Shut Your Eyes Tight

by John Verdon

  Chapter 27

  A lot to think about

  Gurney didn’t know what to make of it. On the drive home that afternoon, he was having a hell of a time staying focused on anything.

  The “art world” was not a place he knew anything about, other than suspecting that it was populated by people as different from policemen as parrots were from rottweilers. The brief dip of his toe into the water a year earlier with his mug-shot portraits had not exposed him to much of that world beyond the university-town gallery scene—not exactly the playground of eccentric billionaire collectors. Not the sort of place where a dress designer’s chair would sell for twenty-eight million dollars. Or where a mystery celebrity by the unlikely name of Jay Jykynstyl would offer to buy a computer-manipulated picture of a serial killer for a hundred thousand dollars.

  On top of that—the rather fantastical business deal she was placing in his lap—the lubricious Sonya herself had never seemed more available. She’d even hinted that she might rent a room at the Galloping Duck, which was also an inn, if she ended up drinking too much at lunch to drive legally. Walking away from that not-especially-subtle invitation had demanded a level of integrity he wasn’t sure at first that he had. But maybe integrity was too big a word for it. The simple truth was that he’d never lied to Madeleine, and he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of starting now.

  Then he wondered if he were honestly walking away from Sonya’s invitation or simply postponing his acceptance. He had agreed to meet the wealthy and weird Mr. Jykynstyl over dinner that coming Saturday in Manhattan and listen to the full details of his offer—which, if legitimate, would be hard to refuse—with Sonya acting as a broker between them for whatever sales might follow. So it wasn’t as though he were barring her from his life. Quite the opposite.

  The whole thing was bouncing around in his head with an unpleasant sort of energy. He tried to focus his mind on the Perry case, instead, recognizing as he did so the irony of trying to calm himself by sorting through that monstrous can of worms.

  His racing mind eventually reached the stage of natural collapse, and the result was that he came close to killing himself by falling asleep at the wheel and was saved only by a series of small potholes on the highway shoulder that jolted him back into full consciousness. A few miles farther along, he pulled off at a gas station, bought a container of muddy coffee whose bitter edge he attempted to soften with an excess of milk and sugar. The taste still made him grimace.

  Back in his car, he took out a master list of names and phone numbers he’d compiled from the Perry case file and placed calls first to Scott Ashton and then to Withrow Perry, getting voice mail each time. His message to Ashton was a request for a return call to discuss a new line of inquiry. His message to Perry was a request for a meeting at the busy neurosurgeon’s earliest convenience, with a small hook at the end: “Remind me to ask about your Weatherby rifle.”

  As soon as he broke the connection, the phone rang.

  “Dave, it’s Val. I want you to go to a meeting.”

  “What meeting?”

  She explained that she’d called Sheridan Kline, the county DA, and told him everything Gurney had told her.

  “Like what, for example?”

  “Like the fact that the whole thing is a lot deeper than the cops think it is, that it’s got roots, maybe some kind of twisted revenge, that Hector Flores probably isn’t Hector Flores at all, and if they’re searching for some kind of illegal Mexican—which they are—they’re never going to find him. I told him they’re wasting everybody’s time, and they’re a pack of fucking idiots.”

  “That’s the term you used? Fucking idiots?”

  “In four months they haven’t caught on to half of what you saw in two days. So yeah, I called them fucking idiots. Which is what they are.”

  “You sure do know how to toss a brick into a hornet’s nest.”

  “If that’s what it takes, so be it.”

  “What did Kline say?”

  “Kline? Kline’s a politician. My husband—let me correct that, my husband’s money—has some influence in New York State politics. So DA Kline expressed interest in hearing about any alternative approaches to the case. He also seems to know you pretty well, asked how come you were involved. I said you were consulting. Stupid word, but it satisfied him.”

  “You said something about a meeting.”

  “His office tomorrow at three P.M. You, him, and someone from the state police—he didn’t say who. You’ll be there, right?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He got out of the car to toss his coffee container into a trash barrel by the gas pumps. An ancient orange Farmall tractor was chugging past pulling an overflowing hay wagon. Smells of hay, manure, and diesel oil blended in the air. When he returned to the car, his phone was ringing again.

  It was Ashton. “What new line of inquiry?” he asked, quoting Gurney’s message.

  “I need some names from you: classmates of Jillian, going back to when she first came to Mapleshade; also, her counselors, therapists, anyone who dealt with her on a regular basis. It would also be helpful to have a list of possible enemies—anyone who might have wanted to harm you or Jillian.”

  “I’m afraid you’re marching into a blind alley. I can’t give you any of the things you’re asking for.”

  “Not even a list of classmates? Names of staff members she may have spoken to?”

  “Perhaps I haven’t adequately explained Mapleshade’s policy of absolute privacy. We maintain only the minimum academic records the state requires, and we maintain them for not one day longer than the regulations stipulate. We are not legally mandated, for example, to retain the names and addresses of former staff beyond the periods specified for tax purposes, and therefore we do not. We maintain no records of ‘diagnoses’ or ‘treatments,’ because officially we provide neither. Our policy is to disclose nothing to anyone, and we will allow Mapleshade to be shut down by the state before we will violate that policy. Our students and their families trust us in a way few other facilities are trusted, and we hold that unique trust to be inviolable.”

  “Eloquent speech,” said Gurney.

  “One I’ve made before,” admitted Ashton, “and will probably make again.”

  “So even if a list of students Jillian knew or staff members in whom she may have confided could help us find her killer, that would make no difference to you?”

  “If you wish to put it that way.”

  “Suppose giving us those lists could save your own life. Would that make a difference?”

  “None.”

  “Doesn’t the teacup incident bother you?”

  “Not nearly so much as dealing a fatal blow to Mapleshade. If that covers all your questions …?”

  “How about enemies outside the school?”

  “For Jillian, I imagine there might be quite a few, but I have no names.”

  “And for you?”

  “Academic competitors, professional enviers, ego-bruised patients, fools not gladly suffered—perhaps a few score souls in all.”

  “Any names you’d be willing to share?”

  “Afraid not. Now I must move on to my next meeting.”

  “You have a lot of meetings.”

  “Good-bye, Detective.”

  Gurney’s phone didn’t ring again until he was passing through Dillweed, pulling over in front of Abelard’s, thinking he might get a decent cup of coffee to wash the taste of the awful one out of his mouth.

  The name of the caller made him smile.

  “Detective Gurney, this is Agatha Smart, Dr. Perry’s assistant. You’re requesting an appointment, as well as information about Dr. Perry’s hunting rifle. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. I was wondering how soon I could—”

  She interrupted. “You may submit your questions in writing. The doctor will decide if an appointment is warranted.”

  “I’m not sure if I made this clear in the message I left, but this is part of th
e inquiry into the murder of his stepdaughter.”

  “We realize that, Detective. As I said, you may submit your questions in writing. Would you like the address?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Gurney, struggling to suppress his irritation. “It all comes down to one very simple question. Can he say for sure where his rifle was on the afternoon of May seventeenth?”

  “As I said before, Detective—”

  “Just pass the question along, Ms. Smart. Thank you.”

  Chapter 28

  A different perspective

  He almost missed seeing her.

  As he approached the point where the narrow dirt-and-gravel road reached his property and faded into the grassy farm track that rose through the pasture to the house, a red-tailed hawk took wing from the top of a tall hemlock on his left and flew over the road and over the pond. As he watched the rising bird disappear above the far treetops, he glimpsed Madeleine sitting on a weathered bench at the pond’s edge, half hidden by a clump of cattails. He stopped the car by the old red barn, got out, and waved.

  She responded with what seemed to be a small smile. He couldn’t be sure at that distance. He wanted to talk to her, felt he needed to talk to her. As he followed the curving path around the grassy margin of the pond to the bench, he began to feel the stillness of the place. “Okay if I sit with you for a bit?”

  She nodded gently, as if a larger response would disturb the peace.

  He sat and gazed out over the quiet surface of the pond, seeing in it the upside-down reflection of the sugar maples on the opposite side, some of their leaves turning toward muted versions of their autumn colors. He looked at her and was overcome by the strange notion that the tranquillity in her at that moment was not the product of her surroundings but that, in some fantastical reversal, her surroundings were absorbing that very quality from a reservoir within her. He’d had that idea about her before, but that part of his mind that scorned the sentimental had always brushed it aside.

  “I need your help,” he heard himself saying, “to sort out some things.” When she didn’t answer, he went on, “I’ve had a confusing day. More than confusing.”

  She gave him one of those looks of hers that either communicated a great deal—in this instance that a confusing day would be a predictable result of getting involved in the Perry case—or that simply presented him with a blank slate on which his uneasy mind might write that message.

  In any event he kept talking. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so overloaded. You found the note I left for you this morning?”

  “About meeting your friend from Ithaca?”

  “She’s not what I would call a friend.”

  “Your ‘adviser’?”

  He resisted an urge to debate the terminology, to defend his innocence. “The Reynolds Gallery has been approached by a wealthy art collector who’s interested in the mug-shot art portraits I was doing last year.”

  Madeleine raised a mocking eyebrow at his substituting the name of the business for the name of the person.

  He went on, dropping his bombshell calmly. “He’ll give me a hundred thousand dollars each for unique one-off prints.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Sonya insists the guy is serious.”

  “What mental hospital did he escape from?”

  There was a loud splash on the far side of the cattail clump. She smiled. “Big one.”

  “You’re talking about a frog?”

  “Sorry.”

  Gurney closed his eyes, more annoyed than he’d be willing to admit at Madeleine’s apparent disinterest in his windfall. “From what I know of the art world, it’s pretty much one giant mental hospital, but some of the patients have an awful lot of money. Apparently this guy is one of them.”

  “What is it he wants for his hundred thousand dollars?”

  “A print that only he would own. I’d have to take the prints I did last year, enhance them somehow, introduce a variation into each one that would make it different from anything the gallery sold to anyone else.”

  “He’s for real?”

  “So I’m told. I’m also told he may want more than one. Sonya’s imagining the possibility of a seven-figure sale.” He turned to see Madeleine’s reaction.

  “Seven-figure sale? You mean some amount over a million dollars?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, my, that’s … certainly something.”

  He stared at her. “Are you purposely trying to show as little reaction to this as possible?”

  “What reaction should I have?”

  “More curiosity? Happiness? Some thoughts about what we could do with a chunk of money that size?”

  She frowned thoughtfully, then grinned. “We could spend a month in Tuscany.”

  “That’s what you’d do with a million dollars?”

  “What million dollars?”

  “Seven figures, remember?”

  “I heard that part. What I’m missing is the part where it becomes real.”

  “According to Sonya, it’s real right now. I have a dinner meeting Saturday in the city with the collector, Jay Jykynstyl.”

  “In the city?”

  “You make it sound like I’m meeting him in a sewer.”

  “What does he ‘collect’?”

  “No idea. Apparently stuff he pays a lot for.”

  “You find it credible that he wants to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars for fancied-up mug shots of low-life scum? Do you even know who he is?”

  “I’ll find out Saturday.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?”

  To the extent that he was capable of perceiving his own emotional tone and rhythm, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but he wasn’t ready to admit it. “What’s your point?”

  “You’re good at poking holes in things. Nobody better at it than you.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t you? You can rip anything to shreds—‘an eye for discrepancy,’ you once called it. Well, if anything ever cried out for a little poking and ripping, this sounds like it. How come you’re not doing it?”

  “Maybe I’m waiting to find out more, find out how real it is, get a sense of who this Jykynstyl character is.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” She said this in such a reasonable way that he knew she meant the opposite. “By the way, what kind of name is that?”

  “Jykynstyl? Sounds Dutch to me.”

  She smiled. “Sounds to me like a monster in a fairy tale.”

  Chapter 29

  Among the missing

  While Madeleine was creating a shrimp-and-pasta combination for dinner, Gurney was in the basement going through old copies of the Sunday Times that were being saved for a gardening project. (One of Madeleine’s friends had gotten her interested in a type of garden bed in which newspapers were used to create layers of mulch.) He was searching the magazine sections of the paper for the advertising spread he remembered seeing that featured the provocative photograph of Jillian. What he was ultimately looking for was the company name and photo credit. He was about to give up and call Ashton for the information when he found the most recent insertion of the ad—which he noted had appeared, by macabre coincidence, on the day of the murder.

  Instead of just making a note of the credit line, “Karnala Fashion, Photo by Alessandro,” he decided to bring the magazine section upstairs. He laid it open on the table where Madeleine was setting their dinner plates. Apart from the credit line, there was only one sentence on the page, in very small, fashionably understated type: “Custom-designed wardrobes, starting at $100,000.”

  She scowled at it. “What’s that?”

  “An ad for expensive clothes. Insanely expensive. It’s also a picture of the victim.”

  “The vic—You don’t mean …?”

  “Jillian Perry.”

  “The bride?”

  “The bride.”

  Madeleine looked closely at the ad.

  �
�The two images in the photo are both of her,” Gurney explained.

  Madeleine nodded quickly, meaning that this had already occurred to her. “That’s what she did for a living?”

  “I don’t know yet whether it was a job or an occasional thing. When I first saw the photo hanging in Scott Ashton’s house, I was too amazed to ask.”

  “He has that hanging in his home? He’s a widower, and that’s the picture he …” She shook her head, her voice fading.

  “He talks about her the same way her mother talks about her—like she was some kind of uniquely brilliant, sick, seductive maniac. The thing of it is, the whole damn case is like that. Everyone connected with it is either a genius or a lunatic or … a pathological liar or … I don’t know what. Christ, Ashton’s next-door neighbor, whose wife presumably ran off with the murderer, is playing with a Lionel train set under a Christmas tree in his basement. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so goddamn adrift. It’s like the trail—the scent trail the K-9 team was able to follow that led to the murder weapon in the woods, but it didn’t go any farther, which suggests that the killer went back to the cottage and hid there—except there’s no place in the cottage to hide. One minute I think I know what’s going on, the next minute I realize I have no evidence at all for what I think. We have lots of interesting scenarios, but when you look under them, there’s nothing there.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we need to come up with hard data, firsthand observations by credible witnesses. So far none of the narratives has any verifiable facts to support it. It’s too damn easy to get carried away by a good story. You can get so emotionally invested in a certain view of the case that you don’t notice it’s all wishful thinking. Let’s eat. Maybe food will help my brain.”

  Madeleine put a large bowl of shrimp and pappardelle with a tomato-and-garlic sauce in the middle of the table, along with small bowls of shredded asiago and chopped basil, and they began eating.