He remembered his five messages.
The first was from the gallery in Ithaca.
“David, it’s Sonya. We need to talk about your project. Nothing bad, all good, but we need to talk very, very soon. I’ll be at the gallery until six this evening, or you can call me later at home.”
The second was from Randy Clamm, and he sounded excited.
“Tried you at your cell phone, but it seems to be dead. We found some letters in the Rudden house we’d like you to look at-see if they look familiar. Seems Al was getting some weird little poems in the mail he didn’t want his wife to see. Had them hidden in the bottom of his toolbox. Give me a number, and I’ll fax them. Appreciate it.”
The third was from Jack Hardwick at BCI, his supercilious attitude running amok.
“Hey, Sherlock, word is out that your guy has a couple more notches on his gun. You were probably too busy to give your old buddy a heads-up. I was, for one crazy moment, tempted to think that it was below the dignity of Mr. Sherlock Fucking Gurney to place a call to the humble Jack Hardwick. But of course that’s not the kind of guy you are, right? Shame on me! Just to show you there’s no hard feelings, I’m calling to give you a heads-up on a get-together being planned for tomorrow-a BCI progress report on the Mellery case, including a discussion of how recent events in the Bronx and in Sotherton should affect the direction of the investigation. Captain Rod will be hosting this clusterfuck. DA Kline is being invited, and he in turn will no doubt invite you. I just thought you’d like to know in advance. After all, what are friends for?”
The fourth message was the predicted call from Kline. It was not especially “invitational.” The energy in his voice had curdled into agitation.
“Gurney, what the hell’s the matter with your cell phone? We tried to reach you directly, then through the Sotherton police. They told me you left Sotherton two and a half hours ago. They also told me we are now dealing with murder number three by the same individual. That’s an important fact, wouldn’t you say? Something you should have called me about? We need to talk ASAP. Decisions have to be made, and we need every available piece of information. There’s a meeting at BCI tomorrow noon. That’s a priority. Call me as soon as you get this!”
The final message was from Mike Gowacki.
“Just wanted you to know, we dug a slug out of that hole in the kitchen wall. A.38 like you said. Also, one more little discovery after you left. We were checking the mailbox for any more of them red-ink love notes, and we found a dead fish. In the mailbox. You didn’t mention a dead fish being part of the MO. Let me know if it means anything. I’m no psychologist, but I’d say our perp is a definite wacko. That’s it for now. I’m going home to get some sleep.”
A fish?
He went back out to the kitchen-to the breakfast table, to take another look at Madeleine’s note.
“Went to 9 AM yoga. Back before storm. 5 messages. Was the fish a flounder?”
Why would she ask that? He checked the time on the old Regulator clock over the sideboard. Nine-thirty. Seemed more like dawn, the light coming in the French doors was such a chilly gray. Back before storm. It did look like it was about to do something, probably snow, hopefully not freezing rain. So she’d be home by ten-thirty, maybe ten if she got to worrying about the roads. Then he could ask about the flounder. Madeleine wasn’t a worrier, but she had a thing about slippery roads.
He was going back to the den to return his calls when it struck him. The location of the first murder was the town of Peony, and the killer left a peony by the body of the second victim. The location of the second murder was the little Bronx enclave of Flounder Beach, making Madeleine’s guess about the fish at the third crime scene characteristically insightful and almost certainly right.
His first callback was to Sotherton. The desk sergeant put him through to Gowacki’s voice mail. He left two requests: for confirmation that the fish was a flounder and for ballistics photos so they could confirm that the slugs in Kartch’s wall and in Mellery’s wall came from the same gun. He didn’t have much doubt on either point, but certainty was a holy thing.
Then he called Kline.
Kline was in court that morning. Ellen Rackoff reiterated the DA’s complaints, scolding Gurney about the difficulty they’d had reaching him and his failure to keep them informed. She told him he’d better not miss the big meeting the following noon at BCI. But even into this lecture she managed to breathe an erotic undertone. Gurney wondered if his lack of sleep might be making him a little crazy.
He called Randy Clamm, thanked him for the update, and gave him a number at the DA’s office to fax Rudden’s letters, plus a number at BCI so a set could go to Rodriguez. Then he filled him in on the Richard Kartch situation, including the flounder connection and the fact that an alcohol element was now obvious in all three cases.
As for Sonya’s call, that could wait. He was in no great rush to call Hardwick, either. His mind kept jumping to the following day’s meeting at BCI. Not jumping there with joy-far from it. He hated meetings in general. His mind worked best alone. Groupthink made him want to leave the room. And his hasty poetic grenade tossing was making him uncomfortable about this meeting in particular. He didn’t like having secrets.
He sank down in the soft leather armchair in the corner of the den to organize the key facts of the three cases, figure out what overall hypothesis they best supported, and how to test it. But his sleep-deprived brain would not cooperate. He closed his eyes, and all semblance of linear thought dissolved. How long he sat there he wasn’t sure, but when he opened his eyes, heavily falling snow had begun whitening the landscape, and in the singular stillness he could hear a car far down the road, coming closer. He pushed himself up out of the chair and went to the kitchen, arriving at the window in time to see Madeleine’s car disappearing behind the barn at the end of the public road, presumably to check their mailbox. A minute later the phone rang. He picked up the extension on the kitchen counter.
“Good-you’re there. Do you know if the mailman has been here yet?”
“Madeleine?”
“I’m down by the box. I have something to mail, but if he’s been here already, I’ll drop it off in town.”
“Actually, it was Rhonda, and she was here a while ago.”
“Damn. All right, no matter, I’ll deal with it later.”
Slowly her car emerged from behind the barn and turned up the pasture road to the house.
She entered through the side door of the kitchen with the strained look that driving in snow put on her face. Then she noted the very different look on his face.
“What’s up?”
Engrossed in a thought that had occurred to him during her call from the mailbox, it wasn’t until she’d taken off her coat and shoes that he answered.
“I think I just figured something out.”
“Good!” She smiled and awaited the details, shaking snowflakes out of her hair.
“The number mystery-the second one. I know how he did it-or how he could have done it.”
“The second one was?”
“The one with the number nineteen, the one Mellery recorded. I showed you the letter.”
“I remember.”
“The killer asked Mellery to think of a number and then to whisper it to him.”
“Why did he ask him to whisper? By the way, that clock is wrong,” she said, looking up at the Regulator.
He stared at her.
“Sorry,” she said lightly. “Go on.”
“I think he asked him to whisper because it added an odd element to the request that would lead him further from the truth than a simple ‘Tell me the number.’”
“I don’t follow you.”
“The killer had no idea what number Mellery had in mind. The only way to find out was to ask him. He was just trying to blow some smoke around that issue.”