Let the Devil Sleep (54 page)

Hardwick paused as though he were trying to understand this. “Where is this corpse?”

“In Kim Corazon’s apartment.”

A longer pause. “The latex-glove smudges on Blum’s keyboard were caused by someone trying to type something in a way that would preserve her fingerprints on the keys, to make it look like she typed it. Right?”

“Right.”

“How does that work here? The preserved fingerprints on Corazon’s keyboard would be hers, not Meese’s. How would that make it look like he typed the note?”

“The killer could have asked Meese to type something else—an e-mail, who knows what—before he killed him. Then, with Meese’s prints on the keys, the killer put on gloves and typed the suicide note.”

“So what do you want me to do with this big insight?”

“When you see the CJIS homicide report on Meese, which with any luck will mention the computer note, it might suddenly occur to you—because of the Kim Corazon connection to Ruth Blum—that the computer keyboard imprints ought to be compared. You might want to mention it to Bullard over in Auburn. And to a Detective James Schiff in Syracuse.”

“You don’t want to do this yourself?”

“My name is not magic at the moment. Any suggestion from me will end up at the bottom of the pile, if it makes it into the pile at all.”

Hardwick exploded in a hacking cough. Or it might have been a laugh. “Man, you don’t know how fucking true that is, which is why I was about to call you. The arson unit has decided to bring you in for questioning. As a suspect.”

“When?”

“Most likely tomorrow morning. Conceivably as early as this afternoon. Thought I’d mention it, in case you’d prefer not to be home.”

“Okay, Jack. Thank you. I’ll sign off now. Got a few things I need to do.”

“Watch your ass, kemosabe. Posse’s gettin’ ugly.”

When Gurney ended the call, he was standing in the middle of the long room. Madeleine and Kyle were sitting at the table. Kyle was gazing at him in frank amazement. “That’s incredible—that thing with the gloves on the keyboard? Wow. How’d you figure that out?”

“I’m only guessing. I may not have figured anything out. But another problem’s heating up. The arson-unit idiots are being pressured by the fed idiots to question me about the barn.”

Kyle looked incensed. “Isn’t that what that jerk Kramden did when he was here?”

“Kramden took my statement as a witness. Now they want to question me as a suspect.”

Madeleine appeared nonplussed.

“A suspect?” cried Kyle. “Are they completely out of their fucking minds?”

“That’s not all,” said Gurney. “One or more law-enforcement agencies may want to question me about Robby Meese’s death, since I was in Kim’s apartment last evening. So I think it would be best if I weren’t here. Homicide interviews can go on for a long time, and I have an appointment tonight I wouldn’t want to miss.”

Kyle looked angry, stressed, helpless. He walked to the far end of the room and stared into the cold woodstove, shaking his head.

Madeleine’s gaze was fixed on Gurney. “Where will you go?”

“Clinter’s cabin.”

“And tonight …?”

“I’ll wait, watch, listen. See who shows up. Play it by ear.”

“The calm way you talk about it is really frightening.”

“Why?”

“The way you understate everything—when everything is at stake.”

“I don’t like drama.”

There was a silence between them, broken by the sound of cawing in the distance. In the lower pasture, three flapping crows rose from the stubbled grass, climbing in a loose arc to the tops of the hemlocks on the far side of the pond.

Madeleine was taking long, slow breaths. “What if the Good Shepherd walks in with a gun and shoots you?”

“Don’t worry. That won’t happen.”

“Don’t worry?
Don’t worry?
Did you really say that?”

“What I meant was, there may not be as much to worry about as you think.”

“How do you know that?”

“If he’s checking those bugs, he heard me say that Max and I are meeting at the cabin at midnight tonight. The most reasonable thing for him to do would be to show up a couple of hours ahead of us, decide on the most advantageous location, get his vehicle and himself out of sight, and wait. I think he’ll find the prospect attractive. He has a lot of experience shooting people at night in remote rural settings. In fact, he’s very good at it. He’d see the whole opportunity as low risk, high reward. And he’ll find the familiar elements of darkness and isolation encouraging—almost like a comfort zone.”

“Only if his mind works the way you think it does.”

“He’s an extremely rational man.”

“Rational?”

“Extremely—to the exclusion of any empathetic feelings at all. Which is what makes him a monster, a complete sociopath. But it also makes him easy to understand. His mind is a pure risk-reward calculator, and calculators are predictable.”

Madeleine stared at him as though he were speaking not just another language but a language from another planet.

Kyle’s uncertain voice came from the far end of the room, where he was still standing by the woodstove. “So your idea is basically to show up first? So you’ll be there waiting for him, instead of him being there waiting for you?”

“Something like that. It’s really pretty simple.”

“How sure are you about … all this?”

“Sure enough to go ahead with it.”

In a way it was true. But a more honest answer might have included the fact that it was all relative—his breathing space was almost gone, standing still was not an option, and he couldn’t think of any other way forward.

Madeleine got up from the table and took her cold oatmeal and unfinished toast to the sink. She stared at the faucet for a while without touching it, her eyes full of dread. Then, glancing up with a strained little smile, she said, “It looks lovely out. I’m going for a walk.”

“Aren’t you working at the clinic today?” asked Gurney.

“I don’t have to be there till ten-thirty. Plenty of time. Too nice a morning to stay in the house.”

She went to the bedroom, and two minutes later she emerged in a wild assortment of colors: lavender fleece pants, a pink nylon jacket, and a red beret.

“I’ll be down near the pond,” she said. “I’ll see you before you go.”

K
yle came over and sat at the table with Gurney. “Do you think she’s all right?”

“Sure. I mean … obviously she’s … I’m sure she’s okay. Being outside always seems to help her. Walking does something for her. Something good.”

Kyle nodded. “What should I do?”

It sounded like the biggest possible question a young man could ask his father. Thinking of it that way made Gurney smile. “Keep an eye on things.” He paused. “How’s your work going? And your school stuff?”

“E-mail is magic.”

“Good. I feel bad about this. I’ve dragged you into something … created a problem in your life where there shouldn’t have been any … created a danger. That’s not something … a parent …” His voice trailed off. He looked out through the glass doors, looked to see if the crows were still perched on the hemlocks.

“You didn’t create the danger, Dad. You’re the one who’s taking care of it.”

“Right. Well … I’d better get ready. I don’t want to find myself hung up with this arson nonsense when I need to be somewhere else.”

“You want me to do anything?”

“Like I said, just keep an eye on things. And you … you know where the …” Gurney gestured toward the bedroom.

“Where the shotgun is. Yep. No problem.”

“By tomorrow morning, with a little luck, everything should be
okay.” On that note, which had an emptier ring than he would have liked, Gurney left the room.

There really wasn’t much for him to do before setting out. He checked to make sure his phone was adequately charged. He checked the action of his Beretta and the security of his ankle holster. He went to his desk and got out the folder of information Kim had given him during their first meeting, and he added to it the printouts of the reports Hardwick had e-mailed him. He had quite a few hours left before any kind of confrontation would occur, and he planned to review once again all the facts in his possession.

When he came back out to the kitchen, Kyle was standing by the table, plainly too anxious to sit.

“Okay, son, I’d better be going.”

“Right, then. See you later.” Kyle raised his hand in a determinedly casual gesture—something between a wave and a salute.

“Right. See you later.”

Gurney went out quickly to his car, grabbing his jacket from the mudroom on his way. He was hardly aware of driving down the pasture lane, until he reached the place by the pond where the grassy surface merged into the gravel of the town road. At that moment he caught sight of Madeleine.

She was standing by a tall birch on the uphill verge of the pond, her eyes closed, her face raised to the sun. He stopped the car, got out, and walked toward her. He wanted to say good-bye, say that he’d be home before morning.

She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him. “Isn’t it amazing?”

“What?”

“The air.”

“Oh. Yes, very nice. I was just on my way, and I thought—”

Her smile caught him off balance. It was so … so intensely full of … what? Not sadness, exactly. Something else.

Whatever it was, it was in her voice as well. “Just stop for a bit,” she said, “and feel the air on your face.”

For a moment—a few seconds, a minute perhaps, he wasn’t sure—he was transfixed.

“Isn’t it amazing?” she said again, so softly that the words seemed to be a part of the air she was describing.

“I have to go,” he said. “I have to go before—”

She stopped him. “I know. I know you do. Be careful.” She put her hand on his cheek. “I love you.”

“Oh, God.” He stared at her. “I’m afraid, Maddie. I’ve always been able to figure things out. I hope to God I know what I’m doing. It’s all I can do.”

She placed her fingers gently on his lips. “You’ll be brilliant.”

He didn’t remember walking to his car, or getting into it.

What he remembered was looking back, seeing her standing on the high ground above the birch, radiant in the sunlight in her profusion of colors, waving to him, smiling with a poignancy beyond his understanding.

T
he countryside between Walnut Crossing and Cayuga County presented one classic bucolic vista after another—small farms, vineyards, and rolling cornfields, interspersed with hardwood copses. But Gurney hardly noticed. His mind was on his destination—a stark little cabin in a black-water bog—and what might happen there that night.

It wasn’t yet noon when he arrived. He decided not to go into the property right away. Instead he drove slowly past the dirt entry road with its skeleton sentinel and sagging aluminum gate. The gate was open, but its very openness appeared more ominous than inviting.

He proceeded a mile or so, then made a U-turn. Halfway back to Clinter’s forbidding driveway, he saw a large, decrepit barn in the middle of a weed-choked field. The roof was sagging dramatically. Quite a few boards were missing from the siding, as was one of the double doors. There was no farmhouse in sight—only a disheveled foundation that might once have supported one.

Gurney was curious. As soon as he came to what he suspected had formerly been the entrance, he drove slowly up into the field, all the way to the front of the barn. It was dark inside, and he had to switch on his headlights to get a sense of the interior. The floor was concrete, and there was a long open passageway extending from the front clear through to the shadowy back of the building. It was filthy, with decaying hay everywhere, but otherwise it was empty.

He made a decision. He drove slowly into the barn—as far as he could into its dark recesses. Then he took his file of
Orphans
data and
police reports, got out of the car, and locked the doors. It was exactly noon. He was going to have a long wait, but he was prepared to make good use of it.

He proceeded on foot down through the tangled field and along the road to Clinter’s driveway. Walking in along the narrow causeway that traversed the beaver pond and adjacent swamp, Gurney was struck again by the godforsaken loneliness of the place.

As promised, the front door of the cabin was unlocked. The interior, which seemed to consist of one large room, had the musty smell of a place whose windows are rarely opened. The log walls contributed another smell, woody and acidic. The furniture looked like it had come from a store specializing in the “rustic” style. It was a man’s environment. A hunter’s environment.

There was a stove, a sink, and a refrigerator against one wall; a long table with three chairs against the adjacent wall; a low single bed against another wall. The floor was made of dark-stained pine boards. The outline of what appeared to be a trapdoor in the floor caught Gurney’s eye. There was a finger hole drilled near one edge, presumably as a way of lifting it open. Out of curiosity, Gurney tried it, but it wouldn’t budge. Presumably, at some time in the past, it had been sealed shut. Or, knowing Clinter, there might be a concealed lock somewhere. Perhaps that’s where he stored the “collectible” guns he sold to other “collectors” without the need for a federal firearms license.

There was a window that provided some illumination over the long table, as well as a view of the path outside. Gurney settled down there in one of the three chairs and tried to arrange his thick handful of papers in a practical sequence for the hours ahead. After making a few piles, shifting items from pile to pile, and moving the piles into various orders of priority, he abandoned his efforts at organization and decided to start wherever he felt like starting.

Steeling himself, he picked up the sheaf of ten-year-old autopsy photos and chose the ones that documented the head wounds. Once again he found them horrific—the way the massive traumas distorted the facial features of the victims into grotesque facsimiles of living emotions. Once again the gross violation of their personal dignity outraged him, renewing his resolution to give them the respect they
deserved—to restore, by bringing their killer to justice, the dignity that had been stolen from them.