Madeleine raised a curious eyebrow. “You did agree to have lunch with him.”
“To find out why he wanted to have lunch with me.”
“And now you know.”
“Now I know—unless his agenda is more twisted than I realize.”
She gave him one of her searching looks, and a silence fell between them.
“Oh, by the way,” he said as he was finishing his coffee, “I crossed paths with Walter Thrasher at the crime scene in White River last night. He said he’d drop by around five today to talk about our archaeology project.”
“What is there to talk about?”
Gurney realized he hadn’t shared Thrasher’s phone message with her. “He’s done some research on the objects I found. His comments have been rather strange. I’m hoping he’ll clarify the situation this afternoon.”
Madeleine’s silence eloquently conveyed her hostility to the project.
Thinking of Thrasher reminded him of the Jackson-Creel apartment. Madeleine reacted to the look on his face.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Just . . . a little jolt from last night. I’m fine.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
He didn’t want to, but he’d learned over the years that describing something that was disturbing him loosened its grip on his mind. So he told her the story, beginning with his discovery on the hospital personnel list that Blaze Jackson and Chalise Creel shared an address and ending with the scene in the apartment—the decomposing bodies, the propofol hypodermics, the money, and the fingerprint link to Dell Beckert.
She smiled. “You must feel good about that.”
“About what?” There was sourness in his voice.
“Being right about Beckert. You were uncomfortable with him from the beginning. And now you’ve amassed all this evidence of his involvement in . . . how many murders?”
“At least four. Six, if he killed those two women. Seven, if he set up Judd Turlock.”
“If it wasn’t for you, that Payne boy would probably be in jail.”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. A good defense lawyer would have seen that the evidence against him was a setup. As for the evidence against Beckert, we got lucky out at the gun club.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit. You’re the one who decided to go there and check it out. You’re the one who turned the whole case around. You’re the one who’s gotten to the truth.”
“We’ve had some luck. Recoverable bullets. Clean ballistics. Clear evidence that—”
She interrupted him. “You don’t sound very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
“And you sound like you’re talking to one of your clients at the clinic.”
She sighed. “I’m just wondering why you don’t feel better about the progress you’ve made.”
“I’ll feel better when it’s all over.”
Thrasher arrived at five twenty, negotiating the uneven lane up through the pasture with obvious care in his pristine Audi. After getting out of the car he stood for a few moments surveying the surrounding landscape, then came over to the open French doors.
“Damned construction workers on the interstate, busily doing nothing except impeding traffic,” he said as Gurney let him in.
From his position in the breakfast nook he looked around the big farmhouse kitchen with an appraising eye. His gaze lingered on the fireplace at the far end. “Nice old mantel. Chestnut. Unique color. Style of the hearth appears to be early eighteen hundreds. You research the provenance of the house when you bought it?”
“No. Do you think there’s some connection between this house and—”
“The remains of the house down by the pond? Lord, no. That predates this by more than a hundred years.” He put his briefcase down on the dining table.
Madeleine, who’d been upstairs practicing a Bach piece on her cello, came in from the hallway.
Gurney introduced her.
“Asparagus,” said Thrasher. “Wise choice.”
“Excuse me?”
“I noticed your asparagus bed out there. Only vegetable worth the trouble of growing at home. Freshness. Huge difference.” He glanced around again. “Might be a good idea to have a seat.”
“How about right here,” suggested Gurney, gesturing to the chairs at the table. He added, “We’re eager to find out what this is all about.”
“Good. I’m hoping your interest will survive the answer.”
With curious frowns, Gurney and Madeleine took seats next to each other at the table.
Thrasher remained standing on the opposite side. “First, a bit of background. As you know, my vocation is forensic pathology, with a focus on determining the causes of untimely death. My avocation, however, is the examination of northeastern Colonial life, with a focus on its darker aspects, particularly the malignant synergy of slavery and psychopathology. I’m sure you’re aware that slavery was not an exclusively Southern phenomenon. In Colonial New York City in seventeen hundred, nearly half the households owned at least one slave. Chattel slavery—the buying and selling of human beings over whom the owner had absolute control—was widely accepted.”
“We’re aware of the history,” said Madeleine.
“A glaring defect of history as it is commonly taught is that the events of an era are often seen acting upon one another in only very large terms—for example, the interaction between advances in mechanization and the movement of populations to manufacturing centers. We read about these interactions and think we’re grasping the essence of an age. Or we read about slavery in the context of agricultural economics and we think we understand it—when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s possible to read a dozen books about it and never feel the horror of it—never even glimpse the malignant synergy I mentioned a moment ago.”
“What synergy?” asked Madeleine.
“The appalling ways in which some of society’s ills combine with others.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I wrote an article on the subject last year for a journal of cultural psychology. The title was ‘Victims for Sale: Torture, Sexual Abuse, and Serial Murder in Colonial America.’ I’m working on another right now—detailing the confluence of psychopathic disorders and a legal system that permitted one person to own another.”
“What does this have to do with us?”
“I’m coming to that. The average American’s image of Colonial America doesn’t run much deeper than stolid-looking Pilgrims in big black hats, happy Indians, brotherly love, religious freedom, and occasional hardship. Colonial reality, of course, was something else entirely. Filth, fear, starvation, ignorance, disease, superstition, the practice of witchcraft and the torture and hanging of witches, heresy trials, cruel punishments, banishments, absurd medical practices, pain and death everywhere. And of course, all the major mental disorders and predatory behaviors—all rampant, all misunderstood. Psychopaths who—”
Madeleine broke in impatiently. “Dr. Thrasher . . .”
He ignored the interruption. “The convergence of two great ills. The desire of the psychopath to exert total control over another person—to use, to abuse, to kill. Imagine that urge combined with the institution of slavery—a system that enabled the easy purchase of potential victims at a public market. Men, women, and children for sale. Objects to be employed at the owner’s pleasure. Human beings with hardly any more rights than farm animals. Human beings with virtually no effective legal protection against constant rape, and worse. Men, women, and children whose deaths, accidental or intentional, few authorities would bother to seriously investigate.”
“Enough!” said Madeleine. “I asked you a question. What does this have to do with us?”