“Is she attractive?”
“I don’t think ‘attractive’ is the word I’d choose.”
“What, then?”
“Impressive. Intense. Determined.”
“Ruthless?”
“Ah. That’s a tough one. If you mean ruthless enough to kill her husband for money, I can’t say yet one way or the other.”
Madeleine echoed the word “yet” so softly, he hardly heard her.
“I intend to take at least one more step,” he said, but even as he was saying it he recognized its subtle dishonesty.
If the skeptical glint in Madeleine’s eye was any indication, so did she. “And that step would be …?”
“I want to look at the crime scene.”
“Weren’t there pictures in the file Jack gave you?”
“Crime scene photos and drawings capture maybe ten percent of the reality. You have to stand there, walk around, look around, listen, smell, get a feel for the place, a feel for the possibilities and limitations—the neighborhood, the traffic, a feel for what the victim might have seen, what the killer might have seen, how he might have arrived, where he might have gone, who might have seen him.”
“Or her.”
“Or her.”
“So when are you going to do all this looking, listening, smelling, and feeling?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You do remember our dinner?”
“Tomorrow?”
Madeleine produced a long-suffering smile. “The members of the yoga club. Here. For dinner.”
“Oh, right, sure. That’s fine. No problem.”
“You’re sure? You’ll be here?”
“No problem.”
She gave him a long look, then broke it off as though the subject was closed. She stood, opened the French doors, and took a long deep breath of the cool air.
A moment later, from the woods beyond the pond came that strange lost cry they’d heard before, like an eerie note on a flute.
Gurney rose from his chair and stepped out past Madeleine onto the stone patio. The sun had dipped below the ridge, and the temperature felt like it had dropped fifteen degrees. He stood quite still and listened for a repetition of that unearthly sound.
All he could hear was a silence so deep it sent a shiver through his body.
Chapter 12. Willow Rest
When Gurney came out to the kitchen the next morning, he was ravenously hungry.
Madeleine was at the sink island, shredding bits of bread onto a large paper plate, half of which was already covered with chopped strawberries. Once a week she gave the chickens a plate of something special in addition to the packaged feed from the farm supply store.
Gurney was reminded by her more-conservative-than-usual outfit that it was one of her work days at the clinic. He looked up at the clock. “Aren’t you running late?”
“Hal is picking me up, so … no problem.”
If he remembered rightly, Hal was the clinic director. “Why?”
She stared at him.
“Oh, right, yes, your car, in the shop. But how come Hal—?”
“I mentioned my car problems at work the other day, and Hal said he passes our road anyway. Besides, if I’m late because he’s late, he can hardly complain. And speaking of being late, you won’t be, will you?”
“Late? For what?”
“Tonight. The yoga club.”
“No problem.”
“And you’ll think about calling Malcolm Claret?”
“Today?”
“Good a time as any.”
At the sound of a car coming up the pasture lane, she went to the window. “He’s here,” she said breezily. “Got to go.” She hurried over to Gurney, kissed him, and then picked up her bag from the sideboard with one hand and the plate of bread and strawberries with the other.
“You want me to take care of that chicken stuff for you?” asked Gurney.
“No. Hal can stop at the barn for two seconds. I’ll take care of it. Ta-ta.” She headed through the hallway past the mudroom and out the back door.
Gurney watched through the window as Hal’s gleaming black Audi crept slowly down toward the barn and around to the far side where the door was. He watched until the car reappeared from behind the barn a minute or two later and headed down the road.
It was barely eight-fifteen in the morning, and already his day was congested with thoughts and emotions he’d rather not have.
He knew from experience that the best remedy for dealing with an unsettled state of mind was to take some sort of action, to move forward.
He went to the den, got the Spalter case file and the thick packet of documents describing Kay’s journey through the legal system after her arraignment—the pretrial motions, the trial transcript, copies of the prosecution’s visual aids and items of evidence, and the routine post-conviction appeal filed by the original defense attorney. Gurney carried it all out to his car, because he had no idea which specific items he might need to refer to in the course of the day.
He went back in the house and got a plain gray sport jacket out of his closet, the one he’d worn hundreds of times on the job, but maybe only three times since he’d retired. That jacket with his dark slacks, blue shirt, and simple military style shoes screamed “cop” as loudly as any uniform. He was guessing that the image might prove useful in Long Falls. He made one last glance around, went out to his car again, and entered the address of the Willow Rest cemetery in the portable GPS on the dashboard.
A minute later he was on his way—and feeling better already.
Like so many old cities on rivers and canals of fading commercial utility, Long Falls seemed to be struggling against a persistent current of decline.
There were scattered signs of attempted revitalization. An abandoned fabric mill had been converted into professional offices; a cluster of small shops now occupied a former casket factory; a block-long building of sooty bricks the color of old scabs, with the name CLOVER-SWEET CREAMERY etched on a granite lintel over the entrance door, had been relabeled NORTHERN ART STUDIOS GALLERIES on a wider and brighter sign affixed above the lintel.
As he drove along the main artery, however, Gurney counted at least six derelict buildings from a more prosperous time. There were a lot of empty parking spaces, too few people on the streets. A thin teenager, wearing the loser’s uniform of sagging jeans and an oversized baseball hat worn sideways, stood on an otherwise deserted corner with a muscular dog on a short leash. As Gurney slowed for a red light, he could see that the young man’s anxious eyes were scanning the passing cars with an addict’s characteristic combination of hope and detachment.
It sometimes seemed to Gurney that something in America had gone terribly wrong. A large segment of a generation had become infected with ignorance, laziness, and vulgarity. It no longer seemed unusual for a young woman to have, say, three small children by three different fathers, two of whom were currently in prison. And places like Long Falls, which once may have nurtured a simpler kind of life, were now depressingly similar to everywhere else.
These thoughts were interrupted by his GPS announcing in an authoritative voice, “Arriving at destination on your right.”
The sign, next to a spotless blacktop driveway, said only WILLOW REST—leaving the nature of the enterprise unspecified. Gurney turned in and followed the driveway through an open wrought-iron gate in a yellow brick wall. Well-tended landscape plantings on each side of the entrance conveyed the impression not of a cemetery but of an upscale residential development. The driveway led directly to a small, empty parking area in front of an English-style cottage.
Window boxes overflowing with purple and yellow pansies below old-fashioned small-paned windows reminded him of the weird-cozy esthetic of a wildly popular painter whose name he could never recall. There was a VISITOR INFORMATION sign alongside a flagstone pathway that extended from the parking area to the cottage door.