by John Verdon
“Sure.”
“Because Stevie had bought you one?”
“I told you that.”
“What I’m wondering is . . . do you know how much he paid for it?”
“How could I forget? It was like ten thousand dollars. Plus tax.”
“For a Barbie doll?”
“An original Barbie doll. From when they first made them. With the original clothes.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“That’s what I told Stevie. But he said he knew it was something I’d always wanted, so I should have it. He said we could have a lot of nice things.”
“Did he say where the money was coming from?”
“He said that I shouldn’t worry about that, that it was none of my business.”
“Like the phone call he got before he went to Wolf Lake was none of your business?”
“I guess.”
“So he never told you anything at all about the source of the money?”
“No. But he said the Barbie was just the beginning.”
Gurney was stopped by a loud knocking at the suite door. “Angela, I have to go, but I’ll call you again soon.”
As he left the bathroom, the pounding was repeated, more aggressively.
He adjusted the Beretta in his back pocket to make the grip easily reachable and approached the door.
“Who is it?”
“Police!”
He recognized Fenton’s voice and opened the door.
The flat-faced, heavy-shouldered man facing him looked like a worn and wrinkled copy of the Fenton who had visited him less than forty-eight hours earlier. His sport jacket hung open, revealing a shoulder-holstered Glock. He eyed Gurney coldly. “We need to talk.”
“You want to come in?”
“No. You need to come downstairs.”
“Why is that?”
“You come downstairs or I arrest you right here, now, for obstruction.”
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” Leaving Fenton in the doorway, Gurney went back to the alcove. Madeleine was still in bed, but now her eyes were open.
“Maddie, I have to go downstairs—”
“I heard. Be careful.”
He forced a smile. “This shouldn’t take long.”
THEY SAT IN THE FRONT SEATS OF A WEATHERED FJ CRUISER, PARKED under the outer edge of the lodge portico. Its headlights were reaching out into the snowstorm. Its engine was running, and the heater was on.
Gurney figured it was Fenton’s personal vehicle, which meant he was probably off duty.
After a fraught silence during which Fenton stared out at the snow in his headlight beams, he turned to Gurney. “You got your phone on you?”
“Yes.”
“Turn it off. Completely off. Then lay it on the console where I can see it.”
He did as he was asked. In the dim light cast by the illuminated dashboard gauges, he could see Fenton’s jaw muscle tighten.
“I’m confused,” said Fenton, but there was more accusation in his tone than confusion. “We just had a nice conversation the other day. I thought I explained that your involvement here was not helpful. In fact, quite harmful. I thought I’d made that clear.”
He paused, as if searching for the right words. “Your interference is giving the suspect false hopes. Your interference is prolonging the process by fostering the illusion in the suspect’s mind that there’s a way out of his difficulties—a way other than an honest, detailed confession. Fostering this illusion is a destructive thing for you to be doing. Extremely destructive. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on this point in our last conversation. I hope I’m being clear now.”
“Very clear.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.” He stared out at the snow. “There’s a lot at stake in the outcome of this case. It’s not something to be screwing around with.”
Gurney knew that provoking this man could be dangerous, but it could also be instructive. “The orders you’re getting on how the case should be handled are coming from so high up you figure they must be right? The people who want Hammond to be guilty are so important you figure he must be guilty?”
“Richard Hammond is a homicidal liar. That’s a fact. It’s not a goddamn order from anybody.”
“I heard that he took a polygraph test. And passed it.”
“That means absolutely nothing.”
“It does seem to be a small point in his favor.”
“You don’t know your client very well, do you?” Fenton reached down behind the passenger seat and retrieved an open briefcase. He pulled out some papers that were stapled together and tossed them in Gurney’s lap. “Reading material, to bring you up to speed.”
In the dim dashboard light all he could see was the boldface headline on what appeared to be a copy of a scientific article: “Neuropsychology of Polygraphy: Exploitable Parameters.”
Fenton pointed at it. “Lie-detector tests don’t mean a thing when the subject is an expert on exploiting their weaknesses.”
It struck Gurney that Hammond seemed to be an expert on just about every subject that made him look bad.
Like a trial attorney driving home the final point in his summation, Fenton reached into his briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper. “This is a copy of Ethan Gall’s handwritten description of his dream, the same dream every one of the victims started having after being hypnotized by Hammond.” He handed the sheet to Gurney. “Take it home with you. Read it every morning—to remind yourself of the worst client choice you ever made.”
Gurney took it. “Any chance of it being a forgery?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell. It’s been analyzed and reanalyzed. Pressure patterns, accelerations and decelerations over certain letter combinations, things no forger could duplicate. Besides, who the hell is this hypothetical forger with access to Gall’s office? Peyton’s generally so fucked up he can barely walk. Hammond himself would just be putting another nail in his own coffin. Ditto his adoring sister. Austen Steckle had his hand in a cast at the time, some carpal tunnel crap. Who else is there who could have access? Barlow Tarr? I doubt that nutcase can even write. The plain fact is that it’s Gall’s own description of his own dream in his own writing. And every disgusting thing in it is consistent with the dreams of the other three victims.”
He gave Gurney a hard stare. “I’m done explaining this to you. You’re one millimeter away from an obstruction charge. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Are we finished here?”
“You better be finished here.” Fenton gazed out in silence at the growing storm, then began shaking his head slowly. “I don’t get you, Gurney. What are you, some kind of egomaniac who always thinks he’s right and the rest of the team is wrong?”
“That would depend on the track record of the team.”
Fenton’s eyes were fixed on the swirling snow. He was gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Let me ask you something. Where were you on 9/11?”
Gurney blinked at the abrupt segue. “My wife and I were away when the towers went down, but I got to ground zero that night. Why do you ask?”
“I was in Lower Manhattan that morning. At a joint NYPD-NYSP training session. We got sent to the towers as soon as the first plane hit.” The man’s knuckles were whitening from the force of his grip on the wheel. “So many years ago, and I still get nightmares. I can still hear the sound.”
Gurney knew what “the sound” was. He’d heard versions of this experience from other cops and firemen. While the fires were spreading from floor to floor, people were jumping from the high windows.
“The sound” was the sound of the bodies hitting the pavement.
Gurney said nothing.
Eventually Fenton broke the silence. “You get my point, Gurney? That’s what the world is now. That’s the new reality. Nobody gets to sit on the fence anymore. It’s about the survival of America. This is a war, not a game. You got to be on one side or the other.”
Gu
rney nodded in a vague show of agreement. “Tell me something, Gilbert. Those important, powerful, anonymous people who’ve taken a special interest in the Hammond case—you sure they’re on the side of the angels?”
Fenton turned in his seat, his expression incredulous and furious.
CHAPTER 44
On his way back to the suite, Gurney stopped in the Hearth Room to call Hardwick.
“Things are getting tense. I got another visit from Fenton. The man is under severe pressure to get rid of me.”
“Any idea what it is you’re doing that’s getting them so agitated?”
“They’re desperate for Hammond to confess, and they think I’m preventing that.”
“These bastards actually believe he hypnotized four men into killing themselves?”
“That would seem to be the case.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Stay close in case all hell should break loose.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
Madeleine’s mental state came to mind. But he wasn’t ready to discuss that with anyone. “Not right now.” He ended the call and went up to the suite. Tucked under his arm were Hammond’s article on polygraphy and Gall’s description of his nightmare.
He found Madeleine asleep with the bedside lamp on. In the sitting area the foil-covered plates Jane Hammond had brought over remained unopened on the coffee table. He settled down on the couch. The article, he noted, was eleven pages. The dream description was only half a page, so he started with that.
Per your request, these are the principal details of the dream I’ve been having since our last session. It begins with the illusion that I am awake, in my own bed. I develop an awareness of another presence in the room. I feel frightened and want to get up, but I discover I’m paralyzed. I want to call for help, but no words will come out. Then I see, emerging from the darkness, a thing covered with bristling fur. Somehow I know it’s a wolf. I hear it growling. I see its eyes shining, bright red, in the darkness. Then I feel its weight on me and its hot breath. The breath has a rotten smell. There’s a viscous fluid dripping from its mouth. Then the wolf is transformed into a dagger. On the handle there’s a wolf’s head with glittering ruby eyes. I feel something going into me. I’m soaked with blood. Then I see a man holding the dagger, offering me bright little pills. When I wake up I feel terrible. So terrible that I wish I were dead.
Gurney turned the copy over and discovered on the back a notation written with a different kind of pen in a rougher hand, presumably Fenton’s: “Daggers similar to the one described here found at all four suicide sites.”
He went back to the front of the page and read the dream narrative again.
So many lurid particulars.
Was it conceivable that Hammond had planted this dream in the minds of four people?
Was it conceivable that the dream had literally killed them?
The concept was astonishing.
So astonishing, Gurney couldn’t believe it.
He put the dream description aside and went on to Hammond’s polygraph article.
He started off reading it carefully, then began skimming, seeing no major revelations. Written years ago when Hammond was a doctoral candidate, it examined factors that contribute to polygraph errors, both accidental and induced. Simple factors included tricks such as using a thumbtack concealed in one’s clothing to produce pain at chosen points in the process to throw off the machine’s physiological response readings. At the more complex end of the spectrum were certain mental states, both meditative and disordered, that blurred the difference between a subject’s honest and deceptive responses.
“What time is it?”
Startled by the sound of Madeleine’s voice, Gurney turned to find her standing by the couch, gazing at him with the look of someone emerging from a bad dream.
He checked his phone. “It’s a little after nine.”
She blinked, hesitated. “David?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I’m losing my mind?”
“Of course not.”
“I saw Colin in the tub. I’m sure of it. But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It just means we haven’t found the explanation yet. But we will.”
“You really think everything is explainable?”
“I don’t think it is. I know it is.”
“Is seeing a ghost explainable?”
“You’re thinking now that you saw a ghost? Not a physical body?”
“I don’t know. I only know it was Colin. But there was something spirit-like about him. A kind of glow, as though I were looking not only at his body but at his soul. Do you believe we continue to exist after our bodies die?”
“I can’t answer that, Maddie. I’m not even sure what the question means.”
There was a lost look in her eyes. “Nothing like this has ever happened to you, has it?”
“No.”
His phone rang.
He let it ring three more times before glancing at the ID screen.
It was Rebecca Holdenfield.
As urgently as he craved any input that might move the Hammond case forward, he didn’t feel able to turn away from the look on Madeleine’s face. He let the call go to voicemail.
She shivered. “I’m cold. I should go back to bed.” She started to turn away from the couch, then stopped. “I forgot to tell you. Jane invited us to breakfast.”
Given the situation with Fenton, visiting the Hammonds seemed like a bad idea. On the other hand, he felt it would be good for Madeleine to be out of the lodge, even for an hour.
“That’s fine.”
She nodded and went into the alcove.
He remained on the couch, trying to calm his racing thoughts. Then, remembering that simple actions often had calming effects, he decided to get up and make a fire.
As he reached the fireplace, he was startled by a thud at the balcony door.
His first thought was that a bird had flown into it. His second thought was that birds don’t fly at night in snowstorms.
He went to the door and peered out through the glass panel. A coating of ice made it difficult to see anything. Cautiously, he opened the door.
He saw something lying on the snow that had blown onto the balcony.
He stepped out for a closer look.
It appeared to be an irregularly shaped package, about a foot long and three inches in diameter, clumsily wrapped with newspaper and duct tape.
He took another step to the balcony railing, looking as far as he could see in both directions along the lake road.
He saw no one—heard nothing but the wind.
He picked up the package, judging that it weighed less than a pound.
He took it inside to the coffee table. He pushed the two foil-covered plates out of the way and removed the duct tape that held the package together. Most of the newspaper wrapping came off with the tape.
Two devices lay exposed on the table in front of him.
One he recognized instantly as a fiber-optic surveillance camera.
The other device wasn’t familiar at all. It was a matte-black object about the size of a roll of dimes. Along the side was something that appeared to be a serial number. On one end there were eight very small holes, and in each hole a shiny bit of curved glass.
Some sort of lenses? He’d never seen lenses that small. But what else could they be? There was one fact, however, about which Gurney became increasingly certain as he studied the dimensions of both devices. These were almost certainly the objects that had been installed in, and then removed from, the joist space he’d inspected in the attic—the space above the bathroom light fixture.
He suddenly noticed what he’d missed in his hurry to examine the devices.
Two words were roughly scribbled in block letters on the inside of one of the newspaper sheets that had been used as wrapping paper.
BE WARNT
CHAPTER 45
The language
of the message obviously pointed to Barlow Tarr.
But if it was Tarr, why had he put himself at risk? And what exactly was the evil Gurney was being “warnt” about—yet again?
And if it wasn’t Tarr, why might someone want him to think it was?
Those questions kept him awake till the wee hours of the morning. Then, after sleeping fitfully for a couple of hours, he was awake again before dawn. Finding himself slipping back into the same loop of evidence-starved speculation, he decided to get up, take a shower, and get dressed.
He went to the balcony door to evaluate the weather conditions. Snow crystals passing through the reach of the lodge floodlights were sparkling in the dry air. The thermometer mounted on the balcony railing, half-encrusted with ice, looked like it was registering eight below zero. Gurney took a step out to make sure he was seeing it right.
As he turned to go back inside, something caught his eye. Something on the road that led down from the ridge to the lodge.
A glint of light.
As he strained his eyes into the darkness he saw a second glint, a few feet from the first. The two were moving in tandem, like headlights, only smaller and weaker.
Parking lights, he realized.
He waited, watched, listened.
The lights came closer. Eventually they came close enough that he could see that they were the parking lights of a pickup truck.
The truck turned onto the lake road, moved slowly past the outer reach of the lodge floodlights, and on toward . . . toward what?
The boathouse?
One of the chalets?
The Gall mansion?
As the truck faded into the storm, Gurney noted that its disappearance was aided by the absence of any visible taillights.
He went inside and locked the door.
He spent the next half hour on his laptop, scanning through the products offered by suppliers of surveillance and anti-surveillance equipment, hoping to find something that resembled the strange little tubular device that had him baffled.
What he found was a thriving industry. Hundreds of companies, many with the word “Spy” in their names, were marketing sophisticated hardware at affordable prices.
