Wolf Lake

by John Verdon

  He was nonplussed for a moment by her tone and choice of words, perhaps because they expressed so harshly the issue that existed in their real lives. The “detective versus husband” dichotomy in his own life. He hoped to God that the fury he just heard was mostly playacting. If it was, it was exactly that kind of spontaneous-sounding emotion that would make their conversation instantly credible to any listener. And it gave him an idea for a good way to conclude the recording.

  He sighed, quite audibly. “I don’t think I can handle that kind of question . . . that kind of emotion . . . right now.”

  “No,” she said sourly. “Of course not.”

  After a short pause he concluded. “My nerves are shot, and I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m going to take a couple of your Valiums and close my eyes for a while.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He yawned aloud, then switched off the “Record” function.

  CHAPTER 53

  Back in the suite they worked quickly. Madeleine’s lively cooperation convinced him that the feelings she’d presented during their recording session in the Outback were at least partially manufactured for the task at hand. Of course, that might be wishful thinking—but there was no time to dwell on it now.

  She took her bugged phone out of the bottom of her shoulder bag, where it had been lying, effectively muffled, under a thick wool scarf in a corner of the suite. At Gurney’s suggestion, she placed it on one of the end tables by the couch. It was his belief that the device in it that had been substituted for its original microphone functioned as a transmitter not only of phone calls but of all nearby audio whether or not the phone was in use.

  He’d decided to expose their prerecorded conversation to the phone bug as well as the Harding portrait bug. His guess was that one of them had been planted by the bad guy and the other by Fenton or someone in the shadowy hierarchy above him. He saw no downside in “tossing the rock” at both nests. The more hornets making themselves visible the better.

  He reloaded the Beretta, replacing the two rounds he’d fired at the hawk, and put the gun in his right-hand jacket pocket. In the left pocket he put the smaller of their two flashlights. He gave the larger one to Madeleine. As he was explaining how it could be employed as a weapon, he was interrupted by his phone’s text ring.

  The message came from a blocked ID:

  xBb770Ae

  TellurideMichaelSeventeen

  MccC919

  LimerickFrancisFifty

  It made no sense to him. Beyond the fact that there were certain repeated structural elements, whatever significance the sequences of characters and words might have eluded him. But at least the ring reminded him to put his phone on vibrate.

  He emailed the audio file of their Outback conversation to Madeleine’s tablet. When it arrived a minute later, he placed the tablet on the coffee table.

  He selected the newly arrived audio file and tapped the “Play” icon. He waited until he heard her initial comment, “Do you want a fire?”

  He made a small volume adjustment, then gestured to her, and they left the suite. He locked the door as quietly as he could.

  He led the way to the far end of the dimly lit corridor and into the dark little cul-de-sac where the door to the attic stairs was located. He opened it.

  “We’ll stay here by the stairs, out of sight. If and when someone shows up at the suite, I’ll deal with it. All you’ll need to do is wait here until I’ve taken care of the situation. I’ll come and get you as soon as everything is under control.”

  After a fraught moment she asked, “That’s it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s it? What you just said? Us hiding in the dark. Waiting for God knows who to approach the suite. Then you go there and . . . what? Confront them? Question them? Arrest them? Play it by ear? That’s the plan?”

  He didn’t immediately reply. As long as he’d been describing the stratagem calmly, it had seemed sensible enough. But the illusion of sensibleness was starting to crumble. He realized there was a desperate, improvised quality to what they were doing—which he was trying to excuse to himself as necessary in the face of diminishing options.

  He was saved from the need to respond by the vibration of his phone.

  He looked at the screen. It was a message from Hardwick.

  “Take a look at this unsigned text I got a few minutes ago—presumably from our techie friend in Albany. ‘BAD TIME TO MEET. ASK G FOR KEYS TO THE HOUSE.’ Any idea what she’s talking about, apart from not being able to meet with me? What keys? What house? What the fuck? I’m on my way back. Hellacious storm rolling in.”

  For a minute Gurney was as baffled by the text Hardwick had received as by the one he’d received himself.

  Then he saw a possible connection—and possible meaning.

  He guessed that both texts had come, unsigned for reasons he could easily imagine, from Robin Wigg—the first to him, the second to Hardwick. And the second was probably referring to the first. The “house” would be the locked website he’d asked her about. The “keys” would be the site’s IDs and passwords—the alphabetic and numerical character and word sequences she’d sent him.

  He opened the text he’d received earlier and looked again at the four lines.

  xBb770Ae

  TellurideMichaelSeventeen

  MccC919

  LimerickFrancisFifty

  Madeleine, peering at his phone screen, spoke up. “What are you doing?”

  Half whispering, he explained his Internet quest to discover what sort of device had been planted above the bathroom ceiling.

  She pointed at the message on the screen. “Does that tell you?”

  “I think it’s the entry data for a website that can tell us.”

  He brought up a copy of his own email to Wigg with the device serial number and the website address it had led him to. Then he went to the website page with the four data-entry boxes and entered the two alphanumerical IDs and the two passwords. A few seconds later a new page opened on the site, consisting of nothing but a data entry box and three words: ENTER INSTRUMENT CODE.

  He got the device serial number from his email to Wigg and entered it.

  A new page opened. At the top was a recognizable photo of the device. Below the photo was a dense table of scientific abbreviations, mathematical symbols, and figures that he guessed represented electronic specs and performance parameters. The terms heading the rows and columns were so unfamiliar he couldn’t even tell what branch of technology they came from.

  He was about to give up any attempt to understand what he was looking at when he spotted a simple word at the lower right corner of the incomprehensible table: “Compare.”

  He tapped on it.

  Another page opened with another dense table. This one appeared to be a comparison of the specifications of several devices. This page had a headline: “Micro-Laser-Enhanced Pseudo Volume Visualization.”

  Madeleine was staring at the screen as intently as he was. “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea.” He copied the headline and pasted it into a new search window.

  Nothing came up that matched all the headline terms. Over a million hits matched at least one of the terms—a useless pile of data under the pressure of the moment.

  He saved the web page’s headline and began composing a reply to Hardwick’s text. He included the website address, the IDs and passwords, and the headline—along with a request for Hardwick to do some research on it. He concluded with a brief description of the activity he and Madeleine were engaged in at the moment.

  He read through the message and sent it.

  Madeleine put her hand on his arm. “Are you sure . . . this is the way we should be handling this?”

  Her question amplified his uncertainty. “Right now, it may be the only way.”

  He opened the door to the attic stairs and checked the dusty stairwell once again with his flashlight. He saw nothing unusual and heard nothing
but an eerie, empty silence. They sat down gingerly on one of the lower steps—and waited, side by side, in the dark, listening.

  CHAPTER 54

  In darkness and silence, Gurney’s mind often drifted toward unanswered questions.

  That afternoon, sitting next to Madeleine in the silent gloom of the attic staircase, he was considering a question that had been lurking at the edge of his consciousness ever since he’d examined the joist space over the bathroom.

  Might the unidentified little device that had been installed there, and was now in Hardwick’s possession, be some sort of miniaturized projector?

  Discounting the significant size problem, it would make sense. The reflective inner surface of the tub would make a serviceable screen. The subtle distortion created by the concavity of the tub bottom, by the water itself, and by the rising wisps of steam might actually enhance the “reality” of a projected image. More credibility would be added by the specific physical environment—i.e., people were accustomed to seeing bodies (live ones) in tubs. The mind would tend to accept such an illusion as real.

  But what would be the purpose of such a cruel trick? To push Madeleine into an emotional breakdown? Gurney wondered if Fenton could be that obsessively determined to get rid of him. Who besides Fenton might find it worth the trouble? The killer? One of Fenton’s anonymous overlords? How would they know about Colin Bantry? How would they know that Madeleine would be so vulnerable to that issue at that time?

  Then a truly uncomfortable personal question occurred to Gurney: Which explanation would he prefer to be true? That Madeleine’s experience had been assembled in the smoke and mirrors of her own mind? Or that it had been the product of sophisticated technology?

  He wondered if he’d been focusing on the first possibility because the second had about it such a strong whiff of paranoia. Or perhaps because it brought so many additional complications to a case that he feared might be already be beyond his abilities.

  He felt anger rising in him.

  Anger at his own apparent inadequacy.

  Anger at the endless accumulation of questions.

  Anger at the possibility of someone damaging Madeleine’s mental balance.

  Her voice broke into his private purgatory. “Are you okay?”

  “I was thinking about what you saw in the tub. I was thinking it might—”

  His comment was cut short by the sound of heavy footsteps hurrying up the front staircase from the reception area.

  “This could be what we’ve been waiting for. Stay here. Don’t make a sound.” Gurney quietly left the stairwell, moving out to a point from which he could see down the length of the corridor. He checked his watch. He could barely make out the time, but he judged that the recording he’d set to play back in the suite would have ended just a few minutes earlier.

  A short, thickset figure, breathing heavily, approached the suite door and knocked. “Mr. Gurney?” The voice was Steckle’s. He knocked a second time.

  Gurney waited and watched.

  Steckle knocked a third time, waited, then opened the door with a key. He called out, “Hello? Anybody here?” After a brief hesitation, he went inside and closed the door behind him.

  Gurney returned to Madeleine. “It’s Austen Steckle. In our suite.”

  “What’s he doing in there?”

  “I’ll find out. But I’d like you to be a little further out of sight. Maybe at the top of these stairs? He took out his flashlight and pointed at the attic door on the top landing. “See that? If you hear any commotion down here, just step into the attic and shut the door behind you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Find out if Steckle is one of our hornets.” He pointed up the stairwell again with his flashlight.

  She headed up the stairs. When she reached the top, he went out into the corridor and moved quickly to the suite door.

  It wasn’t locked. He eased it open and stepped inside.

  In the cold, gray light Steckle was moving across the sitting room. There was something in his hand.

  Gurney gripped the Beretta in his jacket pocket. “You looking for me?”

  Steckle spun around, his eyes widening. “Mr. Gurney. I thought . . . I mean . . . are you all right?”

  “Fine. What are you doing?”

  “I came to warn you.” He held out the object in his hand. “Look at this.”

  “Do me a favor. Turn on that lamp by the couch.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  The lamplight illuminated a brightly honed hatchet.

  “Tarr was chopping the battery cables on your Outback. Just finished doing the same to the Jeeps. And Norris’s Land Rover. When I went out to stop him, he threw this damn thing at me. Could have taken my head off. Son of a bitch ran off into the storm. Christ! I wanted to make sure you and Mrs. Gurney were all right.”

  “We’re fine.”

  Steckle glanced toward the alcove. “I knew we shouldn’t have kept that son of a bitch around.”

  “Any idea where he went?”

  “Who the hell knows? He ran into the snow, into the woods, like an animal.” He held up the hatchet.

  “Lay it on the coffee table.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to look at it, but I don’t want to touch it.”

  He laid it next to Madeleine’s tablet. “That’s some goddamn weapon, eh?”

  Gurney took a few steps closer, his hand still on the Beretta in his pocket. “You said he was chopping my battery cables?”

  “Was giving them a whack just as I came out.”

  “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “How the hell would I know what goes on in that lunatic’s head?”

  More interesting to Gurney than Steckle’s story about the severing of the battery cables was the unlikelihood of it having occurred the way he claimed. And it seemed inconceivable that Barlow Tarr was the hornet aroused by the bugged conversation, much less the mastermind of the most complex murder plot Gurney had ever encountered.

  “You’re the detective. What do you think’s going on?” asked Steckle.

  “Let’s take a minute and talk about that. Maybe we can figure it out together. I have some questions I think you can help me with. Have a seat.”

  Steckle hesitated, seemed about to object, then sat down with obvious reluctance.

  Gurney perched on the arm of the couch opposite him. “First, before I forget . . . what kind of name is Alfonz Volk?”

  “That’s not my name. Volk was the guy my mother married.”

  “So you told me. But what nationality was he?”

  “I don’t know. Slovenian maybe. Something like that. Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curiosity.” In Gurney’s long experience with interrogation, jarring changes of subject often produced good results. “So what do you really think that business with Tarr was all about—assuming he’s not just a lunatic doing things that make no sense at all.”

  “I don’t know. You cut battery cables, cars don’t run. Maybe he doesn’t want any of us to leave.”

  “What do you think his reason would be for keeping us here?”

  Steckle shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You think he might have killed Ethan?”

  “I guess it’s possible, right?”

  “Why would he have done it?”

  “Maybe he figured Ethan was finally going to get rid of him.”

  “You think he killed him to keep from being fired?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Except Tarr was never at Camp Brightwater. And the killer was.”

  For a split second Steckle’s expression froze.

  “Where Scott Fallon was killed. Where this whole mess began.”

  Steckle shifted his weight closer to the edge of the chair. “You lost me.”

  Gurney took the minute to consider how Steckle could fit into the shoes of the killer. He could have been the fourth bully at Brightwater, the boy known as Wolf.
He could have invited his three old camp pals to the lodge. He could have sold them on the notion of the blackmail scheme. He could have killed them after they’d carried out their instructions to spread the nightmare fiction. And, of course, he could have killed Ethan. Means and opportunity would be available.

  The big question would be motive.

  Gurney recalled the conversation he’d had with Steckle in the attic, the conversation about the Gall crest and the Gall history. The conversation about power and control. And he considered the practical consequences of the four deaths.

  The more he thought about it, the clearer the puzzle became. And there was this final, simple convincer. He’d tossed the rock into the hornet’s nest, and Austen Steckle had flown out.

  Every fact was now explainable.

  But not a single thing was provable.

  As he was pondering the best way forward, he heard the soft buzzing sound his phone made on a wooden surface in vibrate mode. He reached from his chair over to the end table and, keeping a careful eye on Steckle, picked it up.

  It was a text from Hardwick.

  “Shitty roads. Pulled off and researched the tech terms on the mystery site. That thing may be a micro version of a classified hi-def image projector used by the military.”

  Steckle moved uneasily on the edge of his chair.

  Gurney looked up from his phone. “What made you so sure we were in our room?”

  “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “Because most of the time we haven’t been. We’ve been in and out, downstairs, out by the lake, in the Hearth Room, the Hammonds’ chalet, other places. And you knocked. Three times. You even called out to us. And you got no response. None at all. I’m surprised you didn’t conclude we were out.”

  “Why are you making a big deal out of this?”

  “You looked so surprised to see me coming into the room behind you—more than surprised, absolutely baffled—as if you couldn’t understand how it could be happening.”