by John Verdon
CHAPTER 48
As she shifted her weight onto her forward foot, from directly beneath it came the strained creaking of ice about to break apart.
“Stop! Don’t move!” cried Gurney.
She halted like a freeze-frame in a video.
“You’ll be all right. Just try not to move.”
Gurney searched for solutions, but the only thing that came to mind was a sequence in an action-adventure movie he’d seen as a kid. A Canadian Mountie had pursued a bank robber onto a frozen river. The ice began to crack around the fugitive. The Mountie told him to lie down on the ice to spread his weight. Then he threw him a rope and pulled him to safety.
The scene was silly, but the weight distribution part made sense to Gurney. He persuaded Madeleine to lower herself carefully to the ice, lie flat, and spread out her arms and legs.
Needing something to take the place of a rope, he retreated to the shore, hoping to find a fallen pine branch long enough to do the job. He grabbed the longest one he could find, dragged it out onto the lake, and extended the end of it to Madeleine.
“Grip it with both hands. Don’t let go.”
It was a painfully slow process. Sitting on the ice to give himself better traction and pushing himself backward with his heels, inch by inch he pulled her out of harm’s way.
As they were finally approaching the security of solid ground and getting to their feet, Austen Steckle and Norris Landon came running from the lodge.
Landon had a long tow chain coiled around his arm. “You’re safe. Thank God! Sorry it took me so long. Damn door latch was frozen on the Rover.”
Steckle looked grim. “What the hell happened out there?”
“Did you see that damn hawk attacking my wife?”
Landon’s eyes widened. “Hawk?”
“A big one,” said Gurney. “Swooped down on her. She was trying to get away from it. Ended up out there on the middle of the lake. I didn’t think hawks attacked humans.”
“Normally they don’t,” said Landon.
“Nothing normal about Wolf Lake,” muttered Steckle. “Last summer a goddamn owl attacked a little girl on the shore, ripped her face. And the summer before that a black bear did a pretty good job on a hiker—”
“Those shots we heard?” said Landon. “Was that you shooting at the hawk?”
“That’s what scared it off.”
Landon turned to Madeleine. “You must be a wreck after all that. Was the ice under you actually starting to give way?”
“I thought I was going to die.”
Gurney took Madeleine’s arm. With shoulders hunched against the wind, they walked back across the lake road, into the lodge, and on into the Hearth Room, where a fresh fire was blazing. It wasn’t until they were standing in front of it that Gurney realized his teeth were chattering.
Landon went straight to the self-service bar. A minute later he joined them at the fire, handing them each a small crystal tumbler half full of an amber liquid. “Cognac. Best medicine for thawing out the bones.”
He and Gurney drank. Madeleine sniffed at hers, took a tiny sip, winced at the strength of it, then took another.
Landon downed the last of his drink. “This cognac’s not bad at all.” He studied the bottom of his empty glass for a long moment. “Making any progress on the crime front?”
“Things are becoming a little clearer.”
“That’s good to hear. If there’s anything at all I can do to help . . .”
“I appreciate that. I’ll let you know.”
“How’s it looking for Richard?”
“Better than it was.”
Landon looked surprised. “Care for another cognac?”
“Not now, thanks.”
“Right. Well. Stay warm if you can.” Raising his hand in a mock salute, he left the room.
Madeleine was holding her palms out toward the fire. Gurney moved closer to her. His tone was gentler than his words. “Maddie, what the hell were you doing out there on the ice?”
“I don’t think I can explain it.”
“Tell me whatever you can.”
“I really did just go out to get some air, like I told you.”
“But then you walked out on the ice.”
“Yes.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that in my mind, my memory, I’m always on the shore.”
“On the shore of Grayson Lake?”
“Yes.”
“So you decided to go walk out on the ice?”
“Yes.”
“Was this something Hammond suggested you do?”
“No. There was no plan. I was standing in front of the lodge. I happened to look out at the lake. And suddenly I wanted to be out there.”
“Out there like Colin?”
“Maybe. Maybe I wanted to feel what he felt.”
CHAPTER 49
Despite the blazing fire, the moaning of the wind in the chimney was creating a mournful atmosphere in the Hearth Room. It made the prospect of retreating to their bugged suite attractive by comparison.
As they were passing through the reception area, Madeleine stopped by the big glass-paneled door. Gurney stopped with her.
Thinking of the two shots he’d fired at the hawk brought to mind the image of the dislodged feather twirling down. “Wait just a minute,” he said. “I want to get something.”
He opened the door to a blast of frigid air and ran across the road and out onto the lake to the place where he remembered seeing the feather fall. It was still there, sticking up through the new snow just enough to be visible. He grabbed it and hurried back to the lodge, where he examined it briefly—a segment of a russet tail feather with a shattered quill. Then he stuffed it in his pocket, and he and Madeleine headed upstairs.
Just before they entered the suite, he asked her to use the tablet to find an energetic musical selection on YouTube, explaining that he owed Hardwick a callback to finish their interrupted conversation, and he wanted some audio camouflage that would enable him to speak freely.
She chose an atonal piano concerto whose agitato movement could have drowned out a gunfight. Gurney settled down on the couch, switched on the table lamp to brighten the gray light coming in from the windows, and made the call.
Hardwick picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Jack, how are the roads?”
“Like greased pig shit. Didn’t you say you were going to get back to me in a few minutes? You must have some fucking odd concept of the word ‘few.’”
Gurney ignored the ritual abuse. “The last thing we were talking about was the odd circumstance of all those bad guys biting the dust while their intended victim remained alive and well. You have any ideas about that?”
“I do. It kinda falls into the counterintuitive box, but it makes sense.”
“Okay. So what is it?”
“I’m thinking Jane Hammond may have whacked all four vics. Or at least three of them.”
Gurney waited.
“You still there?”
“I’m waiting for the part that makes sense.”
“Let’s say there was a conspiracy to concoct a creepy-dirty case against Richard—for the purpose of blackmailing him. And suppose Jane found out about it. Or maybe the blackmailers got in touch with her directly. Told her about a big malpractice suit they were planning. Hinted that a generous out-of-court settlement could be in everyone’s best interest.”
“And then what?”
“And then sweet little Jane went into protective Grizzly Bear mode and decided the only good blackmailers were dead blackmailers. And no crime, no matter how bloody, would really be a crime if it involved saving her precious brother from evil predators.”
“You really see Jane doing those murders?”
“Grizzly Bear knows no limits.”
Gurney tried to work his way through the scenario. “Theoretically, I get the possible motive. But I’m tripping over issues of means and opportunity. Are
you saying that she thought Ethan was part of the conspiracy and killed him, too?”
“I can’t say that yet. Ethan’s role is still a mystery.”
“Why set up the murders to look like the dreams they’d been claiming to have? If she was trying to protect Richard, why do it in a way that would pull him further into it?”
“Maybe she was just trying to create credible suicide scenes. Maybe she was thinking, as long as these guys were dreaming about daggers, it would make sense to have it look like they cut their wrists with daggers?”
“Are you hearing yourself, Jack? Can you really picture Jane Hammond running around the country—New Jersey, Long Island, Florida—drugging these guys and slicing up their wrists? And if she did all that, why would she be so eager to have you and me rooting around, trying to figure it all out?”
“That last question’s easy. She wouldn’t have anticipated the way the official investigation would go. Who the fuck would expect a BCI investigator to become obsessed with some exotic trance-induced suicide scenario? So when Fenton turned everything against Richard with that cockamamie concept, what the hell was she going to do? I think she brought us in to dig him out of the hole she put him in. She accepted the risk that she might end up paying the price. It would be better than seeing her brother prosecuted for what she did. That would completely blow her circuits.”
“You’re making an enthusiastic case, Jack, but—” He was stopped in mid-sentence by the sound, barely audible behind the music, of the shower being turned on.
Again? Jesus! First, an endless succession of baths. Now, showers.
“You there, ace?”
“What? Sure. Just thinking. Going over what you were saying.”
“I know it’s not all nailed down. Bits and pieces are still bouncing around. The idea just came to me twenty minutes ago. It needs more thought. But my point is, Janie the cuddly caretaker should not be getting a free pass. Just because she talks like a social worker doesn’t mean she couldn’t slice a few wrists, given the right circumstances.”
Gurney had other problems with the Jane-as-killer hypothesis, but he left them unstated. While he had Hardwick on the phone, he wanted to move on to aspects of the case he deemed more promising. But before he had a chance to, the man hit him with an unnervingly timely question:
“How come your wife’s so freaked out by all this?”
Gurney wasn’t sure how much he should reveal to Hardwick. Or if he wanted to reveal anything at all.
“You think she looks troubled?”
“Looks, sounds, acts. It just seems odd—for a homicide guy’s wife who’s been through this kind of shit before. So I’m wondering what the deer-in-the-headlights look is all about.”
Gurney paused. He hated thinking about it. He looked around the room—maybe for a way out, maybe for an inspiration. He ended up staring at the portrait of Harding. A man who never wanted to deal with anything.
He sighed. “Long story.”
Hardwick belched. “Everything’s a long story. But every story has a short version, right?”
“Problem is, it’s not my story to tell.”
“So you’re telling me she’s not only fucked up, she’s fucked up with a secret?”
“Something like that.” He looked over his shoulder through the open bathroom door and saw that Madeleine was still in the shower.
“This secret of hers affecting what we’re trying to do here?”
Gurney hesitated, then decided to reveal what he could without getting too explicit. “She used to spend her Christmas vacations with relatives here in the Adirondacks. Something bad happened the last year she was here. She’s dealing with difficult memories.”
“Maybe you should take her home?”
“She wants to get some kind of closure here. And she wants us to ‘save’ Hammond.”
“Why?”
“I think to make up for someone in her life a long time ago who wasn’t saved.”
“That sounds fucked up.”
Gurney hesitated. “She’s seeing things.”
“What kind of things?”
“A dead body. Or maybe a ghost. She’s not sure.”
“Where did she see it?”
“In the bathtub.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Any particular dead body?”
“Someone from her past. Her Adirondack past.”
“Someone connected with the bad thing that happened?”
“Yes.”
“And she thinks saving Hammond now will make up for what happened then?”
“I think so.”
“Shit. That doesn’t sound like the Madeleine I know.”
“No. It’s not like her at all. She’s in the grip of . . . I don’t know what.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to figure out what’s going on. Expose the truth. Get her the hell out of here.”
He glanced over into the bathroom, saw her still standing in the shower behind the steamy glass door. He told himself this was a good thing. The primal, curative power of warm water.
“So,” said Hardwick in an abrupt change of tone, “apart from my delivering the little black tube thing to Wigg, you have a next step in mind?”
“I have a question.”
“We already have a shitload of questions.”
“Maybe not the right ones. We just wasted five days asking ourselves how four people could have had the same dream. Wrong question. The right question would have been, ‘Why did three people say they had the same dream, and why did one person write down the details of that dream?’ Because, beyond their own claims, and Gilbert Fenton’s endorsement of those claims, there was never any evidence that they actually dreamt anything. We assumed the reports of the nightmares were truthful, and since the men who reported having them were killed, they appeared to be victims, not predators. It never occurred to us that they might be both. I don’t want to make a mistake like that again.”
“I get your point. We screwed up. So what’s your question?”
“My question is . . . are we observing failure or success?”
Over the phone Gurney heard a car horn blowing—followed by Hardwick’s truculent, growling voice: “Move it, asshole!”
A moment later, he was back on the phone. “Failure or success? Fuck does that mean?”
“Simple. Your own ‘Killer Jane’ hypothesis is a failure hypothesis. It assumes that the sessions with Richard, along with the subsequent nightmare claims, were the planned elements of a blackmail conspiracy—but that the deaths weren’t part of the plan. In your hypothesis Richard being blamed for the murders was an unintended consequence of Jane killing the bad guys. Bottom line, you’re describing a failed conspiracy—with an ironic finale in which the intended victim of the blackmailers becomes the victim of the police. Everyone loses.”
“So what?”
“Just for argument’s sake—instead of a failure, let’s assume we’re observing a success. Suppose the staged suicides were the point of the plan from day one.”
“Whose plan?”
“The plan of the person who called Wenzel, Balzac, and Pardosa and talked them into meeting with Richard in the first place.”
“By selling them the fantasy of a blackmail plan that would make them all rich?”
“Yes.”
“While actually setting them up to be killed?”
“Yes.”
“But what about the involvement of high-level spook types? The advanced surveillance devices? The warnings from Wigg to back off? What the hell’s all that about?”
“I need to understand the four deaths better before I can grapple with that.”
“I have my own new idea about those deaths. It still assumes the blackmail plot. But the blackmailers don’t approach Jane. They go straight to Richard.”
“And?”
“And he kills them.”
“Ethan too?”
“Ethan too.”
“Why?”
“For the money. To get the twenty-nine million bucks before Ethan could change the will back in Peyton’s favor. That’s one piece I think Fenton might be right about.”
Gurney thought about it. “It does seem a little more feasible than your Jane version.”
“But?”
“But it contradicts the gut feelings we both had about Richard’s innocence, and it leaves big questions unanswered. Who concocted the blackmail scheme? How does Ethan’s written dream narrative fit in? Who did he write it for, and why?”
“Far as I can see, your theory doesn’t answer those questions, either.”
“I think it will—if we pursue it a little further.”
“Lead the way, ace. My mind is open.”
“First of all, if we view what happened as a well-planned enterprise that turned out exactly as intended, it would mean that Ethan and the other three men were all targets from the start. Targets of the same killer—but probably for different reasons.”
“How do you get to that?”
“Wenzel, Balzac, and Pardosa appear to have been accomplices of the planner—passing along that nightmare story—until they became victims of the planner. Ethan, on the other hand, appears to have been manipulated by someone into hand-writing the nightmare story—probably to make it appear that he was more connected with the other three than he really was, and that he died for the same reason they did.”
“I’ve been thinking about this dictation idea of yours, and there’s a problem with it. You gave Madeleine the email she dictated to you, so she could send it to her sister, right? That’s what would normally be done. So why would Ethan keep what he wrote?”
“I was wondering about that myself. I came up with two answers.”
“Typical of you.”
Gurney ignored the comment. “One possibility is that it was dictated over the phone. The other is that Ethan did give it to the person who dictated it—who then put it back in his office after killing him.”
“Hmm.”
“You see a flaw in the logic?”
“No flaw in the logic. You seem to have arranged an impossible pile of shit into a credible sequence of motives and actions. Very logical.”
