The clock on his nightstand read 8:10 a.m. He needed to get moving if he was going to get to the Franciscan Sanctuary by eleven, considering that it might take him an extra half hour to scramble over that snow-covered hill to get to his car. He noted that the shotgun, which Madeleine had been keeping propped up each night by her side of the bed, was gone.
He showered, shaved, dressed, and strapped on his shoulder-holstered Glock. He found Madeleine at the breakfast table with a bowl of oatmeal and one of her books. She didn’t look up. The shotgun rested on a spare chair between her and the French doors. He went to the kitchen window to see if the unmarked car was still by the barn. It wasn’t, but that didn’t mean much. It might be on the other side of the barn or down on the town road. He made himself a cup of coffee, two fried eggs, and a slice of whole-wheat toast. When he brought these things to the table, Madeleine closed her book and carried her bowl to the sink island.
“I have a meeting this morning over near Winston,” he said. “I should be back in the early afternoon.”
Drying her hands on a dish towel, she responded only with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you working today?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“With Gerry?”
“Yes.”
“All day?”
“Yes.”
She folded the dish towel neatly and left the room.
GURNEY’S HIKE OVER the slippery hill to his car took all of the half hour he allotted. Along the way he checked on the condition of his tent. It was secure and weathertight. He hated the idea of being on the run, but maintaining his freedom was an absolute necessity.
He managed to back the car out of its hiding place with only a few traction-losing moments on the icy ground. The remainder of the trip was uneventful. Frequent checking of his rearview mirror didn’t reveal any followers.
When the car’s GPS made its “destination on right” announcement, he found himself next to an open gate in a fieldstone wall. A bronze plaque on the wall bore the words FRANCISCAN SANCTUARY. A sign beneath it said VISITORS WELCOME 6:00 A.M. TO 6:00 P.M. The gateway led to a driveway in far better condition than the rural road outside it.
He followed the driveway through a woodland of beeches that were still clinging to their autumn-gold leaves. The driveway brought him to a brick manor house in the middle of a parklike clearing, part of which was devoted to a modest parking lot. He spotted Adrienne standing next to an aging Subaru Forester. He pulled into a spot next to her.
She was wearing shapeless jeans, a down jacket, and a woolly stretch hat pulled down over her ears. There were splotches of red on her face and her ungloved hands.
“I apologize,” she said as he got out of his car, “I forgot how far this is from Walnut Crossing.”
“No problem, Adrienne.”
“You must be wondering why I chose this place.”
“You said you came here as a child.”
She nodded. “With my father and Sonny, when things were . . . less complicated. Do you mind walking while we talk?”
She led the way out of the parking area to one of several paths into the beech forest. The foliage above them was thin, and the path was bathed in late-morning sunlight.“We came here once a month. Lenny only had us the first Sunday of every month—that was the divorce arrangement. He brought us here to see the animals.”
“The animals?”
“Abandoned pets. That’s what this place is all about. A thousand acres with huge enclosures, not like a typical animal shelter with little cages. The big house by the parking lot—that’s where some of the dogs and cats live, the ones that don’t like being outside. And there are lots of volunteers to take care of them—feed them, walk them, talk to them.”
Her voice was wistful. “When we came here, it was like we were a happy family.”
“You lived the rest of the time with your mother?”
“And her endless series of abusive boyfriends. I hated them all.”
She fell silent, lost in the past.
“What was Lenny like back then?” asked Gurney.
“As I think about it now, just a younger version of what he turned out to be in later years. There was always a gap, an emotional separation, between him and Sonny. Dad was always trying to impress Sonny. A grown man, trying to get the approval of an eight-year-old. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
It was a statement, not a question. Gurney waited for her to go on.
“But Dad was always just a kid himself, an insecure kid trying to be accepted, trying to find a place in the world. Or maybe not so much a place in the world as a place in other people’s hearts.” She sighed. “He just never figured out how to make it happen.”
“You think the blackmail money he hoped to end up with was part of that?”
“It’s the only way it makes sense. And I’m pretty sure that’s what all his gangster talk was all about. Lenny confused impressing people with making them like him. He had it in his head that if he sounded important, if he had the cars, the money . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Are you suggesting he made up that talk about having a mob connection?”
“Apparently that was true enough, according to Great-Aunt Angelica. She was close to Lenny’s father, my grandfather. One night after he drank too much he told her about a distant cousin of theirs, someone she’d never heard of before, who killed people for money. Money he then ‘invested’ in high-ranking cops and politicians, so he was never arrested for anything, or even investigated.”
“Did your grandfather tell your great-aunt his name?”
“Only that he used so many false names, no one knew the real one. My grandfather called him the Viper.”
“Can you get in touch with your grandfather?”
She shook her head. “He passed away years ago.”
“And you never heard Lenny or Sonny refer to him by any actual name?”
“No.”
“So,” said Gurney, summing up the situation. “An anonymous professional killer with corrupt enablers in high places. Known as the Viper.”
Adrienne nodded nervously. “That’s the part that gives me gooseflesh.”
“That nickname?”
“The reason for it. It’s the creepiest thing Great-Aunt Angelica remembers my grandfather telling her. The man collected dangerous snakes. And used them to kill people.”
55
AFTER ADRIENNE DEPARTED IN HER FORESTER, GURNEY settled down on a bench on the sunny side of the big house to review what she’d told him.
Great-Aunt Angelica’s report of a Lerman connection to a hit man with a snake fetish felt substantive. It struck Gurney as far more than a coincidence that he’d received two warnings involving snakes—the decapitated rabbit on which Barstow found snake DNA and the fanged surprise in the jam basket. If Angelica’s story was to be believed, the individual who was trying to stop the reexamination of Lenny Lerman’s murder was a professional killer with a blood link to the victim.
What still remained in darkness was what actually happened at Slade’s lodge—specifically, who killed Lenny and what it had to do with Ziko Slade. Was it possible that the shadowy Lerman relative had enlisted Lenny as a cat’s-paw in a blackmail scheme that went off the tracks?
The only thing Gurney knew for sure was that he needed to know more. More about Lenny, more about the hit man with the snake fetish, more about Ziko Slade, and more about what connected them all—and whether that connection led to the shooting death of Lenny’s son on Blackmore Mountain.