by John Verdon
“Which brings us back to the big why?”
“It also brings us back one more time to the machete itself. I’m telling you, Jack, figure out how it got to where you found it without anyone being caught on camera and everything else will fall in place.”
“You really think so?”
“You don’t?”
Hardwick shrugged. “Some people say follow the money. You, on the other hand, are big on what you call ‘discrepancies.’ So you say follow the piece that makes no sense.”
“And what do you say?”
“I say follow the thing that keeps coming up again and again. In this case the thing that keeps coming up again and again is sex. In fact, as far as I can see, everything in this weird-ass case, one way or another, is about sex. Edward Vallory. Tirana Zog. Jordan Ballston. Saul Steck. The whole Skard criminal enterprise. Scott Ashton’s psychiatric specialty. The possible photographs that have you scared shitless. Even the fucking trail to the machete turns out to be about sex—the overwhelming sexual power of a bitch in heat. You know what I think, ace? I think it’s time you and I visited the epicenter of this sexual earthquake—the Mapleshade Residential Academy.”
Chapter 71
For all the reasons I have written
He was unhappy with the details of the final solution, its crude departure from the elegant simplicity of a razor-sharp blade, a carefully discriminating blade. But he could see no clearer way to the end of the road. He was appalled by the imprecision of it all, the abandonment of the fine distinctions that were his forte, but had come to view it as unavoidable. The collateral casualties would simply be a necessary evil. He took what solace he could in reminding himself that his planned action was the very definition—the very heart and soul—of a just war. What he was about to do was undeniably necessary, and if an action was necessary, then its unavoidable consequences were justified. The deaths of innocent children could be regarded as regrettable. But who was to say they were innocent? No one at Mapleshade was truly innocent. One could argue that they weren’t even children. They might not be adults legally, but they weren’t children, either. Not in any normal sense of the term.
So the day had arrived; the event was upon him; the opportunity, not taken, would not come again. Discipline and objectivity must be his watchwords. It was no time for flinching. He must hang on to the reality of the thing.
Edward Vallory had seen that reality with perfect clarity.
The hero of The Spanish Gardener didn’t flinch.
Now it was his turn to deliver the final blow to the whores and liars, the bits and pieces of the devil.
“She’s a nice little piece.” A revealing phrase. Think of the question it raises. A piece of what?
Voice of the snake. Slithering mouth. Sweat on the lips.
“Onto the heads of these serpents I shall bring down my sword of fire, and not one will slither away.
“Into the slime of their hearts I shall drive my stake of fire, and not one will continue to beat.
“Thus shall the sickening offspring of Eve be slain, and their abominations put to an end.
“For all the reasons I have written.”
Chapter 72
One more layer
“What about that Zen thing you’re always saying about how the problem isn’t coming up with the wrong answers, it’s coming up with the wrong questions?”
Gurney and Hardwick were driving through the northern Catskill foothills toward Tambury, and Hardwick had been quiet for a while. But now there was something in his tone that implied he had more to say. “Maybe we shouldn’t be asking how Hector got the murder weapon from the cottage into the woods. Because, according to the video, he didn’t. So maybe that’s, like, Fact Number One that we need to accept.”
Gurney felt an odd tingle of anticipation on the back of his neck. “What do you think the right question is?”
“Suppose we just asked, how could the machete have gotten to where it was found?”
“Okay. That’s a more open-minded version of it, but I don’t see—”
“And how did her blood get on it?”
“What?”
Hardwick paused to blow his nose with his customary enthusiasm. He didn’t speak until he’d replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. “We’re assuming it’s the murder weapon because Jillian’s blood is on it. Is that a safe assumption? If there was some other way …”
“I went down that road already with you, and we got nowhere.”
Hardwick shrugged, unconvinced.
Gurney looked across at him. “How else could her blood get on it? And if the machete didn’t come from the cottage, where did it come from?”
“And when?”
“When?”
Hardwick sniffled, pulled out his handkerchief again, and wiped his nose. “Do you trust the video?”
“I spoke to the video company, and I spoke to the lab people who analyzed it. They tell me the video is accurate.”
“If that’s true, the machete couldn’t have come from the cottage between the murder and the time it was found. Period. So it wasn’t the murder weapon. Period. And the goddamn blood must have gotten on it another way.”
Gurney could feel an almost physical rearrangement of his thoughts taking place. He knew that Hardwick was right. “If the killer went to the trouble of putting the blood on it,” he said, half to himself, “that would create a new set of questions—not just how and when, but more important, why?”
Why indeed would the killer bother to construct so complex a deception? Theoretically, the purpose of any past action, if it proceeded according to plan, can be deciphered from its results. So what exactly, Gurney asked himself, were the results of the machete being placed where it was with Jillian’s blood on it?
He answered his own question aloud. “To begin with, it was found quickly and easily. And everyone jumped to the immediate conclusion that it was the murder weapon. Which aborted any further search for a possible weapon. The scent trail connecting the cottage to the machete seemed conclusive and seemed to prove that Flores had escaped by that route. The disappearance of Kiki Muller reinforced the idea that Flores had left the area, presumably in her company.”
“And now …?” asked Hardwick.
“And now there’s no reason to believe any of it. In fact, the whole crime scenario adopted by BCI seems to have been crafted by Flores.” He paused, thinking through a final implication. “Jesus.”
“What is it?”
“The reason Flores murdered Kiki and buried her in her own backyard …”
“So it would look like she’d run off with him?”
“Yes. And in that light it makes Kiki’s murder look like the coldest, most pragmatic execution imaginable.”
Hardwick appeared troubled. “If it was so fucking pragmatic, why such a grizzly method?”
“Maybe it’s another example of the killer’s dual motivation: practical advantage plus raging pathology.”
“Plus a talent for creating bullshit for people to spread around the neighborhood.”
“What kind of bullshit?”
Hardwick was obviously excited. “Think about it. This whole case has been full of juicy stories, from the very beginning. You remember the old-lady neighbor—Miriam, Marian, whatever, with the Airedale?”
“Marian Eliot.”
“Right, Marian Eliot, with all her Hector stories—Hector the star of the Cinderella story, Hector the star of the Frankenstein story. And if you read the neighborhood interview transcripts, you saw the Hector the Latin Lover story and Hector the Jealous Fag story. Along the way you even added your own: Hector the Avenger of Past Wrongs story.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying. I’m asking.”
“Asking what?”
“Where the fuck are all these stories coming from? They’re fascinating stories, but …”
“But what?”
“But zero solid evidence for any of them.”
“And …?” he prompted.
Hardwick shook his head, as if unwilling to say more, then spoke anyway. “I used to believe that my first wife was a fucking saint.” He fell into a distant silence for a long minute or two, staring out at the passing landscape of wet fields and old farmhouses. “We tell ourselves stories. We miss the real evidence. That’s the problem. That’s the way our minds work. We love stories way too much. We need to believe them. And you know what? The need to believe can suck you right down the fucking drain.”
Chapter 73
Gate of Heaven
Once they’d passed the exit for Higgles Road, Gurney’s GPS indicated that they’d be arriving at Mapleshade in another fourteen minutes. They’d taken Gurney’s conservative green Outback, which seemed more appropriate than Hardwick’s red GTO with its rumbling exhaust and hot-rod attitude. The mist had increased to a heavier drizzle, and Gurney upped the wiper speed. Weeks earlier an irritating squeak had developed in one of the wiper blades, which was overdue for replacement.
“How do you picture this guy we’ve been calling Hector Flores?” asked Hardwick.
“You mean his face?”
“All of him. What do you picture him doing?”
“I picture him standing naked in a yoga pose in Scott Ashton’s garden pavilion.”
“See what I mean?” said Hardwick. “You read about that in the interview summaries, right? But now you’re picturing it as vividly as if you saw it.”
Gurney shrugged. “We do that all the time. Not only do our minds connect the dots, they create dots where there aren’t any to begin with. Like you said, Jack, we’re wired to love stories—coherence.” A moment later he had a sudden, seemingly unrelated thought. “Was the blood still wet?”
Hardwick blinked. “What blood?”
“The blood on the machete. The blood you told me a minute ago couldn’t have come directly from the murder scene, because the machete wasn’t the murder weapon.”
“Of course it was wet. I mean … it looked wet. Let me think a second. What I saw of it looked wet, but it had dirt and leaves stuck to it.”
“Christ!” interrupted Gurney. “That could be the reason …”
“The reason for what?”
“The reason Flores half buried it. Buried the blade. Under a coating of damp leaves and earth.”
“So the blood on it wouldn’t dry?”
“Or wouldn’t oxidize in a way noticeably different from the blood around the body in the cottage. The point is, if the blood on the machete appeared to be in a more advanced state of oxidation than the blood on Jillian’s wedding dress, that’s something you or the techs would have noticed. If the blood on the machete was older than the blood on the victim …”
“We’d have known that it wasn’t the murder weapon.”
“Exactly. But the wet soil on the blade would have slowed the drying of the blood, plus it would have obscured any oxidation, any observable difference from the color of the blood found in the cottage.”
“And that’s not something the lab would have picked up, either,” said Hardwick.
“Of course not. The blood analysis wouldn’t have been done until the following day at the soonest, and at that point a difference of an hour or two in the origination time of the two samples would have been undetectable—unless they were running a sophisticated test to examine that specific factor. But unless you or the ME had flagged it, they wouldn’t have had any reason to do it.”
Hardwick was nodding slowly, his eyes sharp and thoughtful. “It kicks the foundation out from under some basic assumptions we’ve been making, but where does it take us?”
“Hah. Good question,” said Gurney. “Maybe it’s just one more indication that all the initial assumptions in this case were wrong.”
The efficient female voice of Gurney’s GPS directed him to proceed another half mile, then turn left.
The turn was marked by a simple black-and-white sign on a black wooden post: PRIVATE DRIVEWAY. The narrow, smoothly paved drive passed through a pine copse with branches overhanging from both sides, creating the feeling of a sculpted horticultural tunnel. Half a mile into this extended evergreen arbor they drove through an open gate in a tall chain-link fence and came to a stop at a raisable bar that was in its down position. Next to the bar was a handsome cedar-shingled security booth. On the wall facing Gurney, an elegant blue-and-gold sign read MAPLESHADE RESIDENTIAL ACADEMY. VISITS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. A thickly built man with thinning gray hair emerged from the booth. His black pants and gray shirt gave the impression of an informal uniform, and he had the neutral, appraising eyes of a retired cop. His mouth smiled politely. “Can I help you?”
“Dave Gurney and Senior Investigator Jack Hardwick, New York State Police, here to see Dr. Ashton.”
Hardwick pulled out his wallet, extended his BCI ID toward Gurney’s window.
The guard eyed it carefully and made a sour face. “Okay, just stay right here while I call Dr. Ashton.” While keeping his gaze on the visitors, the man keyed in a code on his phone and began talking. “Sir, a Detective Hardwick and a Mr. Gurney here to see you.” A pause. “Yes, sir, they’re right here.” The guard shot them a nervous glance, then spoke into the phone. “No, sir, no one else with them … Yes, sir, of course.” The guard handed the phone to Gurney, who put the receiver to his ear.
It was Ashton. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me in the midst of something. I’m not sure I can see—”
“We only need to ask you a few questions, Doctor. And maybe someone on your staff could show us around the grounds afterward? We’d just like to get a feel for things.”
Ashton sighed. “Very well. I’ll make a few minutes for you. Someone will come to pick you up shortly. Please put the security man back on.”
After confirming Ashton’s authorization, the guard pointed to a small gravel area extending off the side of the pavement just past the booth. “Park over there. No cars beyond that point. Wait for your escort.” A moment later the bar across the driveway rose and Gurney drove through to the small designated parking area. From that position he could see a longer stretch of the fence than was visible as he was approaching it. He was surprised to see that apart from the portion adjoining the road and the booth, the fence was topped with spiral coils of razor wire.
Hardwick had noticed it, too. “You think it’s to keep the girls in or the local boys out?”
“I hadn’t thought about the boys,” said Gurney, “but you may be right. A boarding school full of sex-obsessed young women, even if their obsessions are hellish, could be quite a magnet.”
“You mean especially if they’re hellish. Hotter the better,” said Hardwick, getting out of the car. “Let’s go shoot the shit with the man at the gate.”
The guard, still standing in front of his booth, gave them a curious look—friendlier now that they’d been approved for entry. “This about the Liston girl who worked here?”
“You knew her?” asked Hardwick.
“Didn’t know her, just knew who she was. Worked for Dr. Ashton.”
“You know him?”
“Again, more to see him than to talk to him. He’s a little—what would you say? Distant?”
“Standoffish?”
“Yeah, I would say he was standoffish.”
“So he’s not the guy you report to?”
“Nah. Ashton doesn’t really have anything to do with anybody. A little too important, you know what I mean? Most of the staff here report to Dr. Lazarus.”
Gurney detected a not-quite-hidden distaste in the guard’s voice, waited for Hardwick to follow it up. When he didn’t, Gurney asked, “What kind of a guy is Lazarus?”
The guard hesitated, seemed to be looking for a way to say something without saying something that could get him in trouble.
“I hear he’s not a smiley-face kind of guy,” said Gurney, recalling Simon Kale’s unflattering
description.
Gurney’s mild encouragement was enough to put a crack in the wall.
“Smiley-face? Jeez no. I mean, he’s okay, I guess, but …”
“But not too pleasant?” Gurney prompted.
“It’s just, I don’t know, like he’s kind of in his own world. Like sometimes you’ll be talking to him and you get the feeling that ninety percent of him is somewhere else. I remember once—” He broke off the sentence at the sound of tires rolling slowly on gravel.
They all looked toward the little parking area—and the dark blue minivan that was coming to a stop next to Gurney’s car.
“The man himself,” said the guard under his breath.
The man who emerged from the van was ageless but far from young, with even features that made his face look more artificial than handsome. His hair was as black as only dye could make it, and the contrast with his pale skin was striking. He pointed to the back door of the van.
“Please get in, Officers,” he said as he slipped back into the driver’s seat and waited. His attempted smile, if that’s what it was, resembled the strained expression of a man who found daylight unpleasant.
Gurney and Hardwick got in behind him.
Lazarus drove slowly, gazing intently at the road ahead. After a few hundred yards, they rounded a bend and the dark pine woods yielded to a parklike area of mowed grass and widely spaced maples. The driveway straightened into a classical allée, at the end of which stood a neo-Gothic Victorian mansion with several smaller structures of similar design on either side of it. In front of the mansion, the road split. Lazarus took the right fork, which brought them around beds of ornamental shrubs to the rear of the building. There the split road came back together in a second allée that proceeded on, surprisingly, to a large chapel of dark granite. Its narrow stained-glass windows might on a cheerier day have given the impression of ten-foot-high red pencils, but at that moment they looked to Gurney like bloody gashes in the stone.