“But wasn’t the number mentioned in a letter the killer had already left in Mellery’s mailbox?”
“Yes and no. Yes, the number was mentioned in the letter Mellery found in the box a few minutes later, but no, it wasn’t already in the box. In fact, the letter hadn’t been printed yet.”
“You lost me.”
“Suppose the killer had one of those mini printers attached to his laptop, with the text of the letter to Mellery complete except for the right number. And suppose the killer was sitting in his car by Mellery’s mailbox on that dark country road that runs past the institute. He calls Mellery on his cell phone-like you just called me from our mailbox-persuades him to think of a number and then ‘whisper’ it, and the instant Mellery says the number, the killer enters it in the letter text and hits the print button. Half a minute later, he sticks the letter in an envelope, pops it in the mailbox, and drives off-creating the impression that he’s a diabolical mind reader.”
“Very clever,” said Madeleine.
“Him or me?”
“Obviously both of you.”
“I think it makes sense. And it makes sense that he recorded traffic noise-to give the impression that he was somewhere other than a quiet country road.”
“Traffic noise?”
“Recorded traffic noise. Smart lab tech at BCI ran a sound-analysis program on the tape Mellery made of the phone call and discovered that there were two background sounds behind the killer’s voice-a car engine and traffic. The engine was first generation-that is, the sound was actually occurring at the same time as the sound of the voice-but the traffic was second generation, meaning that a tape of traffic sounds was being played behind the live voice. Didn’t make sense at first.”
“Now it does,” said Madeleine, “now that you’ve figured it out. Very good.”
He looked closely at her, searching for the sarcasm that so often underlay her comments on his involvement in the case but finding none. She was regarding him with real admiration.
“I mean it,” she said, as if detecting his doubt. “I’m impressed.”
A recollection came to him with surprising poignancy: how frequently she’d once looked at him that way in the early years of their marriage, how wonderful it had been to receive so often in so many ways the loving approval of such a fiercely intelligent woman, how priceless was the bond between them. And there it was again, or at least a delightful hint of it, alive in her eyes. And then she turned a little sideways toward the window, and the gray light dimmed her expression. She cleared her throat.
“By the way, did we ever get a new roof rake? They’re talking about ten to twelve inches of snow before midnight, and I’m not looking forward to another leak in the upstairs closet.”
“Ten to twelve inches?”
He seemed to remember there was an old roof rake in the barn, maybe repairable with enough duct tape…
She uttered a small sigh and headed for the stairs. “I’ll just empty the closet.”
He couldn’t think of anything sensible to say. The phone ringing on the countertop saved him from saying something stupid. He picked it up on the third ring. “Gurney.”
“Detective Gurney, this is Gregory Dermott.” The voice was polite but fraught.
“Yes, Mr. Dermott?”
“Something happened. I want to make sure I’m alerting the proper authorities.”
“Happened?”
“I received a peculiar communication. I think it may be connected to the letters you told me were received by the crime victims. Can I read it to you?”
“First tell me how you got it.”
“How I got it is more disturbing than what it says. God, it makes my skin crawl! It was taped to the outside of my window-my kitchen window next to the little table where I have my breakfast every morning. Do you see what that means?”
“What?”
“It means he was there, right there touching the house, no more than fifty feet from where I was sleeping. And he knew what window to tape it to. That’s what makes it so creepy.”
“What do you mean, what window to tape it to?”
“The window where I sit every morning. That’s no accident-he must know that I have breakfast at that table, which means he’s been watching me.”
“Have you called the police?”
“That’s why I’m calling you now.”
“I mean your local police.”
“I know what you mean. Yes, I did call them-they’re just not taking the situation seriously. I was hoping a call from you might help. Can you do that for me?”
“Tell me what the note says.”
“Just a second. Here it is. Just two lines, written in red ink. ‘Come one, come all. / Now all fools die.’”
“You read this to the police?”
“Yes. I explained there might be a connection to two murders, and they said a detective would be out to see me tomorrow morning, which doesn’t sound to me like they think it’s urgent.”
Gurney weighed the pros and cons of telling him that there were now three murders but decided that the news wouldn’t add anything except more fear, and Dermott sounded like he already had plenty of that.
“What does the message mean to you?”
“Mean?” Dermott’s voice was panicky. “Just what it says. It says that someone is going to die. Now, it says. And the message was delivered to me. That’s what it means, for Godsake! What’s the matter with you people? How many dead bodies does it take to get your attention?”
“Try to stay calm, sir. Do you have the name of the police officer you spoke to?”
Chapter 42
By the time Gurney finished a tough phone conversation with Lieutenant John Nardo, Wycherly PD, he’d received grudging assurance that an officer would be dispatched that afternoon to provide Gregory Dermott with protection, at least temporarily, subject to a final decision by the chief.
The snowstorm, meanwhile, had grown into a swirling blizzard. Gurney had been up for nearly thirty hours and knew that he needed to sleep, but he decided to push himself a little further and put on a pot of coffee. He called upstairs to ask Madeleine if she wanted any. He couldn’t decipher her monosyllabic answer, although he should have known what it would be. He asked again. This time the “No!” was loud and clear-louder and clearer than necessary, he thought.
The snow wasn’t having its customary tranquilizing effect on him. The events in the case were piling up too rapidly, and launching his own poetic missive at the Wycherly post-office box in the hope of it reaching the killer was starting to feel like a mistake. He’d been given a degree of investigative autonomy, but it might not cover such “creative” interventions. As he waited for his coffee to brew, images of the Sotherton crime scene, including the flounder-which he pictured as vividly as if he’d seen it-competed with the note on Dermott’s window for space in his mind. Come one, come all. / Now all fools die.
Searching for a route out of his emotional morass, it occurred to him that he could either repair the fractured roof rake or take a closer look at the “nineteen” business to see if it could lead him anywhere. He chose the latter.
Assuming that the deception had worked the way he believed it had, what conclusions could be drawn? That the killer was clever, imaginative, cool under pressure, playfully sadistic? That he was a control freak, obsessed with making his victims feel helpless? All of the above, but those qualities were already obvious. What wasn’t obvious was why he’d chosen to go about it in that particular way. It dawned on Gurney that the outstanding fact about the “nineteen” trick was that it was a trick. And the effect of the trick was to create an impression that the perpetrator knew the victim well enough to know what he was thinking-without requiring any knowledge of him at all.