“She survived?”
“What? Yeah, yeah, she survived, but just barely. Brain damage.”
“What happened to her?”
“Happened? I think she was put in some kind of nursing home.”
“What about the husband?”
Nardo hesitated. Gurney couldn’t tell whether he was having a hard time remembering or just didn’t want to talk about it. “Claimed self-defense,” he said with evident distaste. “Ended up getting a plea deal. Sentence reduced to time served. Lost his job. Left town. Social services took their kid. End of story.”
Gurney’s antenna, sensitized by a thousand interrogations, told him there was still something missing. He waited, observing Nardo’s discomfort. In the background he could hear an intermittent voice-probably the voice of whoever had answered the phone-but couldn’t make out the words.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s the big deal about that story, that you didn’t just tell me the whole thing to begin with?”
Nardo looked squarely at Gurney. “Jimmy Spinks was a cop.”
The frisson that swept through Gurney’s body brought with it half a dozen urgent questions, but before he could ask any, a square-jawed woman with a sandy crew cut appeared suddenly at the doorway. She wore jeans and a dark polo shirt. A Glock in a quick-draw holster was strapped under her left arm.
“Sir, we just got a call you need to know about.” An unspoken immediately flashed in her eyes.
Looking relieved at the distraction, he gave the newcomer his full attention and waited for her to go on. Instead she glanced uncertainly toward Gurney.
“He’s with us,” said Nardo without pleasure. “Go ahead.”
She gave Gurney a second glance, no friendlier than the first, then advanced to the table and laid a miniature digital phone recorder down in front of Nardo. It was about the size of an iPod.
“It’s all on there, sir.”
He hesitated for a moment, squinting at the device, then pushed a button. The playback began immediately. The quality was excellent.
Gurney recognized the first voice as that of the woman standing in front of him.
“GD Security Systems.” Apparently she’d been instructed to answer Dermott’s phone as though she were an employee.
The second voice was bizarre-and thoroughly familiar to Gurney from the call he’d listened in on at Mark Mellery’s request. It seemed so long ago. Four deaths had intervened between that call and this one-deaths that had shaken his sense of time. Mark in Peony, Albert Rudden in the Bronx, Richard Kartch in Sotherton (Richard Kartch-why did that name always bring with it an uneasy feeling, a feeling of discrepancy?), and Officer Gary Sissek in Wycherly.
There was no mistaking that weirdly shifting pitch and accent.
“If I could hear God, what would He tell me?” the voice asked with the menacing lilt of a horror-movie villain.
“Excuse me?” The female cop on the recording sounded as taken aback as any real receptionist might have been.
The voice repeated, more insistently, “If I could hear God, what would He tell me?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I think we may have a bad connection. Are you using a cell phone?”
Speaking quickly to Nardo, she interjected some live commentary. “I was just trying to prolong the call, like you said, to keep him talking as long as possible.”
Nardo nodded. The recording went on.
“If I could hear God, what would He tell me?”
“I don’t really understand that, sir. Could you explain what you mean?”
The voice, suddenly booming, announced, “God would tell me to kill them all!”
“Sir? I’m pretty confused here. Did you want me to write this message down and pass it along to someone?”
There was a sharp laugh, like cellophane crumpling.
“It’s Judgment Day, no more to say. / Dermott be nimble, Gurney be quick. / The cleanser is coming. Tick-tock-tick.”
Chapter 50
The first to speak was Nardo “That was the whole call?”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned back in his chair and massaged his temples. “No word yet from Chief Meyers?”
“We keep leaving messages at his hotel desk, sir, and on his cell phone. No word yet.”
“I assume the caller’s number was blocked?”
“Yes, sir.”
“‘Kill them all,’ huh?”
“Yes, sir, those were his words. Do you want to hear the recording again?”
Nardo shook his head. “Who do you think he’s referring to?”
“Sir?”
“‘Kill them all.’ All who?”
The female cop seemed to be at a loss. Nardo looked at Gurney.
“Just a guess, Lieutenant, but I’d say it’s either all the remaining people on his hit list-assuming there are any-or all of us here in the house.”
“And what about ‘the cleanser is coming,’” said Nardo. “Why ‘the cleanser’?”
Gurney shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe he just likes the word-fits his pathological notion of what he’s doing.”
Nardo’s features wrinkled in an involuntary expression of distaste. Turning to the female cop, he addressed her for the first time by name. “Pat, I want you outside the house with Big Tommy. Take diagonal corners opposite each other, so together you’ll have every door and window under surveillance. Also, get the word around-I want every officer prepared to converge on this house within one minute of hearing a shot or any kind of disturbance at all. Questions?”
“Are we expecting an armed attack, sir?” She sounded hopeful.
“I wouldn’t say ‘expecting,’ but it’s sure as hell possible.”
“You really think that crazy bastard is still in the area?” There was acetylene fire in her eyes.
“It’s possible. Let Big Tommy know about the perp’s latest call. Stay super alert.”
She nodded and was gone.
Nardo turned grimly to Gurney. “What do you think? Think I ought to call in the cavalry, tell the state cops we got an emergency situation? Or was that phone call a bunch of bullshit?”
“Considering the body count so far, it would be risky to assume it was bullshit.”
“I’m not assuming a freaking thing,” said Nardo, tight-lipped.
The tension in the exchange led to a silence.
It was broken by a hoarse voice calling from upstairs.
“Lieutenant Nardo? Gurney?”
Nardo grimaced as if something were turning sour in his stomach. “Maybe Dermott’s got another recollection he wants to share.” He sank deeper into his chair.
“I’ll look into it,” said Gurney.
He stepped from the room into the hallway. Dermott was standing at his bedroom door at the top of the staircase. He looked impatient, angry, exhausted.
“Could I speak to you… please?” The “please” was not said pleasantly.
Dermott looked too shaky to negotiate the staircase, so Gurney went up. As he did, the thought came to him that this wasn’t really a home, just a place of business with sleeping quarters appended to it. In the city neighborhood where he was raised, it was a common arrangement-shopkeepers living above their shops, like the wretched deli man whose hatred of life seemed to increase with each new customer, or the mob-connected undertaker with his fat wife and four fat children. Just thinking about it made him queasy.