He called Larchfield PD and spoke to the night-shift desk sergeant.
“This is Dave Gurney. I’m at the Aspern house on Harrow Hill. I’m calling to report gunfire in the area. My guess is a single automatic weapon with a large magazine. The sound came from the direction of the Russell house. I’m heading over there now through the woods.”
Hardwick meanwhile had retrieved the drone and was packing it in its carrying case, along with its accessories. Gurney told him to make a separate copy of the stored video, in the event that it might someday be needed, then delete the original file along with any related GPS data. “Then get out of here before the troops start swarming the area. I’ll meet them at the Russell place and make sure they come to the right conclusions about what happened there, based on the evidence on the ground.”
Hardwick left without another word.
Gurney brought up an off-road navigation app on his phone, entered the GPS coordinates for the Russell house, and hurried off in the direction it indicated. A few minutes later he called Larchfield PD again. He reported seeing an orange glow in the low clouds ahead, a likely sign of a major fire, and directed that all available fire and rescue equipment be dispatched ASAP.
Ten minutes later, when he emerged onto the back lawn of the Russell mansion, the fire had become a monster. Its shifting red and orange glare shone through all the windows Gurney could see. It sounded like a high wind through a thicket, its crackling like the snapping of branches. Flames were blowing out through an open rear window over a bed of tulips, already withered from the heat.
He ran around to the front of the house. The acrid smoke there carried the odor of gasoline and burnt flesh.
He counted six smoldering bodies splayed out in a loose arc across the marble steps and one on the ground under the charred portico. Near that seventh body there was an Uzi with a large aftermarket magazine. The body was Mike Morgan’s—not that it was easy to tell, since his head and upper body were burned to the point of no longer appearing human. His left hand, however, had escaped the burning gasoline that had descended on him from the geyser his flamethrower had produced in its final vertical position; its stubby fingertips, nails bitten to the quick, were all too recognizable.
With no protective clothing, Gurney was finding the heat from the open doorway of the burning house unbearable, and he retreated to the allée. Further now from the fire’s roar, he could hear the sirens of the slowly approaching emergency vehicles.
Seeing that Morgan’s Tahoe was blocking the gateway to the grounds, Gurney hurried over to move it, only to discover that Morgan had taken the key. No matter, he realized; one of the fire trucks could push it out of the way.
Then another thought occurred to him. Since Morgan was responsible for turning an information-gathering effort into this multiple-homicide apocalypse, it would simplify the investigation to place the initiating text in the hands of the investigators, ensuring that they would understand the preamble to the carnage. He took the anonymous phone out of his pocket—the phone from which the “blackmail” text had been sent to Lorinda—wiped off his fingerprints, and dropped it on the ground near the Tahoe. If anyone misconstrued the text to mean that Morgan had actual blackmail in mind, Gurney was sure he could persuade them otherwise.
The first arrivals were two Larchfield PD cruisers with two uniformed cops in each, followed by Slovak in his Dodge Charger. Leaving their vehicles at the entry gate behind the Tahoe, all five entered the grounds with their weapons drawn.
Gurney stood still, hands open and away from his body, until Slovak recognized him and came running over.
“Jesus, Dave, what the hell’s happening?”
“Looks like there was a shoot-out between Chief Morgan and half a dozen of Gant’s Patriarchs. One of Morgan’s hands is still wrapped around a flamethrower, which probably started the fire. Everyone out here is dead.”
Slovak looked around in wide-eyed amazement, horror, and excitement. “Is there anyone in the house?”
“We should assume Lorinda, until we find out otherwise. Also, I counted seven motorcycles in back of the house, but only six bodies on the ground, in addition to Morgan’s. So the seventh rider may be in the house. Beyond that, I have no idea. I looked for a way in, but the ground floor access points are all blocked by the fire.”
Slovak now was staring openmouthed at the bodies, repeating “Jesus” to himself and rubbing his scalp with both hands.
Gurney put a steadying hand on Slovak’s shoulder. “Look, Brad, you’re the ranking officer here. You need to take charge of the scene. If all those sirens I hear are any indication, this place is going to be an operational madhouse in a few minutes. I suggest you cordon off the area around the bodies and keep the fire engines to either side. Be sure to station one of your guys at the gate to keep a record of who enters and leaves. You’ve got a huge crime scene here and you can’t let it get out of control.”
“Right. Okay. Right. But . . . Chief Morgan? In a shoot-out? With Gant’s Patriarchs?”
“That’s the way it looks. I was over in Aspern’s house when I heard gunfire coming from this direction. I called headquarters, then got over here as fast as I could. What I saw when I arrived is what you see now.”
“He had a flamethrower?”
“Yes. Maybe the one confiscated from Randall Fleck.”
Soon the other vehicles began arriving, sirens blaring—Bastenburg, state police, and sheriff’s department cruisers; two EMT ambulances; another Larchfield cruiser; and finally a thousand-gallon pumper truck from the Larchfield Fire Department and another from Bastenburg.
Gurney remained at the periphery of the action, occasionally making sure that Slovak’s grasp of the situation was entirely consistent with the facts conveyed by the drone, without including anything beyond what could be seen or inferred from the evidence in front of them. It was a tricky balancing act.
He was pleased to see that one of the officers had found the phone on the ground and brought it to the attention of Slovak—who then mentioned it to Gurney, who agreed that it could be important.
Gurney was starting to ask if Barstow’s forensic team had been called in yet when he was stopped dead by a wavering scream piercing through the roar of the fire. He turned toward the house just as a second-floor casement window came flying open.
Lorinda Russell, the fire at her back and the sleeves of her cream-white jacket in flames, was trying to climb through the opening. She had one leg out when her hair went up in a sudden blaze. With a strangled screech of pain, she toppled back into the burning room. That final, dying cry was so dreadful—so razor-sharp in its agony—he feared he would never be free of it.
54
The unnatural May weather went overnight from merely dismal to raw and blustery.
“It’s more like winter than spring,” muttered Gurney, gazing out through the tightly shut French doors toward the old apple tree, whose few remaining blossoms were disintegrating in the wind.
Madeleine was looking at him over the rim of her coffee mug, which she was holding in both hands to warm them. “You want to talk about it?”
“The weather?”
“Last night’s insanity. Isn’t that what’s on your mind?”
It was, of course, very much on his mind, as it had been all through a restless night and into the morning.