by John Verdon
Steckle’s smile looked tense and his scalp looked sweaty.
“Hey, just the people I wanted to see.” After a nod to Madeleine, he addressed Gurney. “I got you set up like you asked. But the thing is, Peyton’s got plans for the evening. For tomorrow, too. And after that, it’s hard to tell, you know what I mean?” He pushed back his cuff and glanced down at his gleaming Rolex. “So the thing is, if you want to talk to the man—it’s pretty much got to be now.”
Gurney looked at Madeleine.
She shrugged.
He looked back at Steckle. “Now is fine. Actually, fifteen minutes from now would be better. I need to go up to our room first. Does he expect me?”
“Yeah, more or less. I’ll call and confirm it with him. You know the way, right?”
“I know the way.”
“Conversations with Peyton can be difficult. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m used to difficult conversations.”
Steckle went into his office.
The Gurneys went up to the suite.
The main room lay mostly in darkness. The wind was whining at the balcony door. He switched on the ceiling fixture in the entry area, then crossed the room and switched on the lamp at the near end of the couch. He thought about lighting the kerosene lamp at the far end, the one with the wolf etching on its base, but decided against it. Better to keep that one in reserve in the event of another power failure.
He took the broad-spectrum surveillance scanner Hardwick had given him out of his jacket pocket and turned it on. The start-up screen mimicked a high-end smartphone.
Madeleine, still bundled up in her jacket, scarf, and ski hat, was watching him. “Are you going to check our room?”
He shot her a warning glance—a reminder that he didn’t want anyone who might be bugging the space to discover that they were aware of it.
Following Hardwick’s earlier instructions, he navigated through a series of setup options. Less than a minute later the device was fully operational, displaying a schematic diagram of the room he was standing in.
As he walked around, one red dot appeared on the screen, and then a second. Given the graphic delineation of the suite’s walls on the screen, the location of each dot and the RF transmitter it represented was clear. The visual indication was supplemented by data on the distance of each transmitter from the nearest horizontal and vertical surfaces (in this case the room’s floor and walls), its type, frequency, and signal strength. A line at the bottom of the screen summarized: “DETECTED DEVICES WITHIN SCAN AREA: 2 AUDIO, 0 VIDEO.”
He made another circuit of the room to check the consistency of the data. He also wanted to see if any additional bugs might appear, but the scanner found only those two. He switched it off and slipped it back in his pocket. Turning to Madeleine, who’d been observing the process with concern, he pointed silently at the two locations.
The first was the life-size portrait of Warren Harding hanging over the suite’s bar. The second was her cell phone on the end table by the couch.
Her expression shifted from concern to anger.
Gurney was eager to inspect the two locations more closely to confirm what the scanner had shown. And, since the two transmission patterns were very different, he was curious to see if the bugs represented the same gap in sophistication as the two trackers on his car. In order to conduct this inspection without passing along the telltale sounds of the transmitters being handled, he’d need to conceal what he was doing with some kind of noise.
He’d been in situations before where a bug needed to be surreptitiously examined. The basic rule was that the audio camouflage needed to be appropriate to the environment. A blender or food processor could mask just about any other sound, but there were very few situations in which they could be employed with any credibility. Ordinary conversation lacked the necessary volume. Percussive music, bursts of laughter, running water—any of those could work in the right setting, but none seemed quite right in the current circumstances.
He was surveying the room for inspiration when a solution was provided by Madeleine in the form of a startling sneeze.
After a moment’s consideration he went to his duffle bag, pulled out a small notebook, and opened it to a blank page. He wrote as Madeleine watched: “Follow along with whatever I suggest. Respond naturally. Whenever I nod to you, make a sneezing sound or clear your throat or cough a few times. Start now by sniffling and coughing.”
She sniffled loudly and cleared her throat.
He affected a worried tone. “Jesus, sweetheart, I was afraid of that, earlier in the car. That you were coming down with something. Or maybe that your allergies were kicking in.”
“It could be an allergy. It feels like that.”
“You have any idea what might be causing it?”
“I don’t know. Something in the room? The car? The air? All I know is my nose and throat have that itchy feeling.”
She spoke with such conviction he almost believed her. “Did you bring anything you can take for it?”
“No.”
“Maybe we can find something tomorrow.” He waved her closer to him as he approached the Harding portrait. He reached up over the row of bottles on the bar and gave her a nod as he gripped the frame.
When she burst into a fit of sneezing, he lifted the bottom of the frame up and away from the wall and checked under it, paying particular attention to the cable from which the portrait hung. He noted immediately that the ends of the cable were encased in tubular housings, either of which could easily accommodate a device as large as a disposable lighter. The cable itself would be an ideal disguise for an aerial. Nothing about the nature of the hiding place suggested anything but a standard, easily available audio bug. Under cover of another fit of sneezing, he eased the frame back against the wall.
Inspecting Madeleine’s phone would be a trickier challenge.
He gestured for her to move toward the end of the couch by her phone. He attempted a worried tone. “Sweetheart, why don’t you just settle down for a while and try to relax? Maybe cozy yourself up in a blanket?”
“I’m not really tired. It’s just that scratchy, uncomfortable feeling in the back of my throat. You know, kind of raw? Maybe I’m getting a cold after all.”
“At least have a seat. You can put your feet up on the hassock. Relaxing can’t hurt.”
“Okay, fine. It can’t make me feel any worse.”
She sounded cranky and authentic. In Gurney’s experience, an irritated tone always made a faked conversation sound more real.
She sat on the couch, sniffling and repeatedly clearing her throat.
He went to the end table and placed his hand on her phone to check its temperature. It was quite cool, which was not what he’d expected.
The most common violation of a cell phone’s integrity was accomplished through hacking into its software in a way that allowed the hacker to remotely manipulate the phone’s functions—for example, to turn on its microphone and transmission capabilities, converting the device into an audio bug under the control of the hacker.
But this approach did leave concrete signs—the simplest being the generation of battery heat. Since the scanner had indicated an active transmission from the phone, Gurney had expected it to feel warm. The fact that it didn’t meant something odd was happening.
Finding out more would require getting inside the phone itself.
He and Madeleine had the same make and model, so he took his out to make a preliminary assessment of the process. Studying the back panel, it appeared that the first item he’d need would be a very small screwdriver.
Fortunately, among the items that Madeleine packed automatically whenever they went away was a repair kit for her glasses—a kit that included a supply of the tiny screws that hold frames together and the tiny screwdriver needed to tighten them.
The screwdriver appeared to be about the right size.
In order to maintain an appropriate-sounding conversation, h
e said, “There have to be some differences in the head-cold feeling and the allergy feeling. Can you put your finger on which feeling you’re closer to?”
She responded with a rambling, sniffly description of the discomforts associated with each problem. He busied himself meanwhile opening his own phone—so he’d have a visual reference with which to compare hers and note any anomalies.
Once he had his open, he set it on the end table and gingerly picked up Madeleine’s. Giving her the signal for more sniffling and coughing, he removed the back panel, then laid the phone with its inner components exposed on the table next to his.
At first glance they appeared identical. As he looked closer, however, he noticed a difference between them in the corner where the microphone was located.
He got their camera out of his duffel bag and took close-up photos from several angles. Then, with Madeleine alternately coughing and complaining hoarsely about the raw feeling in her throat, he replaced the backs of both phones and tightened the screws.
“You might feel better if you took a nap?” he suggested.
“If I sleep now I won’t be able to sleep tonight.” She sounded so miserable he had to remind himself that it was a performance.
He checked the time. He was due for his appointment with Peyton in less than five minutes. He hurriedly addressed an email to Robin Wigg and attached his photos of the interior of Madeleine’s phone. He included the make, model, and serial number; indicated the transmission frequency that had been detected; and added a brief message: “Scanner indicates active transmission. But there’s no discernible battery heat or power drain. Possible implanted device in mic area? Need guidance.” Then he hit “Send.”
CHAPTER 30
At the end of the lake road the security gate at the imposing Gall residence was already open. A guard, dimly visible in the failing light, pointed to a curving driveway that led toward a looming gray structure.
He followed the driveway several hundred feet to a paved floodlit area in front of a stone porch and a huge wooden door. He got out of the car into a whirling wind.
As he reached the door it swung open into a broad, high-ceilinged, polished-pine entry hall. The design was a grander version of the ubiquitous Adirondack style. The illumination came from a series of three enormous wagon-wheel chandeliers.
From where he stood in the doorway Gurney could see, high on the far wall of the entry hall, a framed portrait of an imperious man in a dark suit—perhaps, he thought, the ill-fated subject of the Gall legend. There was an off-putting chilliness in the cerebral forehead and wide-set eyes. An iron-willed jaw created the impression of a man dedicated to getting his own way.
“You come in, please,” called a heavily accented female voice.
Gurney stepped inside.
The door swung slowly shut behind him, revealing to his startled gaze a blonde woman wearing nothing but the bottom half of a thong bikini. She was holding a small remote controller in her hand, perhaps to operate the massive door. Her body, too sumptuous to be entirely the product of nature, was dripping wet. Her gray eyes were as cold as any Gurney had ever seen.
“You follow me now.” She turned her glistening, essentially naked back to him and led him along a corridor that branched off the entry hall. At the end of the corridor she opened a glass door into what was evidently an add-on to the original house.
From her attire, or lack of it, Gurney wouldn’t have been surprised to find a room with an indoor pool. Instead, he was engulfed in the warm, fragrant air of a tropical conservatory. An undertone of rhythmic, primitive-sounding music created an atmosphere as far removed from the Adirondacks as one could imagine.
Thick leafy plants rose toward a high glass ceiling. Beds of ferns, bordered by mossy logs with orchids sprouting out of them, surrounded a circular area with a floor of polished mahogany. Curving paths of the same mahogany radiated out from it, disappearing behind beds of jungle foliage. Somewhere amid the lush leafy things Gurney could hear the gurgling of a fountain or a small waterfall.
In the center of the open area two high-backed rattan armchairs faced each other with a low rattan table between them. One of the chairs was occupied by a dark-haired man in a luxurious-looking white bathrobe.
The mostly naked woman approached the man and said something to him, the words lost to Gurney in the rhythmic background music.
Responding to her with a loose smile, the man slid his hand slowly between her legs.
Gurney wondered if he was about to witness a live sex show. But a moment later the woman half-laughed, half-purred at something the man said and casually walked away on one of the mahogany paths through the planting beds. Just before she disappeared into the mini jungle she glanced back at Gurney, the pink tip of her tongue moving between her full lips, an image as reptilian as it was seductive.
Once she was out of sight, the man in the bathrobe waved Gurney toward the empty rattan chair. “Have a seat. Have a drink.” The voice was a rich baritone, the articulation slow and lazy, as if the man might be drunk or sedated. He pointed invitingly toward the coffee table, on which Gurney noted a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, an ice bucket, and two glasses.
Gurney remained standing where he was. “Mr. Gall?”
The man smiled slowly, then laughed. “Austen told me that a detective by the name of Gurney wanted to talk to me. He said you were Jane Hammond’s private dick.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“So your job is to prove that her fucking brother didn’t kill my fucking brother?”
“Not really.”
“If that’s your secret mission here, you don’t have to deny it, because I don’t give a flying fuck one way or the other. Sit down and have a drink.”
Gurney accepted the seat offer, which put him close enough now to discern in the languorous, self-indulgent face across from him the same underlying bone structure he’d noted in the fiercely determined face in the entry-hall portrait. It confirmed both the power and the limitations of shared genes.
He sat back in his chair and looked around the big glass-enclosed space. Outside it was dark now, and the interior light—coming from upward-angled halogen spotlights secreted among the plantings—cast queer shadows everywhere. When his gaze reached Peyton Gall, he found the man’s dark eyes fixed on him.
Gurney leaned forward. “I’ll tell you why I’m here. I want to find out why four people died after seeing Richard Hammond.”
“You have doubts about the official version?” Gall said this in an arch tone, as if ridiculing a cliché.
“Of course I have doubts about it. Don’t you?”
Gall yawned, refilled his glass with vodka, and took a slow sip. Then he held the glass in front of his face, peering over the top of it. “So you don’t think the witch doctor did it?”
“If you mean Dr. Hammond, no, I don’t—at least not in any way suggested by the police hypothesis. And frankly, Mr. Gall, you don’t seem to think so, either.”
Gall was squinting over the top of his glass at Gurney with one eye closed, creating the impression of a man lining up a rifle sight. “Call me Peyton. My sainted brother was Mister Gall. I have no aspiration to assume that mantle.”
His tone struck Gurney as haughty, sour, and ridiculous. It was the tone of a selfish, imperious drunk—a dangerous child in the body of an adult. This was not a man he’d choose to be in the same room with if he could help it, but there were questions that needed to be asked.
“Tell me something, Peyton. If Richard Hammond wasn’t responsible for Ethan’s death, who do you think was?”
Gall lowered his vodka glass a few inches and studied it as if it might contain a list of suspects. “I’d advise you to focus on the people who knew him well.”
“Why?”
“Because to know Ethan was to hate him.”
Despite the theatrical nature of the statement, Gurney sensed real feeling behind it. “What was the most hateful thing about him?”
Anger
seemed to cut through Gall’s alcoholic fog. “The illusion he created.”
“He wasn’t what he seemed to be?”
Gall let out a short, bitter laugh. “At a distance, he was fucking godlike. Up close, not so much. So goddamn full of himself in the worst way—the bursting-with-virtue way, the I-know-best way. Fucking control-freak bastard!”
“It must have pissed you off that he changed the terms of his will at your expense.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Is that what this is about?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, is that what this conversation is about? You thinking that the police have it all wrong . . . that Richard, the faggot hypnotist, is innocent . . . and that I made those fucking people kill themselves? Is that what the fuck you think?”
“I don’t think you made anyone kill themselves. That seems impossible.”
“Then what the fuck are you getting at?”
“I was wondering if Ethan changed his will just to make you angry.”
“Of course he did. Saint Ethan was a puritanical prick who hated the way I enjoyed my life and was always looking for ways to punish me. ‘Do what I say, or you’ll end up with nothing. Do what I say, or I’ll take it all away. Do what I say or I’ll give your inheritance to the first little creep who comes along.’ Fucking control-freak bastard scumbag! Who put him in charge of the world?”
Gurney nodded. “Life should be easier for you now that he’s gone.”
Gall smiled. “Yes.”
“Even with the change in his will, you still end up with a ton of money. And if the police can prove Hammond was involved in Ethan’s death, the bequest to him will revert to you. You’d get fifty-eight million dollars altogether.”
Gall yawned for the second time.
Yawning, Gurney knew, was an ambiguous bit of body language, produced as often by anxiety as by boredom. He wondered which feeling was at play. “You have any plans for all that money?”
“Plans bore me. Money bores me. Money has to be watched, managed, massaged. It has to be invested, balanced, leveraged. You have to think about it, talk about it, worry about it. It’s a gigantic bore. Life’s too fucking short for all that crap. All that planning.”