by John Verdon
Gurney broke in. “Alyssa wouldn’t get anything unless Kay went down for the murder. Once Kay was convicted, New York law would block her inheritance and Carl’s whole estate would be passed down to Alyssa.”
Hardwick grinned with the dawning light of possibilities. “That could explain everything. That could explain why she was fucking Klemper, to get him to bend the case. She could even have been fucking her mother’s boyfriend, to get him to perjure himself at trial. She’s a stone-cold addict—she’d fuck a monkey for dope.”
Esti looked troubled. “Maybe her father wasn’t having sex with her after all. Maybe that was just a story she told Klemper. To get his sympathy.”
“Sympathy, my ass! She probably figured it would turn him on.”
Esti’s expression moved slowly from revulsion to agreement. “Shit. Everything I think about that man keeps getting worse.” She paused, made a note on her pad. “So Alyssa’s a possible suspect. And so is Jonah. What about Kay’s boyfriend?”
Hardwick shook his head. “Not in the preemptive strike structure we’re talking about. I don’t see Carl taking out a contract on him. I don’t think he’d waste the money. There’d be easier ways to get rid of him. And I sure as hell can’t see young Darryl in the position of discovering that he’s the target of a potential hit and reacting by organizing a faster hit.”
“Okay, but forget about the preemptive thing for a minute,” said Esti. “Couldn’t Darryl have killed Carl in the hope that his relationship with Kay might grow into something better for him once Kay had all the money? What do you think, Dave?”
“In the video of the trial he doesn’t look like he’d have the smarts or the guts for it. A little perjury—maybe. But a well-planned triple murder? I doubt it. The guy was a minimum-wage lifeguard and pool boy at the Spalters’ country club—not exactly Day of the Jackal assassin material. Also, I’m having a hard time picturing him smashing an old lady’s head or hammering nails into somebody’s eyes.”
Hardwick was shaking his head. “This is fucked up. None of it feels right to me. The three murders have three completely different methods and styles. I don’t see a straight line running through them. Something’s missing. Anybody here share that feeling?”
Gurney offered a small affirmative nod. “There’s a lot missing. Speaking of the MO issue, there’s no record in the case file that it was ever explored through ViCAP. Am I right?”
“In Klemper’s view,” said Esti, “Kay shot Carl. Period. Why would he fill out the ViCAP form or look into any other databases? It’s not like the bastard had an open mind.”
“I get that. But it would be helpful if we could run the key data now—at least through ViCAP. And it would be nice to know if NCIC has anything on any of the key individuals, dead or alive. And Interpol, too, at least for Gus Gurikos.” Gurney glanced from Esti to Hardwick and back. “Can either of you do any of that without creating a problematic trail?”
“Maybe I could get the ViCAP and NCIC parts done,” said Esti after a moment. The way she said “maybe” meant she could get it done, but by a route she was not about to reveal. “For ViCAP, what data bits are you most interested in?”
“To avoid being swamped with results, concentrate on the oddities—the most peculiar elements at each of the murder sites—and use those as the search terms.”
“Like ‘.220 Swift’—the Long Falls gun caliber?”
“Right. And ‘suppressor’ or ‘silencer’ combined with ‘rifle.’ ”
She made some quick notes. “Okay, what else?”
“ ‘Firecrackers.’ ”
“What?”
“Witnesses at the cemetery heard firecrackers going off around the time that Carl was hit. If that was an attempt to conceal the residual sound of the suppressed muzzle blast, it may have been a technique the shooter used before, and a witness may have mentioned it to an investigator, and the investigator may have entered it on his ViCAP form.”
“Jesus,” said Hardwick. “That’s one goddamn way-out long shot.”
“It’s worth a try.”
Esti was tapping her pen again on her pad. “You’re assuming the shooter was a pro?”
“Feels that way to me.”
“Okay. Any other search terms?”
“ ‘Cemetery’ and ‘funeral.’ If the shooter went to the trouble of killing someone just to set his main victim up at the grave, maybe the same thing’s worked for him before.”
As she was writing, Gurney added, “All the surnames connected with the case should be searched as well—Spalter, Angelidis, Gurikos. Also, we need to run Darryl’s surname, the surnames of the other prosecution witnesses, and Kay’s maiden name. You can find them all in the trial transcript.”
Hardwick spoke with loathing in his voice. “Don’t forget to include ‘nails,’ ‘nails in eyes,’ ‘nails in ears,’ ‘nails in throat.’ ”
Esti nodded, then asked Gurney, “Anything from the mother’s location?”
“That one’s not so easy. You could look for homicides set up as bathtub falls, homicides involving floral deliveries, even the fake florist name—Flowers by Florence—but that feels like an even longer shot than the firecrackers.”
“I think this is enough to keep me busy for a while.”
“Jack, I recall from the Jillian Perry case that you might know somebody at Interpol. That still true?”
“Far as I know.”
“Maybe you could see what they have on Gurikos?”
“I can try. No promises.”
“You think you could also take a stab at tracking down the main prosecution witnesses?”
He nodded slowly. “Freddie, who testified that Kay was in the apartment building at the time of the shooting … Jimmy Flats, the con who said Kay tried to hire him to whack Carl … and Darryl, the boyfriend who said she tried the same line on him?”
“Those three at least.”
“I’ll see what I can do. You thinking we might squeeze a perjury admission out of one of them?”
“That would be nice. But mainly, I’d like to know that they’re alive and reachable.”
“Alive?” Hardwick looked like he was thinking what Gurney was thinking. If at the heart of the mystery was an individual capable of doing what was done to Gus Gurikos, then anything was possible. The possibilities were horrendous.
The notion of horrendous possibilities brought Klemper to mind. “I almost forgot to mention this,” said Gurney, “but your favorite BCI investigator was waiting for me when I got home this afternoon from my meeting with Angelidis.”
Hardwick’s eyes narrowed. “The fuck did he want?”
“He wanted me to understand that Kay is an evil, lying, murdering bitch; that Bincher is an evil, lying Jew bastard; and that he, Mick Klemper, is a crusader in the epic struggle of Good against Evil. He admitted that he might have made an error or two, but nothing that changes the fact that Kay is guilty as sin and deserves to die in prison—preferably soon.”
Esti looked excited. “He must have been in a panic to show up at your house, raving like that.”
Hardwick looked suspicious. “You sure that’s all he wanted? To tell you that Kay was guilty?”
“He seemed desperate to convince me that everything he’d done was legitimate in some larger context. He may also have been trying, in his bull-in-the-china-shop way, to get me to reveal how much I knew. As I see it, the unresolved question about Klemper is how sick is he—versus how corrupt.”
Esti added, “Or how dangerous.”
Hardwick changed the subject. “So I’m going to take the locate-the-three-witnesses assignment, which may turn into three mis-per traces, which may turn into God knows what. And I’m going to beg my buddy at Interpol for another favor. Esti’s going to call in some favors at OCTF and get someone to run NCIC and ViCAP searches. What’s on your plate, Sherlock?”
“First I’m going to talk to Alyssa Spalter. Then to Jonah Spalter.”
“Great. But how’re you going
to get them to talk to you?”
“Charm. Threats. Promises. Whatever works.”
Esti let out a cynical little one-syllable laugh. “Offer Alyssa an ounce of good shit, she’ll follow you to the moon. Jonah you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”
“You know where I can get ahold of Alyssa?”
“Last time I heard, the family mansion on Venus Lake. With Carl and Kay out of the way, she has it all to herself. But watch out for Klemper. My impression is that he still sees her. He’s still got a soft spot for his little monster.”
Hardwick smirked. “Don’t you mean a hard spot?”
“You’re disgusting!” She turned back to Gurney. “I’ll text you the address. Or, actually, I can give it to you right now. I have it in my notebook.” She stood up from the table and left the room.
Gurney sat back in his chair and gave Hardwick a speculative look. “Maybe it’s my imagination, but you seem to be getting an inch or two closer to my way of thinking about this case.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“Your interest in it seems to be expanding a bit beyond the technical appeal issues.”
At first Hardwick looked like he wanted to argue the point. Then he just shook his head slowly. “Those fucking nails …” He stared down at the floor. “I don’t know … makes you wonder just how God-awful a human being can be. How. Downright. Completely. Evil.” He paused, still shaking his head, like someone with a kind of slow-motion palsy. “You ever come upon something that just … just made you wonder … what the fuck … I mean … if there are any limits on what a human being can do?”
Gurney didn’t have to think very long about it. Images of severed heads, torn throats, bodies chopped apart. Children burned alive by their parents. The “Satanic Santa” case that involved a serial killer gift-wrapping pieces of his victims’ bodies and mailing them to the local cops’ homes at Christmas.
“Lots of images come to mind, Jack, but the new one that keeps disturbing my sleep is Carl Spalter’s face—the photo taken of him while he was still barely alive at Kay’s trial. There’s something terrible about it. Maybe the look of despair in Carl’s eyes affects me the way those nails in Gus’s eyes affect you.”
Neither of them said anything more until Esti came back with a small sheet of notepaper and handed it to Gurney. “You probably don’t even need this address,” she said. “I could’ve just told you to look for the biggest house on Lakeshore Drive.”
“It’ll be easier with this. Thanks.”
She sat in her chair, looked back and forth curiously at the two men. “What’s up? You’re both looking very … down.”
Hardwick uttered a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh.
Gurney shrugged. “Every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the reality we’re dealing with. You know what I’m talking about?”
Her voice changed. “Yes, of course I do.”
There was a silence.
Gurney said, “We need to focus on the fact that we’re making progress. We’re taking the appropriate actions. Accurate data and solid logic will—”
His comment was cut short by the sound of a sudden, sharp impact against the clapboard siding of the house.
Esti tensed, looked alarmed.
Hardwick blinked. “The fuck was that?”
The sound was repeated—like the crack of the hard tip of a whip against the house—and all the lights went out.
Chapter 29
Game Changers
Reflexively, Gurney dropped from his chair to the floor. Hardwick and Esti followed immediately, in a flurry of expletives.
“I’m not carrying,” said Gurney quickly. “What do you have in the house?”
“Glock nine in the bedroom closet,” said Hardwick. “SIG .38 in the night table.”
“Kel-Tec .38 in my shoulder bag,” said Esti. “Bag’s behind you, Jack, on the floor. Can you push it over to me?”
Gurney heard Hardwick moving on the other side of the table, then something sliding toward Esti on the floor.
“Got it,” she said.
“Back in a sec,” said Hardwick.
Gurney heard him scuttling out of the room, cursing, then the sound of an interior door squeaking open, then a drawer opening and closing. A flashlight went on, went off. He could also hear Esti’s breathing, very close to him.
“There’s no moon tonight, is there?” She was half whispering.
For an insane moment, in the grip of a primitive fear and the rush of adrenaline, he found her lowered voice and closeness so intensely erotic, he forgot to answer the question.
“Dave?”
“Right. Yes. No moon.”
She leaned closer, her arm touching his. “What do you think is happening?”
“I’m not sure. Nothing good.”
“You think we’re overreacting?”
“I hope so.”
“I can’t see a damn thing. Can you?”
He strained his eyes in the general direction of the window by the table. “No. Nothing.”
“Shit.” The magnetism of her anxious, whispering voice in the darkness was becoming surreal. “You think those sounds were bullets hitting the house?”
“Could be.” In fact, he was sure of it. He’d been under fire more than once in his career.
“I didn’t hear any gunshots.”
“Could be using a suppressor.”
“Oh, shit. You really think it’s sniper-boy out there?”
Gurney was pretty sure that it was, but before he could answer, Hardwick returned.
“Got the Glock and SIG. I like the Glock. How about you, ace? You okay with the SIG?”
“No problem.”
Hardwick touched Gurney’s elbow, found his hand, put the pistol in it. “Full clip, one in the chamber, safety on.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Maybe it’s time to call in the cavalry,” said Esti.
“Fuck that!” said Hardwick.
“So what do we do? Sit here all night?”
“We figure out how to get the son of a bitch.”
“Get him? That’s what SWAT does. We make the call. They come. They get him.”
“Fuck them. I’ll get him myself. Nobody shoots at my fucking house. Fuck!”
“Jack, for Godsake, the man put a bullet through a power line. In the dark. This is a super marksman. With a night-vision scope. Hiding in the woods. How the hell are you going to get him? For Godsake, Jack, make sense!”
“Fuck him! He’s not that fucking super—took him two shots to hit the line. I’ll put my Glock up his super ass.”
“Maybe it didn’t take him two shots,” said Gurney.
“The hell are you talking about? Lights went out on the second shot, not the first.”
“Check your landline.”
“What?”
“It sounded to me like the impacts were at different places on the upstairs wall. Do your power and phone lines come in together or separately?”
Hardwick didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
Gurney heard him crawling from the table into the kitchen … then the sound of a handset being picked up, and after a moment being replaced … then crawling back to the table.
“It’s dead. He hit the fucking phone line.”
“I don’t get it,” said Esti. “What’s the point of cutting a landline when everybody’s got cell phones? He must know who Jack is, probably knows who we all are, has to assume we all have phones. You ever see a cop without a cell phone? Why cut the landline?”
“Maybe he likes to show off,” said Hardwick. “Well, this fucker is fucking with the wrong guy.”
“You’re not the only one here, Jack. Maybe he’s fucking with Dave. Maybe he’s fucking with all of us.”
“I don’t give a fuck who he thinks he’s fucking with. But it’s my fucking house that he’s shooting fucking bullets into.”
“This is crazy. I say we get a SWAT team here, like now.”
“We’re not in fucking Albany. It’s not like they’re parked down in Dillweed, waiting for the call. Be an hour before they get here.”
“Dave?” Her expression was begging for support.
Gurney couldn’t provide it. “It might be better to handle this ourselves.”
“Better? How the hell is it better?”
“You make this official, it’s a big can of worms.”
“Can of … what are you talking about?”
“Your career.”
“Career?”
“You’re a BCI investigator, and Jack’s in the process of launching an all-out attack on BCI. How are they going to interpret your being here? You think they’re not going to figure out in about two seconds how he’s getting his inside information? Information he can use to ruin their lives? You think you’re going to survive that—legally or otherwise? I think I’d rather deal with a sniper in the woods than be considered a traitor by people I have to work with.”
Esti’s voice was a bit shaky. “I don’t see what they can prove. There’s no reason—” She stopped abruptly. “What was that?”
“What was what?” asked Gurney.
“Out that window … on the hill facing the house … in the woods … a flash of light …”
Hardwick scrambled around the back of the table toward the window.
Peering into the darkness, Esti whispered, “I’m positive I saw some—” Again she stopped midsentence.
This time Gurney and Hardwick both saw it. “There!” cried Gurney.
“It’s one of my trail cams,” said Hardwick. “Motion-activated. I’ve got half a dozen in the woods—mainly for hunting season.” Another flash occurred, seemingly higher on the hill. “Fucker’s moving up the main trail. Getting away. Fuck that!”
Gurney heard Hardwick scrambling to his feet, hurrying out of the room into the kitchen, then returning with two lit flashlights in one hand, Glock in the other. He stood one flashlight in the middle of the table, beam pointing at the ceiling. “I got an idea where the son of a bitch is heading. After I leave, get in your cars, get out of here, forget you were here.”
Esti’s voice rose in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to where that trail goes—to Scutt Hollow on the other side of the mountain. If I can get there before he does …”