“Was anything else said that’s not actually written here?”
“Well… yes, he did say one other thing. Before he hung up, he asked if I worked at the institute directly for Mr. Mellery. I said yes, I did. Then he said, ‘You might want to look at new job opportunities. I’ve heard that spiritual renewal is a dying industry.’ He laughed. He seemed to think it was very funny. Then he told me to make sure Mr. Mellery got the message right away. That’s why I brought it over from the office.” She shot a worried look at Mellery. “I hope that was okay.”
“Absolutely,” said Mellery, imitating a man in control of a situation.
“Susan, I notice you refer to the caller as ‘he,’” said Gurney. “Does that mean that you’re pretty sure it was a man?”
“I think so.”
“Did he give any indication what time tonight he planned to call?”
“No.”
“Is there anything else you remember, anything at all, no matter how trivial?”
Her brow furrowed a little. “I got a sort of creepy feeling-a feeling that he wasn’t very nice.”
“He sounded angry? Tough? Threatening?”
“No, not that. He was polite, but…”
Gurney waited while she searched for the right words.
“Maybe too polite. Maybe it was the odd voice. I can’t say for sure what gave me the feeling. He scared me.”
After she left to go back to her office in the main building, Mellery stared at the floor between his feet.
“It’s time to go to the police,” said Gurney, picking this moment to make his point.
“The Peony police? God, it sounds like a gay cabaret act.”
Gurney ignored the shaky attempt at humor. “We’re not just dealing with a few crank letters and a phone call. We’re dealing with someone who hates you, who wants to get even with you. You’re in his sights, and he may be about to pull the trigger.”
“X. Arybdis?”
“More likely the inventor of the alias X. Arybdis.”
Gurney proceeded to tell Mellery what he had recalled, with Madeleine’s help, about the deadly Charybdis of Greek myth. Plus the fact that he had been unable to find a record of any X. Arybdis in Connecticut or any adjoining state through any online directory or search engine.
“A whirlpool?” asked Mellery uneasily.
Gurney nodded.
“Jesus,” said Mellery.
“What is it?”
“My worst phobia is about drowning.”
Chapter 12
Mellery stood at the fireplace with a poker, rearranging the burning logs.
“Why would the check come back?” he said, returning to the subject like a tongue to a sore tooth. “The guy seems so precise-Christ, look at the handwriting, like an accountant’s-not a guy who’d get an address wrong. So he did it on purpose. What purpose?” He turned from the fire. “Davey, what the hell is going on?”
“Can I see the note it came back with, the one you read me on the phone?”
Mellery went over to a small Sheraton desk on the other side of the room, carrying the poker with him, not noticing it until he was there. “Christ,” he muttered, looking around in frustration. He found a spot on the wall where he could lean it before taking an envelope from the desk drawer and bringing it to Gurney.
Inside a large outer envelope addressed to Mellery was the envelope Mellery had sent to X. Arybdis at P.O. Box 49449 in Wycherly, and inside that envelope was his personal check for $289.87. In the large outer envelope, there was a sheet of quality stationery with a GD SECURITY SYSTEMS letterhead including a phone number, with the brief typed message that Mellery had read over the phone to Gurney earlier. The letter was signed by Gregory Dermott, with no indication of his title.
“You haven’t spoken to Mr. Dermott?” asked Gurney.
“Why should I? I mean, if it’s the wrong address, it’s the wrong address. What’s it got to do with him?”
“Lord only knows,” said Gurney. “But it would make sense to talk to him. Do you have a phone handy?”
Mellery unclipped the latest-model BlackBerry from his belt and handed it over. Gurney entered the number from the letterhead. After two rings he was connected to a recording: “This is GD Security Systems, Greg Dermott speaking. Leave your name, number, the best time to return your call, and a brief message. You may begin now.” Gurney switched off the phone and passed it back to Mellery.
“Why I’m calling would be hard to explain in a message,” said Gurney. “I’m not your employee or legal representative or a licensed PI, and I’m not the police. Speaking of which, it’s the police you need-right here, right now.”
“But suppose that’s his goal-get me disturbed enough to call the cops, stir up a ruckus, embarrass my guests. Maybe having me call the cops and create a bunch of turmoil is what this sicko wants. Bring the bulls into the china shop and watch everything get smashed.”
“If that’s all he wants,” said Gurney, “be thankful.”
Mellery reacted as if he’d been slapped. “You really think he’s planning to… do something serious?”
“It’s quite possible.”
Mellery nodded slowly, as though the deliberateness of the gesture could keep a lid on his fear.
“I’ll talk to the police,” he said, “but not until we get the phone call tonight from Charybdis, or whatever he calls himself.”
Seeing Gurney’s skepticism, he went on, “Maybe the phone call will clear this thing up, let us know who we’re dealing with, what he wants. We may not have to involve the police after all, and even if we do, we’ll have more to tell them. Either way it makes sense to wait.”
Gurney knew that having the police present to monitor the actual call could be important, but he also knew that no rational argument at this point would budge Mellery. He decided to move on to a tactical detail.
“In the event that Charybdis does call tonight, it would be helpful to record the conversation. Do you have any kind of recording device-even a cassette player-that we could hook up to an extension phone?”
“We’ve got something better,” said Mellery. “All our phones have recording capability. You can record any call just by pushing a button.”
Gurney looked at him curiously.
“You’re wondering why we have such a system? We had a difficult guest a few years back. Some accusations were made, and we found ourselves being harassed by phone calls that were increasingly unhinged. To make a long story short, we were advised to tape the calls.” Something in Gurney’s expression stopped him. “Oh, no, I can see what you’re thinking! Believe me, that mess has nothing to do with what’s happening now. It was resolved long ago.”
“You sure of that?”
“The individual involved is dead. Suicide.”
“Remember the lists I asked you to work on? Lists of relationships involving serious conflicts or accusations?”
“I don’t have a single name I can write down in good conscience.”
“You just mentioned a conflict, at the end of which someone killed him- or herself. You don’t think that qualifies?”
“She was a troubled individual. There was no connection between her dispute with us, which was the product of her imagination, and her suicide.”
“How do you know that?”
“Look, it’s a complicated story. Not all of our guests are poster children for mental health. I’m not going to write down the name of every person who ever expressed a negative feeling in my presence. That’s crazy!”
Gurney leaned back in his chair and gently rubbed his eyes, which were starting to feel dry from the fire.
When Mellery spoke again, his voice seemed to come from a different place inside himself, a less guarded place. “There’s a word you used when you were describing the lists. You said I should write down the names of people with whom I had ‘unresolved’ problems. Well, I’ve been telling myself that the conflicts of the past have all been resolved. Maybe they haven’t. Maybe by ‘resolved’ I just mean I don’t think about them anymore.” He shook his head. “God, Davey, what’s the point of these lists, anyway? No offense, but what if some muscle-headed cop starts knocking on doors, stirring up old resentments? Christ! Did you ever feel the ground slipping from under your feet?”