“You look great, David. You ready?”
“Yes.”
“Keep that stern edge on your voice. It’s perfect. Okay, this is it.”
She paused, then spoke in a dramatic newscaster’s voice. “Good evening! We open tonight’s edition of Controversial Perspectives with a bombshell interview with former NYPD detective, Dave Gurney. Gurney has declared war not only on the official version of the Slade murder case, but on DA Cam Stryker herself, who in our last interview described him as a ‘wanted’ man. So, let’s get right to it! Detective Gurney, welcome to Controversial Perspectives.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve made it clear you have no faith in the DA’s investigation of Lenny Lerman’s murder, so you’ve been conducting your own. What have you discovered?”
“So far, four key facts. One, Lerman had inoperable brain cancer with less than a month to live, which opens the case to other interpretations. Two, his diary entries, accepted at face value by the DA, may have been intentionally deceptive. Three, the DA seems hell-bent on blaming the prison death of Ziko Slade on suicide, even though the people closest to him insist he was murdered. Four, the original Lerman investigation team screwed up repeatedly. They missed the significance of Lerman’s decapitation; they used his unreliable diary to give Slade a motive for murder; and they’ve closed their eyes to events that point to a cover-up—such as repeated attempts to stop my own investigation.”
“Wow! That’s quite an indictment of law enforcement! But I have to ask—why would they hang on to a theory that’s as weak as you say it is?”
“Ineptitude. Ambition. Desperation.”
“Desperation?”
“A desperate fear of their mistakes being exposed. Mistakes make lousy rungs on the promotion ladder.”
“Okay, Detective Gurney, one final question. How close do you think you are to identifying the criminal mastermind behind it all?”
“Very close. But ‘criminal mastermind’ is not the right description.”
“Give me a better one.”
“A pathetic homicidal psycho who’s about to be taken down.”
GURNEY KEPT REASSURING himself that what he’d said was purely a tactical assault, designed to provoke the perp into a selfidentifying reaction. But he didn’t entirely believe it. There was too much adrenaline in the experience, too great an illusion of power.
Still, it was a defendable approach. Similar approaches in other investigations had paid off. The feelings that went along with it were arguably the natural accompaniments of any aggressive initiative. He resolved to stop thinking about it.
He went to the kitchen and made himself some coffee. Striving for a sense of normalcy, he brought his cup to the dining room table and took down the tablecloth drapes covering the windows. The late morning sun was high enough in the sky to brighten the room, eliminating the need for interior lights and the fishbowl feeling that came with them.
He was just about to take his first sip of coffee when his sense of normalcy was ended by a glimpse of movement in the woods beyond the clearing. He put down his cup and sat very still, peering out into the hemlocks. Again, a slight movement, little more than a shadow a bit darker than the shadows around it, appearing and disappearing.
He slowly pushed himself back from the table, went to the front room, and put on his jacket, but not his gloves. He could handle the Glock better without them. He knew from his previous visit that at the rear of the kitchen there was a short hallway that led to a pantry and a back door—which seemed a safer exit than the more exposed front door. He walked quickly into the woods behind the tool shed and made his way toward the general area where he had spotted the possible intruder.
The forest was cold and silent. The dark mass of evergreen branches blocked the sun that had brightened the clearing, and the ice underfoot made walking tricky. Stopping every few yards to listen, he realized he was getting close to the scene of Lenny Lerman’s murder.
Soon he caught sight of the giant pine that served as a forest landmark for Lerman’s temporary grave.
Holding the Glock in a ready-to-fire grip, he moved slowly forward.
As he got closer to the gravesite, he noticed some odd little protrusions on its icy surface.
Moving still closer, gooseflesh crept up his back at the dawning recognition of what he was looking at.
Ten fingers, sticking up out of the ground like frozen claws.
69
BACK IN THE LODGE, GURNEY RETREATED TO HIS BEDROOM with his Glock, phone, and laptop. Under normal circumstances, he’d call Rexton PD or the nearest state police barracks, report what he’d found, and lead the responders to the site, but these circumstances were far from normal. Announcing his location to law enforcement could result in his being detained immediately at the request of Cam Stryker. With police involvement off the table, his next option would have been to call Jack Hardwick, but just the thought of that now brought a rush of guilt and fear.
He thought about the interview Sam Smollett had recorded with him that morning and wondered if he should call her back with news of his grotesque discovery, but he decided to leave well enough alone. Thinking of the interview reminded him that he’d meant to call Madeleine and alert her to the elevated risk level his verbal attack on the perp might create.
He was afraid she wouldn’t pick up, but she did.
“It’s me,” he said, the affectionate familiarity of it striking an odd note. “I wanted to alert you to something—warn you, actually.” He paused.
She remained silent.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion there’s only one way to end this case—and that’s to knock the enemy out of his comfort zone.”
“You’ve identified the enemy?”
“Not yet. Anonymity is part of the perp’s comfort zone—being able to pull the strings from the shadows, feel powerful, feel in control. So I decided to hit that comfort zone with a wrecking ball—to create rage and force errors.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I gave an interview to RAM that will air tonight. The interview is the wrecking ball, and the reaction may be explosive. I assume I’ll be the target of that reaction, but it might be a good idea for you to request police protection.”
She said nothing.
He added, “Poking a sharp stick into a bear’s den is not my favorite form of research, but sometimes it’s the only way to get a look at the bear.”
“You mean, it’s the only way you can think of—and since your thinking is so far superior to everyone else’s, it stands to reason that your way is the best way. You never question whether your goal makes any sense to begin with—or whether you have the right to expose other people to the fallout from your obsessions.”
He bit his lip to stifle the urge to defend himself. “I didn’t call to argue. I just wanted to let you know about a possibly dangerous situation and to suggest that you might want to ask the sheriff’s department for temporary protection.”
“I appreciate your concern.” Her flat tone made the words meaningless.
After a few seconds of silence, she ended the call.
He stood motionless in the middle of the bedroom, more baffled than ever by his once close relationship with this woman. Was that relationship actually with her, or was it with his idea of her? Where had that idea come from? Was it based on something real in her? Or was it an artifact of what he needed her to be? Had he, like his childhood self, been sitting in a make-believe boat with a make-believe companion?