ways to get me on the wrong foot. Now he’s got his opportunity. So what does he do? Little fuck sticks me in a fucking dump rehab full of crackhead scumbags. Twenty-eight miserable fucking days. With scumbags, Davey! Fucking nightmare! Scumbags! All I could think about for twenty-eight days was killing little Dickbrain Captain Fuckface, tearing his fucking head off! That enough full disclosure for you?”
“Plenty, Jack. Problem is, the investigation went off the rails, and it needs to start over from scratch. And it needs to have people assigned to it who are more interested in solving it than they are in messing each other up.”
“Is that a fucking fact? Well, good fucking luck, Mr. Voice of Fucking Reason.”
The connection was broken.
Gurney put the phone down on top of the case folder. He became aware of the clicking of Madeleine’s knitting needles and looked over at her.
She smiled without looking up. “Problems?”
He laughed humorlessly. “Only that the investigation needs to be completely reorganized and redirected, and I have no power to make that happen.”
“Think about it. You’ll find a way.”
He thought about it. “You mean through Kline?”
She shrugged. “You told me during the Mellery case that he had big ambitions.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he imagined himself president one day. Or at least governor.”
“Well, there you go.”
“There I go where?”
She concentrated for a minute on an alteration in her stitching technique. Then she looked up, seemingly bemused by his failure to grasp the obvious. “Help him see how this connects to his big ambitions.”
The more he pondered it, the more perceptive her comment seemed. As a political animal, Kline was super-sensitive to the media dimension of any investigation. It was the surest route to the center of his being.
Gurney picked up his phone and called the DA’s number. The recorded message offered three options: call again between 8:00 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. Monday through Friday, or leave a name and phone number to receive a return call during business hours, or call the emergency twenty-four-hour number for matters requiring immediate assistance.
Gurney entered the emergency number in his phone list, but before making the call he decided to devote a little more time to structuring what he was going to say—first to the screener, then to Kline if the call was passed through—because he realized it was crucial to lob exactly the right grenade over the wall.
The needles stopped clicking.
“Do you hear that?” Madeleine leaned her head slightly in the direction of the nearest window.
“What?”
“Listen.”
“What am I listening for?”
“Shhh …”
Just as he was about to insist that he could hear nothing, he heard it: the faint yipping of distant coyotes. Then, again, nothing. Only the lingering image in his mind of animals like small, lean wolves, running in a loosely spaced pack, running wild and heartless as the wind through a moonlit field beyond the north ridge.
The phone, still in his hand, rang. He checked the ID: REYNOLDS GALLERY. He glanced at Madeleine. Nothing in her expression suggested a clairvoyant insight into the identity of the caller.
“This is Dave.”
“I want to go to bed. Let’s talk.”
After an awkward silence, Gurney replied, “You first.”
She uttered a soft, intimate laugh—really more purring than laughing. “I mean I want to go to bed early, go to sleep, and in case you were going to call later to talk about tomorrow, it would be better to talk now.”
“Good idea.”
Again the velvety laugh. “So what I’m thinking is very simple. I can’t tell you what to say to Jykynstyl, because I don’t know what he’ll ask you. So you must be yourself. The wise homicide detective. The quiet man who has seen everything. The man on the side of the angels who wrestles with the devil and always wins.”
“Not always.”
“Well, you’re human, right? Being human is important. This makes you real, not some fake hero, you see? So all you need to do is be yourself. You are a more impressive man than you think, David Gurney.”
He hesitated. “Is that it?”
This time the laugh was more musical, more amused. “That’s it for you. Now for me. Did you ever read our contract, the one you signed for the show last year?”
“I suppose I did at the time. Not recently.”
“It says that the Reynolds Gallery is entitled to a forty percent commission on displayed works, thirty percent on cataloged works, and twenty percent on all future works created for customers introduced to the artist through the gallery. Does this sound familiar?”
“Vaguely.”
“Vaguely. Okay. But is it all right, or do you have any problem with it now, going forward?”
“It’s fine.”
“Good. Because we’ll have a very good time working together. I can feel it, can’t you?”
Madeleine, inscrutable, seemed fixated on the ornamental border of her slowly growing scarf. Stitch after stitch after stitch. Click. Click. Click.
Chapter 41
The big day
It was a glorious morning, a calendar picture of autumn. The sky was a thrilling blue without a hint of a cloud. Madeleine was already out on one of her bike rides through the winding river valley that extended for nearly twenty miles to both the east and west sides of Walnut Crossing.
“A perfect day,” she’d said before she left, managing to suggest by her tone that his decision to spend a day like this in the city talking about big money for ugly art made him as crazy as Jykynstyl. Or maybe he’d reached that conclusion himself and was blaming it on her.
He was sitting at the breakfast table by the French doors, gazing out over the pasture at the barn, a startling crimson in the limpid morning light. He took the first energizing sip of his coffee, then picked up his phone and called Sheridan Kline’s twenty-four-hour number.
It was answered by a dour, colorless voice—which brought to Gurney’s mind a vivid recollection of the man who own
ed it.
“Stimmel. District Attorney’s Office.”
“This is Dave Gurney.” He paused, knowing that Stimmel would remember him from the Mellery case and being not at all surprised when the man didn’t acknowledge it. Stimmel had the warmth and loquacity, as well as the thick physiognomy, of a frog.
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to Kline ASAP.”
“That so?”
“Matter of life or death.”
“Whose?”
“His.”
The dour tone hardened. “What does that mean?”
“You’re familiar with the Perry case?” Gurney took the ensuing silence for a yes. “It’s about to explode into a media circus, maybe the biggest mass-murder case in the history of the state. Thought Sheridan might want a heads-up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You asked me that already, and I told you.”
“Give me the facts, wiseass, and I’ll pass them along.”
“No time to go through it all twice. I need to talk to him right now, even if you have to drag his ass off the can. Tell him this one’s going to make the Mellery murder look like a misdemeanor.”
“This better not be bullshit.”
Gurney figured that was Stimmel’s way of saying, Good-bye, we’ll get back to you. He laid down his phone, picked up his coffee, and took another sip. Still nice and warm. He looked out at the asparagus ferns leaning away from a gentle westerly breeze. The fertilizer questions—if, when, how much—that had filled his mind less than a week ago now seemed infinitely postponable. He hoped he hadn’t overstated the situation to Stimmel.
Two minutes later Kline was on the phone, excited as a fly on fresh manure. “What is this? What media explosion?”
“Long story. You have time to talk?”
“How about you give me the one-sentence summary?”
“Imagine a news story that starts like this: ‘Police and DA clueless as serial murderer abducts Mapleshade girls.’ ”
“Didn’t we go through this yesterday?”
“New information.”
“Where are you right now?”
“Home, but I’m heading into the city in an hour.”
“This is real? Not some wild-ass theorizing?”
“Real enough.”
There was a pause. “How secure is your phone?”
“I have no idea.”
“You can take the thruway to the city, right?”
“I guess so.”
“So you could stop at my office en route?”
“I could.”
“Can you leave now?”
“Maybe in ten minutes.”
“Meet me at my office at nine-thirty. Gurney?”
“Yes?”
“This goddamn better be real.”
“Sheridan?”
“What?”
“If I were you, I’d pray for it not to be.”
Ten minutes later Gurney was on the road, heading east into the sun. His first stop was Abelard’s for a container of coffee to substitute for the nearly full cup he’d left on the kitchen table in his rush to get out.
He sat for a while in the gravelly little patch in front that passed for a parking area, reclined his seat about a third of the way, and tried to relax his mind by concentrating on nothing but the flavor of the coffee. It wasn’t a technique that worked particularly well for him, and he wondered why he kept trying it. It did have the effect of changing what was on his mind, but not necessarily to anything less worrisome. In this case it moved his focus from the dysfunctional mess of the investigation to the dysfunctional mess of his relationship with Kyle—and the growing pressure he felt to call him.
It was ludicrous, really. All he had to do was stop procrastinating and make the call. He knew very well that procrastination was nothing but a short-term escape that creates a long-term problem—that it just occupies more and more storage space in the brain, creating more and more discomfort. Intellectually, there was no argument. Intellectually, he knew that most of the misery in his life arose from the avoidance of discomfort.
He had Kyle’s new number on his speed dial. Christ! Just do it!
He took out his phone, called the number, got voice mail: “Hi, this is Kyle. I can’t pick up right now. Please leave a message.”
“Hi, Kyle, it’s Dad. Thought I’d call, get your impressions of Columbia. The apartment share working out okay?” He hesitated, almost asked about Kate, Kyle’s ex-wife, thought better of it. “Nothing urgent, just wondering how you’re doing. Give me a call whenever you can. Talk to you soon.” He pushed the “end call” button.
A curious experience. A bit tangled, like the rest of Gurney’s emotional life. He was relieved that he’d finally called. He was also relieved, to be honest about it, that he’d gotten his son’s voice mail instead of his son. But maybe now he could stop thinking about it, at least for a while. He took a couple more swallows of his coffee, checked the time—8:52 A.M.—and got back on the county road.
Except for a gleaming black Audi and a handful of not-so-gleaming Fords and Chevys with official plates, the parking lot of the County Office Building was empty, as it usually was on a Saturday morning. The looming dirty-brick edifice looked cold and deserted, every bit the wretched institution it had once been.
Kline emerged from the Audi as Gurney pulled in to a nearby space. Another car, a Crown Victoria, entered the lot and parked on the far side of the Audi. Rodriguez got out from behind the wheel.
Gurney and Rodriguez approached Kline from opposite directions. They exchanged nods with the DA, but not with each other. Kline led the way in through a side door to which he had his own key, then up a flight of stairs. Not a word was spoken until they were seated in the leather chairs around the coffee table in his inner office. Rodriguez folded his arms tightly across his chest. His dark eyes were uncommunicative behind his steel-rimmed glasses.
“Okay,” said Kline, leaning forward. “Time to cut to the chase.” He was giving Gurney the kind of piercing look he might give a hostile witness on the stand. “We’re here because of your promised bombshell, my friend. Let’s have it.”
Gurney nodded. “Right. The bombshell. You may want to take notes.” A twitch under one of the captain’s eyes told Gurney he heard the suggestion as an insult.
“Just get to the point,” said Kline.
“The bombshell comes in parts. I’ll toss them on the table. You fit them together. First of all, it turns out that Hector Flores is the name of a character in an Elizabethan play—a character who pretends to be a Spanish gardener. Interesting coincidence, no?”
Kline gave Gurney a questioning frown. “What kind of play?”
“That’s where it gets interesting. The plot involves the violation of a major sexual taboo, incest—which happens to be a common element in the childhood formation of sex offenders.”
Kline’s frown deepened. “So you’re saying … what?”
“I’m saying that the man who was living in Ashton’s cottage almost certainly took the name Hector Flores from that play.”
The captain let out a little snort of disbelief.
“I think we need a bit more detail here,” said Kline.
“This play is about incest. The Hector Flores character in the play shows up disguised as a gardener. And …” Gurney couldn’t resist the dramatic pause. “It just so happens that he kills the guilty female character in the play by cutting off her head.”
Kline’s eyes widened. “What?”
Rodriguez gave Gurney a disbelieving stare. “Where the hell is this play?”
Rather than get bogged down in the argument sure to ensue if he revealed that the full text of the play no longer existed, Gurney gave the captain the name and affiliation of Peggy Meeker’s old college professor. “I’m sure he’d be happy to discuss it with you. And by the way, there’s no doubt at all that the play relates to Jillian Perry’s murder. The playwright’s name was Edward Vallory.”
It took a couple of seconds for this to register with Kline. “The text-message signature?”
“Right. So now we know for sure that the ‘Mexican laborer’ identity was a con from day one, a con that everyone fell for.”
The captain looked furious enough to burst into flames.
Gurney went on. “This guy came to Tambury with a long-term plan and a lot of patience. The obscurity of the literary reference means we’re dealing with a pretty sophisticated individual. And the content of the Vallory play makes it clear that Jillian Perry’s sexual history was almost certainly the motive for her murder.”
Kline looked like he was trying not to look stunned. “Okay, so we’ve got … we’ve got a new slant here.”
“Unfortunately, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Kline’s eyes widened. “What iceberg?”
“The missing graduates.”
The captain shook his head. “It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again: There’s no proof that anyone’s missing.”
“Sorry,” said Gurney. “Didn’t mean to misuse a legal term. You’re right—nobody’s name has been entered yet in an official mis-pers database. So let’s call them … what? ‘Mapleshade graduates of currently unverifiable location’? That work better for you?”
Rodriguez came forward in his seat, his voice rasping. “I don’t have to take this wiseass crap from you!”
Kline raised his hand like a traffic cop. “Rod, Rod, take it easy. We’re all a little … you know … Just take it easy.” He waited until the man began to settle back in his chair before turning his attention to Gurney. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that one or more of these girls is actually missing, or unlocatable, or whatever the proper term would be. If that were the case, your conclusion is what?”
“If they’ve been abducted by the man calling himself Hector Flores, my conclusion is that either they’re dead or soon will be.”
Rodriguez lurched forward again in his chair. “There’s no evidence! If, if, if, if. It’s just one assumption on top of another.”
Kline took a slow breath. “That does seem like a hell of an end point to jump to, Dave. You want to give us a little help with the logic?”