As Gurney was heading up the path, the door opened and a woman who seemed not to notice him emerged onto a broad stone step. She was casually dressed, as if for some light gardening, a notion underscored by a small pruning scissors in her hand.
Gurney guessed her age to be mid-fifties. Her most noticeable feature was her hair, which was pure white and arranged in a short layered style, ending in choppy little points around her forehead and cheeks. He recalled his mother having that hairdo when it was first fashionable in his childhood. He even recalled its name: the artichoke. That word in turn produced a fleeting feeling of unease.
The woman glanced with surprise at Gurney. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you drive up. I was just coming out to take care of a few things. I’m Paulette Purley. How can I help you?”
During his drive to Long Falls, Gurney had considered various ways of answering questions about his visit and had decided on an approach that he labeled in his own mind “minimal honesty”—which meant telling enough of the truth to avoid being caught in a lie, but telling it in a way to avoid setting off unnecessary alarms.
“I’m not sure yet.” He smiled innocently. “Would it be all right for me to take a stroll around the grounds?”
Her unremarkable hazel eyes seemed to be appraising him. “Have you been here before?”
“This is my first visit. But I do have a satellite map I printed out from Google.”
A cloud of skepticism crossed her face. “Wait just a moment.” She turned and went into the cottage. A few seconds later she returned with a colorful brochure. “Just in case your Google thing isn’t entirely clear, this may be useful.” She paused. “May I direct you to the resting place of a specific friend or relative?”
“No. But thank you. It’s such a lovely day, I think I’d prefer to find my own way.”
She cast a worried look at the sky, which was half blue, half clouds. “They’ve been talking about the possibility of rain. If you’d tell me the name—”
“You’re very kind,” he said, backing away, “but I’ll be fine.” He retreated to the small parking area and saw on the opposite side of it a flagstone pathway passing under a rose-covered trellis beside which a sign read PEDESTRIAN ENTRANCE. As he walked through it, he glanced back. Paulette Purley was still standing in front of the cottage, watching him with a look of anxious curiosity.
It didn’t take Gurney long to realize what Hardwick had meant when he referred to Willow Rest as “seriously peculiar.” The place bore little resemblance to any cemetery he’d ever seen. Yet there also was something familiar about it. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.
The basic layout consisted of a gently curving cobblestone lane that paralleled the low brick wall surrounding the property. Smaller lanes branched from it in toward the center of the cemetery grounds at regular intervals amid a profusion of lush rhododendrons, lilacs, and hemlocks. These lanes had offshoots of still smaller lanes, each of which terminated like a driveway at a mowed grassy area the size of a small backyard, separated from its neighbors by rows of waist-high spireas and beds of daylilies. In each of the grassy areas he entered, there were several marble grave markers, flush with the ground. In addition to the name of the interred, each marker bore only a single date instead of the traditional birth and death dates.
Next to each “driveway” was a plain black mailbox with a family name stenciled on the side. He opened a few of the mailboxes as he made his way along the lanes, but found nothing in any of them. About twenty minutes into his exploration, he came upon a mailbox that bore the name Spalter. It marked the entrance to the largest of the plots he’d encountered so far. The plot occupied what seemed to be one of the higher points in Willow Rest, a gentle rise from which the narrow river was visible beyond the perimeter wall. Beyond the river was the state highway that bisected Long Falls. On the far side of the highway a block of three-story apartment buildings faced the cemetery.
Chapter 13. Death in Long Falls
Gurney was already familiar with the basic topography, structures, angles, and distances. All of that had been documented in the case file. But actually seeing the building, and then pinpointing the window, from which the fatal bullet was fired—fired toward the area where he was now standing—had a jarring effect. It was the effect of reality colliding with preconception. It was an experience he’d had at countless crime scenes. That gap between the mental picture and the actual sensory impact was what made being there so important.
A physical crime scene was concrete and unfiltered in a way that no photo or description ever could be. It held answers you could find if you looked with open eyes and an open mind. If you looked carefully, it could tell you a story. It gave you, quite literally, a place to stand, a place from which you could survey the real possibilities.
After conducting a preliminary 360-degree examination of his general surroundings, Gurney focused on the details of the Spalter plot itself. More than twice the size of the next largest he’d come upon, he estimated the dimensions of the central mowed area as fifty by seventy feet. A low border of well-kept rosebushes surrounded it.
He counted eight flat marble grave markers lying just below the height of the grass, arranged in rows that allocated a space of approximately six feet by twelve feet for each burial. The earliest date, 1899, appeared on marker that bore the name Emmerling Spalter. The most recent date, 1970, was on a marker that bore the name Carl Spalter. The edges of the letters on the glossy surface of the marble were distinctly sharp and freshly carved. But obviously the date was not of his death. His birth, then? Probably.
As Gurney gazed down at the marker he saw that it was next to one for Mary Spalter, the mother at whose funeral Carl had been fatally wounded. On the other side of Mary Spalter’s grave was a marker bearing the name Joseph Spalter. Father and mother and murdered son. A peculiar family gathering, in this thoroughly peculiar cemetery. Father and mother and murdered son—the son who hoped to be governor—all reduced to nothing at all.
As he was pondering the sad smallness of human lives, he heard a low mechanical hum behind him. He turned to see an electric golf cart coming to a silent stop at the rose border of the Spalter plot. The driver was Paulette Purley, smiling inquisitively.
“Hello, again, Mr.…? Sorry, but I don’t know your name.”
“Dave Gurney.”
“Hello, Dave.” She stepped out of the cart. “I was about to make my rounds when I noticed those rain clouds getting closer.” She gestured vaguely toward some gray clouds in the west. “I thought you might need an umbrella. You don’t want to be out here in a downpour without one.” As she was speaking, she took a bright blue umbrella from the floor of the cart and brought it to him. “Getting wet is fine if you’re swimming, but otherwise not so pleasant.”
He took the umbrella, thanked her, and waited for her to segue to her real purpose, which he was sure had nothing to do with keeping him dry.
“Just drop it off at the cottage on your way out.” She started back to the cart, then stopped as though another thought had just occurred to her. “Were you able to find your way all right?”
“Yes, I was. Of course, this particular plot would—”
“Property,” she interjected.
“Beg pardon?”
“At Willow Rest we prefer not to use the vocabulary of cemeteries. We offer ‘properties’ to families, not depressing little ‘plots.’ I take it you’re not a member of the family?”