“Sad but true. There were stories about crazy things—wait, hold on, Jack just came in.”
He heard the phone switching hands, then Hardwick’s rough voice.
“I’m blowing up goddamn groundhog burrows. Little bastards are undermining the house. The fuck do you want, Gurney?”
“Whatever you know or can find out about Ziko Slade and Leonard Lerman.”
He uttered a snorting little laugh. “According to my TV, Lerman is dead and headless, and Slade’s doing thirty-to-life in an upstate shitcan.”
“I’ve been asked to look into the situation. I just met with Slade, but I’m not sure who the hell is living in his body.”
“I had the impression the case was a slam-dunk.”
“You know who the prosecutor was?”
“Not a clue.”
“Cam Stryker. The murder took place in Rexton Township, other end of the same county as Harrow Hill, so the same district attorney.”
“Does she know you’re screwing around with her case?”
“Not unless she’s keeping tabs on the visitor log at Attica.”
“This poking around you’re up to—what’s the endgame?”
“The person who asked me to look into it is sure the case was flawed and that the verdict should be reversed.”
“Suppose you come up with something that turns Stryker’s golden victory to shit. Result number one is you turn Stryker into a lifelong enemy. Where’s the fucking advantage in that?”
“I haven’t given much thought to the personal implications. All I want to know at this point is whether the case against Slade was as solid as it looks. Facts—that’s all I want. Especially ones that didn’t make it into the trial record. I figured with your upstate law-enforcement contacts you might be able to unearth something.”
“You getting paid for this?”
“No payment has been mentioned.”
“Davey-boy, you must be out of your goddamn mind. Besides, I can’t focus on this in the middle of my groundhog situation. One fucking battle at a time. I’ll be in touch.”
As usual, Hardwick disconnected first.
Gurney gave little thought to Cam Stryker’s potential reaction to his investigation. There was another matter of greater interest on his mind: Exactly how strong was the supposedly unassailable physical evidence? Marcus Thorne took a few potshots at it during the trial, but wasn’t willing to subject it to rigorous questioning—perhaps because he knew that the answers would make the defense position even weaker. In Gurney’s mind, however, the actual strength of the physical evidence remained an issue worth looking at more closely. The question was how.
Gurney purchased an overpriced bottle of water from the convenience store, then set out again for home—with the evidence issue very much on his mind.
His thoughts on the subject, however, were interrupted from time to time by glimpses in his rearview mirror of a dark nondescript car on the otherwise traffic-free country road. He first noticed it shortly before his stop. When the car reappeared, trailing him at the same distance, mile after mile, he paid closer attention.
His rational mind told him there was nothing to be concerned about. The car behind him now might not be the same car from before—and even if it was, there could be any number of innocent explanations. But an uneasy feeling persisted, and when he was about twenty miles from Walnut Crossing, he pulled off the road into a gravelly turnaround area used by the county snowplows in the winter.
Less than half a minute later, a dark blue sedan sped past. In the early dusk, all he could see of the driver, who was staring straight ahead, was a shaved head and a thick neck. On the door he noted the circular gold insignia of the New York State Department of Corrections. The car was out of sight before he could get a clear view of the plate number.
15
DUSK HAD DARKENED INTO MOONLESS NIGHT BY THE time Gurney reached the top of the hillside road that ended at his barn. From there, a grassy lane led up to the house through the lower of two unused pastures.
As he passed the barn, he saw a light shining through the window of the back room where he kept his tools. His initial inclination was to continue driving up to the house and come down the next morning to turn off the light. But he hadn’t used that room for several days, and Madeleine never used it—making the light a bit of a mystery.
He backed the car up, got out with a flashlight, and made his way to the door on the far side of the building, shivering in the frigid air. The door was unlocked, which surprised him. He stepped inside, sweeping the flashlight beam around the barn’s large open area, then proceeded to the door of the back room.
Pushing it open, he saw nothing unusual, beyond the light being on. His tools were in their normal places, the dust on the workbench was undisturbed, the paint cans and brushes were as he’d left them. He was about to leave when he noticed the window wasn’t completely closed. He couldn’t remember whether it was open or shut the last time he’d used the room. He shut the window, switched off the light, and secured the barn’s outer door, then got back in his car.
As he parked by the asparagus bed, it occurred to him that the barn light probably wouldn’t have bothered him if he hadn’t noticed it right after his experience with the Corrections Department car. He chalked it up as another example of the fact that the mind is basically a connection machine, with a special affinity for connecting oddities.
Before making his way to the house, he checked on the chickens, making sure they had enough food and water, and closed the little door between the coop and the run. When he finally entered the house, he sensed that peculiar atmosphere of emptiness when Madeleine was out. Her absence was confirmed by a note on the refrigerator door:
In case you forgot, I’m at Liz’s house for our poetry discussion group. Have you called Kyle yet about Thanksgiving?
He resolved to get in touch with Kyle later and made himself an omelet. While he ate, his mind kept returning to the increasingly strange Ziko Slade affair. As soon as he finished eating, he took his dishes to the sink, went into the den, and called Emma Martin.
“Hello, David.” Her tone revealed no hint of surprise at hearing from him.
“There are a few things I’d like to resolve, and I was wondering if I could get hold of the evidentiary material Cam Stryker provided to Marcus Thorne during the pretrial discovery process.”
“I’ll call Thorne and tell him to rush you whatever he has.”
“It’s not all that super-urgent.”
“I disagree. If there’s a chance of getting Ziko out of prison, timing could make all the difference. I’m sure his fellow inmates view him as a privileged brat who killed a poor man to protect his wealth. One of them may try to even the score.”
After finishing with Emma, Gurney made himself a cup of coffee and called Kyle.
It went to voicemail, and he left a message: “Hi, Kyle. It’s Dad. Long time since we’ve seen you, or even talked on the phone. Maddie and I were wondering if you might be free for Thanksgiving. Be great if you could join us. Let me know. Hope all is well. Love you.”
He took his coffee to the table by the French doors and tried to relax, letting his mind drift through the events of his day. Out of the jumble of conversations and perceptions, the item that rose to the surface was the conundrum of Lerman’s severed head and fingers. Not only the question of why they’d been removed, but what had been done with them. Had they been discreetly discarded? Or retained by the killer? He couldn’t help picturing them in the freezer in some madman’s basement. And two hours later, when he was too tired to think clearly and finally went to bed, that was the image that troubled his sleep.