Let the Devil Sleep (30 page)

Let the devil sleep
. If that quote was taken from a story Kim’s father had told her in her childhood, as she claimed, then the admonition must have been meant for her. It would have special meaning only for her. Why whisper it to Gurney?

Could the intruder have believed that it was Kim who had fallen down the stairs?

Such an error seemed nearly impossible. When Dave fell, the first thing he heard was Kim’s voice in the little passageway at the top of the stairs—screaming, calling to him frantically—then the sound of her footsteps running for the flashlight. It was only after that, lying on
the basement floor, that he heard, quite close to him, the ominously hushed voice—the voice of someone who at that point must have known he wasn’t talking to Kim.

But if he knew the person on the floor wasn’t Kim, then why …?

The answer struck Gurney like a slap in the face.

More accurately, it struck him like a crystal-clear melody from a Vivaldi violin concerto.

He drove back up to the house in such a hurry that he bottomed out the frame of the car twice on groundhog holes.

He went straight to his musical birthday card, looked at the back, and saw what he hoped to see—a company name and website: KustomKardz.com.

A minute later he was looking at the website on his laptop. Kustom Kardz was in the business of providing just that—individualized greeting cards bearing an embedded battery-driven digital playback device “with your choice of over a hundred different melodies from the world’s best-loved classical compositions and traditional folk tunes.”

In addition to the e-mail link on the “Contact Us” site page, there was an 800 number, which Gurney called. To start with, he had one key question for the customer-service representative. Rather than customizing the playback chip with a piece of music, could it be customized with spoken words?

The answer was yes, certainly. It would just be a matter of recording the message—which could be done over the phone—putting it in the proper audio format, and downloading it to the device.

He had two more questions, if she didn’t mind. What were the options for triggering the playback if such a device were used in something other than a greeting card? And how much of a delay between the triggering and the playback could be built into the device?

She explained that triggering could be done in a number of ways—by pressure, by release of pressure, even by sound, like those light switches that respond to clapped hands. Other possibilities could be explored with Mr. Emtar Gumadin, their tech guru.

One final question. Someone he knew had received an interesting talking card that said, “Let the devil sleep.” Had Kustom Kardz by any chance processed that particular message onto one of their sound chips?

She didn’t think so, but if Gurney would hold on, she’d check with Emtar.

After a minute or two, she reported back that no one there could remember anything like that—unless perhaps Gurney was referring to the lullaby that began, “Go to sleep, dear one, rest …”

Did their company have a lot of competition?

Unfortunately, yes. The cost of the technology was dropping and its use was exploding.

As soon as Gurney ended his Kustom Kardz call, he placed a call to Kyle. He had no expectation of reaching anything other than voice mail, since he assumed that the BSA by now would be buzzing along I-88 and not even an impatient twenty-six-year-old would be likely to pull his phone out of his pocket on a speeding motorcycle.

But, as if to prove the futility of expectations, Kyle answered immediately. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“In a gas station by the interstate. I think the town is called Afton.”

“Glad you could pick up. I’d like you to do something for me when you get to Kim’s place in Syracuse. That voice I heard in her basement? I think it was a recording—probably on a miniature playback device, something like the one in the card you gave me.”

“Jeez. How’d you figure that out?”

“The card gave me the idea. Here’s what I want you to do. When you get to the apartment, go down in the basement—assuming the lights are working and there are no new signs of intrusions. Look around in the vicinity of the staircase for places where something the size of a fifty-cent piece could be concealed. Somewhere near the bottom of the stairs. The voice I heard was definitely within a few feet of where I fell.”

“How concealed could it be? I mean, for the sound to be clear …”

“You’re right—it couldn’t be completely buried in the wall, but it could be in a shallow recess of some kind, maybe covered with paper or a painted fabric to blend in with the wall—something like that.”

“Not in the floor, though, right?”

“No, the voice came from somewhere above me—as though someone were bending over me.”

“Could it be in the staircase itself?”

“Could be, yes.”

“Okay. Wow. We’ll get going. I’ll call you as soon as we get there.”

“Don’t speed. Half an hour one way or the other won’t make any difference.”

“Right.” There was a pause. “So … did you like the card?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.”

“You recognized the ‘Spring’ thing?”

“Of course I did.”

“Okay. Great. Call you in a little while.”

To prevent “the ‘Spring’ thing” and its memories from pulling him into an emotional morass, Gurney searched for something to do until he heard back from Kyle.

He went to the file cabinet in the den, got the phone number of their local insurance broker, and made the call. After several branching options, the automated answering system gave him another number to call “to report an accident, fire, or other loss covered by your homeowners policy.”

As he was about the enter the new number, the phone rang in his hand. He glanced at the ID screen, saw that it was Hardwick. He debated the choice for about three seconds and decided the insurance call could wait.

The instant he pressed
TALK
, Hardwick started speaking.

“Shit, Gurney, everything you ask for is a pain in the ass, you realize that?”

“I figure your lazy ass needs the exercise.”

“I need this like I need a vegan diet.”

“What do you have for me, besides bullshit?”

Hardwick cleared his throat with his customary thoroughness. “Most of the original autopsy notes are buried deeper than I can get to today. Like I said, this is a giant—”

“I know what you said, Jack. The question is what do you
have
?”

“You remember Wally Thrasher?”

“The ME on the Mellery case?”

“The very one. Arrogant, wise-ass bastard.”

“Like someone I know.”

“Fuck you. Among his other fine qualities, Wally is obsessively-compulsively
organized. And it just so happens that he did the autopsy on the big, flashy real-estate lady.”

“Sharon Stone?”

“The very one.”

“And?”

“Bull’s-eye.”

“You mean—”

“Entry wound was dead center in the side of her head. I mean, dead fucking center. Course, the exit wound was a whole other thing. Hard to find the center of something when there’s nothing left to find the center of.”

“It’s the entry wound that matters.”

“Right. So now you have the two bull’s-eyes you already knew about, plus one more. You think that’s good enough to prove whatever brilliant point you want to prove?”

“It just might be. I appreciate the input.”

“I exist only to serve.”

The connection was broken.

G
urney was energized by the wound data, even though he wasn’t sure yet what its full implications might be or how he might use it in his Sunday meeting with Trout. But his thoughts seemed to be moving faster now, as though he’d had a double espresso, and he turned quickly to a new question.

He placed another call to Kyle, but this time got his voice mail. Apparently the motorcycle was back on the road.

“As soon as you get this message, I want you to find out from Kim how many people are aware of the bedtime story. Not people who just know about it in a general way but who know the details, especially the line ‘Let the devil sleep.’ If there are more than two or three, ask her to make a list of the names, any addresses she might have, and the nature of her relationships with them. Thanks. Be careful. Talk to you soon.”

As soon as he ended the call, a whole new issue came to mind. He reentered the number and left a second message: “Sorry for the multiple requests, but something else just occurred to me. After you check for that mini–playback thing in the basement, do a quick look-around for listening devices—electronic bugs. Check the most likely places—smoke alarms, surge protectors, night-lights. What you’re looking for is anything in the innards of those items that seems like it might not belong there. If you find something, don’t remove it. Leave it where it is. That’s it for now. Call me as soon as you can.”

The idea that Kim’s apartment might be bugged—might have been bugged for God knows how long—raised a whole chain of perplexing questions with potentially disturbing answers. He got his copy
of Kim’s project folder out of the desk drawer and settled down on the den couch to go through it one more time.

Halfway through it, his energy spike began to decline as rapidly as it had risen. He told himself he’d close his eyes for five minutes. Ten at the most. He leaned back into the soft couch pillows. It had been a uniquely stressful and draining couple of days, with hardly any sleep at all.

A short nap …

He awoke with a start. Something was ringing, but for a moment he didn’t know what. As he started to get up, he discovered a stabbing pain in his neck, stiff from the sideways position of his head.

The ringing stopped, and he heard Madeleine’s voice.

“He’s asleep.” And then, “When I got home half an hour ago, he was totally unconscious.” And then, “Let me go in and see.”

She came into the den. Gurney was sitting up now, his feet on the floor, rubbing the blurriness out of his eyes.

“You’re awake?”

“Sort of.”

“Can you talk to Kyle?”

“Where is he?”

“At Kim’s apartment. He says he’s been trying to get you on your cell.”

“What time is it?”

“Close to seven.”

“Seven? Jesus!”

“He seems very eager to tell you something.”

Gurney opened his eyes wider, stood up from the couch.

She pointed to the landline phone on the desk. “You can take the call there. I’ll hang up the extension in the kitchen.”

Gurney picked up the handset. “I’m here.”

“Hey, Dad! Been trying to get you for the past two hours. You okay?”

“Fine, just exhausted.”

“Yeah, I forgot, it’s been like days since you got any sleep.”

“You discover anything interesting?”

“More like weird. Where do you want me to start?”

“In the basement.”

“Okay. In the basement. You know the long boards on each side of the staircase that the steps are set into? Well, I found a narrow slot cut into the bottom of one of them about two feet above the step that’s missing, and there’s this thing in the slot about half the size of one of those USB thumb drives for your computer.”

“You removed it?”

“You said to leave it. I just kind of edged it out with the tip of a knife to see how big it was. But here’s the weird part. When I pushed it back into the slot, I must have reset something, because about ten seconds later this really spooky whisper came out of it. Like some maniac in a horror movie hissing the words through his teeth.
‘Let the devil sleep.’
I swear I almost pissed in my pants. I think I actually
did
piss in my pants.”

“How obvious was this slot in the board?”

“Not obvious at all. It was like the guy had taken a plane and made a tiny wood shaving to cover the hole.”

“So how did you—”

“You said it would be within a few feet of where you fell. Not a big area. I just kept looking till I found it.”

“Did you ask Kim who else knows about the bedtime story?”

“She insists the only person
she
ever told was her crazy ex. Of course, the crazy ex could have told other people.”

There was a silence, during which Gurney tried once again to draw together the disparate pieces of the case, which kept flying off in as many directions as there were pieces. And what case was he talking about anyway? The cold case of the six roadway murders, tied together by the manifesto of the Good Shepherd? The case of Kim Corazon’s alleged harassment by Robby Meese, escalating into vandalism and reckless endangerment? The arson case? Or some hypothetical master case in which all these events were intertwined—perhaps even connected to the falling arrow in the garden?

“Dad, you still there?”

“Sure.”

“There’s more. I haven’t told you the nastiest news,” said Kyle.

“Jesus. What is it?”

“Every room in Kim’s apartment is bugged, even the bathroom.”

Gurney felt a small frisson rise up the back of his neck. “What did you find?”

“In your phone message you mentioned the obvious places to look? The first place I checked was the smoke alarm in the living room, because I know what the inside of a smoke alarm is supposed to look like. And I found something that clearly doesn’t belong there. Not much bigger than a pack of matches with a fine wire sticking out of the end. Figured it was some kind of aerial.”

“Was there anything resembling a lens?”

“No.”

“It could be as small as half a grain of—”

“No, believe me, no lens. I thought about that, and I checked.”

“Okay,” said Gurney, absorbing the significance of this. The absence of video capability meant that the device wasn’t part of the police’s promised surveillance equipment. To identify an intruder, you planted a camera, not an audio bug. “Then you checked the other smoke alarms?”

“One in every room, and every one of them has one of those things in it.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Outside. On the sidewalk.”

“Good thinking. Am I getting the impression you have more to tell me?”