by John Verdon
Gurney thought it had the ring of a carefully constructed speech polished by repetition, yet the emotion in it seemed real enough. Kale’s arch tone and mannerisms had been replaced, at least temporarily, by a stiff and righteous anger.
Then, into the open silence that followed the diatribe, from the flute in the other room flowed the haunting melody of “Danny Boy.”
It assaulted Gurney slowly, debilitatingly, like the opening of a grave. He thought he would have to excuse himself, find a pretext for abandoning the interview, flee the premises. Fifteen years, and still the song was unbearable. But then the flute stopped. He sat, hardly breathing, like a shell-shocked soldier awaiting the resumption of distant artillery.
“Is something wrong?” Kale was eyeing him curiously.
Gurney’s first impulse was to lie, hide the wound. But then he thought, why? The truth was the truth. It was what it was. He said, “I had a son by that name.”
Kale looked baffled. “What name?”
“Danny.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The flute … It … it doesn’t matter. An old memory. Sorry for the interruption. You were describing the … the transition from one type of clientele to another.”
Kale frowned. “Transition—such a benign term for so massive a dislocation.”
“But the school continues to be successful?”
Kale’s smile sparkled like glare ice. “There’s money to be made in housing the demented offspring of guilty parents. The more terrifying they are, the more their parents will pay to get rid of them.”
“Regardless of whether they get any better?”
Kale’s laugh was as cold as his smile. “Let me be perfectly clear about this, Detective, so that I leave no doubt in your mind what we’re talking about. If you were to discover that your twelve-year-old has been raping five-year-olds, you might be willing to pay anything for that lunatic child of yours to disappear for a few years.”
“That’s who’s sent to Mapleshade?”
“Precisely.”
“Like Jillian Perry?”
Kale’s expression moved through a small series of tics and frowns. “Mentioning individual student names in a context like this puts us on the edge of a legal minefield. I don’t feel that I can give you a specific answer.”
“I already have reliable descriptions of Jillian’s behavior. I only mention her because the timing raises a question. Wasn’t she sent to Mapleshade before Dr. Ashton altered the school’s focus?”
“That’s true. However, without saying anything one way or the other about the Perry girl, I can tell you that Mapleshade traditionally accepted students with a wide range of problems, and there were always a few who were far sicker than the others. What Ashton did was focus Mapleshade’s enrollment policy entirely on the sickest. Give any one of them a gram of coke and they’d seduce a horse. Does that answer your question?”
Gurney’s gaze rested thoughtfully on the little red woodstove. “I understand your reluctance to violate confidentiality commitments. However, Jillian Perry can no longer be harmed, and finding her murderer may depend on finding out more about her own past contacts. If Jillian ever confided anything to you about—”
“Stop right there. Whatever was confided to me remains confidential.”
“There’s a great deal at stake, Doctor.”
“Yes, there is. Integrity is at stake. I will not reveal anything that was told to me with the understanding that I would not reveal it. Is that clear?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“If you want to know about Mapleshade and its transmogrification from a school to a zoo, we can discuss that in general terms. But the details of individual lives will not be discussed. It’s a slippery world we live in, Detective, in case you hadn’t noticed. We have no secure footing beyond our principles.”
“What principle dictated your departure from Mapleshade?”
“Mapleshade became a home for female sexual psychopaths. Most of them don’t need therapists, they need exorcists.”
“When you left, did Dr. Ashton hire someone to replace you?”
“He hired someone for the same position.” There was acid in the neat distinction and something like real hatred in Kale’s eyes.
“What sort of person?”
“His name is Lazarus. That says it all.”
“How so?”
“Dr. Lazarus has all the warmth and animation of a cadaver.” There was a bitter finality in Kale’s voice that told Gurney the interview was over.
As if on cue, the flute began again, and the plaintive strains of “Danny Boy” propelled him from the house.
Chapter 33
A simple reversal
The living fable, the pivotal dream, the vision that had changed everything, was as vivid to him now as when it first came to him.
It was like watching a movie and being in the movie at the same time, then forgetting that it was a movie, and living it, feeling it—an experience more real than so-called real life had ever been.
It was always the same.
John the Baptist was barefoot and naked except for a homespun brown loincloth that barely covered his genitals. It was secured by a rough leather belt from which hung a primitive hunting knife. He stood beside a rumpled bed in a space that seemed to be both a bedroom and a dungeon cell. There were no visible restraints upon him, yet he could move neither his arms nor his legs. The feeling was claustrophobic, and he feared that if he lost his balance and fell onto the bed, he would suffocate.
Into the dungeon, descending on dark stone steps, came Salome. She came toward him in a swirling air of perfume and translucent silk, stood before him, swaying, dancing. Moving more like a snake than a human being. The silk slipped away, dissolving, revealing creamy skin, breasts surprisingly ample for the lithe body, full round buttocks, breathtakingly perfect, breathtakingly deadly. The body writhing in the anticipation of pleasure.
The archetype of degradation.
Eve the succubus.
Avatar of the serpent.
Essence of evil.
Incarnation of lust.
Writhing, dancing like a snake.
Dancing around him, against him. Slime of sweat forming on her swaying breasts, pinpricks of sweat around her mouth. Electric shock of her legs brushing against his legs, her legs parting, the rasp of pubic hair against his thigh, a scream of horror building in his chest, horror racing through his blood. The scream in his heart struggling to burst out. At first a tiny constricted whine, building, straining through his clenched teeth. Her eyes burning, her groin pressed against his, burning, his scream rising, bursting out, a roar now, a torrent of sound, the roar of a cyclone leveling the world, freeing his arms and legs of their paralysis, his hunting knife transformed now into a sword, a blessed scimitar. With all the strength of heaven and earth, he swings the great scimitar—swings it in a sweet, perfect arc—hardly feeling it pass through her sweating neck, the head falling, falling free. As it falls, disappearing through the stone floor, the damp body dries into gray dust and is gone, blown away by a wind that warms his soul, filling him with light and peace, filling him with the knowledge of his true identity, filling him with his Mission and Method.
They say that God comes to some men slowly and to others in a flash of light that illuminates everything. And so it was with him.
The power and clarity of it had stunned him the first time, as it did each time he recalled it, each time he reexperienced the Great Truth that had been revealed to him in the “dream.”
Like all great ideas, it was astonishingly simple: Salome cannot have John the Baptist beheaded by Herod if John the Baptist strikes first. John the Baptist, alive in him. John the Baptist, destroyer of the evil Eve. John the Baptist, vessel of the baptism of blood. John the Baptist, scourge of the slimy snakes of the earth. Severer of the head of Salome the serpent.
It was a wonderful insight. A source of purpose, serenity, and solace. He felt uniquely bles
sed. So many people in the modern world had no idea who they really were.
He knew who he was. And what he had to do.
Chapter 34
Ashton uneasy
As Gurney was pulling in to the parking lot of the county building that housed the office of the district attorney, his phone rang. He was surprised to hear the voice of Scott Ashton, and more surprised at its new insecurity and informality.
“David, after your call last evening … your comments about people who couldn’t be found … I know what I said about the privacy issue, but … I thought perhaps I could make a few discreet phone calls myself. That way there wouldn’t be any question of my having given out names or phone numbers to a third party.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I made some calls, and … the fact is … I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but … it’s possible that something strange is going on.”
Gurney pulled in to the first parking space he could find. “Strange in what way?”
“I made a total of fourteen phone calls. I had the number for the former student herself in four cases, in the other ten the number of a parent or a guardian. One of the students I was able to reach and speak to. For one other I was able to leave a voice-mail message. Phone service to the other two had been discontinued. Of the ten calls I made to the families, I got through to two and left messages for the other eight, two of whom called me back. So I ended up having four conversations with family members.”
Gurney wondered where all this arithmetic was going.
“In one case there was no problem. However, in the other three—”
“Sorry to cut you off, but what do you mean by ‘no problem’?”
“I mean they were aware of their daughter’s location, said she was away at college, said they had spoken to her that very day. The problem is with the other three. The parents have no idea where they are—which in itself has no great significance. In fact, I strongly recommend to some of our graduates that they separate themselves from their parents when those relationships have a toxic history. Reintegration with one’s family of origin is sometimes not advisable. I’m sure you can understand why.”
Gurney almost slipped and said that Savannah had told him as much, but he caught himself. Ashton went on. “The problem is what the parents told me had happened, how the girls actually left home.”
“How?”
“The first parent I spoke to said her daughter was unusually calm, had behaved well for about four weeks after coming home from Mapleshade. Then, one evening at the dinner table, she demanded money to buy a new car, specifically a twenty-seven-thousand-dollar Miata convertible. The parents of course refused. She then accused them of not caring about her, aggressively resurrected all the traumas of her early childhood, and gave them the absurd ultimatum that they must give her the money for the car or she would never speak to them again. When they refused, she literally packed her bags, called a car service, and left. After that, she called once to say that she was sharing an apartment with a friend, that she needed time to sort out her ‘issues,’ and that any effort they made to find her or communicate with her would be an intolerable assault on her privacy. And that was the last word they ever heard from her.”
“You obviously know more about your ex-students than I do, but on the surface of it that story doesn’t sound that incredible to me. It sounds like something an emotionally unstable spoiled brat might do.” When the words were out, Gurney wondered if Ashton might object to that characterization of Mapleshade’s alumnae.
“It sounds exactly that way,” he replied instead. “A ‘spoiled brat’ stamping her feet, storming out, punishing her parents by rejecting them. Not particularly shocking, not even unusual.”
“Then I don’t get the point of the story. Why are you disturbed by it?”
“Because it’s the same story told by all three families.”
“The same?”
“The same story, except for the brand and price of the car. Instead of a twenty-seven-thousand-dollar Miata, the second girl demanded a thirty-nine-thousand-dollar BMW, and the third wanted a seventy-thousand-dollar Corvette.”
“Jesus.”
“So you see why I’m concerned?”
“What I see is a mystery about the nature of the connection. Did your conversations with the parents give you any ideas about that?”
“Well, it can’t be a coincidence. Which makes it a conspiracy of some kind.”
Gurney could see two broad possibilities. “Either the girls devised this among themselves as a way of leaving home—although why they would need to do it that way is unclear—or each of them was following the directions of an outside party without necessarily being aware that other girls were following the same directions. But, again, why is the real question.”
“You don’t think it was just a crazy scheme to see if they could force their parents to buy them their dream cars?”
“I doubt it.”
“If it was a story they devised among themselves, or under the direction of some mysterious third party—for reasons yet unknown—why would each girl come up with a different brand of car?”
A possible answer occurred to Gurney, but he wanted more time to think about it. “How did you pick the names of the girls you tried to reach?”
“Nothing systematic. They were just girls from Jillian’s graduating class.”
“So they were all approximately the same age? All around nineteen or twenty?”
“I believe so.”
“You do realize now that you’ll have to turn over Mapleshade’s enrollment records to the police?”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite see it that way—at least not yet. All I know at the moment is that three girls, legally adults, left their homes after having similar arguments with their parents. I’ll grant you there’s something about it that seems peculiar—which is why I’m telling you about it—but so far there’s no evidence of criminality, no evidence of any wrongdoing at all.”
“There are more than three.”
“How do you know that?”
“As I explained before, I was told—”
Ashton cut in. “Yes, yes, I know, some unnamed person told you that they couldn’t reach some of our former students, also unnamed. That in itself means nothing. Let’s not mix apples and oranges, leap to some awful conclusion, and use it as a pretext for destroying the school’s guarantees of privacy.”
“Doctor, you just called me. You sounded concerned. Now you’re telling me there’s nothing to be concerned about. You’re not making a lot of sense.”
He could hear Ashton breathing a bit shakily. After a long five seconds, the man spoke in a more subdued voice.
“I just don’t want to pull the whole structure of the school down on our heads. Look, here’s what I propose: I’ll continue making calls. I’ll try to call every contact number I have for recent graduates. That way we can find out if there’s a serious pattern here before we cause irreversible damage to Mapleshade. Believe me, I’m not trying to be pointlessly obstructive. If we discover any additional examples …”
“All right, Doctor, make the calls. But be aware that I intend to pass along what I already know to BCI.”
“Do what you have to do. But please remember how little you actually know. Don’t destroy a legacy of trust on the basis of a guess.”
“I get your point. Eloquently expressed.” Ashton’s easy eloquence was, in fact, starting to get on Gurney’s nerves. “But speaking of the institution’s legacy, or mission, or reputation, or whatever you want to call it, I understand you made some dramatic changes in that area yourself a few years ago—some might say risky changes.”
Ashton answered simply, “Yes, I did. Tell me how the changes were described to you, and I’ll tell you the reason for them.”
“I’ll paraphrase: ‘Scott Ashton upended the institution’s mission, turned it from a facility that treated the treatable into a holding pen for incurable monsters.’ I think
that captures the gist of it.”
Ashton uttered a small sigh. “I suppose that’s the way someone might see it, especially if his career didn’t benefit from the change.”
Gurney ignored the apparent swipe at Simon Kale. “How do you see it?”
“This country has an overabundance of therapeutic boarding schools for neurotics. What it lacks are residential environments where the problems of sexual abuse and destructive sexual obsessions can be addressed creatively and effectively. I’m trying to correct that imbalance.”
“And you’re happy with the way it’s working?”
There was the sound of a longer sigh. “The treatment of certain mental disorders is medieval. With the bar set so low, making improvements is not as difficult as you might think. When you have a free hour or two, we can go into it in more detail. Right now I’d rather proceed with those phone calls.”
Gurney checked the time on his car dashboard. “And I have a meeting I’m already five minutes late for. Please let me know what you can, as soon as you can. Oh—one last thing, Doctor. I assume you have phone numbers and addresses for Alessandro and for Karnala Fashion?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Gurney said nothing.
“You’re talking about the ad? Why would I have their numbers?”
“I assumed you’d gotten that photo on your wall from either the photographer or the company that commissioned it.”
