Wolf Lake

by John Verdon

  “What two agencies are we talking about?”

  “I have no idea, just questions. For example, who authorized electronic surveillance on the personal vehicle of a private investigator? Presumably I’m not suspected of committing a crime. If probable-cause warrants were issued for the placement of those trackers, what was the basis? And if no warrants were issued, who was willing to break the law that way? Why do my movements matter that much?”

  “You also gotta ask, what’s being done with the tracking data?”

  Madeleine turned in her seat and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Location data can be used in a lot of ways. It can be fed directly to an automated drone with hi-res photo capability. Or to the navigation screen of a surveillance team, so they can follow you but stay out of sight.”

  Gurney checked his watch. “We’ve got a time issue here. It’s almost 9:25, and I need to be half a mile up the road at ten for my meeting with Angela Castro. I’d rather not have that destination fed to anyone. Problem is, disposing of the trackers here would make it obvious that I found them, which would eliminate future options, so we need a different solution.”

  “Easy,” said Hardwick. “Leave the car here, walk to your meeting. No problem.”

  “No problem—unless we’re being photographed from one of those programmed drones you just mentioned. You know how many thousands of those things are in operation these days?”

  “Jeez!” said Madeleine. “Are you saying something up there in the sky is watching us?”

  “I’m saying we should act as though it might be.”

  Hardwick’s acid-reflux expression returned. “Meaning what?”

  “Nothing complicated. We just need to keep our actions as far out of sight as possible.”

  After a pensive silence Madeleine spoke up. “Didn’t the hotel we passed have one of those big overhang things out in front, like the lodge? I’m pretty sure I saw one.”

  Gurney nodded slowly. “I think you’re right. And it might solve our problem.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER, FOLLOWING A HASTILY DEVISED PLAN, THE GTO was parked in the guest lot next to the hotel, and the Outback was parked in a sheltered spot under the front portico. The Outback’s position there had been secured, and the valet parking attendant warded off, with a display of Hardwick’s PI credentials, a serious-sounding explanation of the need to conduct an emergency vehicle inspection, and an assurance that it would take hardly any time at all.

  The plan, such as it was, was that Hardwick would jack up the Outback and undertake an assessment of the planted devices, out of sight of any aerial surveillance, while Gurney would proceed on foot, through the hotel and out a rear entrance, to Tabitha’s Dollhouse.

  Madeleine entered the lobby with Gurney. They located the hotel gift shop, where he bought an overpriced souvenir sweatshirt and baseball hat. Back in the sitting area of the lobby, he put on the sweatshirt and hat and left his own jacket with Madeleine.

  “I should be back within the hour. Stay within sight of the front door in case Jack needs you.”

  She responded with a tense nod, holding his jacket against her body.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said, a bit too heartily. “I think this Angela Castro meeting will finally get us on the right track.” He hugged her, then headed across the lobby into a corridor marked with a red “Exit” sign.

  The corridor led to a glass door. He passed through it and emerged onto a paving-stone path that curved around a bed of ornamental grasses, drooping and drained of color. The path led to a wider one along the shore of the lake, which he discovered roughly paralleled Woodpecker Road and provided an intermittent view of its shops and restaurants.

  Maintaining a steady jog, he passed a few isolated dog walkers bundled up against the raw gusts coming off the lake. Within a few minutes he caught sight of a building he recognized from its photo on the Internet. Tabitha’s Dollhouse looked even stranger now in its mundane surroundings than it had in the soft-focus fantasy of its website.

  He walked across a park-like space adjoining the path, and on across Woodpecker Road. He took out his phone, activated the “Record Audio” function, and slipped the phone into the pocket of his sweatshirt. The entrance to the Dollhouse parking lot was through an ornamented archway that bore the legend he recalled from the website: “Home of Fabulous, Lovable, Collectible Dolls.” There were four cars in the parking lot. One, Gurney noted, had dealer plates with a New York City prefix. The door to the Dollhouse itself was bracketed by two waist-high garden gnomes.

  When he opened the door he was greeted by a sweet aroma that reminded him of the rectangles of bubblegum he hadn’t seen or smelled since grammar school. Scores of little doll faces stared at him from a pastel nursery world of soft pinks, blues, and yellows.

  A young woman standing behind a central display case was smiling at him with a glazed cordiality. “Welcome to Tabitha’s. How can I help you?”

  Gurney glanced around at the profusion of dolls on counters, on shelves, in glass cases—all shapes and sizes and styles of dolls, from cherubic infants to weird creatures that might inhabit fairy tales. Or nightmares.

  “The stairs to the second floor?” he asked.

  She regarded him with increased interest. “Are you here to see Ms. Castro?”

  Having a secretive mindset about the meeting, he was surprised to hear her name.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “She’s with Tabitha.” Her lowered voice suggested that this was in some way special. “I’ll show you the way.” She led Gurney through a maze of doll displays to a staircase with a pink banister. “You can go right up, sir.”

  The second floor was much like the first—except that the dolls here were more uniform in appearance, and many were arranged together in social tableaus. Not far from the top of the stairs there was a small sitting area with a bright yellow table and two glossy white chairs. One chair was occupied by a pale, waif-like young woman with a large, overly perfect, blond hairdo. Gurney was struck by its incompatibility with the shy, narrow face it framed—as well as its remarkable similarity to the blond hairdo of a doll in a locked glass cabinet in the corner.

  Standing on the other side of the table was a woman different in almost every way from the seated waif. Her large body was draped in a generously pleated maroon maxi dress, embroidered at the neck. Her fingers were covered with shiny rings. Her face was brightly, almost theatrically, made up. And all of this was topped, literally and figuratively, by her hairdo. The seated waif’s was eye-catching, but hers was jaw-dropping. An upswept surge of black and silver-streaked waves collided at dramatic angles, bringing to mind a turbulent Turner seascape. This was a woman, thought Gurney, who was fond of making entrances.

  She turned toward him with a sweeping gesture of her heavily ringed hand.

  “Mr. Gurney, I presume?”

  “Yes. And you are . . .?”

  “Tabitha.” She made it sound like an incantation. “I was just about to bring Ms. Castro a nice glass of springwater. May I get you something as well? Herbal tea, perhaps?”

  “Nothing. Thank you.”

  “If you change your mind, if you need anything at all, if you have any questions, just tap on the bell.” She pointed at a little dome-shaped device in the middle of the table. “It’s pure silver. It makes the purest ding you ever heard.”

  “Thank you.”

  With a swirl of silky fabric and a waft of flowery perfume, she swept past him down the pink-banistered stairs.

  Gurney turned his attention to the young woman at the table.

  “Angela?”

  She responded with a tiny nod.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  “First of all, I want to thank you for allowing me to talk to you.”

  She responded with a wide-eyed stare. “I didn’t know what else to do. The letter the other detective left at my brother’s house was really scary. What you said on the phone was scary.”


  “We’re just trying to be honest about a situation we need to find out more about.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked around at the doll displays. “This is an unusual place you picked for us to get together.”

  Her mouth opened in alarm. “I thought you said on the phone that a store would be a good idea.”

  “It is a good idea.” He smiled and tried to sound reassuring. “I just meant that I’ve never been in a store like this before.”

  “Oh, no. Of course not. It’s totally unique.”

  “Tabitha seems very . . . accommodating.”

  Angela nodded—at first enthusiastically, then with something that looked like embarrassment. She leaned toward Gurney and spoke in an anxious whisper. “She thinks we’re going to buy another Barbie.”

  “Another Barbie?”

  “When Stevie and I stayed here, he bought me a Barbie.” She smiled with a childish sweetness. “The special one I always wanted.”

  “You and Stevie . . . stayed here?”

  “Well, not right here in the store. At the Dollhouse Inn. Down the road. It’s sort of like a motel, but not like any ordinary one. It’s totally fantastic. The rooms have themes.” Her eyes lit up on that word.

  “When was this?”

  “When he came to see the creepy hypnotist about breaking his smoking habit.”

  “Did you meet the hypnotist?”

  “No, that was Stevie’s thing. I stayed at the inn.”

  “You said the hypnotist was creepy. How did you know that?”

  “That’s what Stevie said—that he was a really creepy guy.”

  “Did he say anything else about him?”

  She frowned, as if from the strain of trying to remember. “That he was disgusting.”

  “Did he say what he meant by that?”

  She shook her head. “No, he just said it. Creepy and disgusting.”

  “Did he say anything to you about having nightmares?”

  “Yeah, but that was later. Something about a giant wolf sticking a hot knife in him. Stuff like that. A wolf with hot red eyes, on top of him.” A visible shiver ran through her body. “God, how gross is that!”

  “Did he tell you he had the dream more than once?”

  “A lot. I think like every night after he saw the hypnotist. He said it was disgusting.”

  “The dream was disgusting, like the hypnotist was disgusting?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Did Stevie use that word a lot?”

  The question seemed to make her uncomfortable. “Not really a lot. Just sometimes.”

  “Can you remember anything about those other times when he used it?”

  “No.”

  The answer came out too quickly to suit Gurney. But he sensed that pursuing the issue would be a mistake. He’d have to find a way to revisit it later.

  For the moment, he wanted to lower the level of tension, not raise it. And that meant moving slowly around obstructions rather than trying to break through them. A meandering style of interviewing felt unnatural to his linear mind, but sometimes it was the best way forward.

  “How much of a smoking problem did Stevie have?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Had he tried to stop before?”

  “I guess.” She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure.”

  “Did he talk much about wanting to stop?”

  “We never talked about smoking.”

  Gurney nodded, smiled. “I guess most people don’t.”

  “No. I mean, why would they? It’s a stupid thing to talk about.”

  “After his hypnosis session with Dr. Hammond, was Stevie able to stop smoking?”

  “No.”

  “Was he upset by that?”

  “I guess. Maybe. I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t really want to stop. Mainly he talked about the horrible dream and how disgusting Hammond was.”

  “Did he seem angry that the trip had been a waste of time and money?”

  “A waste?”

  “Well, I’m just wondering, if seeing Hammond didn’t help him stop smoking . . . did that make him angry?”

  She looked perplexed, as though this were a subject she’d been revisiting in her own mind. “He said he was angry, when I asked him about it.”

  “But . . .?”

  “But when Stevie gets really angry . . . I guess I should say when Stevie got really angry . . . his eyes would change, like . . . I don’t know how to describe it, but . . . but even big guys would back away from him.”

  “And he didn’t look angry that way when you asked about the time and money?”

  “No.” She fell silent, looking sad and uneasy.

  Gurney was pondering the best way to ask his next question when he heard a swish of fabric and out of the corner of his eye caught sight of the formidable Tabitha ascending the staircase with a remarkable lightness of foot.

  She came to the table beaming, placing between them a black lacquer tray with a liter of designer water, a fancy bowl of ice cubes, and two glasses. She gave Gurney a coyly apologetic wink. “I brought an extra glass, just in case you change your mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  She paused a second or two, then whirled away and down the stairs with a panache that Gurney assumed was her default style.

  He noted Angela watching Tabitha’s departure with a mixture of anxiety and awe. He waited until she was well out of sight before commenting. “Interesting woman.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have told her we might be interested in buying a doll.”

  “Why did you tell her that?”

  “Well, I couldn’t tell the truth, right? I couldn’t say that I was meeting someone here to talk about my boyfriend’s horrible death.”

  “Who did you say you were meeting?”

  “You.”

  “Right. But who did you say I was?”

  “Oh. I just said your name and that you were a friend—not that you were a detective or anything like that. I hope it’s okay that I said you were a friend?”

  “Of course. That was a good idea.” He paused. “Was there a special reason you wanted to meet here?”

  “I love it here.”

  He glanced around, trying to put himself in the mind of someone who’d feel at home in such an exotic, fantasy-based environment. “You love it because of all the dolls?”

  “Of course. But mainly because this is where Stevie got me my all-time-favorite Barbie.”

  “Was it a special occasion?”

  “No. He just did it. Which made it even more special, you know what I mean?”

  “It sounds like he wanted to make you happy.”

  Her eyes started to well up.

  He continued, “So this is a very special place for you. I can understand that.”

  “And I couldn’t stay at my brother’s. If Detective Hardwick found me there, then other people could. So my brother lent me some money and a car from one of his used car lots, and I came up here last night. My brother said if I was really afraid of being found, I should pay cash, because cops and other people can track you down through your credit card. Is that true, or is that just on TV?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Jeez, it’s like someone’s always watching you. But that’s what I did—paid cash like my brother said. I’m staying in the same room that Stevie and I stayed in.”

  “Do you plan to stay here for a while?”

  “Unless you think that’s a bad idea?”

  He couldn’t think of a better one. And he was doubly glad he’d taken the precaution of leaving his geo-tracked car at the hotel. He reassured her that it might be the best place for her under the circumstances.

  “When I’m here, I feel like Stevie is with me.” She dabbed at her eyes, making a sad mess of her mascara.

  Gurney moved on to a question that had been troubling him from the beginning. “I’ve been wondering, Angela, did it seem odd to you that Stevie was willing to travel all the way
to Wolf Lake Lodge, just to see a hypnotist?”

  She sniffled. “Kind of.”

  “There must be places closer to Floral Park that offer hypnosis sessions.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you ever ask him what he thought was so special about Dr. Hammond?”

  She hesitated. “I think maybe he was recommended.”

  “By who?”

  Angela’s eyes widened. She seemed to be searching for a way out of a room she’d entered by mistake. “I don’t know.”

  Gurney proceeded gently. He softened his voice. “It’s a scary situation for you, isn’t it?”

  She nodded silently, biting her lip.

  “I’m sure Stevie wanted to keep you out of danger.”

  She continued nodding.

  “Are you afraid now because of what happened to him?”

  She closed her eyes. “Please don’t talk about that.”

  “Okay. I understand.” He waited until she opened her eyes before he continued. “I think you’re being very brave.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re here. You’re talking to me. You’re trying to be honest.”

  She blinked on that last word. “It’s because I’m afraid, not because I’m brave.”

  “You’re trying to do the right thing. You’re helping me figure out what really happened.” He smiled gently. “Now, about that person who recommended Doctor Hammond—”

  She interrupted, “I don’t know who that was. I can’t even say for sure that that’s what the call was about.” She hesitated, her eyes on the silver bell in the middle of the table.

  The call? What call? Gurney sat back in his chair and waited. He had a feeling that she was trying to get up her courage to go on, and that patience would draw out the facts.

  After much hesitation she continued. “All I know is that Stevie got a call from someone; and when I asked him who it was, he got all weirded out and said it was no one. But that was a crazy thing to say, because he was on the phone for a long time. I told him it couldn’t be no one, why was he saying that to me? Then he got real quiet. But later that same night he started talking about a special doctor he’d heard about that could help him stop smoking.”

  “And you put two and two together and figured it was the person on the phone who told him about the doctor?”