“Come over here.” Madeleine got up and pointed through the French doors. “Out there, just beyond the patio, between the birdbath and the apple tree.”
Madeleine opened one of the doors for her, and Jane walked quickly out over the snow-covered ground, the phone at her ear, seemingly oblivious to the cold. Madeleine closed the door with a little shiver, went to the mud room, and a minute later was out by the apple tree handing Jane her jacket.
Hardwick flashed a fierce grin. “Love that wild trunk bit. So what do you think, Sherlock? Is the doctor a manic-depressive saint with paranoid delusions? Or is everything we just heard a total crock of shit?”
CHAPTER 6
Jane was still out under the apple tree, engaged in a visibly stressful phone conversation, when Madeleine rejoined the two men at the table.
Hardwick eyed her concerned expression. “The hell’s going on out there?”
“I’m not sure. I may have misheard what Jane was saying, but I got the impression her brother was telling her that he’s being followed.”
Gurney’s face reflected his discomfort. He spoke as much to himself as to Madeleine and Hardwick. “And his solution to all this is not to hire a lawyer or a private security firm, but just dump it all on his big sister?”
The sky was clouding over. Gusts of wind were pressing Jane’s loose-fitting pants against her legs, but she showed no awareness of the cold.
He turned to Hardwick. “What’s her real agenda here?”
“Bottom line? She wants you to come to Wolf Lake and find out why those people committed suicide after visiting the lodge. Naturally, she wants you to discover a reason that has nothing to do with the fact that all four of them were hypnotized by her brother.”
Madeleine, from whom Gurney expected an immediate objection to this proposed Adirondack diversion from their Vermont getaway, said nothing. She was staring, not out at Jane Hammond in the field, but into her own thoughts, with a troubled look in her eyes. It was a look he didn’t immediately recognize. A look that in some subtle way discouraged questioning.
“Problem is, Jack, day after tomorrow Maddie and I are on our way up to northern Vermont. The Tall Pines Inn. It’s not something we’d want to cancel or postpone at this point.”
“Wouldn’t dream of asking you to cancel anything vital to the health and happiness of your marriage.” Hardwick winked at Madeleine, who was still in a world of her own. He was speaking in that jokey way of his that drove Gurney up a wall—it created such a sharp echo of the way his own father viewed everything after a few drinks. “I’m sure there’s another solution, ace. Think positively and the path will reveal itself.”
Gurney was about to tell him to stuff the supercilious tone when he heard the side door open. Jane came through the hallway into the kitchen, still wearing her jacket, her hair windblown. Her obvious distress got Madeleine’s attention.
“Jane? Is your brother all right?”
“He’s talking about people spying on him, hacking into his computer. I think the police are trying to drive him crazy, make him have a mental breakdown.”
Seemingly energized by her brother’s problems, she struck Gurney as the classic codependent. He knew that the irony of that sort of relationship is that the “fixer” would be made redundant by any lasting fix. Only by maintaining the long-term weakness of her dependent can she remain relevant. He wondered how closely Jane Hammond fit the model. “Were you getting the sense that these observations of his were . . . realistic?”
“Realistic?”
“You told us your brother suffers from exaggerated fears.”
“That’s different. That’s about things he sometimes imagines. This is about things he’s actually seeing. He isn’t psychotic, for God’s sake! He doesn’t see things that aren’t there!”
“Of course not,” Madeleine intervened. “David is just curious about the meaning Richard is giving to what he’s seeing.”
Jane looked at Gurney. “The meaning?”
“A car behind you on the road might be following you,” he explained. “On the other hand, it might just be behind you on the road. I’m sure your brother is seeing what he’s seeing, I’m just wondering about his interpretation of it.”
“I can’t answer your question. I don’t know enough about what’s happening. But that’s the whole point, don’t you see? That’s why I need you. You and Jack. I have no idea why those four people committed suicide. I have no idea what the facts are. I just know they’re not what the police say they are. But getting to the truth—that’s what you’re so good at.”
Gurney stole a glance at Madeleine to see how she was reacting to this plea for his involvement, but her expression revealed nothing.
Jane went on. “If you came up to Wolf Lake and met with Richard and asked him the right questions, I bet you could figure out what’s real and what isn’t. That’s what good detectives do, right? And according to Jack, you’re the best. Will you do it?”
He sat back in his chair and studied her expression, the hope enlivening her eyes. He answered with a question of his own: “Who actually runs the lodge?”
“That would be Austen Steckle, the general manager. He’s in charge of everything up there, especially since Ethan’s death, but even before that. Ethan relied on him totally.” She paused. “Austen’s kind of a tough character, but I have to say he’s been very fair to Richard. And he’s gone out of his way to protect him from the media vultures. The minute Fenton went public with his crazy accusations, reporters were besieging the place. Austen brought in private security for the first week, had reporters arrested for trespassing and harassment. Word got around, and they stopped trying to sneak onto the estate.”
“You mentioned that Ethan has a surviving brother? Is he active in the business?”
“Peyton? He’s on the property, but that’s about it. He’s no use to anyone.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Who knows? Even the best family can produce a bad seed.”
Gurney nodded his vague agreement. “You mentioned Peyton is in his late twenties?”
“Twenty-eight or twenty-nine, I think. Around the same age as Austen. But in terms of energy, focus, and smarts, they’re from different planets.”
“Any other siblings?”
“None surviving. Ethan and Peyton were originally the oldest and youngest of five children. The three middle ones were killed along with their father when his private plane went down in a thunderstorm. Their mother had a breakdown that led to her suicide two years later. That happened when Ethan was twenty-one and Peyton was in his mid teens. The tragedy just magnified the differences between them. It didn’t help that Ethan was appointed Peyton’s legal guardian.”
“When you mentioned ‘bad seed’ . . .?”
“Peyton has been a source of endless problems. As a kid it was stealing, lying, bullying. Then it became an endless succession of crazy girlfriends—hookers, to be brutally honest—disgusting behavior, gambling, drugs, you name it.”
“He lives at Wolf Lake?”
“Unfortunately.”
Gurney glanced at Hardwick for his reaction, but the man was flipping through screens on his smartphone.
Jane looked at Gurney pleadingly. “Will you at least come and talk to Richard, maybe have a look around?”
“If he’s opposed to getting outside help, won’t he refuse to see me?”