Madeleine was at the den door, and her tone was an unmistakable call to action.
He closed his laptop and followed her out through the kitchen to the French doors. She pointed down past the low pasture to the area between the barn and the pond. He saw what he hadn’t expected to see for at least another day or two—a van with a satellite dish on the roof and a RAM News logo on the side. Two figures in hooded parkas were standing in front of it.
The one with the camera raised it to eye level and began a slow pan around the property. The other figure lowered her parka hood, revealing a mass of blond hair. The camera operator completed the panning shot and aimed the camera at her. She made a sweeping movement of her arm up toward the house. She appeared to be speaking to the camera.
Madeleine’s lips tightened. “Are you going to tell them to get off our property, or shall I do it?” She sounded eager to accept the second option.
“Not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’d like that.”
“Like being told to get lost?”
“They’d be happy to engage with either one of us on video. Ideally, they’d like me to answer questions about Blackmore Mountain, but they’d settle for a shouting match over their right to be here, the people’s right to know, et cetera—any contentious dispute they could play back on their so-called news program. These people don’t deliver information, they deliver conflict. That’s what they sell to their brain-dead audience. Battles boost ratings. A trip that doesn’t generate a fight is a zero for them. So that what we’ll give them—zero.”
It was obvious from Madeleine’s body language that zero conflict in this situation was not appealing.
Gurney added, “Their next move will be to come up to the house to badger us into responding. I’ll lock the doors and we’ll go upstairs.”
He watched as the blond reporter and her cameraman began to make their way awkwardly up through the snow-covered pasture.
“That’s it?” said Madeleine. “We let them have the run of our property, pound on our doors, do whatever?”
Gurney let out a small sigh. “However frustrating it may be for us, it’ll be more frustrating for them. Trust me.”
Madeleine waited while he secured the doors. After a final glare at the intruders approaching the house, she followed him upstairs.
Soon the door-knocking began, growing more insistent as the pair moved from the side door to the French doors and on to the door at the rear of the house. As she progressed from door to door, the reporter’s shouted challenges increased in insinuation and hostility.
“Mr. Gurney, we’re from RAM News. Please come to the door.”
“We have important questions for you. It would be in your interest to answer them.”
“Come to the door. This is of vital importance.”
“This is about your role in the Blackmore shooting.”
“It’s your chance to tell your side of the story.”
“What were you doing on that mountain road?”
“How long did you know the victim?”
“Did you shoot him? Now’s your chance to set the record straight.”
“Is it true you had a grudge against Sonny Lerman?”
“Are you being paid by Ziko Slade?”
“Are you the missing link between the two Lerman murders?”
“Why are you getting special treatment?”
During the onslaught, Madeleine decided to give the RAM invaders her own aggressively nonchalant response. She discreetly opened one of the second floor windows and began playing a lively Bach cello piece.
The effect of the baroque melody was both powerful and comical—the music of beauty, precision, and light, floating above the discordant merchants of conflict. There was a fierce satisfaction in Madeleine’s smile as she wielded her bow like a sword.
When Gurney watched the frustrated RAM pair finally heading down to their van through the slippery pasture, he had a pleasant feeling of victory. But the victory, he suspected, was fleeting.
35
A THROBBING HEADACHE DROVE HIM TO BED SHORTLY after dinner, and he had a restless night—the headache rising and receding in waves. Several times he was on the verge of abandoning sleep altogether, but simple inertia kept him in bed. Once, as he was drifting into unconsciousness, the image of a huge green snake with red eyes jerked him awake.
Sleep finally overtook him at dawn. The longed-for oblivion was shattered by the ringing of his phone, which turned out to be either a wrong number or bad joke. An anxious voice asked if the veterinarian had anything to kill lice on a parrot.
As he was putting the phone back on the nightstand, hoping for another hour or two of sleep, it rang again. This time it was Emma Martin, her voice full of anxiety.
“Are you alright, David?”
“More or less.”
“Thank God! What happened?”
“How much do you already know?”
“Just what I heard a minute ago on the Albany news station—that there was a collision and shooting on Blackmore Mountain. I wasn’t paying much attention, then I heard your name mentioned, along with Sonny Lerman’s. What on earth happened?”
“Good question. All I know for sure is that I was rammed off the road and whacked on the head. While I was unconscious, someone apparently shot Lerman and arranged the scene to put me in the frame for his murder.”
“Dear God! I’m so sorry, David! How badly were you injured?”
“Concussion, some strained muscles. Physically, no big deal.”
“Legally, it sounds like a very big deal. You should have an attorney, a good one. Whatever it costs, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather deal with this myself.”
“You think this is related to your investigation of the Slade case?”
“Yes.”
“Then drop it. I didn’t intend for you to be in any danger.”
“I appreciate that. But I don’t walk away from things like this. Besides, a violent effort to stop me tells me I’m making progress.”
He could hear a sigh of resignation. “Please be careful. And let me know the minute you need anything.”
Sure now that getting back to sleep would be impossible, he rose cautiously from the bed, noting with relief that his headache was gone. He showered, shaved, dressed, and went out to the kitchen, where he found a note from Madeleine taped to the coffee machine.
Early shift at the Crisis Center. Gerry Mirkle picked me up. Home by 3-ish. Stay in bed! Get some REST!
Rest was the last thing he wanted. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee he checked the supply of feed and water in the coop, let the hens into the fenced run, and set out in the rental car for Blackmore Mountain.
The squalls of the previous two days had passed, leaving alternating swaths of windblown snow on the farm fields—pure white under a shockingly blue sky. When he reached the mountain road, flashes of morning sun through the trees added to the brilliance of the world around him. The light made everything look so different, he was almost past the site of the “incident” before he recognized it.
He stopped for a closer look. A stump about twenty feet from the pavement with crushed wood fibers and shredded bark at bumper height assured him that this was indeed the place. Trying to align his memories, shrouded in swirling snow, with this sun-streaked scene was disorienting.
He drove on until he spotted the point on the left side of the road where the satellite photo showed a dirt lane leading into a pine thicket. As he slowed before making the turn, he heard the harsh revving of an engine from somewhere farther up the lane. He came to a stop, and a few seconds later a car came racing down the toward the road.