Hardwick smiled. “Nasty. How do you think she’ll react?”
“If she’s telling the truth about the Aspern shooting, her natural reaction would be to call the police and report receiving a baseless extortion threat. If she’s lying about the shooting, I suspect she’ll bring in some private muscle to deal with her greedy pen pal.”
“You’re imagining the private muscle will be Silas Gant?”
“Or Cousin Otis.”
Hardwick sucked at his teeth. “So, who gets to stand under the portico with his dick in his hand, pretending to be the blackmailer, while Reverend Silas and Cousin Otis lock and load?”
“Nobody. That’s the beauty of it. There’s no actual confrontation involved. A confrontation would be a disaster. The goal is just to discover which option Lorinda chooses—police or private muscle. And if she chooses the latter, it’ll be interesting to see who shows up to help solve her problem.”
“So we’re just observing?”
“Right.”
“From where? The top of a fucking tree?”
“We’re in the twenty-first century, Jack. Ever hear of a device called a drone?”
“Shit, Gurney, the kind of drone you need for serious remote surveillance is no goddamn toy. It’s got to be silent, super-stable, GPS-guidable, with hi-res video transmission, and at least a half hour to an hour flight time. You happen to have one of those in your glove compartment?”
“I don’t, but I’m thinking you could arrange an emergency overnight loan from your friends at the NYSP.”
“Fuck.”
“I knew I could rely on you.”
Hardwick gulped down the rest of his coffee.
50
On his way to Walnut Crossing, Gurney stopped at a mom-and-pop electronics shop in a roadside mall and made a cash purchase of a prepaid phone with a bundle of minutes.
As soon as he got home, he got a pad from the den and wrote out a rough draft of the message, along the lines of what he’d described at Abelard’s. Then he put the draft aside, intending to come back to it later with fresh eyes and make final adjustments to the wording before texting it to Lorinda’s cell number.
In the meantime, he got out the copy of the case file he’d received from Slovak and went to the section that dealt with the details of the security camera video from the night of the Aspern shooting. He was hoping it contained contact information for the company that installed the camera.
It did. It even included a Larchfield-area phone number, which he called.
After providing his name and the badge number on his LPD credentials, he was transferred to the company’s installation manager.
Yes, he was familiar with the details of the Russell job.
Yes, only one camera had been installed.
Yes, that was unusual on a house of that size.
Yes, additional cameras had been recommended, but Mrs. Russell insisted on proceeding gradually.
Yes, Mrs. Russell had chosen the location for the first installation. In fact, she’d even specified the camera’s angle and field of view.
Gurney emphasized that these inquiries were confidential aspects of an ongoing investigation and thanked the manager for his help.
Like the disappearance of the phone and the bottle of wine, the installation information by itself proved nothing. Lorinda’s evident manipulation of the situation could be rendered meaningless by a defense attorney. However, it provided support for his growing suspicion and additional justification for the sting-like operation he was about to set in motion.
Rarely had he been so sure of anyone’s complicity in a murder, with so little hard evidence. He was certain that Lorinda would fail to call the police. About Gant’s personal involvement in Aspern’s death, he was less certain. He was hoping the following night’s surveillance would add some clarity.
Gurney’s next call was to Slovak.
“Brad, I need to examine Aspern’s house. Can you send someone out there tomorrow morning to unlock it?”
“Do you think we missed something?”
“Nothing specific. In fact, I have no idea what I’m looking for. It’s just an itch I sometimes get—to walk through the world of a victim or a perp and see whatever I can see.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure the place is unlocked. If you want help with your walk-through, let me know.”
Gurney’s “walk-through” itch was real enough. But he also wanted to use the Aspern property as the control site for the drone. It was isolated, yet not too far from the Russell property, so if some malfunction caused the drone to come down in the intervening woods, he could easily retrieve it. And what he’d told Slovak would serve as a useful cover story in the event that he was seen there.
With that taken care of, he returned to his rough draft of the message to Lorinda. He read it over several times and made a few small changes. Then he entered it as a text on the anonymous phone and sent it to Lorinda’s cell number.
A simple action—with the potential for game-changing consequences.
He intended to pay a visit to Morgan the following morning to fill him in on the operation. Despite Morgan’s emotional state, letting him know about a major investigative initiative remained a formal necessity.
But that was a task for tomorrow. Seeing the case demanded nothing else of him for the remainder of the afternoon, he turned his attention to the alpaca shed.
By the time Madeleine got home from the clinic, he’d cut the lumber to the right sizes for the stud walls, rafters, and door framing and he’d restacked it, ready for use—without, however, proceeding with the actual construction, which he knew she wanted to be involved in.
His accomplishment left him feeling relaxed and pleasantly virtuous. Their dinner together was happy and stress-free, with frequent bursts of laughter. They headed for bed that evening earlier than usual.
He also woke up earlier than usual, well before dawn.
The euphoria of the previous evening had been replaced by the uncertainties of the Larchfield murders. He knew that trying to get back to sleep with that tangle of questions on his mind was pointless.
He showered and dressed and made himself a cup of coffee.
At daybreak he was on the patio with a second cup, imagining how Morgan might react to the explanation of the trap being set for Lorinda—and how Lorinda might react to the text he’d sent her.
At sunrise he heard his phone ringing in the house. He hurried inside to get to it before it woke Madeleine. He was surprised to see Kyra Barstow’s name on the screen.
“What’s up?”
“I asked Keith Boron, one of our computer techs, to analyze those video files you asked about. He told me this morning that he’s confident of the integrity of ninety-nine percent of the digital content, but there’s one percent that bothers him.”
“Bothers him how?”
“He says there’s a three-second sonic anomaly in the mortuary video.”
“What kind of sonic anomaly?”
“He said that the sound of the casket breaking open—the sound of the wood splintering—created a peculiar audio-frequency footprint.”
“What might that mean?”
“He’s performing additional tests to get to the bottom of it. I just wanted you to know that he found something odd, since you asked for the analysis. I’ll call as soon as I hear more.”
The chance of returning to bed at that point for anything resembling sweet dreams was zero. Apart from the jarring effect of one more oddity being added to a case already bursting with them, he’d promised Madeleine that he’d spend the morning working with her on the shed.