by John Verdon
Hardwick grunted. “So there was no investigation at all?”
“Zero.”
“Time of death?” asked Gurney.
“Estimated between three and five in the afternoon. How does that square with the floral delivery guy on the security video?”
“I’ll double-check,” said Gurney, “but I think he walked into Carol Blissy’s office around three-fifteen. Any ViCAP hits on the MO elements?”
“Nothing yet.”
“No witness reports of floral delivery vans at homicide scenes?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any such reports. It just means they didn’t make it onto ViCAP forms.”
“Right,” said Gurney. “Anything on Fat Gus?”
“Time-of-death window between ten in the morning and one in the afternoon. And, yes, as you said it might, the word ‘larynx’ appears in the autopsy wound descriptions. Death, however, was not caused by the nails that were hammered into his head and neck. He was shot first—a .22 hollow point through the right eye into the brain.”
“Interesting,” said Gurney. “That would suggest that the nails weren’t a form of torture.”
“So what?” said Hardwick. “What’s your point?”
“It supports the idea that the nails were a warning to someone, rather than a way of punishing the victim. The time of death is interesting, too. In the original incident report on Carl’s shooting it gives the time of death as ten-twenty. The location of the Gurikos murder in his home near Utica would make it impossible for the shooter to have killed him at ten, gone through the nailing mess, cleaned himself up, driven to Long Falls, and gotten set up in time to hit Carl at ten-twenty. So it must have happened the other way around—Carl first, then Gus.”
“Assuming only one shooter,” said Hardwick.
“Right. But that’s an assumption we ought to make, at least until there’s evidence of more than one.” He turned to Esti. “Anything yet on Gurikos?”
“My contact at OCTF is looking into it. She wasn’t directly involved, so she has to tiptoe. She doesn’t want to set off alarms that could prompt follow-up queries to the original investigator. Kind of a tricky situation.”
“How about the Spalter MO?”
“That’s different. Klemper never initiated any ViCAP or NCIC searches, because he’d already made his decision about Kay. So I can pursue that more safely.”
“That’s great. And, Jack, you’re chasing after the prosecution witnesses—and whatever you can get from your Interpol friend?”
“Yeah. Nothing yet from Interpol. And none of the witnesses are still at the addresses listed in the case file—which may not be particularly significant, given their basic nature.”
Esti stared at him. “Their basic nature?”
Hardwick’s eyes lit up with the arch look that always got under Gurney’s skin. “Their basic nature is that they lack upstanding qualities. They’re fundamentally scumbags. It’s a known fact that scumbags who lack upstanding qualities often lack permanent addresses. All I’m saying is that having difficulty in locating them does not signify much. But I will persevere. Even scumbags have to be somewhere.” He turned to Gurney. “So how about telling us about your interview with the heiress.”
“The would-be heiress—if Kay stays in prison.”
“Which is becoming less likely each passing day. This turn of events must be having an interesting effect on Miss Alyssa, yes? You care to share your insights?”
Gurney smiled. “I’ll do better than that. I have a recording. Might not be the greatest quality, but you’ll get the gist.”
“ ‘Fuck me and die’? Did she really say ‘Fuck me and die’?” Esti was leaning toward the recorder as they finished listening for the second time to the conversation at Venus Lake. “What was that all about?”
“Probably the name of her favorite rock band,” suggested Hardwick.
“It could be a threat,” said Esti.
“Or an invitation,” said Hardwick. “You were there, Davey boy. What’d it sound like to you?”
“Like everything else she said and did—a combination of cartoon seduction and calculated bullshit.”
Hardwick raised an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like a nasty little kid trying to shock the grown-ups. That FMAD T-shirt you described makes her seem kind of pathetic. Like inside she’s about twelve.”
“The T-shirt may have been harmless,” replied Gurney, “but her eyes weren’t.”
Esti jumped in. “Maybe the shirt wasn’t so harmless either. Suppose it was a literal statement of fact.”
Hardwick ratcheted up his skeptical look. “What fact?”
“Maybe there’s more than one ‘black widow’ in this case.”
“You mean ‘Fuck me and die’ really means ‘Fuck me and I’ll kill you’? That’s clever, but I don’t get it. How does it—”
“She told Klemper her father coerced her into having sex with him. We have no proof of it, but it could be true.”
“So you’re saying that Alyssa killed her father as payback?”
“It’s not impossible. And if she could rope a horny jerk like Klemper into bending the investigation to put Kay in the frame, the ‘payback’ would also include her ending up with her father’s estate. That’s two major motives—revenge and money.”
Hardwick looked at Gurney. “What do you think, ace?”
“I’m sure Alyssa is guilty of something. She may have ‘persuaded’ or blackmailed Klemper into tailoring the evidence to make sure Kay was convicted. Or she may have masterminded the whole damn thing—the murder as well as the frame.”
“Premeditated murder? You think she’s capable of that?”
“There’s something scary in those glittery blue eyes. But I have a hard time seeing her handling the executional details. Someone else smashed Mary’s head on the side of that bathtub and hammered the nails into Fat Gus.”
“You’re saying she hired a pro?”
“I’m saying if she was the prime mover behind the three murders, she would’ve needed help—but none of that answers the basic question that’s been eating at me from the beginning: Why Carl’s mother? It really doesn’t make sense.”
Hardwick was drumming his fingertips on the table. “Neither does the Gus hit. Not unless you buy Donny Angel’s story about Gus and Carl being hit by a guy they targeted. But if you buy that, and you also buy Alyssa as the prime mover, then you’re stuck with the conclusion that she must have been Carl’s original target—which never felt right to me, and it still doesn’t.”
“But it would give her a third motive,” said Esti.
As Gurney considered the Angelidis scenario one more time, with Alyssa in the unnamed target position, it touched a nerve.
“What is it?” asked Esti, eyeing him curiously.
“Nothing very logical. In fact, nothing logical at all. Just a feeling and an image.” He got up and went into the den to get that troubling photo of Carl Spalter from the case file. When he returned, he laid it on the table between Hardwick and Esti.
Hardwick stared at it, his expression tightening.
“I saw that once before,” said Esti. “It’s hard to look at for very long.”
Hardwick glanced up at Gurney, who was still standing. “You have some point you want to make with this?”
“Like I said, nothing logical. Just an off-the-wall question.”
“Christ, Davey boy, the suspense is killing me. Speak.”
“Might that be the look of a man who’s waiting to die—who knows he’s about to die—as the final, twisted result of taking out a murder contract on his own child?”
They all stared at the photograph.
No one said anything for a while.
Hardwick finally leaned back in his chair and let out one of his barking laughs. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, wouldn’t that be the ultimate fucking karma!”
Chapter 32
Another Missing Player
Hardwick suggested they listen to the Venus Lake
recording one more time, which they did. He seemed especially interested in the section in which Alyssa claimed that Klemper had blackmailed her into having sex with him. “Beautiful! I love it! That fuckhead is done, cooked, finished!”
Now Gurney looked skeptical. “The recording of Alyssa won’t be enough by itself. You heard her—she was all over the place, not exactly sounding like a solid citizen. You’ll need a sworn statement from her—listing dates, places, details—which she’s unlikely to supply. Because she’s almost certainly lying. If anyone blackmailed anyone, I’m pretty sure it was the other way around. So she won’t want—”
Esti broke in. “What do you mean, the other way around?”
“Suppose Alyssa seduced Klemper while he was still conducting an objective investigation of the original shooting. Suppose she video-recorded their … encounter. And suppose the price she demanded for keeping the recording out of the hands of the state police was Klemper’s help in making the case turn out the way she wanted.”
“It doesn’t matter how they ended up in bed,” said Hardwick. “Blackmail, seduction, whatever. Who gives a shit who was blackmailing who? Fucking a potential suspect is fucking a potential suspect. Klemper’s career is going down the toilet.”
Gurney sat back. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“And the other way is … what?”
“It’s a question of priorities. One way, we can pressure Alyssa to sink Klemper. The other way, we can pressure Klemper to sink Alyssa.”
Esti looked interested. “You like number two better, right?”
Before Gurney could answer, Hardwick interjected, “You think Alyssa’s the chief manipulator, but a minute ago you said she was all over the place, sounded less than solid—and I agree. She called you, she set up the meeting with you, but in that recording she comes across as pretty erratic—like she had no idea where the conversation might go, like she had no plan. This is a master manipulator?”
Esti spoke up with a knowing smile. “Maybe an overconfident manipulator. But she definitely had a plan.”
“What plan?”
“Probably the same as she had for Klemper. Her plan today was to get Dave into bed, get it all on a hidden camera, and get him to change his approach to the case.”
“Dave’s retired. Pension guaranteed. Doesn’t have a career to lose,” said Hardwick. “Where’s the leverage?”
“He has a wife.” She looked at Gurney. “A video of you in bed with a nineteen-year-old could create a problem, right?”
That didn’t require an answer.
Esti went on. “That was Alyssa’s Plan A. When that little sweetheart makes it clear that she’s available, I doubt many men turn her down. Dave not wanting to play her game probably came as a big surprise. She had no Plan B.”
Hardwick shot a nasty grin in Gurney’s direction. “Saint David here is full of surprises. But tell me something, ace. Why did she admit to you that she had sex with Klemper at all? Why not just deny the whole thing?”
Gurney shrugged. “Maybe someone else knows about it. Or she thinks someone knows about it. So she admits the fact, but lies about the reason. Common enough deception technique. Admit the external action but invent an exculpatory motive.”
“My ex was big on exculpatory motives,” said Esti to no one in particular. She checked her watch. “So what’s the next step?”
“Maybe a little blackmail of our own,” suggested Gurney. “Give Klemper a few shakes and see what comes loose.”
That put a smile on her face. “Sounds good. Anything that rattles that son of a bitch …”
“You want backup?” asked Hardwick.
“Not necessary. Klemper may be an asshole, but he’s not likely to pull a gun on me. Not in a public place, anyway. I just want to explain his situation to him, offer him an option or two.”
Hardwick stared down at the table intently, as if the possible results of such a conversation were listed there. “I need to give Bincher a heads-up on this, see what he thinks.”
“Go ahead,” said Gurney. “Just don’t make it sound like I’m asking for his permission.”
Hardwick took out his phone and entered a number. Apparently it went to voice mail. He made a disgusted face. “Fuck! Where the hell are you, Lex? This is my third attempt. Get back to me for Christ’s sake!”
He ended the call and made another.
“Abby, baby, where the hell is he? I left a message last night, another one first thing this morning, and another one thirty seconds ago.” He listened for a few moments, his frown shifting from frustration to puzzlement. “Well, as soon as he gets back, we need to talk. Things are happening.”
He listened again, longer this time, worry beginning to replace puzzlement. “You know anything more about that?… That was it, no explanation?… Nothing since?… I have no idea … The voice wasn’t familiar to you?… You think it was intentional?… Yeah, kinda strange … Right … Please, the minute he checks in … No, no, I’m sure he’s okay … Right … Yes … Good.”
He ended the call, laid his phone on the table, and looked at Gurney. “Lex got a call yesterday afternoon. Somebody who claimed to have major information on the Carl Spalter murder case. After the call, Lex left the office in a hurry. Abby hasn’t been able to reach him since. No answer on his cell, no answer at home. Fuck!”
“Abby is his assistant?”
“Yeah. Well, actually, his ex-wife. Don’t know how that works, but it does.”
“The caller was a man or woman?”
“That’s the thing—Abby said she couldn’t tell. At first she thought it was a kid, then a man, then a woman, some kind of foreign accent—didn’t know who the hell she was talking to. Then Lex took the call. Couple of minutes later he left the office. All he said was that it was about the Long Falls murder case, could be a breakthrough, he’d be back in a couple of hours. But he never did come back—at least not to the office.”
“Shit,” said Esti. “She can’t reach him anywhere?”
“She keeps getting his voice mail.”
She stared at Hardwick. “You getting the feeling too many people are going missing?”
Chapter 33
Major Appointments
Action being the best antidote for anxiety, and information the only remedy for uncertainty, when they parted that afternoon, each had an assignment—along with a sense of urgency arising from the growing hazards and peculiarities of the case.
Esti would press her various contacts for OCTF data on Gurikos, NCIC data on the key players in the case, and MO data from ViCAP that might match elements of the murder scenes.
Gurney would have a frank discussion with Mick Klemper about his diminishing options, then try to set up a meeting with Jonah Spalter.
Hardwick would pay a visit to Lex Bincher’s home in Cooperstown, track down the trial witnesses, and prod his pal at Interpol for anything on Gurikos and/or the Gurikos murder MO.
Like many cops, Mick Klemper had two cell phones, one personal and one job-related. Esti had both numbers from the time she’d worked closely, and miserably, with him. Before the meeting broke up, she gave both to Gurney.
Now, half an hour later, sitting at the desk in his den, he called the personal one.
Klemper picked up on the third ring, but evidently not before seeing Gurney’s ID.
“How the hell did you get this private number?”
Gurney smiled, pleased at getting the reaction he’d expected. “Hello, Mick.”
“I said, how the hell did you get this number?”
“It’s all over the billboards on the Thruway.”
“What?”
“There’s just no privacy anymore, Mick. You ought to know that. Numbers get around.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There’s so much information floating around. Information overload. That’s what they call it, right?”
“What? What the fuck is this?”
“I’m just thinking o
ut loud. Thinking what a treacherous world we live in. A man might think he’s engaging in a private activity, and next day on the Internet there’s a video of him taking a crap.”
“Yeah? You know what? That’s disgusting. Disgusting! What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“So talk.”
“Face-to-face would be better. No intervening technology. Technology can be a problem. A violator of privacy.”
Klemper hesitated—long enough to indicate a significant level of concern. “I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Gurney figured this was a cover-your-ass statement in the event the call was being taped, rather than pure thickheadedness. “What I’m talking about is that we should talk about some issues of mutual concern.”
“Fine. Whatever the fuck that means. Let’s get this bullshit over with. Where do you want to talk?”
“Up to you.”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“How about Riverside Mall?”
Klemper hesitated again, longer this time. “Riverside? When?”
“Sooner the better. Things are happening.”
“Where in the mall?”
“Main concourse? Lots of benches there. Usually empty.”
Another hesitation. “When?”
Gurney knew from Esti that Klemper got off his shift at five. He checked the time on his cell screen—4:01 p.m. “How about five-thirty?”
“Today?”
“Definitely today. Tomorrow might be too late.”
A final pause. “All right. Riverside. Five-thirty, sharp. You better make more sense there than you’re making here. Because right now? Right now, this sounds like a pile of shit.” He disconnected the call.
Gurney found the man’s bravado encouraging. It sounded like fear.
Riverside Mall was a forty-minute drive from Walnut Crossing, giving Gurney about fifty minutes before he had to set out. It didn’t allow him much time to prepare for a meeting that had the potential to give the investigation a dramatic shove in the right direction, if it was handled right. He got a yellow lined pad out of his desk drawer to help organize his thoughts.
