"Nothing wrong was done by anyone."
"Those two men deserved to die," Joe suggested.
"They were hoping to rape teenage girls-children."
"So, you wanted to be helpful."
After a moment's pause, Gartner said, "Yes."
Joe was torn between the conversation and its context. The gun was no prop, and its eventual use depended on the depth of Gartner's self-delusion. On the other hand, if he played this right, her very words could close the case, here and now.
He decided to try inching her back toward reality, while fantasizing that if the movies were right, a sudden leap by him-as he whipped out his own gun in midair-would result in a full confession and his not lying dead on the floor.
"And you did that by using the stolen Taser on the first man, and the chemical cookie on the second. You know, according to our lab, the DMSO probably wasn't needed. The fentanyl would've worked on its own."
Sandy Gartner took a few paces toward him, revealing more of her face to the light. Joe could tell from the confusion in her eyes that his comment had hit home. The problem was that he was now approaching the very edge of his knowledge and had already taken a huge, albeit calculated, risk. He and his squad had assumed that those two drugs had materialized via the horse vet route, despite the vet clinic's having told them that none had gone missing. But as Joe had uttered Gartner's name out loud, it occurred to him for the first time that the easiest, least complicated source of both chemicals could have been a doctor's office.
But what about Wendy? Joe had convinced himself that she'd delivered the cookie to the second victim and stolen the Taser cartridge used on the first, both with her father's involvement.
The woman with the gun suggested otherwise.
"Did you know their names?" Joe asked her, hoping her answer would start to clarify who had done what.
Her eyebrows rose slightly. "They don't have names."
"These two did. One of them even had a wife and child."
Gartner held out the gun and sighted along it. Joe watched her eye floating just above the black hole of the barrel as she aimed at his face. Her hand was trembling slightly.
"They were monsters," she said. "I saw them."
Maybe now's the time to jump, he thought. I might get lucky.
A soft male voice floated into the room. "Sandy? Sweetheart? Put the gun down."
She startled. Joe winced, surprised that, in fact, she didn't fire and he didn't jump.
But the gun didn't go off. Nor was it lowered.
A second shadow entered and stood quietly by the door.
Gartner shifted her weight. The gun wavered.
"Go away, John," she said. "This doesn't concern you."
"Of course it does," he said gently.
Joe slipped his oar into the water, hoping to normalize the mood. "Mr. Leppman? Your wife and I were starting to sort all this out. My name's Joe Gunther."
Leppman picked up his cue. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Gunther. Sorry about the intrusion."
"That's okay. I was planning to talk with you both anyhow." He made the smallest of gestures with his hand. "Would you like to sit down?"
That was too much. Sandy Gartner poked the gun at him. "Don't move. I told you."
Joe remained silent. Leppman took two silent steps farther into the room. "Sandy? I wouldn't mind sitting down. I'm very tired. I bet you are, too. There're two chairs-one right beside you."
She glanced to her side, which Joe took as a good sign. Apparently, so did her husband, since he finished approaching, grabbed the other chair, and sat down. In a typical mental aside, so often rued later, Joe hoped this shrink knew his business and wasn't acting without a single thought toward Joe's survival.
Gartner hesitated, seeing her husband unbutton his coat and get comfortable. She glanced at Joe, who did his best to appear the genial host, and finally folded at the knees, perching on the chair's edge. The gun stayed pointed at Joe.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Leppman.
"I followed you," he said simply. "I overheard the phone call you got from the stable, telling you the police had been asking questions, I heard you say the same had happened at your office, and I saw you take the gun."
"Where's Wendy?"
"She's at home," he reassured her. "She doesn't know anything. She's fine, Sandy. Like I want you to be."
Gartner looked down at the gun and watched it slowly lower to her lap as if it belonged to someone else.
"What did you want to have happen here?" her husband asked her.
With her left hand, she reached up and touched her forehead fleetingly. "I wanted some peace and quiet. I thought maybe we could talk this out."
Joe saw what he hoped was his opportunity. "I'm listening," he said.
"I am, too," her husband echoed, which struck Joe with its implied ignorance.
"You had your police consulting," she said to him, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You had a way to channel losing Gwennie."
Joe saw her husband's brow furrow. He imagined what was going on inside the man's brain. The psychologist battling with the spouse and fellow mourner-one wishing to counsel and soothe, the other urging to argue and fight for turf.
Joe was having some of the same problem. Intrigued as he was with the direction this was taking, his right arm, as slowly as a minute hand, was also moving to where he could casually drop it into his lap-and closer to his holstered gun.
"You could get your revenge," she was saying. "Putting all those men in jail. I had nothing. I had to put on a brave face for Wendy, keep running my office, listen to all my patients complaining, even encourage you as you bragged about how you nailed this guy or the other. I wanted to find some relief, too. But no one was listening."
The husband in Leppman slipped out for a moment. "You never told me."
"You never asked. You never looked. John, we left our home on your recommendation, to 'leave it all behind us,' you said. We were supposed to get a fresh start in Vermont. Well, I tried that, but you didn't. You started right up with all this Internet police work. That wasn't leaving it all behind. You were the only one of us who never even tried."
She suddenly straightened in her chair. "My God, John, you planted the seeds of all this. Remember that night you went riding around with your cop friends? You came home with a Taser-like it was a talisman you'd found on the edge of Gwennie's grave, instead of something you'd stolen. What were you thinking? That damn thing took on a life of its own. You moved on-forgot all about it. But I kept thinking about it, wondering how a Taser had so cleverly worked its way into our home."
Leppman's brow furrowed. "My God," he said. "I didn't know. I stole it from impulse, because of what it represented. I never thought…" He rubbed his eyes. "Maybe, subliminally…" He lapsed into silence.
Joe watched them both-highly schooled, well spoken, respectfully mannered-their emotions muffled under the careful professional language of their analytical training. Still, what they were saying didn't differ from what he'd heard between the down-and-out of his experience. People made assumptions, took one another for granted, behaved selfishly, maybe even acted to correct the wrongs the other refused to address.
He wondered if, given the mood, that last point might not be broached, the half-forgotten gun notwithstanding.
"Dr. Gartner," he began, "what made you focus on these two? Were they like the man who went after Gwennie?"
"I thought so," she agreed. "They were so quick to assume…"
She paused. He waited a couple of seconds and then tried a slightly different approach. "What made you go online in the first place?"