Wolf Lake

by John Verdon

  “Yeah. That’s right. It felt kind of obvious. So I asked him about it. I asked him to his face, was that who told you?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He just shook his head, sort of like he was denying it. Then he got like pissed off—like nervous pissed off, not really angry pissed off—and said whoever told him about the doctor, that wasn’t something I needed to know, it wasn’t important who told him, and I had no right to bug him about things like that.”

  “And after he said that, what did you say?”

  “I said he should at least tell me who was on the phone.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “At first, nothing. Stevie could get real quiet sometimes. But I kept asking him—because he was being so weird about the whole thing. Finally he said that the call came from someone he knew from way back, that the guy’s name wouldn’t mean anything to me, it was just someone he’d been at camp with when they were kids.”

  “Did he say anything else at all about him? Think hard.”

  “No, nothing.” She was biting her lip more intensely now, and her eyes were fixed on the silver bell with what looked to Gurney like incipient panic.

  “Take it easy, Angela, it’s all right. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Remember what we talked about on the phone?”

  She blinked confusedly.

  “Remember what I said about fear? Sometimes we have to do something we’re afraid of doing—to protect ourselves from a bigger danger. I can see you’re afraid to talk about this, but if you tell me everything you know, everything that Stevie said, it will make you safer. Because the more I know, the more I can protect you.”

  She closed her eyes again and seemed to force out the words. “Okay, so the thing is, it was totally weird. That evening, the way he talked about the phone call was like he was pretending it was nothing, a silly little call that didn’t matter, I shouldn’t ask about it because it wasn’t worth talking about.” She paused and took a deep breath.

  “Then, at like five o’clock in the morning, like he’d been awake all night thinking about it, he woke me up. He asked me three times am I really awake and am I really listening. And then he told me, real serious like, that I should forget about the call. He said I should never mention it again and I should never never never tell anyone else about it—that if anyone else ever found out about it, we could both end up dead.”

  When she opened her eyes, tears came down her cheeks. “And I never did. I swear. I never said anything about it to anyone. Not one word.”

  CHAPTER 28

  During his jog back to the hotel Gurney was analyzing his meeting with Angela Castro—trying to separate the facts that mattered from the distractions surrounding them.

  He wasn’t sure in which category to place Tabitha. There was something odd about that physically dominating woman showing such deference to the anxious little Angela.

  Then there was the complicated persona projected by Angela herself, with her rigid hairdo and near-anorectic physique. She appeared frightened, childishly romantic, desperate to lose herself in a make-believe world. Yet she was pragmatic enough to have obtained a loan and a car from her brother.

  And there was Steven Pardosa’s dream, with its now-familiar elements—the wolf, the knife. And his contempt for Richard Hammond, expressed in emotionally charged words like “creepy” and “disgusting.”

  Gurney felt that the meeting’s key element had been Angela’s recounting of the mysterious phone call—the effect it had on Pardosa, its possible connection to Hammond, and the extreme demand for secrecy that it generated. Gurney wondered if the potentially fatal result of disclosure had been an explicit threat made by the caller or if that was a conclusion reached by Pardosa as he pondered the implications of the call in the wee hours of the night. The latter version seemed more likely given the way Angela told the story.

  And there was something else, an element he couldn’t put his finger on. He had a feeling that something Angela had told him wasn’t quite right. He tried playing back their encounter in his mind. But the out-of-place piece remained elusive.

  When he got back to the hotel, he found Madeleine and Hardwick at opposite ends of a three-cushion couch in the lobby. Madeleine’s eyes were closed, but the erect position of her head suggested concentration rather than sleep. Hardwick was talking in a low voice on his phone.

  Gurney sat in a chair across from them, separated from the couch by a low glass table.

  Madeleine opened her eyes. “Did the young lady show up?”

  “As promised.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Odd little creature. Obsessed with dolls. Looks like one herself. Any problems while I was gone?”

  She nodded in the direction of Hardwick, who sounded like he was wrapping up his conversation. “He’ll tell you.”

  Hardwick ended his call, tapped a series of icons, scrolled through several graphic images, made some adjustments to the final one, and slid the phone across the table to Gurney. “Take a look at that.”

  On the screen was a photo of what appeared to be some sort of mechanical framework—which Gurney recognized as the front undercarriage of an automobile.

  “My Outback?”

  Hardwick nodded. “Zoom in.”

  Gurney made the motion, and the center portion of the photo expanded to fill the screen.

  “Again,” said Hardwick.

  Gurney repeated the motion. Now the screen was filled by a single structural bar and a man’s hand intruding from a shadowy corner of the photo—with the thumb next to what appeared to be the protruding top of a bolt.

  “Again.”

  The final enlargement showed only the thumb and the protruding object. The scale reference of the thumb indicated the object was the size of a stack of four or five nickels.

  Gurney shot Hardwick an incredulous glance, not quite able to believe what he suspected he was seeing on the screen.

  “Believe it,” said Hardwick.

  Gurney examined the photo more carefully. “That’s maybe one tenth the size of the smallest tracker I’ve ever seen.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You left it in place?”

  “Yes. No point in announcing our discovery until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “The one near the back bumper is the same?”

  “Not at all. That’s where the situation gets interesting. The other one is a common off-the-shelf item. Not even worth taking a picture of. Same old shit used by BCI. Same old shit that anyone with a few hundred bucks can order from their favorite Internet spy store. So what the fuck’s going on here? Any ideas, Sherlock?”

  “I’d like to send the photo of the small one to Wigg.”

  “I already did.”

  “Good. She knows this stuff inside out. And her new position can only help.”

  “Agreed. Any thoughts in the meantime?”

  “Sure, but that’s all they are—thoughts. The two devices being that different from each other suggests that they were placed by separate entities.”

  Madeleine gave him a look. “Entities?”

  “I don’t know what else to call them at this point. We may be dealing with two agencies, two units within one agency, sanctioned or unsanctioned investigators, et cetera. The only thing that’s clear is that there’s a technology gap between them.”

  “In the meantime,” said Hardwick, “you want to fill us in on your get-together with Pardosa’s girlfriend?”

  Gurney spent the next quarter hour recounting the details of the meeting.

  Hardwick zeroed in on the phone call Pardosa had received. “Seems like that set the whole thing in motion, or at least set him in motion.”

  Gurney nodded his agreement. “We need to pursue the ‘someone he knew from camp’ angle. His parents ought to be able to tell us what camp he attended as a kid and when. They might even know the names of campers he was friendly with. You think you can look into that?”


  Hardwick coughed and spit into his handkerchief. “Giant pain in the ass and probably a dead end. But what the fuck else am I—?” He was interrupted by his own phone.

  He glanced at the screen, looked surprised. “Christ, that was fast. It’s Wigg.”

  He thanked her for getting back to him, then listened for a minute or so before speaking up again. “Hold on a second, Robin. I’ve got Gurney here. Let us get to a more private spot so I can put this on speakerphone.” He turned to Gurney and Madeleine. “How about we move outside to your car?”

  Madeleine looked skeptical. “Our bugged car?”

  Hardwick assured her that the scanner had detected no audio bugs, just the trackers. They headed out to the car, still parked under the overhang, and took the same seats they’d occupied earlier. Hardwick switched on his phone’s speaker. “Okay, Robin. You want to repeat what you started saying a minute ago?”

  “I was asking if you’re certain the photographed device was gathering geopositioning information and then transmitting it.”

  Although Gurney hadn’t seen Robin Wigg for well over a year, her distinctive contralto voice brought her vividly to mind. A wiry, athletic redhead with an androgynous look and manner, her age might have been anywhere from thirty to forty. She was smart, laconic, professional.

  Hardwick answered her question. “According to the scanner you lent me, there’s no doubt about it.”

  “Dave, the device is still affixed your car?”

  “Correct. We don’t want to remove it yet.”

  “You just want to know more about it?”

  “Right. How advanced it is, et cetera.”

  “And what that might tell you about the people who placed it?”

  “Right. I’m also wondering, have you ever seen anything like it before?”

  The question generated a pregnant silence. Sensing that he’d crossed a subtle line, he added, “Whatever you’re comfortable telling us would be helpful.”

  “How much detail do you want on the technical issues involved in this level of miniaturization?”

  “Only as much as will help us understand what and who we’re dealing with.”

  “Okay. What you have there is two generations beyond what most law enforcement agencies would consider state of the art. Ninety-nine percent of the surveillance operatives in the world wouldn’t even know that such a device exists.” She paused. “You getting the picture?”

  “Jesus,” said Gurney. “What’s something like that doing attached to my car?”

  “I’m not trying to sound dramatic, but it’s pretty clear you’ve gotten yourself on the radar screen of an adversary with serious resources.”

  “How much would that little item cost?” asked Hardwick.

  “A lot,” said Wigg. “But the real barrier isn’t money. It’s access.”

  “We’re talking about some kind of high-level spook shit?”

  There was another silence, as pregnant as the first.

  Gurney sensed that Wigg had told them all she was going to, and that pushing it further would be counterproductive. “Thanks, Robin. This has been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

  “Let me say one last thing. Be extremely careful. Anyone deploying that kind of technology is playing in a league way beyond what you’re used to.”

  Wigg’s parting comment led Gurney back to the question of who was responsible for BCI’s fixation on Richard Hammond—a question he’d been relying on Hardwick to pursue. “Just wondering, Jack . . . any progress in discovering who upstairs might be guiding the way Fenton is handling the case?”

  Hardwick leaned forward from his position in the backseat. “That’s an amazingly timely question. Fenton’s chain of command was the subject of that phone call I was in the middle of when you came into the hotel lobby.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “That Gilbert Fenton’s reporting line has become a tad obscure. He’s been on ‘special assignment’ ever since the discovery of Hammond’s connection to the apparent suicides.”

  “Is this ‘special assignment’ just outside his regular unit, or outside BCI entirely?”

  “Nobody seems to know for sure what’s going on, even the people who always know everything.”

  “But . . .?”

  “There’s a rumor that he’s been taken under the wing of the interagency liaison for national security issues.”

  Madeleine turned in her seat to face Hardwick. “National security? What does that mean?”

  “Ever since 9/11 its meaning has been expanded to mean whatever the nasty little storm troopers in charge of it want it to mean.”

  “But in this case . . .?”

  “In this case, who the fuck knows what it means?”

  Madeleine made a face. “Are you saying that someone concerned with national security thinks that Richard Hammond is some kind of terrorist? Or spy? That makes no sense!”

  Hardwick let out a humorless laugh. “Very little of what they think or do makes sense—until you see it as a way of inflating their own importance. Then it all makes perfect sense.”

  She stared at him. “You’re completely serious, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t get me started. I’ve run into too many of these self-important, power-mad fuckheads with their self-serving bullshit. The so-called Patriot Act, Homeland Security, and all the corporate pigs sucking on that giant tit have done more damage to this country than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamt of doing. Bottom line? America has fucked itself up, down, and sideways. Spooks are running the show now—with unlimited access to your personal life.”

  Gurney waited to let the momentum of Hardwick’s anger abate. “Apart from Fenton’s reporting-line change, were you able to find out anything else?”

  Once again Hardwick hacked up a wad of phlegm and spat it into his soiled handkerchief. “I picked up a few tidbits that might be relevant. For example, prior to joining the state police Fenton did three tours of duty in the army—the final one in army intelligence.”

  Madeleine appeared incredulous. “Is this turning into a spy drama?”

  Hardwick shrugged. “With its hypnotism and behavior-control angles, it’s starting to look a lot like The Manchurian Candidate.”

  “That was a movie,” said Gurney, “not something that actually happened.”

  Hardwick came farther forward in his seat. “There’s no reason to believe it couldn’t happen. I’d bet anything there are devious little fuckers in the intelligence agencies right now trying to figure out how to exert that kind of mind control.”

  Gurney felt the need to reel the conversation back into a fact-based framework. “Fenton’s tour in army intelligence might be connected to his new reporting line. But we just don’t know enough about it yet. Any other discoveries?”

  “That’s it for now.”

  “Nothing else on the gay angle?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s come up in ways that are hard to ignore—Hammond’s gay emergence therapy, Bowman’s Cox’s demonization of it. I’d like to know if there’s any evidence of homosexuality or homophobia in the backgrounds of Wenzel and Balzac.”

  “Bobby Becker down in Palm Beach may be able to give us something on Wenzel. I have no direct line to Teaneck PD, so getting an answer about Balzac is a different deal. I know some people who know some people. But that route can take time. Any more questions?”

  “Same ones I’ve asked before. Are there any red flags in Norris Landon’s background? Or in Austen Steckle’s—apart from his being a reformed lowlife, drug dealer, and embezzler? And I have one new question. Since Pardosa got a peculiar phone call that apparently directed him to Wolf Lake Lodge, I’m wondering if Wenzel and Balzac got similar calls.”

  Hardwick sighed. “Be easier to get those questions answered if we had badges to wave around. Full fucking weight of the law can be an advantage.”

  Gurney flashed a smile to hide his impatience. “I believe we agreed that the next i
tem on your agenda would be a visit to Pardosa’s parents?”

  “Right. In the hope that they memorized the details of little Stevie’s letters from summer camp, including the names of everyone he met there.”

  “If I didn’t know you better, Jack, I’d think you resented the need for a little footwork.”

  “Fuck you, too, Sherlock.”

  CHAPTER 29

  After Hardwick revved up the GTO and headed south on his long-shot mission to Floral Park, Gurney and Madeleine sat quietly for a while in the parked Outback.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This whole thing is getting darker and more complicated.” A gust of wind blew particles of sleet under the hotel portico and they bounced off the windshield. “We better get back to Wolf Lake before the weather gets worse.”

  He nodded, started the car, and headed onto Woodpecker road in the direction of the Northway. “Maddie, are you absolutely positive we shouldn’t just put this situation behind us?”

  “I’m positive. And it’s not because I like Hammond. I don’t. He’s a spoiled genius with a sick dependency on his caretaker sister. Judging from that body-in-the-trunk story, he’s also a little crazy. But I don’t believe he’s a mind-controlling murderer. And I know now that walking away from a mess doesn’t solve it.”

  He had the sense that one of the tectonic plates of his life was shifting. Ever since he’d left the NYPD, Madeleine had been predictable in one respect. She’d consistently pressed him to turn his attention away from the world of murder and mayhem and focus on their new life in the country. Never before would she have advised him to stick with a homicide investigation.

  The shift was radical and unsettling.

  AFTER STOPPING AT A THAI RESTAURANT IN LAKE PLACID FOR A quiet lunch, for which neither of them had much appetite, they arrived back at Wolf Lake a little after four. The dusk was deepening and the temperature was dropping.

  As they entered the lodge reception area, Austen Steckle was coming out of the Hearth Room. Past him, Gurney could see the tentative flames of a new fire.