She interrupted him, her voice rising. “So, you have to keep digging. And digging. And digging. Regardless of the consequences. Is that it?”
“I don’t see an alternative.”
“The alternative is to stop. Just stop!”
“Turning my back on the case now would be the most dangerous thing I could do.”
She nodded in slow motion, a gesture that conveyed more anger than agreement, then returned abruptly to the bedroom.
AT 9:55 THAT morning, Gurney pulled into the parking area in front of Cory’s Auto Supply.
Since the $16.19 store charge on Lerman’s Visa bill would have included an 8 percent sales tax, he did a quick calculation to determine what the tag price would be on whatever Lerman had purchased. The number he arrived at was $14.99.
He got out of the car, steadying himself against the door as a sudden pain ran from the base of his skull into his shoulder—an unsubtle reminder that he should be wearing a neck brace. Once the sharp edge of the pain dulled, he entered the store. Passing among the racks of motor oil, antifreeze, windshield wipers, floor mats, tool kits, gas additives, car waxes, and cleaning solutions, he arrived at the sales counter, behind which a large gray-haired man was eyeing him with the fixed smile of a minister greeting a new congregant.
“What can I help you with on this fine day?”
“Do you stock gasoline containers?”
The man pointed. “There, against the far wall.”
Gurney found two kinds on display—old-fashioned round metal ones and the currently more popular red plastic ones, both in five-gallon sizes. He picked up a plastic one, checked the sticker, and with the distinct little rush of an expectation satisfied, saw a price of $14.99.
He took it to the man at the counter and asked how long he’d been selling that particular item.
“Years.”
“At this same price?”
“Same price as the big auto supply chains. Don’t make any profit on it, but it’s the only way we can stay in business. Somewhere along the line, this country of ours made a wrong turn. We don’t even know who the hell is calling the shots. The Chinese? Who the hell knows?”
Gurney paid for the gas container, took it out to his car, and placed a call to Kyra Barstow.
“David?”
Knowing her as well as he did, he wasn’t surprised to find her at work the day after Thanksgiving. “Quick question. Do you have the digital files from which Stryker printed out the crime scene photos she used at the Slade trial?”
“Not in front of me, but I can access them. Why?”
“Among the photo printouts that Thorne sent me there were some of the quarry where Lerman’s Corolla was incinerated. A red plastic gas container was visible in the corner of one of them. I assume that you or one of your people brought it in for forensic examination?”
“Of course. But there were no prints on it, and Stryker lost interest in it.”
“Do you remember if you retained it, or passed it on to Rexton PD?”
“I’ll have to check. Where are we going with this?”
“I’m wondering, if you still have it, could you take a few quick photos from various angles and send them to my phone?”
She laughed. “I assume you mean now?”
“Now would be good.”
“You haven’t told me why.”
“I’m pretty sure the purchase Lerman made at the auto supply store was a five-gallon gas container. The price is consistent with the charge on his Visa statement, and his gas purchase a few minutes later is consistent with the size of the container. I know that neither of those facts prove anything, but if it turns out that the container you found in the quarry matches the one sold at that store—”
Barstow interrupted him, her tone incredulous. “You’re suggesting that Lerman bought the gas used to incinerate his own car? Why on earth would he do that?”
“I have no idea. This case just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” she said and ended the call.
Gurney detected a sense of urgency, perhaps even excitement, in her voice.
There was one more thing he wanted to check on before leaving the area. He got out of the car and walked across the street to the dingy store behind the gas pumps. Entering it, he discovered that it wasn’t really a store in any normal sense of the word. It was just a dusty room with a row of vending machines lined up against three of the walls, offering candy bars, chips, and canned sodas. A tattooed teenage attendant with green hair sat in a corner of the room, holding a phone in both hands.
Gurney went back across the road to his car, feeling doubly sure now that Lerman’s Visa charge at the station was indeed for gas, there being nothing else in that place that he could have spent $14.57 on. Encouraged by a feeling that progress was being made, he decided to continue on to the site of Lerman’s peculiar one-minute roadside stop.
He checked the printout of Lerman’s route, noted the coordinates of that stop, entered them as a destination point in his GPS, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed north into the Adirondacks.
Over the next hour and quarter, as the elevation rose, the temperature fell. The readout on his dashboard was down to 18°F by the time his GPS told him he had arrived at his destination—a cleared area off the right side of the road, just large enough for a plow truck or salt spreader to turn around. He pulled over and got out of the car, zipping his jacket up to his chin.
He studied his surroundings—a typical Adirondack forest of giant evergreens. The ground beneath them covered with a thick blanket of brown needles. Patches of ice here and there. Piney smell in the air. Dead silence. His hope that the location might reveal Lerman’s reason for stopping there was rapidly fading. He was about to give it up when something caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed it at first because of the pine needles covering everything, but there appeared to be a narrow lane leading from the edge of the clearing into the woods. Moving closer, he saw that it was just wide enough for the passage of a car. He wasn’t about to take a chance on getting his rental vehicle stuck in the woods, but he was curious enough to proceed on foot.
He soon discovered a much larger clearing, consisting mainly of a granite quarry. A brief exploration revealed that it was the same one where Lerman’s Corolla had been reduced to a burnt-out hulk. He made his way to the point where the site photos showed the remains of the car. A blackened area on the gray stone confirmed the location. He spent another twenty minutes going over the site before returning to his car.
He started the engine, got the heater going, and tried to make sense of the situation. Surely it wasn’t just a coincidence that Lerman stopped by a lane that led to the place where his car would later be burned. But why?
As he struggled to come up with even one slightly plausible explanation, his phone announced the arrival of a text. It was from Kyra Barstow, and it was accompanied by four close-up photos of a red plastic gas container.
The container Gurney purchased was on the seat next to him. He turned it carefully to match each of the angles in Barstow’s photos. The comparisons convinced him that the item stocked by Cory’s Auto Supply was identical to the one found at the scene of the car fire. It produced that familiar little surge of satisfaction he felt whenever a pair of puzzle pieces snapped together.
But it didn’t last. The satisfaction was replaced by bafflement. Why would Lenny Lerman, on the verge of attempting to extort a small fortune from Ziko Slade, bring a container of gasoline with him? Had he intended to kill Slade and torch the lodge, once he’d gotten the money? And, then, when the plan went awry, was the gasoline conveniently used by Lenny’s killer to destroy the Corolla? That scenario was conceivable, but it seemed unlikely. Nothing Gurney had learned about Lenny supported the idea that his naive blackmail scheme would include premeditated murder and arson. Greedy and foolish he might well have been, but icy and ruthless didn’t seem to fit.